There are only six Druids of the Twelfth Level and you have to kill one to take his place on the ruling council. Jacobin’s hands are sweaty on his staff.
“Dare you challenge me?” roars Alhazrul. “Mine is the wolfpack, hunters of men!”
“I, Llendir, command thunder–the voice of the storm!”
“Regaranel! Lord over rocky beaches!”
“Esbo! Certain species of frog!”
“Mytiliath! King of protista!”
Zand doesn’t say anything, because he’s asleep.
“I challenge–” Jacobin hesitates, and readies his Spell of Poky Thistles. “Llendir!”
And he totally wins, because thunder doesn’t do all that much when you think about it.
Invisible dinosaur spies can be anywhere at any time and their long necks make it easy to look and listen through your third-story window. This is important.
If the man behind this particular window knew about them, he might choose better words than “you cheated me, and you cheated on me, Arlene! That means you cheated more!”
“Cheating is cheating, you asshole!”
“I wish I hadn’t worn a condom!”
“Well I wish I’d never even stolen Daddy’s launch codes for you!”
Outside, an unseen sauropod starts to relay this to HQ, but even five hundred liters of heart aren’t enough.
Bill and Jerry emerge from Shoe Circus companionably, churros in hand.
“Are they ever gonna come out with something that will make our computers moist and chewy like cake?” asks Jerry. “So we can just eat them while we’re working? If it’s yes, give me a signal. Adjust your shorts.”
Bill gives his butt a wiggle.
“I knew it,” Jerry exults.
They part ways, but the code phrase has been uttered: the nanites in Jerry’s churro twinkle to life and begin replication. He grins, feeling the old surge of transhuman uplift.
It’s time, once more, for them to save the world!
Emdash isn’t sure why she bothers holding the Not Good Enough for Qwerty meetings anymore. There was an underdog spirit at first–ra ra Unicode, proper typography is the key to etcetera–but now it’s a monthly bitch session and Interrobang hits on everybody.
“Autoconversion is an insult,” says Ellipsis for the third time. “Implying that I’m merely the sum of three full-stops–”
“We should make a resolution of censure!” says Curly.
“Motion noted,” sighs Emdash. “Those for?”
“You’ll never believe what she let me do after we got drunk at Poor Richard’s,” whispers Interrobang loudly.
Emdash, indeed, would not.
“It’s kind of amazing how many words sound like ‘Satan’ when you play them backwards,” says Ballard admiringly.
“You said that admiringly,” says Cote.
“Well, it’s a good hack!” says Ballard. “There aren’t enough rock bands out there that are actually into, y’know, the devil and backmasking and stuff, so clearly it went back and messed with the origins of modern English until it got something that would yield lots of good subliminal material.”
“That makes a disturbing amount of sense,” Cote admits.
“Shit yes,” says Ballard. “How else do you think we ended up with two hundred meanings for ‘do?'”
“We fight all the time!” says Brutus. “I don’t see what the big deal is if I want a divorce.”
“You are throwing her over for your cousin,” Caesar points out.
“We’re in ancient Rome!” says Brutus. “That’s probably cool here!”
“Yeah, but–just a second,” says Caesar, reaching into his toga.
beware the idea of march, says the message.
“I hate this predictive texting crap,” Caesar mutters. “What does that mean? The idea of match? The idea of Mark? Hey, you think this is about Mark maybe?”
Brutus just stares at Caesar’s Blackberry, hungry to have it for his own.
“Gather round, gentlemen and negotiable companions of Boxelder Falls,” crows Dr. Zierobinus, “to witness a demonstration of my Spectacular Travelling Psychiatry Show!”
“See here!” bustles the mayor. “There’s no peddling miracle cures in this township!”
“The notion of cures is outmoded!” says Dr. Zierobinus. “I peddle miracle ongoing treatment relationships in a therapeutic context.”
“I call it hogwash and pseudoscience and I won’t have it, no sir,” the mayor says.
“Do I detect a repressed hostility engendered by an inattentive guardian who worked in medicine?”
The mayor gapes. “Y-yes!”
“Psy… chiatry!” shouts Dr. Zierobinus.
“Ooh!” says everybody. “Clap clap clap.”