Day 4 and still funny. We’re going to have to turn this into a wacky, fantasy short story because Daydream has got the gift of crazy storytelling. 🙂
Sir Ian McKellen stands on top of the turret at the palace at Kichaita, watching the dawn sun rise over Gremu. He turns and looks back at the camera. ‘Shit just got interesting,’ he says with a grin.
‘Urgh,’ groans Amie, sitting in the throne that has been dragged up onto the turret roof. She is wearing sunglasses and has an ice-pack on her forehead. Several empty champagne bottles lie around her high-heeled feet, while a hungover Lieu fans her with a peagle feather (that’s a cross between a peacock and an eagle by the way). She watches the half eaten jar of peanut butter sneaking across the stone floor, but her head hurts too much to warn the old pirate. With one surprise shove, the peanut butter topples Sir Ian McKellen off the turret.
‘Waaaahhhhhhhhh!’ he screams.
‘Mwahahaha!’ laughs the peanut butter, spitting out a chunk of seaweed, wincing as Sir Ian McKellen splats on the rooftops below. ‘Ooh, that’s gotta HURT!’
…
In the God’s Dimension, Sparrow’s brow furrows as she taps the map. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘We’ll attack Ryn’s Norse gods. She’s so busy sharpening her celery in Casciorus, that we’ll simply walk right in through the gates of Valhalla. What do you say, WInd In My Wings, Shield at My Back?’
‘Sorry, are you talking to me?’ asks Frederick.
‘What?’ asks Sparrow. ‘No! Where did Roman go?’
Frederick shrugs. ‘Beats me. He mentioned something about getting bread for his toaster.’
‘Gods!’ cries Sparrow, hammering the map with her hands, knocking over miniature bananas and furries and pineapples and bloranges and sticks of celery and vikings on dinosaurs. ‘His obsession with that damned toaster is going to be our undoing!’
‘Have no fear, little one,’ says Frederick. ‘I will lead our purple legion on the march to Asgard. You can put your faith in me.’
…
A short while later at a bar in the Land of Sun, Roman and Sarah are sitting at the counter, knocking back shots of heavenly nectar. Roman points tearfully at the toaster propped on the bar beside the empty shot glasses. ‘I mean, look at it… itsh soooooo ****ing beautiful.’ He lurches forward and wraps his arms around it. ‘Chrome In My Eyes, Toast In My Belly, So Cool To The Touch and yet capable of fire at the flick of a switch…’
‘Bartender!’ barks Sarah, seeing triple.
The African god behind the bar pours another couple of shots.
‘Are these emotions normal?’ asks Roman, still hugging the toaster.
A door flies open behind them and Derick floats in. He looks aghast. ‘I said no more alcohol! Only magical sock tea!’
‘He made me do it (hic),’ says Sarah guiltily, pointing at Roman.
Derick facepalms himself. ‘Is he hugging… a toaster?’
The barman shrugs.
Derick tips out the shots, pulls out his flask, and refills the glasses with stinky tea. Sarah gags at the smell of it. ‘I bring grave tidings,’ says Derick. ‘Our assault on Asgard has failed. Frederick completely ****ed it up. We need a Plan B.’
‘What are you looking at me for?’ asks Sarah. ‘And who are your two friends?’
Derick looks around confused. ‘I’m looking at you because you are our commander! Didn’t you know shit just got interesting?’
‘It did?’ asks Sarah.
‘Damn right it did,’ says Derick.
Sarah pauses and looks at Roman. ‘Dude… are you LICKING that toaster?’
…
The druids of Stonehenge are restless. While war erupts around Gremu, they’ve been twiddling their thumbs, picking berries, and smoking bongs. Chief Druid, Tealbeard The Wise, sits atop a lonely hillside, watching the empty sky, stroking his greeny-blue beard and picking his hawk-like nose. He squints his eyes and tilts his head to one side. A cloud of smoke drifts slowly from left to right. It looks a bit like a rabbit. A second cloud appears. This one looks like a bear. A third cloud appears and it looks like a rabbit. ‘No, wait,’ says Tealbeard, ‘that’s just the first cloud again, going round in circles.’
He examines the bogey on the tip of his finger and tries to flick it off. ‘Wow, I’m stoned,’ he yawns. The bogey is stuck. Suddenly he sits up. ‘THOSE AREN’T CLOUDS! THOSE ARE SMOKE SIGNALS FROM CASCIORUS! COMMANDER RYN WANTS US TO ATTACK CANNIS IMMEDIATELY! FINALLY! SOME ACTION! WOO HOO! OH YEAH!’ He examines the bogey on the tip of his finger again. ‘I’ll tell the other druids just as soon as I’ve dealt with this pesky little blighter.’
…
Nearby, in Watkins Glen, Commander Tolstoz flies greybeard back and forth in front of five armies of Furries. ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the fur,’ he tells them, watching as a rabbit and a bear cloud puff past his face. ‘Sorry, I got distracted there for a moment. Anyway, you heard what Emperor Watkins said. We have the power to invade Tig… only… we Furries don’t take no orders from bloranges. We do whatever the **** we want. We’re going to invade Cannis instead! Win one territory and if we get some luck, just one tiny little bit of luck, we might get a card that gets us back into this war!’’
The Furries bark and roar.
In neighbouring Cannis, a bloated and complacent blorange general looks up at the sound from across the border. ‘Looks like those damn Furries are about to kick some Tig Viking butts,’ he chuckles.
‘Sir,’ says a young sergeant, pointing at the sky. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
‘Why yes,’ says the general, ‘clouds shaped like a rabbit and a bear.’
‘No sir, not those, I was meaning THAT,’ says the young sergeant.
The blorange general’s jaw drops. ‘**** me sideways! It’s a big furry grey dragon!’
…
Emperor Watkins paces across the stone floor of the throne room in the Empire. She talks to a blorange with very white and skinny legs.
‘Call back the armies in that conquered the Sand-Lands. Leave only those bloranges that volunteer for such a dry duty. I have reinforcements coming here and we’ll hold the Empire against any of those bloody lawyers who think about crossing the sea.’
Cuddles squawks.
‘No we won’t attack them yet. The contingents in Doblone will prevent Amie and the rest of those high heeled lawyers from holding a second continent. You and I will be busy watching over them and also directing the battle from Logan’s rock to The Island.’
‘But Commander what about those crazy bananas in The Sea Folk Republic?’
Commander Watkins paces several more laps around the throne room and smoke rolls out of her ears. Cuddles gets up and bumps his beak against her. Falling on her butt Commander looks up at the big griffin.
‘What did you do that for?’
Cuddles cocks his head to the side.
‘Was I thinking too hard?’
Cuddles ruffles his feathers and sits, making his head even higher and Watkins almost breaks her neck looking at him. She climbs to her feet and faces the blorange.
‘We attack the Sea Folk only if the The Island doesn’t fall to Logan’s Rock.’
…
The last and scrawniest of the Beo bananas climb down reluctantly from their trees. After seeing their slightly less scrawny comrades mashed by portable blenders the previous day, they are apprehensive about facing up to their inevitable doom. Word in the Beowood is that today will be “International Hunt The Banana Day”. ‘Commander Daydream?’ asks one particularly scrawny little banana, looking around the empty clearing.
The scrawniest of scrawny bananas gather around a hole freshly dug on the forest floor.
At that moment, Daydream is emerging from another hole on The Island, with three armies of bananas in tow. ‘Surprise!’ he shouts to the last of the Island bananas, cowering in an old abandoned house, awaiting the arrival of the bloranges and their inevitable doom. ‘You lot probably heard about our spectacular failure attacking Stormside. Well friends -’
‘We’re not your friend,’ grumbles a scrawny old Island banana. ‘You’ve brought nothing but doom on us.’
‘- let me tell you,’ continues Daydream, completely ignoring him, ‘the Stormside invasion was an elaborate ruse, designed to lull the bloranges into a false sense of security. We may have been defeated, but today my friends -’
‘He’s clearly got issues,’ says the scrawny old Island banana.
‘- we are going to go out in a blaze of glory, attacking…’
A tiny drummer banana rolls a drum across the hall of the empty house.
‘Please not Logan’s Rock, please not Logan’s Rock, please not Logan’s Rock,’ whispers the smallest of all the bananas under his breath.
‘Logan’s Rock!’
There is an audible groan from the assembled bananas.
‘Um,’ says one banana who saw the rest of his bunch perish during one of the previous aborted invasions of Logan’s Rock, ‘I think my ears must be deceiving me. I thought for a moment he said Logan’s Rock.’
‘Any moment now, the bloranges will arrive on these shores and their persecution of our race will be over, their domination in the dark green continent will be complete,’ says Daydream. ‘Either we can roll over, or we can give them one last kick in the shins to remember us by. Who’s with me?’
The bananas shuffle their feet and and stare at the walls.
…
Several armies of hungover lawyers arrive at the underpant factory on Bloomers Wonderland. It has taken the majority of the morning and most of the afternoon to negotiate the elaborate twisting maze at the heart of the island. When Lieu cycles Amie into the factory, fulling expecting to meet with Viking resistance. Instead, all they find is a mysterious old cat wrangler and no pants at all. ‘Commander Amie, we’ve been expecting you,’ says the cat wrangler.
Amie lifts her sunglasses and looks around at the abandoned factory. ‘Where’s that crazy pineapple? And where are all the pants?’
The car wrangler waves her wizened hands in front of her face. ‘Could be here, could be there, they really could be anywhere,’ she cackles.
‘Enough of this mysterious behaviour!’ snaps Amie. ‘Don’t you know who I am? I am the most powerful commander in all of the Gremu. The only one to command a whole continent!’
‘Are you sure about that?’ asks the car wrangler with a smirk.
‘Sure I’m sure,’ says Amie.
‘Yes, but are you sure you’re really sure?’
‘Sure I’m really sure I’m sure,’ says Amie irritably.
‘Yes, but are you sure that you’re sure you’re really sure?’ asks the cat wrangler.
‘Sure, I’m sure that…’ Amie throws her hands up. ‘Ugh, I’m too hungover for this. Lieu, please shoot this mysterious old crone for me.’
But before Lieu can draw his gun, an image appears on a plasma TV in the corner. It is a pineapple planting a green flag in the desolate dark sands of the Black Desert. In the background, Vikings ride dinosaurs and cheer. Amie rolls her eyes. ‘Meh, so Feedme just conquered a continent. Big deal. Huh? Where did the cat wrangler go?’
Lieu shrugs. ‘I’ve no idea, I was too busy trying to draw my handgun. It’s stuck in its holster. It’s like someone filled the hoster with something sticky, like… peanut butter.’
‘Mwahahaha!’ cackles the peanut butter, flipping the bird at the window and running off.
‘What about you, Sir Ian McKellen? Did you see where the cat wrangler went?’
Sir Ian McKellen in a full suit of plaster, with two black eyes and a broken nose, sipping champagne through a straw, struggles to blink. ‘I… I can’t turn my head, your majesty,’ he says. ‘I saw nothing.’
Amie growls and aims a kick at the plasma TV. She misses and her high heel flies off, bouncing off the wall before striking Sir Ian McKellen in the face.
…
‘You’ll pay for this!’ shrieks Bob Bald.
‘Shut up,’ says Ryn, slapping him across the chops with a stick of celery.
Bob Bald begins to cry. ‘When Commander Amie hears about this, you’ll get yours.’
She slaps him with the celery again. Tealbeard, who recently arrived with a posse of druids and is tucking into a doughnut, looks up. ‘Bad news I’m afraid, after we kicked Frederick’s butt, those damn pixies repelled our attack from Asgard.’
Ryn shrugs and reaches into her pocket, pulling out three golden cards.
Bob Bald’s eyes light up. ‘Three golden cards! But that means -’
‘Ten new armies,’ says Tealbeard, dancing up and down on the spot.
‘LIke I said,’ says Sir Ian McKellen, ‘shit just got interesting.’
‘Hang on, weren’t you just in Bloomers Wonderland, wearing a full body cast?’ asks Bob Bald.
‘Aha!’ says Sir Ian McKellen, adjusting his eye patch. ‘That’s what I wanted you to think. Actually, it was my twin brother Simon that the evil peanut butter pushed off the Kichaitan turret. Simon is certain the lawyers are going to win this war, and it’s difficult to argue with him, but me, I believe that stranger things have happened, so for now, I’m hedging my bets.’
‘You, sir, are a rapscallion!’ cries Bob Bald.
‘Silence, fool!’ snaps Sir Ian McKellen. ‘Permission to slap this man with a stick of celery.’
‘Unfortunately we’re all out of celery,’ says Ryn.
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ says Sir Ian McKellen. ‘What do you have?’
Ryn puts her cards in her pocket and reaches into a sack. ‘Just these baseball bats,’ she says.
‘Ah! Splendid!’ says Sir Ian McKellen.
…
Daydream sits down on the top of Logan’s Rock and surveys the scene. The scrawny little bananas look around bewildered, amazed that they have finally taken it, sucking on fallen blorange rinds. ‘Drink up, little fellows,’ says Daydream, ‘for this victory may be tangy right now, but the end is almost at hand. The bloranges will surely return to exact their revenge, but when they do, know this: we did it. We kicked the Empire in the shins.’
‘Huzzah!’ says a tiny banana with a miniature saxophone.
‘And you, little banana with a saxophone, don’t you dare play that thing. Saxophones suck.’
‘Awww!’ says the little banana.
…
As the sun goes down on Gremu, Feedme and Viking Rodeo Queen take shelter from an ash-storm in a tent in the Black Desert, waiting on word from Dominion Al Ulfa where the Aztec gods have invaded from Teotl. Viking Rodeo Queen has bunked down in her white flag, sipping a mug of tea. ‘I have literally no idea what’s going on,’ she says.
‘We’re trying to hold this continent,’ explains Feedme.
‘And that’s a good thing?’ asks Viking Rodeo Queen.
‘Yes,’ says Feedme. ‘At least, I think so.’
Suddenly Viking Rodeo Queen’s tea begins to wobble, and seconds later, Fifi barges into the tent with a grin on his bearded face. ‘We did it,’ he growls, a great big grin on his face. ‘We held Auster Efni!’
‘Winning a continent is one thing, holding it is another,’ says a mysterious voice, and they turn to see Sir Ian McKellen sitting in a deck chair.
‘Hang on, weren’t you just in Stormside?’ asks Feedme.
‘I get around,’ says Sir Ian McKellen. ‘Anyway, I thought you might like to know that Ryn, Amie, and Tolstoz all have full sets of cards.’
‘Shit just got interesting,’ says Feedme.
‘I know,’ says Sir Ian McKellen. ‘I said that many hours ago.’
‘I thought that was your twin brother Simon?’ asks Viking Rodeo Queen.
‘You only think what I allow you to think,’ says Sir Ian McKellen with a smirk. ‘The trick is to stay one step ahead of the evil peanut butter.’
Someone taps him on the shoulder and he looks back. Who should it be but the half-eaten jar of peanut butter, grinning like a maniac. ‘Aaaaarrgghhhhhhhh!’ shrieks Sir Ian McKellen.
Fifi’s T-Rex is parked outside the tent as the ash-storm swirls around him and night falls. Inside the tent there is a scuffle and screaming as the evil peanut butter wreaks havoc. After a few seconds, the tent collapses to the sound of more shrieking and spilled tea.
Shit, indeed, did just get interesting.
MOVEMENTS
Watkins – 2 from Sand-Lands to The Empire
Amie – 3 from Kichaita to Szar
Feedme – 1 from Voen to L’Orne
REINFORCEMENTS
Sarah – 2 in Vedas, 1 in Teotl
Ryn – 1 to Oran Coro, Stonehenge, and Asgard
Oz – 3 to Watkins Glen
Daydream – 3 to The Island
Watkins – 3 to the Empire
Amie – 2 Deinnan, 3 Meijeryn, 1 Szar
Feedme – 2 Dominion, 1 Southern Country
ATTACKS
SARAH
LOA (2) attacks ASGARD (2)
3 v 2 3 (LOA loses 1 army)
…
RYN
STONEHENGE (3) attacks CANNIS (1)
2 5 v 3 (STONEHENGE defeats CANNIS)
Ryn card: Inuit (M)
…
OZ
WATKINS GLEN (5) attacks IMARINE (2)
3 3 1 v 2 3 (1 of each) (4) v (1)
2 5 6 v 6 (WATKINS loses 1)
4 3 v 2 (WATKINS GLEN defeats IMARINE)
Oz card: Watkins Glen
…
DAYDREAM
THE ISLAND (4) attacks LOGAN’S ROCK (4)
2 6 6 v 3 1 (LOGANS ROCK loses 2)
4 2 3 v 1 2 (THE ISLAND defeats LOGANS ROCK)
Daydream card: Regna Ferox
…
WATKINS
THE EMPIRE (7) attacks REPUBLIC of SEA FOLK (1)
3 2 1 v 5 (The EMPIRE loses 1)
2 3 5 v 3 (THE EMPIRE defeats REPUBLIC)
Watkins card: Arnet (M)
…
AMIE
SZAR (6) attacks BLOOMERS WONDERLAND (1)
6 2 4 v 2 (Szar defeats Bloomers)
Amie card: Beo (M)
…
FEEDME
THE SOUTHERN COUNTRY (4) attacks THE BLACK DESERT (1)
5 5 v 6 (THE SOUTHERN COUNTRY loses 1)
5 v 1 (THE SOUTHERN COUNTRY defeats THE BLACK DESERT)
Feedme card: Denali
…
SARAH
VEDAS (3) attacks MANA (1)
2 3 v 2 (VEDAS defeats MANA)
Sarah card: Tig
…
RYN
ASGARD (2) attacks FAERIE (1)
4 v 5 (ASGARD loses 1 army)
…
SARAH
CHI (2) attacks TIG (1)
6 v 6 (CHI loses one army)
…
RYN
STARFALL (2) attacks STORMSIDE (1)
5 v 1 (STARFALL defeats STORMSIDE)
…
SARAH
TEOTL (2) attacks DOMINION (3)
5 v 2 3 (DOMINION loses 1 army)
3 v 3 6 (TEOTL loses 1 army)
SARAH: Gaiwiio (DI), Stormside
, Hund (DI), Tig (W): 8 territories (3 reinforcements)
RYN: The Iron Land (DI), Imarine
, Oran Coro (DI), INUIT (M): 10 territories (13 reinforcements, +2 on Oran Coro, +2 on Inuit)
DAYDREAM: Land of the Sun
, Regna Ferox (W): 5 territories (3 reinforcements)
WATKINS: Asgard (DI), Chi (DI), The Black Desert (M), ARNET (M): 6 territories (3 reinforcements)
AMIE: Kichaita (M), Doblone (M), Beo (M): 9 territories (12 reinforcements, +2 Kichaita)
TOLSTOZ: The Southern Country (M), Starfall (DI), WATKINS GLEN
: 6 territories (13 reinforcements, +2 Watkins Glen)
FEEDME: The Deinnan (DI), Perun
, Denali (W): 10 territories (5 reinforcements)
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