The countertop was hard and not quite big enough...
The Anthropologist: "Is that some kind of Freudian slip... His insecurity over his cock coming out and being embodied by the tabletop."
"Love me, Gage. Hard and fast. Right now."
... I set myself at her entrance and asked, "Are you sure?"
The Chronicler: "Didn't she just tell him to do it? Is it really necessary to ask again?"
The Anthropologist: "He's read the new laws on consent."
My cock jerked...
The Balance: "Is that what he's doing in reality? It that why his box is in such a sad state of repair?"
The anecdote of the Box the Pillywiggin tried to live in was told and it was amusing.
One Thrust. My breath burst from me in hot gasps. Another thrust...
The Pedant: "I have the Count song in my head now..."
Bonegeek: "Lyric! I shouted... Oh, he's a man... (deeper) Lyric!"
She came with a primal screm: "Gage!"
Bonegeek: " I'm not going to scream it..."
Her feminine scent mingled with my strong one...
The Pedant: "Her scent of bread with his..."
The Anthropologist: "He smells of stilton, clearly, that's strong."
The Pedant: "So together they smell like a sandwich."
The Balance: "So they should have a threesome with someone who smells of pickle."
The Anthropologist: "I wonder if their children will smell of mayonnaise or some other condiment."
I traced her velvet ribs with my fingertips.
The Pedant: "Velvet ribs? What?! And how does he have access to them?"
...as my finger memorized the groove...
The Anthropologist: "Well, clearly, he's been working at it. He's got all the necessary holes prepared for easy rib-access, back during the honeymoon, things were less simple..."
The Pedant (singing): "Into the groove..."
And then my stomach gave a wretched gurgle.
The Pedant: "Medical complications! He's going to vomit in her."
"Hand me my panties, please."
I retrieved them from the floor, inhaling their scent as I gave them to her...
The Loinfire Club: "Eeew!"
The Chronicler: "He is hallucinating all of this. "
Bonegeek: "Why did he need to cast the spell?"
The Anthropologist: "Pink elephants."
Damn reality.
A steel-tipped, patent leather boot just missed my face...
The Chronicler: "So there are the witches!"
"Look at all these low-life homeless men," I heard the cop mutter to himself, slamming box after box with his heavy boots.
The Anthropologist: "Kill him! You have magic."
The Pedant: "He only has six bullets, you know."
My hands were sticky with come as I pulled them from my trousers. Lyric!
Big L: "So he was doing it with the box..."
The Chronicler: "Why in his trousers? Surely with no way to clean himself..."
The Balance: "Because it was really fucking cold?"
An I scrambled to my feet, the cop aimed for my balls, coiling his leg to unleash his worst.
The Anthropologist: "Oh, the cop is so going to wish he didn't do that."
The Balance: "The cop is mistaking him for someone else?"
The Anthropologist: "A slightly more sane hobo who has a better understanding of public decency."
A heartbeat before tasting pain, I Grabbed the man's ankle with my mind and twisted...
(The Chronicler notes that Grabbing works not only on a molecular level.)
I spared a moment to gloat. I might only be a Brown but my magic kicked ass – literally – when I need it to.
The Pedant: "Brown?"
Big L: "Brown, some sort of colour mage thing."
The Anthropologist: "Still, we've only seen the two characters do spells: he has had 100% success rate and at least two of hers have failed miserably."
"Stop, Pike," a woman cop said, making the cop skid to a halt... The planes of her cheekbones were interesting...
The Anthropologist: "Her face has Non-Euclidian geometry! She comes from Lovecraft!"
but her lips were toothpick thin...
The Anthropologist: "She's evil."
I wondered how the fat-assed cop liked having a woman for a boss.
The Pedant: "Or cum in his face. I thought he should have used that to his advantage in the fight. This cum has aids!"
"One of these is the rapist," Pike muttered. "Probably this one. He smells like sex."
The Balance: "He is covered in cum."
Big L: "Surely a rapist doesn't need to masturbate.
The Anthropologist: "All those lonely nights between rapes, when it's raining and you can't be bothered to go out and stalk another teenage virgin..."
Big L: "That's what your basement is for."
So the cops were hungry for roasted scapegoat, but I had no desire to be cooked...
The Anthropologist: "We're backed to the cooking metaphors.... And I'm adding a Homemaking fetish."
The Chronicler: "Sarah Palin!"
The Anthropologist: "I'm way ahead of you, Chronicler. "
I'd been sleeping rough for days now, maybe even weeks, not wanting to spend my last talens...
Big L: "I assume that is a currency. No idea what it's worth..."
...and my shelter had been beat to shit by a cop on a mission.
Big L: "It was a cardboard box, dude."
The Anthropologist: "Maybe it was a really good cardboard box. Though it is presumably quite soggy by now what with his cum and everything."
I could say I was innocent until the Star Goddess walked the earth again...
The Pedant: "She can't really walk the earth being a celestial being and all that."
They were going to cook me over the metaphorical roasting pit, marinated in fear.
The Balance: "Marinating in fear and cum... for salty goodness."
faced with Pike and his mistress...
The Anthropologist: "Pike... Even his name is food!"
Drooping my shoulders into the picture of humility...
The Anthropologist: "It probably not very difficult to look humble in these situations."
...followed the detective past huge harnessed Percherons, black as pitch, into the police cab.
The Chronicler notes that a Percheron is a powerful breed of draft horse.
No one said a word the entire ride.
The Anthropologist: "He's going to have to pay to have that cleaned."
Clapping hooves provided the only sound.
The Pedant: "Clapping isn't a very hoof-like sound.... Maybe there's a goat in the back clapping."
Big L: "Or a monkey."
The Anthropologist: "But everyone knows those have cymbals."
The Balance: "Maybe it's like in Monty Python with the coconuts."
Sitting in the stale-smelling office, I wished for any veneer of civility.
The Pedant: "You haven't washed your hands yet."
Couldn't someone offer me a coffee? A cigarette? An ale?
Big L: "Or somewhere to wash his hands!"
The Anthropologist: "How much do you be that he doesn't wash his hands for the entire book?"
There occurred a conversation here that is off the record in which it was discussed what should be kept on record.
"I'm Detective Habit," the cool woman said in an emotionless voice.
The Anthropologist: "She's not going to be wearing sensible shoes, is she?"
But I had no alibi for anything – I lived on the street.
Big L: "Surely there are other hobos who have wandered in and noticed you in your cardboard box."
The Anthropologist: "Maybe they had him beaten up and kicked him out of their alley because of his masturbating in cardboard boxes."
There was something about vibrating mascara at this point. The Chronicler doesn't really remember exactly what.
"Where were you three days ago?"...
I couldn't be sure, could I? My life didn't have the usual rhythms of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Showers in the morning and reading the paper at night...
Big L: "But surely he notices things like darkness at night and not darkness during daylight?"
The Anthropologist: "He's too busy in his box, he never looks outside."
I cringed in embarrassment. Was it that obvious I'd been homeless for so long? I'd had a nice job, a wonderful wife, and a great home...
Big L: "My other cardboard box is a Porsche."
The Pedant: "It was a box which had a Porsche in it once."
The Anthropologist: "What other excuse can he have? I was playing a hobo in a play..."
"Have you earned any money lately?... Panhandling, maybe?"
Big L (scenting a euphemism): "Oh yeah!"
The Anthropologist: "Panhandling, eh?"
"Not too long ago a man I knew had a cow having trouble with calving. I helped him."
"With magic." It wasn't a question. She'd seen me Grab her cop.
The Anthropologist: "This is the stupidest magical metaphysic ever."
"You trying to rise in rank?"
Bonegeek: "You've had no trouble rising before."
"So you' helped the farmer with his cows.... And he paid you?"
There is some confusion and debate over the setting and where this farmer lived in relation to the cardboard boxes.
The Chronicler: "I think it's meant to be a pseudo-medieval setting..."
The Balance: "But the brownstones in the beginning chapter. They're very specific sorts of houses that only occur in east coast America..."
The Anthropologist: "But there's horses pulling the police cab. Police aren't very medieval."
The Chronicler: "But it's got cows in it."
The Anthropologist: "Unlike today.... where we are devoid of cows."
"Yes, ten talens." I saved the cow and the calf, and the cheap bastard paid me nearly nothing.. cow and calf safely stabled in a warm barn, munching hay. I envied the cow.
The Anthropologist: "I should have gone back in there and eaten them..."
"So, when was this?" the detective asked through her razor-thin lips.
The Balance: "Have they gotten thinner now?"
"So, you know another woman was raped three days ago in Tar...
Bonegeek: "Tar.. tar... Big L, help me with the pronunciation?"
Big L: "No idea."
Tarawa
The Chronicler notes that the reader has no idea what this word denotes, be it district, city, street, province or even country.
I'd known it'd come to this. That's all anyone talked about. People acted like the end of the world was approaching. No girls on the street, and no women either.
The Anthropologist: "I feel it really hard to find sympathy for people who get raped."
Bonegeek: " Stupid woman getting raped..."
And everone looked at everyone all suspicious like.
The Anthropologist: "Or maybe they were just looking at you all suspicious-like? What with you being a hobo with cum on your hands."
"How should I know? You haven't told me her name."
The Anthropologist: "Isn't it kind of suspicious that he doesn't know anything about the rapes if it's all anyone talked about for days?"
"Melisandra Rockwater."
Big L: "What the fuck?"
The Balance: "It's a bad taste naming setting."
Bonegeek: "There's no connection or pattern between these names at all."
Before I'd lost my life, I'd had a job with clients.
The Anthropologist: "Clients, eh?"
The Chronicler: "Unnecessarily unspecific... The setting is vague enough to begin with."
"Did you rape her? Or any other woman?"
Big L: "Yes, yes, I did."
The Anthropologist: "Did she really expect him to say yes to that?"
"No! I'm a drunk, not a criminal."
The Anthropologist: "No, I'm a drunk public masturbator, not a rapist!"
They're often the same thing."
Big L: "I'm a sex offender, not a rapist."
"I've never forced myself on anyone."
The Anthropologist: "That's a suspiciously roundabout way of putting it."
"Hmmph," said Detective Habit, which could've meant anything.
The Anthropologist: "Perhaps you're being a suspicious bastard, that could be what it could mean."
Detective Habit returned in the company of a familiar face.
The Chronicler: "Just the face, nothing else."
Recognising his mossy beard...
The Anthropologist (twitching): "Moss..."
...my fists itched to hit something. Maybe his face. Hard.
"This is Wizard Uriah,Chair of the local Wizard's Guild..."
The Pedant: "Do they mean Urea?"
The Balance: "Brown is the hobo level mage."
Do you mind if he –
Big L: "...rapes you?"
"Gage Feldspar! Obadiah's pig!"
There is much speculation about Obadiah's Pig, be it some sort of bizarre fantasy-esque curse or reference to something we understood not.
The Chronicler: "There's an Old Testament prophet by the name of Obadiah."
The Anthropologist: "Does he have a pig?"
I'd rather chew off my foot than let this man help me again.
The Anthropologist brings us an incredibly rare disease involving lip-eating that was mentioned in an episode of House.
"If you don't object, he'll briefly scan your mind."
"And if I do mind?" Because I did .I didn't want this creep in my braid. He'd saved me once, unasked, at great cost to himself. I never wanted to see him again. I didn't want him crawling through my brain.
Big L: "So far, Uriah seems to have nothing but nice things to him. Why the fuck is he so suspicious?"
I needed ale more now than I'd had in weeks – maybe since Obadiah's pig.
Bonegeek: "What the hell did you do to his pig?"
The Anthropologist: "Could it be a code word for men of a certain persuasion?"
The Pedant: "Or some kind Gay bar?"
Uriah held out his hand expectantly, andI laid my palm in his.
The Club: "Eeew! Cum on hands!"
I'd met half-orcs I'd rather touch.
Big L: "And he's probably thinking that he'd touched better half-orcs."
The Pedant: "Where the fuck are the orcs coming from?"
The Balance: "And half-orcs, no less. I wonder what the other half is. It's probably human, like with all these settings..."
The Anthropologist: "But I have a mental image of half an orc wandering around."
I expected to feel something, his smarmy presence oozing though my thoughts... Even as I squirmed in my chair, I told myself that his power didn't intimidate me. I lied.
Big L: "Which he would know, as he's mind-scanning you!"
Despite the fact I'd love to punch this man to a bloody pulp, relief flooded through me. The cops wouldn't be roasting me tonight. Thanks to Guild Chair Uriah.
The Chronicler: "What did he do that was so bad it negates saving you at great cost to himself?"
How had I managed to rack up two debts to this oily man?
The Pedant: "By being incompetent."
Big L: "Apparently by hating someone who's done nothing but good stuff to you. Sure, he has a green beard and bad personal hygiene..."
The Anthropologist: "He probably got that by being the at the top of his field. Everyone is too polite to tell him that he's got yellow teeth."
Pike showed me – ungently – to the door. He opened it for me, with a mocking bow."
The Anthropologist: "Because he didn't want you to touch the doorknob."
Then I trudged toward the Slug and Garden, focusing wholly on how good the Brown Worms would taste.
Big L: "But you have cum on your hands."
An arctic dust devil swirled across the road and wrapped around my leg.
The Balance: "Is that a real dust devil or a metaphor... This being a badly defined fantasy setting, one really can't tell."
It crawled up to my balls, stealing all heat.
Big L: "It's like having a dog randomly humping your leg only colder."
The Pedant: "But not licking their hands."
The Balance: "I think that needs a picture."
I peered through the darkness, wondering where the shout came from. I didn't want to walk through an ongoing brawl... The rapist wouldn't be attacking someone this close to the cops, would he?
The Anthropologist: "But you have cum on your hands!"
"What're you doing to the lady?" I growled, letting magic make my voice deeper.
Big L: "That's a retarded waste of magic!"
But the thugs, both half-orcs, weren't attacking a woman – they were harassing a boy.
Bonegeek: "We may have gay, interspecies, paedophilic rape here!"
Big L: "We shouldn't have laughed that."
The closest half-cor towered at least a foot over me. His skin was gray, even for his kind, and his sloping forehead made him look really ugly.
The Anthropologist: "Yes, be a racist. That makes you a better man."
...using a subtle spell to give me the appearance of looking larger than I was.
Big L: "Oh no, I mistook that man for being a few inches shorter than he actually is!"
The Anthropologist: "The Magical Accordion Man!"
Even half-orcs had to think twice before attacking the man they thought they saw before. Half-orcs aren't known for their intelligence.
The Anthropologist: "Cum on your hands!"
I walked in like I belonged there, like the biggest rooster in the barnyard.
The Anthropologist: "...who has cum on his hands!"
And I kicked the closes bastard in the knee with all my strength.
Bonegeek: "I'm not actually bigger, that's all I can reach."
He howled in pain, and I snorted, knowing I'd busted the capsule of fluid behind his knee bone. It'd ooze liquid for days. His knee would swell to the size of a goose egg in a matter of hours.
The Chronicler: "Is that anatomically accurate?"
Bonegeek (who has a degree in that sort of thing): "It's layman's accurate, let's put it that way."
... so I slammed the ball of my palm into his nose slits, and he howled louder.
The Pedant: "Charge-spell, touch bukkake."
The Anthropologist: "I can spell bukkake."
Big L: "I feel morally superior for not being able to.
The Pedant: "Hayhever is Plant Bukkake."
... but then I just convinced the lurking rats that orc eyeballs tasted delicious, like farm-fresh eggs. I could hear the rats laughing as they launched themselves towards the villain's face.
The Anthropologist: "I'm drinking for the eye comment."
The Pedant (chittering): "Eggs, eggs."
There are reminisces of Pillywiggin's wererat character who chittered.
(The Chronicler notes, incidentally that the convincing there was magical.)
Ha! I punched him solidly in his solar plexus, knocking his lungs straight on, turning them into empty flapping sacks.
Big L: "Maybe half-orcs have external lungs. It doesn't say they don't."
I jerked my knee up...
The Pedant: "It's always jerking with him..."
... but blood poured from his nose slits as he collapsed to the ground in a fetal position.
The Pedant: "Are half-orcs scum in this setting or did he just punch the royal family?"
Big L: "They're probably scum."
Filled with adrenaline, I strode over and grabbed the kid.
The Balance: "But your hands are covered with cum!"
Both half-orcs writhed on the cold cobblestones...
(The Chronicler notes this for more patchwork setting mysteries.)
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