“Arse! Drink!”
After
such pleasantries, our determined pair set off in a heretofore
unexplored direction, accompanied by the Father’s trusty torchier,
Garmir, and a newfound companion, Vince Vinton, a local vintner.
Striking off to the northwest from the Outpost, it’s only a few miles
until they find themselves struggling up and down rough dry hills. By
this time, Jack has completely dismissed Scarecrow’s beaky countenance,
believing him to be a big-nosed Norman.
Less
than an hour into the craggy hills, our travellers look down into a
basin with seven shadowy holes in the hillsides. Discovery! All the
holes but one show evidence of steady traffic in and out from some sort
of V-footed individuals. Now joined by Doc Sampson, they descend the
hill and enter the one trackless tunnel mouth.
An
eight foot round dirt hole burrows away into the hillside. With a call
of “Girly! Light!” Garmir sets a torch aflame, and in they go. After
several turns, a side tunnel rewards their view with several doors. One
offers scratching sounds, and they press on. One door proves locked, and
again they move along. A large round wooden door in the side of the
tunnel, it’s knob oddly in the centre, opens to their efforts and they
are rewarded with a small room. A heavy metal cabinet within is no match
for Scarecrow’s masterful ministrations, and they look within. What’s
this? Oddities of Outland greet them. One gives its wearer sight in the
dark, while another proves ready to blast a smoking hole in the tunnel
wall with a blast of flashing green. Extraordinary!
Taking
their newfound swag, they return to the locked door, Scarecrow brimming
with newfound confidence in his considerable abilities. His confidence
is well-placed, as the lock falls before his efforts. Waiting behind
this round portal is a dark and musty dirt descent. Down go our
travellers, fathom after fathom.
Finally
levelling out far below, their path takes them into an enormous cavern
filled with tables, desks and stands. Every surface throughout the
expansive room is covered with bubbling, smoking glassware. Beakers,
tubes, flasks, all filled with liquids of a hundred scintillating
colours. We see our good father has become quite animated.
“Drink!!”
Trusty
Garmir settles Father Jack with a few words, and our intrepid band
begins carefully and quietly exploring this subterranean laboratory.
As
we will soon see, this is the exhaustive and prodigiously proportioned
laboratory of a very unusual man. A man the likes of which none of our
travellers have ever seen. His alien skin is jet black, yet he is indeed
human. All his varied chemical apparatus is in fact one vast process.
Scores and scores of intricately interconnected tubes and glass, flasks
and beakers boiling away with a hundred rare reagents, all this vast
experiment, all working toward one final precipitate. A tiny drop falls,
only one in many minutes, into the final ultimate flask. It boils away
in a flashing instant, the smoke dissipating in a colour never before
seen by human eyes. Each drop thus leaves only a tiny speck of dust, and
the flask, though by no means full, holds the product of untold hours!
Here he is now! The exotic jet-skinned master of the laboratory emerges
in his white coat!
So then the party killed him.
And broke the flask. The precious precipitate disappeared all over the dirt.
Doc Sampson is heaving a flask of acid at the furious dagger-wielding onyx-toned scientist! What can happen? It melts his face off! He drops dead.
Wandering
into the ex-scientist’s bedroom, we see Jack discover a horde of
glittering jewellery! He shrugs non-committedly. But what’s this hidden
away in there? A pouch filled with strange white powder. Following his
curiosity, Jack sniffs the pouch to see if it bears some unique aroma.
Threee. Hours. Laterrrr… <- Jacques Cousteau accent
Here
is Jack, but he’s not looking very jaunty. He is struggling back across
the dry rolling grass, with Garmir’s help. The craggy dirt hills are
far behind. What has happened? Sadly, our narrative depends on the
memory of Father Jack, and he doesn’t remember a bloody thing. He is,
however, carrying the decapitated head of a gigantic white flower.
Looking about, he sees everyone has one. Ah well, such is the way of
things in a traveller’s life, and our unflappable Jack dismisses these
details with a wave of the hand, and turns his mind to matters ahead.
“Drink!”
Unfortunately,
the local libations prove too much for our far-ranging friar, and he
falls afoul of jurisprudence. As well as several other kinds of
prudence. He awakes in a barred cell, not long before his release is
arranged. He is less than happy about the arrangement.
“Gobshite!”
And
now, his purse emptied of all coin to pay his fines, and many of his
possessions confiscated to make up the remainder of his debt, he falls
asleep in an alley of the outpost. He reaches for his trusty Neverending
Rumflask. Knowing what the future holds, the faithful Garmir plugs his
ears.
“FECK!! ARSE!! FECK!! DRIIIIIINK!!!!”
It is gone.
