Party Goers Book Chapter 5
Chapter Five by Masamune: The Wizard of Odd[edit]
| Chapters in the Party Goers Book Project |
| Prologue - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - |
Life was funny. It did not go out of its way to be funny, since that would be a rather daft thing for a metaphysical concept to go around doing. Rather life was funny because people failed to realize that it was something not to be taken seriously. One such example of a person was Golem. Despite being in Vegas and hanging out with talking reptiles and being hunted by super villains, he still was taking it all rationally.
Such things are dangerous to do, especially when life actually is trying to be funny.
Two tokens in hand, he solemnly approached a slot machine. The tokens he had received from 'Guana Mann had been lost on the tables. Gambling was by no means his talent. So he reasonably assumed that no amount of lack of talent could screw up a slot machine. All he had to do was pull the lever.
It's possible that he might have felt a sense of foreboding when he walked up to slot machine in the shape of a skull. A sense of fear might have struck him when he saw the cobwebs around it. It could even have struck him as odd that it was the only spot in the casino with a radius of ten feet that was not occupied by life. Or rather, not occupied by life present for the purpose of making money. What really did it for him was the bird.
Sitting on the lever was a raven that seemed to be focused intently on something just behind Golem. It seemed a bit large to be the typical variety of raven that people saw. Not that Golem was much of a bird expert. In fact, he only thought it was a raven because he concluded that it would not be nearly as dramatic if it were just a crow. He probably should have been concerned about the glowing green eyes. But he was mostly worried about the fact he already had put his token in. It was his fond hope that he could pull the lever and not lose a finger or three.
He pulled the lever. Several things happened all at once. Several things also failed to happen as well. For example, he failed to win anything. He also failed to lose any fingers. Furthermore he also failed to continue standing up any longer. What did happen was that the raven flew off the lever and landed on his hat. Shocked by the thought of having a giant man-eating bird on his head, he promptly fell over in self defense. He wanted to faint or be knocked out in the process, because then everything would be better when he woke up. Since that did not happen, he just pretended to have fainted.
He cracked his eye open just a bit to see. The raven sat on his chest sort of disinterested, with its attention fixed solely on one of the light fixtures. A little lost at what to do, Golem started to blow at the raven. Clearly annoyed, the bird fixed its attention on him. It then did something Golem was not expecting but probably should have been.
It talked. Or more precisely, it said this: "Eleven hours, fifteen minutes, and thirty five and a half seconds!"
Golem glanced over at his watch. It was still eight. He attempted conversation. "Bu-wha?"
"That is... exactly how long it should have taken him to arrive here at an average speed, with all gas stops, dinner stops, and wrong turns factored in. But he is an hour late so far."
That almost sense. "Oh. That's good?"
"Not at all," the raven replied. "So get up. You'll have to come with me."
"Come? What, where?"
"To the Museum."
"Why me?"
The raven stared at him with such a look that Golem felt stupid for asking, even though he did not know why he felt stupid and really still wanted to know why. But nevertheless, he stood up. The raven then perched itself on top of his head.
"I still have one token I have to use," Golem insisted.
"And we'll need that for the museum. Anyways, the machine is rigged to make the odds of winning precisely five hundred and thirty-two million seven thousand and forty-six hundred and twenty nine to one. Give or take a ten thousand."
"Oh."
Meanwhile, a super villain tried to enter the casino with a makeshift tie formed from a cape. But nobody cared. Particularly since he was not permitted to enter anyways. There may have been an important moral in this story, but it was lost.
The others had met near a pizza parlor in the casino. At least, most of them had. Flutter was sitting down meticulously counting the winnings while the others waited impatiently for him to do something productive - like buy dinner.
"I wonder where Golem is," Al asked.
Lumei shrugged noncommittally. "Last I saw he was looking depressed and forlorn after losing."
"I hope he's alright," Sapphire said, trying to sound concerned.
"He's probably with Ditto," Flutter said dismissively. "Winning big bucks."
"Except... you didn't give any tokens to Ditto."
Everyone realized this was a very good point. There was no reason to hang around with a guy not winning big bucks. There was no denying this, none of them would go around hanging with that sort. That kind of thing was pointless.
"Maybe," Elzie began with a wicked smile, "We'll save him some pizza if someone ever buys some."
"¡ Soy rico !" Flutter suddenly exclaimed. "Five thousand and five dollars!"
Golem read the sign which read, ' The National Archive of Pseudo Science and the Not Quite Explained '. He glanced his eyes upward, even though he could not see anything but his hat. "Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Nevermore."
"What?"
"Just a joke," the raven replied, sort of disappointed that Golem did not catch the reference. "Let's go in."
Since the museum was actually part of the casino, the Arabian man selling tickets took the token. He then complimented Golem on his bird shaped hat and gave him a ticket. The two then entered through the door. As he did, he heard a thud. He quickly looked around the door and was shocked. Passed out on the floor was the super villain he had faced before, known as none other than Vorpal.
More shocking than this was when he was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of diminutive scientists. They quickly had all sort of medical equipment out to check on his health, dental records, status of his liver, and so forth. One of them even nicked his shoes and ran off with them.
"You killed the jerk!" one of the scientists exclaimed.
"Bird, I don't think we're in Nevada anymore."
"Doodle. The name is Doodle," the raven said exasperated. "And we have only walked precisely ten and a half feet. We are still in Nevada."
"It was a joke," Golem said, annoyed that Doodle did not catch the reference. "I guess we better follow a yellow brick road, yeah?"
"That is nonsense, we'll follow the signs."
There was no arguing with that logic. The first sign read as the ' Hall of Pseudo Philosophy '. As they entered, they were reasonably shocked to find that the room consisted only of one display. Inside a glass cage was a man made of straw playing chess against himself.
"Let's go," Doodle insisted.
Golem ignored him and started to read the description of the display. He was surprised to hear a voice.
"You may be tempted to believe that," the voice said. "But I can assure you that it is absolutely false."
Both of them looked up, shocked to find that the man was looking at them and speaking. Doodle insisted that they keep going, but Golem felt he ought to talk to the man.
"Why are ya stuck in that display?"
"I'm not stuck."
"Yeah ya are. There's a lock right there, I can see it."
"That means you are locked away from me. I, however, am free to go wherever I like."
"Then why don't you?"
"Freedom is merely a trick of the mind."
Golem felt this conversation was going nowhere. "My name is Golem. This is Doodle. Your name is..."
"Strawman," Doodle answered. "Now let us continue."
Golem was shocked. "How did ya know?"
"It says so on the display."
"You should come with us Strawman," Golem continued undeterred. "Doodle is taking me on an adventure."
"It's not an adventure!" Doodle exclaimed in annoyance.
"He's not taking me on an adventure, that is."
Strawman considered this. "I suppose since the other player has been dead for the last twenty years... I can afford to leave the chessboard for awhile."
Meanwhile, the others were busy enjoying their pizza. Or rather, Flutter was enjoying his pizza and laughing at the misfortune of his friends, who had no money. The others were feeling particularly murderous because of this.
"Listen," Flutter said. "The ten dollars was mine. I never said anything about giving you all a share. So what are you mad about?"
"Because! We deserve a cut of that money," Elzie exclaimed. "You swindled us out of money we gambled hard to earn!"
"Nobody said life was fair," Flutter replied as he stuffed a slice of pizza in his mouth "Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll head to the bar and get me some water. On the rocks."
It's possible someone would have asked why he wanted iced water. Someone may have tried to appeal to his good natured side about the money. Even more possible is that one of them might have just punched him and took their hard-earned money. Things like that seemed very consistent with events thus far. The explosion on the other side of the casino wasn't.
Everybody in the casino turned to see the source of the explosion. Almost everyone that is. 'Guana Mann was looking for his shorts and Fuzzball was worriedly looking to make sure that it was not his bomb that went off.
Stepping out of the smoke and rubble was a man. On his head he had a tattered hat with a pointy brim in the front. He had an eyepatch over his left eye as well. His clothes were nondescript, but he had a dusty brown trench coat on. A sword was fastened at his side, but he did not seem hasty to use it. However, his minions were anxious to use their guns. This may have been because his minions were, in fact, penguins.
"Ladies and gentleman," the man announced. "It is my EXTREME pleasure to introduce a wonderful man - namely myself. I am Captain Marsharoon, scourge of the sky! Oh, and I'm here to rob you."
What concluded was a spectacular battle. At least, that's what almost concluded. But rather than have to deal with the risk of some kung-fu master being in the crowd, he simply released a sleep toxin into the air. Everyone in the room soon passed out, except for a man in the far corner at the pizza parlor. Marsharoon approached him, ready to quickly deal with him.
Lumei looked at the pirate and made a quick educated guess at his chances. "I expect you're good with that sword?"
Marsharoon nodded.
"And you have a few crack shot penguins too?"
Marsharoon nodded.
"If anybody ever asks," Lumei started. "I was knocked out by the gas."
He proceeded to club himself in the back of the head.
The next room they entered was the ' Hall of Pseudo History '. This was punctuated by maps of Atlantis's supposed location, photographs of the spaceship that took Elvis away, among other things. Strawman was rather enjoying pointing out the lack of facts and otherwise shaky logic that every description had.
"I think I've seen this place before," Golem mused out loud.
Doodle interrupted. "Unlikely, the chances of you seeing this place are five hundr-"
"Really unlikely," Golem muttered. "Right. I saw it in a magazine. If I'm right-"
"Look!" Strawman said suddenly. "That suit of armor. See it?"
"Yeah," Golem replied.
"No you don't."
"Yeah I do. It's waving at us."
"Impossible, suits of armor don't wave unless someone is inside them."
Golem did not bother replying. Having everything you said refuted got old pretty fast.
The suit of armor, clearly annoyed, had walked up to them. For effect, it lifted the lid on its helmet to show that no one was inside. Then to add to the effect, it talked. "I won't hesitate to kill you."
"Eh, what?"
"I said that I won't hesitate to kill you," the armor insisted. "So you should probably run."
"But you hesitated by telling us this," Strawman pointed out.
"I- what? Curses!" the armor turned and walked away. It then looked back and pointed, "There's nothing interesting ahead! So you might as well turn back anyways!"
"Why should you care?" Golem asked.
"I don't. I'm heartless and cold. And I'd kill you, but my right arm needs oiled."
"Come with us," Doodle said. Golem was shocked by this. So was Strawman, but he did not feel inclined to agree with anybody. "We'll get you oiled up."
The armor considered this. "Fine. The name is Steve. But I'll probably kill you all."
"Fair enough."
Flutter woke up. Or at least he dreamed that he did. His dream consisted of him defeating Marsharoon, Vorpal, and a bunch of penguins. Then when he realized he was not wearing pants, he woke up. He saw Big Al standing over him. He was pulled up to his feet a little disoriented.
"Where am I? What happened? Who are you? Who won the Pennant in 1978?"
"Las Vegas, we were drugged, Al, and uh... the Yankees."
Flutter considered this with suspicion. "So where is everyone?"
"They took Sapphire!" Elzie interrupted. "That Marsharoon and his stupid penguins."
Flutter tried to look sad about that. He then spotted the table he was sitting at. "They took my money! That was MY money!"
"Money only births greed," Lumei mumbled.
"What was that, pauper?" Flutter hissed.
"Nevermind..." Lumei muttered. "I don't think they took Sapphire anyways."
"What makes you say that?" Elzie asked.
"Nothing really. But these strange reptile-like tracks and the trail of nail polish... is kinda suspicious."
"Well nevermind her," Flutter replied. "We have to get my money back!"
"Hey now," Al interrupted. "We need to figure out where Golem is. He's just a kid, I feel sort of responsible for him."
"We'll find them after we get my money," Flutter concluded, quite proud of his plan.
Al ignored him. "Elzie, you and Lumei track down Sapphire. We'll go look for Golem."
Flutter glared. "Hey, what about my money?"
But nobody was listening.
Golem knew what was next. He insisted that they all start chanting the names of animals. Doodle quoted the odds of the likelihood of meeting animals in a sealed building. Strawman refuted that with his own numbers and Steve did not particularly care. So all in all they just walked into the next room. This one was a bit different and was called the ' Hall of Cryptozoology '. There were statues of the Loch Ness Monster, the Jackalope, Yetis, and a particularly poorly done one of a pig with wings.
They were, by now, not really shocked when they found a great big lump of fur moving about in a corner. It suddenly rose up. And then continued rising up for what was a ridiculous amount of mass. The great feline beast then roared at them. It then tried again, but they all stared blankly at it.
"No good?" it asked.
They shook their heads.
"I suspect I ought to follow you know.
Golem shrugged.
"I never was able to resist peer pressure. Especially when the other ligers dared me to pose as a Saber-Tooth Tiger.."
Nobody said anything.
"Right. So I'll just come along now..."
They walked towards the next room routinely. Golem figured he knew what was next. But then again, he always fell asleep about this point in the movie. But if he was right, there should be a wizard.
There wasn't. In fact, the only thing there was a display of a diamond that said it came from the Martian princess. It looked real enough, but given where it was, it was obviously a fake.
"This is it," Doodle said. "Take it."
Golem looked up in shock. "That's stealing!"
The bird groaned. "It was stolen from my master, alright? Do you want me to do it or what? Just take it!"
His three other comrades watched him expectantly. Ever so slowly Golem placed his hand on the diamond. After failing to hear an alarm go off or security busting in or bullets being fired, he relaxed a little. His heart was still pounding heavily, despite the reassurance that what he was doing was a perfectly legitimate act. Finally he took the diamond and took a deep breath.
"I did it!" Golem exclaimed.
At the same time, all exits from the room - save the one they came in through - were suddenly sealed off by big metal doors. Sensing that standing about was a bad idea, they headed out of the room. They were reasonably shocked when a huge boulder suddenly fell down from the ceiling right where they had been standing.
What ensued was them running wildly through corners and corridors to escape. Traps - such as swinging axes and flying darts and so forth, suddenly made their selves present. Not only that, but with just with one final hallway to run through, the floor in front of them opened up into a pit. At the bottom there were huge metal spikes. There were also snakes in the rare instance that being disemboweled failed to kill you.
Doodle flew over rather easily. Taking a deep breath, Golem pulled off his scarf, whipped it around a light fixture, and swung across to the other side. Strawman did the same thing, for the sake of showing how unheroic Golem actually was. Steve meanwhile, despite the huge boulder coming his way, was reviewing the situation.
"I don't remember them installing a giant boulder."
"Hurry up, man!" the liger insisted. "Jump!"
"I'm pure metal," Steve said annoyed. "Jumping is not my strong point."
In a mix of frustration (and mostly fear), the liger threw Steve over his shoulder and jumped across the pit. Golem snatched his scarf and they all ran out of the museum panting for air (at least, Golem and Liger did, being the only two who had been running and had lungs). The Arabian man was watching them curiously. Or rather, he was looking at them curious as to whether or not they would stop the figure behind him who looked like a lost cowboy.
"Arr, Doodle! Ye did it!"
The bird swooped off of Strawman's head, snatched the diamond out of Golem's hand, and dropped it in the man's hand. The raven then smugly set itself on his shoulder, suddenly fixing its interest on a random speck of air ten feet above Golem. What was twenty feet above Golem's head, however, was a ship. A large seventeenth century galleon that oddly was floating in the air.
"My my," the cowboy (or pirate, Golem decided) said. "What be these 'ere fine specimens, eh?"
Doodle quickly provided the pirate with a summary of what had happened. "This Golem lad is regular pirate material. Welcome aboard the S.S. Swordefeller, mate!"
"Eh-what? Pirate" Golem said a little shocked. "I actually have some friends-"
"Ne'ermind them. The name is Captain Marsharoon, but ye can just call me Cap'n," the pirate replied. "As for the rest of ye lot... Steve, are ye interested in a life of larceny and villainy?"
"Will it involve crushing festivities and those who attend them?" Steve asked, suddenly seething with cold hatred.
"Sure, why not?"
"Then I'm in."
"Good then. As for the two of ye..." Marsharoon said looking at Strawman and the liger. "Beat it."
"You! Stop!" Elzie yelled. They were hot on the trail of 'Guana Mann and three other humans that were with him. The fact she was chasing four people to just the two of them failed to occur to her. This fact, however, failed to escape the mind of Lumei. The very second that the short hairy man threw a bomb at them, he quickly pulled her out of the way. In the process of saving her life, the ceiling collapsed and blocked the passage.
"Way to go," Elzie said sarcastically. "You let them get away!"
"You do realize that if you hadn't scared them with your... choice language, that they probably would have killed you?"
Elzie did not respond. Not that she did not have a clever response, she did. And it was a particularly good one too. But she was distracted by what she saw down the hall. "What does RC stand for?"
"Radio Control?"
"Rocket Corp," Elzie said, answering her own question, much to Lumei's annoyance. He followed her line of sight.
"Oh no... you're not going to steal their sub are you?"
She grinned. "I'm going to steal their sub."
Al and Flutter had arrived just in time to see Golem board the Swordefeller and for it to take off. They were left only with the Arabian fellow and two strange people who were walking away morosely. This was extremely worrying to Al, but Flutter was extremely happy and he said so.
"Golem has been shanghaied by pirates!" Al said exasperated. "How is this a good thing?"
"Yes. But when we go to rescue him, I can get my money back!"
"I liked you better when you were poor. Oh, and you never paid for the gas."
Flutter squinted his eyes, "Ah! But I did pay you, but Marsharoon stole it."
"Whatever. Let's go find Elzie and Lumei."
Meanwhile, a lone figure ran into the casino and threw the doors open. The light reflected off his visor and his cape blew in the wind. "Time to meet your doom, you Party Goers!"
The maintenance people, busy cleaning up the mess of the explosion, regarded him with annoyance and continued their cleaning. Vorpal pulled out a notepad and quickly wrote a message down. "Note to self: Purchase Tie"
| Chapters in the Party Goers Book Project |
| Prologue - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - |