Play It Again, Frodo - Part 2
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, March 15th, 2014 at 18:54 (24485 Views)
His course of action was clear. It was simply a matter of split-second timing: ducking the poisoned arrows, leaping lithely between the rotating knives, dodging under the arching cataract of molten lava, fording the piranha-infested lake, sprinting through the blazing refinery, using guile to sidestep the crazed onslaught of the entire Sioux nation, taking advantage of available cover in the ground-level nuclear test zone, holding his breath for the final dash through the airless vacuum of space, and triumphantly seizing the prize before nonchalantly returning by the same route.
“On the other hand,” thought Indiana Jones, “I could always order my pizza home delivered.”
***
A surge of strange, eerie power thrilled up through Arthur’s arm as he laid hand on the sword’s mighty hilt. The words of Merlin boomed again in his mind: Whoso shall draw the sword from the stone shall be rightful King of all England…
He pulled – and smooth as butter, the sword slid from the deep cleft where enchantment had locked it for so long.
Arthur looked at the gleaming blade with awe. The prophecy was fulfilled at last. He cried aloud: “Kay! Kay! I did it! I’ve drawn Merlin’s sword from the stone! I’m the rightful King of England!”
“Another bloody sexist role-playing game,” muttered his sister Kay (a founding subscriber to Spare Rib). “You might at least have let me have first try – even if Merlin does insist on discriminating against queens.”
***
“I’ve just *wheeze* had an idea,” said Darth Vader in his hoarse whisper (he whished there was some way to get throat pastilles through the awesome helmet). “Rather then *wheeze* sending attack ships to follow those silly people along the trench in the Death Star’s surface, why don’t we *wheeze* move the Star away from them under its own power, and *wheeze* have a go at them with the planet-busting doomsday weapons?”
“No need,” murmured the Grand Moff Tarkin. “As soon as it became evident that the ‘weak spot’ in our defences had been spied out, I took the opportunity of ordering a slight modification to the Death Star’s sewage outlet trench. Observe.”
As the Mellennium Falcon shrieked towards its goal, a terrific barrage of laser fire crackling and exploding on every side despite the lack of sound in the vacuum of space… Han Solo screamed.
“In space, no one can hear you scream,” said Chewbacca reprovingly.
Ahead, blocking the narrow way entirely, was a vast brick wall carrying the airbrushed slogan BYE-BYE, SUCKERS.
With microseconds to go before oblivion, the entire crew shouted: “Luke! Use the Force!”
Dutifully, Luke Skywalker shut his eyes…
***
“On second thoughts,” said Gandalf, “these are matters higher and deeper and darker than Hobbits in their small Shire can know. Perilous though it may be, I must make a trial of it for at least a little time. Frodo, kindly lend me the Ring…”
***
They descended a thousand dank steps below the shuddering sub-cellar of the strange high house whose gambrel roof brooded over the oldest quarter of time-cursed Mordheim. The fitful light of the gibbous moon sent no rays into this fungus-ridden abyss, where blackened and disfigured stonework was tortured into eldritch, cyclopean geometrics, as though wrought by some race of nameless abominations that frothed in primal slime for unhallowed aeons before the birth of mankind.
“These stairs”, whispered Marcus Whately, “are of no human shape.”
“What do you see?” said his companion, holding the lantern high. The crumbled, blasphemous vault was heaped with evilly mouldering tomes, their mere covers a threat to sanity. An unnameable, charnel stench pervaded the nauseous air, seemingly a foul exhalation from some abominable lavatory of the Great Old Ones themselves.
Trembling, Whately stooped to peer at the awful texts. “By the Great Sigmar,” he croaked in a paralysed voice. “Here are copies of the sinister Liber Ivonis, the infamous Cultes des Ghoules of the Comte d’Erlette, von Junzt’s hellish Unaus-Sprechlichen Külten, and the Ludvig Prinn’s remaindered De Vermiis Mysteriis. The forbidden Pnakotic Manuscripts, the unreadable Book of Dzyan… and there, see! Bound in human skin, nothing less than the abhorred Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred!”
There was a terror-laden pause before the eldritch reply smote upon Whately’s fear-crazed ears – “We’ve got all those: can you see a copy of the Fantasy Grounds’ Users’ Guide?”
***
“That’s not what I meant at all,” thundered the Forum Moderator. “Role-playing games are serious!”
“Oh, are they?” said Oz… his last words.
***
This blog and its predecessor are blatant plagerisations of an article by Dave Langford that appeared in White Dwarf 79, July 1986, and it as been used without even considering asking for permission (but with lots and lots of thanks).