Category: Words Words Words

The key to running a good dungeon is paying your skeletons 15 gp an hour, but knowing they’ll extract at least 20 gp and 8 sp per hour in preventing inventory loss, plus accumulated hero cruft left by those who flee at their shambling approach, which can all be resold in town to the next round of adventurers who have not yet learned fear.

Woobster was a rich man, but never a bright one, and so when Jeebs volunteered his services as a manservant, Woobster just said “Sure, whatever, here’s where I keep my money, so take a decent wage” and went back to hard-boiling eggs… well, actually, he was boiling half dozens of them, pulling the eggs out of the water at different times, and trying to see if he could catch one at the very moment it became hard-boiled with a well-timed shell-cracking ambush.

His fingers were prune-y from the water and the blisters, as the eggs came out quite hot.

—

Woobster had a dreadful fear of his Aunt Agnes and came to Jeebs with the problem: a visit was imminent. How could the social call be avoided?

“Not to worry,” said Jeebs, who took a clean spade out of the closet where it rested by the ironing board. He led Woobster out to a nearby park where, is it happened, he had already taken the liberty of digging a grave-sized hole and supplying a comfortable casket. “If you’ll please do me the kindness of reclining…”

Woobster lowered himself in, pushing his manicured fingers into the padded casket’s sides. “Quite well cushioned, Jeebs, well done. But I say… once you’ve shoveled the dirt on top of me, won’t there be— and I’m not trying to impugn your planning or expertise, you understand, and I’m quite grateful for this hiding place where Aunt Agnes is quite unlikely to find me, but— air quality will be an issue, won’t it?”

“I’ve already taken that into consideration,” said Jeebs, tossing an air freshener in the shape of a pine tree onto Woobster’s chest. It fluttered down, end over end, and Woobster had just enough time to remove its plastic sleeve and catch his first scent of chemical pine when Jeebs kicked shut the casket’s lid and the first skittering sounds of pitched dirt started clattering across its surface.

---

Woobster’s high score on the Drones’ Ms. Pacman machine is beaten. Jeebs addresses the issue by revealing he’s already kidnapped the offending video game winner and hands Woobster a pistol.

---

Jeebs finishes tying fishing line around Woobster’s wrists, then gives an efficient nod to the sailor pressing currency into his hand.

“Are you quite sure about this, Jeebs?” mutters Woobster, watching Jeebs thumb through his paper money for a quick count.

“It’s all accounted for, sir. There’s no way that you can be maneuvered into marriage while you’ve been impressed into service on a whaling vessel. You’ll be safe from the wiles of Ms. Beautina for at least 8 months until your return.”

• The Clown Hucker
• Elliott’s Pumpkin Maze #5 (now with a height restriction)
• The Wheel of Straps and Velocity
• Lady Mona’s Full Contact Tarot Ring
• The Child Exchange

You got passed over for the really nice wizard school. The community wizard school wants you to come on out though and they sent you messengers.

You haven’t seen them? They can only afford moths as messengers. You don’t have a porch light, do you? You don’t have a bug zapper, do you?

A 3-color pamphlet sparking and burning in the twilight.

Pick up a spectral hitchhiker, learn they died 40 years ago this very night. Pull over for a second spectral hitchhiker: a driver who picked up the first spectral hitchhiker this very night, 30 years ago and died of fright. The two sit awkwardly in the back seat, not acknowledging each other at all… at least, not ’til another spectral hitchhiker appears in the mist and as I slow down to help, they hiss “20 years!” and high-five each other.

Rich enough to run a train around my whole property along the property line in lieu of a fence. Rich enough to hire a professional hobo to ride that rail, chewing on genetically modified straw, blowing sad lonesome tunes through the harmonica equivalent of a Stradivarius. Rich enough to pay someone else to rig the bridge with dynamite so I can push the plunger and send the whole train to hell and I’m going to do it someday. Or pay someone to do it, which is like: Close enough.

Been working on a character recently, who I call “My Roommate Dracula.” I think I’m really getting the voice down. Goes something like this:

“I don’t sound ANYthing LIKE that! Vhy do you insist that you can DO an imPRESSion of me, you svine? Haff I no feelings to be hurt?”

But like, pretend I was wearing a cape. That’s a big part of it.

Spent hours walking around the neighborhood trying to find out where an accordion player was drowning in an outdoor pool filled with expired pudding until a member of the crew told me that was just my theme music.

If anyone were to ask me, the Opinion Haver, what it was that jazz fused with to create “jazz fusion” my response would be: garbage.

Nobody has asked me yet but I didn’t don the mantle of Opinion Haver without having full awareness of what a commitment like that might entail.

I see the reason for the misunderstanding. No, it’s called CASTLE SKELETON not because this stone building is housing any of the skeletons that regularly sweep through the village, dragging people through the mud and causing terror.

No, it’s just that a very rich skeleton paid us for naming rights to the place. Purely transactional, no endorsement implied.