Linaks dream

I had a dream. I told a friend my dream, she said I should write it down. I thought the people here might find it interesting.

I dreamt of a wizard, a slightly evil wizard. Not am extremely evil wizard, merely one that was interested in studying a particular branch of magics, a forbidden branch of magic.A wizard interested in the magics that combine two beings to make a new one. He was not interested in unleashing a horde of monstrosities on the land or anything like that. He was aware of the dangers inherent in splicing creatures together and rarely attempted to do it himself lest he be devoured by a newly spliced kangaleopard or something. But he was intensely interested in the mechanics and studied it extensively. In his studies he was on occasion forced to associate with far more evil wizards, the kind of wizards that would splice up eaglewolves or cheetopuses to unleash on thier enemies. He kept a jackalope to prove to such men that he wished to study their methods but aside from exchanging technical details he offered them no aid. When he thought he knew enough to continue his researches without the aid of such men he caused to be constructed a small research laboratory in a desert far from where men gather to pollute waters.

His error was a simple one, he did not adequately hide the location of his new laboratory from the men he had learned from. He never did find out which of them was foolish enough to write down the location before he was slain by a questing knight.

The knight was an idiot, politely described as a man of action and not words. An uncomplicated thinker this knight was aware of the forbidden nature of the wizards researches and did not care that the wizard was a harmless academic. So of course he resolved to journey to the wizards remote laboratory and burn it down and slay him.

The first thing the wizard knew of this was when the knight kicked in the door and shouted "i am here to kick ass and chew bubblegum and i am all out of gum." The knight slew the jackalope, broke some glassware and set fire to the curtains and attempted to kill the wizard who only escaped by a lucky accident involving an automatic stirring rod, a caged serpent, and a bottle of laxatives. The wizard fled leaving his work, but not his notes, behind.

He did not blame the knight. He was aware of the forbidden nature of his studies and the risks involved in playing god and creating new life. He knew that the knight would not believe that his interest was purely academic, and even if he did was likely to kill him rather than take the risk. So he turned his back on his burning laboratory and the pile of snake droppings and decided to build a new laboratory somewhere even more remote. Somewhere where he could study his notes in peace. Somewhere where men like the knight would never find him.

He travelled to a far off land and found the most secluded and untravelled stretch of forest he could find and built a small hut in the middle of it after chasing off the spiders and taking the rhinoceraffe bones down out of their webs.

There he studied in peace for several weeks before once again the questor found him. Again the cry of "kick ass or chew bubblegum and i am all out of gum!" Again the knight slew his new pet, a hedgehare. And again the knight burned down the hut, and again the wizard escaped this time through an absurd chain of events involving a small still, a brass bookend, and a potato.

Still the wizard did not resent the knights interference. It was just a natural risk one took when studying forbidden knowledge that various inquisitorial types would show up to kill you. They were just doing what they always did. And its not like there weren't a few of the men he had studied under who were genuinely evil people who the world would be better off without. And how could the inquisitors be expected to tell one from the other. THEY were not wizards, and couldn't be expected to understand the subtle differences between himself and other men who studied the same subject for far more devious, terrible purpose. So the wizard went to gather his notes from the smoking crater that had been his home, Only to find that they had been ruined in the resultant beer rain. No matter, by that point he had read them many times and would be able to recreate them with little difficulty.

So the wizard left the forests and traveled to the mountains, and built an igloo on top of a high peak with no one around, not even the usual chatty topsoil, for miles and miles and miles. It was cold and a bit lonely but this was the price for security. No one could approach his moutaintop without being seen and the wizard would have plenty of time to salvage his work before fleeing this time. It did occur to him that from his vantage point he could easily summon a rockslide on any invaders, but he was no murderer and his ethics would not allow him to kill. Not even the idiot knight who had wrecked his home twice.
And this time his peace lasted for years. And he studied and grew more powerful. He Lost a toe to frostbite reattached it, cut it off again when it turned into an evil zombie toe, and learned more new forbidden magics. Then one night he was awoken out of a deep slumber by a familiar cry "and chew bubblegum, and i am all out of gum!" The voice was muffled and distorted, but unmistakable. The wizard ran outside to see from which direction they were approaching, which direction must he flee after gathering his few possessions and the mystical focii he had created in his mountaintop home. But he saw nothing. Then he heard a terrible crash. A loud sound of rock grinding on rock. A sound that was behind him. He turned, his face white with horror and observed His igloo collapsed into the hole made by the giant mole the misguided knight rode. Red in the face from rage, the wizard nevertheless stuck to his principles and did not engage the knight in combat, though with the knowledge he had obtained he couldve spliced the man and his mount on the spot and let him eat dirt for for the rest of his life. Once again the wizard was saved, this time by a enchanted stone wand, a snowman, and a truly confused and lost, but very polite and well dressed penguine.

At this point it was getting difficult not to bear some resentment against the man who had thrice ruind his home. But he gave it little thought after a few choice non-mystical curses and instead took the advice of his new friend the penguine. He had suggested that for serious isolation Antarctica was the place.

The trek was more arduous than any he had yet undertaken, but he was certain that he had finally found a place the knight would not chase him. He was of course wrong.

The knight was a simple man and was at this point chasing the wizard out of sheer bloody minded persistence. He had gotten it into his head that this wizard who was constantly escaping through unlikely coincidence must of course be the most dangerous wizard of all, Definitely in leauge with demons, and probably a pervert. He swore an oath that he would catch the wizard or else take a nap, and he wasnt terribly fond of naps. There is no dissuading a man like that. No sooner had the wizard spliced a krillbatross, just to see what would happen when you combine two things with radically different sizes, than he again heard the cry "and i am all out of gum!" His house was destroyed by an idiot. His only friend, the penguin, ruined his spats. And his life was threatened. He barely escaped, using a pocket gladiator, a spoonful of salt, and an iceberg carved to resemble a 8 to 11 scale model of the pantheon.

The next decade passed in a blur. The wizard going from place to place, he learned a number of different rapid construction methods. He spent as much time as possible studying during whatever down time he got before the knight showed up to wreck things. But no matter where he went, the knight followed. Middle of a swamp? "Bubblegum!" Stilt hut in the middle of an crocigator (totally not his fault, it was like that when he got there) infested river? "Bubblegum!" Bottom of the Rotting Ocean? "Bubblegum!" Beyond the underdeeps of the volemen? "Bubblegum!" In a cave on the hidden third side of the moon? "Bubblegum!" Inside an antfarm? "Bubblegum!" Inside a jailors cell? "Bubblegum!" Inside a Jailors cell? "Bubblegum!"

He grew more powerful as he studied, and grew ever more cunning in his selection of abode, but the knight never let him settle in any place for long. He could have slain the knight, given into the hate and spliced up a whalewolf to eat him or used one of the other forbidden magics to simply obliterate him from existence, but the wizard knew that was a dangerous path trod only by those who are convinced black is slimming.

But each time the knight showed up to destroy his home, the flames of hate burned a little brighter. Eventually, despite his attempts to maintain his good humor and better nature, his disposition soured. He knew he had to do SOMETHING. He tried reasoning with the knight. "Bubblegum!" He tried to point the knight in the direction of more dangerous and vile wizards. "Bubblegum!" He tried surrendering but once again he was kept from death by an odd series of coincidences involving a bookshelf, a flies favorite handkerchief and a bottle of red ink, and the result? "Bubblegum!" Eventually, driven beyond all endurance, and after an extesive bout of swearing, he sat in the remains of his latest destroyed hovel (a hut on the back of a giant duck) he had borne all he could bear, he would hex that idiotic bastard into oblivion.

So he built a new abode on the shores of the endless Sea of Time and secured it against temporal distortion (a common defense among wizards who feared thier rivals might alter history to get at them, and a MUST if you plan on altering history yourself.) He knew it was only a matter of time before the knight found him again. He knew he didn't have long before once again everything he owned was destroyed with a cry of "Bubblegum!" And in a flash he knew what he would do. That bastard knight would be sorry. The knights battle cry would be the template for his downfall. But he could not target the knight directly. Any questor knight venturing forth to slay an evil wizard would of course gather protections against being cursed. But the wizard had already thought of that. From the safety of his temporally shielded hut he hurled the curse back in time to target the knights ancient ancestor. The first of the bloodline to be knighted. He sent the curse 5 years Before the knights great-to-the-sixth grandfather performed the heroic deed for which he was raised from a country squire to knighthood. The terrible deed done, the wizard went outside for his first breath of air in decades when he wouldn't be waiting for the cry.

To his horror the landscape he saw was twisted beyond all recognition. The few trees that had been there before were now stumps no higher than a few feet. There were no sea birds calling and no crabs on the beach. The only animals to be seen were vastly huge mussels and titanic starfish. The wizard fled the blasted landscape back into his hut and filled a scrying pool. No matter where he searched he found no one. No animals, other than hideous malformed sealife. No dogs or horses, no cows or chickens, and no wildlife either. The world was without even birdsong, let alone people. And even the bizarre giant land dwelling sea life was odd. Eventually he figured out why it was so unsettling, there were no fish. Eventually in his search across the globe he spotted a tower. It was apparently the tower of a wizard who had like himself lived in a temporally shielded abode, but it had been destroyed in some bizzare cataclysm. It had apparently been pinched in half by a giant tentacle, and the collapsing wreckage had slain the occupant. The wizard wailed. He was deeply distraught about what had been wrought, what he had wrought, on the world. But how had his simple curse placed on the ancestor of the knight who relentlessly pursued him blasted the entire world?

To answer that question we peer back in time. In order that we may look on the events that occured to the knights great great great great great great grandfather. A country squire, the man was among the lowest among the peers of the realm. But he was happy enough. The small plot of land he was in charge of provided enough for him to feed and house his wife and son. He enjoyed working with the land rather than spending his time in court and did not envy his betters thier positions. He had gone out one day with hus woodaxe to cut wood for the upcoming winter when he half-heard an odd phrase drifting on the wind. He ignored it and continued to work till sundown and went home. He could smell dinner. He went to open the door and greet his wife. But his body was siezed by compulsion. He broke down his own door with his axe, stepped past the ruined door and shouted at his terrified wife and child. "I am here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and i am all out of gum!" He then brutally murdered his own wife and child and burned down his own home. Horrified by his own actions he dropped his axe and fled. He sought out his neighbors, for he did not yet realize the nature of his curse. He stumbled up to thier door. "This must be a dream or some delusion. Maybe i am sick in my head. Maybe my friends can help." But when he reached the door, again the compulsion gripped him, again the horrible cry. He could do only two things. And this was the past, bubblegum did not exist yet, there never would be bubblegum. Having slain his wife and child, having brutally beaten to death his neighbors the man, in despair sought to end himself. Clearly he was under some curse, and the safest thing he could do was end himself. He took up his neighbors hunting knife and slashed his own throat. But the curse, he could only do two things, and death wasnt on the list.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License