OOC: Continued from
this topic. Even if everyone else has had enough, I might try to have some more fun on my own.
Londs turned to address the Princess Rune Venus and the Queen Deva. He did his best to ignore Dr. Schtalubaugh, who was busy putting a tall stack of folded laundry into an oddly-placed closet in the Floristica palace throne room.
"Allow me to formally offer my congratulations to you both," Londs said to Rune and Deva. "Now that the leaders of the two great powers of El-Hazard have made their peace, we can finally look forward to a New Golden Age of prosperity, happiness and enlightenment--"
Just then, goth-Ifurita-3 mooned into the room. The light in the room seemed to dim in her presence. "Alas!" she cried. "There is no light; there is but darkness. There is no warmth; there is but coldness. There is no love; there is but a heart-numbing soul-crushing eternity of loneliness and despair. And an immortal demon god such as I shall never taste sweet sweet death. Truly, I am the Sad Clown of Life."
"Oh dear," a frowning Deva said to herself. "Dr. Semimad's therapy would not seem to be going well."
Schtalubaugh suddenly spun away from the closet. "Semimad!? I beg your pardon, Milady Deva, but has that poor girl been placed in the care of that charlatan Semimad? My junior classmate at Scientific Advisor School, and my life-long rival and greatest enemy? We should be grateful that the poor dear hasn't cast herself into the Dimensional Void between worlds!"
"What would
you have us do, good Doctor?" asked Rune.
"For a lost soul such as her, there is but one remedy," Schtalubaugh said solemnly. "She must be made to forget her sorrow. The music of her laughter must be brought forth, once again. And the best way to do
that is--"
The small and aged man suddenly jumped at Ifurita-3 with surprising agility. He gently but firmly glomped her, brought her down to the floor, and began to tickle her mercilessly, but in a happy fun ghost-of-Yuba-and-Ishiel kind of way.
"YEEEK!!" said Ifurita-3. "Hee hee!! Hee hee!! Hee hee!!"
Londs, Rune and Deva sweat-dropped.
And then, Ishiel Soel, Rogue Priestess of Earth, etc., etc., casually strolled into the room. She walked past Schtalubaugh and Ifurita-3, completely ignoring them, and came to stand before Rune, Deva and Londs. "Greetings, Milady Rune. Greetings, Milady Deva. How's it goin', Royal Ugly Dude?"
Londs scowled. "Well, well. If it isn't the back-stabbing little
background character. State your business, woman, before I have you returned to the Floristica dungeons for the rest of your natural life."
A grinning Ishiel held up a hand in protest. "Whoah, whoah! Hold on there, Mr. Pants! I came to volunteer some crucial intelligence, hopefully in exchange for a large sum of money and/or consignment of sakè."
Londs raised an eyebrow. "Did you just call me Mr. Pants?"
Rune was already becoming annoyed with Londs, the retainer whom she herself had fired recently. "What news have you, Priestess?" she asked.
Ishiel comically rolled her eyes up, held her hands behind her back, and rocked on her feet. "Ohhhh, just that the Mice Wearing Hats and the Giant Sewer Rats, having lost the election, will be planning a long and terrible siege of Floristica from underground. Beginning sometime the day after tomorrow, I should think."
"Oh,
nut bunnies," said Rune, Londs and Deva, in unison.
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, broken only by Ifurita-3's childish giggling and gasping for breath.
"By the way," Rune finally asked, "where is your, um, friend Afura?"
Ishiel smiled a deeply disturbing smile. "Oh, poor little Afura. Hee hee. I decided to have some more fun at her expense-- er, I mean,
punish her again. I mean, it's almost as if she enjoys it... Anyway, you remember that tub of mud? Well, we both, uh, borrowed it for awhile--"
Deva cut in. "May I say, Lady Ishiel, that the mud I've repeatedly seen you wearing, on
babump.com, has done wonders for your skin. It's so clear and smooth."
"Erm, thank you, Milady.
Anyway, before Afura could clean up, I used my Great Lamp of Earth to harmlessly draw all the moisture out of the mud on her, and to crystallize the mud's molecular structure, making it as hard as stone."
Ifurina and her new scary-door-opening friend Kalia were strolling through the reconstructed parts of the Floristica gardens, enjoying their ice cream and looking at all the pretty flowers.
They paused in front of a life-sized stone statue. "Oh, look!" said Ifurina. "What a lovely sculpture of Afura Mann!"
"And it's so life-like," the new sweet and innocent Kalia said. "It's almost as if it's looking back at us, isn't it."
"*
mmmph*" the statue said.
"Did you just say something?" Kalia asked.
"Um, no," Ifurina said.
"*
mmmph*" the statue said again.
Ifurina and Kalia both looked to Staff-chan. "It wasn't
me," it said.
"*
MMMPH*!!" the statue said impatiently.
Ifurina and Kalia gulped in unison, glanced at each other, looked back at the statue, and suddenly ran away screaming.
Afura sighed sadly to herself. "*
mmmmmmmmph*"