The long lost
Pirate H.A.G.
Hosted by Skot, played by Garote
Prelude
Once upon a time, Billy Bo the Circus Clown of Fuzzyness was in his tent, preparing for a show, when he heard a little voice speak to him from his mirror.
“Meep meep, Meep meep! I am the voice of yer long-dead sheep! Returned from the grave to torture your hours, give you corns on your feet and wilt all yer flowers!”
...But who can take these sorts of things seriously? So, Billy Bo ignored the voice and tromped out of his happy purple tent to do his show.
Hours later, he returned, covered in buckets of gooey clown sweat. He sat down at his table and peeled off his floppy shoes. He lit a big Cuban cigar, and twisted the cork off of a bottle of Hot Fro LaGrange Firewater. He took a big swig, belched, lifted his leg and farted, and leaned back into the haze of cigar smoke. Just as he was comfortable, he heard the voice:
“Meep meep! Meep meep!! I’ve returned from the grave to disturb all yer sleep! I look real cute and fluffy and sweet, but I’ll rip off your head and shit on yer feet!”
Billy Bo fell on the floor, spilling the Firewater all over his seat cushions. He jammed the cigar into his leg, and yelled ‘AAAAUUGG!!’ in shock and pain. He flung the smoldering, ruined cigar away, but it lit up the Firewater, and in a twinkling his whole tent was aflame. Without stopping to think, Billy Bo lurched around on all fours and sprang out into the hay-spackled field.
He rolled over and looked up at his torched abode. Billy was pretty sure he couldn’t be any more surprised, but when his dressing table hobbled out into the field from the depths of his hellish tent, he was proven wrong.
The mirror developed a hazy picture through the smog. Could it be? It had little floppy ears, and fuzzy hair -- looked just like a ruminant to Billy Bo! -- MY GOD! -- IT WAS WILMA, his long dead PET SHEEP, whom he had tortured to death and roasted over a SLOW FLAME!! Basted in Hot Fro LaGrange Firewater, and eaten with PLEASURE! She had “Meep meep”--ed herself back from the dead!
“AAAAGAGAHAHHGHGHGHHGHAHGHHAHGHAHGHG UGUGUHUHGAUHGUAHGAUHGAUHAGUHGUHGHUAHUGHU”
Was Billy Bo’s last utterance before shuffling off this mortal coil.
:)
THE END(c) us folks
You are standing next to an aspidistra in an old victorian home. The plant is sitting on the windowsill. You are wearing a red silk smoking jacket, and you puff contentedly on your pipe. The heavy drapes around the window are filled with dust. Every time you brush up against them, a huge cloud comes up. You look pensively out at the snow-covered landscape. You look very intellectual.
>open window
A brisk breeze rushes in and raises goosebumps on your skin. You shiver so violently your pipe falls out of your mouth.
>stomp all over pipe. turn around.
You stomp all over your pipe. You turn around and see a middle-aged, plump woman in a gray dress. She reaches out and tugs your beard affectionately.
>jump out the window
*PLOOMPH*
>attempt to stand up
You pull your legs away from the window and end up laying sideways in the snow. You right yourself with diffuculty. Eventually you stand. You are not much damaged.
>say “ooh, sorry my deah, I was just looking at the snow, and your voice prompted an acid flashback. Alluva sudden I was back in the Dreadful summer camp. Kamp Ak’n’boob.”
A puzzled expression crossed her face. “Well then, deah, shouldn’t you come in? You’ll catch your death out theah!”
>make a snowball and hurl it at the “”lady””
The snowball misses, hitting the wall by the window with an icy splat. She looks shocked. Huffing, she travels back into the house.
>I
You own:
>S
You stumble towards the lake through the snow. The figures below seem to be human. They are apparently gathering wood. They look very rustic.
>yell out “OOOooh I SAY!!”. S
The young rustic men all turn their heads toward you. They look back and forth at one another. One of them jogs up to meet you.
>point east. Say “A shipyard, QUICK man!”
“Roight-o!” He sets to work.
>say “Mine gold! Build me a shipyard! Go kill stuff!”
“Yesh m’lud.”
>turn coat inside out. S
You walk naked towards the woods. As you stroll, you hear a combined shout of “Job done.” and “My liege!” at your back.
>look around
To the south are woods. To the east is a very out of place beach. To the north is a huge shipyard and a pile of gold. Three knights and three rustics stand smiling proudly at you. The knights are carrying one dead deer each.
>laugh. Say “Good work. Now I need a transport ship.”
Dutifully, they drop everything, and quickly build a transport on the frozen lake. “Job's done.”
>tell them all to get on the transport. Approach a Borogove
“Roight-o.”
>shake the beer very violently and open it all over the Borogove
“Huhuhh!” it laughs.
>shake its hand and get on the transport
It nods, and slithes off.
>Remove hat. Vomit into it. Pass it to a grunt.
You remove your hat. Bowing, you attempt to gag yourself and vomit. You dry-heave several times. You are disappointed. There are no “grunts” about.
>Squint. Say: “It’s worth a six.” Follow man.
“Aye aye, Chuck!”
>Grin wide. Say, “Where we headed, anyhow?”
Every jocund face falls. All eyes, eye patches, monocles, hook hands and peg legs are pointed at you. The music stops. The room is silent. The sea sloshes. The ship creaks.
>Laugh reeeeeeeeeeeeal hearty. Say: “Jus’ testin’ ya, lads!”
The room breathes a sigh of relief. The music strikes up again and the pirates resume their partying, a bit sobered. The pirate next to you laughs.
>Yell “Arrrrr! No good!” Throw it against the wall.
You fling the pie through a porthole, splattering a puffin mid-flight. It squawks and falls into the sea with a heavy splash.
>Go upstairs.
UPPER DECK
>Push him overboard.
*SPLISH*
>Take map. Draw a large ‘X’ on the map.
You draw an ‘X’ on the map, partially obscuring some nameless tropical island. Another pirate, a deckhand, arrives on deck.
>lead him to the railing.
You lead him to the railing.
>Show him the map.
“You know I don’t read, Cap’n!”
>Push him over the railing.
*SPLISH*
>Point at the pirate in the water. Scream “MAN OVERBOARD!”
“What?” “What’d he say?” “Man overboard?” “Someone drownin’?” “Probably deserved it.”
>point again at the pirate in the water.
Two boats have already gone after him, by the time the “leader” of the “watch” has even finished his dram. He shouts at his men in the water:
>twiddle thumbs and go below decks.
The party is still raging, despite the call of man overboard. Apparently, only a few men are “on duty” at any one time. Nobody else cares much, it seems. One man runs up to you with an apple pie. You know what he’s about to say. He sees your map, however.
>squinch up one eye real tight. Lean in real close to the man’s face and whisper: “Treshure!”
He backs up slightly and gives you an odd look.
>Throw hands up in the air. Say: “What is it with this crew? Can’t take a joke! ... Good pie, though.”
“T’anks,” he says, and scurries off, looking frequently over his shoulder to make sure you’re not following.
>present all assembled with “the finger”.
This raises a loud cry of amusement from your crew. A pirate next to you, a young man with a red outfit, leaning on a sharp looking sword, inclines slightly towards you with his upper body.
>ask to borrow to pirate’s sword.
He leans back suddenly, surprised.
>take the sword and hold up the treshure map for all to see.
Everybody ignores you. Except the young pirate, who wants his sword back.
>Shout: “LISTEN UP, YOU LOT!”
The crowd assembled slowly quiets down and each turns his head to look at you. JUST THAT MOMENT the band reappears on the stage and begins tuning up.
>Point at the ‘X’ with the sword. Yell: “Who among you thinks we’re treasure-hunting?”
The pirates all look back and forth at one another, confusedly. The band begins to play a soft number. Dinner music.
>shout, “Well, I’ve got a surprise for you! That’s what we’re doin’!” Fling the sword into the band.
At “That’s what we’re doin’!” the three pirates who had begun to raise their hands before leapt up from skulking and grinned. “I KNEW it,” says one.
>Yell after him: “Well, sharpen it on the band!” Go up.
UPPER DECK
>Inquire why I would want a “look at ‘im”.
“Well...” he looks into the distance. His eyes unfocus. His mouth drops open and drool forms in a puddle under his feet.
>slap the man heartily on the back.
He chokes and stumbles forward at your blow.
>Laugh, very hard.
They seem somewhat eased.
>Lean back on heels, put hands behind head, and grin.
They seem put at ease.
>Gleefully enjoy kicking the pirates jammed in the hatch.
Your ‘men’ cast you a wide variety of mutinous glances.
>examine other pirates
There are fifteen or sixteen others visible to you from where you stand on the upper deck. The majority of these are actually hanging in the riggings, minding the sails and changing them in apparently perfect harmony, according to the barked and unintelligible orders of the pirate on the poop deck. This one is an imposing man. You DON’T want to get on his bad side. He has a tattoo of a mouse on his upper bicep -- but when you examine this picture in relation to its fearsome context it is the most frightening mouse you’ve ever seen. He looks down at you and chuckles.
>Ask the big man’s name.
He looks at you strangely. Apparently you ought to have known his name for quite some time now.
>reply: “Still am. Your name, good sir?”
He (EE) laughs.
>Look for the land
You see it alright: a scarcely visible irregularity just before the horizon. But it’s clearly a solid mass of some sort. From this distance, it must be pretty damn large.
>Grin enigmatically and say: “You do that.”
“Thanks! I’ve always wanted to say things like, ‘Swab the decks!’ and ‘Batten the hatches’, and ‘ARRRRRRR!!!!’, and ‘Bring me my cakes ‘n’ ale!’ ”
>Slap the second mate around a little.
*cough cough*
>Yell “AAAARRRRRRRRRRR!”
They take this in the affirmative, and run about doing all their piratey things to bring the whole ship closer to land.
>Start cursing the first mate repeatedly.
At first, the pirates pay little heed to your curses, believing that you’re cursing him for ‘sleeping on the job’. A couple hours later, however, all the pirates are cursing with you, for it becomes evident that you weren’t as far from this island as the pirates had thought.
>Roar angrily: “Whadda YOU think? This sure as HELL ain’t where I told the first mate to go!”
“Where didja tell ‘im to go, then?”
>Say: “Where I’m going right now: OVERBOARD!” dive over and swim for ‘it’.
You splash into the water before the astonished eyes of a thoroughly confused crew. Meanwhile, as you plow through the water towards the port, the ship follows along behind. The din of “ARRRRRRRR” is deafening.
>climb for ‘it’
You climb up out of the water and onto the pier.
>Walk up to crew
You approach your crew, leaving the sea-goers behind. Three minutes later you are back in the company of your crew. They are too genuinely puzzled by your... wierdness to be much disgruntled.
>Announce: “I figgered, if I could be fooled by the likes of the first mate, I ain’t fit to be yer Cap’n. Sorry fellers. I let ye down. ARR!”
“That’s alright. Nothin’ like bad pastry on the high seas to ruin’ a man’s judgement!”
>Scream to the heavens: “What the hell is this? Mr. Roger’s pirate ship?”
The pirates break into a chorus:
>Run screaming into town
You pass, sopping wet, unshaven, and screaming at the top of your lungs, through the startled and frightened crowd of ‘sea goers’.
You hear a voice behind you- a shrill, but friendly voice. “Chaaaaalliiee! Oooo Chaaarrlie! Do come here, Charlie! Oooh, he never responds!!”
The shrill voice is right behind you now. “OOooooOOooooh ChhhAAAAAAaaaarrliiee!”
“So much fo’ the Ascent of Man! You’re behaving just like a beast!!”
You land in the snow face first, with your smoking jacket up over your head. Your legs didn’t quite clear however, and they are still hanging in the window. Your “bum” is being snowed upon. You are cold.
The woman is now standing at the window, looking worried.
“Chaaalie! You took quite a fall thea! Are you feeling all right, deah?”
The voice of GOD wafts down: “YOU MIGHT GET EATEN BY A GRUE -ue -ue ...”
“I just don’t knoooow what to make of him! He’s being simply DREADful!” Et cetera.
You are cold. Blurred, dark figures seem to be moving by the lakeside below.
You are halfway there. It has stopped snowing.
“Yesh, m’lud?”
The rest sit dumbly staring at you. A few bold-looking armoured men stare at you expectantly.
“Roight-o.”
“My liege!”
The peasants and knights set upon their tasks. Every person is now working. This will take a few turns.
Strange figures emerge from the woods. Oh no! Slithy Toves! Mome Raths! Borogoves!
The Mome Raths are carrying crates of beer. The Borogoves look pretty mimsy already. The Slithy Toves lurk sinisterly in the wabe.
“Yes, my liege.”
They all climb onto the transport, and shut the hatch.
You approach the mimsiest looking Borogove of the lot. It laughs and hands you a beer.
“Hey heey, man! Let’s gyre and gimble! T’ain’t no sin to gyre and gimble in the wabe, huh??”
A Slithy Tove creeps up and takes you aside. “Listen up, buddy. These Borogoves are mimsy types. But out here in da wabe, we don’t take kindly to strangers. So keep a low profile, naked fellah, or we be breakin’ yo legs.”
You climb onto the transport.
The voice of God wafts down:
“CHARLES! THOU ART ON THE HIGH SEAS! THOU ART A PIE-RATE!”
Thou art wearing:
The ship rocks back and forth violently. The sky is crystal blue, and you now are dressed as a chef. Fully.
A sweaty, unshaven man wearing a bandana and an eyepatch, festooned with tatoos, pops up from below decks. He hands you a fresh banana cream pie.
“Rate that, Chuck!”
He dives back down the hatch. You follow him.
DINING ROOM
There is a long table in here. Cannons line the walls with piles of cannon balls. The room is filled with pirates. You seem to be the only Official Pie Rate.
“Aye, Chuck!” a pirate yells. “Damn good pies you ratin’ ‘ere!”
He flings a handful o’ gold at you.
A coin falls to the ground. It tinkles and spins on the floor.
“AAaaaaaaaw, he’s kiddin’!” One pirate laughs nervously. “Ee knows where we’re going, right?” He slaps you on the back and watches you cautiously. “Right? Cap’n?”
“Good joke Cap’n, good joke!”
He walks away and takes up his cakes ‘n’ ale a second time.
“Maybe you could let us know where we’re headed soon, aye? aye?” another pirate jostles you. He hands you a pie.
“Rate this, Chuck!”
“Tanks!” says the pirate.
A pirate with maps, compass, sextant, and protractor is kneeling on the deck. He is frantically calculating and seems near tears. He notices you and jumps to his feet, trying to compose himself.
“I’m sorry Cap’n, I’m sorry! But I’ve done the calc’lations a thousand times! We’re off the chart! Off the blinkin’ chart!”
“Aye, Cap’n!” he says. “Where’s the first mate gone?”
“I don’t see ‘im ‘ere!”
“ ‘EY!” he shouts, flailing in the water. “This AIN’T FUNNY!”
The pirate who “knew” you were joking comes up on deck. He is a fat, jolly looking pirate. He is looking at you with that same cautious, outwardly jolly look.
Apparently, he’s used to YOU.
“Aye, Cap’n. I see youse got the map there. Where’s the first mate gone?”
Nine or ten pirates dash up from below decks and make ready to man the spare boats. The “leader” of the “watch” runs up to you.
“Where is ‘ee?”
“Damn good, boys! That’s right! You make me prrrrrrrrroud ta be yer leeder!”
After a short struggle, the two rescue boats come back to ship, and are hauled in. They drag the exhausted, half drowned man onto deck and cover him with blankets. One man forces a quarter of the contents of a whiskey bottle down between his shuddering jaws.
“ ‘Ow in ‘ell ‘e fall overboard? Damn fool!”
“Aye, Cap’n! Wot’s that there?”
“That so, Cap’n? Well...” He laughs uncertainly. He seems disconcerted. He holds the pie up to you and smiles weakly. “Rate this, aye?”
The band stops playing for a moment. The man with the accordion steps to the front of the “stage” and says:
“The band’ll be takin’ a short break now, we’ll be back in fifteen minutes, so ‘ave yer requests at the ready, mates!”
One pirate pipes up:
“Play ‘Misty’ for me, mate!”
Amid groans, the pirate gets a beer over the head.
“ ‘Ey!” another one shouts. “It’s the Cap’n!”
“ ‘Ey Cap’n!” a chorus goes up.
“We there yet?” another shouts.
“I gotta peeee!” another shouts.
Laughter.
“ ‘tween U and me, Cap’n, where Arrrrr we goin’, and when we gettin’ there?” He seems to be confiding in you. “The crew’s gettin’ more restless than they let on! I’m tellin’ ya... they talk about your folks in a heck of a way, and they say an awful lotta things that I’m sorta ‘fraid to say!”
“Well, I guess so, Cap’n.”
He yanks it out of the wood. It squeaks as it comes out. He holds it to you, handle first.
This threatens to break their concentration.
Two or three of the thirty or so pirates tentatively raise their arms, but when they see that it’s not going to be a general movement, they yank them back down and try to look inconspicuous.
The band dodges the sword, and it sticks in the wall behind the drummer.
The pirate in the red shirt looks irritated.
“ ‘Ey, Cap’n, look ‘ere, that sword cost me a LOT.”
He stalks off to retrieve it.
You climb up onto the upper deck. You see that the sun is now setting, flaring a bright orange across the featureless horizon.
The man you nearly succeeded in drowning is now sitting upright among his blankets, muttering incoherently. The “Leader” of the “watch” staggers up and mutters something in broken Spanish to you. You gather that he is telling you that the half drowned man is muttering incoherently. Great.
One of the men attending the deckhand spots you and shouts:
“Cap’n! This man fell overboard! Do ye want a look at ‘im?”
After some evidently deep thinking, he looks back at you and shrugs.
“I don’t know!” he laughs vapidly. “Youse Cap’n, that’s all!”
“*cough cough*... T’anks, Cap’n.”
The deck hand looks at you through his bleary, salt-encrusted eyes, and his mouth opens up in a gasp.
“ ‘EE did it! ‘IM!”
The pirates all look up at you.
“ He’s just an ensign, what? Prob’bly delirious.”
“ ‘ad too much to drink!”
“Young feller.”
“Can’t hold ‘is licker.”
They seem to have rationalized it away for you.
After a long, uneventful night, daybreak wakes you up. You are laying among large soft bags at one end of the upper deck.
An emaciated pirate, who looks like Robert Louis Stevenson strung out on crack, sticks his upper body out of the hatch.
“ ‘Ey ya bastards! Breakfast’s ready!”
He ducks down below.
All the pirates but the few required to be on deck stampede for the hatch.
Soon, the whole crew -- but fifteen pirates and yourself -- is below deck.
“ ‘Ey, Chuck!”
Besides him and nine nondescript young men in the rigging, you notice another man sitting on the topmast: a good forty or fifty feet up. So far as you can tell, he’s scanning the horizon. He never looks down and always seems to be moving his head about.
Also, there are two or three other people, swabbing the deck and tightening the ropes and battening the hatches and doing all the maintenance and all the other shit you read about in pirate books.
“You feelin’ alright, Chuck? They say you were in a strange mood last night!”
“Mary fuckin’ Poppins!”
The sailor in the topmast suddenly shouts with all his lungs:
“LAND! LAND! LAND!! LAAAAAAAAND!!! LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDD!!!!!”
He is also pointing frantically to starboard.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” says Mary Fucking Poppins. “Good work, Chuck! I thought we’d never get there!”
The whole crew abandons their breakfast and crowds the deck. They begin laughing and being generally jolly and all that. Quite a bit of money exchanges hands as bets are paid off.
The second mate looks at you expectantly.
“I don’t know where the first mate’s gone,” he says, “so I guess I’d better take his place till he wakes up.”
“Roight. Sail for land!!”
The crew looks to you for approval, since you are the Cap’n.
After about an hour the landmass is becoming clearly visible. It looks like an island. From this distance, it appears deserted, but you aren’t that close yet.
The island is approximately 50 or 60 miles in diameter.
“You know,” one pirate nearby says, “that has a familiar look to it.”
“God DAMN him!” shouts Mary Fucking Poppins. “You mean to tell ME, that we’ve been sailing ‘round that DAMN ISLAND for THREE FUCKING MONTHS!”
The grumbling as you approach the home port you never left grows louder and louder with each passing moment.
Soon the port is in view: the town, everything. The pirates begin looking suspiciously at you.
“And wot about you, aye? You said ya knew where we was, wot wot?”
As you approach the port, you can see several people standing on the piers, pointing and looking at you and your ship with some amusement and wonder. Before long the people on pier are clearly visible and definitely within earshot, but you cannot stop to talk -- unless you wish to be run under by your own damn ship. So you keep swimming, for ‘it’.
Soon you become aware that the ship is no longer ‘pursuing’ you -- that it is quite docked. Although you are still some distance from the actual shore, the ship cannot move in any further without running itself aground. You see a barnacle-encrusted ladder built into the nearest pier up ahead.
PIER
A crowd of touristy people is standing here on the pier, wearing top hats (silk), odd suits, pince-nez, monocles, and Victorian clothing in general. They seem very amused by the sight of a half-drowned pirate panting for his life.
At the other end of the pier, you can see your very confused crew looking at you.
“Don’t feel bad,” one pirate says in a syrupy voice. “All that matters is that you TRIED.”
That’s right,” one gruff voice pipes up. “Ya gets an ‘A’ fer effort.”
“It’s a beautiful day in dis nay-bor-’ood
a beautie-full day fer a nay-bor
woncha be moine... ARRRR!!”
“That will simply NOT DO!” you hear one man exclaim.
“WHHAAAAAT’S Society COMING to!” one woman rhetoricizes.
Soon you are at town.
BILFARRDIN The TOWN