EIGHT GO MAD IN A CORSET

an OTT report, by Dreg

There we were, but not all at once: Lucifer cool - cat Sam; Snuurg the utter bastard; Sly fox Mett- aa; crazy bear Kaane; dirty dancing chimp Peegee, Rogerick the rhino; Bjork the warrior polar bear; and Dreg - baboon, me - all doing our own thang sort of thing when W00000000o0000000o000oooooooooooooooooioPing! We're all magikally transported to a rather special building at Quarnog in Corallane: special not in its architectural design, its building materials nor even its window-box display, but special in that it is one of the most frequented of places frequently frequented by the above mentioned - an inn.

The bar-room was full of the usual sort of crowd but one character caught the eyes of the group in particular; probably because the cloaked figure sitting in a dark corner was the only other person moving, the others frozen in time and space. Bit odd, thought those who were paying attention. The cloak of the shadey bloke in the corner did little to hide the fact that he was packing hardware. Lucifer Sam strolled up to him.

"Oy, Hoody," he said, "What's going on? Why are we here?"

The musclebound matey slid his hood back (oo- err) to reveal a familiar mohawked head (familiar at least to those who don't worship him, eh Kaane?).

"You are here", said the cloaked Karnos, "because you're all quite capable at what you do."

The seven animals looked confused, but Snuurg already knew he was very capable at what he does.

After a jar or two Karnos the wargod tells us our mission: "A number of Thessani Demon Lords have now been released; they come through dimensional gates; to stop the demons getting through, monoliths must be destroyed and these gates closed. A failsafe way to do this is to get the Cube of Uurthas from wherever it is and take it to a nexus of leylines and smash it up whilst chanting 'Umpa, umpa, stick it up ya jumpa', that should do the trick."

Typically he couldn't say where the Cube was, but he knew a badger that did: a seer by the name of Kay Ristoferson who was to be found in the Walled City in Corallane, which lies in the nook of the River Sangareth, a hundred miles north from the pub in which we were.

Bollicks. A hundred miles?

Lucifer Sam soon got a smashing idea and asked the War God if he could transport them there. Luckily he could and said yes. Sam asked, "Do we have to smash anyone in to get transported?", but Karnos said not unless they wanted to.

"Okay then," said Sam, "Let's do in Mett-aa."

But instead of that a hail of written messages were lobbed between the players for the next eight minutes. Then most of the party raided the bar for food, drink and treasure, while Snuurg had the lovely idea to hamstring all the inanimate patrons.

Eventually Karnos told us to get on with it - we did. Ping.

Now the chosen eight stood in the midst of a marshy land, with creepy crawly lizards, wibbly wobbly insects and things that could not be properly seen either flying, swimming, or crawling around us. Ahead was an eighty foot high wall surrounding the city we needed to get into: up to the wall we went, easily finding a door, but it was boarded shut: a green cross was painted on the boards - the Cross of the Green Plague, an ailment not wanted by any of the band - except perhaps me. So, for safer entry to the city's backstreets, a precaution against diseases; Lucifer Sam strummed his guitar and sang a spell:

" None of us want to die of a disease,

So protect us, Yippy please.

Don't wanna break out in spots, no sir,

So don't let us catch the nastiness in there.

Please."

Well, cover me in vaseline and roll me in donkey dirt, something worked: a sparkly aura surrounded the group and was then absorbed by all of us; now for a stealthy entrance to the city: Kaane tears the planks from the door and forces it from its hinges; inside, all was desolate.

Once within the city walls, we got a spooky feeling of being watched. I went to a nearby building and climbed in through a window; Kaane went to the same building and climbed up the outside before entering a few floors higher. Soon after getting in, we were both separately set upon by a large group of humans in white and green spammy uniforms. On their chests they bore green cross emblems like that on the gate, and they viciously weilded baseball bats, umbrellas and stale french loaves. Both of us were beaten senseless(?) and for a while will not appear in this story, but I'll carry on with what the other lot told me about afterwards.

After some secret silent sneaking by most of the rest of the party they eventually joined up again and decided to go into the building where they'd last seen Kaane and me go, and whom they'd seen neither hide nor hair of for quite some time - not since the last paragraph, in fact. Snuurg took the lead, the rest bundling along behind.

The wooden building was mostly unfurnished and bare; then they went into a room with signs of a recent scuffle, and in the middle of the floor were an umbrella and a loaf of bread. Lucifer Sam tried talking to them to wake them up, thinking they were Kaane and me; the rest of the group pointed at him, sniggered, and wondered whether his shades were still all there. Then Peegee found some tracks in the dust that led up some rickety stairs, so up they advanced: Snuurg first, then Lucifer Sam, Mett-aa, Peegee, Bjork, and at the back the very brave Rogerick: that may well be the last time he brings up the rear to keep safe - Whack. Thump. Klump. He got the brolly and bread Treatment.

Then there were five.

The order of advancement changed here a little as Peegee wisely pushed Mett-aa behind her so that she wouldn't get done over in the same manner. Lucifer Sam had had enough.

"This has gone far enough!" - See, told you so. He decided to stop searching. Then he decided to keep going until there was only one left. Then he decided to go outside. Then, ping, night-time, just like that. WAAAA! The group stumbled down the stairs into the darkness.

Twang! Pfangg! A frenzied thrashing of guitar strings and Lucifer Sam got the special green cross man treatment of brollies and bread.

Meanwhile Rogerick had just broken out of unconsciousness and found himself bound hand, foot, elbow and knee in a dirty room, lit by a yellow ball on a black and white striped pole and a small green man in a black box. Across the way he saw Kaane and I also tied up, and around the room stood guard several of the men of the Green Cross Code.

"Aaa-hahh", said one of them, "we caught you trying to pinch our Turtle Wax."

The other four were still floundering around at the bottom of the stairs. Mett-aa had the idea of sabotaging Peegee's blowpipe but couldn't find her in the dark. Snuurg had an idea to give them light and set fire to the stairs, after somehow making his hand and arm burst into flame. Mett-aa got on with his devious doings.

"Snort, snort" - Snuurg sniffed around to try to pick up Dreg's unique scent but couldn't single it out from the city's stench. Next he smashed down a wall. Why? Who knows what goes on in the mind of an artist? The remaining party went through the broken wall into a large room, an important-looking room: used towels hung about the walls and on a single shelf stood a red bottle with a yellow label stuck on it. Bjork and Snuurg went to the table to see what it was; on the label was depicted a turtle in a top hat, all in green.

Rogerick, meanwhile, tried to break free from his fetters using his horn - not surprisingly a guard standing watch noticed him doing so. Lucifer Sam, who had recently been brought into the room with the others and thrown down beside me, said, "Firstly, you're a right bunch of dozy cnuts for going off in there in the first place, and secondly, we're all gonna die soon anyways so like what's the point, baby?"

I didn't much like the idea of dying here so as a last and very desperate effort to escape I called to my small blue lizard, comfortably asleep in my tunic, asking it to come out and eat through the cords binding me. Much to my amazement he slowly started to masticate on my thong. (Sorry, couldn't resist that one.)

At that same moment in time Bjork took the red bottle from the shelf, just as two of the towels were thrown aside to reveal twenty or so Green Cross bread-and-brolly Code boys. SCRAP TIME! At this point Rogerick sensed he was missing a fight and got a bit pissed off.

The Green Cross Code Humans strode into the room: Mett-aa crawled under a table for cover; Bjork jumped onto a table to get a better vantage point. Crunch. 2 tons of polar bear went crashing through the wooden table, both smashing down on top of Mett-aa. ooops.

Peegee danced around, sword in hand; Snuurg, using a rather special- looking sword wasted a hume, turning him into a plume of greasy black smoke, while Peegee sliced another Green Cross Coder in two; Snuurg received many mighty blows - an umbrella was thrust into his throat, a baseball bat left a deep impression in his head and several large chunks were taken out of his body, but all of them then healed. Hmmm. Peegee got a slight wound from a french stick, and all this time Mett-aa squealed from beneath the table, until Bjork grabbed some of the broken wood to use as a weapon, thus letting the fox out.

Mett-aa wasted no time in getting out a blowpipe - Phut, phut....Aaaaagh! Snuurg torched a human and pushed him into another three, who likewise went up like... well, like humes on fire; Peegee used her martial arts to knock out a couple more and Bjork laid waste to a few human skulls; brains mixing with blood and running pink - lovely, f'kin lovely.

By now the guards had left the other four tied up and had joined their mates in mayhem. At last Rogerick broke free, my lizard chewed through the rest of the cord, and then I set free the cat and the bear whilst the rhino armed himself up and then gave Kaane a sword.

Suddenly the fighting in the other room stopped: "You give us back the Turtle Wax and you can have the seer, otherwise he gets it", shouted one of the 'Code'. The remaining ten GCC backed off and brought an aged badger out from behind a towel. Mett-aa told them that a deal could only be made out in the street; they agreed, and scattered.

Snuurg, Mett-aa, Bjork and Peegee went outside (where it was light once more) and joined up with the rest of us. A bit of arguing followed as Mett-aa wanted to keep the Wax but the rest said there was no point - no car. And so, ten Green Cross Coders stood at one end of the street with an old badger in their clutches. At the other end seven animals and a melt stood with a red bottle.

A clock struck twelve. Even though it wasn't. One of the humans brought forward the badger, Bjork the Turtle Wax. The swap was done. But as Bjork raced him back to the others, the badger's heart failed through the excitement. I did a singsong to revive him, though Kaane's cider didn't do his speech much good.

After quite a while and a lot of frustration, Lucifer Sam learned that the Cube they were all after was at Dunfloatin Castle. Lucy and the seer badger, had a long and painful conversation, from which we learned that we'd have to go to the Black Mountains, another hundred miles north - boating upriver being the quickest way - on a boat - with a carpet - a boat called Bill?

- by now the badger was getting very annoying due to his inebriated mutterings and as a result the coolest of cool cats lost his cool and ended up throttling the seer. Whoops.

After a bit of searching we found a large boat with 'Bill' painted on it. It was in a sad state of disrepair and so the wonderfully-carpeted deck stood out like a poor sum. A large hole in the side was fixed by Snuurg ramming in the dead badger; the water was bailed out, the anchor brought up, but it wouldn't move. I used the carpet to make a sail but still no movement; hand brake off - no good either: then Snuurg shouted "Up, up and away!" It worked; the carpet fluttered, then shot off into the sky, unfortunately leaving the boat and the crew behind.

Luckily a herd of riding lizards was soon spotted and we sped north on their backs. Wow, in twenty minutes we were there at the Black Mountains. Floating above them was a black castle, presumably the Castle Dunfloatin, unless this sort of thing was particularly common.

A path up the mountain led us to a very small mining village:

Eagle Rock

population 7

please drive carefully

Snuurg crossed off the 7.

We used our investigative intuition and went to the pub - the Purple Helmet! After a bit of questioning, then arguing, then threatening, the band of Wyrdworld Heroes took a hang-glider each and got onboard a large firework apiece, and zoomed up to Dunfloatin. The landings were a bit messy and a few castle guards got killed, but never mind, eh!

Lucifer Sam robbed a guard of his leather trousers, I got some mirrored shades, Kaane a sword. While we were still busy, somebody boomed,

"Freeze else you're cheese !"

But we paid little notice and continued looting; Mett-aa got himself a zippo lighter (or zip-poo as he calls it); then there was a second threat from the shadows, but again to no avail. Rogerick took some shades and a lighter and then followed the all-too-common bit of arguing for a few minutes.

"What do you want here, mortals?"

>We finally looked round to see a large human in red Chaos armour. Lucifer Sam replied, "Don't get all high and mighty!"

"I am high and mighty," it said from the battlements. He asked again what they wanted and Lucifer Sam told him they'd come for the Cube. He said okay and told them where to find it. And they did so.

Snuurg grabbed the Cube and strolled out of the room. The others got suspicious - Kaane ran and got the hang-gliders to stop Snuurg's escape: Snuurg just jumped off the castle, and Lucifer Sam followed. Ooops.

"Hand it over, come on, give us it!" he wailed. Unsurprisingly, Snuurg ignored him.

The others strapped on the gliders. The leather trousers made Lucy a makeshift parachute as he watched Snuurg smash through the ground. The plummeting cat sang another spell:

"oh blimey I don't wanna die,

'specially when I'm up so high.

When I land I hope it's nice and soft,

Hope I land in somebody's hayloft.

oh go on, please."

(Well,he was rushed)

Through the hole Snuurg had made went Lucifer Sam, landing on some dwarves in black bunny costumes, with guns. Still holding his leather trousers in the air, he shouted, "I surrender". Snuurg got on a riding lizard and was shot at by the dwarves, but rode off. Our brave cat followed him but was shot: in the leg, left knee and right knee. "I surrender, I SURRENDER ! ", he shouted.

Rogerick crashed through the hole on his glider and killed a few dwarves. He picked up a gun, smiled, and pulled the trigger. BOOOM. It jammed and blew up, taking his hand off.

"Thanks Rogerick", moaned Lucifer Sam.

"Up ya ass."

I flew down next, told the other two to get hold of my glider and called out, "Yip yipp, Fly fly, Very high." The glider flapped and carried us out of the hole like a demented bird. As we rose, we saw the dwarves rushing about, shouting at each other and trying to fix the hole in the world's surface, which from where we were looked strangely like polystyrene and chipboard...

Whoooff. There was a puff of black smoke and there stood Death.

"ARE YOU LOT THE ONES DOING THIS JOB ?"

"Hmm?" we said, not wanting to own up.

"WELL IN THAT CASE, CAN YOU HAVE THIS SNUURG THING BACK, HE KEEPS DOING THE BLOODY BOARDROOM IN"

Lucifer Sam said "Yep, but can you wrap him in very big chains?"

Death didn't agree, but disappeared. Then came a rumbling sound and we saw a large yellow JCB trundling into view, with Snuurg at the wheel. Eeek. We rushed into action: Mett-aa shot the back wheel with his blowpipe as I ran alongside the digger thing. Snuurg lost control of it and it rolled, just missing me, so I leapt up, grabbed the Cube thing from Snuurg and ran like Fulto's nose to the others. We mingled and passed around the Cube so that Snuurg could only guess who had it, and then we all scarpered.

Snuurg wondered who to shoot first: poor old Kaane, Budda budda. In the Leg; Budda budda budda, Rogerick got it in the guts. The rest of us had run out of range by now, so Snuurg decided to chase - me. Fuk. I saw a sign ' To leyline nexus ' - that was it, where the Cube needed to be broken; I called out to the others and Budda budda budda my right leg was shot from under me, and I fell to the ground. I rolled over onto my back to see Snuurg standing astride me.

Poop.

Lucifer Sam sang a spell again:

"Snuurg we've had enough, It's time to stop

all this killing is not a good job

so get really peaceful right now,

stop being a fuckin' wanka, Yow."

But Pting! went a string, the D string on his guitar broke, just missing his eye. Snuurg started to search me, having figured out my double-bluff - I still had the Cube! I decided that now would be a good time to get rid of it and said to my lizard, "Go on, take it and run." The lizard peeked out, looked up at Snuurg, then meeped and buried its head in the dirt.

Instead, I threw the Cube to Kaane who had by now crawled to the nexus: he placed the Cube on the floor as he held his sword in both hands, chanting the rhyme told us by Karnos.

Snuurg ran to him but Mett-aa threw his bolas and entangled his legs. Snuurg broke free and got to his feet just as Kaane brought down the sword. Smash. The Cube was broken.

Shortly afterwards a hooded man appeared, the familiar figure of the god who had hired them to do the deed they had just dood. "You did very well." The figure was Karnos - or was it? The human's form twisted and changed and became a big wobbly monster, as a huge black monolith burst from the ground.

" NOW WE ARE SEVEN! "

My notes get as wobbly as the demon does here, so I don't quite know what to write about the new demon other than.......

So, it seems we were all unknowingly hired by a Demon Lord to set free another.

And did Snuurg know about it all along? 'course he fukkin' did.