“What do mean what do you think you’re doing? What do you think you’re doing asking me what I think I’m doing when it’s quite obvious what I think I’m doing and what I think I’m doing is what I’m actually doing which is asking you what do you think you’re doing asking me what do I think I’m doing?” Pamela fiercely ejaculated.

The bulldoggish man that was Dorma’s replacement as commanding officer for the skyrate case blinked twenty times as Pamela panted after her long meandering cross-accusation. He had seemingly popped up out of thin air as soon as she entered the market square of the nearby town of BigHead, interrogating anyone and everyone about skyrate sightings.

I guess it’s not rightly called the skyrate case, considered Pamela, though it really ought to be. It’s just case 83A. Noise disturbance and suspected areal robbery of the who-cares degree. What a hassle.

“Now look ‘ere,” grumbled the man, who had yet to properly spend ten minutes introducing himself to Pamela before assuming control of her operation and talking down to her like only a tremendous bore could, “Aye’m not too ‘appy with yer comin-upperance, if yeh catch me pitchin’. We’s got to ‘ave us a little respect, we’re the Royal Guard after all!”

Pamela bristled like a porcupine. What the hen was the Royal Gaurd? Did he mean Royal Gourd? Pamela felt something had to be up. Royal Gaurd and Royal Gourd were so far removed from eachother phonetically, and what’s more, what the hen could Royal Gaurd even mean? It was practically nonsense.

“Avast! ‘Ave ye lost all yer faculties, woman? Staring off inteh nothing like some sort of blind eunuch? Yaarg!”

Yaarg? Pamela puzzled over her new superior’s strange guttural utterance. Perhaps it was just an odd tick? His accent was uncommon. He must’ve been a transfer, he sounded nothing like any Caldonian she’d ever met.

“So, um, how’s your depth perception?”

“AYE? Whatnow?”

Pamela nodded at the gruff man’s left eyepatch.

“Ahoy!”

Pamela squinted quizically with her two intact unpatched eyes.

“Ehrm, aha! That’s just me old AYE coverin’! Nothin’ to worry ‘bout!”

“Did you lose your eye dispatching some assailants, or something of that nature? Or, was it more of a bacterial infection?” Pamela questioned as she sketched an estimated naked form of the man in her notepad.

The officer was growing skittish and impatient. “Nay, nay, none of that ‘ol hard tack! It’s from me AYE doctor! Says me right AYEs gettin’ itself weaker ’n me left AYE so AYE got’s teh be wearin’ this ‘ere coverin’ over me left AYE so me right AYE kin catch itself up. Matey!”

Matey… Pamela mused as she scribbled some hairs on what she imagined was a rather malformed scrotum.

“And that’s about enough of yeh askin’ questions of me now! Yeh’ll be takin’ me orders, remember, AYE’m the one in command ‘ere, not yee, me hartey!”

“Okay,” Pamela agreed as she detailed a nipple, “what would you like me to do? All my evidence thus far has pointed to skyrates being involved in the air raid last night, so if you have any leads I should be focused on—”

“Skyrates? Shiver me thimbles! There ain’t no such thing as a Skyrate! Why if I’d of gotten me hands around the scallopwagon who’d filled yer head with such dogswoggle I’d make em walk the skank!”

Pamela muttured the man’s growls under her breath as her pen outlined his left leg, only to realize glancing down that where there ought to have been a calf and a foot there was instead a wooden peg. She jolted, nearly revealing her arttwerk, and blushed.

“What, em,” she cleared her throat, “What happened to your leg, sirrah?”

“Yaarg! A nasty ol’ sky bull shark, back in me younger days.”

Pamela’s eye grew wide as she estimated the overhang of the man’s gut. “A sky bull shark?”

“Aye, matey! Nasty lil buggers! The rats of the sixty skies, we call ‘em!”

“We? I’ve never called them that. In fact I’ve never encountered one. I’ve been mostly landlocked myself. Only ridden a skytrain, and it crashed at that. In fact I think that’s quite common with most of the members of the Royal Gourd. Not the skytrain chrash, I mean, but the mostly being landlocked,” Pamela replied as she twerked on shaping up what she assumed were rather unshapely glutes.

“Yaarg! Well, eh, there’s a reason ye’re me suboordinate, ain’t there, you ol’ lanlumbar?”

“Yes of course. I’m a little younger, for certain. Say, might they have assigned you to case 83A because of your extensive sky experience? It was a skytrain robbery. Pretty uncommon in Caldonia. Are you from another country?”

“Aye, matey, aye!”

“Well, in all your experience, what do you think? If there truly is no such thing as a skyrate then who robbed the skytrain?”

“Yaarg! Who indeed, who indeed,” mumbled the man, his unpatched eye darting around as his forehead perspired, “well we’ll find them swervy frogs and we’ll send ‘em teh Danny Dervishes’ Timeshare!”

“Sorry, I’m not as well traveled as you. What does that mean exactly, Danny Dervishes’ Timeshare?”

“Yaarg! We’ll kill em teh bits!”

“I appreciate the spirit, but we both know it’ll have to go through the Court of the Royal Gourd before any disciplinary action is taken.”

“AYE. Of course,” croaked the man anxiously, befrore centering his singular eye on a building in the distance. “Thar she blows! AYE think AYE know where we might go a lookin’ for our booty.”

“Our booty, sirrah?”

“AYE. Our, eh, our suspects. Booty, it’s, eh, it’s eh figger of speech from out eh the country, yeh see.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Pamela followed closely behind her new commanding officer as they approached the local chapter of the witches’ guild, making a great effort to match his awkward, peg leggedly limping pace.

When they reached the front door the man hammered his fist three times with a gurgling growl.

“Yaarg! Let us in or we’ll blow ye teh bits! I’m warning yeh!”

Pamela blinked.

“Um, sirrah, that’s far from a regulation greeting, as I’m sure you know. They always taught me to do it like this.”

Pamela stepped up to the door herself and rapped her fist on it three times. Then, she cleared her throat.

“Excrete me. This is the Royal Gourd. If you do not open up, we will be forced to use excessive violence to enter your establishment and may end up maiming someone. Consider yourselves aptly warned.”

The man winked at Pamela. Or blinked. She wished he’d spent the customary ten minutes introducing himself. It was unbecoming not to know the name of your commanding officer.

After a couple moments passed and not a sound was heard from the door of the witches’ guild, the man and Pamela nodded and eachother and prepared to break the door down with their elbows.

No sooner did they wrench back in preparation than did an ethereal skeleton holding a large cauldron apparate from a window somewhere on the second floor of the building and dump the cauldron’s contents all over them.

SPPPLUSHHHH

Pamela looked at her commanding officer. They were both dripping with ectoplasmic goo, smelling dank and skunky. They sighed. A small section of the door slid open to reveal two elderly witch eyeballs.

“Eee-hee-hee-hee! Sorry about that, just our automated security system. Surely you two understand. One moment dearies I’ll let you in.”

CLICK CLACK CLANG CRACKKK

“Ooooh dearies! Seems I’ve thrown out my back! I can’t rightly move!”

“Yaarg! Cock hamn ye, wench!”

Pamela pushed the main aside. “Sorry about that. He’s from out of town. Take your time.”

After a couple of groans and gasps the old witch cast a couple spells, fixed her back and unlocked the thirty latches on the inside of the witches’ guild door.

“Welcome to the witches guild! As members of the Royal Gourd you are welcome to a complementary tour of the guild from me, if you’d like it.”

Pamela agreed this was best, and introduced her in the partially polite one minute rushed acquaintancing ritual. The witch was named Javelda. They both turned to Pamela’s commanding officer, expecting an introduction.

“Oh. Green Garey am AYE.”

Green Garey?

“Did I say he’s from out of town? I meant out of the country,” Pamela added.

Javelda and Pamela blinked at him a couple times before realizing he was hopelessly rude and would therefore never complete even a rushed minute of the acquaintancing ritual.

“Eee-hee-hee-hee! Green Gary. I haven’t met many folks with colors for names this side of Caldonia. Well come in dearies come on in let’s show you around hownowsabout?”