So it was that Sir Broderick, Krumbumbum, Biscuit Pisser, Pamela, Green Garey, and indeed even poor Frinkles chased after the malicious donkey-stealing Squerson. They ran, single file, into that cruel underground cavern, disappearing into the shadows in mere moments.

Shortly afterwards, two familiar members of the Church of Present Day Saints of Duck, Duck, and Goose walked by the scene, jabbering to one another about the difficulties of docking two halves of the same sky dinghy at an air port.

“I’m just saying, Uncle Jarvish, that I ought to have docked first!”

“Why, Uncle Gilbert, why? You were moving at about half my speed! And what’s ducking more, my bladder was quite full.”

“Don’t quack to me about bladders. You may be an Uncle in the Church, Uncle Jarvish, but I am still quite older than you. Remember that, before you quack on about whatever strain your bladder may have or could have had, and consider the fact that my bladder is in itself constantly strained to a much ducking higher degree. Plus, I would’ve quacking paddled faster if you hadn’t been in front of me.”

“Now, Uncle Gilbert, that’s just ducking ridiculous. If anything, I was helping you paddle faster by being in front of you! I was breaking all the wind before us, leaving a nice air pocket for you to paddle through. Had I been behind or beside you, you would’ve had to expend even more effort!”

“Oh quack yes, you were breaking wind, all right, Uncle Jarvish. Believe you me.”

They suddenly stopped walking, making intense, emotional eye contact.

“Uncle Gilbert,” Jarvish said with a deep breath.

“Uncle Jarvish,” Gilbert responded with a quivering nod.

They suddenly embraced, clinging to one another like a newborn to a tit, although which was the tit and which was the newborn in this situation remains to be seen.

“Wherefore! How that a man can embrace a man in such a way, one them much older than the other, both of them the member of some religious sect! What does this mean for society? What does it mean, for our piety? Are piety and society entwined, and if they are, do we want them to be? And who is the man that asks this? And why might a man, unknown or otherwise, be asking such a thing that is indeed being questioned?” garbled an elderly voice.

“What the duck?” both the Uncles said in unison, releasing one another from their arms in a fit of reluctant self-consciousness.

Then, they looked onwward, to the other side of the street. It was sunny, and sat on a gilded stoop in the corner was a chunky old man in a toga.

“An expletive!” the man retorted, projecting his voice like he’d had a spell cast on it, his icy blue eyes glowering, “Directing questions with expletives can oft serve to emphasize, it is true. But, at the same time, does not overuse of said expletives weaken or water down what speech is already there? Could not everything you have said, possibly ever in your life, be better served if you did not say the words that you say at the times you say them? And what is a word, indeed, but an utterance? And what is an utterance, indeed, but an expletive?”

“What the duck is this guy on about?” Jarvish whispered to Gilbert.

“I don’t quacking know, but what I really don’t ducking understand is why all those rich people walking by him keep handing him money,” Gilbert whispered back, “He’s got to have at least fifty chickensfeed lining his pockets right now! It’s ridiculous! It’s like, with every absurd thing he says, they just hand him more money, no matter how ridiculous it is or whether it makes any sense or not!”

“Friends! Caldonians!” ejaculated the fat, preachy stoop-sitter. “Count tree-man!”

A rich man wearing fangs and a cape fell out of a nearby tree, landing on a pile of discarded fantasy designer clothing, “Aah, aah, aah, aah, aah, Ia appaear tao havae braoken may spaine ian THRAEE plaaces. THRAEE. Ia’m paralyzaed naow!”

The postulatory shrugged, stroked his ample, gray beard, and continued his speech, “Lend me thine ears! Please! I’m not exactly certain why, but I’ve a distinct feeling I’ll be in need of a large amount of severed ears sometime soon, and I’d quite like it if you could contribute to the cause!”

Nobody responded to this, though a couple more rich people passing by threw him money and jewelry.

“Quack’s sake,” Jarvish said to Gilbert, “I wish we could get people to give us donations that easy.”

“Don’t I ducking know it,” Gilbert nodded. He then turned, directed his vision towards the stranger, and projected forward, “You there! Might a couple of humble Quackers ask a question?”

“Why,” the man waved them forward, “I would like none better, for it is my own charge to ask questions and answer them with other questions, and were I to disallow someone else from doing the same, I’d violate every fiber of my being! Come, come, join me here on this humble street corner, paved only in foul riches, so that we might discuss whatever it is we will!”

The Quackers jaywalked across the street, prompting a couple of soft, dismissive ‘Ia saays’ to emanate from passing carriages, meeting the rotund orator with graceful half-bows.

“Hello,” Jarvish started, pulling his copy of the Book of Quackery from his robes, “My name is Uncle Jarvish, and I would like to share with you—”

“Oh, put that shit away, you hamned idiot,” Gilbert interjected, slamming Jarvish’s book shut and pushing him to the side. He then addressed the blubbery old lecturer with another bow, “Dreadfully sorry about him, my hood sirrah. I am Uncle Gilbert, this is Uncle Jarvish.”

“And I,” the man took a deep breath, swelled with pomposity, and continued his own statement only after a hearty exhalation, “Am Croutonius The Great.”

“The Great what?” Jarvish asked, after which Gilbert smacked him in the side of the head.

“What is a what if it is not but a thought, a thought that we think when we think that we’ve thunk?” responded Croutonius with a slow, self-aggrandizing nod.

Jarvish turned to Gilbert and whispered, “What the duck is he—”

“He’s saying he’s a philosopher,” Gilbert responded, rolling his eyes.

“Indeed, you seem, hood sirrah, to have put inside my esophagus those articles of speech which align indeed with what I hath spoken forth not literally but figuratively, and it only figures that you would figure as such in the quest to figure out what it is I am a figure of, which is of course quest we must all undertake at one moment or another for one reason or another, is it not?”

Neither of the Quackers had at that moment any idea what Croutonius had just said to them, but they did watch in awe as four more clusters of rich people walked by and handed Croutonius money, jewelry, and even a deed to a small mountain cabin.

“Now, erm, Croutonius,” Gilbert started, “I’ve a bit of a question—er, quackstion, if you will.”

“Bah, a question indeed! What is a question, but something that someone asks someone else? And, if one is to ask someone something, will that someone who is having something asked of them answer in a satisfactory manner? What is a satisfactory answer, indeed? And what is an answer at all? Is an answer a response to a question? Can an answer be a question? Can a question be an answer? Can you have an answer if you do not have a question? Can you have a question without an answer? Can you have an answer without a question? Which came first, the question, or the answer?”

“Yes, yes, that’s all very quacking well,” Gilbert nodded, pretending to comprehend.

“Profound, really,” Jarvish added.

“Shut up, you,” Gilbert spat at his companion. He looked back to Croutonius and started, “Now then, our quackstion is…well…how exactly do you convince all these rich people to keep giving you money? Why, we’ve been all over Caldonia, trying to either convert people or sell them Quacker-inspired foods, and yet nobody seems to want anything to do with us! We offer our Hood Book for free, and nobody wants to touch it! Yet, you, Croutonius, who apparently offer absolutely nothing to anybody, are constantly battered with gifts from the egregiously affluent! I must ask…how the duck do you do it?”

Croutonius raised an eyebrow and started, “How does one do anything? And what is it, to do something? Does one who does something do anything? Does one who does anything do something? Does one who does something to someone who does anything do anything to someone in order to do something to someone that can do anything to anyone?”

Five rich nobles walked by, each handing Croutonius a progressively larger diamond.

Gilbert looked to Jarvish and sighed, “Duck’s sake. Guess this was an exercise in futility.”

“Just like this whole quacking Caldonian sojourn,” Jarvish added, “We ought to have made our mission trip to Orwellia or something. Somewhere even more ducking miserable than here, where word of cock might not have as aptly penetrated.”

“I’m afraid I must agree with you, Uncle Jarvish,” Gilbert nodded solemnly, pulling a small, green gemstone out of his side pocket, “Well, let’s teleport out of this awful place, then.”

“Quack yes, let’s.”

Gilbert tickled his small, green gemstone. A large, sparkling circle appeared behind the Quackers. They nodded, preparing to step into it.

“Hownow!” Croutonius ejaculated, lurching forward, barreling his belly betwixt the two Quackers and snatching the small, green gemstone out of Gilbert’s hand. “What is it that mine eyes behold, if eyes indeed are so capable of beholding? What strange, bizarre power is that of this gem?”

“Croutonius! You give that the quack back right now!” Gilbert barked. He reached frantically for the gemstone, but Croutonius held it distinctly out of his reach. “Croutonius, I’m ducking serious! Give that back! You quack not of the power that it holds!”

“What is giving something back, if something is taken?” Croutonius rasped as he tickled the gemstone with giddy glee. The large, sparkling circle behind the Quackers grew larger, and began to twirl and swirl. “Can something be taken from someone? What is to take, and what is to give, and is what is taken given to he whom takes it?”

“I ducking hate this guy!” Jarvish wailed, raising his fists, “Let me the quack at him!”

But it was too late.

VVVRRRRRRRRR

“Motherducker,” Gilbert and Jarvish spat in unison.

SHUUMMMUMMMUMMUMMMMMMMMM

The large, sparkling circle sucked all three of them into its spectral grasp, sending them tumbling through a hazy layer of spacetime near impossible to comprehend.

“Nice job, Croutonius, you absolute quacking menace,” hissed Jarvish as he backflipped through eternity.

“I’m afraid I must agree with Uncle Jarvish,” Gilbert huffed, “Croutonius, you’ve rightly ducked us over, you have. We’re going back in time now, you absolute…you quacking…you dork, you!”

“How would one know in which direction in time one was traveling, if one indeed was traveling through time?” Croutonius asked smugly.

“Because it’s my quacking traveling device, you ducking scoundrel!”

“What is mine, and what is yours, what is ownership at all? Should society as a whole recognize ownership, and, if so, whose ownership, and of what?”

“Ohh my quack I ducking hate this guy!” Jarvish warbled.

“What is it, to be a guy, and what more is it to be hated?” Croutonius crooned, raising the gemstone above his head and tickling it once more.

MMUUUMUMUMMUMMMMMMM

SHHHHHHHHHHH

VVVVVVVVVRRRRP PPT

Gilbert, Jarvish, and Croutonius were suddenly spat out of the spacetime portal, all landing facefirst beside one another in the middle of a muddy street.

“Ohhh for duck’s sake, the pain,” groaned Gilbert.

Jarvish clambered to his feet, and then helped Gilbert up. As they grumbled to one another in typical Quacker fashion, Croutonius continued lying face first in the dirt, laughing.

“Get up!” Gilbert blurted, “Get up, you miserable oaf, you ducking thief! Get the quack up and face us like a man!”

But Croutonius did not respond, except for continuing to laugh.

“Uncle Gilbert, maybe we can get the gemstone from him while he’s down!”

“Good ducking idea, Uncle Jarvish!”

And so the Quackers rushed to pry Croutonius’ sweaty palms open, but when they did, they were aghast.

“Wha—were the duck is it?” Jarvish’s teeth chattered in fear.

“Where is anything, if it is anywhere?” Croutonius cackled again, and then he hacked, “Just—ack—kidding. I ate it.”

“He WHAT?!” Gilbert’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “Why, you wretched thing! How quacking could you!”

And with that, as if by divine direction, Gilbert and Jarvish began to kick the absolute shit out of Croutonius. He did not stop laughing.

While the general passersby of whatever street they were on did not seem to care whether or not Gilbert and Jarvish continued to wail upon the gemstone thief, it was not long before two armor-clad authority figures were looming behind them.

“H-hey. Y-you can’t go around kicking street urchins like that!” jabbered a voice nervously.

“Ducking says who?” Jarvish spat, kicking Croutonius even harder.

“Says the Royal Gourd, that’s who,” growled a deeply terrifying voice.

All that time and space travel, and they were still somewhere in Caldonia.

Jarvish and Gilbert immediately stopped kicking Croutonius, swiveling around and shuddering in shock. There stood two members of the Royal Gourd, one a man who looked thin and weak, and one a woman who looked to be a sentient tank of muscle.

“Hey, wait a second. Didn’t you die?” Jarvish suddenly said, looking quizzically at the humongous, barbarian of a lady. “And didn’t you only have one eye?”

“What in the cluck are you talking about?” hurled the woman, “Are you on drugs or something? You know that’s illegal, right?”

“Uncle Jarvish, you quacking fool! We’ve obviously been sent back in time, and ended up in—” Gilbert sniffed the air, “—middle-poor Caldonia, by the reek of it. And, judging by the amount of quacking times Croutonius tickled that ducking gemstone of mine, we got sent about…I’d say…two volumes into the past. That is, one volume into the past before the present volume we’d just been in. As in, we get sent into some sort of a ducking time-travel prequel volume.”

“Uncle Gilbert, what the duck do you mean? What’s a volume?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Uncle Jarvish, it’s quacking nothing. Really, we just got sent a little bit back in time is all.”

“You two are definitely on drugs,” the lady chuckled, “Beating a street urchin and doing drugs. A bit out of character for a couple of Quackers, but nothing I can’t incarcerate you for. Go on, Werthers, cuff them up!”

Werthers shuddered, nervously chaining the Quackers together, “Wh-what about the street urchin? Should we get him a healer, D-Dorma?”

“No!” Dorma boomed, “Laying in the mud getting beaten by Quackers is also a jailable offense! Arrest him, as well!”

“Th-that doesn’t seem very morally aligned, D-D—”

“Werthers Wermswurth, if you do not cuff that illegal street urchin right this minute, I’ll remind you why they call me Dorma the Emasculator! Now hop to it!”

And so it was that, ever hesitantly, Werthers hopped to it.

And so it also was that the Quackers, and Croutonius, were arrested, and thrown into the choakie.

As so it finally was that the present volume ended, and the next volume opened up and began itself.