"Oh, my sweet baboo, you're alive. Where's Patty and my brother?"

"Don't know. They said they were going after Red. Schroeder, you have to keep playing, you have to keep the gate open."

"It's sucking out his soul with each note, sir."

"Franklin make it back?"

"Yeah. Pig Pen?"

"No. Sorry. Him and Five both didn't make it."

"Charlotte, Harold, and Andy?"

"Got separated. Don't know. It all went to Hell halfway in."

"I'm not sure how much longer Schroeder can keep playing, sir."

"Come on, Chuck, come on. I believe in you, Chuck." - Fall of the Pumpkin Throne, Act III, Scene VII

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Wow, look at this. A podling dancing mat. Such a simple concept: play a note depending on where the podling steps.

My people are ordering millions of them as we speak.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BOBCO PERSONAL DEFENSE INDUSTRIES PRESENTS: THE LITTLE FIRECRACKER PISTOL AND RIFLE SET!

For the special space cowboy in your life! The BobCo Little Firecracker set has a pistol and rifle that shoots real soft light holographic plasma packets. Accurate up to ten pace, the pistol comes with a spinnable chamber, polished front sight, genuine plastic artificial ivory inlaid grip, and trigger! Everything the pistol needs to fire the BobCo SimuFire Rounds!

Dressed in the BobCo Space Cowboy Sarape with the two included cartridge belts, your little podling or squirmling can now ride the ranges and help P'Thok protect the moomoos and milk maids across the galactic spur!

LANAKTALLAN GREAT THOUGHT GESTALT OF GREATNESS

Why?

Why would you give children simulated firearms that look like they might actually be able to hurt other people?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

You've met a human, right?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

LANAKTALLAN JAM RECIPE FORUMS GET YOUR OWN GALNET LOSERS

Still, those could hurt someone.

Look, right there, the child shot his friends with the pistol and knocked them down.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

And the other kids are all laughing and getting up.

Those are soft-light simulated plasma packets. Probably half the temperature of boiling water, probably hits about as hard a soft down pillow.

Those kids are perfectly safe.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Yeah, those children are perfectly safe. Those are Terran children.

What's going to happen if one of my gripplings shoot another one. Half the temperature of boiling water is still pretty hot, may even leave scalding burns or damage fur. And who's swinging the soft down pillow?

I worry about...

CRUSADE

CEASE YOUR NANNY PRATTLE CODDLING WEAKNESS AND FRAGILITY!

THE AFOREPLAYING PERFORMANCE IS RESUMING AND IS ALREADY IN PROGRESS!

SILENCE! I WISH TO WITNESS P'THOK'S ADVENTURE WITHOUT YOUR CEASELESS PRATTLING!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN>snickers

Mal'Kawp had been one of the first warriors hatched after the P'Thok Liberation had begun. One of the first warriors hatched on the hatching world that had been wrested from the mighty Terrans through Treana'ad strength and cleverness. He had served his five years in the military, then joined Planetary Law Enforcement, even getting training on Terra at the Terran Law Enforcement and Investigation Academy. He had graduated in the top one hundred of the thousand being class.

He had been partnered with the legendary P'Thok, who had retired into the life of a private investigator, in hopes he could help solve the horrendous crimes of ritual moo moo murders.

Now, he was standing in the wind-swept spaces of a replica moo moo tender village. The sun had set and the stars were beginning to twinkle in the spaces between the heavy storm clouds.

It should have been perfectly normal.

Instead, it had, to use P'Thok's favorite phrase, all gone sideways.

The gray carapaced warrior, J'Rad AKA J'Reth AKA J'Rath, stood on top of a small rustic building where ancient Terrans had forged metal with muscle, coal, and fire. As Mal'Kawp's ichor was flushed with combat chemicals from his endocrine system, J'Rad held out his hands. The book, disgustingly bound in Terran moo moo milker maid skin, lifted up from his hand, surrounded by purple energy, the pages turning of their own accord. From the other hand the crystal orbs lifted, going from clear to red, purple, green, and ichor yellow, the color of blood.

"I CALL UPON THE POWERS BEQUEATHED TO ME BY S'RAH R'NKL'AWTH!" J'Rad's voice was an echoing, terrible thing of distorted clicks and pops. From his free hand flowed dark purple, almost black energy, surrounded by a dark crimson nimbus, moving like corrupted water vapor mist toward the gourd patch and the turkey pens.

Mal'Kawp grabbed the pistol grip and the forward grip of the weapon he had taken from P'Thok's trunk.

A Terran Republican Guard magnetic slivergun. The weapon had a full inch wide barrel with rings on the end to pull apart the tightly packed slivers of warsteel alloy that had the tips coated in ferrous iron. The mag-rails would whip the 'slug' of packed slivers toward the end, the rings would break the magnetic bonds of the slug, and twenty barbed slivers would go screaming toward the target.

It had a hundred round magazine and could be fired on full auto fast enough to drain the magazine in just under fifteen seconds.

The smartgun sight connected with the Treana'ad and Mal'Kawp pulled the trigger.

The recoil surprised him. He'd seen video of Terran females firing weapons just like this with one hand at liquid metal killer robots. It rocked him back and he planted his foot pads.

P'Thok took off at a run, sprinting for the cover of a bunch of barrels full of water before Mal'Kawp had even processed the situation. The lever action cocked in his hands as he ran and he didn't need to glance down, his old Treana'ad Army smartlink letting him know he was packing guided gyrojet rounds.

P'Thok fired, twirled the rifle, fired again, then slid to a stop behind the barrels.

Both shots whizzed by the gray Treana'ad, hitting tendrils of black and purple energy and exploding.

Although P'Thok had never encountered Hellspace personally, he knew of the dangers. He'd taken part in a boarding action as a young warrior, boarding a transport that had bumped from jumpspace to Hellspace. His squad had set the charges and he'd never forgotten the way the inside of the transport had looked and how there was always something just beyond his senses.

Mal'Kawp saw the energy flow out, surrounding the gourds and making them glow. More than a few of them began pulsating. The other tendrils reached out, wrapping around the turkeys, which began making alarmed noises.

P'Thok fired from behind the barrels, ducking down after his shots.

J'Rad snarled, leaping from the roof of the blacksmith foundry, somersaulting in midair.

Mal'Kawp was amazed at how P'Thok popped up, seemed to be able to figure out where J'Rad was going to land, and threw a grenade into the building. The grenade went off at the top of J'Rad's arc, the building immediately catching on fire. J'Rad screeched in rage, landing on the corrugated tin roof of the burning building.

"YOU PATHETIC FOOLS!" the gray carapaced Treana'ad yelled. He waved his hand, the pages turned on the book, and he pointed at the concession stand.

P'Thok sprinted from behind the barrels.

Mal'Kawp ran for the hay bales.

The gourds suddenly flashed and when they reappeared they had all been carved with malevolent aspects. The thick stem at the top suddenly sprouted dozens of thin vines, which the gourds used to lift themselves up and begin moving forward. Candles inside of them lit up, illuminating the twisted and terrible smiles of the gourds.

"DON'T GET HOT AND FLUSTERED!" the gray Treana'ad yelled, weirdly spacing the words, starting to hop from foot to foot while standing on the rapidly heating metal of the roof.

The concession stand ripped apart and P'Thok rolled, tucking in his arms and legs, doing the clumsy looking Treana'ad combat roll to get behind a house. Boiled and heated sausages whipped by, the speed of their passage making them whistle through the air.

Pink confection spiralled out, heading for Mal'Kawp, who had switched targets, shooting at the oncoming gourds. White containers lifted up from the wreckage.

"USE A LITTLE MUS-TARD!" the gray Treana'ad crowed.

The containers exploded and yellowish liquid, the color of blood, flew through the air.

P'Thok jumped over the fence, getting low, and the liquid hit the stone of the fence, hissing and popping.

One of the turkeys appeared, made giant, bigger than even the biggest warrior, bigger than even a matron. It gobbled at Mal'Kawp, who fluttered his wings to get more air, and raised the shardgun up to his shoulder, bracing his feet.

The shot took the turkey in the chest. Feathers, meat, and red high-oxy iron based blood showered out. The turkey gave an odd expression and collapsed, a long tongue falling from its mouth. Three more burst from the shrubbery and Mal'Kawp kept cocking and firing the weapon, even as he took off running when even more shoved through the brush, their eerie cries full of rage.

TNVARU>They showed children this?

CRUSADE>Purge the corrupted! YES! YES! PURGE THEM! LOOK, CHILDREN, AS THE WAGES OF SIN AND CORRUPTION ARE PAID! YES! YES!

AKLTAK>I guess so.

TELKAN>snickers

The gray Treana'ad looked smug as nearly two dozen glowing malevolent gourds charged P'Thok. He turned to Mal'Kawp, who was running, fluttering his vestigal wings to take deep breaths..

"OH, LOVELY WINGS, SO EASILY DETACHED!" J'Rad crowed, waving his hand even as the pages turned. "Let's see how you like this!"

Purple energy flowed from J'Rad's hands, wrapping around the tree. With a roar the tree suddenly opened eyes and a mouth full of jagged wooden fangs. It ripped its roots from the ground and began to stumble after Mal'Kawp.

J'Rad, dancing on the hot tin roof, realized that the heat was starting to get intolerable. He leaped through the air, somersaulting, fluttering his own wings to get distance, and landed on another roof. He looked at the book and he felt satisfaction flood through his ichor.

"YOU CANNOT PREVAIL!" J'Rad boasted, he raised his bladearms to the sky as lighting snarled in the clouds. "In vino veritas."

The words shook the earth and P'Thok looked around.

"Mulgere hircum!"

P'Thok fired off a gyrojet round from the rifle, only to see it explode meters from the mad Treana'ad.

"Me vexat pede!"

Two more turkeys went down and Mal'Kawp sprinted across the field, the corn stalks over his head, flailing through the maze as the turkeys and the malevolent gourds chased him.

"Ex nihilo nihil fit!" the Mad Treana'ad's voice echoed through the night.

P'Thok saw the gourds were nearly on top of him.

He threw back his serape and drew from where it had lay hidden beneath the sarape.

"Nemo saltat sobrius!"

Two pulls on the starter chain and the chainswords roar mingled with the bellowing sing-song voice of the Mad Treana'ad.

J'Rad snarled with rage as the legendary hero began hacking to either side of him with the roaring Terran cutting bar mark-one. The rattling chain shredded gourd pulp, ripped the terrible living plants apart, and sprayed orange gore everywhere.

Mal'Kawp exited the cornfield and sprinted for the corn maze, grabbing two reddish cans as he ran by the tractors. He ducked under the swipe of the stuffed Terran with the gourd head and the floppy hat wielding curved blades.

"Nitimur in vetitum!" J'Rad yelled.

Mal'Kawp punctured the cans with his bladearms as he ran into the maze, running franctically even as the stuffed Terrans, the gourds, and the last two turkeys chased him.

P'Thok smashed aside the last two gourds and turned to face the mad Treana'ad. He grounded the tip, letting the motor idle and the chain rattle to a stop. He folded his bladearms atop the Republican Guard Cutting Bar Mark One and reached into his pockets.

"Barba non facit philosophum!"

Lightning raked the ground.

P'Thok slowly pulled out a pack of cigarettes and the lighter the Terran Admiral had given him.

Long fingers of bluish lightning raked the ground between J'Rad and P'Thok.

J'Rad danced and capered with glee, rubbing his vestigal wings together, rubbing the edges of his bladearms together, producing an eerie keening sound and showering sparks.

P'Thok lit a cigarette, tilting his head so his eyes were invisible under the brim of his moo moo tender hat.

"Amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus!" J'Rad yelled and threw his arms and bladearms out wide, his face raised to the sky.

With a roar reality tore apart between P'Thok and J'Rad.

A massive deformed thing, a huge globe covered in cancers, blisters, and boils, heaved itself into view. Vines as thick as horses, pulsating with thick and vile life, slithered out of the rent in reality, drove deep into the soil, and dragged the thing forward.

Reddish light began to emanate from the thing.

The clouds shuddered and made terrible sounds as they vomited up a half dozen creatures that fell from the sky to land in front of the tear in reality. They slowly stood up, revealing the creatures that P'Thok and Mal'Kawp had fled from in the unfinished arcology.

Mal'Kawp rushed through the maze, waving the punctured cans around.

P'Thok lifted his head, the cigarette in his mouth lighting his cheeks. He removed the cigarette and exhaled smoke. He replaced the smoke and wrapped his hands around the hilt of the chainsword.

J'Rad laughed wildly from where he was dancing on the hot tin roof, his bladearms rubbing together, showering sparks and making an eerie wail.

One of the gourd guardians sprinted at P'Thok, reaching out with clawed hands.

WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER THESE IMPORTANT MESSAGES!

CRUSADE>NOOOOOOOOO!