Yes, the Patron. Where he comes from, no one knows - his comings and goings are a mystery. His true motives are likewise unknown to all. Some speak in hushed whispers that he and Edgar Sparingly are cousins. Some say that he is a high official within the hierarchy of the Church or the C.O.W., secretly working on some agenda of his own. Some have suggested that he is actually the commander of the Brotherhood Army. In truth, however, nobody knows and anyone who says they do is really just blowing smoke out their ass. Only one thing is known for certain about the Patron - that across HoL he appears without warning, seeing bold adventurerers to undertake dangerous (and usually implausible) assignments in exchange for monetary compensation which is usually, but not always, cold, hard, slick, highly desirable, don't-turn-into-little-toothy-horrors-that-gnaw-through-your-pocket-and-bite-your-wanker-off, IMPERIAL CREDITS!
Without a word to any in the party, the Patron catches the eye of each in turn and nods towards a heretofore unnoticed shadowy back corner booth. Such is the power of his presence that before they can even think to stop themselves, the illustrious party members find themselves more or less wedged between the plastic bench and the plascrete table1, each staring at a heaping order of their favorite weenies and drink ["My deepest secrets revealed! How is it that the Patron knows so much about me?" each wonders].
For a moment all is silent, save for the quiet beeping of the fryalators, the *PING* of the microwave ovens, and the groans of the wounded still buried under plascrete rubble (or just suffering through another bad batch of kielbasa). Then the Patron leans forward and speaks, his melodious and perfectly trained voice sending shivers down everyone's spine.
"I hab need..." he says, "of adwenturers. I am told that YOU awe gentlemen of gweat awility. I can pay well, but the job is most dangewous."
He pauses for a moment to take a bite out of a corndog, then reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out an Imperial Credit, and lays it on the table.
"Thewe awe many mowe whewe this came from IF," and here he waggles a finger at the party, "you wive to cowwect them. Thewe is one fow each of you just fow listening to my pwoposal. Awe you intewested?"
In less time than it takes to say "Why, you little sunuvafriggingfleshtender," Led snags the coveted Credit. "Yeah, sure, I'll take this and all its littermates," crows the unsavoury urchin. "Are you sure I need to split with the other losers?"
He eyeballs them one by one, while making the Credit disappear, leaving Brother Aristotle sweating and trembling with unanswered questions regarding the final concealment of the currency.
Trying to look as adventurous as he can, which is limited by the tube
down his nose, Mphmmum nods in agreement and extends his meaty, slab-like
had to receive his credit.
After a moment of silence about as heavy as a blue whale driving a Buick, Led exchanges a meaningful glance with Mphmmum. Clearly, the rest of the bozos are either still processing The Patron's information, or, more likely, processing it using a 8088 chip2 powered by a small one-legged hamster with leukemia. In order to help start a meaningful debate and validating dialogue, he turns to the closest, who happens to be The King, and lands him a good solid kick in the salted nuts.
"Hey! Listen up, you primitive screwheads!3" he yells. "The Patron is talking to you! You waiting for more crickets to land?"
At the word "crickets", a few survivors still brushing up debris freeze in their tracks and glance around with panicked looks.
The Mighty Led does a Manga-style spinning leap-kick and winds up planting a tiny foot with unerring accuracy directly on the royal jewels before The King can so much as think about moving. Fortunately for Elvis, Led is using only one of his tiny feet, rather than the pointy portions of the Harbinger of the Void, so the attack is pretty much deflected by the sequins and rhinestones protecting his crotch.
UN-fortunately for Elvis, his attempt to get out of the way results in gooey chaos. Led's normally ineffective blow strikes just as the King of Rock n'Roll is reaching into his ever-present bag of jelly donuts for a handful, momentarily knocking the wind out of him and scattering jelly donuts all over the immediate vicinity. Two plaster themselves onto Captain Wacky's face mask, forming a humorous pair of donut glasses. Another lands on Brother Aristotle Studbasket (who has been so busy staring at Led that he hasn't yet notice that Timmy is being swept up for processing in the bowels of Bucket-o'-Weenies) in a manner that reminds onlookers very much of the results of a successful ring-toss at a carnival. Snuggly snatches a couple out of the air as they wing by, but strangely nobody but Led seems to notice. Revenant's evil hand snatches one and with unerring ferocity jams it directly up his nose. Finally, one strikes dead center in the 100 point area of Mphmum's chest.
Strangely, the Patron is missed by the flying pastries altogether, and calmly drops a credit into Mphmmum's hand.
Captain Wacky couldn't just stop looking at his sausage. No, you sick little fuck, the stuff on his plate. It seems the patron had managed to capture the vision straight from CW's boyhood days that had led the clown into the dark art of Balloon Animal Foldage. It was a pile of link sausage, like a string of pinkish balloons. The good captain was transfixed, enraptured even <heavens to murgatroyd>.
"Just look," went the voice in his thoughts, "this stuff is just like the balloons you've got only it doesn't burst. Imagine, just imagine what you can do with it." It is only as the flying fruit flavoring-filled flapjacks completely cover his corneas and obscure the 'ole of 'is occular objects that he is able to relinquish his radical red-meat reverie. Making certain to scoff the sausages before peeling the pastries from his plastic phace, he turns to the patron.
After having made a big enough dent in the monstrously manipulative meat morsels, and attacking the asshole who advocated this assfucking alliteration <but he's a clown, damnit>, he turns to the Man in White.
"Great job, Patron, you really know how to use your meat to make a guy feel inferior... never sausage a display in my life!" he says, then after the thrown fruit and plastic laughtrack die down, he adds, "I'll take your offer, because... hell... without the proper funding I'll NEVER get a fucking Christmas Special"
Impaling the two jelly donuts on his Vibro-glaive-guisarme, he takes the chit with his free hand, palms it and shakes hands with the patron. Noticing that he has Wyldberrie (™, contains no actual berries) jelly from the donut all over his mask, causing it to take on an exclusively-black hue, he closes the deal accordingly: "Mista, you got yoself a deal, but if you be jivin' wit dis fly-ass all-out pimp-daddy, yo's gonna have ta mess wit da HoLemite"
While Timmy is busy being processed into a sausage, Brother Aristotle ponders the proposal of the PATRON... It is a hard choice, imperial credits and Led's tutoring... What a chance!!! Rubbing his nose in his sleeves, a tear in the eye, he turns to face Led, kneels down and... "I'm terribly sorry, Led, I won't be able to go with you... I know, I know, my boy, it is hard, but I have no choice. Mr. Leboeuf's fucking CPU died on him on Monday4 and he won't be able to use his Internet account for a while. The ol'mighty is cruel... but I won't disappear for good, I will watch you from afar." Standing up and turning to face everyone, he adds, "Goodbye everyone, I must go now, may the Lord be with you." Brother Arisotle is walking to the door when a young boy bumps into him. "Ha! Timmy, come, we have a long road before us..." and he passes the door.
Ash pulls the donut out of his nose and grimacing and looking as mean as possible, punches the palm of his left hand. "Alright, you tiny piece of monkey crap son of a bitch hand, I warned you once, now you are going down, hand!" Balling his left hand, he starts to repeatedly pound his hand into the wall of the building causing the shithole to begin to shake and in a rain of plaster from the cracked ceiling he quickly realises the folly of his decision and dives for cover under the nearest table to avoid as much of the disintegrating ceiling as possible.
"Oh, that was fucking brilliant, you homo erectus, sodomy biker brained moron! You almost brought the only warm fucking building in this god forsaken climate down upon us. I'm sorry but I don't want to die in this frozen tundra because your brain is still frozen or dead or both!" The hand reaches over and begins to gnaw on the left kneecap.
Screaming, Ash grabs the wrist and slams it down onto the floor and steps on it with his left foot. "Ash says he isn't gonna put up with your shit any more, you little douchebag son of a bitch!" Ash proceeds to light up his Light cutlass. "Lets see just how much you scream and bleed as I amputate you and throw you to the Fat-Ass King over there and see if he confuses you for a donut! Hope you like crappy ass singer's stomach juices!!" Ash begins to bring the cutlass close to the hand and it squirms uncontrollably, trying to free itself.
"No, wait, hey, I was just joking, Ash, I mean, why would I want to hurt my friend? Come on, please, I didn't mean it, besides, you need me, damnit!" The tiny snivelling wreck of a left hand sobs and begs.
"Why should I, huh? I can just as easily ask that Tool to make me a new cybernetic hand, ya know, and one that doesn't shove donuts up my nose and attempt to bite essential parts of my Manly body off!"
"Uhh because I give you something to talk to, moron!" Sensing victory, the hand smiles to itself, knowing it will get a chance for revenge later one when the idiot he is attached to isn't looking.
"Alright, alright, I'll spare ya, little guy. But listen up puke, I won't put up with your crap ever again. So let's go kick some white leasure suit ass for throwing donuts at us." Ash stands up and grabs a chair. Sneaking up behind the King, he lifts the chair over his head, ready to bring down swift, wooden revenge onto the king's skull. "Hey fatass, I got a surprise for ya!"
As the man some call the Revenant - and others call 'that psycho' - lifts his chair to bash the King of Rock and rolls, Led sighs deeply. Well, deeply for someone so minuscule, anyway.
"Hey, Ash-man, chill, OK?" he pipes up. Or Pighps up. "You can tenderize the King's meat later, right now Mr. Patron is talking to you. By the way, in case you've missed it, that moronic hand of yours just grabbed the Imperial credit The Patron dropped for you. You want me to remove that stupid fucking hand for you?"
Ash's left hand responds to Led's accusation in an eloquent gesture, pointing to heavens with its middle finger. "I didn't!!!" it squeals. "Go to hell, you little fleshtender turd biscuit! Ash, he's lying!"
Led grins maliciously, always happy to stir up trouble, then turns back to The Patron. "So, Mr. Patron, you still think those asswipes are 'men of great ability'?" He indicates Ash and his bickering hand. "Or was that 'men of great agility'?" He jabs his thumb in the jelly-covered King's direction. "I'm clearly the brains of this operation, so I should get fourty percent of the loot, and..."
He stops, eyes Mphmmum's bulk, and reconsiders. One can almost hear the little wheels turning in his little head under the grotesquely bouffant hairdo. "That would be, of course, twenty for me, and twenty for my buddy Mphmmum." He beams. "That leaves sixty percent for the others."
He looks at them triumphantly. However, his satisfaction is quickly punctured by both Snuggly and Mphmmum rolling their eyes, and Ash's left hand rolling over laughing. "You little moron!" it howls, "that's twenty percent for EACH! You just worked out equal shares!" It wriggles some more with snorts of derision, then suddenly turns to Ash. "That's fiteen percent for ME and five for YOU!" it snaps.
Crestfallen (well, only figuratively), Led glances at the Patron again. "Soooo..." he sighs. "What is it you want done?"
Ash pulls back on the chair, missing the back of the fat ass's head by a mere inch and slams it down on the floor, shattering it and spraying chunks of cheap restaurant seating material over the King's cheap suit. He grabs his hand and shakes it vigorously. "Alright, give me the credit back, you sure as hell don't need it." After wrestling with the hand for a bit he locks a choke hold on the wrist. Swearing profusely, he refuses to let go. Finally, the hand gives in and spits out the credit, hitting Ash in the right eye, causing him to fall over backward and hit his head on the wall. The Hand, taking advantage of the situation, locks a choke hold of his own on Ash.
"Why you little... ackkkk... let.... go.... of.... me!" Grabbing the thumb and wrenching, Ash is able to get the hand off his neck and secured somewhat on the floor. "Alright, I warned you. For that, I'm cutting YOUR fucking share down to 0% and I'm gonna take the rest of the pay."
"HA!! the pay is mine, if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be where you are today." After thinking it over and realizing where he is, the hand adds "Umm never mind, forget that last statement... I give up... for now..." An evil smile spreads across the face of the hand... The kind of smile that alerts you right away something is wrong, the kind that gives you goosebumps and makes you run for the shotgun... the kind that well gives ya the creeps. Unfortunately, Ash is too busy thinking about money to notice the smile and too stupid to care.
"Alright, Mister Fancy Pants, money talks and bullshit walks, so tell
me what this job is. And as for you Led, you ain't the leader of
but two things right now, Jack and Shit, and well, Jack had a robot on
his head and blew up. If anyone should be leader, it's ME.
Hell, I'll tell ya what, for being such a good sport I'll give ya a cookie.
So, Patron, how much are we talkin' here? It better be enough to
be worth my time. "
Finally determining that no motion or response will be forthcoming from the King (let's face it, if you can take being whacked in the nuts without comment there is something seriously wrong with you) the Patron sighs, reaches into his jacket pocket, and withdraws... a pair of tweezers. While the party puzzles over exactly why the Patron needs a pair of tweezers (does he have an ingrown nose hair?) he again reaches into the interior of his white suit jacket and withdraws some form of tiny device. Poking at it with the tweezers he manages, after a moment of intense concentration, to get the device to emit a sound exactly like 1,000 cats peeing on live electrical wires. There is a loud flash, and where the King sat only a moment before there is now - a tree sloth!
The Patron slides the device and the tweezers back into his jacket.
"Mr Mphmmum," the Patron says conversationally, "would you be tho kind ath to aquaint the thloth with the workth of Balthak, or perhapth dithclaim from the Iliad?"
"Now then," he begins, "thinth we have gotten that annoyanth out of the way, allow me to ekthplain why I have thummoned you all here."
("Thummoned?" the party all think. "Thummoned? Nobody 'thummoned' me. Who doeth thith thtupid thithead think he ith anyway? Oh thit! Itth contathious!")
"To be quite honetht, there ith a mythtery here. How ith it that Bucket-o-Weenieth thurviveth here on Hol? Who thupporth them? Why hath the COW not thlaughtered them? Where do their weenieth come from?"
("MUTHT THTOP!" everyone thinks. "MUTHT.... THEATHE... LITHPING!")
"Thewe awe... thertain intewethts within Hol whith would gwadwy pay handthomwy fow thith informathion. They have contwacted me to thee to it that thuch informathion ith fowthcoming. I, in tuwn, manipuwated thircumthanthes thuch that eatth of you awwived hewe at the cowwect time."
("THEATHE THITH LITHPING BWAIN!" they thcweam thiwenwy to themthelvth. "THEATHE THITH INTHTANT!")
"Ath you have no doubt notithed, youw pay wiw be in Impeweal Cwedits. I find them mowe thatithfactowy fow commerth than gwobbules, ath they have leth withk athothiated with them. I thall pay eath of you thwee thowthand of theth cwedith thould you thooth to acthept thith mithion."
("AIEEEE! AIEEEE!!! I'M THCWEWED! I WIW BE THTUCK LITHPING FOW THE WETHT OF MY COMPWETEWY THCWEWED WIFE ON HOL! I WIW BE A WAPHINGTHOCK! BETTER THAT I JUST END MY LIFE NOW ANG GET IT OVER WITH. TIME TO DIE WITH HONOR! BETTER COME UP WITH A GOOD DEATH HAIKU AND... hey! I'm not lisping anymore! *WHEW*)
The Patron leans back and looks each of those present in the eye (except the sloth - who really gives a rat's ass about the sloth anyway?).
"The choith ith yourth," he states.
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