"Where the fuck are we?" said Tim. It was not an unusual question for him to ask upon waking up in the morning, but the potential answers were usually limited to piss-filled gutters outside taverns in the city of Cardinia. He couldn't recall ever waking up on a bed of giant ferns.

The air smelled of sea-salt and… "Eggs?"

Tim stood and oriented himself toward the scent and sizzle of frying eggs. Even jumping, he wouldn't be able to see over the ferns. Being a halfling sucked. He struggled for a few meters through the dense vegetation until he emerged onto a white, sandy beach.

"Hey!" said Dave. "You're up." He was bare-chested, pale, and hairy. His dwarven man-tits poked out from either side of his beard like fish eyes, jiggling in the tropical sunlight.

Tim averted his eyes. "Jesus, dude. Where the hell is your armor?"

"Cooper and Julian are using my breastplate to cook with."

Tim looked past Dave. Halfway between the jungle and the sea, Cooper and Julian were tending a homemade stove. Rocks and sticks held Dave's breastplate above a small fire. Where Dave's tits would normally reside, a gooey yellow substance bubbled. Julian stirred it with a stick.

"Where are we?" Tim repeated now that there were people around to answer. "How did we get here?"

"Fuck," said Cooper. "He's still drunk." He pulled his finger out of his snout. "Listen, buddy. We've been magically transported into the Caverns and Creatures world. Don't freak out, dude, but you're a halfling."

"I know that, shithead," said Tim. "I'm not talking about this world. I'm talking about this goddamn beach."

"Oh right," said Cooper. "Fuck if I know."

"Go wash your hands."

Cooper stomped toward the water, leaving giant half-orc footprints, and a turd, in his wake.

Tim clapped his hands over his face, trying to contain his massive headache. Julian was still tending the eggs. "Do you know anything about this?"

"I've been trying to figure it out," said Julian. "What do you remember from last night?"

Tim thought hard. "We went out to that new tavern."

"I keep telling you guys we need to stop doing that," said Dave.

Tim looked back at him and winced. "Could you maybe spread your beard out to cover your nipples? I'm feeling kinda rough this morning."

Julian poked some of the cooked egg on the edge into the still-liquid center. "I don't remember that much. I was already pretty trashed when we left the Whore's Head."

"Which we absolutely shouldn't have done," said Dave.

"Dude," said Tim. "You're not helping." Memories teased his brain, like they were apprehensive about returning. "Why did we leave the Whore's Head anyway?"

Dave rolled his eyes. "You and Cooper kept going on about A Quest for Big Titties."

Tim laughed. "Oh yeah. I remember that. Did we see any?"

"I don't think so. The new place was a total sausage fest."

"We should try to introduce the concept of Ladies' Night to this world," said Julian.

Tim focused on Dave's forehead to avoid looking at his hairy man-boobs. "You've got a high Constitution score. Do you remember anything else?"

"You spent most of the night making out with a dwarf in the corner."

"Oh Jesus," said Tim. He pulled a blonde hair out of his mouth as a vague recollection started to form in his mind. "She had a fucking beard, didn't she?"

"Most dwarven women do."

Tim tried to shake the memory out of his head. It only became clearer. "Was she at least hot by dwarf standards?"

"Nah," said Dave. "She was pretty dumpy. I wouldn't have touched her with Cooper's dick."

"How could you let me do that? Where the fuck were you guys?"

"Cooper and I got caught up in a drinking contest with a table of wizards."

"That sounds bad."

"It was fucking epic!" said Cooper, returning from the sea.

"Cooper," said Tim. "I want you to think real hard. Did you say anything to piss off those wizards? Anything, for instance, that might make one of them want to teleport you and your friends to an uncharted island?"

"No way," said Cooper. "Those dudes thought I was hilarious."

"Come on, Cooper," said Tim. "We didn't get lost on the way home and wind up on a fucking beach. I need you to put all seven points of your Intelligence score to work here. Are you absolutely sure you didn't say anything to offend any of them?"

"Well that one guy with the forked beard got a little bent out of shape when I made a crack about him bringing his grandma out to the bar."

"You said what?" Dave was actually a shade paler. "To Boswell the Grand?"

"I don't know," said Julian. "As far as Cooper jokes go, that sounds pretty tame."

"I know, right?" said Cooper. "I was on fire last night. And of course everyone's going to laugh the hardest at some lame, throwaway joke. Fucking Philistines."

"Dude," said Dave. "That wasn't his grandma. That was his wife."

"Oh," said Cooper. "I can see now how that was unintentionally hilarious."

"Jesus Christ, Cooper," said Tim. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I don't know. You'd think a guy named Boswell the Grand might be able to do a little better for himself."

"He's an elf," said Julian. He smacked himself on the forehead as realization dawned on him. "She's human. That's why she's aging so much faster than he is. No wonder he took it so hard. That's like making bald jokes in a cancer ward."

"You need to keep your big stupid mouth shut, Cooper!" Tim shook his head. "Man, you really fucked us over good this time."

"Well maybe you should have told me that last night," said Cooper. "But you were wrist deep in dwarf snatch."

"Wha?" said Tim. "Did I…?"

Dave gave him a sympathetic nod.

Tim sniffed the fingers on his right hand. He wasn't certain what they were supposed to smell like, given the standard of hygiene in this world, but he was pretty sure they were a little off. "I've got to… I'll be right back."

"Hurry up," said Julian. "The egg's almost done."

Tim ran as fast as his tiny legs would take him toward the sea. He deftly leaped over Cooper's turd and dove headfirst into the salty water. He grabbed a handful of wet sand and scrubbed the shame and dried vag-juice from his right hand. He gargled salt water a little too eagerly and wound up swallowing some. His body was quick to reject the seawater, sending it, along with whatever he had eaten and drunk the night before, exploding out of his mouth.

When he was done vomiting, he rested on his hands and knees, tears in his eyes and salty snot dripping from his nose, thankful that he was a million miles away from the scene of his indiscretion. There were no camera phones in this world. All he needed was some good booze, and he could forget he ever… he wasn't quite sure just how far he'd gone last night. He scooped up another handful of wet sand, reached into his pants, and scrubbed his crotch clean as well. Can't be too safe.

After his genitals were scrubbed raw, Tim began to feel better about the events of the night before. So he'd hooked up with an ugly dwarf. He'd probably had lower points in his life. He knew for a certainty that Cooper had. The guys wouldn't be able to bust his balls too bad over this. And as for her, she would soon be a distant memory. Just lay low at the Whore's Head for a few weeks, and he'd never have to see her hairy face– Why were there four people standing around the fire? Cooper was easy to pick out. Julian was still tending the eggs. Dave was still shirtless. The fourth one looked like Dave in stature and girth, but had blonde hair and slightly bigger tits.

Dave pointed at Tim. Tim stopped in his tracks. With nothing but sparkling blue sea and sandy white shore, there was nowhere to hide. He wished Cooper's turd was bigger so that he might cower behind it. He was stuck, defenseless, trapped. The she-dwarf looked at him and smiled, a gap between her two front teeth wide enough for Ravenus to fly through. Tim wanted to throw up again, but he had nothing left to give.

He looked down at his right hand and whispered, "You've been in that creature's cavern."

"Hi, Tim!" Her enthusiasm made Tim's testicles shrivel. What the hell was she doing here?

"Um… Hi,…"

Her smile faltered. "Gilda."

"I know. I'm sorry. Still a little drunk is all." He had no choice but to keep walking toward her. He felt like the Millennium Falcon being pulled toward the Death Star. He glanced at each of his friends, looking for a snicker. To his surprise, everyone's face was blank. They were all either too curious or hungry to care about Tim's involvement with this she-beast. "What are you doing here?"

"I challenged that wizard to a duel for sending you away from me," said Gilda. "He laughed and sent me after you."

Tim buried his face in his hands. This was so much worse.

"What's wrong with your arm?" asked Gilda.

"Huh?" said Tim, looking at his right arm. It was scraped pink and raw almost up to his elbow. He'd been pretty aggressive with the sand. "Oh, that's nothing. Just a rash."

Gilda swallowed hard. "Nothing contagious, I hope."

Tim panicked. "Wait! What? No! It's not… um… It's nothing, really."

It became obvious that Dave, Julian, and Cooper had been holding their laughter and ridicule back in an effort to be decent human beings, or whatever. The walls started to crumble as snorts of laughter burst through the cracks.

Gilda's face turned red.

Julian covered his laugh with a fake cough. "Who wants eggs?"

"Me!" cried Tim. Food and an exit from that conversation were just what he needed.

"I made some spoons out of bamboo," said Dave. "They're nothing special, but they should work." He held up four five-inch lengths of bamboo, the end of each cut diagonally.

Julian nodded. "Well done, Dave." He kneeled on the ground and smothered the fire with sand.

Dave passed spoons to Julian, Cooper, and Tim before frowning at Gilda. "I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting company." He fumbled with the spoon in his hands for a bit, then offered it to her. "Here, take mine."

"I'll just share with Tim, thanks." She waddled into Tim's comfort zone while Cooper kept his lips shut as tight as a frog's asshole. He looked like he was about to explode. Fortunately, his release came from the other end.

"Jesus, Cooper!" said Dave. "We're about to eat, man!"

Tim had never been so relieved to bask in a cloud of Cooper's ass vapor. "Here," he said to Gilda, offering her his spoon. "You have your fill first."

"I couldn't."

"Okay then." Tim had been as gentlemanly as he was prepared to be. He scooped up a spoonful of egg and shoved it into his mouth. It was warm and wonderful. "This is fantastic," he said to Julian through his full mouth. "Where did you get the eggs?"

"Egg," Julian corrected him. "Ravenus found it and Cooper climbed up the tree to get it."

Tim swallowed the egg in his mouth. "What do you mean, it? There have got to be more than a dozen eggs in here."

"No," said Julian. "Just the one. We would have had more, but Cooper broke all the others when he fell through the nest."

"Birds are shitty builders," said Cooper. "I almost broke my ass."

"How big was this egg?" asked Tim.

Julian picked something up off the ground. It looked like a deflated basketball. "This is the shell."

"Holy shit, man!" said Tim. "That's big enough to fit over Cooper's head."

"Sweet!" said Cooper. "Hand it over."

Julian shrugged and gave Cooper the empty leathery eggshell.

"I'll cut some eyeholes in it, draw some flames on the side. This will be my alter ego. El Cupo."

Tim shook his head. "Come on, guys. Think about this. Can you imagine a bird passing Cooper's head through its vagina?"

"I guess I could," said Julian. "But ew."

"Do birds have vaginas?" asked Gilda.

"Good question. Ravenus?"

"Yes sir?"

"Oh right, sorry. Do birds have a vagina?"

"This isn't important right now," said Tim.

"It's important if you want Cooper to put his head in one."

"What's a vagina, sir?"

"Hmm…" said Julian. "How to explain. It's the female reproductive… orifice? I don't like that word."

"Tell him it looks like Dave's face when he yawns," suggested Cooper.

"The vagina is the whole organ," said Gilda. "Not just the orifice."

"Sorry," said Julian. "My sex-ed teacher was a nervous gym coach."

"It's like a cloaca then, is it?" asked Ravenus.

"I guess?"

"Fine!" said Tim. "Then imagine a bird that could pass Cooper's head through its cloaca. How big –"

"What the fuck is a cloaca?" asked Cooper.

"It's like a vagina," said Julian. "But for birds."

"Then why don't they just call it a vagina?"

"I tried to explain," said Gilda. "The vagina is the whole organ. It extends from the uterus to –"

"Yeah, yeah, to Tim's elbow," said Cooper. "We've got it."

Everyone stopped eating. Gilda stood, horrorstruck and open-mouthed, staring at Cooper.

Tim had suffered through some awkward silences before, but this one seemed to last forever. He looked at Julian and mouthed the word Diplomacy.

Julian raised his eyebrows as if to say How the fuck is Diplomacy going to fix that?

Julian's eyebrows had a point. Diplomacy was just about as likely to help as murdering a horse would, but Tim would still reserve the latter option as a backup plan. Tim raised his own eyebrows back at Julian to convey the message, Come on, man. At least give it a try.

Julian pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows. The message was clearly Goddammit! But instead of turning to Gilda, he turned to Cooper.

"Also," Julian squeaked. He cleared his throat. "Both male and female birds have a cloaca, so it's not really synonymous with vagina at all."

Brilliant. If all parties agreed to pretend Cooper hadn't spoken, the slate could be wiped clean. Or at least covered over with a tarp or something.

Tim followed Julian's lead. "Let me just make my point. I shouldn't have beaten around the bush."

Cooper snorted. "I don't think anyone would accuse you of doing that after –"

"I will fucking end you!"

"Sorry."

Tim took a deep breath. "Here it is. Something pretty fucking big must have laid those eggs, right? What if it comes looking for vengeance?"

Dave hurriedly shoved another spoonful of egg into his mouth, like he might not have much more time.

Julian's eyes widened. "Holy shit, you're right!"

Cooper licked his lips. "We'd eat like fucking kings!"

Tim pulled at his hair and sighed. "Yeah, we would… or it would."

Dave licked the tip of his finger and touched his breastplate. Judging it cool enough, he tossed his spoon aside and started shoveling egg into his mouth with his bare hands. Tim suspected he was less concerned with eating at this point, and more concerned with getting his armor back on.

"Dude, relax," said Cooper. "I don't care how big it is. We can handle a fucking bird."

"But what if it's not a bird?" said Tim. "This is C&C. What if it's a dragon?"

"Whoa!" said Julian, taking a step back.

Dave paused from his frenzy to glance up at the sky.

Even Cooper seemed to finally pick up on the gravity of what Tim was saying. He frowned for a second, and then joined Dave in a race to gobble up the most egg.

"Wait a minute," said Julian. "Do dragons live in nests?"

It was a good question. A nest seemed like kind of a humble abode for one of the most prominent creatures in the game. "I don't know."

Dave and Cooper stopped eating. Everyone turned to Gilda.

Gilda nervously wiped at her beard like she thought she might have had a piece of food stuck in it. "What? Why are you all looking at me?"

"We thought maybe you knew something about dragons," said Julian.

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, because you're from here."

Gilda looked at Julian as if he'd just yodeled his last sentence. "I don't even know where here is! I'm from the Griffon Valley."

"I'm sorry. I should have been clearer. What I meant was –"

A sound erupted, like a thousand screaming Ravenuses, from above the jungle trees. It might have been avian. It might have been reptilian. It was certainly pissed off.

"Ravenus?" said Julian. "Can you translate that?"

"It's a dialect I'm unfamiliar with, sir. It almost sounds like –"

"I'll translate for you," said Tim. "It said 'What the fuck happened to my eggs?' Head for the trees now!"

Tim led by example, racing up the beach toward the treeline, his feet pounding into the hot white sand. He'd only run about five yards when a shadow passed over him. He had to know. He stopped running and looked up.

"HO," said Julian.

"LEE," said Dave.

"FUCKBALLS," said Cooper.

Everyone but Gilda, who kept running toward the trees, stood mesmerized by the creature gliding out over the water. Its head was narrow, crested at the top, and at least as long as the rest of its body. As it banked over the water, sunlight shone through its translucent, pink, bat-like wings, which had a span of at least thirty feet.

Tim felt a zeal for life that he hadn't felt since childhood. Every indignity he'd ever suffered, every endeavor he'd ever abandoned, every asshole he'd ever served a bucket of fried chicken to. None of that mattered now, because he was looking at a goddamn dinosaur.

"What are you fools doing?" cried Gilda. "Run!"

Tim snapped out of his fascination. The pteranodon had arced completely around and was flying back toward them. More specifically, toward Dave, who was still trying to scrape egg out of his breastplate. It opened its mouth like a giant pair of scissors and repeated its terrible, prehistoric scream.

"Drop the armor and run!" Tim shouted.

Dave dropped his armor, but he didn't run. Instead, he picked up his mace. That was probably for the best. Dave couldn't outrun a three-legged cow. There was no way he'd outrun a giant flying reptile.

"Shit!" Cooper unstrapped his battleaxe and ran toward Dave.

Tim started running around toward the water. He'd miss the first pass, but hopefully he'd be able to line up a pretty good crossbow shot when it swooped down at Dave a second time.

"Magic Missile!" said Julian. A white bolt of energy hit the creature just before it reached Dave, sending it crashing into the sand.

Cooper slowed down to a jog. "What the fuck?"

"Oh yeah!" said Julian. "Magic Missile for the win!"

"That's some bullshit," said Cooper. "No wonder those fuckers are extinct."

The pteranodon sprang back to life, crawling surprisingly quickly toward Dave on its feet and wings like some ungodly combination of pelican and tent. For all Tim knew, Julian's Magic Missile hadn't hurt it at all. It was just a clumsy flyer.

Sand flew in every direction as the pteranodon closed in on Dave, snapping its massive beak. Dave helplessly stumbled backwards, shielding his eyes.

Cooper started running again, and Tim approached as stealthily as he could from behind. The crossbow was his preferred weapon to deal with monsters that could bite him in half if he got too close, but with all the sand flying around, he might just as easily hit Cooper or Dave. Tim set his crossbow down, unsheathed his dagger, and hoped that what he was about to do wasn't an extremely stupid mistake.

Dave screamed and dropped his mace as the pteranodon bit down on his right forearm.

Cooper ran at it with his battleaxe raised over his head. "Back to the tarpits with you, fossil fool!" He caught a facefull of sand and fell to his knees. "Fuck!"

Confident that his bare feet on the sand couldn't make more noise than Dave's screams or Cooper's swearing, Tim sprinted at the pteranodon and leapt onto its back.

"Sneak attack, motherfucker!" He grabbed the bony crest at the top of the creature's head and stabbed it in the side of the face with his dagger.

The pteranodon shrieked, letting go of Dave, and spread its great wings.

"Shit!" said Tim, wishing it had occurred to him that the beast might try to flee, and the possible ramifications that might have for him. He shoved the crest back and forth like the gearshift of a stubborn car, slamming the creature's beak down repeatedly on Dave's head.

"Hey, man!" said Dave. "Knock it off!"

The wings flapped down, and Tim felt himself ascend a couple of feet off the ground. He held on more tightly to the crest and wrapped his dagger arm around the pteranodon's neck in a stranglehold. "Help me!"

Another flap and another jolt upward. Tim was shit scared. He squeezed his arm around the pteranodon's neck even harder, and jerked its head from side to side with the crest. He wasn't sure what the desired outcome of the latter move was, but he was working with the tools he had at hand.

The third flap failed to take them any higher. That was good, but why—

"I've got his feet!" said Cooper. "Jump off!"

Fuck that. It was time to end this. Reassured by the fact that the creature was anchored to the ground, and Cooper's reminder that he could have jumped off at any time prior to now, Tim released his hold on the pteranodon's neck and plunged his dagger into its eye.

Its scream was deafening. It flapped harder, and Tim felt himself starting to ascend again.

"Come on, man!" Cooper shouted. "Just let go! I can't hold on much longer!"

Tim barely heard him. His head was pulsing with adrenaline and dinosaur bloodlust. He stabbed and stabbed, cracking cartilage and gouging soupy chunks of flesh, blood, and eye goo.

The pteranodon broke free of Cooper's grasp, and Tim was no longer tethered to the ground.

Stab. Stab. Stab. Where is that walnut fucking brain? Tim shoved his dagger as far as he could into the pteranodon's significantly widened ocular cavity and twisted its head around by the crest. His rage was beginning to give way to fear and exhaustion. "Just fucking die already!"

The pteranodon made a hard downward spiral, causing Tim to slip. When he leaned right, it straightened out. It was done. He'd killed the fucker. He was steering the dead beast as it glided to the ground.

"YEAH!" Tim cried, punching into the air with one hand and yanking the dead pteranodon's crest toward him with the other.

He was pretty far up. His friends on the beach didn't look quite so small as ants. Large cockroaches, maybe, and heading quickly toward squirrels as he rushed down toward them.

"Um… Hello there."

Tim jerked his head to the right. He hadn't been expecting company. "Ravenus?" He forced out a British accent. "What are you doing here?"

"Julian sent me here to see if I could be of any assistance. Frankly, I'm not sure what I'd be able to do."

"Got any tips for hitting the ground without dying?"

"Grow wings?"

"Thanks for the advice." Judging by the rate at which he was descending, Tim reckoned he was going to hit the ground hard. Not fatally hard, but it wasn't going to feel good. Unless… "I'll jump off."

"If you don't mind me saying so, sir. That sounds like a remarkably bad idea."

"Not now," said Tim, picturing the dismount in his mind. "Just before I land."

"Are you sure you're not still drunk, sir?"

It was a stupid idea, sure. But how many times in life does one get such an opportunity? With a combination of his Jump bonus, his high Dexterity score, and the fact that his style of landing wouldn't have any game consequences outside of potentially being awesome. If you can't do a backflip off the body of a dead pteranodon as you plummet to the ground, then what the hell are you even playing C&C for?

Tim felt an unnatural surge of confidence in his decision, as if the game itself was nodding its approval.

Keeping one hand firmly wrapped around the crest, Tim carefully got to his feet. His flight path should have him crashing just beyond where his friends were gaping up at him.

"Tim!" cried Dave. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Hang on, buddy!" said Cooper. "I'll catch you!"

Tim swatted the air with his free hand. "Get the fuck out of the way!"

Cooper stepped aside.

The ground was rushing at him, closer and closer.

"WOOOOOOOOOO!" Fuck.

Tim let go of the crest and pushed hard with his legs. The world somersaulted around him, then stopped suddenly as his feet planted into the hot sand. Perfect execution.

A second later, the dead pteranodon made a decidedly less graceful landing. Its lower beak, which had been hanging open, snapped back as it hit the sand, sending the rest of the creature tumbling crest over feet. Tim was relieved that he'd decided to bail. Even if he'd fucked up his own landing, it would have hurt a lot less than staying mounted would have.

He turned around to face his friends. "What wiped out the dinosaurs? Tim wiped out the dinosaurs!"

"I aborted a few," said Cooper. "Does that count?"

"Well done," said Julian.

"Actually," said Dave. "Pterosaurs aren't technically considered dinosaurs."

"Screw you, Dave. I'm a fucking meteor!"

"Very impressive." Gilda's voice from behind him sent a shiver up Tim's spine.

Dave and Cooper looked at their feet.

"I'm going to check on Ravenus!" said Julian, walking hurriedly past Tim toward the pteranodon carcass.

Tim would have preferred to face a pack of hungry tyrannosauruses than the tubby, bearded dwarf he'd so thoroughly explored last night. He turned around.

"Thank you." The words came out like he'd been drinking sand.

"I underestimated you," said Gilda. Her widely far apart eyes were sad. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run."

"No!" said Tim. He already had enough guilt and shame on his plate. If she started crying, he'd just have to run into the ocean and hope sharks ate him before he drowned. "Running was the right thing to do. What I did was stupid."

"You're smart and brave." Her words hit Tim like a punch in the gut. These were not descriptors he was accustomed to hearing about himself back in the real world.

Tim looked down at the sand between his toes. "I'm not really all that smart. It's just in the game."

"I don't know what that means."

"Never mind."

"Start putting that high Intelligence score of yours to work," said Dave. "Try to think of a way out of here. If there are pteranodons around, this place is bound to be some kind of Lost World themed island, and that means –"

"I've got it!" said Tim. "We'll build a raft."

"Building a raft is hardly a novel idea for getting off an island," said Dave. "Why do you look so excited about it?"

"Because our raft is going to be awesome. We can use the pteranodon wings for sails. Its head will make a good rudder, and we can eat the rest of it as we go. All we need to do is –"

"We don't even know where we are," said Gilda. "Why don't we just use the portal?"

Tim halted the part of his brain that was busily constructing a dino-powered escape boat. "What portal?"

Gilda folded her arms across her chest. "You really don't remember anything about last night?"

Tim averted his eyes. "Bits and pieces."

"You don't remember telling Boswell the Grand that you were going to 'pop a bolt in yo ass' if he didn't bring your friends back?"

"I went gangsta?"

Cooper nodded approvingly. "Pop a bolt. I like it."

Gilda shook her head. "He said we were all acting disgraceful."

Cooper snorted. "He kind of had a point with you two."

Gilda glared at Cooper. She looked like she was deciding whether to cry or kick him in the junk.

"Shut the fuck up, Cooper," said Tim. "Go on, Gilda. What about the portal?"

"He said a nice long walk would sober us up. He said there's a portal leading back to Cardinia on the other side of this island."

Tim rubbed his hands together. "Okay, cool. So let's get to the other side of the island and find this portal. Should we stick to the beach, or try to cut through the jungle?"

"I like the beach," said Gilda. "Now that we know pteranodons are relatively harmless. We can always retreat into the ocean if anything bigger comes after us."

"Relatively harmless?" said Dave. "That thing nearly ripped my arm off!"

"It doesn't look so bad to me."

"That's because I used two healing spells!"

Tim put his hands on his hips. "That pteranodon probably wouldn't have bothered us if you idiots hadn't gone and destroyed all of her eggs. I'm with Gilda."

Gilda's scornful look at Cooper evaporated as she jerked her fat head toward Tim.

Shit. "I mean, I like her beach idea. The circumference of the island is longer than the diameter, but we'll cover it faster on the sand than we will in the jungle."

"What if the island isn't circular?" asked Dave. "What if it's sausage shaped? We might be on the other side in an hour by cutting across it, rather than spend days walking around it."

"It's safer on the beach," said Tim. "We can spot danger from farther away, and I'd rather face another pteranodon on the beach than a stegosaurus in the jungle."

"Stegosaurus was an herbivore."

"That doesn't mean he won't fuck your shit up," said Tim. "I don't think he evolved that spiky tail to use as a salad fork. Anyway, what if the island is sausage shaped, and we're at one end of the sausage? Then we'll have eliminated virtually none of the distance, but increased our travel time by three or four hundred percent. Without knowing the layout of the island, our best bet is –"

"What if we knew the layout of the island?" Dave was wearing his sudden revelation face.

"What?" said Tim. "Did Boswell give you a map?"

"We don't need a map," said Dave. He looked past Tim. "We've got a Ravenus."

Tim slapped himself on the forehead. "Why don't these things ever occur to me?" He turned around to face the dead pteranodon. Julian was watching Ravenus gorge himself on the eye that Tim hadn't gouged out. "Julian! Get over here! Bring your bird."

"I'm going to go scrub the rest of the egg out of my armor," said Dave.

"I'll give you a hand," said Gilda. She walked after Dave.

Tim watched the two dwarves walk off together. It would be a real weight off his back if Gilda fell for one of her own kind. Was that a horribly racist thought to have? Probably, but it would still be a huge relief.

"What's up?" asked Julian.

"We need to figure out the layout of the island," said Tim. "Ravenus, do you think you could scout the island for us?"

Ravenus let out a small belch. His face was sticky with eyeball goo. "You're speaking gibberish again, sir."

"Oh, right. Sorry." Tim repeated his request in a British accent. "We need to know the shape and size. And let us know if you spot any dinosaurs, or anything else you think we might want to know about."

"Like eggs?"

"No!" said Tim. "Leave the eggs alone! I mean like terrain features that might facilitate or hinder our trek across the island. Rivers, mountains, magical portals, that sort of thing."

"One of those things sounded decidedly different, sir."

Julian wiped some of the goo off Ravenus's face with the edge of his serape. "Just do your best, buddy."

"Right-O, sir!"

It took Ravenus a few sluggish flaps to lift himself into the air. Pteranodons have big eyes. Tim, Julian, and Cooper watched him until he disappeared over the trees.

"Hey," said Tim. "Thanks for not giving me too much shit about last night."

"Don't sweat it, dude," said Cooper. "I've done worse in my day."

Tim glared at Cooper. "I wasn't talking to you, fuckhead! You need to keep your goddamn pie-hole shut. That hairy she-beast has feelings!"

"That was touching," said Julian, pretending to wipe tears from his eyes. "Your humanity is an inspiration to us all."

"What the fuck are you guys even talking about?" asked Cooper. "I was just joking. I'm not any worse to her than I am to any of you."

"I'm talking about empathy," said Julian.

Cooper rolled his eyes. "Here we go."

"Don't you roll your eyes at me. You need to hear this. I'm talking about considering how your words affect other people. Yeah, it's fine for you to bust our balls. We all know each other and have an established rapport, and so nobody takes what you say to heart. But you don't know that dwarf girl. She looked really hurt by some of your jokes. You have to consider what kind of life she's led that would culminate in her all but screwing a midget in the middle of a crowded tavern."

"Halfling," said Tim.

"And giving Tim shit about it is even worse. Think of the context. She's not the prettiest girl in the world. She's probably been getting dumped on for that her whole life. You're not laughing at Tim for the act itself, but instead for the girl he's doing it with. That only multiplies the shame and humiliation she feels. And don't give me that low Intelligence and Charisma score excuse. I know you're capable of empathy. I've seen it in you. I want you to think about that, okay?"

Cooper exhaled through pursed lips. "Yeah, okay."

The sullen silence which followed only lasted a minute before Ravenus returned.

"Ready to report, sir!" he said just before crashing into the sand. "Oh dear. Seems I'm a bit heavier than I'm used to."

"That was fast," said Julian.

"It's not a terribly large island, sir. You might walk across it in a day."

"What shape is it?" asked Tim, remembering to use the Elven tongue.

"It's roughly circular."

Tim nodded. "That's it then. Beach it is."

"Not so sure about that," said Ravenus. "Eastward there's a thick lava flow. Probably not something you'd want to cross on foot."

"And to the west?"

"There's an inlet."

Julian squinted. "So?"

"So it's a lot more coastline to cover," said Tim. "We'll be walking west, and then doubling back east again." He looked at Ravenus. "It looks like Pac Man, right?"

"I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with the gentleman in question, sir."

Tim drew a left-facing Pac Man in the sand. "Is this about right?"

Ravenus bobbed his head. "The inlet isn't quite so triangular, and doesn't quite reach the center of the island, but you've got the gist of it."

"I say we head west along the coast for a couple of miles, then cut north by northwest through the jungle until we reach the coast here." He drew a line along his proposed path through Pac Man's lower jaw. "We'll take a break on the beach for lunch, and then head north by northeast to the northern most point of the island." He looked at Ravenus again. "You didn't spot any magic portals, did you?"

"No, sir. I'm afraid not."

"Dinosaurs?" asked Julian.

"I'm sorry, sir. The jungle canopy was too thick for me to make out any wildlife."

"Don't apologize, Ravenus," said Julian. "You done good."

"You might even find shelter at the mouth of the inlet," said Ravenus.

Julian raised his eyebrows. "Is there a cave?"

"No, it's more of a humanoid-built structure."

"Wait a minute," said Tim. "Are you saying there are other people on this island?"

"Cannibals," said Cooper.

"The Others," said Julian.

"What's it like?" asked Tim.

"It's very nice," said Ravenus. "It's made of wood. It has a lovely view of the beach, and an attractive vegetable garden in the front yard. It's not dissimilar to what you might find along the north end of the Bluerun River."

Tim stood up to give Ravenus a stern look. "Why wasn't that the first fucking thing you mentioned?"

"What's up?" asked Dave. Neither he nor Gilda appeared to shine with the afterglow of hot, sweaty dwarf sex. Pity. His armor, however, while still scarred with various dents and hoofprints, was shinier than it had ever been, scrubbed clean with sand and salt water.

Tim pointed down at his Pac Man map. "We're here. Ravenus says there's some kind of wooden, man-made structure here." He pointed at the top of Pac Man's head. "The magic portal leading back to Cardinia should be somewhere around here. I say we check out the house first. Maybe whoever lives there can lead us to the portal. You're the wise one, Dave. What do you think?"

Dave nodded slowly before speaking. "I think this is very good news."

"How's that?"

"That pteranodon was probably a one-off random encounter. Think about it. How long would you expect some rickety wooden shack to last if this place was crawling with dinosaurs?"

"That sounds reasonable," said Julian. "But we're in the game, and game logic doesn't always reflect real-world logic. What if that house is only there because Mordred drew it on a map without considering –" He froze.

"Without considering what?" asked Dave.

"Shut up for a second."

Dave folded his arms. "No, I won't shut up. If you're so keen to poke holes in my logic, at least –"

"Dude, shut the fuck up!" Julian's voice was a panicked whisper. "Did you feel that?"

Tim, Dave, Cooper, and Gilda looked at each other and shook their heads.

"There it is again!" said Julian. "Look at Cooper's piss!"

"Hey, come on, man," said Cooper. "You know I can't always hold it in. It's not my fault."

Julian waved for Cooper to stop talking as the group stared down at the puddle of urine around his left foot. "Just wait. Cooper, stand as still as you can."

A few seconds passed.

"This is making me very uncomfortable," said Cooper.

Just before the last of Cooper's pee disappeared into the sand, the surface of the puddle rippled.

Julian looked at Tim. "You don't think that means…"

Tim sighed. "Of course it fucking does."

"Holy balls," said Dave.

Tim followed the gaze of Dave's suddenly very wide eyes. About half a mile up the beach, a tyrannosaurus was waving its Volkswagen-sized head back and forth.

Tim, Julian, Dave, and Cooper froze like statues, as if they'd all been preparing for this moment since 1993.

"Let's go!" whispered Gilda, stepping toward the jungle.

"Stop!" said Dave.

"Why?" Gilda frowned at Tim. "You guys aren't thinking about trying to ride it, are you, like you did with the pteranodon?"

"Well I wasn't before," said Cooper.

"No!" said Tim. "The T-Rex can only see you if you move."

"Where did you hear that?"

"Just trust me, okay? Stand very, very still."

Gilda looked doubtful, but she nodded.

The tyrannosaurus sniffed the air, swung its massive head toward them, and roared like a stadium full of angry whales. If it was an ordinary breeze that blew their hair back in time with the roar, it was a hell of a coincidence.

The ground shook as one giant foot crashed into the sand in their direction. Then the other. Then more quickly.

"Okay," said Tim. "Fuck this. Let's go."

Not one of the others needed any further prodding.

"What happened to standing still?" asked Gilda as she ran alongside Tim.

"My source may not have been as reliable as I thought."

"These trees aren't dense enough to slow it down," said Julian. "We can't outrun it!"

"We don't have to," said Cooper. "We just have to outrun Dave!"

"Hey fuck you!" said Dave, waddling behind the rest of them.

The ground trembled in half-second intervals as Tim barreled over giant ferns.

"Keep running, sir," said Ravenus. "I'll handle the creature."

"You'll what?"

"Trust me, sir." Ravenus flew off in the opposite direction.

"Where the fuck is your bird going?" asked Cooper.

"He said he was going to handle the T-Rex."

Cooper snorted. "Sweet. Can I recommend that, for your next familiar, you choose something less stupid. Like, I don't know, a rock or a piece of toast or something?"

"Ravenus isn't stupid," said Julian, whipping branches out of his face as he ran. "And I don't sense any fear in him. He has a plan."

Julian had risked his life on more than one occasion to protect that stupid bird. The fact that he hadn't doubled back to fight a tyrannosaurus now was evidence that he had complete confidence in whatever plan Ravenus had concocted in his little bird brain. Tim only hoped that it didn't involve trying to choke the beast to death by flying into its trachea.

The tyrannosaurus roared again. It was closer this time, but the ground had suddenly stopped shaking.

Julian slowed to a jog, then stopped running altogether. Cooper, Gilda, and Tim stopped as well.

"He did it!" said Julian.

Tim searched Julian's face for signs of crushing despair, but Julian was smiling. Ravenus had clearly not gone with the trachea gambit.

Something smaller, but much closer, crashed through the tall ferns toward them.

"Shit!" said Cooper, readying his axe. Julian gripped his quarterstaff. Tim fumbled nervously while trying to load a bolt into his crossbow. Even Gilda, who Tim hadn't realized was armed, produced a dagger from her sleeve.

"Bwaah!" said Dave, stumbling into view as his companions all stopped just short of chopping, stabbing, shooting, and bludgeoning him.

"Oh shit, sorry," said Cooper. "I forgot you were behind us."

Dave stopped to catch his breath before answering. "Thanks a lot."

Tim exhaled, relieved that he hadn't been able to load his crossbow in time to shoot Dave. "Dude, I'm starting to think that armor is doing you more harm than good."

"What's going on?" asked Dave. "Why did we stop running?"

"Ravenus took care of the T-Rex," said Julian.

Another roar, and the ground started to shake again.

"The fuck he did!" said Dave, hurriedly waddling past the group.

The rest of the party soon overtook him, but Julian stopped again after about thirty feet.

"Wait," he said. "Stop."

Cooper stopped because he was stupid. Who knows why Gilda stopped. Tim stopped because he didn't fancy continuing to run into the dinosaur-infested jungle alone.

Dave caught up to them after a few seconds. "Why are we stopped again."

"Feel the tremors," said Julian. "They're getting fainter. The T-Rex is running the other way."

Gilda put her hands on the ground. "Hmm… maybe. How can you be sure?"

"Empathy," said Julian, looking at Cooper.

Cooper rolled his eyes. "Not this shit again."

"Empathy?" said Gilda. "With the tyrannosaurus?"

"No. With Ravenus. We share an empathic link. I can sense that he's quite pleased with himself right now."

"I still think we should keep moving," said Dave.

"I'm with you," said Tim. The musty jungle was alive with sounds that might have been monkeys or might have been velociraptors. He couldn't see past the ferns more than a few feet in any direction. "It's too claustrophobic in here. I feel like we're being watched."

"Bullshit," said Cooper. "You're paranoid because we just got chased by a dinosaur."

"As reasons for being paranoid go," said Julian, "that sounds like a pretty good one to me. So what do you think? Make for the shore, or make for the house?"

"The house," Gilda answered very abruptly. "The only protection the shoreline provides us is that we can see what's going to kill us from a little farther away."

"And what kind protection do you think a wooden house is going to provide?" asked Dave.

"Well we just don't know, do we? And not knowing sounds just a little bit better than certain death if you ask me."

"Sounds good to me," said Tim. "Let's move."

They continued walking in the same direction they had been going while running from the tyrannosaurus. Tim replayed himself running into the jungle in his mind, and he was pretty sure they were headed roughly north by northwest.

"What other kinds of dinosaurs do you think they have here?" asked Julian, like he was on a class field trip. "It'd be cool to see those ones that spit acid."

Tim jumped when he thought he saw a fern move in his periphery to his left. Looking in that direction revealed nothing. Just jumpy.

"You mean like the ones that killed Newman?" asked Cooper.

Julian laughed. "I think his name was Nedry in the movie."

"He'll always be Newman to me."

A twig snapped somewhere beyond the ferns to Tim's left. He was sure of it this time.

"Would you two just shut up about Wayne Knight for a minute?"

"Who the fuck is Wayne Knight?" asked Cooper.

"He's the actor who plays Nedry," said Dave.

"Newman," corrected Cooper.

"What are you all talking about?" asked Gilda.

"Nothing," said Tim. "Just everybody shut up for a minute. We're being followed." He raised his hands and stopped walking.

When the group stopped walking, it sounded like at least a small part of the background jungle noise fell silent.

Tim looked up at Cooper and pointed his hands in opposite directions. Cooper craned his neck to look left, then right over the ferns. He frowned and shook his head.

"Stay together," Tim whispered. "They're stalking us, waiting for one of us to fall behind for an easy kill."

"Who?" asked Gilda.

"Velociraptors."

"Sweet!" said Cooper.

"He's right," said Julian. "We need to get to that house ASAP."

"Don't you guys start running," said Dave, his voice shaking.

Gilda folded her arms. "Look at the lot of you, foolish men! You're working yourselves up into a frenzy over nothing. What makes you suspect we're being stalked?"

"We have our sources," said Tim.

"Is this the same source that told you a tyrannosaurus can only see you if you move?"

Tim looked at his feet. "Yes."

"You're all jumping at your own shadows. I'm not saying we're safe, but let's at least wait until there's a visible threat before we soil ourselves with fear."

Cooper grabbed a handful of ferns and reached under his loincloth. "I was hoping nobody noticed. That wasn't fear, by the way."

"Maybe you're right," said Tim, trying to convince himself that it was even a possibility. "But we should keep moving just the same."

They walked in silence after that, which only amplified every leaf rustle, frog croak, and bug click, each one threatening to stop Tim's heart. He wished they'd go back to talking about bullshit, but he dared not start up a conversation himself.

After about fifteen minutes, Tim's heart rate began to slow. Maybe Gilda had been right. Or maybe the raptors had given up on trying to separate them and moved on in search of easier prey.

"Look!" said Cooper.

Tim's heart nearly cracked his ribs. "WHAT?"

Cooper reached down with his shit-caked hands to grab him.

Tim ducked and tumbled away from Cooper's grasp. "Just tell me what you see."

"The jungle ends just up ahead," said Cooper. "And I can see the house."

Tim was tempted to let Cooper lift him over the ferns, but he resisted. His curiosity would soon be sated without him needing to smell like Cooper's bowels.

After a few hundred more feet, Tim finally broke through the last of the jungle undergrowth. A forest of stumps and scorched earth stretched out for another five hundred feet, leading to the house that Ravenus had discovered.

What Ravenus had failed to mention was the giant wooden fence surrounding the property. Tim guessed it was no coincidence that it was around the same height as a tyrannosaurus.

"I guess that explains how they keep the place free of dinosaurs," said Julian.

"No way," said Dave. "It's tall enough for sure, but it's just a latticework of wood and bamboo. A T-rex would tear that to splinters in a matter of seconds."

"And yet there it stands," said Julian, sounding slightly annoyed. "I don't know what else they'd need a fence that big for."

"Why bother with all of this speculation?" asked Gilda. "The important thing to do right now is to get on the other side of it. There's the gate. Let's go."

"Wait!" said Tim. "What about the velociraptors?"

Gilda sighed. "I thought we already established that there are no velociraptors."

"You established that. I'm not convinced. I still feel like we're being stalked."

"So you want to hang out here with them?"

"I'm just saying that maybe they haven't attacked us yet because they think they can still hide in wait for an opportune moment to strike. If we go out into the open, we deny them the ability to hide, and they might just go for broke and attack us before we make it to safety."

Gilda shook her head. "I think you're giving these imaginary stalkers of yours way too much credit. So what do you propose we do?"

Tim looked up at Cooper. "You're our fastest runner. Run like a motherfucker and see if that gate is unlocked. Julian and will cover you with Magic Missiles and my crossbow."

Cooper looked down at him and snorted. "Against velociraptors?"

Tim shrugged. "It's all we've got."

Cooper nodded. "Get your shit ready."

Tim raised his crossbow to eye level and scanned a path from the edge of the unmolested jungle to the gate. "On three. One… two… THREE!"

Cooper bolted like a racehorse out of the gate, his feet pounding the burnt ground. The cloud of disturbed ash he left in his wake made him look cartoonishly fast as he darted and weaved around tree stumps.

Tim remembered he was supposed to be watching for velociraptors and jerked his crossbow back toward the trees. Nothing had emerged from the jungle. He glanced back at Cooper, who had now made it halfway to the fence, then back at the jungle. Still nothing. When Cooper neared the gate and slowed down to a jog, Tim lowered his crossbow.

"Feel better now, dinosaur hunter?" asked Gilda.

Tim turned around. Gilda and Julian were grinning at him. Only Dave appeared to be appropriately nervous.

"You're not going to shame me for being cautious. We've been attacked by dinosaurs twice already, and I'm not about to let my guard down to –"

Something buzzed and crackled loudly. Tim looked just in time to see Cooper engulfed in a web of blue lightning emanating from the fence.

When the lightning disappeared, Cooper fell backwards, hitting the ground hard without even trying to brace himself.

"Shit!" cried Tim.

"Horse!" said Julian. A white horse speckled with brown spots appeared next to him.

"Don't waste all your spells on horses!" said Tim. "It's not that far a walk."

"I'm not wasting them all," said Julian. "Just this one."

"Real nice," said Dave. "Take off and leave the rest of us to get eaten by dinosaurs."

Julian glared down at Dave. "It's not for me, stupid. It's for you. Get over there and help Cooper."

Dave's face turned pink. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was just –"

"Just get your fat ass on the horse already."

Helping Dave mount a horse was normally a task reserved for Cooper. Without him, it took the combined efforts of Julian, Gilda, and Tim to shove Dave onto the animal's back.

Julian slapped the horse on the ass. "Go!"

Dave bounced in the saddle as the horse galloped toward Cooper, kicking up an even thicker cloud of smoky ash. Tim, Julian and Gilda ran behind, coughing their way through the cloud.

When they finally made it to Cooper and Dave, Cooper was sitting up, confused and disoriented, in a puddle of his own shit that radiated away from him like rays of the sun.

"I heal thee," said Dave.

Cooper shook his head and gently pushed Dave away. "I'm good."

"You'd better be. That was my last healing spell."

Cooper looked from the black claws on his right hand, to the quietly humming gate, to the base of the fence, which was littered with the charred and surprised-looking corpses of countless birds, frogs, and small mammals. They were all lined up neatly a foot away from the fence. A butterfly fluttered past his face toward the fence until it exploded in a tiny globe of blue lightning. Its wings vaporized instantly as its body turned to white ash and fell to the ground. "How the fuck do you electrify a wooden fence?"

"It's magic," said Julian. His eyes were glowing bright white. He was using a Detect Magic spell. "There's a powerful magical field surrounding the whole fence. It's about a foot thick on both sides."

Tim looked at Dave. "That would explain why the dinosaurs don't just knock it down. They can't get near it without getting the shit zapped out of them."

"You should have used the handle," said Julian, extending his hand cautiously toward the gate's handle. "There's a hole in the aura." Apparently satisfied that he wasn't going to kill himself, he reached all the way in, grabbed the handle, and turned it until it clicked. The gate swung open an inch toward him.

The group backed up like they were riding a shockwave, giving Julian plenty of room to swing the gate the rest of the way open.

Compared to the charred wasteland and dinosaur-infested jungle, the area inside the fence looked like a recreated Eden. There were fruit trees, a colorful vegetable garden, and separate pens for goats and pigs.

In the center stood a large, but quaint, wooden house, built eight feet above the ground, supported by four living trees. A retractable staircase, currently raised, would give the occupants some means of protection against all but the biggest dinosaurs if their fence ever failed them.

The house rested in its tree supports above what looked like a miniature version of itself, minus the porch. Judging by all the noise coming out of it, the smaller house at ground level was a chicken coop.

Julian held out some pieces of dried fig to one of the goats, which eagerly licked them right out of his hand. "Hey there. You're a hungry little guy, aren't you?"

"Why ain't you more upset about your stupid bird?" asked Cooper.

"Ravenus is fine."

"You're never away from that thing for more than five minutes at a time, and the last time you saw him was when he flew off to fight a fuckin' tyrannosaurus almost an hour ago. How can you be so sure he's fine?"

"I told you. Ravenus and I have an empathic link. If he was in trouble, I'd know. Right now I sense that, wherever he is, he's very content."

"Maybe he's fucking the T-rex."

"Don't be vulgar," said Julian. "He's probably just flying around, enjoying the tropical sea air." He patted the goat on the head and looked at the vegetable garden. "I love this place. This is exactly the kind of place I want to live in when I retire."

Tim thought of the Chicken Hut. Even after having stabbed a pteranodon to death, the concept of ever being able to retire was so foreign to him. He'd always pictured himself continuing to line the arteries of rednecks until his own tired old heart finally gave in to despair, and he fell face-first into the—

From just outside the gate, the all too familiar sound of screaming horse, accompanied by the snarl and growl of whatever was tearing said horse apart, ripped Tim away from his self-pitying thoughts. All but one of the chickens inside the coop immediately stopped squawking and clucking.

"Polly!" cried Julian, taking a step toward the gate.

Tim blocked his path. "Don't even think about it." As an afterthought, he added, "And stop naming them."

In order to close the gate, someone would have to go outside and carefully pull it back around so as to avoid getting electrocuted. That wasn't going to happen. Tim scanned the yard for a place to hide.

"Behind the chicken coop!" Tim analyzed his choice of hiding place while he led his friends there. It was as good a chance as they had. The coop was big enough for all of them to hide behind, and that one retarded chicken who didn't take the hint to shut up might actually end up doing them a favor. "When the raptor busts into the coop to eat all the chickens, that's when we make a break for it."

His back up against the wall of the chicken coop, Tim could hear the soft, nervous clucking of the occupants, with the exception of the one which was still squawking away without a care in the world. The rest of them sensed danger.

Gilda grabbed Tim's left hand with both of hers. Her skin felt like rhino hide. "I'm scared."

"I told you there were fucking velociraptors." Tim felt like he had just failed a Willpower saving throw, because as much as he knew he shouldn't peek around the side of the coop, he couldn't force himself to not do just that.

When one of the goats bleated, Tim took his chance. It was a raptor, all right. Unsurprisingly, it was just as terrifying in real life as it had been on the big screen. Fortunately, it was facing away from him, its cold, vicious eyes fixed on the goat Julian had been feeding.

Any giant murder-lizard would have been frightening enough, but when it took a step toward the goat, raising its foot above the potato plants which had been obscuring it from view, Tim was reminded of the most defining feature of the velociraptor; the giant, hooked claws on its feet. This one happened to be dripping with fresh horse blood as well, which didn't ease Tim's anxiety at all.

Tim gasped.

Realizing that he'd just gasped, he pulled his head back just as the raptor pivoted toward him.

"Is it a raptor?" asked Dave.

"Of course it's a fucking raptor."

Julian was tugging on his ears. "Did it see you?"

"I don't think so."

Tim strained to hear some clue as to what the dinosaur was doing. What he really hoped to hear was a goat scream, which would mean the raptor had lost interest in him. But all he could hear was that one goddamn chicken that still refused to shut the fuck up.

"Gods be damned!" came a deep male voice from the porch above them. British. Probably an elf. "Alonzo! Fetch my wand. We've got a velociraptor in the potato patch."

"How'd it get through the barrier?" another elven voice responded.

"From the looks of it, she just wandered in through the open gate."

Cooper narrowed his eyes. "Clever girl."

"Do be careful, Felix," said the voice that Tim assumed belonged to Alonzo. "I don't want to have to rub another salve into your skin."

"Indeed not!" said Felix. "I'd much prefer you to rub one out." The two men laughed heartily.

Tim, Cooper, Dave, and Julian stared slack-jawed at the floor above them.

"Well I'll be a mother fucker," said Cooper. "Those two are –"

"Tim!" cried Gilda. "Watch out!"

Tim turned his head to find himself staring into the nostrils of the velociraptor. It sprayed his face with a steamy bloodmist. Tim rolled away as a hooked claw sliced the air above him, taking a head-sized chunk out of the corner of the chicken coop.

The only sound that could compete with the sudden explosion of clucking was Cooper going into his Barbarian Rage.

"I'm really angry!"

The raptor took a swipe at Cooper, but Cooper caught it by the ankle and punched it in the face. The combination of Cooper's Rage-enhanced punch and being caught on one leg was enough to send the raptor tumbling to the ground.

It didn't stay down for long. The raptor leapt to its feet, shook its head, and gave Cooper a hard, scrutinizing stare. Cooper jerked his head to each side, cracking his neck, and stared back at his reptilian adversary.

The raptor screamed like a pack of jaguars. Cooper screamed back like a drunk rhinoceros.

Having demonstrated an equal capacity for verbal sparring, the two beasts lunged at each other. Even with Cooper's Rage-induced extra girth, the velociraptor outweighed him considerably. The two of them rolled out into the potato garden until Cooper, combining the force of his legs and the raptor's own inertia, kicked the dinosaur off of him and sent it flying into the magically electrified fence.

Blue electricity surrounded the raptor, crackling, hissing, but ultimately releasing it.

The upper right quarter of Cooper's back bled from a series of puncture wounds that looked like a butcher's diagram of where to cut the shoulder meat. The raptor's skin was patched with smoking electrical burns. They both took a moment to breathe.

"Finish it off!" Dave called through a cloud of feathers emanating from the hole in the corner of the chicken coop.

Tim held up his crossbow and tried to line up a shot, but a dwarf ass stepped into his line of fire.

"By Lothar's hammer!" Gilda had swiped Dave's mace, and was charge-waddling toward the injured raptor.

"Get out of the way!" cried Tim. There was no way she could have heard him over her own battle cry, and the continued squawking of the chickens, which were still losing their shit inside the coop.

A long whistle pierced through the air, rising and then lowering in pitch, like a slide whistle, bringing all action in the yard to a sudden halt. Gilda stopped running. The raptor turned its head. Cooper's body deflated. Even the chickens ceased squawking and clucking, except for that one.

Tim looked for the source of the sound. A blond elf stood in front of the goat pen like an oiled god or a cover model for a trashy elven romance novel. He was naked but for a dead black mink that hung from his waist. Its hind legs were splayed out like a Y along the top of his pelvis, the tail hanging forward like a furry phallus. Tim suspected his actual phallus was running down the animal's body, and couldn't help but wonder how far down it went toward the mink's head, which swung like a pendulum below his knees.

The mink wasn't the only small, furry mammal this elf was potentially violating. Armed with nothing but a brown hare, cradling it in his left arm and stroking it between the ears with his right hand, he stared intently at the velociraptor. He raised the hare to his mouth, whispered a single word in its ear, and set it gently on the ground.

Upon being released, the hare darted out of the gate like its ass was on fire. The raptor ran after it, slapping Cooper in the face with its tail on the way out.

"Greetings, travelers!" said the elf, whose voice Tim recognized as belonging to Felix. He placed his palm atop a wooden post which stood, seemingly purposeless, between the goat pen and the gate. The top of the post glowed with a pale green light, and the gate began to swing slowly around.

Feeling safe enough to emerge from the psychological protection of the chicken coop, Tim saw that the staircase on the porch was also sliding down.

"You must be Felix?"

"I am!" said Felix. "And how may I address the young lad with such fine ears?"

Tim's face became suddenly very warm. He tore his gaze away from the swinging mink head. "Any way but that, please."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Tim's fine," said Tim. "Look, I'm sorry about the damage we've caused."

"Think nothing of it! A few potatoes is no great loss. I only hope that raptor recovers from her wounds."

"Who gives a shit about the raptor?" said Cooper. "What about –"

"You can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats animals," said Gilda.

"Especially minks," Tim muttered a little louder than he'd meant to.

Felix flashed Tim a quick grin before addressing Gilda once again. "When you take away the trappings of man, the buildings and clothes and such, we're all beasts."

"I completely agree," said Gilda, looking up at him all doe-eyed.

Tim looked away, a cocktail of negative emotions bubbling up inside him. The beast under his clothes wouldn't be able to stuff a field mouse.

"Speaking of animals," said Felix. "Something seems to be amiss with one of our chickens."

"It's been squawking like that since we got here," said Dave.

Felix opened the front door of the chicken coop.

"Jesus!" shrieked Julian. "Stay out! Stay out!"

Everyone turned to look at him. He looked like he'd just seen the ghost of his naked grandmother.

"Hey man," said Tim. "Are you okay?"

"Huh?" said Julian. His eyes returned to normal and he looked down at Tim. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I don't know what came over –" His eyes darted up toward the chicken coop. "Ravenus!"

Tim turned around. Ravenus was hobbling unsteadily out of the coop like a drunk on the deck of a ship. The front of him was covered in white feathers. Reaching the entrance, he promptly fell face-first on the ground. He didn't even try to get up.

"Ravenus!" said Julian. "Are you hurt?"

"I'll be fine, sir," said Ravenus. "Just need a bit of a nap is all."

"What happened to you?"

"Seems I bit off more than I could chew, sir. That one in there's insatiable, she is."

Julian looked into the coop, then frowned down at Ravenus. "She's a little… huskier than what you usually go for, eh?"

Ravenus raised a wing. "Any port in a storm, sir." He looked at Tim. "Isn't that right?"

"Wha?" said Tim. Stupid fucking bird! He glanced at Gilda. Shit! Why did I do that? Gilda glared back at him. Abort! Abort! "I, um… I have to go to the bathroom."

"Very well then!" said Felix. He closed up the chicken coop and started walking toward the staircase. "Come inside. Make yourselves at home. We shall provide you with food, drink, and shelter for the night."

"That sounds fantastic," said Dave, wasting no time following Felix. Julian scooped up Ravenus, tucked him under his serape, and the rest of the group followed Dave.

Having reached the top of the stairs, Felix turned around. "And you can smoke my pole."

Tim, Dave, Cooper, Julian, and Gilda stopped simultaneously, like somebody hit the 'pause' button.

Dave turned around to face the rest of them and whispered conspiratorially. "How badly do you guys want to stay here tonight?"

Tim didn't like the idea of being torn apart and eaten by dinosaurs, but he wondered if he'd like gobbling this fucker's mink-meat even less. "Do we all have to smoke his pole?"

"No way," said Cooper. "I spent my birthday last year at the Lady Slipper, and wound up hitting big on one of the video poker machines at the bar."

Dave put his hands on his head. "And this is relevant how?"

Cooper ignored him. "So I walk out of the Slipper with a thousand bucks. It's my birthday. I'm feeling good, like the stars aligned or some shit, right? Naturally, I take my good fortune with me to Come to Papa's."

Tim grimaced. "That's the strip joint off 603?"

"That's right."

"The one made out of three FEMA trailers?"

"That's the one."

"What's a FEMA trailer?" asked Gilda.

"Come on guys," said Cooper. "Time is a factor here."

Tim nodded. "Just hurry up and get to the point."

"So I drop some cash, and get two of the less reputable strippers to come spend the night in a motel with me."

Julian shivered and hugged himself. "Are there really tiers of reputability among the strippers at Come to Papa's?"

"I thought I was going to be spraying jizz like Willy the Water Bug all night long."

Dave tugged on his beard. "What does any of this have to do with –"

"I'd been out of the game for a while, and I splooged as soon as the first girl put her hand down my pants."

Tim finally broke the unexpected silence to follow.

"Is that the end of your story?"

"Pretty much," said Cooper. "Those two bitches played chess while I tried to will my dick back to life. It wasn't happening. After thirty minutes, I just went home, broke, ashamed, and sticky."

Julian cocked an eyebrow. "They had a chess board at the motel?"

"The girls brought a travel set with them, like they'd been through this sort of thing before."

"Dude!" said Dave, twisting his beard. "Does this story have a point?"

"The point is that your brain chemistry – or whatever – changes right after you shoot your load. Like, you know when you whack it to the spring break pics that your cousin posts on Facebook, and then you feel so gross about it just after the fact?"

Tim, Julian, and Dave shared awkward, silent glances. Gilda just looked confused.

"Fuck you guys!" said Cooper. "I'm telling you, no matter how much heat that dude's packing in his fucking weasel-cannon, he's only got one round in the chamber. The rest of us will get a pass."

"So just what are you suggesting?" asked Tim.

"I don't know," said Cooper. "We draw straws, or play Rock Paper Scissors or some shit."

"And we never speak of it again," said Julian. He grabbed Cooper by the ear and looked square into his eyes. "You don't get to give anyone shit about this. You got that?"

Cooper yanked his ear out of Julian's grasp. "Yeah, I got it."

Dave was nearly pulling his beard out. He looked like he might be about to cry. "I don't want to smoke his pole."

Gilda sighed and looked up at Felix. "I'd be happy to smoke your pole."

"Nice try, Sugarnips," said Cooper. "But I don't think you're what he –"

"Outstanding!" said Felix. "Now all of you stop lollygagging on the stairs and come inside."

Julian grinned sheepishly. "That was unexpected."

"Gilda," said Tim. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"Dude, shut up!" said Dave. "Yes she does."

"It's okay," said Gilda, looking directly and deliberately into Tim's eyes. "I really really want to." She turned and continued walking up the stairs.

Tim skulked up the stairs behind the rest of the group, trying to reason with himself that this was a good thing. He was dodging a bullet, right? Why did he feel like he was losing a battle, on multiple fronts, in a war that he didn't want to be involved in?

"Is it weird if we want to watch?" asked Cooper.

The wood that the stairs were constructed from was as rough as the wood making up the outer fence and animal pens, but the porch and house proper were sanded smooth.

"Did you build all of this yourself?" asked Julian.

"Heavens no!" said Felix. "I have a partner. Alonzo. He's inside polishing his rod."

"Um…" said Dave. "If this is a bad time, we can –"

Felix waved his hand at Dave like he was trying to shake off a swarm of bees. "Don't be ridiculous! He'd love to show it to you." He slid the front door open. "Alonzooooo!"

Alonzo appeared from around a corner at the far end of the house, carrying a tray of coconut cups with little bamboo straws poking out of the tops. His curly, brown hair bounced on his shoulders in time with the spring in his step. He was rocking a 70's porn star handlebar mustache and a robe made of peacock feathers. Neither of these adornments, however, could break Tim's gaze away from yet another man's crotch.

A tiger had died to inadequately conceal this elf's genitals. The eyelids were sewn shut, but the mouth hung wide open. Tim couldn't identify the pink, scaly animal that had given its life to be this guy's dick sock. It hung out like the tongue of no tiger that ever lived.

"There you are!" said Alonzo, his mock tiger tongue swaying hypnotically from knee to knee as he advanced with his refreshments. "I was expecting you to come in the back door like you usually do."

Felix wagged a finger at him. "It's not as much fun when you're expecting it."

They smiled broadly at each other, then spoke simultaneously. "Too true!"

Dave backed up a step and leaned down to whisper to Tim. "Man, we need to get the fuck out of here before we get drugged, raped, and turned into fabulous home décor."

"I was just boasting to them about your rod," said Felix.

Alonzo rolled his eyes. "Oh stop!" Tim's heart froze when Alonzo turned to face them. "Do you want to see it?"

Tim, Dave, Julian, and Cooper silently shook their heads.

"I'd love to!" said Gilda. She stepped into the house before Tim could try to stop her.

Alonzo addressed the rest of them. "Don't be so bashful! Come on in and have a drink. I'm afraid all we've got to offer is coconut rum."

Tim looked up at Dave and whispered. "What if you're wrong about these guys? Coconut rum sounds really good right about now."

"I'm telling you, man!" Dave was barely keeping to a whisper. "There's nothing in those cups but semen and horse tranquilizers."

Cooper sniffed the air. "What's that smell?"

"Haven't you figured out by now," said Tim, "that you're always the answer to that question?"

"It smells like…" He sniffed again. "It smells like weed." He pushed his way past their hosts, sniffing like a bloodhound as he walked down the hall.

Felix, Alonzo, and Gilda followed Cooper toward the rear of the house. Tim could feel Dave's eyes on him, pleading with him not to follow, but Tim couldn't see how they had much of a choice now. He stepped inside.

"Sweet mother of fuck!" said Cooper when he turned the corner. "You guys have got to come check this shit out."

Tim hurried to see what could possibly get Cooper so excited. The room was sparsely furnished, with only a rough wooden chest on the left wall and some palm leaf mats in a semi-circular pattern on the floor. The main attraction, however, was the clay fireplace, in which sat a crude, stone crucible full of boiling liquid. Above the crucible was a dome made out of some tanned animal hide. And connected to the front of the dome was a ten foot long length of bamboo as wide around as Tim's arm. The other end of the shaft was capped with a coconut shell, and rested in front of the center mat. The semi-circular pattern of the mats suggested that the shaft could pivot from side to side.

Tim was so impressed that he was unable to form a coherent exclamation. "Magna Carta!"

"Gindo herb grows wild on this island," said Alonzo, placing one of the coconut cups in front of the nearest mat. "It's one of our few luxuries."

"Me first!" said Cooper, taking a step into the room.

"Stop right there!" said Felix, his voice uncharacteristically authoritative.

Everyone looked at Felix. Even Alonzo paused in his task of distributing coconut cups to gawk at his partner.

Felix's harsh expression melted into a warm smile. "We are not brutes in this house. Is it not the custom where you come from to offer a lady the first opportunity to partake?" He gestured down to Gilda.

Tim and Cooper hung their heads, mumbled apologies, and stepped to the side.

"That's okay, boys," said Gilda, looking very pleased with Felix's act of chivalry and making Tim feel like even more of a lowlife. "You have your fun. I don't smoke."

Felix looked quizzically down at her. "But just a few moments ago, when we were outside, you said you wanted to –"

"Oh shit!" said Dave. "When you said 'smoke your pole', you were talking about this?"

"But of course," said Felix, looking thoroughly confused now. "What else would I have been talking about?"

Dave grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Forget it! Let's smoke some pole!" He skirted past Cooper faster than he'd run from the T-rex.

Cooper, Julian, and Tim fell in line behind him, each taking a seat on one of the palm leaf mats.

Dave uncapped the end of the bamboo shaft, releasing a cloud of white smoke which ballooned around his head. The cloud shrunk as he took a long, deep inhalation.

"Careful!" said Felix. "Go easy on the first draw!"

Dave's eyes glazed over with either inner peace or death as he fell over backward, armor and head clunking on the polished wooden floor.

"Hand it over, Dopey," said Cooper. He took the bamboo tube away from Dave, who didn't even seem to notice, and put it in front of his nose. He sniffed hard a few times, then frowned. "Dave smoked the whole goddamn thing!"

Tim crawled over and grabbed the pipe from Cooper. "Give me that, idiot." He sat back down on his mat and re-capped the end. "You have to give it a chance to build up." He sipped his rum. Exquisite. The sip turned into a gulp. When his coconut was nearly half empty, he decided enough time had passed, uncapped the pipe and inhaled.

The vapor was smooth. Tim felt immediately light headed, and the soles of his feet tingled. This was some good shit.

Passing the pipe to Julian, Tim caught sight of Alonzo smiling down at them as he rubbed an unfinished wooden scepter with a cloth. He giggled and nearly lost his balance as he tried to nudge Julian's arm.

"Check it out. He's polishing his rod."

"Do you like it?" said Alonzo, holding up the rod for everyone to get a better view. "It's to be my first enchantment. Magic is a persnickety force. You can't just enchant any old stick. The magic won't take unless the rod is of Masterwork quality."

"I keep telling you guys," said Julian. "You need to get your minds out of the gutter." He uncapped the pipe and inhaled.

"Alonzo," said Felix. "Grab my sack. I wish to smear my nut butter on the half-orc."

Julian choked violently on the vapor.

Cooper sprang to his feet in a karate stance. "What the fuck, man?"

"Oh heavens!" said Felix. "Is there some kind of problem?"

"Just back away from the exit," said Cooper. "Come on, guys. It's time to go."

"Speak not such folly!" said Alonzo. "You are injured, and your dwarf friend is not even awake. You are unfit for travel."

"Oh, but I'm fit enough for your nut butter, am I? You two grab each other's sacks and squirt your nut butter all over each other, but we're getting the fuck out of here."

"You can smear me with your nut butter," said Gilda.

"My dear!" said Felix. "Are you injured?"

"Hey!" said Tim, trying to stand on wobbly legs. "You keep your nut butter away from – Wait a minute. What kind of question is that?"

Alonzo pulled a half coconut container out of a small leather pouch. Inside the coconut shell was a light brown cream. "The oil from the pukka pukka nut has medicinal properties that can help your friend's wounds."

"I'm sorry," said Cooper, cautiously sitting back down on his mat. "I was confused. Probably the Gindo herb."

Alonzo frowned. "But you've not smoked any yet."

"Quit hogging the pole, long ears." Cooper took the pipe from Julian, who was still red in the face from coughing.

"You guys are kind of remarkable," said Tim. The Gindo herb was clouding his mind, making him say nice things. "You built this house. You planted a garden. You know about medicine and magic and shit. Are you guys some kind of geniuses?"

"Pft," said Felix. "You're too kind. Nothing of the sort. We were but a couple of humble servants in Cardinia."

"That makes sense," said Julian, swaying like it was a major feat of Dexterity to remain sitting upright.

"How's that?" asked Tim.

"They came to this island as zero-level NPCs."

"I'm afraid I don't quite follow you," said Alonzo.

If Julian heard him, he made no acknowledgement of it. "If you're lucky enough to survive your first few encounters with dinosaurs, you're bound to level up pretty quickly, right? Their Skill Points for every gained level were allotted to skills that they needed to live here."

Tim lay on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. "Far out."

"I'm sorry," said Gilda. "None of that made a shred of sense to me."

Felix frowned. "Perhaps we've had enough Gindo weed for today."

Tim sat up. "No!" He scurried over to take the pipe from Cooper. Capping the pipe, he sat on Dave's belly and tried to think of something to keep them talking. "So how did you wind up here anyway?"

Felix sighed. "Our master was Boswell the Grand, a powerful wizard. We'd only served for two days when he banished us to this island."

"What did he banish you for?"

"The gods only know," said Alonzo.

"Maybe you said something that might have been misconstrued?" suggested Gilda.

"I don't see how," said Felix. "We are simple men. We speak not in riddles."

"Master Boswell seemed in fine spirits just beforehand," said Alonzo. "He had recently acquired us in a wager, along with Bindle the Bard and his famous miniature piano."

"Stop," said Tim, shaking his head. "Just stop."

"Does our story displease you?" asked Alonzo.

"No," said Tim. "I've just heard it before."

Felix and Alonzo exchanged confused glances.

Alonzo refilled Tim's coconut cup from a clay jar. "That seems highly unlikely."

"You said something about his tiny pianist, didn't you?"

Gilda choked on the rum she was gulping.

"It was all complimentary," said Felix.

"I wondered aloud," said Alonzo, "how hard such a gift must come."

Gilda sprayed rum all over Felix's bronze, oiled ass.

"Oh heavens!" said Felix. "Did you not like the rum?"

"I like it just fine," said Gilda. She grabbed Felix by the hips. "In fact. Hold still and I clean that up." She opened her mouth and lunged her face toward his ass.

"Yeeeee!" Felix squealed, tearing himself free from her grasp. "Not necessary, dear. We've got plenty. I'll just run out and get some more." He ran out of the room, then poked his head back in. "I may be a moment."

"I never thought I'd say this, Alonzo," said Cooper. "But your nut butter feels great."

"Oh stop!"

"Seriously dude. I feel great." Cooper lay on his back and closed his eyes. "I just want… to stretch out and…" As a tendril of drool made its way from his mouth to the floor, a long, low fart rumbled out of his ass like an outboard motor in neutral.

"Jesus Christ," said Julian, swiping the pipe out of Tim's hand.

"Hey man!" said Tim. "I haven't taken my turn yet."

Julian ignored him, uncapped the pipe, and surrounded his face with the only air in the room that could compete with Cooper's fart. Tim had apparently been talking too long, as the cloud around Julian's face was nearly as big as the one that had dropped Dave. Unsurprisingly, Julian went down like somebody punched the bottom of a Jenga stack.

"Ha!" said Tim, taking the pipe back from Julian's unconscious body. "Stupid fucker." He downed what was left in his coconut cup and hoped Felix would return soon with the next round.

"So!" said Gilda, speaking unabashedly directly to Alonzo's tiger face crotch. "Do you guys ever miss anything from life in the big city?"

Alonzo frowned as he listlessly polished his rod. "We used to get more homesick, back when we had to fight off dinosaurs every day." He spread his arms out, showcasing his surroundings. "But now that we've made all of this, we have everything that we need." He looked down at the floor. "Almost."

"Why didn't you ever look for the portal?"

"Portal?

"Boswell didn't tell you about the portal on the north beach?"

"Master Boswell didn't say anything but a quick and angry incantation. Next thing we knew…"

"Who's thirsty!" said Felix, prancing back into the room with a fresh clay pitcher. His mink fur appeared a little scruffier than Tim remembered it looking before. He stopped when he saw the three unconscious bodies on the floor. "Oh heavens, it seems the party is winding down."

"Nonsense!" said Tim, holding up his cup.

Felix winked at him. "Ladies first." He filled Gilda's cup with coconut rum.

Alonzo looked up from his rod. "The lady was just saying something very interesting with regard to this island."

"Is that right?" Felix started to fill Tim's cup.

"She says there's a magic portal back to civilization."

Felix froze. The rum stopped flowing. Tim nudged the bottom up with his finger to get it going again.

Alonzo looked scrutinizingly at Felix. "She says it's on the north beach."

"Impossible," said Felix. He turned to Gilda. "We know every inch of this island. There's nothing on the north beach but ..." He pursed his lips and looked at Alonzo. "Terrence's cave?"

"Who the hell is Terrence?" asked Tim. "You mean to tell me there's another one of you guys on this island?"

"Don't be silly," said Felix, pouring himself a cup of rum. "Terrence isn't one of us."

Tim's mind tried to sort its way through a maze of booze and weed. Felix and Alonzo, for all of their eccentricities, seemed like a pretty welcoming couple of guys. Why wasn't this Terrence guy here with them, unless…

"So is he like… a homophobe or something?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Terrence, a little more sternly than Tim was expecting.

"Terrence is the nickname we've given to a peculiar tyrannosaurus that lives on the north beach."

"He lives there?" asked Gilda.

"That's right," said Felix.

"What do you mean he lives there?" asked Tim. "Like he's got a hut and a margarita bar?"

"I know it sounds strange," said Alonzo. "But he's always there, day and night, in the same spot. He steadfastly refuses to move from the entrance to this cave. He won't chase a hare. Our weapons have proven useless against him. He just stands there, staring out at the sea."

Felix raised his eyebrows. "It's almost as if he's guarding something."

Tim gulped down the rum in his cup. "That's some fucked up shit." At least he thought it was some fucked up shit. He knew he couldn't trust his mind in the state it was in. He looked at Gilda. She was starting to look all right, bordering on 'good enough'. Abort! Abort! "We shall investigate in the morning." He uncapped the end of the pipe and inhaled like he was about to get plunged into the sea. The world was beautiful. Then fuzzy. Then gone.


"Rise and shine!" an unwelcome voice penetrated through the warm, comfortable oblivion. "It's a beautiful new day. Time to get up and have some breakfast."

Consciousness returned slowly. Despite Tim's best efforts to shut them out, the day's realizations came to him in their standard procession.

He was still a halfling. Shit.

He was still stuck in this goddamn game. Shit.

He'd gotten high and passed out in the home of two – Tim sat bolt upright and opened his eyes wide.

He was fully clothed. Thank fuck.

Neither his jaw nor his asshole felt as though they'd been violated. Thank fuck.

Was he a terrible person for having worried about these things in the first place? Probably. Even still, he took a quick glance around to make sure his friends were all accounted for, and that Cooper was the only one covered in nut butter.

"What the hell happened last night?" asked Dave, rubbing his eyes. "I feel like I got punched in the face by a fist made out of rose petals."

Tim shook the last of the sleep out of his head. "You hit the Gindo weed too hard. We all did."

Cooper reached under his loincloth and scratched his balls. "Did I end up blowing anyone?"

"No."

"Sweet. What's for breakfast?"

"Oh heavens!" said Felix, his nose scrunched up and his eyes started to water as he made a beeline for the window on the other side of the room. He flung the shutters open, flooding the room with blinding morning light, but also with some welcome fresh air. "What's that smell?"

Cooper rolled up the mat he'd fallen asleep on, presumably to hide the evidence of him having shit on it during the night. "This mat could probably stand a wash."

"Ew!" said Felix. "Just get rid of it. I'll make a new one."

Cooper balled up the mat and chucked it at the open window. Catching the air, it opened up, hit the wall, and stuck there.

Felix gaped at the mat, his chin quivering.

"Shit," said Cooper. "Sorry about that."

Julian stifled a yawn and shook his head. "I think we've overstayed our welcome. Perhaps it's time we part ways with our gracious hosts."

Felix looked like he was torn between his desire to be the gracious host Julian had just diplomatically challenged him to continue being and his desire to throw every single one of them through the window.

He regained his composure. "At least have some breakfast before you go. Gilda and Alonzo have been up all morning preparing eggs and potatoes."

"Oh fuck!" said Cooper. All eyes in the room turned to him. "Where the hell did you get eggs?"

Felix looked at the mat stuck to the wall, then back at Cooper. He answered tentatively. "From the chicken coop?"

"Whew," said Cooper. "Good thinking." He sniffed the air, presumably picking up a scent other than his own, and followed it out the door.

"Eggs," said Dave as he waddled out after Cooper.

Tim and Julian looked at each other, then at the mat on the wall.

"Should we…" said Julian. "Do you have a sponge, or –"

"I'll take care of it," said Felix, the usual gaiety absent from his voice. "Please, just go."

"Well there you are!" said Gilda as Tim and Julian walked into the kitchen. "I thought you boys would never wake up."

The table wasn't big enough to accommodate quite so many guests, and there were only two chairs. There were, however, more than enough dishes, all of which appeared to have been crafted from the same tree trunk. Seven such dishes were crowded together on the small table, each containing a generous helping of scrambled eggs, specked with chopped onions, green peppers, and chunks of potato.

Alonzo was adorning each dish with a sprig of parsley when Felix grabbed one and dumped its contents into one of the previous night's unwashed coconut cups.

"Felix!" cried Alonzo. "Have you lost your senses?"

Felix grabbed a second dish and a second dirty coconut cup. In his haste, he spilled more egg on the floor than he got in the cup. "It's a beautiful day. I thought it might be nice to dine outdoors."

The peacock feathers of Alonzo's robe were trembling. "Stop that right now, Felix!"

Felix slammed the cup and dish on the table and glared at his partner. "May I speak to you alone? In the other room?"

Alonzo put on his best fake calm face and turned to the rest of them. "Pardon us for just one moment." He followed Felix out of the kitchen.

Julian frowned. "Maybe we should just cut our losses and –"

"Sweet father of the gods!" Alonzo cried from the next room. He began to sob. "We'll have to burn the whole house down and rebuild."

"Now now," said Felix. "Maybe it's not as bad as all that. Let's just leave the windows open for a couple of days and see how –"

Alonzo stopped crying. "We can tie them up and burn it down with them inside!"

A night's worth of Cooper's hotboxed anal emissions was enough to break the spirit of even the most gracious host.

"Still your tongue, Alonzo. You're a better man than that. Let's just send them on their way and hope the dinosaurs eat them."

Before anyone could react beyond exchanging uncomfortable glances, Felix and Alonzo returned to the kitchen.

Alonzo's face was streaked with tears, but he wore a tremendously fake smile. "Who wants to go on a picnic!"

Tim didn't know how to respond. Their hosts hadn't even bothered to whisper their intentions to passively murder them, but he'd already determined that they'd be leaving anyway.

It didn't matter. Alonzo wasn't waiting for a response. He shoved the two egg-filled coconut cups into Dave and Julian's hands and immediately started scooping egg from dishes to cups with his own hands.

"We need a favor," said Tim.

Alonzo stopped scooping and glared down at him. "You need a favor?"

"Come on, Tim," said Julian. "I think we're pushing the limits of –"

Tim kept his eyes locked with Alonzo's. "We want to meet Terrence."

Alonzo's glare softened, but his eyes stayed with Tim's. "You want to meet Terrence?"

"Who the fuck is Terrence?" asked Cooper.

Tim held Alonzo's gaze. "Put a cork in it, Cooper."

Cooper responded with a small, squealing fart.

"Make that two corks."

The fart didn't stop. It just grew louder and higher in pitch, like a slowly deflating balloon being pinched at the opening.

Tim continued to stare down Alonzo. "Escort us to Terrence, and we'll be out of your lives forever."

Alonzo's eyes watered. His porn-stache twitched. All the while, Cooper's fart continued to squeal out, meandering through the room like an invisible serpent.

Finally, Alonzo blinked and turned his head away. "Very well, halfling! We shall see you and your friends safely to the north beach. There you will find Terrence, though I know not what you hope to accomplish. Perhaps your friend's flatulence can move him as we could not."

Dave stared down into his cup of egg. "Do you guys have, like… um… a spoon or something?"

Alonzo turned to Dave with what now looked less like a fake grin and more like a genuine, feral teeth-baring.

"It's cool, man," said Dave. "I'll use my fingers."

Alonzo faced Tim again. "We leave at once!"