So now you know how I came to know of the museum and began my quest to deliver the titan’s scale here and thereby escape the demons of the west, whose curses still haunt my dreams. It was a very long journey, and not uneventful.
It took me nearly a week to cross the mountains hauling the heavy scale, but I slept easier knowing I was safe from the threat of evil night creatures. I even gave serious consideration to simply becoming a hermit out there, but I determined that my food supply would run out too quickly, and stood by my quest.
When I emerged on the other side of the mountains, I was greeted by a strange new landscape. Strange, happy-looking tubes and bubbles grew from the very ground, and the area seemed nearly to glow with magical energy.
I knew not whether bogeymen would haunt such surroundings, but I didn’t dare to chance it and made straight for the nearest village, which I had spotted easily from the mountain slopes.
I knew something was wrong immediately. I had been told that here should be a human village, but all of the houses were empty and decrepit from lack of use.
I pushed onward to the next village and found inhabited-looking buildings at last, but was shocked to discover goblins wandering the streets.
At first I made ready to duck behind a tree and throw rocks at them, but they spotted me too quickly. Yet, instead of attacking me, they smiled and waved. I quickly learned that these goblins were not hostile to outsiders.
In fact, they requested my assistance – eliminating the threat of no less than seven nearby vampires! The energy in this place was all wrong, and I dared not even spend the night in their village.
Continuing east, I quickly came upon the capital city of this strange civilization. It was huge and sprawling, yet completely abandoned.
Even the keep in the center was devoid of life. At the least, I had found a safe place to stay the night.
In the morning I was making my way out of the city when I heard the familiar, yet strangely out-of-place cries of a goblin trader in the marketplace. He was alone, but still called out his advertisements of fresh plump helmets. Even in this desolation, it seemed capitalism still persevered.
Was he selling to the ghosts of this place? Calling up my courage, I asked him if he had heard of Dinnerwandered. He simply directed me to the east and said I’d have to walk a very long, long way. As I had no interest in plump helmets, I quickly took my leave of him and began my trek eastward.
Soon I came upon the beach, and the sea. At first I feared I had reached the end of the world, but as I followed the coastline I realized the land continued around on the other side of this ocean, and I still had a long ways to go. Before long it was night, and having no safe place to rest, I simply laid down and passed out on the beach. How fortunate for me that, as I came to learn, bogeymen avoid the beaches as well as the mountains. I could sleep in relative safety as long as I kept to the coastline.
I continued in this manner for several days before finally spotting a human fortress in the distance. I prayed that it held friendly humans, someone who could give me directions to Dinnerwandered. Fortunately, there were human soldiers inside, but they looked completely disillusioned and hardly looked up as I entered.
Inside the keep I discovered the reason: their leader lay dead on the floor, no clue given as to what had happened to him. Already growing accustomed to the sight of death, I relieved him of his clothing to replace my tattered rags. I was sure he wouldn’t mind.
A nearby hamlet was inhabited and seemed lively enough, but the inhabitants spoke of even more vampires and creatures of the night. The scourge had followed me all this way! I obtained further directions – northeast, I could hug the coastline all the way to the north and then I would eventually come upon the region in which lay the famed Museum – and carried onward.
There was one night when I had dared to wander inland a ways and failed to make it back to the coastline before nightfall. For the first time, I found myself surrounded by the wicked faces and grotesque forms of bogeymen. At first I was overcome by fear, but then I remembered that I had taken the life of a titan – why should I be afraid of the stuff of children’s fairy tales? I turned and faced them, and found that they bled just as much as any creature of flesh. Before I knew it, the hideous cackling had faded to a peaceful silence.
The corpses dissolved into smoke, but I managed to grab on to a severed hand before it disintegrated. I added it to my pack as an extra gift to the museum. I slept more soundly that night than any other. Maybe I needn’t run from the evil forever…
A few days after that I was accosted, for the first time, by a gang of human bandits. They were not young men, however, and in fact immediately after they jumped out to surround me, one of them collapsed to the ground for no apparent reason.
The others froze, stared at the lifeless body of their comrade, then at me – somehow they must have believed that I caused his death! At first I was surprised, then I realized I had a titan’s skin strapped to my back and the lifeless hand of a bogeyman was sticking out of my pack. It wasn’t long before the rest of the bandits also lay as lifeless as their elderly colleague, and I was on my way further northward.
The next day I spotted a cave in the distance and felt inspired to investigate. What I saw standing just inside was quite a surprise.
I had heard of dragons, but never seen one up close, and here was one in the flesh, standing before me – and looking straight past me, as I had had the foresight to hide myself. I could carry on unnoticed… But wouldn’t a dragon’s scale make a fine extra addition to this museum? After all, I didn’t know what kind of items were there already, or whether my titan’s scale would suffice. Not being able to see its attacker, the beast, I’m sorry to say, did not put up much of a fight.
Fortunately the dragon's scale was neither as large nor as heavy as the titan's, and its added weight hardly slowed me down at all.
From there I continued north, and then at last the coastline turned east, and I knew I must be drawing close. In the distance I saw several tall towers, each dark and twisted in form. I must admit I was curious, and considerably less afraid than I had been at the start of my journey, but I had had enough encounters with the evil and the undead for one journey. I gave them plenty of space as I passed around them.
I stopped in villages here and there as I made my way east. Each had its share of vampires and beasts of the night to fear, but such tales grew fewer as I approached my destination, and I held on to the hope that Dinnerwandered would indeed be the safe haven I prayed for.
One night, I was startled awake from my bed of driftwood on the beach in the midst of a violent dream. I quickly spotted several sets of eyes around me and quickly discerned human forms holding weapons – more bandits to deal with. In an instant I readied myself for combat, but then I realized that they weren’t attacking. I took a moment to actually look at their faces, and found them frozen in horror. It was then that I noticed the other forms on the ground next to me – lifeless human corpses, violently slaughtered. What had happened? Had I been fighting in my sleep? One of the bandits smiled at me nervously and waved in what he seemed to imagine was a friendly way. He told me that they were “travelers” on their way home, and were sorry to have disturbed me. Upon hearing my name his eyes widened even further, and he asked for my autograph.
I had no patience for this sort of nonsense, and simply went back to sleep. When I awoke, the bandits were gone, though they had left the corpses of their comrades to rot in the sand.
- - -
Now, at last, I am here. Everyone in this region seems to know my name. I, frightened little Stasbo Humorbury, who fled across the entire continent to escape the curse of the mummy I tried I steal from, who carried the scales of titans and dragons across the mountains and pounded crowds of bogeymen into smoke, and now known as the Tepid Blazes, came into this museum while you, the so-called guard, Loge Pullclouded, slept on the floor clutching your axe like a teddy bear. I laid my donations on the tables:
-2 dragon eggs
-the scale of Thuthu Jirdothakom Othiubpo Evhol the Titan
-the scale of Accok Nesimustra Rulucobim Kesmel the Dragon
-a bogeyman’s left hand, preserved forever against the sunlight
And then I waited for you to wake up. I have come here seeking refuge and a safe new home for myself, and I have fought hard and suffered greatly to get here. So please understand, Ms. Pullclouded, that when you tell me there are no fewer than FIVE vampires living in the sewers of this very city, and that you would like me to get rid of them, my only response to you is, quite simply:
I QUIT.