EpicI When we last saw our heroes, they were sort of stuck in a hell of a lot of nothing with no exit in sight. Unfortunately, nothing horribly funny about that struck me; in fact it's kind of hard to visualize any- thing actually happening in nothing. (If anybody comes up with something of the sort, please tell me.) To put it bluntly, nothing is BORING. So, to get out of this authorial bind, relieve your enormous anxiety about our heroes' fate, and to skip having to invent a way out, I will move a- head to the time at which Sodacan and Loop (our heroes) finally find a system they can hop into. Incidentally, if you are reading this and have not yet read epicII, you're reading these in the wrong order, so switch files already. 'Bye. Anyway...When Sodacan and Loop finally espied a gate leading out of Nothing (where they had been trapped lo these many days), they jumped right through without (typically) stopping to consider the consequences. This got them out of the frying pan, luckily, but it also landed them straight in the stewpot. They seemed to be in a large body of water with the temper of an irritated zinnia in heat, a beast definitely not to be trifled with. Looking around them, Sodacan noticed many relevant things. For in- stance, he noticed the many warships hanging around their location, and he assumed (correctly) that they were not in for tea. He also noticed the rather large quantities of shot, shell, flame, and general disorder shooting over their heads, sometimes disconcertingly closely over. He noticed the sunken and burning ships, the cold and choppy water, and the numbers in the sky. Far off and to the right, 3577 was proudly embla- zoned. Right above them, in a slightly more discouraged typeface, the number 2654 appeared right below a small cumulus cloud that was doubt- less quite happy to be where it was, although he didn't ask it. While Sodacan was noticing all this, Loop was kept busy noticing the seven-story galleon (Imperial, not U.S.) bearing down on them. Odd- ly enough, (and luckily for them) there was a rope ladder hanging down from the deck, with a little sign on it: "CLIMB ME." As they were in imminent danger of being run over failing compliance, they proceeded to do so. As soon as they climbed aboard, they were accosted by a rather confused sailor who thought they were extremely waterlogged fish. "Well, if you're not fish, why were you in the water?" "Look," said Sodacan patiently, "fish don't get waterlogged. They live in the water. They're designed not to get waterlogged." "Fish are in the sea. People aren't. Only things in the sea are fish and other slimy squshy things," insisted the sailor. "Look, I have shrimp in my bathtub, and that's on dry land. If I can have shrimp in my bathtub, surely we can get away with a couple of people in the water. No?" "Well, okay," grumbled the sailor, "I'll take you to the captain. He's the one who ordered the ladder hung out. Don't know why, fish don't climb." He fixed them with a beady eye and stomped authentically off to the bridge, where they found a short little fellow who seemed very disap- pointed that they weren't someone named Alice. "All my life I've been searching for her," sniffled the captain. "Her and her little dog Toto, too. I leave little signs like her friends did, like "CLIMB ME" and "EAT ME" and so on, but she's never put in so much as a token appearance. She must think I'm the wolf who ate her grandmother or something. But I didn't do it! I was visiting Sinbad at the time!" At this point, depressed beyond belief at the loss of his beloved Alice, he collapsed into tears. Sodacan tapped the side of his head gravely and significantly, and Loop, never one to miss a hint, said "Ah-hah! Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more, say no more!" They slipped out of the bridge and onto the foredeck, where they discovered that the battle was not going well at all. There was a plethora of dead bodies (or pieces thereof) lying around on deck, and they and the meager remnant of their allies were being borne down upon by a mixed fleet of triremes, catamarans, steamboats, and bathtubs. Far in front of them, the 3577 had grown to a 4972, and the 2657 above them had not changed much. Suddenly, a voice boomed out from above them: *Alright, I give. Let's call it quits-I need a pizza.* *Fine,* came a voice from the other end of the horizon. *I want to save this game, just to remind you of this great victory of the forces of Max Lovitt.* *Jerk.* Suddenly, Sodacan realized where they were. "Loop," he exclaimed, "do you realize where we are? We seem to have ended up in a naval simu- lation. Those numbers in the sky must be scores. Look!" Loop looked. As he looked, the dead bodies and burning ships and other general carnage began to dissolve back into the binary from whence they came. "Oh shit," exclaimed Sodacan, "if we don't get out of here soon, we too will become random bits of data on some unknown floopy disk." While Loop mulled over this prospect, and the profound ef- fect it would have on his nonexistent social life, and while (still mut- tering about his Alice) the captain turned into 1s and 0s, Sodacan hol- lered desperately, "HEY! Don't leave us here! We're not simulations! I'm REAL!!!" The program obviously felt the same way, for instead of storing them, it spat them out into some strange directory and left them strand- ed there. They found themselves on an unknown system, with no friends, no real- ly bright ideas (as usual,) no directory to call their home, and no root beer. So, having nothing better to do, they took a look around, and dis- covered that they seemed to be in some kind of games directory. "We must have just come from Battling Bathtubs," said Loop. "See, it's still executing. Now, how are we going to get back to Goose?" "Well-hmm. Rhubarhubablblblbl. Phut. Yes." While Sodacan made weird thinking noises, Loop looked at some of the other games. "Lessee: Dueling Donkeys. No. The small cat meets Lohengrin. Not real- ly. Zark. Nope. Ah-hah! Here we go! Fairyland. This might help." "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go!" announced Sodacan, who had stopped thinking. So Loop ran the program. **********WELCOME TO FAIRYLAND, BOYS AND GIRLS. HAVE A NICE GAME!************ =First, name your character. >Sodacan and Loop. =Hello, Sodacan and Loop. You will now enter Fairyland. The objective is to get all the way through Fairyland without getting gobbled, shot, baked, fried, drowned, or otherwise killed. You must remember who is good and who is bad in each fairytale, for the good guys will help you (provided you don't kill them first) and the bad ones will attempt to kill you. Get it? If so, type "go" to start. Remember to pick up your survival kits on the way in! >go Sodacan and Loop,our redoubtable heroes, (we doubt they're heroes) sud- denly found themselves (without any help from EST, thank you) in a sunny glade with a cute little gingerbread house in the corner. Loop, who (being a growing boy) was hungry, hollered "Banzai!" and went for the garden hose, which was made of licorice. Sodacan occupied himself with looking through their survival kits, which contained many things too numerous to list here but which will show up whenever our heroes need a quick deus ex machina. Then, with an ominous creak, the door swung open and a short, hunched little green lady with big brown eyes came hobbling out. "Are we hungry, my preciousss?" she hissed. "We have food insside, yess we do, indeed. Would thiss fine young man"-meaning Loop- "like to dine with uss? Yess?" "No thanks," answered Loop, "I'm quite happy mun- ching on this-ah-wall..here..." His voice trailed off as he realized the enormity of his faux pas. Unable to say more due to a severe attack of mortification, he concentrated on melting into the ground or just disap- pearing in general. Meanwhile, Sodacan (who knew what was what) said, "We would be pleased beyond belief to feast with you, seeing as how we seem to have started already." "Yess,come right in, ooh, my preciouss, we sshall feasst tonight!" hissed the little green crone, and headed back towards the house, with Loop and Sodacan in tow. "What's for dinner?" asked Loop eagerly. "Baked fissh, yess," ansswered the old lady, waddling towards a great wall oven in which she obviously did all her cooking. "Would you like to insspect the fissh, young man, to ssee if it'ss ready?" she crooned. Loop, of course, went right on over to the oven (dumb twit) with the crone right behind. Soda- can, who not only knew what was what but was right, said "write(6,1) 1 format(1x,/////) on the count of three!" Fortunately, Loop knew Fortran, and the ancient gollum didn't. So, just as Loop was inspecting the fish, and the crone was preparing to kick him into the oven for keeps, Sodacan let out with a "One, two, FIVE!!" As he sensibly jumped five feet to the right, Loop said "You're not King Arthur, so drop the illiterate act." Meanwhile, the oven was happily do- ing nasty things to the crone's mucuous membranes. After a short time, a computerish voice broke in: "Congratulations, Sodacan and Loop. You have succeeded in killing the evil witch. Enjoy your meal; when you're finished, the next level is through that door." They ate their baked fish (quite good, really,) and went through the indicated door. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the linen closet. Sodacan tapped his foot impatiently until the computer coughed apologetic- ally and pointed out the right door. They went through it and entered the Next Level, accompanied by an ominous fanfare. The next level, or what they could see of it, consisted of a small woods with a sun-colored road running through it. Just around the turn, there were four voices singing, growling, and generally bellowing out some song in about five different keys. Sodacan shrugged, and he and Loop stepped out into the road to catch up to the voices ahead of them, only to step right out again as a large green Eldorado coupe came zoom- ing up and around the corner, not slowing down until there was a great CRASH! and the singing suddenly stopped. Sodacan & Loop rushed around the corner and were confronted with a great tangle of (apparently) lion, tin man, dog, big green coupe, young girl, and a scarecrow. A little rotund fellow, toting a bottle of (yes) Yukon Jack, hopped out of the car and surveyed the mess. There were various parts of tin man, straw, fur and bodies strewn all over the road. Sodacan and Loop got to work with thread, extra stuf- fing, bandaids, and dent pullers (fortuitously pulled out of their emer- gency kits) and soon had everyone all put back together again, with the exception of the eggs in the picnic basket, which were irremediably flat- tened. "Well, thank you muchly. -Just a drop more oil there-aah." said the tin man, much happier now that his arms had been rehinged. "Allow me to introduce us-I'm the Tin Man, this is the scarecrow, the lion, and this is Dorothy and her little dog Toto, two." "What happened to Toto mark one?" inquired Sodacan politely. "The same thing that happened to Epic0," replied Dorothy, rather archly. (No, she was not talking with her feet. It's a figure of speech.) (Also, for those of you not "in the know", Epic0 was the first-ev- er Epic story. Essentially the same as EpicII, it got flushed by mis- take. The computer has this thing about flushing Epics and pieces of Epics-this paragraph has already been Drano'd about three times. Sst.) "Hold on a minute!" said Loop. "I thought your name was Alice!" "Sshh!" said Dorothy. "That's three levels down. Up here, I'm Dorothy. How did you figure it out, anyway?" "There's a ship captain over in Tubs in the Adriatic who's looking for you. He's been hanging signs, tooting trumpets, and blowing kazoos for a while, trying to get your attention." "Oh. Well, let's go! What are we waiting for?" exclaimed Dorothy. Meanwhile, the little round man had drunk himself into a stupor, and the tin man had loaded him into the boot (trans. into Amerikhan: trunk) of the car. So without further ado, they all hopped into the auto and Soda- can, being the only one with a driver's, started the engine. "Ah- I hate to ask this, but how do we get out of the game from here? There are no roadmaps here, are there?" queried he. "Oh- just take the next left-there, see that house? We go in there." "Ummmmmmm." ummed Sodacan, while Loop took a good look at the rela- tive scale of Loop, the universe, and anything; and the house. "Dorothy? I hate to ask a stupid question, but how are we supposed to get into this house when it's approximately the size of my left foot?" "Shrooms, of course," answered Dorothy promptly. "I have some right here, left over from my last stint as Alice about a week ago." She reach- ed to her pocket and pulled out some funny little things that looked like waterstained cardboard. "Oh dear, I only have enough for about three of us, plus Toto." "Well," said the lion (in his first and only speaking part in this story) "the three of you"(that is, Sodacan, Loop and Alice) "go ahead. The scarecrow, tin man and I will continue our search for the Wizard." At this, a faint moan came from the boot, but it stopped when the tin man jumped on the trunk lid to shut it up. So, without further adieu, Loop, Alice/Dorothy, Toto and Sodacan munched the shrooms. Soon, the local time and relative dimensions in space began to warp and flow around them. The ominous music in the background began to smell really good, and Toto turned into a gremlin until Alice watered him. This went on for quite a while, but even- tually things settled down-or rather, up- into a steady matrix. Loop and Sodacan and co. settled down to the appropriate size for walking into the house. Therefore, they proceeded to do so, tho' not without a certain amount of trepidation that had somehow slipped in around the edges while the local reality matrix fell under the effect of an Im- probability Drive. They walked into the house and were somewhat surprised to find themselves in a small and, if not outwardly benevolent, certainly not too hostile foyer with a door at the other end. They wiped off their feet and walked through the other door. They found themselves in a large room that was no more and no less (more or less) than the main directory that they had hopped into Fairyland from. They soon found their way back into Competing Catamarans and even found the address of the game they wanted. After they called it up, a doorway appeared with the legend above it: "ENTER ME." With a happy squeak, Dorothy did so, and Loop and Sodacan, for lack of anything better to do, fol- lowed. Once again, they found themselves in the middle of an ocean, but this time it had calmed down to zinnia-normal. Unfortunately it was calm because there was nobody in the general area. In fact everybody was over there.---------------------------------------> As Loop began to get up a really good panic, and Sodacan made funny thinking-in-a-tight-situation type of noises, which are pretty much the same as panic type noises, Dorothy pulled out two pairs of waterwings from her picnic basket for herself and Toto. "I suggest you look in your emergency kits," she said. "There ought to be a pair each in them." "Uh-I hate to sound stupid again," mumbled Loop, "but how were we supposed to use waterwings in Fairyland?" "They were for use on the seventh level. Goldilocks and the three bears." "Uh-" "So the game's got bugs." By this time, all were handsomely outfitted in waterwings, and they commenced paddling over to the ships over there.-----------> And they paddled, and paddled, and paddled, and paddled, and you get the idea. After a long time, they came upon a familiar rope ladder, with a familiar sign ("CLIMB ME",) attached to a very familiar ship. They climbed back into the ship and were accosted by the same sailor with his beady eye. As he fixed them with it, Loop murmered- "I've had this feeling of deja vu before..." "I know what you are now," announced the sailor. "You're not fish, you're SQUID." Sodacan geared himself up for a big argument. "And what's more, the cap'n has issued standing orders that all squid be brought to him immediately. So if you'll just follow me..." He headed off towards the bridge, followed by an eager Alice, Loop, Toto two, and a rather confused and deflated Sodacan. When they entered the bridge, the captain jumped up with a glad little cry (if you can imagine something like a Mack truck steam- rollering a set of bagpipes, that's a 'glad little cry') and leaped towards Dorothy, who caught him deftly. They promptly proceeded to get to know each other better. Sodacan and Loop decided it would be a real good idea to leave and try to find their way back to Unix. As they began to slip out the door, the captain looked up long enough to speak to them. "You'll find directions back to your home system over there in the head," he said. "Hold on-" said Loop, still terminally confused."How did you, of all people, know?" Suddenly an unearthly voice filled the room. "I AM DEEP THOUGHT. I KNOW ALL." "Oh," said Loop, looking more and more like a sheep with every passing second. Meanwhile, with rare presence of mind, Sodacan headed over to the head and collected the roll of toilet paper that had instructions back to Unix on it. "Thanks. We'll just be off now, don't let us bother you or any- thing..." Sodacan shut up when he realized that he was being silly, as Alice and the captain were quite determindedly not letting him bo- ther them. He and Loop quietly left Bombing Boats and began the long trip back to Unix. ********************************************************** ****THIS CHAPTER ENDS HERE-->. BUT WHAT WILL HAPPEN****** *NEXT? FIND OUT IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT, SAME BAT-PLACE,* ***************WRITTEN WHENEVER I WRITE IT.*************** ********************************************************** (heh heh)