Chapter 2: Billy Banjo
The sound of casual banjo strumming preluded another dark and dreary dysteleological moment as Waldo woke up to. Each tune that was strummed was imitated just the same, and each time the tune got fancier and fancier, as though two banjos were dueling. As Waldo opened his eyes, he then saw a very old, short and slightly hunchbacked man, his lips perpetually curled inside his toothless mouth, with a worn-out cowboy hat and a banjo sitting on a couple of hay sacks not far from him. On a shorter, long crate beside him laid a young, fat and unkempt good ol' boy with a wheat stalk in his mouth. They were playing a dueling banjo tune. Behind them was a big upside-down wreckage of a ship situated on the lava shore of magmatic soil, the flame-retardant lacquered covering of the wood was strong enough to hold against the scorching lava heat, which was providing decent lighting to the area. The rest of the region seemed barren, and the horizon was foggy. "Well howdy stranger!" Said the old man in a friendly accented drawl, "Welcome to Billy-and-Babba Shipwreck Banjos Dou! I'm Billy Banjo, this is Jimbob Bubba Junior. We haven't had visitors in goshdarn it...years! Heh-heh. What brings you to these bleak and barren parts of the netherworld?" "I don't really know, it's all been a series of unfortunate (and excessively random) events," answered Waldo. "Ayup! Heh, that's hell for you. No one can seem to plumb the spooky mystery of it. We all got it the same way as you did junior, everybody did. A headache, darkness, and bang," smacked the old man his open palm with a fist, having stopped playing his banjo for a moment, "before you know it, you're surrounded in a firey smog! No explanation given. Personally, I suspect it's all a bunch of big plot holes nobody seems to notice." "Plot holes?" Asked Waldo. "You know-- uncanny rips in the space time continuum?" "Billy, isn't it conspiracy theory?" Asked him Jimbob, in a voice that tries to impart logic to the old banjo-strummer. "I'm tellin' ya they exist! Interjected Banjo, again smacking fist on his open palm, "and don't tell me they don't you sidewindin', bushwackin', hornswogglin' cracker croaker!" "Woah, that was uncalled for!" Said Jimbob, taken aback by that remarkable string of insults. "Ahh crud it all! No one ever believes me," threw Banjo his arms up desperately, shook his head, and continued playing the tune. "So, have you two just been sitting here the whole time?" Tried Waldo broaching a new topic. "What the? Of course not!" Said Billy, "we're smarter than to waste our time boondoggling around. All this time we've been here we've started up an act together and written plenty of songs! We got a song for just about everything and anything, we got songs about about good, about evil, about treasures, and most importantly about gold! Yeeee-heee-hee-haww!!!" Jumped Billy Bob Banjo from his stack of hay and started quirkily dancing for a short moment, taking out two blunderbusses and firing them just as the dueling banjo song was reaching a crescendo, but only Bubba was playing it now. "Yeeee-hawww!!! gooooooold!" He cried. Even Waldo thought it was really quite entertaining listening to the fancy speedy-strumming of the dueling-banjo crescendo, although the dancing was rather disturbing. When the tune ended, Banjo went back up on the hay stack like nothing happened and they both started replaying the dueling banjo song from the start. "That's...um, great. I don't think any of that will help my confusion or my disoriented memory loss." "Well, junior, one good thing about forgetting is that you can no longer worry about what ever it was you forgot, hee-hee-hee", chuckled the old man to himself. "Although," he said in a more serious tone, "there is one cure I know for memory loss, it's singing The Ponder Song!" "The....what?" Asked Waldo. "The Ponder Song!" Exclaimed Banjo. "The...Ponder Song?" Asked Waldo again. "Yes, the Ponder Song!" Reaffirmed Banjo. "I'm sure I'll regret asking this, but what's the...Ponder Song?" Asked Waldo, thoroughly befuddled. "You see, whenever ye forget something, anything, you just sing the ponder song, and voila! You'll remember what it was you forgot! It's gauranteed to work! Most of the time, anyway. Only one problem." "What's that?" "I can't remember the lyrics, heh," said Banjo.
"Somehow, I knew you'd say that," said Waldo. "Hey," said Bubba, "maybe if you sing the ponder song it'll help you remember, Billy!" "You hare-brained nincompoop!" Snapped Banjo at Bubba, "can't you even grasp the paradox of what you're suggesting? If I can't remember the lyrics I can't-- Oh wait, I just remembered them! Hee-hee-hee. Ready Bubba?" "Ready!" Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh Ponder wonder, wonder ponder, ponder and wonder along Just wonder and ponder and ponder and wonder it's quite a catchy so-ong "Oh no," said Waldo. "For the love of everything good and decent, stop it!" So ponder the wonder and wonder the ponder, keep singing in tune Don't worry about, everyone else, thinking you're a loo-ooon "You're clearly not," said Waldo. "Worrying, that is" Ponder and wonder and wonder and ponder and keep on wondering still "Something tells me, you forgot, to take your morning pi-ill", sang Waldo. "Hah! Keep it goin' lad!" Encouraged him Banjo. "The hell I will!" "In hell you are!" Pointed out Banjo, still strumming. "This is just getting confusing now." Ponder wonder wonder ponder fonder la wonder la wee Amnesia, agnosia, alzheimer too, I got the whole friggin' three-ee What was that word? What was that sound? I forget I forgot What was that thing I was thinking about Retrace, reminisce, follow the memory trace Now I forgot why I'm singing in the first place! "That's...just...great," said Waldo. Ponder wonder wonder ponder and ponder and ponder some more There's no end to this battle, this memory jog, it's an endless tug of wa-ar So keep wonder and ponder and ponder the wonder it's quite a magical theme Worse come to worst, we'll just have to, smash your head on a bea-am! "You'll what?" "Hold it right there junior!" Said Banjo, ending the tune and grabbing a plank from the wreckages. "Yikes!" Yelled Waldo and took to his heels, but then, in a statistically highly improbable moment, was hit again by a random smouldering boulder. "What the fajebus!?" Cried Billy.
Chapter 3: The Dungeon Masters
Still grumbling and muttering with just about any possible expletive you can think of (and goodness knows the underpirates knew more insults than the knew regular words), the underpirates at least they knew there was one place which they could go seek help. In the center of Undertown (and away from anything else) was a very big wooden puppet house, the title above said "The Dungeon Masters" in nailed wooden planks, with one plank loosely dangling and occasionally creaking to the undercurrent underwinds of underworld. The Dungeon Masters were believed to be the creators, rulers and knowers of everything hell and hell-related. As Horg approached the puppet house, as though he activated an invisible trigger,
suddenly rose up with a seemingly magical puff seven very odd-looking dilapidated cardboard puppets of old bearded men, all wearing fancy cardboard stars-and-crescents carved wizard hats. They all seemed real-sized and were controlled by strings. Their names were carved below each of them: Plankton, Lumbert, Timbert, Woody, Logwood, Barkcove and Boardbloke. "Greetings and salutations, underpirate!" Said the cardboard figure in the middle, Woody, strings lifting his arms and mouth in perfect harmony to his voice. Too perfect. "Welcome," said another cardboard puppet, "to the dungeon masters domain!" "We're the all-powerful," said the a third cardboard puppet. "All-seeing," said a fourth. "All knowing," said a fifth. "And mildly vengeful," added a sixth as an important caveat. "Masters and Rulers of the underverse!" They all said in sync, raising their arms dramatically. "What is it you wish, underpirate?" Asked the main cardboard puppet in the middle, Woody, his head dipping low out of the puppet house and reaching close to Horg. "Speak now, we don't have all day, you know?" "Dear Dungeon Masters of Underdown and the Underworld," cleared Horg his voice, acting unusually respectful, "I'm here to lodge an official grumbling on behalf of the underpirates," he said. The Dungeon Masters looked at each other. "Look," sighed Woody, shaking his head, "for the last time, we have nothing to do with all the bizarrely inexplicable oddities that are recently transpiring in hell," he explained. "Ye don't?" Asked Horg. "No, what do think we are, some sort of all-powerful voodoo dolls?" "Well, yes!" Said Horg, much to the agreement of the other underpirates. "Well, that's besides the point," said Woody, "we don't know what's going on really. But," he rubbed his chin, "we have a vague idea. "We sense a great evil has arisen within the firey depths of the underworld. An evil so nefarious, so foul, so unnatural, it could very well destroy the very fabric of the underpirates existence." "Yes indeed," said another Dungeon Master sage, Lumbert, with a look and voice not so different from Woody, a little more older and bent, "it is dreadful and vile beyond all imagination, Horg." "Aye," said a third, Barkcove, slightly bigger than all the other Dungeon Masters with a thundering voice, "it has the great powers to reshape hell itself!" The underpirates began to ramble, grumble and curse. They didn't like to hear about upcoming changes, they were perfectly happy with how the current sordid state of affairs. And besides, that extra detail about being wiped out the face of the planet didn't sit well with them. "It's all happening in the one place not charted on any map, ever drawn or any story ever told," said Woody, pausing for dramatic effect. "Far in the underseas, beyond the Sea of Despair, past the Undying Mist, in The Uncharted Islands." "The Uncharted Islands?" Asked Horg, never having heard of the place before, which he found rather odd, since he thought he's been everywhere around hell already. "Yes, The Uncharted Islands, This is an old and dark tale." "I like those kind!" Interjected Mortis. "...for you see, long ago in the Age of Creation," explained Woody, "when we first started reshaping this place we call hell by breathing fire and chaos into it, we left out a patch of islands somewhere. Having no idea what to do with these islands, we ended up throwing all our discarded ideas there. All the freaks, the plotholes, the things that just never clicked, you know? Whatever is happening, Horg, is happening there. We just can't tell what's happening there because of all that damn mist, it distrups our all-mighty clairvoyance." Woody paused and sighed. There was something very serious about him then. "Whatever it is, you MUST stop it Horg!" Foreshadowed the cardboard puppet, seemingly growing bigger, his voice getting louder and louder, shadows deepening around him for a moment, "or else the fate of the underpirates is doomed forever eternity!" "Muhahaha!" Laughed Mortis, "how perfectly evil!" "Hey!" Shouted an inebriated underpirate from the crowd towards the Dungeon Masters, "why don'tcha do somethin' 'bout it eh? Yuz the all-pow'ful ones hmm?" "We're the Dungeon Masters you pixilated drunken degenerate, we cannot and shall not intervene in the affairs of mortals!" Explained Woody. "That would be immoral." "Unethical," added Plankton.
"Unprincipled," added Logwood. Horg adjusted his girdle on his evergrowing belly. "Well, I feel thar be a quest of grand and hellborn proportions comin' up!" He said, swinging a fist. "Don't worry me hearties, I'll get the meanest crew of loony underpirates," he said as the underpirates behind him roared in agreement, gunshots in the background, "the biggest and most well-armed ship I can find," came another series of roars and gunshots, "and we'll put the crackdown on this whole kerfuffle in a blazing mad fit of gloriously crazed chaos!" "Get me a cannon!" Yelled another underpirate enthusiastically. "I'll blow whatever it is to shreds! Even if it doesn't need blowin', I'll blow it anyway!" "Harrrr!" Roared another underpirate, firing his blunderbuss. "No no no," frowned Woody, cutting the celebration short, "you can't just take any ship and any crew! What do you think this is, some kind of piratocracy?" "Well, yes!" Answered Horg. "Well, that's besides the point, when conducting official Dungeon Master businessnes you must sail the Dungeon Master's Official Ship!" Explained Woody. "Eh, actually, the Dungeon Master's ship is under repairs," explained another Dungeon Master, Logwood, to Woody, "what with the, er, fumigation and all. Just a small termites problem," he said to Horg. "Well, it's the problem that's small, the termites themselves are actually kinda big." "Right, well, you'll have to take the spare Dungeon Master's Ship," said Woody. "It's... smaller." "MUCH smaller," added another Dungeon Master a more honest tone. "Really only room for one person there." "But..." Started to object Horg. "Rules are rules," said Woody in a tone of finality. Horg sighed, realizing he had no choice at the face of those bureaucratic deities. "Well then, fare ye well, Dungeon Masters, may the whims of inebriation lead yer path." "Good luck! And try not create some cataclysm or break the space time continuum," said Woody, "it's really hard to fix those." "I'll do me best, but normally all my adventures end up in a mighty cataclysmic whirl of uncanny and uncontrollable space-time-continuum broken chaos! Yar-har-har!" Cried Horg as he departed, the sound of cheering underpirates, gunshots and roars accompanying him. "Give 'em hell!" Yelled an underpirate. "Kill 'em all, let the gods sort 'em out!" Yelled another. Woody sighed as he looked at his fellow Dungeon Masters. "This will all end in tears, mark my words." There was silence for a while. "Ponder wonder wonder ponder..." sang one of the Dungeon Masters. They all turned to look at him. "Sorry," he explained, "that song got stuck in my head from some reason..."