And what to your wondering eyes does appear but the beginning of another exciting Tale from Balrok's Cave! Read on and be astounded!
The
tower of empty pizza boxes that reached awkwardly toward the kitchen
ceiling was twenty-two high (or possibly twenty-three—the strata
were confusing). Balrok, demonic owner of the network of caves in
which our story takes place, was contemplating it in silence, trying
to penetrate the fog that shrouded his memory of the previous night.
He had made no particular progress when No Name shambled into the
kitchen. The bleary-eyed zombie, one of the Cave's several and
various tenants, directed a lazy wave his way and rasped, “Yo,
dude, what’s up?”
Balrok tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Not a whole lot. Trying
to remember if I ate all this pizza myself last night. If I did it
unassisted, it's a new personal best. Things are a little... hazy,
though.” Webberly, the Cave's resident fact rat (currently in
disguise as the omniscient narrator of this tale—don't tell!) had
screened his DVD copy of the five-hour director’s cut of Apocalypse
Now in the TV room, and a hardcore pizza binge had been the least
of the indulgences that had seemed absolutely imperative afterward.
No Name, who spent most of his time enveloped in one mental haze or
another, was little help. “Think I passed out right around the time
the pizzas got here. I wish you guys woulda given me a little help
when those cartoon scorpions started coming out of the XBox, by the
way. Fightin' off all those fuckers by myself wore me right the fuck
out, man.”
The demon nodded. “Ah, so that’s what you were seeing. Figured it
was either that or lobsters, the way you were yelling about ripping
their claws off.”
No Name grunted. “You can't let those fuckers intimidate you, man.
You gotta talk tough and you gotta follow through. It's about
respect.”
Another nod. “OK, well, I guess in that light, all the shouting
about destroying their eggs seems a tad less crazy. We’re just
lucky Webberly managed to hide all the remote controls before you
found that hammer.”
No Name shook his head at Balrok’s naïveté. “Dude, you have to
destroy the eggs first. You're wastin' your fuckin' time, you don't
destroy the eggs. Totally demoralizes the adults, knocks the wind
right outta their fuckin’ sails. Or maybe that’s spiders, I
forget. One of those things with the legs and the sails.” He
scratched his head, pondering the mysteries of Nature.
Balrok drummed his fingers on the table, also pondering. Bad enough
that he might never know whether he'd bested his pizza-devouring
record, but to have eaten so many pizzas without any memory of
enjoying it? He was starting the feel the grip of the pizza blues
when No Name stumbled over something, almost falling.
“Hey, didn’t we get rid of this crap?” With an undead creak, he
hoisted a 24-can case of soda onto the counter, thumping it down next
to the Cave's brand-new microwave (still factory-fresh except for a
happy face drawn on the Popcorn button). The box was an eye-punishing
mish-mash of colors and clip-art fruit; in the middle of a exuberant
burst of splashing fluids, a bold font proclaimed it to contain
Jalapeño Watermelon Fresca MAXX++ Turbo (Now With Elevated
Durian!). Smaller bursts declared that it was Optimized For
Energy Maximale, not to mention
Guaranteed* Non†-Corrosive‡.
Balrok put down the pizza box he’d been inspecting. “We tried.
You probably shouldn’t touch that stuff. With the issues we've been
having, I'm taking a wait-and-see approach.” And oh, what issues.
First of all, nobody would admit to having bought it. It had just
been there in the kitchen one party night, mingled with the rest of
the refreshments. For the Cave, though, that was a pretty trivial
mystery, hardly worth worrying about. More importantly, they couldn’t
get rid of it, and not just because nobody would touch the stuff.
Quickly growing tired of tripping over it where it sat smugly on the
kitchen floor, Balrok had put it in the pantry, only to trip over it
again a few hours later in its old spot. Somewhat peeved, he’d
shoved it all the way to the back of the pantry; this time it was
back on the kitchen floor within an hour. He’d tried stashing it in
various places in the Cave, even down past the Dark Tunnels, and it
always made its way back to the kitchen floor.
Increasingly frustrated, Balrok had asked Webberly to try disposing
of the case. He had done so, only to report its reappearance in its
familiar spot a few hours later. No matter where in the Cave the box
was hidden or who concealed it, it would show up in the kitchen
within a few hours afterward. It never happened when anyone was
looking, conveniently enough. A brief attempt to provide permanent
observers in the form of video cameras had ended with the box
appearing at the precise moment everyone was distracted by the three
cameras bursting into flame simultaneously.
Having had enough, Balrok finally hauled the case up to street level
and tossed it overhand into a passing dump truck, where it landed
with a satisfying clang. That night, as Balrok was deep in slumber,
he was awakened by a sensation much like an inexplicable 24-can case
of soda being dropped on his head from a moderate height. Turning on
the light, he discovered that his first impression had been right—the
case was lying on the floor next to his bed, quietly exuding menace
and the promise of durian.
With a roar of demonic disgruntlement that echoed through the Cave
and sent Webberly scurrying under the bed in a tangle of sheets and
panic (his own bed, I hasten to clarify), Balrok leapt up and dealt
the case a mighty kick, causing it serious trauma. He dove
immediately back into sleep, but in the morning, the case was back in
the kitchen, unmarred. Since then, they had left it alone, quickly
adapting to its presence with only occasional stumble-inducing
lapses. Webberly had been researching the phenomenon on Tobin's
Spirit Wiki, but so far had had little luck finding reports of
anything similar.
His interest in the soda rapidly fading, No Name shrugged and grabbed
a large bag of Nitro-Devil Hot Ranch Blasted Doritos before slouching
back out of the kitchen, leaving Balrok to resume his melancholy
study of the tower of pizza boxes. The bug-eyed chili pepper on the
wrapper had set Balrok to wondering whether he should have poured
some Sriracha on the pizzas last night. Not only would that have
kicked his (admittedly still theoretical) personal best up a few
notches, but he'd have been a lot less likely to forget the whole
thing in a blur of alcohol, napalm, and indulgence. Could this epic
pizza binge truly be lost in the debauched mists of memory? His
ruminations were interrupted by a shrill buzz from the intercom.
Someone was upstairs in the elevator lobby, asking to be let down.
TO BE CONTINUED......
