Tiny Tirdly the Krapaterian Orphan put his arms around Qrt Vogelkot the Stinkingo’s narrow neck, and Vogelkot put his scabby wings around Tiny Tirdly. They shivered as they looked up at their friends Dr. Lubricious Slugg and Poo-gofferson the Spij?kenian Nekroklown, who dangled from either end of a long intestine clutched in the single hand of an angry big brown mountain.

  The anthropomorphic pile was currently voicing his distaste at being confused for a dollop of kaiju feces.

  "I.. AM NOT... POO! AND I HATE WHEN PEOPLE THINK I’M POO!!" Then the mountain calmed down. "But I’ve spent the last several weeks in a state of intense meditation and have achieved a state of calm. It’s an honest mistake. My name is Phudge Mountain, and I am actually made of chocolate, but don’t eat me cuz I’m really bitter."

  "I promise not to eat you! I promise!" hollered Dr. Slugg, twisting and turning at the end of the intestine. "Just put us down!" As he said this, Phudge Mountain placed the duo on the scabby ground between the scabby mountains. Poo-Go giggled with relief. Dr. Slugg fell forward and kissed the hard cold ground.

  "Come on over here," the mountain called down to Vogelkot, "and bring that little fellow with you." Rather reluctantly, Vogelkot flew over with Tiny Tirdly, setting him down next to Poo-Go (who the orphan hugged immediately), and the four friends tried to compose themselves and catch a bit of the breath they had lost on the trip down.

  "It was very kind of you to catch us, Phudge Mountain" giggled Poo-go.

  "Oh, I didn’t think, I just reacted." said the mountain frankly. "I must say you're the oddest looking creatures I've seen since I was created in a laboratory to fulfill that arcane Alkaloid prophecy, except maybe for that gammon-colored pony with the head of a rhino." The brown mountain’s cavernous black eyes looked them over, resting longest on Dr. Lubricious Slugg. Then he said presently:

  "I like you best." Phudge poked their eighteen-foot long brown finger roughly into Dr. Slugg’s stomach, and the gastropod let out a huge hollow sounding fart and a large spicy belch at the same time.

  "Don't do that," gurgled Dr. Slugg sharply. He was rather annoyed despite the relief to his stomach the gaseous release had brought.

  "What a lovely voice," mused the mountain, almost to himself. "Tell me, what are you?"

  "I'm a Dr. Lubricious Slugg," roared the big slimy humanoid-sized gastropod huskily.

  Poo-Go stepped in front of Slugg and introduced himself and the small orphan and the scabby bird. Phudge Mountain, absentmindedly picking up a dead fleshrock boulder and crumbling it to powder in his hand, was uninterested.

  "I think we'd better be going," quavered Vogelkot tremulously. "We're late as it is." He had no desire to fall into Phudge Mountain's clutches.

  "Don't go," begged Phudge Mountain. "I haven't talked to anyone since I settled here in the Scab Cordillera. I’ve mostly been contemplating what one could do with their life but I can’t think of anything."

  "Preying pretty protogophers!" giggled Poo-go the Spij?kenian nekroklown. "Why, there are hundreds of things to interest you! You could travel, and help other folks not so strong as yourself, or build a city. Say, you even could offer your services to Tremorroid Titiana, the ruler of Bonertania!"

  "Could I?" gasped Phudge Mountain. He stared off into space as if he saw himself doing all these things, and the idea was almost too amazing to believe. Then he announced determinedly, "I'll do it! I don’t care if I might get eaten: I'll travel, I'll help other folks not as strong as myself, and I’ll even offer my services to Tremorroid Titiana, whoever she is!"

  "Hurrah!" giggled Poo-go. Dr. Slugg burped again but this one was tiny and sharp and made the back of his throat sting and he farted but it wasn’t a notable fart in any way.

  "Where does this Tremorroid Titiana live?" asked Phudge Mountain.

  "In Schmegma City, in the center of Schmegma City!" piped up Tiny Tirdly, who had been listening to Phudge Mountain's conversation with deep interest.

  "Let's go to there right away!" ejaculated Phudge Mountain. He rose, revealing his enormous legs and feet. He popped his other arm out of his side.

  “Yes, let’s! But first I have to pee,” giggled Dr. Poo-Go. But at the first step towards the quivering hairbushes Poo-go turned into a petrified poo statue. Vogelkot, Slugg, and Phudge were alarmed.

  Tiny Tirdly sighed and explained about Kraka’s thaumaturgy that would turn Poo-go into a petrified poo statue if he did not bring Dr. Slugg to Honkytown.

  “I guess Kraka knows Poo-go has captured Dr. Slugg, as far as I can figure," the Krapaterian orphan continued, "if Dr. Slugg moves toward Honkytown all will be well, but if we take any other direction Poo-Go will turn into a poop sculpture."

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Let's see which is the way to Honkytown, for it seems that to Honkytown we must head," said Dr. Slugg. And he pushed and shoved Poo-go’s inert form this direction and that direction until the Spij?kenian turned back to his natural complexion and could move again. They way they concluded which way was the road to Honkytown.

  "It seems to me," gurgled Dr. Slugg, "that the time has come for us to separate. Poo-go, you and Tirdly head to Schmegma City as fast as you can and appeal to Tremorroid Titiana for help. Meanwhile I can start toward Honkytown and thus Kraka's ring will not betray us. I will move slower than a snail, and before I reach Honkytown you will have found a way to help us."

  “I’m going with the hunky clown,” said Vogelkot, indicating Poo-Go.

  "And I will go with the hunky slug," declared Phudge Mountain. "You are weaker than I and, as I have fully determined to help someone weaker than I, let me help you. Where is this Honkytown Kraka? Take me to him and I will pound him to smellecules and disperse him to the Seven Farts. Together we'll conquer the whole tribe of Honkytowners!"

  "You won't have to," giggled Poo-go, "if Dr. Slugg’s friends in Schmegma City are as clever as they’re said to be."

  "Hurrah!" cried Tiny Tirdly, and so it was all decided.

  Phudge Mountain waited impatiently while Vogelkot untied the intestine that connected Slugg and Poo-go. Then they headed their separate ways.

  "Good-bye!" called Tiny Tirdly shrilly, as he, Poo-Go, and Vogelkot turned onto a narrow, hairy skinstone path.

  "Good-bye, Tiny Tirdly!" shouted Dr. Slugg, bravely waving in farewell. As the gastropod slithered slowly towards Honkytown the mountain walked next to him joyfully, each step causing tremors that shook the surrounding landscape. Soon the poor slug was engulfed in a cloud of dust.

  Phudge Mountain, as he tramped along beside Dr. Slugg, was thinking harder than he had ever thought before. The clown's suggestions had aroused his curiosity, and for Dr. Slugg he was developing a great fondness. As the afternoon progressed Dr. Slugg grew positively embarrassed by the chocolate mount’s constant terms of endearment.

  A nutzag rancher, whose nutzag ranch they passed just at dusk, gave Dr. Slugg a hearty dinner of nutzags, but he shook his head doubtfully at Phudge Mountain, who had propped himself up against a barn munching fleshtree hairtops while they ate.

  "He'll break something," whispered the nutzag rancher nervously. "He's too heavy to be walking about. What's a mountain doing alive anyway? Has the tremorroid seen him? Here, here!" he called angrily, as the barn began to creak and lean to one side, "you'll have to lean against something else!"

  "I'll stand right here, and nothing will budge me," grumbled Phudge disagreeably. At this Dr. Slugg swallowed the rest of his dinner and started to ease on down the road. He knew that Phudge Mountain would follow him anywhere and he did not want the poor nutzag rancher's barn demolished.

  "You almost smashed that man’s barn. I thought you were going to help people," he gurgled reproachfully, as Phudge Mountain overtook him.

  "No, I've changed my mind," announced Phudge Mountain with an unreadable grin, "I'm only going to help you." Dr. Slugg started to lecture Phudge Mountain, but, as the mountain paid not the slightest attention, he finally gave it up and plodded along in silence. Slugg was growing wearier every minute, and finally on the edge of a little wood they stopped altogether. Night was coming on, and after the flights and excitement of the past few days Dr. Slugg felt they must snatch a little rest.

  "Phudge Mountain, will you keep watch while I get a little sleep?" Slugg yawned. Phudge Mountain nodded.

  With a long sigh, Lubricious lowered himself against a fleshtree and almost instantly fell into the land of Nod.

  For a time Phudge Mountain stood perfectly still, staring at Dr. Slugg while he slept. Then the chocolate behemoth began to mutter crossly to himself. Already the thought of offering his services to the tremorroid had begun to bore him. This walking about made his feet hurt. Kicking the earth up fretfully, Phudge Mountain tried to think of a way out of the difficulty. Just as the two-hundred-and-twentieth star came pricking out in the blueish-brown heavens, he had an idea. As soon as they reached Honkytown he would fix the king’s little red wagon and then, with Dr. Slugg thus freed, he meant to retire with the gastropod to some pleasant field or meadow and stand happily ever afterward.

  Then he expanded on the thought: If this Honkytown business had to be got through with, then the sooner they arrived in Honkytown the better.

  Snatching into the air a startled Schlingian scroatgoat shepherd, who was strolling along with his flock of shiny, hairless level-1 intelligence humanoids, Phudge Mountain asked him the way to Honkytown. After the scroatgoat’s teeth stopped chattering long enough to tell him, the mountain dropped him carelessly. He landed on his most prized gammon-colored humanoid and broke both his legs and both of the humanoid’s legs too. Phudge Mountain picked up Dr. Slugg. The next instant he was stomping briskly toward Honkytown, trampling under his feet any outhouses or small buildings that got in the way, and jarring the whole countryside with his heavy strides. The gassy gastropod awakened almost immediately and tried to wriggle out of Phudge Mountain’s grasp, but escape from those mighty sticky brown hands was an impossibility.

  "Where are you going?" Dr. Slugg gurgled angrily, the words being fairly jolted out of him.

  "To Honkytown!" shouted Phudge Mountain without slackening his speed.

  "Slow down!" yelled Dr. Slugg. “Stop!"

  But he might as well have argued with a shart.

  "There's no use reasoning with me," Phudge Mountain insisted stubbornly. "I’m going to get to Honkytown and break Kraka’s enchantment, even if it means breaking him. They you and I will retire to some nice quiet field or prairie and stand until we die."

  Lubricious had not even strength to tremble at these awful words. It would be impossible for Vogelkot, Poo-Go and Tiny Tirdly to reach Schmegma City in time to help him now. At every step of Phudge Mountain, he more bitterly regretted the moment he had trusted himself to the company of this treacherous brown mound.