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Good day fellow heroes! I have once again returned to take up my tail. When last I left, my friends were sitting in stunned silence on board their little raft after my brother heroically gave his life (...er death...no that's not right either...undeath?) to save them. Since that time they managed to safely reach Laplappy Lake, which unlike the river has no inherent dangers. From there it was just a short ways to Bayark, where I will pick up my tail (and move it from my right side the my left). Bayark is situated on high cliff that overlooks the Bayark Harbor some hundred and fifty feet below the city. To the North of the harbor is the aforementioned region of meandering whirlpools. To the South is the miniature vortex that connects Doggainia to Dragon Court. To the East lies a barren body of water that stretches for what seems like forever. [In the future I may go out looking beyond those seas] To the West is the Gulf of Groule, on the other side of which lies Fannox. Butch and Scottie received a much more pleasant reception than my troop had received in Woorof. This was because of Bayark's extreme isolation from the rest of Doggainia and the fact that Bayark has never had any mages living in its land since the days of the druid pups. Thus no news of the recent events had been heard of yet. Scottie and I had been communicating through telepathy since the anaconda incident, and Scottie, now wise to what had really transpired at the hands of the Summoner, did not give his real reason of coming (which was to see if Bayark was still in one piece), but rather played the part of the messenger and related the news as best we knew of it. Needless to say Poodle Breed Leader Bjornic was most unsettled by Scottie's news. [Now it may seem odd to you that poodles inhabit a city that is so incredibly dangerous to get to. However, the Poodles really do not care for non-poodles very much, and would just as soon not have them cluttering their shiny streets. Hence, Bayark's near inaccessibility suits them perfectly.] Normally one will find Bjornic and his Poodles completely unhelpful in any matters that come up. But in this case, Bjornic was only too happy to allow Butch and Scottie to commandeer his fastest ship to transverse the Gulf of Groule with (though perhaps this rare show of "helpfulness" was just to get rid of them). Now there are many who claim that Mastiffs of Belch are the finest ship rights in the land, but those of us who know, know that a Bayark ship is the best that can be built. These vessels are giant ark like monsters that are wholly unappealing to behold. They look like the snout of a wild boar, and hardly look like they should be able to move even with a Force 5 wind tearing at their sails. And Bjornic's personal yacht is far-and-away the ugliest of them all. He even had it painted a horrendously grotesque shade of puce. One look at this ship and even heroes with cast iron stomachs start looking for a good place to vomit. However, once Butch and his ship-sick band boarded the vessel, it became apparent that the Poodles know how to travel. Outfitted in such away as to make the finest court of any land seem uncomfortable and coarse, a passenger on board travels in perfect and utter comfort. Butch, having spent his youth mastering the fine art of steering these unwieldy looking beasts, ordered the helmsmen at the wheel to stand aside. Grasping the firm Doggwood wheel in his hands, Butch ordered the sails to be lowered at once. Butch then barked out the necessary commands to adjust for wind direction, and then brought the ship about on a course for Fannox. At this point, one could now see and feel the mastery of Poodle design. The ship picked up speed in a matter of seconds, and was soon skimming across the gulf at an astounding 50 knots. (How these thing manage that speed, I still do not fully understand. Something to do with a quad-mounted-turbo-fan-dorsal is what I believe they keep trying to tell me.) Things were going along quite pleasantly until about half way across when the ship ran into a whale. Now, I do not claim to know much about whales in other lands, but I do know that in Doggainia, whales are not very happy to be rammed in the side of their heads by giant floating monstrosities that look like puce boar snouts. This whale (who now had a pounding headache) would most like have eaten the entire ship in one gulp, had it not been for one minor detail. The ship was bigger than it was. Try as the whale might, he simply could not get his mouth around the ship. While the whale was busy trying to figure out how to eat the vessel, Butch was busy trying to get the cannon ports open. It took him about ten minutes before he figured out that there were no cannon ports. There were plenty of cannons, gunpowder, and cannon balls, but no openings through which to fire through. After running up and down the inside of the ship looking in vain for just one port, he found the ship's carpenter. It turned out that someone had forgotten to include cannon ports in the original design, and while it had seemed odd to him, the carpenter had decided to follow the design specifications, and made a ship without cannon ports. Meanwhile, the whale had now given up trying to eat the ship, and was instead ramming into it. So far all the whale had succeeded in doing was increasing the pain in his head. Butch knew that this could change at any moment, and when the carpenter was hesitant to start cutting cannon ports in the ship because they were not in the plans, Butch threw the carpenter through one of the bulkheads and into the water. "There," thought Butch as he stared at the newly formed hole, "Now I have a cannon port." He quickly wheeled a cannon into position. Before Butch could fire, the whale rammed into the ship again, and this caused the resulting rocking of the ship sent the cannon rolling through the hole. Watching with disgust as the cannon splashed into the water, Butch groaned before running to fetch another cannon. When this one was in position, Butch fired before anything else could happen. The cannon ball exploded out of the cannon, pierced through the side of the whale, and then the whale made one last growl before sinking under the water. Amazingly enough, the ship was almost unscathed (not too amazing though when one considers that by comparison in size, a 40 ton whale is nothing more than a large ferret to a stout Bayarkian vessel). The rest of the journey across the Gulf of Groule was rather uneventful, so when next I tell of my tail, I shall tell of our meeting outside of Fannox. Ace Dogg of Doggainia |
