Bungo the Barbarian, Chapter 19 - The Windy City

Turdmundaz was a castle-city like no other. In form, it resembled a colossal termite hive. Its spires soared high into the clouds; coiling away and back upon themselves into one massive tangled structure formed of a strange resinous secretion of its stygian inhabitants. It was said that on a warm day, the fetid stench that emanated from the towering dung-heap could reach to over 50 leagues away, and that was probably a conservative estimate. In fact, close proximity had been known to cause potentially fatal spontaneous nasal combustion is all but the hardiest of races.

 

Buttfuldore was surveying the sea from his lofty perch among the summit peaks of Turdmundaz. He enjoyed the view on balmy days when the warm salty breeze would add a certain delicate spice to the excreta. His normal lazy demeanour was broken when he saw a glint amongst the waves below.

 

“A ship?” His shrill cry cut the stagnant air like a knife.

 

Buttfuldore excitedly hurried over to the alarm trumpet. Pressing the sound piece between his cheeks; his buttocks erupted noisily down the tumorous instrument, eliciting a booming sound that reverberated and spattered through the catacombs below.

 

Running back to the window, he grabbed a spy glass and peered hungrily at the vessel below. The ship looked to be stricken; easy prey for the butt-goblin hordes. More odd than that, was that even from the lofty height he was viewing from, he could make out a large muscled figure on the prow of the ship, who appeared to be practicing some kind of martial arts movements with great speed and skill.

 

Buttfuldore’s excitement stuck in his sphincter like a half digested Hero Sausage.

 

“By the grace of the sewage lord… it couldn’t be…”

 

 

“Such a foul smell!” Bungo’s manly exclamation woke the whole ship as he bounded headlong from the cabin and landed firmly on deck.

 

“We must be surrounded by invisible enemies! Really stinky enemies!” Bungo delivered a brutal kick to nothing in particular, before back flipping across the ruined main sail and chopping the air with a grunt of exertion.

 

“Invisible butt-balls of Inferocropolis feel my wrath!” Bungo swirled his arms like a tornado; ducking and diving across the floor in a storm of roiling muscle.

 

“I’ll teach you to befoul the air around Donglore, Lord of the Underworld”. With this exclamation, Bungo appeared to deliver the coup d’grace, and he set to stomping his invisible adversaries with a rapid series of heavy boots.

 

By this point, the Excelsior’s crew had gathered in dumfounded silence; watching the bizarre spectacle unfold. It wasn’t until a large harpoon lanced through the deck that their attention was adverted from the delusional demi-god.

 

Sallica spun towards the new threat groggily; just in time to see a swarm of small shanty-ships speeding towards them. Like a shoal of hungry sharks, their filthy hulls were encircling the Excelsior. She could clearly see the profile of large harpoon guns mounted on the prows of several of the hulks.

 

Shallica barely had time to take cover as the sky blackened with a fresh barrage of harpoons. The oversized arrows sped through the air like hungry dragons in flight; before mercilessly slamming into the stricken Excelsior.

 

Seemingly oblivious to the assault, Bungo was standing his ground defiantly with his hands on his hips. He was just in the middle of gyrating his hips and slapping his crotch mockingly, when one of the spears found its mark. Like a thunderbolt from heaven, the oversized projectile pinged off of his chamber-pot helm and clattered to the ground. A moment later, the mighty Helmet of Donglore followed it; revealing a fierce case of helmet hair that Bungo had apparently been suffering with. He swayed unsteadily; staggering back towards the guard rail before toppling from the ship. He plunged into the murky depths moments later; swallowed into the filthy seas.

 

Without a word, Shallica followed after the stricken hero; diving wildly from the back of the ship. As she disappeared beneath the waves, she caught a final glimpse of the floundering Excelsior being boarded by swarms of dark goblinoid figures.

A Satirical Look at Eighth Edition

There comes a time when every man has to throw in his two cents on a topic that is as ground-breaking in the hobby world as a new edition of 40k. Unfortunately for my poor readers, I decided to consult the dark gods directly and obtained a vision from another dimension. A dimension where the biggest Chaos Marine around struggles to come to terms with his place in the new edition...

Chapter 1 - State of Contusion

 

Bignimuus rapped the slide of his big gun with an even bigger hand.

 

"8th Edition eh?" he rumbled. His oversized lips grinding together; turning the sentence into the distant rumble of an oversized ogre. His beady eyes glared down at the new starter set in front of him.

 

"These supposedly extra big marines look a little small to me..." he pressed down on one Primaris marine with a gargantuan thumb; reducing the plastic plaything to a slagged heap of contorted crappola with little effort.

 

"Fight back you cowards!" he roared, unloading a whole magazine from his engorged bolter into the gaming table. Time seemed to go into slow motion as devastated cardboard mixed with erupting wood and dismembered miniatures.

 

The stricken pieces fell to the ground in a shower of tinkling remnants. Bignimuus eyed his bolter excitedly; seeming to notice on some level that it was now capable of blasting through a Dreadnought's front armour. Perhaps there was more to this edition stuff than he had given it credit for.

 

Before long, the grim scene was disturbed by the graunching sound of active power armour as Titanicoor loomed through the doorway. His legs were so huge and over-muscled that he could barely walk, and his thigh plates ground together in a shower of unnecessary sparks as he entered the room. He was holding one of the new Death Guard miniatures cradled in his arms.

 

"Mighty brothers, you have been shrunken and frozen by some foul sorcery!". Titanicoor blubbered big stinky tears; looking down lovingly at the tiny bare plastic Plague Marine.

 

"By the dark gods!" Boomed Bignimuus "What has happened to our once proud brother!?".

 

Titanicoor's only reply was to hold out a freshly printed rulebook. The glossy paperback was dwarfed by Titanicoor's mailed hand. Bignimus snatched the proffered item hungrily; eyeing it with incredulity.

 

"This?!" he raged; flipping thought the pages.

 

"We'll see about that!"

 

Chapter 2 - Tabletop Tantrum

Bignimuus' narrowed eyes glared coldly into his opponent's sweaty visage. His hand moved slowly to his holster; and then carried on towards the tabletop. He shunted the blight drone forwards  a few inches and then ended his turn.

 

 

His opponent threw a hand full of dice, nervously joking about the quantity of plasma he was wielding and then declared victory. He then had the audacity to reach out tentatively to remove the Blight Drone from the table.

 

Bignimuus didn't like this game. With a spittle flinging roar, he ground the table underfoot and punched his opponent's head clean off his shoulders with a looping lariat. The poor man's headless body swung in the breeze for an agonising moment while the massive marauder took a bite out of the rulebook like it was a club-sandwich.

 

Titanicoor looked on miserably from the side-lines lamenting the loss of the once proud morale phase that they had previously used to cause lesser men turn tail and run, but that now apparently beamed terrified guardsmen off of the battlefield without spilling a drop of blood. It seemed too clean somehow.

 

"Would you stop blubbering!" Bignimuus screamed unnecessarily; sending a spray of half-digested paper into the air. Titanicoor was blowing his nose into an oversized hankie that just about managed to stop the seemingly never-ending stream of snot flowing from his front-grill.

 

"But the dreadnought can be killed by bolter fire now..." he whined in the deepest and most manly way possible.

 

"I will avenge your pain" Bignimuus rumbled; soon following up his declaration by making a ship-wide announcement.

 

"Warrior Brothers prepare for landfall; target, GW HQ Nottingham!"

 

Chapter 3 - Apocalypse How?

 

“Commandeer that Rhino!” Boomed Bignimuus, whilst whirling his chainsword above his head like some grim helicopter with roid rage.

 

Despite its seemingly traitorous colouring, this “Warhammer World” place seemed to be sporting a veritable arsenal of Imperial weaponry. Bignimuus climbed on board the unmanned vehicle; before promptly falling straight through the badly-finished MDF panelling up to his waist.

 

“By the dark gods!” he declared frothily, “They’ve been changing the rules again. Are Rhinos truly made of such flimsy-material in Eighth Edition?”

 

With no way to activate the replica transport, Bignimuus was left with only one option that made sense to his swollen mind.

 

“Brother Enormotank! Push me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!”

 

“Yeauuh, Bruutha!” the reply came across the vox network as a throaty growl, and within moments the bizarre battle group were underway; gouging huge ravines into the floor with the faux tank’s un-turning tracks.

 

Unexpectedly, but inevitably, their path was soon blocked by a banged up Ford Cortina.

 

“Super-King Blokk, I have some information.” The treaty voxed straight to Bignimuus’ ear-bead. He recognised Titanicoor’s voice immediately despite the distortion and the whistling of the wind. Titanicoor continued “It seems that in this new edition, vehicles have been given a Weapons Skill Value and will be able to fight in close combat…”

 

“Whaaatt!” Bignimuus screeched to a halt in direct base-to-base contact with the cowering Cortina. What happened next would one day come to be a point of contention amongst historians, but most agree that the resulting explosion was what led to the destruction of the entire world.

 

Well, that's all folks. I bet you feel really enlightened about the new edition now! For those who stuck around to the end, I can only commend your good taste and impeccable sense of humour. Until next time.

 

On the off chance that anyone actually enjoyed this article, don't forget to read Bungo the Barbarian, as there are plenty of hilarious chapters available to read now!

 

Bugo the Barbarian - Chapter 18, Bungo and the Briney Beast

A week passed as The Excelsior was lost amongst the waves; days running together into one endless night of thunderous fury. It was a miracle the barely seaworthy hulk hadn’t capsized yet, but nobody on board dared to breathe a word of it lest their last remaining fear would come to pass. Bungo had been no help either; feverish with amnesia and unable to leave his sickbed.

 

Shallica was on deck; perched on the prow of the ship. For the second day in a row, she looked out into the tumultuous grey and hoped for salvation. She squinted against the unrelenting downpour; for a moment a shape seemed to loom in the distance.

 

“Land!” Her exultant cry as cut short by confusion. The land seemed to be moving, or at least it appeared to have disappeared into the mists, like a wishful mirage just beyond reach.

 

Janboe was up the rigging in an instant and staring through his sexton at the object. Shallica wondered whether he knew how to use the nautical instrument at all. Come to think of it, it might explain why they’d been stuck in the storm for so long. It didn’t help her confidence when his trousers inexplicably fell down around his ankles and he scrambled to pull them up again; fumbling with the buckle for an unnecessarily long amount of time that made her wonder if the act was intentional.

 

Suddenly, Janboe’s face took on a different air; he shouted something down to the deck, but the words were lost amidst the storm. Judging from the goblin’s frantic arm movements it wasn’t good news. Her suspicions were confirmed when the ship suddenly lunged to one side in response to a loud crashing noise. A spray of water lapped across the deck and for one moment Janboe’s voice cut above the storm. The only word she could make out was “Serpent”, although by this stage it was irrelevant as the colossal creature she had originally mistaken for land reared its dinosauric head above the water.

 

At almost 30 feet tall above the waves it was impossible to tell the actual size of the beast. Its fiery eyes stared down hungrily at the sea hands that were scrambling on deck in an attempt to regain control of the wildly listing Excelsior. It lurched forward with the speed and destructive power of a lightning strike; neatly snatching a straggling cabin-boy from the crowd and wharfing him down in a shower of meaty chunklets. The disturbing scene was made all the more obscene as the creature emitted an odd purr that reverberated through the beams of the ship; it was laughing.

 

Shallica took to the air; her sensuous form spiralling straight for the beast’s draconian maw. At the last minute she twisted away and blazed demonic lightning into the right side of its face. The bolts cracked through the air; seeming to take power from the storm itself. The blast discharged against its flesh in a sizzling eruption that would have flash-fried a charging Wendigo, but barely scratched the surface of its iron-hard scaled hide. It turned immediately; snapping at thin air as Shallica flew overhead.

 

She turned in mid-flight, cutting her levitation and plummeting like a stone past its right flank. Her perception seemed to go into slow motion as the serpentine beast turned towards her, there was an opening for a brief moment and in that instant she sent another weave of lightning scorching into its face. This time the magical fires found their mark and its right eye exploded like a rotten pomegranate with a spray of pus and viscera. It threw its head back; wracked with pain; before its serpentine form crashed bodily to the deck.

 

The ship heaved out of the water in response to the sea beast’s bulk; cresting a particularly large wave before crashing down into the tumultuous sea with a resounding explosion of salt-water. Shallica’s magical power had begun to wane after she had expended so much energy in the assault; she floated unsteadily to the main sail and held on for dear life; drained of strength.

 

“We’re all gonna die!” screamed Janboe; wildly firing a pair of rapid fire hand crossbows ineffectually at the Excelsior’s monstrous occupant. He threw the spent weapons down and dived under a cargo sheet. Whether he’d ever emerge again was questionable, but even amidst the chaos Shallica still couldn’t help but notice that his trousers seemed to have fallen round his ankles again.

 

It was in that moment of utter despair, when all hope seemed lost, that something incredible happened.

 

“Who dares disturb the great Donglore – Lord of the Underworld!” The voice that boomed from somewhere inside the ship was so deep and manly that Shallica immediately went weak at the knees and collapsed pantingly against the main sail.

 

The cabin door flew open a moment later and Bungo emerged. Clad only in his leather pants and wearing a well shined chamber pot on his head he was a sight to behold. On closer inspection it seemed that he had through some unknown means bored a pair of eye holes in the shining spittoon, and he was standing proudly with his hands placed firmly at his hips. His rippling physique seemed even more bulbous amidst the storm as a flash of lightning illuminated his steely pecs magnificently.

 

The entire ship went silent; even the din of the storm and the crashing of the waves seemed to quiet in dumfounded confusion as the strange scene unfolded.

 

Leaping into the fray, Bungo delivered an explosive kick to the monster’s ruined eye socket. The force was so great that the charging barbarian’s colossal leg was momentarily buried up to the knee in the creature’s ruined face. He pulled his sticky leg out with a grunt of exertion; following it up wilt a ludicrously big punch that drove the massive creature 10 skidding metres across the deck; its bulk snapped the mainsail like a twig.

 

The Sea beast mewled pathetically as the Avatar of Donglore bore down on it.

“There’s….” Bungo paused, gathering speed for a new charge “No Escape!” He roared the last words as he tackled the monster again; driving his shining bed-pan-helm hard into its jugular. A colossal wind rocked the ship as all of the air was expelled from the beast’s lungs.

 

“BICEPS OF JUSTICE GIVE ME STRENGTH!” Bungo’s new persona seemed to be running wild. He leapt at the creature like an enraged tiger; wrapping his steely arms around its neck in an unrelenting bear-hug. It tried to roll away and back into the sea, but the bulksome warrior coiled his legs around its snake like throat and dug in deeper.

 

After several agonising minutes of straining, the beast finally went limp in Bungo’s arms. Its tongue rolled out listlessly as life left its body.

 

Not one to leave a job half finished, Bungo delivered a final boot to the creature that sent the lifeless beast plunging into the depths below.

 

“That’ll be 10 silver pieces each.” Janboe’s high pitch voice sounded from his vantage point on the floor. He dusted himself off and held out his hand expectantly. The crew looked at him blankly.

 

“It’ll be a cold day in hell when I let anyone see a man like Bungo choke the one-eyed-snake for free.”

Space Adventure Bravo - Chapter 1, Wormhole Patrol

 

 

Captain Bravo spun in his command chair; suddenly staring directly into the eyes of the vicious Berkosoreian commander that was being projected an imposing 8 feet high across the holo-viewer screen. His steely gaze was unwavering as he gave the same order he always gave when confronted by something new and unexpected.

 

"Fire all guns."

 

His command came as a surprise to the unfortunate alien overlord almost as much as it was a surprise to Bravo's own command crew. In truth the Berkosorians were large in stature, but a benign bovine race of intelligent arthropods that feasted only on plankton and whose flatulence was well known in some parts of the galaxy to actually reverse global warming. Bravo cared not for such details as the first Quantum Beamer Fusillades cycled up to full power and delivered a thundering cannonade across the innocent merchant vessel's port side.

 

"Initiate attack pattern Omega." Bravo's stoic voice reverberated across the bridge through the tactical earpieces of the command crew. A warning claxon began to blare; the flashing red lights illuminating his chiselled jawline as he frowned broodingly into a flickering tactical display.

 

"Captain! Their vessel has no armaments; they're already in retreat". The dissenting voice belonged to a young junior officer, whose tear filled eyes reflected the flashing holo-screen as the Freedom spiralled past the lumbering alien vessel in a nauseating display of interstellar prowess. She was standing before the command chair; holding on of dear life as the gravetic stabilisers struggled to keep up with a vessel that was already at the brink of tearing itself apart.

 

Bravo's only reaction was to pull back on the accelerator lever hard; initiating a further boost in speed up to Light 15. The ship seemed to rock unsteadily and in some before unknown quantum conundrum, the front end raised into the air; beginning some type of space-wheelie and soaring right past the bemused alien vessel. More than a tactical manoeuvre, the action was designed to dislodge the dissenting crewmember from her perch. She tumbled head-over heels straight to the back of the compartment and into the elevator that pinged and closed its doors; whisking her away from the bridge.

 

"I just did you a favour; that was yellow-bellied mutiny!" Bravo remarked to no one in particular, whilst making a mental note to shorten the female crewmember's skirts another few inches to improve on the view that he had been expecting to get. "You can always improve perfection..." he mused, whilst also considering the same uniform change for male officers; he liked airflow.

 

"Captain, the Berkosorian ship is making a run for the neutral zone." The helmsman stopped mid sentence, suddenly reading fresh information that was clattering out of the quantum recorder at an alarming pace "No wait, there's a space-time anomaly forming ahead of them; it's a wormhole sir!".

 

Captain Bravo brought the Freedom around; slowing its speed to Light 4 and turning back towards their would be adversaries.

 

"Go after them, they'll not escape the justice of the Zordian Alliance so easily!". Bravo left his command chair behind and swaggered across the deck to the helmsman. They stared in wonder as the holo-screen lit up with swirling energy as a shimmering Wormhole formed directly ahead. Bravo merely pointed at the centre of the anomaly and gave a single ill-conceived order that would determine the fate of the hundreds of men and women under his command.

 

"Penetrate that hole."

 

He turned; pausing to give a joking wink and the entire bridge erupted in raucous laughter as the Freedom accelerated towards its target.

Bungo the Barbarian, Chapter 16 – Innuendo Crescendo

 

 

The Excelsior rode low in the water. Its massive form seemed to rock unsteadily in time to the undulating waves; helpless under the weight of its own lavishly bedecked aft castles and silken finery. Its cabins were painted sloppily in a generously applied, and seedily peeling coat of thick red paint. The whole ship was gloriously topped in what appeared from a distance to be solid gold wheel at the centre of the helm, but would on closer inspection be revealed as a cheap brass knockoff encrusted with a generously audacious quantity of rhinestones and worthless baubles. As if that wasn’t enough; the gaudy decorations were entirely eclipsed by a colossal topless mermaid statue that boldly crested the prow of the ship.

 

Bungo noticed none of these seemingly small details as heaved Wendy up the gang-plank; bracing his back against her generous hind quarters and pushing with all of his titanic strength. He was excitedly eyeing the words “Excelsior” that had been proudly embossed on the side of the ship when something stopped the odd baggage train in its tracks.

 

“Hold it right there!”

 

Bungo peered round his steed to see a small green Goblin blocking his path; the creature seemed to be bizarrely dressed in a brocaded jacket and tri-corner hat. Even stranger he seemed to be wearing an eye-patch, but was lifting it up to get a good look at the intruding individuals. His beady eyes hungrily took in Bungo’s herculean form.

 

 

“You mean you don’t know who I am?” The odd Goblin gestured at a large badge on his baroque jacket.

 

“Janboe Tigg, Pimp of the Seas…” Bungo read the words slowly, not quite comprehending their meaning. Without concerning himself with the little details like what he was about to get himself into, or what was actually going on, the adventurer made a move to continue up the gang-plank.

 

“I require passage…” as soon as the words left the barbarian’s mouth, Janboe went to work. He clapped his hand once, seemingly signalling the crew. The deck soon rang with the patter of dainty footsteps as a parade of scantily clad women lined up in rows in front of the dumbstruck barbarian, along with a row of infuriatingly camp sailors.

 

“Petunia’s got one hell of a passage; gotta be seen to be believed!” the incredulous Goblin said with a generous wink; waving his arm in the direction of a particularly girth-some woman who was beckoning Bungo invitingly.

 

“Just step right up and that’ll be 3 Pieces of Silver, thank you very much.” He paused for a moment, eyeing Shallica up-and-down curiously, before speaking again.

 

“What’s wrong with this one; a case of Demon-Wang?” Shallica immediately turned red at the suggestion, but Janboe continued regardless.

 

“I think I’ve got an ointment for that, doesn’t cure the Wang, but soothes the engorgement.”

 

Bungo finally managed to interrupt the crazed Goblin’s repartee for a moment by waving his arms wildly.

 

“I don’t want to buy sex! I want to be taken, you know PASSSAGE on THIS SHIP!” Bungo’s booming words reverberated across the deck. The last shouts causing a clamour amongst the crew as they struggled to get a better look at the barbarian interloper.

 

“Oh, right…” Janboe was thinking again for a minute.

 

“Taken on the ship…” The Goblin ummed and ahh’d for a moment before snapping his fingers.

 

“I’ve got it!” He clapped his hands twice more and a muscular man with a moustache appeared from out of the crowd.

 

“This is Klaus, he’ll take your passage on this ship all day long! And for only 2 Pieces of Silver!”

 

There was a slight pause while Bungo’s prehistoric intellect struggled to come to terms with what was happening. Unfortunately the thinking time was mistaken for indecision by Janboe, who immediately offered him a two for one deal and a loyalty card before the barbarian could finally interject again.

 

“What if” Bungo began slowly, sounding out the words one by one in an attempt to get through the labyrinthine sex-trap of a mind he was contending with.

 

“I” the barbarian stopped to gesture to himself and his companions. Janboe was nodding eagerly.

 

“Want a cabin” He paused again, looking the Goblin directly in the eyes for signs of acknowledgement. “Without the sex.” The crew fell silent with looks of confusion. A few laughed at the preposterousness of it, and more than one snicker was heard, until Janboe hushed them meaningfully.

 

“Alone? Everyone in their own room?” The buccaneering Goblin, stopped for a moment.

 

“I get it, but y’know that it’ll cost more to drill the peep-holes right?”

 

Bungo was about to argue, but at this rate it didn’t seem like he’d get a better deal. Exacerbated and more than a little confused, he pushed Wendy’s monstrous form on board with Shallica in tow and they were quickly shown to their adjoining cabins.

 

After promising to come back with a drill, Janboe finally left. As the door creaked shut Bungo cold hear a faint voice echoing through the wall from the next cabin.

 

“I don’t have Demon Wang…” Shallica pouted quietly to herself.

Bungo the Barbarian, Chapter 15 - Harbour-Master Disaster

The Harbour-Master’s office was a tiny hovel of a room, punctuated by a large desk and sprawling sea charts. Getting Bungo’s burly frame into the diminutive space had been quite the conundrum, and his customary spread-legged power stance meant that he had actually wedged one foot against each wall in an attempt to get comfortable.

The ageing Harbour Master eyed him suspiciously over a steaming tankard of bunk-swill; a local beverage that combined a caffeinated seaweed-grog with moonshine in a potently pungent cocktail.

“Marbo?” he mused; pondering the barbarian’s intended destination. Like most of his utterances it was lost almost entirely to slurred unintelligibility.

“I need a suitable vessel, seaworthy…” The barbarian hooked his thumbs into his massive belt for a moment.

“And, full of just adventurers!” He punctuated the booming declaration by making a wide sweeping motion with one hand that neatly beheaded an antique wooden statuette and sent a spray of eclectic paraphernalia crashing to the ground in pieces.

Luckily the Harbour master was in too much of a bunk-swill induced stupor to notice the raucous nuisance that had invaded his office.  He eyed a dusty chart slowly; taking time to process the information it contained.

“Sea’s Bounty is goin’ to Marbo; ‘tis a fine ship.” He offered a manifesto to the barbarian, who glared at it incredulously.

“Sea’s Bounty?” The barbarian roared in annoyance. “Do I look like I’m going fishing!” With the final statement he snatched a list of currently docked ships from the desk.

“The Briney…. no that won’t do” Bungo’s manly features furrowed in consternation as he considered the list of potential vessels. The Harbour master was mumbling something about manners and young folk nowadays when suddenly Bungo gasped loudly and the room fell into complete silence.

“The….” He gulped re-reading the word several times excitedly to make sure.

“The…” There was a brief pause as he took a huge breath.

“The EXCELSIOR!!!!!!” Bungo threw a handful of coins on the table and rushed from the Harbour-Master’s office; narrowly avoiding demolishing an entire wall as he stampeded out of the room.

“No son, not that ship! it’s a place of ill repute … and I ain’t talkin’ about her seaworthiness neither!” The Harbour Master’s muttered warning fell on deaf ears as Bungo raced towards the pier.

Bungo the Barbarian - Chapter 14, A Man's Best Friend

“What is THAT!?” Shallica’s clawed fingers were trembling as she pointed unsteadily into the far corner of the barn.

Bungo had led her to a disused stable on the outside of town, promising to give her the ride of her life. Needless to say, he had no idea what the insatiable she-demon had imagined at those words, or indeed the horrors her less than pure mind was now conjuring up as she glared at the oddly bovine beast with a mixture of confusion and abject horror.

“Wendy!” Bungo held his gargantuan arms out wide in greeting; the familiar call seeming to elicit some kind of response in the molten darkness. A brief, deep, mooing noise; punctuated by the rumbling of cloven hooves was his only reply at first, until something colossal hove into view. Shallica bit her trembling lip in fear as the beast finally emerged; its quiveringly bulbous mass brought tears to her eyes.

Standing as wide as it was tall, “Wendy” was a sight to behold. The rippling mass of muscle that could barely be called a horse emerged like some prehistoric marmot on steroids. It resembled a thoroughbred bull more than anything else, but the distinctly bovine form was definitely related to a horse in some way, perhaps as a thrice-removed mule from a before unknown breed. Even more disturbing than its over-muscled 10 foot tall hunch was the embossed monogrammed harness that proudly declared the creature’s name in surprisingly adorable script; complete with a few backwards letters. Shallica vomited in her throat a little; and it wasn’t just that hero sausage she’d snapped up before leaving the inn.

 

Oblivious to her discomfort; Bungo threw his arms round the creature’s neck and to Shallica’s horror it seemed to purr like a cat as he squeezed it lovingly. The rumbling purr was more like an earthquake than an acceptance of affection, and oddly it even seemed to like it when Bungo squeezed so hard its eyes bulged in their sockets. The heartfelt reunion ended with the barbarian delivering a healthy slap to the creature’s flank that set the beast staggering across the barn; neatly demolishing a portion of the eastern wall in a crash of splintered wood.

“This is Wendy, the finest thoroughbred horse in all the free kingdoms.” Bungo seemed to be making some kind of introduction, as he went about the somewhat onerous task of saddling the creature. Watching the barbarian work; Shallica was momentarily dragged into nostalgia as she remembered the time that Bungo had climbed on her back and ridden her into battle against the Derpo King and his devious Death Ray. She couldn’t help but feel jealous of Wendy at that moment, but was somewhat reassured by the knowledge that the horse-beast was obviously male; whether Bungo actually knew the difference between the sexes or was just oblivious to the fact was another matter entirely.  

Shallica’s train of thought was disrupted mid-flow as Bungo placed his powerful hands around her waist and unceremoniously lifted her off the ground; plonking her down in the saddle high on Wendy’s back, before climbing into the seat in front of her.

“Ride!” The cacophonous command that burst from Bungo’s lips was almost immediately covered by a stampede of heavy hoof-beats. The rampant cavalry left only dust in their wake as they burst from the now ruined stable; to say nothing of the massive pile of horse droppings that seemingly had accumulated during Bungo’s week long absence.

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Armando Spineshankler lurked in the bushes. He glided through the undergrowth unheeded; cowled in black and obscured by secret techniques that made him as silent as a sparrow in flight. He paused for a moment in the darkness cast by a fallen tree; stopping only to lick the side of his knife. The gesture exposed a row of filthy jagged teeth that seemed to compliment his grizzled bearded visage in the half light of early morning.

 

“Bungo … I’m coming for you” The whisper was barely audible above the sound of the forest, but it would have chilled the blood of any close enough to hear. Armando had been eyeing the bounty warrant for weeks. He had stalked his prey across continents; biding his time and waiting for the perfect time to strike. He had followed him to Derrowville, and now to an old barn that would soon become his adversary’s grave. He could almost feel the weight of the Chrome Stumpkins in his pack already.

 

“Ride!” the words echoed strangely through the forest; scattering the birds like a shoal of snapper fish with a garganto-Shark in their midst. For a moment, Armando jumped; thinking that his cover was blown. The momentary fright gave way to outright panic as a huge leaping silhouette darkened the sky; rumbling like thunder in paradise as it tore a swathe through the sleepy forest.

 

Armando’s last words came out as a strangled “Eeep!” as he was carelessly ground underneath Wendy’s monstrous hooves; the crunch of his fragile bones inaudible to Bungo and Shallica as they barrelled past and inadvertently crushed him into a bloody paste. 

 

“Was that a deer?” Shallica’s shrill voice cut the air as she looked back in panic, but the grizzly scene had already been left far behind in a sea of indistinct broken vegetation and tortured earth.

 

 

Bungo the Barbarian - Chapter 13, Pontification Station

Bungo stood astride his defeated opponent's stricken form and danced heartily. The celebratory romp concluded spectacularly with a barrage of sharp thrusting motions and a double-handed crotch slap; eliciting an unexpectedly sublime chime as the hammer blow rang against Bungo's steely codpiece.

The burly barbarian halted his joviality abruptly; suddenly struck by the notion that he still had no idea why the fight had broken out in the first place. He hummed thoughtfully as a massively powerful hand stroked his Herculean jaw and his manly eyebrows furrowed in consternation as his comparatively underdeveloped mental faculties went to work. The effort was such that didn't even notice the shrill ruckus that ensued when the innkeeper finally came out of hiding to see his bar reduced to a swampy broken ruin. Nor did he flinch as fresh porridge dripped from the rafters and splattered against his steely chest; to say nothing of the fact that Shallica had been licking him clean for the past two minutes and relishing every moment of it.

Another agonisingly slow moment passed before Bungo finally broke the silence.

"I have a thought..." He declared; turning to face Shallica with one finger raised. The dainty gesture was quite out of keeping with the barbarian's sinewy physique. Still probing the air with one questing finger, he continued broodingly. 

"Why is a bounty hunter attacking me?” 

Shallica's only response was a sullen groan; her fine eyebrows raised in a quizzical expression.

"All that time and you only managed to get the question, not the answer?" Her reply hung in the air unheeded; Bungo's oblivious diatribe continued uninterrupted and mostly unintelligibly. 

"Bounty Hunters hunt bad people for money..." Another break in prose seemingly proved that the colossal barbarian really was unable to string together multiple sentences with any efficacy. Shallica groaned again; the questing finger had returned.

"Someone paid this man to attack me!" The final words came out in an exultant rush as Bungo finally identified the plainly obvious. It was only after another celebratory crotch-slap and a booming chorus of "Excelsior" that the barbarian realised that Shallica was nowhere to be seen. 

After a brief moment of befuddled searching, Bungo looked down in time to see her clawed hand reach out towards him with a piece of warrant paper clutched between her delicate fingers. It seemed that she had grown weary of waiting for the erstwhile dunce's creaking cognitions and had performed a search of the unconscious man's belongings in an attempt to speed things along. 

Bungo's colossal fist dwarfed the tattered parchment as he took the proffered item from Shallica. He brought it closer to his face and immediately burst into raucous laughter.

"Who is this hideous oaf!?" Bungo spluttered the words; his eyes wet with tears of amusement as he stared at the blockheaded visage on the paper. The hastily scrawled portrait was fashioned with a fierce cleft chin, glowering grey eyes and a monstrous forehead dominated by a bold mono-brow. The poor individual's body was outlandishly proportioned in a ridiculously triangular manner, with legs that appeared almost vestigial in size and arms that hung below the ankles. A childishly angular sword was proudly clutched in one raised hand above a mane of unruly hair.

"It says right here it's you." Shallica pointed to the bottom of the page; the simple gesture almost immediately ending the barbarian's good humour.

"Reward, 50,000 Chrome Stumpkins for the head of Bungo the Barbarian." She read the next line aloud, unaware that Bungo had already begun to turn a deep shade of red; silently fuming at the insult.

"Wanted for crimes of...." She stopped mid-sentence, scowling slightly 

"This part’s been ruined by porridge, I can't see anything else..." Her casual remark was cut short when she looked into Bungo's Herculean features. Gone was the air of amusement; his whole body was tense with an air of dark resolve. In truth, at that moment he resembled the warrant poster's mug shot more than Shallica had previously thought possible, but she didn't want to ruin the moment by pointing it out; even though his hunched posture really did make his arms hang rather low.

There was a pregnant moment as Bungo turned toward the inn door; dramatically draping the stricken man's long cloak about his angular shoulders. When he finally spoke, his tone was brooding and low.

"There's only one place where they use Chrome Stumpkins" he was oddly contemplative as he climbed the creaking  stairs to retrieve the Blade of Donglore.

"We're heading to Marbo."