Chapter Seventy-Nine

Once, Abigail explained to you how mass production worked.

It was very simple.

Mortals, because they were so lame (Other than Abigail, of course) couldn’t just make stuff become more stuff. They had to deal with things being a finite resource. When they burned wood, they only got ashes and smoke to show for it, and they weren’t clever enough to make time go backwards so that it turned back into wood.

Still, they had some smart ideas about making lots of similar things. All they had to do was figure out each step needed to make a thing, then they would repeat the step over and over on something that wasn’t complete yet.

Then, when they had all their incomplete stuff, they would go to the next step and repeat that one over and over on each incomplete thing.

In the end, it took way less time to make a bunch of stuff all at once than it did to make each thing individually.

That’s why you, being very clever and attentive when you felt like it, lined up all of the annoying Inquisition people in a straight line, each one held in place by a few friendly tentacles.

“You can’t do this!” some said.

“We’ll have you executed!” others said.

The big important one, who wasn’t so big or important now that he was on his knees and his hat was on your head, was screaming loudest of all.

You ignore all of their noises and get ready to begin your mass production of less rude people.

First, you extended the newspaper of bapping off to one side, held at the end of an extended arm. Then you line it up with the head of the first inquisitor in the long row that loops around the room in a big circle.

You’re ready.

Your little legs take off with a mighty thump-thump of your bare feet on the wooden floor.

The newspaper bapped the first inquisitor on the side of the head, then as you moved forwards it smacked into the second, then the third. The faster you run, the faster the bapping.

There are screams of pain and torment and embarrassment as you sprint across the room, their noises only drowned out by the smack smack smack of the newspaper of bapping doing its work.

You come back to where you started and pause to pant a bit. That was a lot of running! “Did you learn your lesson?” you ask.

“You think you can intimidate us with that? We will return unto you all hard you cause tenfold!” Mister Lord Shooksword screams. There’s spittle and everything.

You sigh and start running again. It’s kind of fun because you need to wave your arm up and down so that the newspaper of bapping hits each Inquisitor right in the face. Maybe you should have lined them up by height?

No, no this is more fun. No one said that revenge shouldn’t be enjoyable.

“Whoosh!” you say as you beat your arms in the air like a bird, the newspaper of bapping still going smack smack with every bouncing step you take.

Some of the mean inquisitor people start crying, others try even harder to break out of the grasp of your tentacles, but it’s to no avail.

This time you go around twice before stopping to breath hard and grin at your hard word. “Did you learn your lesson?” you ask.

They reply with a bunch of sniffling and some moans. Maybe next time you’ll run the other way around to make the red smack-marks on their faces match.

“You--you can’t do this,” Mister Lord Shooksword says. He looks most pitiful of them all.

You walk over to him, tower of hats wobbling proudly above you as you stop in front of him. “Will you hurt Abigail?” you ask.

“She, she violated--”

Smack goes the newspaper of bapping.

“Will you hurt Abigail?” You asked again, this time while waving the paper under his nose.

“We can’t allo--” he stops to flinch when you raise the paper for another bap. “We-we.” He swallows. “We could come to a compromise?”

“What sort?” I asked.

“If she unsummons you, we’ll promise not to hurt her?”

You bap him again. “No. That’s a stupid idea. Stop being stupid, it annoys me.”

“But, but it’s our duty, our job!” he says.

You smack him on the forehead. “Get another job! This is not hard. Abigail does shopkeeping stuff, you could do that instead of annoying everyone that comes from places where you can’t go because you’re all squishy and weak.”

He starts crying, and you wonder if maybe you failed to be polite at some point.

“Please get another job?” you try.

Much better! If Abigail were here she would certainly be patting your head and cuddling you into her chest.

How long has it been since you were last with your Abigail? She’s probably all worried and sad because you’re not there to give her a place to rest her hands, such as atop your head.

At least she has Daphne for cuddles and Charlotte for distractions.

Your eyes narrow. You’re really tired of all of these inquisition people.

“Look. I’ll make it easy.” A rip opens up above the table in the middle of the room and disgorges a pile of naked inquisitors. “You can have all of these, and in exchange, you stop bugging me and Abigail. If you don’t stop, then I eat you. Okay?”

Mister Lord Shooksword doesn’t look like he wants to agree.

You raise the newspapper of bapping.

“You win! You win! We’ll surrender!”

Victory!

Thanks to your incredible diplomatic skills and your polite nature, you won the day.

***