Blitswald lit up as much as someone red in the face from drinking and crying could in half a second. “Oh now? How’s that, cap’n?”

“Ye ‘member what ‘e said to us earlier? ‘ow ‘e’ll be drunk ON ‘is ass?” the apparent captain nodded his head in the direction of the stables outside, where a lonely donkey stood milling about among a horde of horses.

The skyrates grinned slyly and darted out the door. Sir Broderick stared, blank faced with incredulousness, wondering what on Gurth they could be up to.

Then, it cut the cheese on him.

“Keep the change!” Sir Broderick tossed a handful of lint, crumbs and thread from his pocket in the bartender’s face and sloshed out the door.

By the time Sir Broderick reached the horse ties outside it was already too late. He looked past beauitful horse after beautiful horse until his suspicions were confirmed.

Sir Broderick looked up, seeing his beloved donkey in the clutches of the skyrate dealer, who was just out of reach and slowly rising up to the skyrate ship above the sky train by way of a thicc notted rope. The other skyrates followed on other similarly fixtured ropes nearby. Blitswald smirked, before looking back at the stonely Michael and starting to bawl again.

“My ass! My ass!”

The skyrate captain patted Blitswald with a hooked hand before turning to Sir Broderick and bellowing, “Yer ass is mine, now, matey!”

The captain paused, realizing what he’d just alluded to as his goons looked at him queerly, then shrugged.

“Give me my ass back or you’ll be sorry, sirrah!” Sir Broderick’s jowles reverberated with fury. Surely his ass was at the moment flatulating with fear.

Sir Broderick’s ass was indeed flatulating, but not with fear. It had a rather absentminded expression on its face, and was chewing on whatever the hen all of the horses were chewing on, seemingly unaware of the fact that it was presently being ass-napped by skyrates.

While this was happening, the priestly little old lady from earlier had shuffled out of the bar and was heading to the outhouse to relieve herself for the fourteenth time that evening. It was still occupied, so she was standing there in a hunched, elderly fashion.

Sir Broderick fished through his pockets for the crumbs, thread and lint that he often chucked at people when he needed to throw them off guard, only to realize he had just done that to the bartender at the Belligerent Bar-D and was fresh out of projectiles.

“Cock hammit!” he swore.

The little old lady nearly fainted on hearing this. “Heathens, all of you!”

Sir Broderick looked over to her. “You came to a bar! What’d you expect us all to be doing, clucking or something?”

Clucking was a form of communing with the chickens above. There was theological debate as to whether one clucked out loud, or just in their head, imagining the sound of themself clucking. Most churches practiced group clucking, where people would strut around the room bobbing their heads and clucking however loud or quite they felt the need. Those that clucked often were said to have the weight of the world lifted, and have their mental health unwaveringly as stable as chickens’ heads physically were. Clucking was also, unfortunately enough, a bit a euphamism for sexual activity, a linguistic quirk that often made church services seem quite aloof and funny.

Sir Broderick’s eyes darted around inhebriatedly, spying a fresh clump of horse dung. He had an idea.

“Oh how absotutalutely disgrosstiferous,” scoffed the esteemed wizard Dr. Krumbunculus from his window. He cast a spell to keep himself from barfing in his mouth and then another to fully settle his stomache as Sir Broderick flung globs of horse manure at the skyrates with the accuracy of a half dead fish.

The door to the outhouse creaked open as Thurmsabold and the male bartender attempted to exit, immediately face to face with the old lady, who grew pale as a well worn bedsheet.

Thurmsabold gasped. “Oh. Eh. Don’t eh don’t you mind us he was just eh helping fix the eh the plumbin’ mademeh.” Of course after saying this, Thurmsabold realized the outhouse had no plumbing to fix, because it twerked by way of magic spells, and that plumbing when not alluding to something else was simply a very primitive piece of engineering from before humanity discovered magic.

At this moment Sir Broderick the Shitfaced hurled another pile of horse feces through the air. While he was hopeless at hitting the skyrates, it did manage to unintentionally splat all over Thurmsabold’s face. The pruned old lady screamed.

“Shit!” Thurmsabold cried, careening backwards like a walrus on stilts. He collided with the wall of the outhouse, sending it toppling backwards. Of course this also upended the wooden planks outside the outhouse that the banshee-shrieking old lady was standing on, catapulting her into the air. She was not unlike a giant chicken soaring through the heavens.

Sir Broderick perked up for a drunken moment. “Well, well, well. Who’s the shitfaced one now?”

As the outhouse rolled into the woods and down a short hill it smushed excrementally into a boulder, sending the many enchantments cast on it screaming out in a dazzling flash of purple lightning.

SHHHHKKKKKRRRREEEEEEEEEEEECKKKKK

The crackling burst of magic snaked through the air toward the terrified old lady, blasting right at her chest. Or, what looked like her chest. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, she always wore a silver amulet with the shape of a chicken egg on it. Inscribed on the egg in ancient tongue were the tantamount words of the faith of all chicken followers, all of whom had heard it millions of times but almost none of which grasped the meaning: WHICHIUS CAMEIUS FIRSTIUS?

It was fortunate or perhaps unfortunate that the little old lady wore this amulet because were she not wearing it, the lightning would never have seeked her out and most likely would have weaved towards Sir Broderick’s saucepan. So, fortunate for Sir Broderick, and unfortunate for the little old lady.

Yet still it was indeed fortunate for the little old lady because the aforementioned words inscribed on the amulet had a sort of ricochet affect on the magic that in turn redirected it right towards the bottom floor of the esteemed wizard Dr. Krumbunculus’ haphazard homestead. She would later give many sermons about how this very moment only further proved to her the grace of the chickens, and by extension of course herself, as a self proclaimed ‘poultric vessel.’ This was a controversial term to some due to the existence of the three competing churches of the turkeys, the geese and the ducks, which although less popular were all still considered poultric in nature.

SHHHHFFFFFLLLLLPPPPFFFFF

In a dazzling spray of lighttwerks the magical crackles struck the first floor of the esteemed wizard Dr. Krumbunculus’ rickety residence, bursting into a huge puff of purple and green fantasy flames that immediately incinerated the entire dwelling as if it were a thin sheet of newspaper tossed into a furnace.

The esteemed wizard Dr. Krumbunculus would have been frozen in shock had he not decades ago cast a spell to make himself less likely to be frozen in shock. He calmly cast spells to protect all of the worthless crap in his house that had not been burnt to a crisp as he tumbled from his now nonexistent perch into the trees below.

OOOF

A branch hit the esteemed wizard Dr. Krumbunculus in the face, sending two of his teeth whirling through the air in a dervishlike fashion. He tried to cast a spell to bring them back-

CRCK

Both his wrists were now broken by another ill placed tree branch. His body was scraped and bruised, or it would have been, had he not cast a spell decades ago that made himself less likely to-

PPRRSHK

The esteemed wizard Dr. Krumbunculus had just broken his neck. He would probably have been dead had he not decades ago cast a spell that-

BORRCSH

Now his back was broken as well, which would undoubtedly paralyze him for life. However, seeing as he had the forethought deacdes ago to cas a spell which-

PLSHHMPLPLSLFFFFMMMM

He landed in a thicc patch of brambles. He would have been in undeniable pain and agony, had the esteemed wizard Dr. Krumbunculus not had the prudence to cast a spell decades ago that slightly lessened the pain and agony that he currently felt so that he could to a degree still deny it.