Here isth ye poeme, which hath been read through ye ages
About a warrior, a seeker, and two different mages
across their adventures they've been both kings and slaves, yes
They were “the Lords & Lady of Dragon-sword Braveness”
Their travels were vast and spanned many years
Their adventures were heard by near everyone's ears
This is but one of many, countless more were lost
(but some were quite boring so those ones were just tossed)
Here are the names of our party of four,
just in case you have not heard them before:
The warrior Careef, how mighty was she!
Her death toll was over ten thousand and three!
Barbarians and Knights, if they saw her would flee
Even dragons have fled just from hearing her go “Scree!”
The seeker, Nistrote, now he was their guide
the best-buried treasure from him could not hide
“Master of compass and map” on their quests,
though some jibed he was “master of the lucky guess”
Shimort, Necromancer and Assassin so cruel
the dead were his minions, coarseness his fuel
he quested for power, that he might one day “thwart all”
(and dark rumours had it that he was im-mortal)
And last but not least, Rikorus the great mage
many potions had he, and spells learned from the page
quirky and fun loving, and eccentric (a tad)
which complemented the fact he was perfectly mad
Our adventurers four, one this one occasion
went seeking a prize envied by the whole nation
The tastiest substance, that also cured gut-rot
a rare dessert ycleped “the tantalizing yoghurt”
Legend and rumour about this divine substance
said there was only one place it was made in abundance
in the lair of a sorcerer, on a far away island;
to get there they must cross both meadow and highland.
It took many weeks, but Nistrote led them well
in an indirect path, that traced the shape of a bell,
but bypassed lairs of monsters, that could not be slain
(or so he assured them whenever they complained)
At last at the coast, they espied a fair ship
that they thought would do nicely for this leg of their trip
Careef spoke to the Captain, a good price did she haggle
as she held blades to parts of him he might no longer waggle
The Captain set sail, with some apprehension
and shanties He'd sing, to help lift the tension
Some new songs he learned, of how they'd adventured
though some were so filthy that most bits got censored.
Three nights passed quick, the next morning they saw
a ludicrous castle, upon a beach shore
Our heroes prepared, gathered flagons and bottles
to gather as much yoghurt as the market could gobble.
They gathered in the dinghy, and rowed to the beach
but after rowing for hours, it was still out of reach
and just when they stopped, to rest arm and hand,
they found their boat had arrived at the sand.
They puzzled at this, then looked all around
This island they'd landed at was no more than a mound
They stood up in the boat, but then, by their shoulders
the sand-grains grew and twisted to the size of small boulders
Nistrote and Careef, confused and flummoxed so
(as, in truth, was Shimort, though he did not let this show)
The only one amongst them who looked quite nonplussed
was the capable mage, the mad, great, Rickorus.
“Companions!” he called, “Sit down and just wait”
“For here comes the Sorcerer, he's an old mate!”
a curled, sprawling mass hovered and stretched into view
Then settled into man-shape, and smiled at the crew!
“Rikorus! Old bean! Old playchum and friend!
I haven't seen you since school came to an end!
Welcome to your crew, oh, I must give an introduction
And a lesson of this place, by way of induction:
“Welcome to my island palace of impossible shapes!
Where thrice-helixed windows are hung with one-sided drapes!
Where space, scale and time are but half the dimensions,
and speaking in colours begets spiral ascension!
Where sinistral turns invert you in gravitational schisms,
where we listen to music with impossible rhythms,
guitars play in yellow, drums have backwards beats
and my sheep sing along with octagonal bleats!”
Rickorus! I sense your crew might not be equipped
with minds that can handle my coiling time-dips:
I advise that you leave them here in your boat
While I show you around, here, step over this moat.”
Rickorus gave a smile, said “I'll be back in ten”
Stood up and shrank in a curved shape called 'when'.
The crew left agreed, through this ocular din,
“If there's one man who can handle this place it is him.”
They waited in silence for a time measured in inches
and dared not even move in the tiniest flinches
and before the local clock had struck half past a goat
Rickorus spiraled through right-angles back into the boat.
And his pockets were bulging with bottled and flagons!
So big they would need to be carried by wagons,
He smiled at his comrades, said “I almost forgot!”
And handed them each a small spoon and pot.
“Some samples of yoghurt! I urge you to taste it!
Oh friends, I assure you our journey was not wasted!
Come, rip off the lids and dig in with your spoons,
your taste buds will squeal with saliva-fuelled swoons”
Nistrote tried his first, and moaned with delight.
“It tastes like black cherries and like warm beds at night!”
Sighed Careef; “I taste melons, and somehow, taste 'hunting'!
My two favourite things! Oh, we must hang out the bunting!”
Shimort, for once smiled; hissed “Oh this makes my day!
I taste apples, and the sweet tang of death and decay!”
Rickorus beamed an enormous wide smile:
“And I've got more than enough to last us a great while!”
“And not only that; I've got much more to sell!
This yoghurt is so perfect in taste and in smell;
Great chefs and cooks, Emperors and Barons
Will no doubt pay us a gold bar per gallon!”
“My Sorceror friend, the space-warping loon,
can fit pints of yoghurt into one tiny spoon.
And not just that, his mastery of time is so rife
that each of these bottles will last us for life!”
“To the ship!” screeched Careef! “To town, and to riches!”
Nistrote said “I'll have money enough to buy me ten bitches!”
Shimort quoth “And I'll buy whole herds of dead bulls!
And charge them through towns just to flatten the fools!”
“I'll just push us offshore, and return to the ship”
said Rickorus, but standing, he wobbled and slipped!
He grew huge and shrank simultaneously,
and dropped one of the bottles right into the sea!
This retort, now a bottle-shaped mountain in size,
yet still made of glass, which to no-ones surprise
started to crack under it's trillion-tonne weight
And yoghurt, sweet yoghurt, in amounts truly great,
cascaded like avalanches in a HUGE sloppy motion;
Verily! There was more yoghurt than ocean!
The tidal wave swept up our adventurers four
their boat road the crest all the way to the shore
of the mainland they'd left not three days before
and they held on so tight all their muscles were sore.
They crashed over the jetty, and into a field
looked back, and saw how much yoghurt they'd yield'.
They'd flooded the ocean, yet despite all the brine
the tantalising yoghurt still tasted damn fine!
“You TWAT!” shouted Shimort, his face red yet pale.
“Don't you know ANYTHING about economies of scale?
The yoghurt, delicious although it might be
is now all but worthless! It's essentially free!”
They wiped themselves off, and examined the shore
such waves made of yoghurt, there could barely be more.
Then the thought struck Rikorus with the force of a piston
“well, that's gone and buggered the local ecosystem”
Our heroes turned landwards, and onward did walk
on to their next adventure, of which now we'll not talk.
But suffice to say, their fame was assured;
That land never forgot the fair Lady and Lords.
Epilogue:
For centuries after, while sailors drank grog
they'd tell each other tales of the great Sea of Yog
which happily fed all who dwelt on it's coast
for years to come, and of their land they did boast
Tourists would come from afar to just see
the sloppy and especially tasty white sea
in great pots and pails it was sent over land
and all got to taste it, to the lowliest farmhand
years turned to decades, and in turn to generations
and all who ate it had yummy sensations
but the great Sea of Yog got more & more dilute
to the point it's taste became of quite sickly repute
And only the sea-life could stomach it's taste
and it mixed further and further with their fishy waste
until score-score years later, the sea was quite common
and memories of it's taste were forgotten.
'Tis only through legends and songs of the ages
we know of the quartet of Dragon-sword braveness
Their deeds now but myths, their adventures mere stories
but bugger me, they make for strange allegories.
About a warrior, a seeker, and two different mages
across their adventures they've been both kings and slaves, yes
They were “the Lords & Lady of Dragon-sword Braveness”
Their travels were vast and spanned many years
Their adventures were heard by near everyone's ears
This is but one of many, countless more were lost
(but some were quite boring so those ones were just tossed)
Here are the names of our party of four,
just in case you have not heard them before:
The warrior Careef, how mighty was she!
Her death toll was over ten thousand and three!
Barbarians and Knights, if they saw her would flee
Even dragons have fled just from hearing her go “Scree!”
The seeker, Nistrote, now he was their guide
the best-buried treasure from him could not hide
“Master of compass and map” on their quests,
though some jibed he was “master of the lucky guess”
Shimort, Necromancer and Assassin so cruel
the dead were his minions, coarseness his fuel
he quested for power, that he might one day “thwart all”
(and dark rumours had it that he was im-mortal)
And last but not least, Rikorus the great mage
many potions had he, and spells learned from the page
quirky and fun loving, and eccentric (a tad)
which complemented the fact he was perfectly mad
Our adventurers four, one this one occasion
went seeking a prize envied by the whole nation
The tastiest substance, that also cured gut-rot
a rare dessert ycleped “the tantalizing yoghurt”
Legend and rumour about this divine substance
said there was only one place it was made in abundance
in the lair of a sorcerer, on a far away island;
to get there they must cross both meadow and highland.
It took many weeks, but Nistrote led them well
in an indirect path, that traced the shape of a bell,
but bypassed lairs of monsters, that could not be slain
(or so he assured them whenever they complained)
At last at the coast, they espied a fair ship
that they thought would do nicely for this leg of their trip
Careef spoke to the Captain, a good price did she haggle
as she held blades to parts of him he might no longer waggle
The Captain set sail, with some apprehension
and shanties He'd sing, to help lift the tension
Some new songs he learned, of how they'd adventured
though some were so filthy that most bits got censored.
Three nights passed quick, the next morning they saw
a ludicrous castle, upon a beach shore
Our heroes prepared, gathered flagons and bottles
to gather as much yoghurt as the market could gobble.
They gathered in the dinghy, and rowed to the beach
but after rowing for hours, it was still out of reach
and just when they stopped, to rest arm and hand,
they found their boat had arrived at the sand.
They puzzled at this, then looked all around
This island they'd landed at was no more than a mound
They stood up in the boat, but then, by their shoulders
the sand-grains grew and twisted to the size of small boulders
Nistrote and Careef, confused and flummoxed so
(as, in truth, was Shimort, though he did not let this show)
The only one amongst them who looked quite nonplussed
was the capable mage, the mad, great, Rickorus.
“Companions!” he called, “Sit down and just wait”
“For here comes the Sorcerer, he's an old mate!”
a curled, sprawling mass hovered and stretched into view
Then settled into man-shape, and smiled at the crew!
“Rikorus! Old bean! Old playchum and friend!
I haven't seen you since school came to an end!
Welcome to your crew, oh, I must give an introduction
And a lesson of this place, by way of induction:
“Welcome to my island palace of impossible shapes!
Where thrice-helixed windows are hung with one-sided drapes!
Where space, scale and time are but half the dimensions,
and speaking in colours begets spiral ascension!
Where sinistral turns invert you in gravitational schisms,
where we listen to music with impossible rhythms,
guitars play in yellow, drums have backwards beats
and my sheep sing along with octagonal bleats!”
Rickorus! I sense your crew might not be equipped
with minds that can handle my coiling time-dips:
I advise that you leave them here in your boat
While I show you around, here, step over this moat.”
Rickorus gave a smile, said “I'll be back in ten”
Stood up and shrank in a curved shape called 'when'.
The crew left agreed, through this ocular din,
“If there's one man who can handle this place it is him.”
They waited in silence for a time measured in inches
and dared not even move in the tiniest flinches
and before the local clock had struck half past a goat
Rickorus spiraled through right-angles back into the boat.
And his pockets were bulging with bottled and flagons!
So big they would need to be carried by wagons,
He smiled at his comrades, said “I almost forgot!”
And handed them each a small spoon and pot.
“Some samples of yoghurt! I urge you to taste it!
Oh friends, I assure you our journey was not wasted!
Come, rip off the lids and dig in with your spoons,
your taste buds will squeal with saliva-fuelled swoons”
Nistrote tried his first, and moaned with delight.
“It tastes like black cherries and like warm beds at night!”
Sighed Careef; “I taste melons, and somehow, taste 'hunting'!
My two favourite things! Oh, we must hang out the bunting!”
Shimort, for once smiled; hissed “Oh this makes my day!
I taste apples, and the sweet tang of death and decay!”
Rickorus beamed an enormous wide smile:
“And I've got more than enough to last us a great while!”
“And not only that; I've got much more to sell!
This yoghurt is so perfect in taste and in smell;
Great chefs and cooks, Emperors and Barons
Will no doubt pay us a gold bar per gallon!”
“My Sorceror friend, the space-warping loon,
can fit pints of yoghurt into one tiny spoon.
And not just that, his mastery of time is so rife
that each of these bottles will last us for life!”
“To the ship!” screeched Careef! “To town, and to riches!”
Nistrote said “I'll have money enough to buy me ten bitches!”
Shimort quoth “And I'll buy whole herds of dead bulls!
And charge them through towns just to flatten the fools!”
“I'll just push us offshore, and return to the ship”
said Rickorus, but standing, he wobbled and slipped!
He grew huge and shrank simultaneously,
and dropped one of the bottles right into the sea!
This retort, now a bottle-shaped mountain in size,
yet still made of glass, which to no-ones surprise
started to crack under it's trillion-tonne weight
And yoghurt, sweet yoghurt, in amounts truly great,
cascaded like avalanches in a HUGE sloppy motion;
Verily! There was more yoghurt than ocean!
The tidal wave swept up our adventurers four
their boat road the crest all the way to the shore
of the mainland they'd left not three days before
and they held on so tight all their muscles were sore.
They crashed over the jetty, and into a field
looked back, and saw how much yoghurt they'd yield'.
They'd flooded the ocean, yet despite all the brine
the tantalising yoghurt still tasted damn fine!
“You TWAT!” shouted Shimort, his face red yet pale.
“Don't you know ANYTHING about economies of scale?
The yoghurt, delicious although it might be
is now all but worthless! It's essentially free!”
They wiped themselves off, and examined the shore
such waves made of yoghurt, there could barely be more.
Then the thought struck Rikorus with the force of a piston
“well, that's gone and buggered the local ecosystem”
Our heroes turned landwards, and onward did walk
on to their next adventure, of which now we'll not talk.
But suffice to say, their fame was assured;
That land never forgot the fair Lady and Lords.
Epilogue:
For centuries after, while sailors drank grog
they'd tell each other tales of the great Sea of Yog
which happily fed all who dwelt on it's coast
for years to come, and of their land they did boast
Tourists would come from afar to just see
the sloppy and especially tasty white sea
in great pots and pails it was sent over land
and all got to taste it, to the lowliest farmhand
years turned to decades, and in turn to generations
and all who ate it had yummy sensations
but the great Sea of Yog got more & more dilute
to the point it's taste became of quite sickly repute
And only the sea-life could stomach it's taste
and it mixed further and further with their fishy waste
until score-score years later, the sea was quite common
and memories of it's taste were forgotten.
'Tis only through legends and songs of the ages
we know of the quartet of Dragon-sword braveness
Their deeds now but myths, their adventures mere stories
but bugger me, they make for strange allegories.
