Her words somehow recalled for the humans the time when they ruled the planet - when they could wear their fur shorts low - before the coming of the elves. Naturally, the humans had greeted their new neighbors with clubs and spears, but things had been improving since then. These days, the two races were less concerned with annihilation than experimenting with each other.
As for Tabak, a Class One Hunter of the Gotarian tribe, he was standing by, standing by, and waiting for orders. He wasn't terribly bright, but at least he could kill well. Feeling cold and impatient, Tabak stood over the catch of the day, who was tied to a pole. Waiting behind him were the hunter's family and friends: his wife Jirian, his drinking buddy Oarken, and Eward the Spirit-Man. Tabak glanced back at them for approval, but no sign came. The sun was also rising. "May I just kill him now?" he asked, trying to be polite.
"YES!" they shouted in unison.
Feeling evil, Tabak said, "And now, young demon, you will die!" He pulled a knife from a "pocket" on his g-string, juggled it for a minute, drew random shapes in the air, and was about to swallow it when a young human, named Jorg, called from off-camera, "Hurry up already!" So Tabak sighed, and dejectedly lifted the knife...
***
Meanwhile, the elves, the mighty Wolfriders, were sitting around and getting
dang high on dreamberries. This would have gone on for quite a while, if
out of nowhere Nightfall had not asked, "By the way (hic), where's Redlance?"
"Dunno (burp!)," replied Pike, who was suddenly becoming fascinated with the un-Recognized female. "He's not stupid or anything," he mentioned, feeling ready to put on the moves.
***
Tabak stepped away from the torture pole and began to laugh maniacally.
None of the humans were quite sure if he had killed the elf or not, but
it certainly looked that way. Oarken nudged closer to his younger friend
and commented quietly, "You're sure that was a good idea? You may
remember that I took care of a spirit child... And how sure are you that
this won't come back to haunt us, or something?"
The newly fanatical hunter screamed to the crowd of humans, "Nyah ha ha ha ha! More blood, MORE BLOOD!! Destroy, kill, savage, and even plunder!"
"If Gotara wills it..." the Spirit-Man started to say, but he was too late. The people, practically drunk, were fixated on Tabak. Suddenly, he was the MAN, the hippest dude in town.
Reveling in his new coolness, Tabak shouted, "Follow me - quickly! We shall destroy the demons! Ha ha ha he he ho ho hic!" Prancing into the woods, the drugged-up pack of humans came right behind him.
***
Sensing something worse than a smelly fart, Strongbow sent, **Aren't the
humans a bit loud tonight?** to his tribe. He was the only one among them
who was a dreamberry teetotaler, and though they constantly made fun of him,
he would not renege. The archer stood up and prepared his weapon for battle.
Treestump also stood up, though he wobbled a bit on the way there. "I don't care about (groan) anyone else right now. Yup, it's probably trouble, and I'm going to go over there and find out (hic) just what's going on," he moaned. The elder [well, relative to the "socially active" Wolfriders] tottered off towards the human camp.
"I still think something happened to Redlance," whined Nightfall, but no one listened.
***
"SO!" hollered Tabak, gesturing wildly with his curiously
dark torch, "They have come out to meet us! Nyah ha ha!"
Confused by the multitude of spinning human images, Treestump felt ready to throw up, and he grunted, "Hang on, be quiet, and calm down. Can't you humans just shut up and leave us alone?" He didn't bother to count them - Wolfriders don't do that - but if he had, there would have been about four or five eights.
The furious Tabak replied, "NEVER!" in his slightly insane manner, and threw his torch at the ground. To his dismay, nothing caught on fire. Tabak then realized two things: 1) he hadn't lit the torch, and 2) his failure to do this had caused him, and all the other humans, to constantly run into trees. Attempting to think on his feet, Tabak fired up a new torch and threw that one at the ground. It fell into a puddle and went out. "Uh... I'll be right back..." the human mentioned with a stutter.
"Same here," Treestump said offhandedly, only half-understanding the human, "I shall return swiftly with my tribe."
Well, before you [the reader, that is] knew it, there was a battle! Well, for TAL 1, the rule for combat scenes will be "ignore it and it'll go away." Since most of the fights in the real _Elfquest_ are actually interesting, that gives me additional reason to avoid such silly nonsense. For those who actually care about the battle's results, the Wolfriders won it but lost the war - or something like that. They had to flee from the humans, pathetic as the Gotarians were, and to complete their escape, they elected to march into the trolls' caverns. Needless to say, they weren't too strong in numbers, because...
***
As the humans charged out of the Gotarian camp, a hooded elf of Wolfrider
stature and scent approached the torture pole. Ripping through Redlance's
ropes, he sent, **You are still alive, right?**
**Well, yeah...** the tree-shaper replied, feeling rather uneasy about this new situation.
The mysterious Wolfrider continued, **It looks like I actually got to the right place and at the right time! Well, the humans are a bit busy right now, so how 'bout we make a quick escape?**
Redlance, now on his feet, sent, **By all means. But who are you?** He found himself two steps behind this odd character, and could therefore not make out a face.
***
Picknose the troll lived up to his name. The young, ambitious cave-dweller
would not have minded a title like "rude boy." He saw the Wolfriders
coming through the unlocked door (Scurff had unwittingly lost his keys),
and immediately barraged them with insults: "Haven't seen you pond excrement
lately. Seems you brought in your pets with you. Mind if we keep them in
our... ahem, kennels?" he taunted.
"We ain't the wolves of peace," Cutter retorted, "Take us to your stupid leader, or we will unleash our own fury on your silly caverns. By the way, take a look at MY sword here. Still sharp, isn't it?"
Taken slightly aback, Picknose grumbled, "Hey Scurff, take this extra set of keys. I think we will be dealing with these *&$% elves here and now." Throwing the keys to the doorkeeper, he began to plod toward Greymung's chamber. The *&$% elves followed.
Finding himself in the hall of the troll king, Cutter pompously bowed and stated in a snotty accent, "We have come to make a real estate transaction with you, oh exalted Greymung. Having recently entered the market for one new holt, we will gleefully resign our previous place of dwelling to you, provided that you can guarantee the existence of another in this neighborhood. It must be about a few hundred eights--"
Greymung interrupted the babbling elf with a raunchy belch. Staring curiously at the two eights of elves, he asked, "What the hey happened to the one ya just came from?"
"Well, my friend," Cutter continued in a slightly less irritating tone of voice, "let us simply say that it has a slightly unbalanced ratio of humans to Elf-Width [a small unit of measurement, used by elves only]. But I doubt that your mighty troll subjects would have any difficulty in dealing with this pestilence," he noted with a wicked smile.
The troll king replied, "I would have a plot of land for you. It's just on the other side of a tunnel called 'Perspiring is Trite.' All ya hafta do to get there is cross over a few pages, or somethin' like that."
Picknose decided to butt in and ask, "But my lord, will they really be interested? I mean, don't you remember what Bearclaw taught us about elf psychology?" He recalled the Blood of Nine Chiefs, and how schizophrenic that elf had been.
"Um... oh, yeah, that thing," Greymung muttered. He watched as the elves gathered together to discuss his proposition.
Woodlock began the private chat, **I don't like it! The troll is a loser,** he sent, and though he was intoxicated, a good number of elves nodded in agreement: Rainsong, One-Eye, Clearbrook, Strongbow, Moonshade, and Treestump. Obviously, they formed the elven version of the Republican Party.
Trying to work with the other angle, Cutter suggested, **Is this even a choice? We need a new holt, and they're willing to give one to us. You won't find this sort of deal every night.** The Wolfrider Democratic Party gave the thumbs-up: Nightfall, Pike, Scouter, Newstar, Dart, and Dewshine.
Looking over at the divisions that were forming, Skywise knew that Wing could not have shifted the vote, as he was rather young. It was his responsibility to chip in, but naturally he avoided it. So instead, Skywise started to investigate a large, gray rock on the ground. Greymung saw him doing this, and commented, "That's just a stupid rock. Leave it alone - I've got a lot better, and all around you too."
Picknose reminded his dim king, "REVERSE psychology, Greymung!" with an elbow thrust for good measure.
"Uh... No, actually, the rock's very, very valuable. The best one I have. Don't even touch it, or else I'll personally devoid your ID card," the troll king added, correcting himself.
Now Skywise was confused. Paying a little more attention to his fellow elves, who were starting to argue, he sent, **I'm all for Woodlock.**
"That just about settles it," Cutter declared, looking rather angry, "Greymung, we Wolfriders would rather live with you trolls in this stinkhole than actually explore the rest of the world - right, Skywise?"
Picknose decided to step in and take the responsibility of speaking for his leader. "So sorry, elves, but ACTUALLY the new holt is a big, sandy desert. Nothin' there but a few lizards. You'd dry up in days," he declared, lying quite convincingly.
**New vote!** ordered Cutter, **Now who's for me?**
The vote was the exact opposite as before, showing that something was indeed very peculiar about elf psychology. And so it was Picknose, the wise troll, who lead the Wolfriders to their doom... er, new holt.
***
Redlance was having a really weird night. He had been nearly killed at
the hands of one of the most incompetent, as well as incontinent, humans.
Now he was resting in this hooded elf's cube-shaped shelter. The tree-
shaper knew no elves who made their homes this way - in the human mold -
so who was this character? **I gotta know... who are you?** Redlance sent.
"Thought you'd never ask," the elf stated. Pulling off the hood, it was revealed to be - - Rain the healer?! Now, the face was unmistakable, but...
More worried than ever, Redlance demanded, **How'd you get here?? Everyone assumed you were long dead...** Just then he remembered that it was not good at all to assume, and that he had been one of the Wolfriders who had sword that Rain would have been better off unborn. Redlance wisely chose to not speak his mind on that subject.
From the lining of his breeches, Rain shamelessly pulled out a sheet of fabric which had some symbols on it. "This is my contract with Warp Graphics. According to it, if I expect to receive overtime pay, I had better make a decent cameo or two. Let's just say that I was DRAWN in by powers beyond my control," he said, chortling, for he had made his first bad pun.
**Interesting...** Redlance remarked, **Can you heal me? It should be in my contract.** The young Wolfrider began to pull his contract out - it was not an easy task, and of course it was an extremely private one.
Just as the tree-shaper had gotten the document out, Rain stated, "Let me see that." Defying all the social mores, he took the character contract from Redlance's hand and read, "It says, 'Terms and Obligations for Redlance in Book One: must sustain injury from humans,' and goes on to say, 'must also continue injured through long desert journey, come close to [Wolfrider] death, and be healed only at the expense of one Leetah the healer [character code SF-L.1, see also section 4A].' I really shouldn't, it would mess up the plot," Rain confessed.
**The plot is already screwed up! I'm not supposed to be ABANDONED! I want my lovemate! Heal me, you... you formerly dead Wolfrider!** sent Redlance in rage.
Rain sighed and picked up all his healing implements. "I suppose I should... Be forewarned, though, 'cause all the others - the formerly dead, as you call them - will want to make cameos, and if they get treated like me, then this whole thing is gonna go down the drain," he noted, and then actually threw Redlance's precious contract at him.
What sort of human-like expression is that? realized Redlance as he was picking up the contract. He shot back, **Shut up, Rain!**
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This page was last updated February 19, 1998. All _Elfquest_ characters and ideas are the property of Warp Graphics, their copyright 1978- 1998. John Alan "Merejez" Riggs is not affiliated with them in any way. "The ElfQuiz Parody" is merely meant for the purpose of satire, and not to misconstrue the actual works and properties of Warp Graphics or its employees. Thanks, and keep loving and dreaming.