Barbarian snark DOOMSDAY WARRIOR: American Glory!

[MinDonner]

Astonishingly, there are only 3 chapters left now, so our guys need to get a move on. But our plot coupons are now nearly all collected, and for the last one we're off to...

Chapter 10: The Mountain of Thunder

Sumia's narcolepsy is about to kick in, so Sharajsha brings her some wine(?), then it's time for the obligatory catch-up.

"Wizard!" said Thongor, "I'll taste a goblet of that drink as well, and so, no doubt, will Karm Karvus."

Blah blah, KK explains the obvious facts of "I was worried about you guys and then I heard the battle and so I came to investigate," which we could probably have worked out for ourselves. Sumia wakes up again and decides to travel with them because the Druids still want to kill her and no-one else will protect her; Sharajsha explains that he managed to finish forging the sword before the attack, and then they all have a nap while the floater travels over some geography below.

By the next morning, they've arrived at the Mountain of Thunder without incident, and they land near the base. And Sharajsha must ascend alone!

"Only I, armed with powers of magic, may ascend the uttermost peak of the mountain," he explained. "For when I call down the lightnings of heaven to embue the Sword with power, those not protected by great craft and magic skill would be charred to ash... such are the powers I must invoke."

There's some mystical guff now about how the sword contains all the elements of nature (made of stone, forged in fire, and now lightning I guess is the air element, and for water it will "drink deep of the accursed blood of the Dragon Kings"). Thongor is naturally scornful of this wizardly nonsense and declares that all one needs is a good blade and a strong arm, which of course has been totally sufficient for him to escape from all his peril thus far.

Thongor also takes a moment to get jealous of KK, who (as a noble) is better at talking to the princess than he is (cuz barbarian). He turns his back on them... and then Sumia screamed!

Down from the airy gulfs winged the terrible lizard-hawk, a very twin of the one that had attacked him days ago over the jungles of Chush. Its wriggling, scaled snake-body was mailed in fantastic yellow and brown. Its furred and bat-like wings darkened the air. At the end of a long serpentine neck the hideous head reached for the girl. She was running towards the floater, slim legs flying. The head swooped towards her - grim, hooked beak clashing hungrily, cruel scarlet eyes blazing with insatiable hunger beneath the indigo-blue crest of wild, bristling spines.

Yep, if you are having trouble talking to girls, you can always save them from monsters instead (may need the assistance of a benevolent author).

Sumia, of course, trips over some stones and falls helpless beneath the darting beak. Both KK and Thongor are now hacking at the monster but can't get through its leathery hide with their swords. Perhaps Lemuria has yet to invent the whetstone. Anyway, undeterred, Thongor leaps between Sumia and the lizard-hawk, swinging the blade with all the power of his iron thews. This gives KK the chance to carry Sumia back to the floater while Thongor keeps the monster busy.

The grakk was gigantic - fully as large as the air boat. Its beaked head was almost as huge as Thongor's entire body, and the tremendous muscles of its sinuous length could have torn him to ribbons in an instant, could it have seized him. But the giant Valkarthan danced over the mountainside, leaping away from each plunge of the hissing head, battering at it with great blows of his blade, never still for an instant.

Thongor's fighting style makes me think of no-one but Sir Didymus out of Labyrinth (sadly YouTube appears not to have this scene :( But I'm sure you all know what I mean)

Anyway, eventually one of the grakk's claws manages to grab him, and - yes! - he bashes his head on a rock and is knocked unconscious. KK rushes to save him, but too late! The lizard hawk is flying off with Thongor in its grip! No point in chasing him, says KK, cos T is probably dead already. Oh well. *characters has a sad*

[Antonius Pius]

Awesome, that's KO'd four times in one book. Still no brain-damage, I suppose, or perhaps impossible to tell.

[Maltaran]

Its wings are both furred and batlike? Isn't that an oxymoron?

[lacuna]

Awesome, that's KO'd four times in one book. Still no brain-damage, I suppose, or perhaps impossible to tell.

Someone give that man a helmet!

[Antonius Pius]

Someone give that man a helmet!

Or another job!

[KAH]

Or another job!

With that kind of skull, he could perform as a human cannon ball.

[Vampire Squid]

With that kind of skull, he could perform as a human cannon ball.

Or maybe he should headbutt the monsters rather than hack at them.

[KAH]

Or maybe he should headbutt the monsters rather than hack at them.

I don't think that would be very wise, unless he headbutts only in situations where he can afford to faint.

Oh wait, what am I saying - that's all of them! Headbutt away!

[MinDonner]

Chapter 11: The Dragon Kings

Not that we were in much doubt about Thongor's fate, but Lin does not even leave us with a trace of cliffhanger as we're straight back with the thewed one as the next chapter opens.

He regains consciousness as cold wind rushes over his naked body, and though his long black mane obscures his vision, he can just about work out that he's being carried through a sheer gorge of black stone in the claws of the grakk. Never in his long, adventure-filled life had he felt so completely helpless! (<-- direct quote). But at least the Princess is safe and Sharajsha can go kill the Dragon Kings without him.

Eventually the grakk drops him off at the nest and then buggers off, leaving him to the mercy of... baby grakks! Luckily they are only about 6 feet tall and Thongor easily defeats them with a sharp bone (he knocks one out of the nest, stabs another and strangles the third; this takes 5 paragraphs). But now he's stuck in a nest full of dead grakk-chicks, on a steep cliff as smooth as glass! NOW there's a cliffhanger. I guess we needed to wait until Lin could interpret that more literally.

Meanwhile, Sidekick, Chick and Wizard are off in the floater, racing to get to Dragon King HQ in the last few hours before the Moment of Conjuration. I do like the way that all the earlier backstory about how all the Dragon Kings were dead and only Dragon Wizards were left, has now been completely forgotten about and now it's Dragon Kings they're after. Sumia is haunted by memories of her barbarian champion; sorry KK, you were never going to measure up really.

They came to a great gateway, open and unbarred, facing the eternal waves. It was unguarded - empty. Sharajsha unsheathed the magic Sword and gestured them forward. He went on first into the black maw of the portal, the naked Sword glowing in his hand.

And then - madness!

The fog suddenly writhed-boiled-congealed, and monstrous black forms loomed out of the mist towards them. Karm Karvus' rapier sang as he whipped it from its scabbard. Sharajsha lifted the blazing blue length of the Sword - but out of the whirling fog a fantastic black figure appeared, eyes like sparks of living green flame burned coldly within its misshapen head. A glittering black hand clamped on Sharajsha's wrist with cutting force.

Uh oh. A lesson to everyone trying to assail a fortress without a barbarian present. Though with Thongor's prior record, he'd probably have just ended up getting captured as well.

Anyway, the Dragon Kings knock both S and KK unconscious, then cackle evilly about how their life forces will be spent on the altar of the Lords of Chaos, blah blah blah. This is too much for Sumia, who passes out in sympathy.

Last chapter up next!

[MinDonner]

Final chapter! Though this one's a long'un, a whole 18 pages, so may take more than one update to do it full justice. We'll see how I get on.

Chapter 12: The Lords of Chaos

The only way down was - down!

Yes, we're back with Thongor stuck on his cliff. Despite the imminent return of Mother Grakk, he decides his best plan is to painstakingly skin the dead baby grakks using bits of bone he finds lying around, and then fashion a rope from their scaly hide. I suspect Lin has forgotten that there's a mother grakk around at all.

Mr Carter does love his long, drawn-out descriptions of Thongor climbing up or down stuff, so there's plenty more of that, along with the inevitable reminders that our hero spent his boyhood climbing up glaciers so he's like really good at this, even despite the howling winds and terrible abyss that would have defeated a lesser man blah blah blah. But two pages later he reaches a convenient ledge and can travel more easily, so it's time to skip several hours of his journey as that is far less interesting than that thrilling cliff-climbing stuff.

We pick up the narrative several hours later, as Thongor is lost but hoping that if he follows this river, he'll get to the Dragon Isles. No, I don't get it either, we were definitely told that they were islands in a sea, not in a river. But the end of the book is approaching and Lin cares more about getting us to the destination in time than such petty matters as geography. There's a rather cursory interlude where a monster climbs out of the river and chases Thongor for half a page until he hides in a cave, which soon (like, a paragraph later) conveniently leads to the Dragon Isles and he also immediately finds the magic sword hidden in some water.

The Luck of the Gods had directed his steps.

:rolleyes:

Yeah, that happened. Anyway, now he's all worried that his friends are in trouble, cos duh.

If he were too late to rescue them, he would at least be there to avenge them. The Sword would reach its destined place upon the fated hour, whether man, monster or even the Dark Lords of Chaos stood to bar his way!

With the amount of authorial fiat on display, it's really hard to take this noble declaration seriously. Let's hope the Luck of the Gods is still with him, eh?

[Lummel]

Luck of the gods = author realises he needs to finish the book in the next nine pages!

[MinDonner]

Final update coming up!

For hours Sharajsha, Karm Karvus and the Princess lay in the chill, dank darkness of a bare stone cell. Few words passed between them, for there was nothing to say.

I can think of quite a few words that might have been said at this point. For example, "let's make a plan to escape". Or at the very least, a sweepstake of "how long will we have to sit here until Thongor comes to rescue us," followed perhaps by a few rounds of I Spy*.

Sumia is still lost in melancholy thoughts of those mighty thews, but eventually KK and S decide to enlighten the readers with a bit of infodump as to what is in store for them. Apparently, as soon as the stars align, they will be chained to the three altars and sacrificed (zzzzzzzz) to feed the Lords of Chaos with their life energies. And again we come up against the Wow Suspiciously Convenient factor. The Dragon Kings have been planning this for a thousand years and yet forgot to get in any sacrifices until our guys just happened to show up? If there was even a hint that - aha! - they'd deliberately leaked their plans to Sharajsha in such a way that he'd assemble a 3-man team and then turn up in the nick of time to become God-fodder, it might make a tiny bit of sense, but even that is a bit much to ask for (and good job they survived the grakks/slorgs/druids/zemadars/miscellanous guards also!).

Oh, and the Chief Dragon King is called "Sssaaa". Yep.

Blah, description of Dragon Kings and their eeevil green slanty eyes, though they have also apparently invented the lightbulb (and their decor favours tapestries of tree-ferns and similar Carboniferous flora). Our Sidekick Troupe are escorted to a sinister plaza of sinister columns where sinister fog coils evilly around sinister runes. Dragon Kings start chanting an evil chant, sacrifices are manacled to altar, evil drums are evilly drumming, all the stars start turning red and it feels like the atmosphere of Earth is being sucked into some unknown orifice. (The location of the orifice from whence this plot was expelled is, however, no mystery at all.)

Suddenly all was silent.

Is this Thongor's cue? No, not quite yet, the Sidekicks are not in quite enough Peril. So Sssaaa picks up the Sword of Sacrifice and starts to thrust it towards Sumia's breast. That should do it!

And behind them, Thongor laughed.

Thongor's sword blazes with blue fire and now shoots lightning bolts! He zaps Sssaaa first, in an anatomically-bizarre scene more reminiscent of Ryder Stacy than anything Lin's come up with so far:

The second bolt caught Sssaaa upon his weird helm of blood-red metal. It heated to the melting point instantly, and the great black body arched with the unbearable shock, tearing its muscles loose from its bones with the terrific impact of the thunderbolt. His brains fried, body blasted, the Lord of the Dragons fell twitching spasmodically to the black pavement.

Really, I'm half-expecting a next paragraph here about miscellaneous mutant vermin emerging to feast on the remains, but there's still plenty more zapping to do.

Thongor wields his electric sword with great vigor, zapping Dragon Kings left and right, and then even actual lightning joins in and starts zapping them from above as well. Cos that happens.

Sumia "swoons" at this point and then wakes up a bit later once all the Dragon Kings are dead. Thongor is lifting her off the altar, and she looks into his golden eyes... and then immediately falls asleep again! :lol: Not even kidding:

...and then she sank exhausted into the darkness of a deep and healing sleep, cradled in the Valkarthan's powerful arms.

Yes, all that lying around unconscious on altars really takes it out of you.

And that's it, bar the Epilogue, a 3-page wrapup of farewells and whatnot. Yes! Sharajsha gives Thongor the Armlet of Plot Device! "It's a mere trinket, yet keep it by you for someday it may come in handy". Uh huh. Needing an unspecified magical gadget for the sequel, are we? Still, it's good to see at least a tiny bit of advance planning, however lazy and lame.

Anyway, S lets Thongor keep the floater, and KK conveniently saved the Valkarthan broadsword so he gets that back too, then S goes home and the others start planning... to return to Patanga and retake Sumia's throne! But we already know that story.

THE END.

*takes a bow*

So that's that then. And I think it's time I took a break from barbarianing, though there is the next Rockson on the back-burner for later. To be continued in a few months probably!

Don't think Bones still reads this thread, but he did promise us some Hubbard, so might see if I can rustle him up in the meantime... :devil:

*I love the phrase "I spy with my little eye...". Not because the game is any good, but just because of the way it's now this elegant and unmistakeable code for "HOLY FUCKING GOD I'M SO BORED AND THERE IS LITERALLY NO OTHER ACTIVITY AVAILABLE".

[Jon AS]

Final update coming up!

Great stuff, but I can see how you'd need a break after all the exciting unconsciousness. Just reading the summary has exhausted me to the point that I seem to have forgotten what happens in the next book. Maybe I should dig up some of the old threads.

[Vampire Squid]

Great stuff, but I can see how you'd need a break after all the exciting unconsciousness. Just reading the summary has exhausted me to the point that I seem to have forgotten what happens in the next book. Maybe I should dig up some of the old threads.

Thongor falls unconscious.

Karm Karvus fucks up, often causing Thongor to fall unconscious.

Sumia has breasts.

The larth!

[Antonius Pius]

Thanks for slogging through the thewish (mis)adventures, Min! :cheers:

[lacuna]

^Agreed, great fun!

[MinDonner]

Coming soon...

:devil:

[lacuna]

Yaaay!

What does it say before "for freedom is the... Doomsday Warrior"?

[MinDonner]

You can probably guess that, if you put your mind to thinking of some lame front-cover clichés...

Looks like same cover artist as the last book, given Rock's continued resemblance to Emilio Estevez. The chick is probably Rona, as the hair is definitely not blonde, but she seems to have lost even more clothing, and from that anatomically-unlikely squat, is either taking yoga or a dump. Impeccable makeup though.

[jagilki]

either taking yoga or a dump. Impeccable makeup though.

Why not both? Multi-Task.