[Thenamir]

Gateskeeper bravely stood in the back of the If-You-Can-Be-Bought-At-Any-Price-You-Will-Be-Ship, but could no longer avoid the eyes of the Dread Developer.

"Ah," rasped the true voice of Mogul inside his head, "dear Gatessssey. Long time no ssssseeee. You've been bussssy haven't you? But you haven't been reporting assss ordered. Helping the Shhhieldmaiden. Think what you could have had working for me." And as he watched the surrounding carnage of fragmented Oliphaunts and dead/resurrected orcs faded away, and he was...

...back on the shores of the Pea Sea, sitting at a simple table under a pavillion fashioned after the crest of his mighty armies, the multicolored four-panel window. He was enjoying a fine cigar as the petulant leader of the Eunuchs, his longtime enemies, sat opposite him signing terms of surrender. At his side, hanging from an onately-jeweled strap was the Entish bow, who had become his confidante and close friend in the battles that conlcuded the war. Now it was saying things like, "I knew you would win in the end, mighty Gateskeeper. Who needs that miserable shieldmaiden anyway?"

"Peace, my bow," replied the Gateskeeper, "you are speaking of my wife." His thoughts returned to his beautiful suburban home near Dorktank, and to his new wife, the gloriously beautiful Merisuwyiniel. She would be waiting patiently for him to return from the battlefront so she could fawn over him and serve him. He knew that she missed him terribly, and occasionally whe he was on long journeys such as this, her normally perfect composure would crack just a little, and she would begin to cry softly for her husband and lover. Just thinking of that flawless porcelain heaving bosom...

He shook his head in the vision and was transported to his vast office suite on the top floor of Dorktank, where he was now Chairman, CEO, and chief programmer for the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Between ordering his minions to add meaningless revisions and unused bells and whistles to his soft wares, he was reviewing the latest reports tell him how far his O-mails were reaching, the vast percentage of Muddled-Mirth households into which his influence had penetrated, and how much his bank accounts overflowed. Let those dwarvish fools keep their casinos, and the elves their dairylands. They still had to run their operations using his software, and paying him for the khopy-wight to use them. He was well on his way to having them bound to his monopoly, and then the prices would only go up. Pretty soon even Mogul and his followers would be bound up with the onerous costs of using his works. And his own Loyers would draw the contract noose around Mogul's neck until...

"Tssssk tsssk tsssk. Sssuch delusionsss. You've been a naughty, naughty wizzzzard," came the interruption that was about as welcome as a case of athlete's foot. "Ssssso disssappointing. Ssstill, it will be fun for awhile, watching my bessst Korprat-Loyers have their way with you." And while the rest stood around still glassy-eyed with visions of their own private versions of heaven, the bespectacled Maia was well and truly in hell.

For now he was transported to the fell Dungeons of Default in Moredough. Cold iron manacles chained hand and foot to the slimy stone walls. Gateskeeper faced no less than a half-dozen immense dark forms from the darkest nightmares of the most depraved. They pelted him with vile injunctions, stabbed him with disgusting writs of habeus corpus, and shoved restraining orders under his fingernails with insane glee. In addition, they wove the foulest, most torturous spells with their chanting, words of ill-omen passed down even unto this day,


Leo Dicaprio,
Brittany Spears,
Jessica Simpson,
Watch them for years!

Visiting Mom-in-law,
Internal Revenue,
Washington politics,
Cleaning the loo!

Rush-hour traffic,
Nuclear strife,
Michael Moore flicks,
A nagging wife!

Country Music
Killing sprees
Gangsta Rap
and MTV!

Such was Gateskeeper's torment in his vision that he fell to his knees with a bloodcurdlng shriek of sheer terror mixed in equal measure with excruciating pain, with just a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of tabasco sauce, and baked at 350 degrees until crispy. Gathering all his strength (from where it lay in pieces all over the dungeon floor) he threw himself at his tormentors. The manacle holding his right wrist sliced deeply through skin and bone, there was a moment of blinding pain in his arm...

<the soundtrack rises to a crescendo, the picture goes to a brilliant white for a moment>

...and then he was free -- free of the torture, free of the vision, free of the Cloz'd Dheal mark on his hand. Indeed, he was free of his marked hand altogether, which lay on the ground in a small pool of blood. His arm ended in a badly-cauterized stump. But the throbbing pain of the mark was gone (replaced by the only slightly less intense pain of an amateur amputation job). Mogul had made the vision too real and, as is normal for overreaching evil dictators and overconfident dark lords, the instrument of his power became the vehicle of his intended victim's freedom. It was the deus ex machina he had been waiting for ever since post 141 (which we now visit in flashback form via the miracle of the 3-second cross-dissolve)

While sitting in the food courts of the GAP of Soreham, he began to wish that he had not made that deal with Mogul, but even as the thought crossed his mind the burn mark of the Cloz'd Dheal throbbed under his one glove. Then he remembered the one thing that might turn the trick for him. In lore ancient beyond all reckoning there was a whisper of something more powerful yet than Mogul, something yet more powerful than even the beauty of Merisuwyniel herself, as improbable as that might be. The power of the deus ex machina, called by some the Plôt Twĩŝt. But invoking that power would involve suffering in the extreme.

The day had finally come, and the battle which had raged within him finally ended: goodness had triumphed over the evil in his soul, and the alternate personality fell into the void with a mournful wail of "precious!" and was gone. Light flooded Gateskeeper's entire being. Virtue emboldened him, righteousness strengthened him, courage drove him. Leveling a gaze at Mogul that would melt the very rocks he strode forward, staff wielded in his unmaimed hand, filled with the confidence of the just.

Mogul dismissed his advance with a casual wave of his hand. But it did ever-so-slightly weaken his grasp on the others for a moment.