If you haven’t read it already, you might like to read An Adventure In The Castle Of Despair, Part 2

The band of Adventurers were nonplussed.

“I’m kind of used to riddles being inscribed above the magic doors of castles and caves and whatnot,” said Borgus to the others. “Usually, you solve the riddle and the door just… opens.”

“Oh right, yeah yeah,” said Flargflarg, “like that one where you had to say the Half Orc word for ’platonic relationship’ before it would open.”

“Exactly,” said the Mage, scratching at his carefully groomed beard.

“Only,” continued Flargflarg, “the Half Orcs don’t actually have a word for platonic relationship, so you had to know to use the word for ’enemy I ate with a small amount of regret.’”

“Exactly,” said the Mage. [1]

“And even then, ’regret’ in Half Orcish is only ever used to indicate that you might have added too much curry powder.”

“Shut up,” said the Mage.

Riddles inscribed above magically locked doorways were a fairly standard thing in the Adventuring industry, and many a quest came to a disappointing conclusion because, as it happens, being great with a sword and looking fantastic while swinging from a chandelier in a loincloth didn’t always equate to being versatile at abstract or lateral thinking.

However, in this particular situation, it didn’t appear that much abstract thinking was required, as inscribed above the magically locked main entrance doors of The Castle Of Despair was the following simple statement:

“Fuck Off”.

It wasn’t even written in Half-Orcish, or Elvish, or any of the other exotic languages of the many Races of the Wisdomverse. It was written in plain English, in a very straightforward font, and it had been underlined, for the benefit of those who weren’t otherwise convinced about the intent.

***

Being a Deathpriest took a certain sort of mindset, and usually vacancies in the priesthood attracted a particular type of applicant. It helped if you lacked imagination. It was particularly beneficial if you had a strong stomach. And if you were also the kind of person who could do 12 horrible things to mostly innocent people in a day, and still go to sleep thinking about building a bigger boat shed, all the better.

Darren Deathpriest and Murray Deathpriest were, if anything, extremely typical Deathpriests.

They could lurk at a moment’s notice. They could make furniture feel menaced, if the situation required it. They could cackle even when things were very, very unfunny, which was much of the time. But most of all, they could leave the job of Deathpriesting at the door when they went home in the evening to the Deathwife and the Deathkiddies after a hard day of making that day much, much harder on someone else.

Currently they were on duty in the main foyer of the Castle Of Despair, and they were entirely unprepared for what was about to happen to the front doors…

Holy moly, folks, what is about to happen to those front doors? Will our band of Heroes really ‘Fuck Off’? Will Darren and Murray get to build a bigger boat shed? How do you say, ‘Please stop eating my legs!’ in Half-Orcish? (Ironically, it’s kind of a sound like, “Aaaaaargh!!”) Find out the answers to some of these questions in Part 4!

Copyright © Murray Wells 2011