City of IF

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:49 pm Post subject: 5 - Shagpile to the Rescue!

Chapter 5. Shagpile to the rescue... or NeNe is kinda losing her mind

Grabbing the shiny thing between his thumb and forefinger Bartrix gave it a tug. Apart from a few small bits of rubble, nothing much shifted. Picking up bits of debris and shifting them around Barry began to make out the shape of what appeared to be a handle.

Kneeling down to peer closer Barry could see some sort of engraving on the bronze, it kind of looked familiar and it played on Barry’s mind momentarily before he reached down with both hands and gave an almighty pull.

Meeting with a great resistance at first, the rubble suddenly shifted and the object came free. Looking decidedly like Aladdin’s lamp - it burst out of the rubble and what with the momentum of Barry’s strength and the sudden release from its confines, the lamp shot across the room.

It was only as it hit the wall opposite that Barry noticed that attached to the lamp was what looked to be a rather large pile of shag carpeting. Ruminating on the character of a person who would let such a treasure as shagpile get so filthy, Barry rose to his feet.

Suddenly the shag lurched upwards to a height of not more than four feet and sprouted not only a pair of arms but legs to match. Thick as a tree trunk the arms began to pump up and down and it took a moment for Barry to realise it was alive.

‘Oh Brucey, will you just look at that?’ Robin crooned from somewhere away to Barry’s left. ‘Its a puppy dog – one of those big English Sheep dog things that we saw on the telly..’

The shag turned to face them drawn by the voices, giving off a mighty snarl as it did so. Throwing itself forward at a run, the shag carpeting headed towards Barry at an alarming rate of acceleration. It crashed into him, before he had time to react, and they skidded across the floor and crashed into a pile.

Just as Barry was about to throw a punch in his defence, an overly large crossbow arrow thwacked into the wall, bare inches from where his head had been mere moments ago. Before he had a chance to blink, and utter the expletive spilling from his lips, the shag pile was dragging him out of the large hole created by Batman’s entrance.

Glancing over his shoulder and seeing a large troop of guards entering the cell, armed to the back teeth with all manner of armoury, Barry decided to trust this neglected floor covering and ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

‘WAIT FOR US DARLINGS!’ came the falsetto tone of Dickie Greyson.

Halting momentarily, to adjust to the harsh light of the midday sun that glared into his eyes, Barry saw the troop advancing towards the small group. The shag grabbed Barry and Robin by the arms and with a terse command for Batman to hold on where ever he could, the shag spun and took three quick steps. Each step seemed to grow in length until the last stride covered the distance of three city blocks. Here the shag seemed to hit its peak and while remaining the same length, the speed of his steps increased until the world was passing by in a blur of colour.

Robin, Barry and Batman held on for grim death as they found their bodies streaming away behind them. The massive acceleration made it difficult to breathe let alone speak and Barry held grimly on.

In a matter of minutes they had passed out of the city gates, through the surrounding fields and stopped at the base of the mountains that had moments ago been smudges of purple on the far off horizon.

The shag collapsed onto the ground and motioned urgently towards Barry.

‘Quickly, quickly, come here boy.’ The gruff, surly and baritone voice that spilled forth from the shag belied its appearance.

It was only as Barry drew closer that the features on the face became somewhat discernible. Peering past the bits of miscellaneous garbage that were caught up in the bushy black beard that was over a foot long, and seemed to house at least five separate life forms, Barry realised with shock that this was indeed some type of man, er, thing.

The ruddy red nose (so lumpy and bumpy it must have been broken in at least 3 different places on several occasions), squished up beady eyes, and eyebrows that seemed to exist with a will of their own, made up the face. All of which clashed horrifically with the gash like mouth filled with pointy, uneven, yellow, snaggle teeth, which made a heroic effort to dominate the bottom half of the irregular face.

Barry detected an odour that seemed to hark back to the cell midden and he forcibly stopped himself from gagging. Drawing his eyes further about the miscellaneous countenance, he noticed that it was wearing a helm made to resemble nothing so much as a lamp, right down to the handle and spout.

Well, that solves that mystery, he thought to himself. Reaching out with a life of their own his fingers gingerly rubbed the bronze.

‘OI! What the bleedin’ hell do you think you are about, lad?’ The large and overly rambunctious voice echoed menacingly throughout their mountainous shelter. Grabbing his helm off his head he waved it vigorously in the air as he continued his rant.

‘Think I’m one of those pooncey skirt-wearing genies do ya? Rub the little lamp and gets ya three wishes, eh? Well you got another think coming, my son!’ Pulling a battle-axe from depths Barry didn’t care to think about, the small being grew red in the face from shouting. Jamming the helm back down with frightening violence the figure began to take battle-stance.

Batman and Robin began to move towards them to see what was going on but this drew another tirade from the grumpy little man.

‘ALRIGHT you two namby pamby girl-men, not another step, bad enough having to hold ‘is hand!’ here the irate creature indicated towards Dickie with a fury akin to that of a tropical cyclone.

‘Now you wants ta pussyfoot over ‘ere with all your girly fussin’ and chidin’ – why in my day men were for fightin’ with and women were for doin’ the fussin’!’

Bruce and Dickie halted in their advance and looked at each other sheepishly, Bruce even went so far to take a step away from his partner and a highly emotional Dickie let out an expletive filled outburst of his own.

All this shouting was really starting to give Barry a headache, it had been a long day and he hadn’t had a bite to eat or drink, let alone caroused with several maidens, as was his usual wont. He was beginning to feel decidedly out of sorts and this didn’t bode well for evening revelries. Taking a deep breath, Barry summoned the power of voice that he had inherited through the god tainted side of his genetic linage.

‘Cease and desist, my good fellows, cease and desist!’

Barrys voice was smooth, calm and full of such power that it could be heard for miles around. The voice of Omnipotence sent shock waves before it, and all that heard it were forced by unseen hands to halt in what they were doing*. The problem with employing these methods of control was that more often than not they summoned Him, Barry quickly covered his ears.

Ah, see here our brave hero? Bartrix, the son of Destiny, come to fulfil his fate. And see here his band of merry compatriots, what stout and hale men such as these will not do for their leader is beyond the ken of mortaldom. Watch carefully my friends for here there will be decisions made and lives changed, all of the world waits hushed in expectation for what will follow. Will Barry join with this new comrade in a quest to save the world from the evil....

Having taken his hands from his ears at these last words, for the first time in his life Barry was annoyed when the Narrator stopped talking or had at least faded away into the distance as though a page had been turned.

There was suddenly a strange humming sound and Barry drew his blade with the zwing sound of a true professional.

‘RIGHTO! That’s us, then.’ Batman spoke in relief as the Bat plane zoomed in overhead. ‘Glad I installed the auto-tracking sequence now, I bet, hey Robin? Told you it wasn’t a waste of money, now those curtains – they would have been a real waste...’

Then taking Dickie J. Greyson by the arm, Batman used a nifty tool from his belt to hoist them up into the open door of the plane. Dickie gave Barry an affectionate look over his shoulder and quickly threw a kiss at them as the door began to close. Barry watched in disbelief as the plane ascended into the sky and disappeared quickly beyond the horizon.

‘Well, that’s that problem solved then.’ Mumbled the voice of his only companion. ‘Least we don’t have to sleep with our backs to the walls any more, a man could really develop a complex with fellas like that ‘round. ‘Specially one as devastatingly good looking as me.’

Barry looked at the fellow incredulously, had he head that right? This chap thought himself not just handsome (which he plainly wasn’t) but devastatingly good looking? Quickly covering his outburst of laughter with a coughing fit, Barry for the first time surveyed his surroundings.

Hmm, we are standing in the foothills of the Grey-scary Mountains by the looks of these grey mountainous things behind me. So that puts us about ten days solid travel from Alandria. Scanning the scenery from their position on a small rise in a clearing, Barry could make out several small villages and two rivers twinning through the forest filled scenery.

Hearing a noise behind him, Barry turned to find entering the copse, where he stood with the red faced being of indeterminable origin, was a rather large problem.

‘Er, yes, that was what I was meaning to say before. When I was being held by the Guard for questioning about a, er, lets say minor fracas, I overheard two of them discussing you. Lets just say that the word has been put out that one of the major players in Evil wants you – shall we say, ‘removed’?....oh yeah, by the way my names...’

Okay kids, so whats his name? And what/who has just entered the clearing... also we kinda need a storyline.... hmmm, well you have plenty of time to mull this over as I am off for a entire month! I know, it scares me too.

*This actually had some quite tragic consequences for several birds flying overhead. Not to mention the inhabitants of one small village that were battling a fire, caused when an undiscernible blur had shot past and knocked over a lantern sending a whole spray of sparks into a chandlery.

Chinaren · Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:45 pm Post subject:

Ahhhh. Another fine chapter there matey.

Quote: Barry drew his blade with the zwing sound of a true professional.

...nice line!

Who is he? Big Ears of course. Of Noddy fame. :lol: Or maybe... Mmmm. No, I'll think on it some more.

Cyberworm · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 12:44 pm Post subject:

Well, I would say it's an Oni (a Japanese demon) with a weird Jappy-accent, came to tell him that some Japanese (or some other foreign demon lord for that matter) wants his head,

but more importantly wants Ms Doomini's machine , so he will let him live as long as in the end the machine ends up in the Daemon Lord's hands (the foreign one). But he has already spoken so...

He could be named Snuggles and be very sensitive to flowers... lol. (like, when someone is to step on a flower, he automatically jumps to save it and leaves our hero alone) And he could be sent by some weird-named demon (like Ishtamjuggaloo or some hard-pronounceable name).

In the end, he may not be sent by anyone, he could just be some anti-hero doing his job*, he could be as much praised in Abbadon** as Barry in... uh... whatever over-world*** he is in.

* like when in the world of good there is a mission list for the heroes to do, only this is the evil "to do" list

**Abbadon is a name for a demon realm, I read that on Wiki :)

***over-world, as opposite of under-world

...

Ultimately, HELOVES PEPPERONI! That's why he has red face. :rofl:

I tend to have silly ideas, don't I? :D

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 2:41 pm Post subject:

well lucky for us all cy - weird is something that i can handle....

its the normalcy that confuses me.. :d

Guest · Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 4:58 pm Post subject:

Love it NeNe!!!! I want to see more!!!!

I say his name is Mr. Fluffykins or something of that matter.

dinranwen · Guest

His name's shaggy of course....

Lilith · Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 3:22 pm Post subject:

Mr. Tinkles is his name.

And a villager in need of aid from the next village (opposite direction of home for Barry). Could make it quite funny with the villager being a foxy maiden. ;)

Oh and she's employed by the one who wants Barry "removed".

DukeReg · Guest Joined: 12 Oct 2005 Posts: 287 Location: Australia

"...my name is Disorderly. Duncan Disorderly."

Apart from that I f5 Lilith.

quander · Guest

He sounds scottish so he should have a scottish name. Something like Billy O'Connoly or Ian McDiarmid.

Crunchyfrog · Guest Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

Quote: Lets just say that the word has been put out that one of the major players in Evil wants you – shall we say, ‘removed’?....oh yeah, by the way my names...’
...Nadger Bumfluff, and my brief is to accompany you as your trusty sidekick. :shock:

As to what has entered the clearing, how about an obsessive fan. The type of person that has no friends and has plastered the inside walls of his abode with pictures and press cuttings of Barry and his amazing adventures of days gone by. The person is dressed like Barry, does his hair like Barry, and even tries to sound like Barry. Physically he is as unlike Barry as you could possibly get.

This person will do absolutely anything for him, and despite being very ordinary, has an annoying habit of upstaging his hero. In short, the 'rather large problem' is a person who is a complete Pain In The Arse, and is likely to trip Barry up at every turn.

:)

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:18 pm Post subject:

CRUCNHY I LOVE IT! LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!

NOW - everyone must vote for that! i swear if you dont i am going to die!

SO much i can do with that whole line of thinking!!!!

LOVE IT!

(gee do you think i love it!)

:P

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:53 pm Post subject:

two part poll has now started .

Part the first - who is the mysterious, cantankerous hairy thing?

Cyberworm · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:15 pm Post subject:

Seems like I have a voting disorder! :shock:

:) Oh well, I suppose Duncan Disorderly isn't such a bad choice...

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:24 pm Post subject:

i need a tie splitting vote so i can post the second half... come one ppl work with me... :D

Crunchyfrog · Guest Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

Wow, all these polls I haven't voted in... Ah, well it looks like I have broken the tie.

:tu:

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:37 pm Post subject:

Nadger Bumfluff wins...

now who is enterign the clearing

and Zeph - please tell where it has gotten convulted and hard to follow...

Lilith · Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 4:04 am Post subject:

And I have broken this tie... Whoot! I haven't created one! YES! *dances around in circles*

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 12:48 pm Post subject:

Zephyr wrote: It’s not really a where sort of issue, rather its woven in throughout the storytelling method. It’s sort of anachronistic and wildly shifting and that can tend to make me have to back up a line or two to make sure I didn’t miss anything…

Barry is written to be a reflection of my frustrations regarding the now predictable world of Fantasy.

It is my opinion that the genre has come to lack a certain Je ne sais quoi. It has all come to revolve around the same basic principles; a sacred item (ring, scroll, chalice), the unlikely hero (farm boy, small being, middle son of the king) and their battle against overwhelming odds/forry into an alternate reality/falling in love with some type of unreachable/unhavable/against all odds female. This also has several other forms with the like of Elves (and others of that ilk) being used in the same inane ways in a relentless litany of the same story being played out to a point where they are almost redundant.

More and more i find myself picking up a book, reading the blurb and the first two passages and being able to predict where the situation is going to lead. (I am a 'Plot Unraveller' through no fault of my own.) This has led me to become disllusioned about the world of Fiction and that which i used to enjoy, long has it been since something has compelled me to read it . (Apart from Mr Pratchett)

Thus Barry the Normal. This started out, in my mind, as the antithesis of all fantasy stories - it was going to feature a 'hero' character that was going to be a middle classs middle income character of indefinable age who does nothing overly extraordinary - yet on writing the introduction Barry was born in all his sarcastic, melodrmatic, satirical glory.

Enter now the world of Barry were sterotypes are played out to the full and the oft predictable genre is being predictable to the hilt. The concept has changed but my derision of a style i loved has yet to disapate. I am playing each 'traditional' concept out as well as throwing in a few mocking cameos and overall, putting forth my disgust at the lack of originality in Fantasy Fiction.

Read Barry knowing that i intend to mock, scorn adn deride the habits of many writers, while all the while working on my comic timing and mass appeal.

I am also considering an index of plot references for those who may be unfamiliar with those things/writers that i am alluding to through out the peice.

Go forth friends and embrace all that is the mind of NE! lol

(any questions or did that make no sense?)

Rune · Guest Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 285 Location: Get Lost.

I have to agree with you Ne. As we have discussed in chat, this is the reason I am very picky about what I spend my time reading here in If, and why so few SG's get my attention. It's also why I write what I write. That said, this has proven an enjoyable read. If anything, the batman and robin reference (I knew it the second you said Richard and Grayson) has me hooked. Oh the joy in reading that.

I'll be coming back for more, to vote, comment, and otherwise bother you. So prepare yourself. This is what mocking everything that is trite and predictable has cost you. Keep it up. ;)

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 2:53 pm Post subject:

Zephyr wrote: Don’t get me wrong Ne… I don’t mean to say I don’t like the story, nor the premise behind it, just that I felt you might be able to handle some of the random shifting with a bit more clarity. That’s all ;) Just feedback.

no thats not what i was thinkin!

i was trying to define it better..

i am really interested in your feedback and as i said b4 can you tell me whjere you think it gets murky please :D

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 3:23 pm Post subject:

okay kids i am closing the poll as i m itching to write today...

Serge Wolf · Guest Joined: 23 Jan 2008 Posts: 39 Location: Texas

Not much i can say here either. So far this whole thing has been one wild ride of laughs and riots, leaving me guessing at nearly every turn. Though I really do hope its a nice fox maiden in the next chapter.^^

Scrapper · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:05 am Post subject:

And I manage to get read up just in time to miss a poll. :ahem:

In any case I'll admit that you've done a good job of keeping this story out of any realm that could be remotely confused as the generic fantasy stereotype. Funny stuff so far.

And you've got another reader: Me!

NeverNeverGirl · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:42 am Post subject:

Scrapper wrote: And I manage to get read up just in time to miss a poll. :ahem:

In any case I'll admit that you've done a good job of keeping this story out of any realm that could be remotely confused as the generic fantasy stereotype. Funny stuff so far.

And you've got another reader: Me!

Thanks Scrapper! God to see you getting on board and dont worry oyu havent missed the current poll! There is one running now! get into chapter 6.. or is it 7?? GAH!

GO IDOL!