Medley Mission

The evening dawned with the threat of rain poigniantly balanced like a
teardrop on a chilly tadpole. The remnants of the tattered fort were
unfolded from pallets and reassembled in a modern palimpsest origami
Riverdance. As MRC wound down, Sir Bendy of Chakrabarti rallied the
cavalry units to issue forth from the confines of the fort to invade
the Honk! afterparty.



SCUL looped around the Davis Constellation, then dropped in on the
afterparty like lime zest sprinkled on burnt, scraped garlic bread.
Much stickerbagging was done. Several pilots traipsed into the
afterparty to dance and partake of beer and food molecules. We
re-assembled at the stroke of midnight-ish and launched amidst
imagined fanfare.



The night was quiet as we glided downhill towards the Teele
Constellation. Lasers were flashing and the groove was whispered
unintelligably in a deep-throated staticy half-chortle. Cloudbuster's
Death Star, at full extension, scraped gently against telephone wires.
This peaceful, short jaunt was aborted as we pulled into a parking lot
to find out what the heck was wrong with the radioboxes.



A quick tutorial and tempeh sacrifice by threespeed improved the
radiobox situation, and the fleet surged forward at full levels of
sonic disruption. We navigated down Mass Ave and towards the area of
the Teele Constellation by way of several back roads. Pale Horse
suffered a minor mechanical and we halted to address it, maintaining
some semblance of quiet, as we were in a residential area.



As parmesan parked Mjollnir, a civilian bearing alcoholic beverage
molecules bumped into him, spilling his drink. Parmesan immediately
apologized, however, the civilian was irate and inconsolable. Rather
than shedding tears for his lost beverage, he took on a threatening
stance, like an embarassed nutria with uncurable cankle sores standing
on its hind legs.



Parmesan continued to back off and the irate civilian advanced. The
fleet quickly assumed a defensive posture, fearing that the situation
would escalate into impromptu Morris dancing. The irate civilian,
feeling threatened, then shouted this paraphrased invective:



"DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?! I AM A WARLOCK OF THE URDTH LEVEL OF
CHARMAGGUNIGNNNIGNADINGDONG! I LAY UPON THEE A HEX"



There were also more words but most pilots were frantically scrambling
to think of the wittiest retorts possible after hearing this
pseudofantastical garbage. I mean... really?!



The 'warlock' stormed off into a nearby station after cursing
parmesan. The fleet's attitude had degenerated into open ridicule. We
had a challenging time observing silent running, and Sir Bendy of
Chakrabarti called us to arms and we quickly departed.



A few short blocks later parmesan started shuddering and fell off
Mjollnir onto the sidewalk. A gentleman dressed as a wizard happened
to be standing and smoking a pipe nearby. He witness this event,
walked over, and applied unidentified beverage molecules to parmesan,
who was quickly restored to health. The 'wizard', calm and collected,
stated at one point something along the lines of:



"Oh yeah, you ran into that guy who thinks he's a warlock? Yeah I've
been trying to get something done about him for a long time. Meet me
in Powderhouse Circle and I'll see what I can do."



The fleet proceeded to the Powderhouse Constellation at slightly over
Warp Fun via a somewhat roundabout route.



Once in Powderhouse we observed the wizard standing in the park, with
the warlock standing in a chalk circle with a few primitive lasers
binding him in place with the unsurpassed strength of low levels of
photon radiation. That is, to say, nothing really. A mostly ad-libbed
scene fumbled along and threespeed escaped out of the airlock. We
somehow derived that our task was to reassemble the spilled drink,
however, it had some ingredients made of unobtanium. Clues written in
doggerel were given to us and we deciphered them to find our
destinations.



Ingredient number 1 was the blurpletripe of counterborp. Our quest to
find this led us to the entrance of the Museum of Modern Renaissance,
which is amazing mural-painted building and a private residence. We
chatted with a kind young woman in the vestibule who gave us cookies
that were quite good. When the cookie tray was produced, h4ckw0r+h
surged forward to partake, neglecting to notice the curb. This
unbalanced Synesthesia, which went down hard, damaging a sonic
disruptor dish. h4ckw0r+h also suffered a massive gash on his
shin.



This required absolutely no medical attention.



The fleet chanted along with the kind young woman in order to acquire
the blurpletripe. Blurpletripe in hand, and be-cookied, we launched in
poor form, with Cloudbuster's flight path crossing that of a slowly
vacillating Pale Horse. Cloudbuster was unable to maintain level
flight and stalled, dealing a severe blow to the death star, which now
resembled an oddly-side-cocked Disco Death Martini Olive. Fortunately
Wombat, and the nearby transport, were not injured or hit during the
crash.



At this point the mission was quickly approaching mega-CF speed and
y.t. leapt to freedom through the airlock.



We determined our next destination, which would hold ingredient number
2, the three-headed thriddlepip of shuddercrumbles. We rode for a few
blocks and eventually ended back at the Powderhouse Constellation in
front of Luna Doherty Funeral Home. Here, a gaudily-clad poet was
attempting to woo his maiden fair but could not compose a poem fine
enough to win her heart. Our task, in exchange for the thriddlepip,
was to compose a work of art that would sweep her off her feet.



Bucky stepped forth after most of the fleet stared slackjawed for a
few minutes like a boozy Ernest P. Worrel. He elucidated a few lines
of doggerel while other pilots attempted to convince several civilians
to sing for us. This doggerel was not successful in winning the maiden
over. At that moment, resembling a wayward business of avuncular
ferrets, a trio of Honk musicians approached and we compelled them
through Jedi mind tricks and shameless pleading to assist us in our
challenge.



They brought the house down with a couple of jammin' tunes and were
summarily bestickered.



The maiden fair awarded us the thriddlepip and Nosepicker almost ate
it.



We then determined that our next destination was back to the
Powderhouse Park, where the wizard and warlock awaited. There we
somehow acquired ingredient number 3, a vial of pureed hair from
Kojak's scalp. The warlock then informed us that he could only drink
this drink from the Chalice of somethingorother and we need to mix it
in some kind of special thingabob. However, at that point, the
Princess of Sprocketville appeared, mixed the drink, gave it to
Parmesan and the curse was lifted.



A round of applause ensued and we finally got our ride on.



After patrolling the usual squares, we stopped at Luna Stratton
Student Center, as we do many times, to dump fuel and refuel.



While in line to exchange food molecules for Earth dollars, Treekiller
of the White Mountains was interviewed by a civilian. After answering
questions from this civilian like Macaulay Culkin in Uncle Buck, this
harridan closed her interrogation by asking, like a thwarted mosquito
banging its probiscus against a layer of Nu Skin, "HOW DOES IT FEEL TO
BE SOMEWHERE YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE?!"



This phrase would be repeated several times later in the evening.




We met up with the Christkickers, who were tallbike jousting in a
classified location. They were engaged in repairs to one of their HARV
units. In the meantime, a few pilots chopper jousted to much heckling
(wet PVC lances are heavy, it turns out).



We witnessed a tallbike joust, derbied a few times (someone please
fill in the winners = NOSEPICKER NOSEPICKER NOSEPICKER NOSEPICKER
NOSEPICKER = DERBY FLYING ACE) and then headed home.