Brahdley hopped into the trolley next to Philhip, holding their precious cargo under his arm. He'd covered it in an old blanket covered in pink unicorns.

"Nice blanket, Brahd," said Philhip sarcastically.

"Oh, why don't you just hop in a pool of boiling lava, have all the cells in your body melted to bits except for two of them, wait for millennia as those cells spawn and mutate, evolve from those two cells into two technically similar yet distinct corporeal forms capable of sentient thought, and then have those two similar yet distinct forms unwittingly perform acts intended to create multiples of said corporeal forms upon one another without recognizing their lineage," Brahd retorted quick as a whistle.

"Wow, Brahd. Why don't you just say what you mean?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why don't you just tell me to go fuck myself, huh?"

"Let me tell you a thing or two about Theseosus, Philh," said Brahd with a knowing look through the living wood on his face. "See, Theseosus is a lady, and she is a mantis, but she is so, so much more than both of those things."

"Oh no, here we go again with this shit," sighed Philhip. "Swearing doesn't actually have anything to do with Theseosus' teachings, you know. The Book of Theseosus, in fact, never once mentions anything about foul language or obscenities, other than of course to create its own. Ever wonder where snarflegmblass came from? Yea, I see you cringing, why don’t you crack open your book from time to time? It’s in passage 6:9."

"What are you talking about?" Brahd looked at his companion in disgust and disbelief. "What lies has your head been stuffed with? What lies are leaking and oozing out from the stuffed creme puff of your cranium through your waxy little earholes, snotty old nostrils, and gunky little eyeholes?"

"First of all, gross, Brahd. What you just said was fucking gross. Way grosser than swearing, might I add."

"Whatever."

"Second of all, and I quote, yes I do have this memorized, several passages from the Book 3 of the Book of Theseosus, the Book of Awkupashawn."

"Oh, no. Nobody reads that book, anyway."

"It's part of your holy literature! You ought to, it might open your eyeholes a little!"

On and on they argued, not really saying much of anything at all, although Philhip was able to impressively quote lines from the Book of Awkupashawn that included seventy different words for fecal matter, fifty words for genitalia, and two thousand, three hundred and thirty-three words for fornication. And that was just in the first five pages, Philip went on to say. Brahdley was convinced at this point that his companion would never truly understand Theseosism, but it was okay because the trolley ride had finally ended. They'd reached the Bazaar.

On leaving the buggy, they were walloped in the face by the strong smell of dung. This was undoubtedly due to the posterior expulsions of the large mule that had dragged them over to the Bazaar, and Brahdley said as such. Philhip agreed, and it seemed they'd finally gotten over their theological argument. At least presently.

They were soon greeted with similar odors with less obvious sources as they walked through the Bazaar. Along with that, though, were sweeter aromas. Sometimes it was due to someone just putting on a little too much perfume. Other times it was due to someone putting on far too much perfume. But many times, somebody was just cooking some food on the street, and that was as much as good thing as it was a bad thing at the Bazaar. That is to say, sometimes the food looked awesome, sometimes it looked like a nightmare, but it was always there and there was a cornucopia of it. There was even a stand selling actual cornucopias, though they were decidedly overpriced and gimmicky. At least according to Brahdley.

Brahdley followed Philhip to a small dock by a muddy looking river. By muddy looking, it is meant that the water looked absolutely brown, more akin to sludge than water. Floating in that monotonous sludge was a small houseboat that looked like it might disintegrate at any moment.

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"Here we go. This is the lady's place. She knows everything about everything, and she'll give us the best price this side of Nomachiato," Philhip said with confidence.

Brahdley wasn't entirely certain about this. The location looked a little dodgey, to say the least, and he wondered why exactly someone who knew so much would live in such a disgusting way. Philhip argued that, seeing as this lady knew so much and in comparison Brahdley knew so little, it was fair to consider the possibility that it only appeared to be a disgusting place that nobody would want to live, and that actually there was some deeper wisdom going on here. Either way, Philhip was confident that she was the best person to go to for something as unique as this. She had the most unique system he'd encountered. Brahdley found that hard to believe considering the fact that Philhip didn't have a system, but Philhip further argued that his not having a system made him a perfect candidate to make judgment calls on how unique someone's system was, because he could see them objectively. Philhip then added as an addendum that people with systems couldn't rightly do this because their judgement was obscured by their own system-having-ness.

And then, their argument had to end, because they were standing at the entrance of the house boat. They were greeted by a large, steel lawn ornament. It was a windmill that had etched in its side 'WELCOME FRIENDS.' The door jingled like a wind chime as Philhip pushed it open. Immediately, they were assaulted by far, far too much perfume, and essential oils, and burning incense, and every other oppressive odor conceivable to the mind.

"Oh, Philh! So good to see you and your... handsome friend," cooed a little old lady sitting behind a thick, mahogany desk covered with stacks of paper and cigarette butts.

Brahd frowned a little, though his mask covered most of it. "Nice to, um, nice to meet you. I"m Brahd." He held out a claw.

She shook the claw gingerly. "That's a big claw."

"Um. Those are big glasses," Brahdley retorted, looking at the lady's engorged pupils.

"Yes they are... You know what they say about big glasses, don't they, honey?"

"Can you please stop doing whatever it is you're doing right now?" interjected Philh. "Look, Madame Zthulu, we need you to use your system to analyze this and tell us its worth."

"This? What? You mean this nice man's claw?" She looked Brahd up and down. "Or do you mean-"

"Philh means this!" Brahd stammered, shoved a stack of papers out of the way, and set the bundled up egg on top of the Madame's desk.

"Oh my, well isn't that a lovely blanket, dearie. Of course, even without my system in use I can see that it isn't of much material value, however I'm sure that it holds a lot of sentimental-"

"Ugh. Not the blanket, this!" Brahdley tore off the blanket to reveal the egg. He jumped a little, as he noticed it had grown about three times in size.

"Oh, my!" She gasped. "Now that's quite big, too! A lot of big things in this room, clearly."

Philhip groaned. "Please, please, Madame Zthulhu, just analyze the damn thing."

"Fine," said the Madame. She winked at Brahdley with a cheeky grin. He shivered in response. Then, she focused her enormous, near-googley eyes on the egg. "Now, let's analyze this thing, shall we?

[Egg]

[Level: 2]

"Ooh, it's level two! Been doing some leveling up, have we now?"

Brahdley and Philhip both sighed.

[Description: This is no normal egg. This egg is the spawn of a spell, a powerful spell, a spell from a scroll that was never meant to be unearthed. A spell that can bewitch and control the outcome and indeed that fate of all of our existence here on the corporeal plane. This egg can and will spell doom for us all. Te egg must be destroyed, and yet it cannot be destroyed. The egg is the sigma, and the omega, and epsilon. The egg is just an egg now, but it will not be an egg forever. Soon enough, it will be so, so much more, and the only hope for the worlds of both living and dead is that all unite in order to strike out its endless evil from corrupting and devouring everything in sight, and blotting out consciousness itself in the process. This egg is a singularity, it is from the Pit of DEspair, but it is a pit itself. It is but a point in the bowl of existence, a speck of cancer that will grow and spread and become everything that all and can ever be, and through that, ruin us all. Beware, this egg. Beware, all ye who observe, and beware all ye that analyze. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid, for this egg is one thing, and that thing is fear.]

"So?" Brahdley asked. "What do you see in its description?"

The Madame chuckled. "Oh, this is just a silly, silly little egg." She patted it lightly. "Just some boilerplate egg of power mumbo jumbo. Best I can give you is five pence."

"Five pence?!" Brahdley and Philhip cried in unison.

"Sorry, dearies. Them's the breaks." She looked at Brahdley, specifically at his claws, then his feet, then the rest of him. "Unless..."

"Fine, fine, five pence it is," said Brahdley.

"But that's such a ripoff!" cried Philhip.

As they argued, the Madame struggled to keep a grin on her face. As soon as they left with their measly money, she pulled out a conch and dialed a number. She heard the ocean for a moment, and then the gulls, and then a voice.

"Yes, it's Madame Zthulhu. You would not believe what's just fallen into my lap!"