After recovering the system, I was met with a long telephatic rambling about how sentience is suffering and happiness is only to be found in a stupefied existence when you are a dog. Mariana followed me around the whole dungeon while I tried to lose her walking fast, turning corners, making her fetch belts. Eventually, I noticed Florencia had joined the action, following behind Mariana. Entouraged by two blonde bitches, I made my way past the now servile mechanical dicks, past the receptionist, and outside the dungeon. I needed to touch grass, and so did they.
I sank my foot on a little pond full of some species of Salvinia that I had possibly ignored the other day. The sun fell upon the foliage like it wanted to sexually assault it. No, before you ask: I wanted to seduce the local flora, not abuse it. My love for plants, part farcical and part as pure as congressional cocaine, would never allow me to become that sort of grass toucher. The mosquitos were easy to spot due to the thick swarms of health bars that floated above them, betraying from several meters away the presence of mosquitoes.
Then I had a very stupid idea. I searched on my mind for the option menu and toggled on the health bars for bacteria. The world became a thick yellow, probably a result of the green and red of constantly depleting health bars mixing. I deactivated it: I hadn’t accidentally fucked my mother, so there was no good reason to render myself blind on purpose.
“Walter, what are you doing? You are not paying attention to my woeful tirade. This is unacceptable!” Mariana caviled.
I checked the patch notes. The emergency maintenance had disabled the ability to install Doom on zombies. I would need to try to run Snake on a bunch of belts.
“Arf,” a nearby arborescent fern whose sultry dictyostele we won’t be addressing argued.
I knew that voice, so I ran to the … I cannot call it tree, but repeating “arborescent fern” is bad writing. So, what’s a tree, one may ask. Trees have secondary growth in their xylem, first and foremost. They use this as a way to support their body above the ground. Trees are full of semi-rigid tubes, so to speak. Ferns use other strategies: some create a layer of adventitious roots that support the stem, others a thick layer of petioles, and some do both. I cannot call this fern a tree, no. NO. I refuse. Fuck best writing practice.
And looking behind the plant, I saw him: covered in moss, blood and a variety of empanada fillings, the little priest lay among the dead leaves, breathing heavily, his HP low.
“Mariana! I need first aid!” I called.
“And I need a lobotomy!” she retorted, sitting offended onto the jungle floor.
Florencia rushed to me. “Is he bleeding?” she asked, worried her hands undecided between picking up the little pup or not.
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“No, he is the Empanada priest.”
“Walter! He’s hurt,” Florencia stopped her palm from making sweet love to my cheek just in time to look like a civilized person.
“Tell me what happened, Empanada priest.”
From here onwards, I shall translate his dialogue.
“The Empanada Lords high above have forsaken me. I tinkered with powers unknown and uncognoscible, spices your tongue couldn’t even dream with, recipes so aberrant their mere ingredients bent time and space and existed for mere fractions of a second. And I paid the price: I cannot command them anymore, the empanadas. I have lost my power, and the control of those who once served me. Pray thee, Walter, aid me in recovering my health, and then, in sending the transempanadians back to whence they came. I searched for you and your party far and wide, friend, as I don’t believe anyone else would be able to fend them off and save the world from a fate worse than destruction,” he arf-barfed.
I raised an eyebrow. “So you are saying it is a race to destroy the moon and the world before the transempanadians do?”
I could see Florencia was part confused, part paralyzed by the sheer stupidity of the fact that I was listening to the long monologues of a dying pup and replying in arf-barfish. Good.
“You have the accent of my mother. And no, I hope you aid me in atoning for my sins: I unleashed this evil into the world, and I should put an end to it, lest it puts an end to me. So long as I live, the transempanadians won’t be at full power, and —”
I broke into a soft chuckle. “Sorry, it’s just too stupid of an apocalyptic situation. Besides, this is good for us, little priest! A menace greater than Walter and its retinue of traffic-cone-heads. Let the Escapists be the heroes they claim to be, let them solve this intercuisinal crisis. We will strike when they are weak, and I will be back in New York writing plant erotica and cooking chicken innards for Mariana in no time.”
“Yay!” Mariana yayed. “I could understand those two words in any tongue!”
Good for you, Mariana.
“Fornication befall upon you, Walter, villain,” the little priest cursed before losing consciousness.
His hp fell steadily, so I knew I had to bribe Mariana to save the little priest. “Heal him for a belly rubby?”
“Five belly rubbies.”
“You drive a hard bargain, but two belly rubbies is the most I can do,” I decided to lead her into my trap.
“Three belly rubbies and owner credit.”
“Two belly rubies and I go out on a long, leisurely walk.”
“Deal!” Mariana said and made healing poison rain upon the agonizing puppy.
I laughed like a maniac. Put my hands outwards and upwards, curled my fingers like claws and guffawed as if I had sent a thousand children to the gas chambers.
Mariana wagged her tail happily, not realizing what I had done. I provided the belly rubbies she demanded as payment for the services rendered, and did so with a vile smirk on my face. A masterplan, it was a masterplan. After the second one, I stood, told her to stay and began walking away, into the jungle.
“Where are you going?”
“On My walk. Mine alone, as stipulated!” I said, with a somber tone and a malevolent grint on my face.
“No.” Mariana Howled. “Noooooooooooooo.”
“Ah, Come Mar, I won’t go out there unarmed.”
“Walter wait! What do we do with the priest.”
I turned to look at her and winked, exhausting my always-low sexy mana reserves and causing myself three million points of emotional damage. “Take care of him, dear.”
Flor tried to hide her flush and picked the puppy up while I tried to contain Mariana’s prancing happiness.
“Walk, weee, walk, weee!” she telepathed.
I gave a last glance to the arborescent fern and bit my lip. In my imagination, that vascular cylinder had the curves in all the right places.