Merchant runs at the baron swinging his fish in an angry flurry.the two clash, a shower of sparks rain down as sword meets sea bass.The heft of the fish easily knocks aside the thin dueling sword,allowing Merchant to land a fish slap to the barons face.The baron touches his cheek with his six fingered hand."is that the best you have" he says scornfully."trust me,theres more where that came from" Merchant says valiantly.

He holds the fish out threateningly,ready to strike again.But he accidentally pushes a button on the fish that makes it start to wriggle in his hand.The fish jumps out of his hand and down the barons pants.The baron laughs a bit as if being tickled but his face quickly changes to a shocked expression when the fish enters the first orifice it can find.He drops to his knees clutching his stomach,groaning in pain at the unspeakable things being done inside his person.The little man and Merchant watch in silent shock.The baron crawls over to Merchant weakly grasping his leg,he mutters something unintelligible.
"I..I...I...."Merchant stammers surprised at this physical contact. "Please..help meeeee..."says the once proud Baron Tyrone Rugen with his final gasping breath as he falls limp to the ground.A soft whirring from the fishes motors can still be heard emanating from the Barons body."I..I.I'm sorry." Merchant says woefully "no one should have to die like that".

The little man begins to chuckle again and says "well wasn't that kind of the baron to provide us with such wonderful entertainment before his passing".Anger boils up inside Merchant causing him to yell at the top of he lungs"YOU Evil Little Man!Your laughing?you just sit there and watch your friend die and now your Laughing?you will pay for your cruelty i will make sure of that"his voice echoing around the chamber.
"first off he was not my "friend". friends make you weak. he was merely an associate,an end to a means,an easily manipulated tool, to be used to farther my interest.and second i don't think you are in a position to be demanding payment.in case you have forgotten You are the one in the hole."

Lil'P (a cousin of lil"C but is a cat) says "and the one in my ass. Hamsterjelly)

. . . ? ? ? {Note to hamster - okay, I'm going to try to run with this, but again, this was sufficiently screwy as to stretch even my imagination for a way to work it in - please, try for a bit more understandable, huh?}

"Hamsterjelly? Who said that?" demands the little man. "I HATE that stuff... it's worse than Castor Oil. It's like mushy brussle sprouts dipped in puke. Yuk!! Now THAT'S torture..." The man stops, as if dumbstruck. "Yes... it's exactly like torture... It's BRILLIANT!! The Ultimate torture - forced eating of Hamsterjelly!!" The little man capers around the rafters hysterically, laughing the while. Unfortunately (for him), there apparently was a bit of something (maybe hamsterjelly, but unclear because of the dark up in the rafters) sufficiently slippery to cause the little man to slip and fall.

[It should be noted at this time that while such individuals normally have the remarkable tendency to land on their feet and make miraculous near-slips but then recover safely, the individual in question was just a bit inebriated at the time this was all occurring. Not enough to be truly drunk, of course, and well under legal limit (allowing for size), but just impaired enough for his reactions to fall a bit short of miraculous.]

The sound of the little man's neck breaking was quite audible, quite sharp, and quite sudden. It was followed by one of those moments of total silence, as if the universe itself was trying to readjust its thinking to deal with the new situation. A moment after that, having sufficiently absorbed the data being interpreted by his brain, Merchant takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, straightens up, and says, "Well, that was weird... but what in the world is Hamsterjelly anyway? More importantly, who said it? Most important of all - who the heck cares? I've got to find a way out of here and find Lil'C and Katlin!"

a neo Nazi in a nightgown comes out of a hole in the ground and gives him a pack of cigarettes

"Don't you know these things cause cancer?"Merchant says as he crumples the box in his hand and drops it to the ground.when he looks up the Neo-Nazi has opened and exited the secret door the baron used to enter.the door leads to a long hallway with prison cells on each side.
Merchant walks down it looking for Katlin and Lil'C in each one.in one cell is a well muscled man in a skintight red and black suit muttering "None of this is really happening. There is a man. With a keyboard. This is all part of his crazy imagination.."Merchant quickly walks past this clearly mentally ill mans cell.

{Unbeknownst to Merchant, far away, in another place and time, the man with the keyboard (one of them, anyway) hears/sees what Merchant says and just laughs ironically. "That's what you think..."}

Merchant begins to follow the row of cells, glancing in each as he passes. Some are filled with the most bizarre-looking creatures he has ever seen; one holds a horse with wings, two tails, a horn, and a snake's tongue, another holds something that looks like a tiger on pogo-stick legs, constantly bouncing up and down and all around on its springing appendages, and a third cell contains what could only be described as a cross between a parakeet and a chihuahua, but as large as a small pony. Finally, Merchant comes to a cell containing a diminutive demon dog - a three headed Cerberus Canine.

"Lil'C!!" exclaims Merchant happily. "I'm glad I found you! Are you okay? No, tell me later; for now, let me find a way to get you out of that cell..."

"Maybe i can pick the lock with.." thats when Merchant realized he left his backpack in the torture room, probably still hanging from the rafters."My Backpack! I forgot my Backpack" he tells Lil'C as he looks down the hall only to see that the door had closed.
"Are you going back for it?" Lil'C asks.
"No, I'm sure it will find its way back to me.it always does..."Merchant says staring off into the distance with a hopeful twinkle in his eyes.
"OooKayyy.." Lil'C says "but it wouldn't matter anyway there are no locks. all the doors only open by telepathic command from the warden."
"can't you just CHOMP your way out?"
"No each cell is made specifically to hold who or whatever is inside.On mine the bars are infused in Super Ipecac.one lick and i will instantly be puking in that corner for about 6 hours."
"so then that smell is?"
"yes ."

and after an unnecessarily long and complex trading scheme with the other prisoners that started with a paper clip Merchant found on the ground and ended with a can of Super Ipecac neutralizer Lil'C is free. but Katlin is not in any of the cells.

"Well, that was a weird set of trades... where did you get the paper clip anyway?" asks Lil'C

"Actually, I just found it on the floor," replies Merchant. "Anyway, any idea where Katlin might be?"

Just then, Merchant hears the sound of a song in the distance. Following it to the source, Merchant and Lil'C discover a silly-seeming sight: a TV screen (apparently with cool 3D effects!!) showing a movie-kind-of-thing accompanied by this song (to the tune of "Teddy Bear's Picnic ... "if you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise..." etc.)

If you go down to GT today, you’re in for a big surprise
If you go down to GT today, you might just meet your demise
For every gopher that is or was will surely be at GT because
Today’s the day the gophers get their bazookas

If you go down to GT you’d better not fly your Black Hawk Down
Or you will get shot out of the sky, and come crashing to the ground
The gophers in their cute GI gear are not exactly trembling with fear
Because today the gophers all have bazookas

Gophers are on the Rampage; those little rodents with their sniper scopes and RPG’s
The hamsters cannot engage; they have no guns, grenades, or ATV’s
Humans run away in fear; the gophers have the strong element of surprise!
And so it’s Fire! Boom! Blast! Kill!! Frag and frag again
It’s GT gophers on the rise!

If you go down to GT today, you’d better not go unarmed
If you go down without heat there is no way you’ll come back unharmed
Shot full of holes or blasted to bits, to go unarmed would show lack of wits
Because the gophers guard GT with bazookas

But though it seems like a Far Cry – like an assault on Jericho
If you want to reclaim GT there is only one way to go
You must enlist the aid of Lil’C, just think and I’m sure you will agree
Lil’C’s the one to deal with gopher bazookas

Merchant and Lil'C share a look. "What the hell?" asks Lil'C. "Don't ask me," replies Merchant. "Let's keep watching - maybe it will give us a clue..."


Lil’C is having fun, he romping round GT and eating gophers by the score
He’s not harmed by any gun – the fireproof dog just laughs and eats some more
See the gophers on the run; they are in full retreat – each diving down a hole!
But still it’s Bite! Chomp! Chew! Gulp! Bite and gulp again
As Lil’C swallows gophers whole!

"Ummmm..." says Lil'C uncertainly, "this is rating about a 9.2 on my wierd-o-meter. How about yours?" Merchant just nods.

Soooo….
If you go down to GT be sure that you don’t piss off the mods
If you go down to GT you’ll see the admins are GT gods
But though they work late into the night, and put up one hell of a tough fight
They can’t disarm the gophers of their bazookas

So if you go to GT today, be sure you know how to frag
Look out for dark gopher holes and try to capture the gopher flag
Remember that the Tournament’s on, you’d better kill or better be gone
Today’s the day the gophers all have (the hamsters don’t and so they’re all sad)
Look out because the gophers all have bazookas … HERE!! Eat a bazooka! **FOOM!!!**



At the word HERE!!, Merchant sees that the gopher who had just been filling the entire screen literally seeming to pop out of it, and, pointing his bazooka Merchant's way as he shouts "Eat a bazooka!", the gopher fires the bazooka at Merchant. Merchant dives...

as the wall behind him explodes showering rubble around the hall.Lil'C jumps through what was apparently a window and not a t.v,and literally eats a bazooka."Just like old times" he says with a smile on his faces and climbs down a gopher hole.shortly after, more explosions ring out from underground and flames shoot out of the hole.

ONE of these days I'm gonna get that demon dog to tell me what the heck has been going on with him - he promised me his story quite a while ago... but somehow, I have the feeling it isn't going to be today... Merchant thinks to himself. Seeing that the blasts of fire coming up out of the hole, Merchant figures that he had better give the fireproof dog some time to deal with the munitions before following him down the gopher hole.

About 5 minutes go by, as Merchant anxiously watches the entrance to the gopher tunnel system. He hears periodic blasts, explosions, rumbling noises, and the occasional gopher scream. Just as Merchant decides to go down that hole, whether Lil'C was ready or not, what should pop out of the hole other than his Dora the Explorer backpack!! Lil'C follows shortly after.

"Would you believe it? The gophers had already gone and stolen your backpack... by the by, they used one of your Acme order forms for the bazookas... apparently, the rules are a bit different when applied to gophers... who knew?" Merchant notes that as Lil'C is saying this, his other heads are using their tongues to clear their teeth of bits of fur and gopher meat, looking content and altogether smug. Clearly, Lil'C had some fun on this one...

Suddenly hear abnormal suction sound from below

[b]Wet self in fear[b]

merchant looks at his wet pants and says"darn..and i was doing so well."
the suction from the gopher holes stops.the ground begins to shake and heave as it brake apart as if something was pushing it apart from underground.a giant gopher shaped mech with weapons of mild destruction all over it, rises up from the earth with a group of gophers in the cockpit in its head.