97: Time Wars #3: The Pimpernel Plot Simon Hawke

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

All the best and most memorable lovemaking ends with someone in a ditch, the trick is being alive.

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

A warrior's death

gellaho

Well, what could go wrong in 18th century France/England

gellaho

The two countries famously get along

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

This is a plan with absolutely no possible drawback.

BlindMonkey

"Great lay. Might as well stick around forever."

...Alright that's all dating before thirty or so

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

There will certainly be no person becoming Emperor of France and plunging Europe into war in a short while. Certainly not.

gellaho

Only takes about half a page to talk him out of it though

gellaho

FancyShark

"Oh right. I'm basically a vampire. Yeah, my bad."

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Pfft, thats lame, dude, just fake your death.

BlindMonkey

Rogue time warlord when

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Bro is missing the fact that its SO fucking easy to fake your death in the 17th century!

Just walk off someday and never come back, people have no way to check!

FancyShark

Dude could invent going out for smokes

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

You can be like that guy who grifted Tsarina Alexandra the first time.

"I will return in a different form so be ready for that."

BlindMonkey

And explain it to a baffled Ezio

gellaho

Some stuff happens, who cares. Then it's revealed that gasp Fitzroy is Mongoose!

FancyShark

GASP!

I already forgot who Fitzroy was

gellaho

London has Pimpernel fever

BlindMonkey

Pro gamer move

gellaho

He's supposed to be their liaison with the future

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Its fatal, thousands die in the great Red Pimpernel Fever epidemic.

ITs caused by poop water.

FancyShark

It will have a resurgence after a TikTok influencer pitches it as a cure-all

BlindMonkey

Or rats. Or rats in poop water. Rat water was a delicacy

BlindMonkey

I go through three bottles a day

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Still is, they call it Bristol Crunchy Water now.

gellaho

Well, there's the Italian quota met

FancyShark

"No, I said people, Dewhurst"

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Itsa me, Rico! I helpa you witha da smuggling! Spaghet!

gellaho

It was Andre btw

BlindMonkey

I wonder if there's ribbing between different centuries of time traveler

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

"Ita wasa me, Andre, the wholea time!"

"Andre we told you to stop talking like that, where did you learn that anyway?"

"Mario 64."

BlindMonkey

Spoiling games across the timeline gets you hung

FancyShark

I bet they screw with reenactors all the time

gellaho

Andre explodes Mongoose's time machine

gellaho

FancyShark

ngl, I read that as "remote cockblock unit"

BlindMonkey

We prefer "roommate"

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Man if your time machine security device is so sensitive all it takes to make it detonate your failsafe self destruct is kicking the control panel, you might be a bit stupid. Like what if you trip and bash your elbow on it?

Mordred, Nuclear Werewoof ☢🐺

PROPHECY IN PROGRESS

(sorry to interrupt)

FancyShark

It's Brockway's wife!

gellaho

Arrrrrrr

BlindMonkey

"I love traumatizing historical figures."

"Let's show him violence rules."

gellaho

So, yeah. He comes back as a pirate in the 20 Thousand Leagues book

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

Would he have lived that long?

Because ngl Nemo vs Lafitte is a setup I would read the hell out of.

gellaho

At that point the time travel gets real weird.

Spoiler alert: Jules Verne is in it

BlindMonkey

I will always respect a manic swing for the fences

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

Oh come on, that's not even Verne's schtick. Wells was the time machine guy

Get it together, Hawke

gellaho

Demmed

gellaho

Oh, don't worry. He shows up eventually

In the one with vampires

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

doing laps around my couch & pumping my fist rn

gellaho

That book also has Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker

Because Simon has completely stopped giving a shit at that point

BlindMonkey

Now that's strawberry syrup on bbq burger

BlindMonkey

What a strange way of spelling "ascended"

Become what he was meant to be

gellaho

Some French guy has captured Marguerite's brother. That leads to some historical poontang

gellaho

The two are one and the same

BlindMonkey

We are all desceneded from these two huh

Brendan

Be the fan fiction you want to crank it to in the world.

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

I very well might, filing that one away in the good idea vault

BlindMonkey

My finest high school writing memory was a fanfiction contest with my friends

I wrote "Spawn Gaba Gaba," which is the crossover it sounds like

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

Hell, they're both public domain, I could probably shop that manuscript around

gellaho

Mongoose has employed most of 18th century Europe

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

Well they had to get through the economic upheavel somehow I suppose

FancyShark

hahaha

Cobra throwing a tantrum over his time travel club being shared

BlindMonkey

Every confusing tick in macroeconomics is time travel

gellaho

Hey Jellyband is back

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

like any idiot with a sack full of potatoes cant buy the loyalty of a third of France in the 17th century.

BlindMonkey

Jellyband has the greatest name in real or fictional history

FancyShark

Jellyband finally got back from making a deal with the devil at the crossroads

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

The Horror at Camp Jellyband

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

He exchanged his soul to invent the Dover Jelly.

Its made of gravy.

And bacon.

gellaho

Keeping a bunch of houses up throughout time and space sounds exhausting

gellaho

It's no Tingo Spellhands

BlindMonkey

I guess we have to make them fight

I'll start typing

gellaho

RIP John Jakes, the king

Piracy is genetic

BlindMonkey

"It's premodern, Lafitte. The standards for perverting youth are much higher and more literal."

Brendan

This isn't Hawke's best bad work.

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Being a decent liar and a murderer are pretty good talents to have in any time period.

BlindMonkey

Only way through grad school really

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Lafitte in the 20th-21st century is probably just a normal finance bro.

BlindMonkey

heheh

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

The Sea Wolf of Wall Street

gellaho

They all end up in the same end and... Laser fight

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

High Noon At Laser Inn!

gellaho

You gotta wade through two French books to get to the good stuff

BlindMonkey

Oh god all of Three Ninjas just flashed before my eyes at once

Like the Manchurian fucking candidate

gellaho

Although the next one about Zenda isn't fantastic, the ending is

BlindMonkey

How do I exorcise these visions

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Vesper, lambda, pheasant, winter.

gellaho

The Greek one is really the cream of the crop, but we have a ways to go

Shoot, I think

FancyShark

"So hold my fire?"

gellaho

Cobra gets double murdered

FancyShark

AGAIN

Badger, "Olllll' Skunkfoot"

TIME MURDER

Brendan

or un-murdered

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

or......re murdered?

Im not clear on the rules.

BlindMonkey

Honestly, I really do just come to time travel for blaster-powered french revolutions

gellaho

Whee

BlindMonkey

So kudos to the author

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

double doublecrossed!

BlindMonkey

If someone that talks like this saves your life, you're in one of those nice versions of The Matrix that Agent Smith was going on about

gellaho

Time for the 10 page epilogue

BlindMonkey

Does it have its own epilogue

gellaho

Something something time bandits

gellaho

The prologue had a prologue, so I wouldn't be surprised

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Damn Simon, leaving the Nazi treasure til the last part of the book. Classy.

BlindMonkey

Wait

If you're a time traveler

Why do you need to wait for the nazis to

Nab an object

gellaho

Uh oh

FancyShark

Goddammit, Hawke. We talked about this

BlindMonkey

Just gonna drizzle that in

FancyShark

I appreciate that we didn't find out Cobra was a sex criminal until the second time he died

BlindMonkey

I wonder what his masculinity blog was called

gellaho

Cobra isn't Darrow. I know it's confusing because I left out most of the bullshit future organizational politics

The important thing is that none of it matters for the rest of the series

I mean, yeah, obviously. That's what I was thinking

FancyShark

Here's the best twist: Hawke is progressive IRL

BlindMonkey

Layers

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Welp..........those people are some other timelines problem now, i guess?

gellaho

I'm skipping most of this, but just know this is mostly a very long and confusing time monologue

FancyShark

There's some timeline where people evolved from candy that just got a bunch of sex pests dumped on them

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

When timelines get introduced everything gets so vague, I miss when Timecop suggested too much timing just made you melt.

BlindMonkey

Man I can't even describe my order at a restaurant without someone getting bored, how do you do this monologue

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

So are we going to have a timeline war, is that what Simon is getting at? Because that would be pretty sweet.

gellaho

Whee

FancyShark

Hell yes it does

Brendan

Yeah, like he makes me look well-behaved. I wonder if all of his work isn't parody.

gellaho

You know what's hilarious? Yes, but not because of this

This is never brought up again

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Rad.

I love me a good Mobius Front.

gellaho

Something really crazy happens at the end of the next book that leads to that

FancyShark

He said in an interview he writes whatever he thinks sounds awesome. I think he's channeling his inner teen and running with it

Edgelord warts and all

BlindMonkey

This is the best way to pay rent

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Not gonna lie, I would play D&D at Simons table.

It would rule.

Brendan

Only respect.

gellaho

"I love the way that kid killed without remorse"

FancyShark

They bunked with Ishmael

BlindMonkey

I should reread that

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

"Had being the operative word, we scrambled their brains so hard that Jean thinks he is the star of a 1990 movie about a dictator with flying magnet boots."

gellaho

What a fun way to end

BlindMonkey

"You can think about being Galactus. Or get schwasty."

FancyShark

"So I don't have to pay child support in this future?"

"No, you pay double."

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

"Eh. Ive killed a bunch of people. Pass the wine."

Brendan

Larry David playing Galactus is my new thing.

gellaho

If the stars are gods, the stars are ours!

Brendan

"You destroyed trillions of souls by shifting the timeline, Galan!!" |Curb theme plays|

gellaho

We have defeated Time Wards #3: The Pimpernel Plot

Brendan

Have we though?

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Nice, Roger Zelazny. This Immortal wasnt my jam as much but still solid.

Brendan

Or is this the only possible surviving observable timeline after it defeated us infinitely?

BlindMonkey

Only in this timeline. In the other one it whipped our asses.

Damn it

gellaho

So ends the 97th Edition of The Book Cage

Brendan

No shame in being beaten by the sixth-best, kid.

100 coming up fast.

gellaho

May all your enemies be laser knifed

BlindMonkey

Why do I even pay for a training dungeon

FancyShark

We did it!

Mind Melter Flippant Sausage

Feels good to slip back into a Simon Hawke.

Brendan

We wouldn't even have a book cage without him. Gellaho is the mastermind, Hawke is the soul.

FancyShark

Great riffing, everybody! Have a night filled with flintlock pistols!

BlindMonkey

Yes. This story is why I have the gun.

Brendan

Good job, you huge dorks.

BlindMonkey

Rest well one and all

GDC

Thanks as usual!