60: The Wizard of Rue Morgue Simon Hawke

FlippantSausage

Pffft the LIBERAL WIZARD THOUGHT POLICE making sure you don't suddenly become rad at magic.

A Wombat

In fairness, becoming rad at magic all of a sudden feels like a thing they'd want to know about.

FlippantSausage

"Oh do you have a license for that wand?"

A Wombat

Considering that has been the direct cause of at least 4 near apocalypses.

FlippantSausage

Chalk it up to me coming from a country where it is legal to own a flamethrower.

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

I'd forgotten how much Hawke likes his big bureaucracies about weird shit.

gellaho

Jacqueline sneaks backstage to meet with Jacques as he's putting on his Joker outfit

FlippantSausage

Oooof I do not like the Hugh Hefner\Joker vibe a purple robe gives you.

gellaho

Turns out the change from earlier was also a werewolfing

A Wombat

Jacques and Jacqueline in one page. I bet that gave Hawke no trouble at all.

FlippantSausage

I guess she doesn't load her pistol with general purpose special ammo then huh? Cos I bet she isn't gonna bring down shit with it.

A Wombat

You don't need to magically wound a werewolf if you put a hole in the werewolf big enough to drive through!

FlippantSausage

You'd think thered be like a silver tipped, mercury cored thing to go with.

gellaho

Ah, Jacques' home territory

FlippantSausage

Lol like rats are the worst part of a sewer.

If you set foot in Paris you are never more than five feet from more rats than you've had hot meals.

It's rats all the way down.

A Wombat

If you set foot in the Paris catacombs you are never more than three feet away from a corpse, I was told.

FlippantSausage

Undoubtedly.

Side note, the catacombs of Paris are really neat and spooky.

gellaho

Jacqueline and Billy are captured before they can get in the sewer with everyone else. They meet some very flamboyant characters from the ITC

gellaho

@high jakesy the conqueror We get a very different Raven here. Hawke had that name in the brain in 1990

FlippantSausage

We all did.

It was T-Minus 1 year til Raven CS Mcracken released World of Synnibarr and we were all feeling the psychic preshock.

gellaho

Turns out Raveb/Kimberly is another old student of Merlin

LyraV 42Dukes

I guessed it from your fakename.

FlippantSausage

God, Kimberly is such a lame truename. Its like she has the soul of a 1995 girl from the Valley

Brendanonymous

BOOO turning in outlines. I missed all of this and now I'm meeting family for dinner.

gellaho

1990 was the high watermark for Hawke's lip moistening

FlippantSausage

"I COMMAND THEE KIMBERLY! BY THE POWER OF YOUR TRUENAME! GO TO PROM WITH ME!"

Brendanonymous

Oh well, at least I made it as far as Neo-Edwardian Bebe Neuwirth.

gellaho

I think you mean Rubenesque Raven

FlippantSausage

Im pictureing Agent Piccard as Patrick Stewart, as well.

gellaho

France has weird legal rules for the requests of ancient wizards

FlippantSausage

"Max Siegal looks sooo guilty thooo!"

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

"Release my friend from yon drunkard tank!" "Why would we do that?" "I am" eyebrow wiggle "A WIZARD!" "Oh shit, sorry, sir. Right away."

gellaho

This is why you should stay in wizard school, kids

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

Britain and America run on common law, France runs on magic law

A Wombat

Magic law: Magic does what it wants.

FlippantSausage

This is the wizard equivalent of prematurely ejaculating and hitting someone in the eye. Disappointing and irresponsible.

gellaho

Wyrdrune is a great and noble hero

FlippantSausage

Okay but lets be fair, Kira be nasty, there's poo in that water.

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

We seek adventure! Unless it's yucky then save yourself, asshole.

gellaho

The protagonists of these books have been featured so little in the past two books. I'm not even sure if these two are still an item

FlippantSausage

She is going to get a UTI and then we will see who is laughing.

Also neither of them knows Tenser's Floating Disk.

gellaho

Wyrdrune got really pissy after he found out that the magic of Disneyland wasn't real

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

"A little dirty water isn't going to kill your." I mean, it could. Are wizards immune to dysentery? Cholera? The literal plague?

A Wombat

Yes. No. Depends on which variant.

FlippantSausage

He's got a point while bitching about the lights.

gellaho

Wyrdrune falls deep in the shit water and encounters the rat king

FlippantSausage

HAH THIS IS THE REAL DARK SOULS NOW!

Wyrdrune didn't wanna go down to Blight Town.

A Wombat

And thus did Wyrdrune and Modred get eaten by a rat king.

Modred, being effectively a god at this point, was only mildly inconvenienced.

Wydrune went to live in Billy's head.

gellaho

The battle doesn't go well for the giant rat

gellaho

A Wombat

Or, you know, that happens.

In fairness to the giant rat it was expecting to encounter level 1 wizards.

2 at the outside.

It seems kind of rude to face a giant rat when you're... whatever they are. Casting 9th level spells?

FlippantSausage

Great Glintstone Shard?

Or one of those bonkers 5e cantrips that never stops scaling until you roll ALL the d10s

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

I'm always amazed how these books make magic sound really dorky and unimpressive. "They killed a rat king! With sparkler fingers."

gellaho

Well, at least you had one last show.

FlippantSausage

Oh there's your trouble my dude. Your blood belongs on the inside.

A Wombat

Honestly it feels like just throwing magic at things and not even bothering to cast a spell is more effective in these books than actual spells should be.

It's like he played Magicka 30 years before it came out.

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

It's all sith lightning fingers

A Wombat

Guy, I don't know, I think maybe you should have not let them steal your blood.

FlippantSausage

Maybe try not bleeding to death in a sewer pining for the eldritch horror in a woman suit who pegged you?

A Wombat

I bet he didn't even think of that.

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

When you get pegged by a god, there's really no other way this ends

FlippantSausage

Got that boomer brain.

nenos

What glorious book is this?

FlippantSausage

The Wizard of Rue Morgue.

Simon Hawke.

Its a real gem

nenos

Resaerch must be done! Been years since I read a new book that wasnt about… like building things

i thank you!

gellaho

Colette, exotic dancer, meets with Leila (dark one) and Michel (werewolf)

A Wombat

It's nice to see werewolves be positively represented.

FlippantSausage

Stop me if you've heard this one, A werewolf, a dark one, and an exotic dancer walk into a sewer......

beb.

gellaho

And all of a sudden, I'm back in the last Hardy Boys book

FlippantSausage

The fuck is it with fantasy authors and pickpockets?

A Wombat

This is a horrible stereotype of Parisian street children despite the fact that it is in fact entirely true.

nenos

A bit of male gaze here I feel

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

specifically french pickpockets

FlippantSausage

Did they all at some point visit a city and forget to keep their money in their sock like Mom said.

A Wombat

look, if you're going to wander the Parisian streets and leave your money in an easy to get space and look like a tourist, you're going to have it stolen by street children.

That's just Paris.

nenos

At least it was her eyes that were gorgeous npt her tits

gellaho

A bit?

FlippantSausage

Everyone knows if you want to keep away pickpockets, you put jelly on a wallet that contains no money.

A Wombat

So... uhh... I know it's a common phrase, but... has anyone really wanted a woman that could break in half when you poke her?

FlippantSausage

Jesus. "Face of an angel and the body of a harlot"

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

This is hornier than a Sunday Chickweed.

nenos

Yeah I mean I might've done a subtle understatement there

A Wombat

Really? I tried chasing the street urchins down while shouting give me back my money and waving a knife.

I should have tried that.

Also, it turned out they didn't steal my wallet at all!

FlippantSausage

Yeah the downside to that strat is the little shits run really fast.

And you run out of knives if you start throwing them.

And customs frowns on shuriken.

LyraV 42Dukes

Yet her nipples were slightly downturned so it looked like her chest was blinking.

gellaho

Meanwhile, the dark ones start child-wrangling

gellaho

A Wombat

What.

A Wombat

What you should want is the face of a harlot and the body of an angel.

FlippantSausage

Man, Fagan really stepped up his game when he became Lord of Shadow.

A Wombat

A Wombat

So hot.

nenos

That would be the face of an angel then

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

Shit, those kids got cenobited.

nenos

I mean my karate might be weak but O feel the nody of a harlot doesnt do much to mitogate that

No matter how big the breasts/dick is/are

FlippantSausage

Maybe he meant rickety and with ribs showing.

gellaho

Modred compares acquiring necromancic power with investing

FlippantSausage

"And that is why we should invest in Dogecoin For Wizards."

A Wombat

@CEO of God J So, Simon Hawke stole your character idea a few years before you were born.

nenos

Wow

FlippantSausage

"And yes, DogeWizCoin is different."

nenos

That really turned fantasy into work didnt it

A Wombat

I know I'm convinced to become a necromancer.

FlippantSausage

Necrostonks!

nenos

Whats the benefits in seeking employment as a nevromancer

Is there dental?

FlippantSausage

Yes, because you get all the teeth you want.

nenos

Indeed!

gellaho

I wonder where the necromancers could be hiding

FlippantSausage

"The Catacombs! That Paris famously has!" "The Catawhatnow?!"

nenos

This writer must get hard for multi-syllabic words!

FlippantSausage

Guys, I havent read much of these books, but I'm getting the idea that maybe Wyrdrune is not quite bright?

A Wombat

Did he just copy a section of the encyclopedia into his book?

FlippantSausage

Like is he a wheel idiot but for magic? But also not good at magic?

A Wombat

Guys, I think I want the necromancers to kill Piccard?

.

Kill him and eat him?

nenos

He should learn swedish or german, we have syllables for days

nenos

I think the writer is a word idiot maybe

Like he knows only syllabus

gellaho

He got expelled from wizard Harvard for burning down a concert on accident

A Wombat

He claimed it was an accident, and on later determination it turned out that yes, it was an accident, he's just that dumb.

FlippantSausage

Shit hes like a character from Revenge Of the Nerds: Hogwarts Style.

gellaho

So, Jacques gets burned through his eyes several times to become part of the Dark Ones plans. Colette strip dances for Leila then has a threesome with werewolf boy

gellaho

Doesn't really seem fair

FlippantSausage

Hot.

And to be fair, if I was going to reforge someones flesh with my dark power, I'd melt the old shit smelling guy and fuck the dancer too.

A Wombat

Hey, just because you're evil doesn't mean you need to be a bigot.

Go and sit in the corner and think about why what you said was wrong.

nenos

No you can hate everyone

Thats not racist

FlippantSausage

At least give him a chance to shower and not do it in a literal sewer.

CEO of God J

That bastard

FlippantSausage

Like if the old man was then like "NO! SHOWERS ARE HOW THE FBI TRACKS YOU AND STEALS YOUR THOUGHTSEMEN!" then I'd melt him.

gellaho

Meanwhile, Max swears off nudes

FlippantSausage

I love that he learned entirely the wrong lesson.

Not "Maybe paint with more than one person around so you have an alibi" but "Nude women are nothing but trouble."

nenos

I feel this writer may have done slightly less research than necessary

A Wombat

Simon Hawke doesn't do research.

He just lets the mind fairies fill his brain with thoughts.

nenos

I mean maybe to@ of finland would have that issue but most artists wouldnt

A Wombat

Also, apparently he's a Russian guy who changed his last name to Hawke for real.

FlippantSausage

"Ze galleries, zey want your nudes!" said no one, ever.

nenos

Unless they were showing exclusively tom of finland

Trust me on this

A Wombat

I dunno, a lot of Parisian galleries show nudes.

FlippantSausage

Aside from that.

A Wombat

What they don't want are impressionist nudes, I'd think.

I'm not even sure what that would look like.

FlippantSausage

An impressionist nude would be interesting.

A Wombat

Google is telling me that I can't possibly mean what I'm saying.

gellaho

I'm glad you guys are worrying about the realism of this book about wizards in the future

nenos

Well the characters are still technically supposed to be humans right?

gellaho

For the catacomb adventure, the Dr Makepeace (giant fairy) shows up for no reason

FlippantSausage

If Star Trek taught me anything its that fiction is real.

And carpetbag? In the future?

I think not.

A Wombat

I don't think it's particularly well written and I kind of want to chase the characters through a forest late at night and devour their flesh despite not being a werewolf, so all I really have is criticizing the plausibility of the things that aren't the writing and the characters.

FlippantSausage

My grandma wouldn't be caught dead with a carpetbag, and she is dead.

A Wombat

Oh, hey, they brought in Sebastian Makepeace.

nenos

The adjectives and adverbs makes reading this hard

A Wombat

He is a fairy in both senses of the word.

I can only vouch for one of them, but I am 100% certain of the other.

nenos

He must have been payed by the word

FlippantSausage

Oh that is why he dresses like a Jojo character then.

gellaho

Fairies have super scent powers

LyraV 42Dukes

Still a few more hours to absorb another being.

A Wombat

What? No, don't be homophobic. He dresses like that because he's a moron.

And a prat.

FlippantSausage

Oh I was talking about the other kind of fairy.

The explicitly magic kind.

A Wombat

That does not help, no.

He was introduced to us, I think, by tricking a very drunk man in the only way you could make that man's life worse.

gellaho

RIP Piccard

nenos

Lambent?

FlippantSausage

"AIEE MADEMOISELLE LE LOUP! YOUR TEETH 'AR ZO SHARP!"

nenos

"Argh my throat!"

A Wombat

Oh, good.

That is exactly what I wanted. I rarely get that.

FlippantSausage

"Now I will never get to fulfill my dream of opening an erotic bakery!"

gellaho

So, Suzanne was kidnapped. Max and Co. decided to follow Colette because she said she knew Suzanne. This leads to an obvious trap

FlippantSausage

Max......my dude.

You were juuuuuust about clear of this.

LyraV 42Dukes

Just indiscriminate prostitutes, no further questions.

gellaho

Mind controlled, murderous street urchins have descended upon the city

FlippantSausage

Cool.

A Wombat

Welp.

Evil wins!

FlippantSausage

Not fucked up at all, having mobs of demented bestial orphans cause chaos and bloodshed.

A Wombat

Hurray for evil!

gellaho

Up though the sewers come the pickpockets

FlippantSausage

Huh......Parisian police aren't usually armd.

I smell a conspiracy!

Which would make this plot slightly more interesting!

So its probably not a thing!

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

Let your imagination soar! This is a land of magic and armed French law enforcement!

gellaho

So, this takes place in a future where there was a post-apocalypse. The world was restored after Merlin brought magic back to the world

Let's not apply present French policing to this

A Wombat

I mean, in the context of everything else in the world, the police being armed in Paris is not unusual.

FlippantSausage

Fine but only grudgingly.

A Wombat

But there are armed units in the Parisian police district today anyway.

What annoys me is that it's post-apocalyptic but Merlin did his level best to make everything look like it had before the apocalypse, just with magic.

At which point why have the apocalypse?

FlippantSausage

Armed police seem kind of pointless if magic is common enough to displace stage magicians.

A Wombat

I mean, a gun will still kill you and you don't need magic to use it.

Very few wizards have the power or flexibility to stop a gun from killing them.

gellaho

Oops, Max done got werewolf'd

A Wombat

See? Even Modred has a gun. Guns are useful.

FlippantSausage

Whats the point of magic if you can't at least telekinetically block a slide or cause a misfire?

A Wombat

I mean, you probably could, if you're fast enough.

And precise enough.

FlippantSausage

This magic post apocalypse is lame.

A Wombat

Guns are fairly well designed these days to not do either of those things, and that's not technology that's dependent on a whole lot of material sciences. The apocalypse didn't make people stupid, just sort of knocked them around a bit.

So you'

gellaho

Billy/Merlin enters their knight transformation from

A Wombat

So you would need to know someone is pointing a gun at you and block the slide or misfire the gun in that moment... while all the other guns pointed at you are firing.

LyraV 42Dukes

I was not expecting this book to have so many werewolves.

A Wombat

Guns are very good at killing people.

A Wombat

I'm going to ignore your racism.

gellaho

The Dark Ones primary move is to werewolf people

A Wombat

Look, it works.

gellaho

That didn't happen in the first book, but it's become a thing

I guess the Dark Ones were released at the end of the first book, so that makes sense

A Wombat

Look, I'm not a werewolf, but it's hard to imagine a situation where werewolfing people isn't the best move.

LyraV 42Dukes

I have plenty of good friends that are werewolves.

FlippantSausage

Seems like a good way to have a shedding problem depending on the season.

gellaho

We hardly knew ye, Azreal

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

"Look, I'm not a werewolf…" sounds like something a werewolf would say. J'accuse!

FlippantSausage

OH SHIT THEY DID THEIR ULT!

gellaho

Very inconspicuous in Paris

gellaho

So many Parisian jaguars

A Wombat

Look, I'd be happy to discuss your ridiculous claims. Shall we meet at my place on the moors one of these evenings?

gellaho

Modred's having a great time

FlippantSausage

Ouch, melted rubber on the skin.

A Wombat

He'll be fine.

FlippantSausage

Gonna hurt like a bitch when he peels it off if he has any body hair.

gellaho

You don't want to be the necromancer that died to bullets

A Wombat

NOTHING CAN KILL A NECROMANCER.

FlippantSausage

Hahahah didnt even get vaporized by THE LIVING TRIANGLE!

A Wombat

EXCEPT EVERYTHING THAT CAN KILL EVERYONE.

FlippantSausage

"HOT PARABELLUM! MY ONLY WEAKNESS!"

gellaho

I think the media shouldn't be that surprised, something similar just happened in Disneyland, Mr. Third Officer

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

"They used my one weakness: geometry!"

FlippantSausage

I bet they take Satanic murder cults much more seriously now that magic is a thing again.

gellaho

Max was de-werewolfed, but blinded. But that just means the big bucks!

FlippantSausage

Got that sweet eye insurance too, i bet.

gellaho

And we will write a song about her, as Derrick and the Dominos

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

That's a lot of info to relate secondhand so flawlessly and esoterically

FlippantSausage

"No, of course we aren't going to make an effort to track her down. She could be anywhere, did you not see how she turned into a fucking PANTHER?"

gellaho

And we end with the sentient broom buying designer clothing

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

"And god knows there's a jaguar infestation in Paris so there's absolutely no way to find her."

FlippantSausage

The broom has money?

Does.... does the broom........NEED money?

gellaho

We have defeated The Wizard of Rue Morgue

gellaho

So concludes the 58th edition of The Book Cage

LyraV 42Dukes

That was a strange one, thanks so much @gellaho

FlippantSausage

*Theater lights come back on, exit signs light up. Audience applauds.

Time for me to get some dinner and distribute medications, so thanks for an entertaining evening, friends.

Toastygod, Moon Karate Maniac

Always fun @gellaho Thanks for letting me come along for the ride. I always wanted to see a Parisian sewer!

Brendanonymous

Can a poor sewer-illusionist get a recap?

I am but a humble morlock whose acrobatic body once seduced Josephine Baker.

Monkey-Dunk Mo

it's the latecomer!

pelt him with eggs!

Hard Ticket to Ferroday

kinda bummed that I missed this one due to a power outage

Brendanonymous

I thought I'd get most of it but I had to turn in an outline.