The E.A.G.A.M.E.S Exegisis Pt. 1
#7 of Stories
This is purely satire. Don't base anything in my story on this. It'll mess you up to the core.
No one told me that pointless fillers with cameos and little to no plot continuity were SO FUN TO WRITE.
Here's a filler for my story. Same world, different characters. Don't feel left out if you don't get all the laughs, this is chock-full of inside jokes.
It's kinda like Mysterious Playing Around from Fushigi Yuugi, I guess. I left out some characters in the beginning of the story. They're here, now, to point fun at me. Enjoy.
WARNING: The following is a work of fiction. Characters, names, situations, events, and locations described hereafter are purely the invention of the author, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to people, living or dead; names and locations, is purely coincidental.
Somewhere along the Geurzi Shore, Rroan Finally, he could get a breath of fresh air. The fact that it was raining didn't make a difference. He wondered how long the storm would last, out here on the coast. Suddenly, he turned around as he heard the heavy iron door grate open. It was just Keeton.
"What," he joked, "our company ain't good enough for you?"
The meerkat shrugged. "It's hotter than a rave in there. At least the water out here doesn't cost twenty bucks."
Keeton just shook his head. "It's a desert, what'd you expect?"
"You know what I mean. Everybody and their grandmother's all in one big room. There's nowhere to breathe."
It was the coyote's turn to shrug. "Well," he continued, "it's no way to make friends, that's for sure. If you plan on actually staying around, you gotta at least stay for the opening announcements."
The meerkat nodded and they both headed back in. Keeton closed the iron door once again, shutting with a dull thud. He wondered why there was a need for such a big door. Once inside, he tried to remember his way around. It wasn't like this place was originally built for convenience. A question came to him then. "Is it true what they say about this place?"
"What," the coyote asked. "Oh, you mean the whole 'bandit hide away' thing." He laughed out loud, "You'll find out soon enough."
Keeton guided him through what seemed to be a convoluted and entirely made up path of corridors. Within ten seconds the meerkat was already hopelessly lost. In fact it had taken him the better part of an hour just to find his way back out, when he felt the need for fresh air.
"What kind of depraved lunatic built this layout, anyway?" he asked.
The coyote gave another hearty laugh. "Game developers, who else?"
"Oh," the meerkat responded, not quite getting the joke.
Eventually, the two arrived at a double door entrance, opening up into a large stone room with a high ceiling. Along the sides, stylized pillars rose up to the ceiling, oil lamps suspended from them. This was the main hall, in which all Group activity was conducted. From front to back, the room was packed full with Furs of every kind, most sitting at respective tables that further littered the room. The noise from all the chatter was irritating.
The meerkat noticed that everyone was involved in some sort of activity or another. From arm wrestling to dancing to children's card games, everyone seemed to be doing their own thing. He looked at Keeton for direction.
Thankfully the coyote took note of his confusion and stated, "Follow me, I think I see Laart. You'll get a real kick outta him. A real character."
And then the duo started their way through the crowd. The meerkat found it hard to believe how a person could navigate through such a fracas. After a good minute of weaving in and out of cliques and wayward socialites, they finally came upon a mismatched group around a table. The first thing that caught his eye was the human, sitting down opposite two lizards and a bear. He was showing them a flyer or poster of a kind.
Keeton shouted in greeting, "Still at it, I see. You sorry excuse for a hobo with a spade." The human lifted his fedora, responding, "There's no rest for the re-dead, buddy." Realization hit him then. "Ah, it's just you, Keeton. Should have known." He glanced over at meerkat, "Who's the pansy behind you?"
Keeton didn't address the insult,instead moved to the side and motioned his meerkat friend forward. "Oh, just a recent hopeful we picked up recently."
The meerkat walked up and shook the human's hand, "The name's Meerk. Don't see many of your kind around Rroan."
The human returned the hand shake, "Yeah, real original. Meerk the Meerkat. Bet it took you the whole of two seconds to come up with that. I'm Laart." Meerk responded with an agreeable chuckle. "Oh, I don't suppose you can help me out?" The human retrieved a flier from the table.
Keeton just groaned and wiped a paw across his face. "You never give up, do you?"
Laart ignored the coyote's interjection and handed the meerkat a photo. To his surprise, it was a most unusual mug shot. The photo was the picture of a zombie, with the word 'WANTED' printed in bold font at the bottom. "Uh, sorry, haven't seen him."
The human just nodded and snatched the flier away. "Thanks anyway," he said disappointingly. Keeton retrieved two extra chairs from adjacent tables and made room for both he and Meerk to sit down. As the two sat down, Meerk decided it would be a good time to get the run-down from his coyote friend. "So, uh, what exactly do you do here to begin with?"
Everyone at the table shared a look, then gave a universal sigh. Keeton quickly addressed the meerkat's confusion, "Well, I hate to break it to you, but the author got lazy and decided not to so much as mention our little organization," he motioned to the room around them, "until halfway through the effing story." Meerk merely stared, nonplussed. Keeton explained further, "So basically we have tons of free time to do any range of things from various hobbies to weekly card games to parties to ... well I could go on, but I think it'd be better if our chairman explained the rest." He then raised his arm and pointed to the front of the room. Meerk had barely noticed the room's noise had died down.
In the front of the room was a raised platform with a podium that Meerk had failed to notice before. The crowd in the room became quieter as a figure slowly moved onto the stage. Meerk saw that it was a long-eared owl. Laart pointed to him and said in a hushed tone, "That's Aegro Von Pluma, he's the one who started this whole thing. Probably the only one around who has a sense of order."
Keeton interjected, stifling a laugh, "Hey, watch this." As the owl made his way to the podium, Keeton cupped his hands and howled, "Hey Aegro, you're full of FAIL!"
The long-eared owl leaned back on the podium, tilting his bifocals up to get a better view of the crowd, which instantly was a-roar with laughter. The owl just shook his head from side to side, annoyed. When the laughter in the room died down, the first thing that came out of his beak was, "Is this going to become a tradition, or what? Honestly, that's ..." his voice tapered as the crowd erupted in a short fit of laughter again. He let it dissipate, then went on, "Alright, alright. Let's get this show on the road."
He made an effort to compose himself, flipping over a paper on the podium. "First off, what is it today, Wednesday?" Most of the crowd gave an assenting groan. "Good. Let's start there. Oh!" he stopped and did a double-take at the paper in front of him, "Almost forgot. It seems we have a newcomer to the house tonight." At this, Keeton and Laart both enthusiastically stood up and raised Meerk's arms, hooting erratically. Aegro made note of this, "Yes, you there. Good for you. As procedure dictates I will now give the proper introduction. For lack of a better name, or so our dear author will lead us to believe, we are the Evil Ancient Group of Anthropomorphic Mages who Enjoy Slapjack, or simply E.A. G.A.M.E.S. As per our title, we regularly partake in the playing of Slapjack, as well as other card games, the sampling of various Norwegian puddings, and if we can arrange it, the occasional Halo 3 server raid, as per our clan, i.e., clan 'Mindless Video Armour.' Hunt down Jahn if you feel like signing up.
"I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you all that, once again, the great Iron Door is to remain locked from 12 a.m. - 6 a.m., except on Saturdays. Farrus is NOT your doorkeeper and I'm sure he has better things to do besides sneaking your floozies in after hours. If you need a piece of tail, there's the Inkultaa Inn down in Geurzi proper who'd welcome you for a night's fee.
The owl flipped to another page, "Now, on to this week's schedule. Thursday night, as always, we'll welcome our sister organization in hastily-assumed crime, the Furry League of Young Radicals who Try being an Evil Association of Mages, or F.L.Y.R. T.E.A.M., for our bi-monthly casting tournament. Put on your platform shoes and get ready to rock out to some Deaf Leopard and Moltey Crue on Friday, our weekly Hair Metal Night.
"Come this monday we'll meet up on enemy turf, if you catch my drift ..." This produced boos and hisses from the crowd, "That's right, we're taking this month's Slapjack Tournament to the League Of Lizards who Can Accurately Time Slapjack, or L.O.L. C.A.T.S. Let's even the score from last month, shall we?" The crowd cheered. "Also, from tomorrow on until next wednesday will be a drawing for next month's Spawn Guards. Remember: 12 a.m., on the dot, every three days. The last thing we need is a rogue bandit spawning without us knowing it. Feel lucky we've gotten it down to a science; we'll not have any leveled NPC's wrecking our fun.
"Now before I release you all to your respective games of extreme ro-sham-bo ... or yu-gi-oh, or ... whatever it is they call it nowadays, I'd like to give the floor to Partrinus, here."
Hastily, the owl got out of the way as an energetic gray fox bounded his way up to the podium. Hastily he started, "Hey guys, I'm just up here to say that I'm getting a group together for a trip to the Mage's Diaboli-Con in San Luutra later in the month. Apparently they got some pretty crazy panelists, namely one of them is Yours Truly, and -" He shook his fist at someone in the audience, "hey, shut up Urgoh, I see you there! Freakin' kill you, man. And, uh, so yeah, that's it. If you're interested, there's a sign-up sheet on the board by the entrance, we still got plenty of spots left. Er... back to you, Aegro."
With that, the fox jumped off the stage, as the long-eared owl regained his podium. "Yes, well, I suppose that covers it for tonight. Drink responsibly."