Orpheus has this huge knot on the side of his head, where his friend Brasso had seriously thwacked him with a steam shovel steering handle, because sometimes his friend doesnt know quite when to stfu...

meanwhile, back at the ranch....monqui was compliing a big list about all the things that were great about banannas. One day he would have his dream, his fantasy.. a solid platinum bananna. He clutched his tinfoil bananna to his manly chest and jumped out the window screaming obsceneties at Kornflakes who was hiding in his hedges... which were unkempt, overgrown, and shabbily tended, because in this story, everyone knows monquis' dont have thumbs, or haircombs that...any non-opposable thumbed critter in his right mind would possess, it had also come to the attention of those that be that if something serious didn't occur soon that...Gollum would have to give up writing his essay and attempt to rescue the proceedings from foundering upon the ephemeral but oh-so-solid Writers' Block. Valiantly he dislodged the festering spectre of Bertrand Russell from his keyboard, but even as that venerable logicist departed Gollum became aware that another apparition haunted his room. The shadows congealed into a single malevolent crimson glow as the Great Green Snark manifested herself. Billious and yet somehow alluring, she advanced upon him when all of a sudden Gwil dived through the (second storey) window wielding a joint and a bong for backup. With a deft flick of his spliff, Gwil.......

--==-- Poetic Interlude --==--

The fickle flood is spent; our thread untwines.
Restful on the swell we drift contented.
Our nascent storm too soon declines:
Its first fervour is abated.

Those first lines are the easiest -
Their novelty ensures.
But more must come: without the rest
The tale will not endure.

Sickly the day is breaking up ahead;
But mordent upon the ebb's rhythm soft
A gathering discord trills, that bears aloft
Our storm renewed, with blacker thunderheads.

--==-- End of Poetic Interlude --==--

The motley PitCrew, inspired or revolted each as befits his disposition towards prententious narcissism, turns toward the gathering storm with a fresh relish. A wild and reckless spirit takes hold of them as with full sail they prepare to face the tempest. Scanning the story for references to himself, Edge Damodred immediately jumps up to give an exposition of "Why Full Sail is so great but also such terribly, terribly hard work"; the rest of the crew groan and force him back down to the galleys, where he may employ his talent for terribly, terribly hard work.

Yet up on the main deck, dissent is brewing. Captain CCS fears a mutiny. It does not help his concentration that the cook, a hearty fellow by the name of Long Jon Rickenbacker, insists on calling all the decks "poop" with such peculiar glee. The captain is distrusted by his crew; they fear his enigmatic acronym conceals a past of pirate commands. So be it; he has his own reasons for discretion. Even as CCS broods upon these troubling thoughts, he is accosted by the cabin-boy Cassius, who appears as one in a state of mortal dread. The captain ushers Cassius into his chamber, whereupon the comely lad reveals......

.....branded across his shapely butt-cheeks. Trying not to snig.ger, CCS orders a cold compress to assist his guest's comfort. With wracking sobs the cabin-boy relates all his sorry tale of the last three hours. It transpires that he had, upon a fortunate expedient, sought shelter in an apple-barrel and thus contrived to overhear the secret plottings of Long Jon Rickenbacker and a number of the other crew. What the captain heard that evening shocked him greatly, for he was to learn that Rickenbacker had covertly...... and coveted as this case might be, the secret to the branding of shapey buttocks, you see it had long been his fantasy to...