KnightDisciple Posted January 13, 2011 Author Posted January 13, 2011 Gabriel nodded occasionally, paying close attention to Robin's explanation. A contemplative look was on his face as she finished. "Interesting. Very interesting. I think you have something of a point about science; even in the church, we look more to science than magic. Maybe one day we can find a balance? Have both disciplines equally respected, as they are just different systems dealing with different forces? I mean, it's clear that using magic isn't tied to a single belief structure, just like science isn't. I only hope we can work to avoid conflict..." He shakes his head, a rueful smile crossing his face. "Sorry, that's a bit off-topic. How about this: What's your oddest story regarding magical work?" He sipped at his water as he waited for her answer.
Raveled Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 "No contest," she said. "Zombie in the mail system." Robin sipped her drink and sat forward in her seat, letting Gabriel stew on that comment for a moment. "The mail system has a lot of precautions that they didn't use it, and one of them is X-ray scanning. Apparently, one of the local mail branches was scanning a random package and it turned out to be a leg." The sorceress boxed out a form with her hands, at least twenty inches long. "From below the knee, including the foot. In some kind of Styrofoam container, packed in dry ice. There were several similar packages, all boxed in the same way with the same lettering on the labels, and they all had body parts -- different ones, actually. Like someone had sectioned a human body and put it into the mail. So they -- the mail personnel -- picked up the last box and it started swearing at them. They opened it up and it was a head, still swearing at them. "I got called in by word of mouth and, to make a long story short, it was a dead man still moving around. He'd been some kind of archeologist back in the Twenties, and found a brass ring that contained a djinni. The djinni granted him one wish, and this guy wished that he would see the whole world before he passed on. The djinni granted the wish and the guy immediately tested it by shooting himself. He died, but his spirit, his soul didn't move on. The djinni didn't make him immortal, it just stopped him from passing on when he died and tied his soul to his now-dead-and-decaying body. "At some point this guy realized it was cheaper to get sectioned and travel via next-day mail. So that's what he did, packing his bits in dry ice and getting sewed back up when he got to his destination. It worked, I guess, until they started X-ray scanning packages." She fell silent, letting Gabriel absorb the strangeness of the story, then spoke up. "So, it's only fair. Weirdest villain? Excluding succubi?"
KnightDisciple Posted January 14, 2011 Author Posted January 14, 2011 Gabriel spent several long moments blinking in confusion. Then, he burst into laughter. "A self-mailing zombie? That is priceless. And a good lesson on why you shouldn't rely on djinni." He looked thoughtful for several moments, before nodding with a smile. "Weirdest villain: A clown. No, seriously, a circus clown. Multicolored clothes, wig, paint, red nose, the works. He had a little sprayer that sprayed laughing gas. You know, nitrous oxide. Except there was so little of it, and it wasn't dense enough, that it didn't do anything. He was trying to hold up a convenience store, and couldn't understand the clerk was laughing at him, instead of because of the gas. He was rather sad-looking when the police hauled him off. Honestly, I hope he got some mental help; no way he was firing all cylinders."
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