Player: David M
Email: verenjay@djemity.chaosdeathfish.com
Caste: Heightman

A scrawled, stained flyer blows in the lobby of The Citadel:

Your HISTORY DISCARDED? Past Life CAST ASIDE by BITTER CHANCE?
The WORLD ITSELF bites at YOUR SOUL, as SERENDIPITY prunes itself in the corner.
Like a TWILIT BAT, painting it’s wings in POWDERS.
Have you SUFFERED at the CLAWS of DARK FORTUNE TOO LONG?
THE SOCIETY OF INCOMPREHENSIBLE REMORSE KNOWS YOUR PAIN.
STRIKE BACK at THE ENEMY. STRIKE BACK at THE BEAST that STOLE YOUR LIFE!
- VERENJAY

Journals of the Druid Ruum, upon his accession to the position of Glorious Not-Leader of the 23rd

…It is a remarkable feeling today. I had not thought that I would experience anything, but the weight of centuries of history now rests upon my shoulders. The Geseque Caves are my home, and the 23rd forever my sisters and brothers. The task entrusted to me? Simply everything. Or so it feels like to me. The duties of the Druid had long bothered me and taken up my time, but they do not compare to what there is to be done for the 23rd…

…and now I am told, and this seems to be the first task I must master fully, that a new passage was discovered by a delving party. I wonder what mysteries it will hold? It is not every Not-Leader that gets a chance to explore an uncharted branch of the Geseque. I now go to rouse Mr. Basil and we shall see what is to be found there…

A glorious painting, by Becquerel hand, of a historical scene. It is entitled 'The Acceptance of Vandel's Hand by the Empress Aysa III'. Although the subject is clearly the Empress Aysa, it is Vandel that takes a lot of the canvas, not least in that he is reflected in his brother Verenjay's presence. So flanked, the Empress is accepting of Vandel's proposal, clearly touched by the Becquerel. The setting of the Imperial Palace is clearly idyllic, with a lot of greenery added to the scene and a garden stretching out in the grand windows behind the Empress and Vandel. A little-known detail, that is not spotted by many, is the presence of a small white weasel on the throne behind Aysa's head, looking hungrily at her crown. This is largely believed to reflect an apocryphal story about Vandel's first meeting of the Empress.

“It must be regretably announced that the Previous Edition Of THE NEW TRASK ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POST-DACHIAN EVENTS SOCIAL AND MONETARY contained two small pieces of errata, both of which can be easily remedied. Currently, on page 42,398, the entry marked “VANDEL (Becquerel)” reads “See VERENJAY”, and on page 44,008, the entry marked “VERENJAY (Becquerel)” reads “See VANDEL”. To fix these, both entries should simply read “See POPO (Weasel)”.”
- THE NEW TRASK ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POST-DACHIAN EVENTS SOCIAL AND MONETARY, Common Errata, 48th Print.

“And how are you, me old sunshine?” said Mr. Popo.
“Not very how,” he said. “I don't seem to have felt at all how for a long time.”
“Dear, dear, Apples n' Pears, Apples n' Pears,” said Popo, “I'm sorry about that. Let's have a look at you, you slag.”
So Hrundag stood there, gazing sadly at the ground, and Mr. Popo scampered all round him once.
“Why, what's meshuggened to your jaw?' he said in surprise.
“What has happened to it?” said Hrundag.
“It isn't there!”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, either a jaw is there or it isn't there. You can't make a bottle o' whiskey about it. And yours isn't there!”
“Then what is?”
“Effin' Nothing.”
“Let's have a look,” said Hrundag, and he turned slowly round to the place where his Jaw had been a little while ago, and then, finding that he couldn't catch it up, he turned round the other way, until he came back to where he was at first, and then he put his head down and looked between his front legs, and at last he said, with a long, sad, sigh, “I believe you're right.” Several small villages were destroyed in the process.
“Of course I'm effin' right,” said Popo.
“That Accounts for a Good Deal,” said Hrundag gloomily. “It Explains Everything. No Wonder.”
“You must have left it somewhere, you daft wanker,” said Popo.
“Somebody must have taken it,” said Hrundag. “How Like Them,” he added, after along silence.
Popo felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn't quite know what. He neglected to mention Verenjay & Naughty Dach had knicked it ages ago.
So he decided to do something helpful instead. Cruel, but helpful.
“Hrundag,” he said solemnly, fingers behind his back “I, Mr. Popo, First Banker Of Trask, will find your jaw for you.”
“Thank you, Popo,” answered Hrundag. “You're a real friend,” said he. “Not like Some,” he said.
“Heheh. Sucker,” Thought Popo.
So Popo went off to find Hrundag's jaw……

…..Through caverns and spinney marched Popo, fag in mouth; down open slopes of gorse and heather, over rocky beds of streams, up steep banks of sandstone and grumbling Teklo filing their tax returns, into the heather again; and so at last, tired and hungry, to the Citadel. For it was in the Citadel that the Archive lived…..
Archive lived in the Citadel, an old-world residence of great charm, which was grander than anybody else's, or seemed so to Popo, because it had both a knocker and a bell-pull. And it was a fuckin' huge castle floating in the fuckin' sky.
…..he knocked and pulled the knocker, and he pulled and knocked the bell-rope, and he called out in a very loud sweary voice, “Archive! You Prick! I require a fuckin' answer! And I don't give a ruddy ha'penny about this whole four-blokes-with-you malarky. I've got a sharp rock. And a mug of coffee. And no coaster. And an urge to put it down on something expensive. You slag.”
And the door opened, and The Archive looked out. Wary.
“Hallo, Popo, he said, eyeing up the coffee mug. “How's things?”
“Terrible and Sad, you paper monstrosity” said Popo, “because Hrundag who is a Fuckin' Wyrm has lost his Bleedin' Jaw, 'ave a banana, 'ave a banana. And he's Moping about it. Prick. So could you very fuckin' kindly tell me how to find it for him? You Slag.”…..

…..”A Reward!” said Streakybacon very loudly. “We write a notice to say that we will give a large something to anybody who finds Hrundag's Jaw. My name is ludicrous!”…..
…..he explained that the person to write out this notice was Verenjay. “It was he who wrote the ones on my front door for me. Did you see them, Popo?”
For some time now Popo had been saying “Yes” and “No” in turn, with his eyes shut, to all that Streakybacon was saying, and having said, “Yes, yes,” last time, he said “No, not at all,” now, without really knowing what Streakybacon was talking about. He wasn't going to listen to a fuckin' pig.
“Didn't you see them?” said Streakybacon, a little surprised. “Come and look at them now.”
So they went outside. And Popo looked at the Boar's luxury jacuzi and the notice below it, and he looked at the fangoriously-decorated hot-tub, and the more he looked at the bleeding fleshy hot-tub covered in teeth, the more he felt that he had seen something like it, somewhere else, sometime before.
But he didn't really fuckin' care. He was thinking about ferrets. Filthy ferret strippers.
“Handsome Jacuzi, isn't it?” said Streakybacon.
Popo nodded.
“It reminds me of something,” he said, “but I can't think what. It's not that I'm stupid it's just I'm too busy thinking about Ferret Strippers. Where did you get it?”
“I just came across it in the Geseque Caves. It was attached to a Wyrm, and I thought at first somebody owned it, so I kicked it, and nothing happened, and then I kicked it again very loudly, and nothing happened, and then it came off in a shower of blood & gore, and as nobody seemed to want it, I took it home, and—-”
“Hrundag,” said Pooh solemnly, “you made a mistake. Somebody did want it.”
“Who?”
“Hrundag. My client Hrundag. He was– he was fond of it, you might say.”
“Fond of it?”
“Attached to it,” said Popo, getting closer, waving his sharp rock under Streakybacon's chin.
So with these words he knocked Streakybacon over the head, cheesed it, came back with some much bigger stupider weasels, attached the jaw-come-jacuzi to a cart, knicked all Streakybacon's stuff, and cheesed it back to Hrundag; and when Telma had attached it on to it's right place again because it's not like she had more important things like saving someone's life or something, Hrundag trampled about the forest, snapping his jaw so happily that Popo came over all funny, and had to hurry home out of a natural sense of preseravtion for all living things. Hundreds Died.
And, once he'd sold all the loot half an hour afterwards, he sang to himself proudly:
Who found the Jaw?
“I,” said Popo, “At a quarter to two (Only it was quarter to eleven really), I found the Jaw!”
“What in the name of Woden's Pants are all these Weasels doing in my house?” Cried Vandel.

A comment by a Becquerel of the 23rd

Vandel left then on the Dolum, with Captain Jinbe, with his daughter, and with Mr Popo. He went East, he told me, and that is where the ship sailed. Will he ever return to tell tale of it? I know that he will not, for it has been six decades and I am an old man. I go to Woden, now, as Vandel once did with the Skira of Wyrm…