Reply To: Portales Penmanship; Excerpts from an Illegible Epic

[Portales]

Sar’s Heroes and the Shaft Giver: Part IV The Root of the Problem

LXXXVII
The wind whipped at our group with terrible howling sound,
Using all of his might Frank plunged the staff in to the ground.
The clouds became darker and streaks of lightning began to arrive,
And from the ground tentacle-like roots squirmed and came alive.

Bursting through soil, around us the black roots began to surround,
At the base of the great tree a hole had formed, perfectly round.
Suddenly we were under attack, I did what I had to do to survive,
Not wanting to be a wild animal’s supper, in to the hole I did dive.

LXXXVIII
Through my decisive actions, I have no doubt, my life I did save,
I landed on my behind on to solid rock, OUCH! I’de lept into a cave.
It seemed our situation had not improved, we were now in a maze,
Which way do we go? Too many choices, too many different ways.

Then I smelt it, the sickness came over me in one nauseating wave,
Stinky beetles! Clean air to our noses they intended to deprave.
We battled through the beetles and their accompanying yellow haze,
The journey then took an unexpected turn, we entered a different phase.

LXXXIX
A place where only brains could triumph, and not the sword,
Challenged to answer a riddle, safe passage would be our reward.
Before us a short shirtless man, with hairly legs and hooven feet,
He spoke to us this riddle, thinking his words we could not defeat.

“What happens twice in a millenium,
Once in a lifetime,
And never in a thousand years?”

I thought and thought, I tried to buy as much time as I could afford,
Looking around at my companions for help, they looked stumped and bored.
Thinking out loud, I blured “the letter L”, my thoughts incomplete,
I solved the riddled, and we passed. My victory was small, but sweet.

XC
We continued into the cave, the rugged land we were traversing,
Of course, continuing my singing, I like to think of it as rehearsing.
It can be challenging when singing, and others are trying to kill you,
So I sang, Sun-Ok battled, and Kel left us a trail of tobacco chew.

Then a sight to behold, as we immediately silenced our conversing,
There sucking on the roots of the tree a giant beetle, and it was nursing.
It’s rock hard skin stopped all our attacks, there was nothing we could do,
What could stop the monster from killing the tree, I don’t have a clue.

*All script is hastily scrawled in an illegible (and incredibly lazy) handwriting (if you can call it that).