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RMS Humbug and
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RMS Humbug and
RMS Humbug and RMS Tiny Invite You To Their Maiden Voyages!
On September 22, a day that looks, smells, and tastes like any other day – which, for that matter, it probably is – an “ordinary” person much like yourself (maybe even yourself?) finds in the back of their cupboard a five-year-old mayonnaise jar. The nutrition facts label reads as follows:
Vitamin B12 – 2%
Vitamin Z564 – 26%
You, random but lucky person, are invited to the maiden voyages of the RMS Tiny and the RMS Humbug, two cruise ships belonging to the Ridiculous Management of Seagoers (RMS) Company! Isn't that awesome? It starts on October 10, so you have lots of time to pack! Isn't that even awesomer! And it's completely FREE*! Please RSVP by October 5. Anyone who wishes to join after October 5th but before October 10 has a lot less chance of making it onto the ship on time. Anyone attempting to board the ship after October 10 will find that the ship has already left, and I am afraid that under no circumstances can we pick up latecomers.
Cheesiness – 41%
Corniness - 22%
Good Old Random Humour – 5555555555%
Logic - (-111%)
Vitamin A+ - 4.67%
The person squints to read the fine print (the finest print they've ever seen) at the bottom of the label:
*This may or may not include certain expenses, including but not limited to: food, accommodation, extreme trauma counselors, staff, my new billion-dollar fridge, etc. NOTE: Some of these expenses may seem entirely unrelated to the subject at hand, but let me assure you that, when viewed from a holistic point of view, they are all completely necessary.
-Your Future Captain,
The Ominous
ANOTHER NOTE: Any complaints, questions, forwarded expenses, or wishes to sue may all be sent to John F.Q. and CaptainRead of the Cricket Chatterbox!
ANOTHER NOTE: We here at RMS Co. believe that there are two possible reasons why the Titanic sank. One is that it had such a huge, grand name that the sea serpents got angry and told the iceburgers to “let 'em have it broadside!”. Of course, as you all know, iceburgers don't have very good aim, so instead of “having it broadside”, the Titanic was rammed from the front, causing the deaths of millions. The other is that everyone thought it was unsinkable, and so we all jinxed it and of course it just had to sink after that. This is why we have built the RMS Tiny and the RMS Humbug. The former ship will be completely unsinkable because of its unassuming name, and the latter will be a test to see if we were right. The RMS Humbug has been equipped with all the sorts of things that superstitious sailors think contribute to the angering of sea serpents and the sinking of ships, and it will probably be sunk almost immediately.
AND ANOTHER NOTE: When everyone has boarded the RMS Tiny (no one will want to go on the RMS Humbug, we are certain), their names will inexplicably appear in Pandora's Fedora, owned by your captain, The Ominous (that's me!). A “murderer” will be drawn out of it, and the game will begin! From then on, those whose names are drawn out of Pandora's Fedora will “disappear”, unfortunate “victims” to the will of the hat.
YET ANOTHER TEDIOUS NOTE: This was inspired by T.O.N.'s Ski Lodge Murder Mysteries(TM), and we here at RMS Co. sincerely hope that it is different enough to avoid any copyright issues. To be sure of this, there is a rather severe plot twist that we can't tell you a single thing about. We will not use the Ski Lodge, nor any of the characters from it, and we will attempt to use our own style of writing, no matter how much we may be unconsciously influenced into doing otherwise because of the sheer awesomeness of the Ski Lodge. "Days" will be written whenever possible during the busy schedule of The Ominous, and you can hope to expect from one to three of them per week. Everyone who signs up may post their view of the "day," but please wait until you've read whatever The Ominous has written before doing so, and because of the severe yet unknowable plot twist, your memories will be wiped once you die, so there are unfortunately no ghosts. If you really want to, dreams or hallucinations are allowed.
The person snorts dismissively. “Some silly, outdated advertisement or conspiracy meant to get more people to eat mayonnaise! Well, it certainly didn't work very well...” They think, staring at the uneaten mayonnaise jar for a few seconds, and then throwing it over their shoulder into a garbage can and inadvertently causing a snowstorm in Italy.
DINGALING! DINGALING! The phone rings. You pick it up, wrenching your gaze from the scattered tea leaves in front of you that had just produced the story above. “Hello?”
“Good evening. This is Super Mayonnaise Incorporated, business partner with RMS Co. We have been looking through our records, and it has come to our inattention that the five-year-old mayonnaise jar you just now allegedly threw over your shoulder was never sold, stolen, or even brought into existence in the first place. It does not exist, and neither does your house, no matter how real it may appear. Furthermore, you do not exist. We deny everything, and have lawsuits in place to make sure you do not claim otherwise. In fact, I am talking to thin air right now, because you do not exist. Neither does your telephone. Goodbye, thin air, and thank you for your co-operation.”
Before you can speak, the line goes dead. Now thoroughly mystified, you decide to thwart reason and pack your bags to wherever it was that the ships were supposed to leave from. Not that there had been a location mentioned anywhere in the story your tea leaves just told you, but you still think you have an idea of where to go. You hope.
submitted by The Ominous, age unknown, mysterious
(September 22, 2014 - 7:25 pm)
(September 22, 2014 - 7:25 pm)
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Oh. My. Pie. THIS IS SO AMAZIIIIIIIIIING!!!! Ahhhhhhh!
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wow! wow! wow! wow! wow!
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*trumpets blare* The Last Day! *trumpets blare again* 'Tis Ready! *trumpets blare yet again* Go forth and read, for you can now be assured - *trumpets blare so much that the word blare ceases to have any meaning* Thank-you, Aldo, that's enough trmupets now. Go see if you can find a tuba instead. Ahem, where was I? Oh yes. You can now be assured that you can read this story without the fear of it dying, of having become attached (which, as a writer, I do hope you have) to a story that stops without ending. Because now the end is in sight! And, being in sight, you can now read it! *tuba blares*
DAY 13
A last alliance of Men and Elves marched against the armies of Darkness, and on the very slopes of the RMS Tiny's sloping deck, they fought for the freedom of Middle-Earth. (or Narnia, or Redwall, or the Seven Seas, or Troy, or Hogwarts, or the Universe, or Discworld, etc.)
- The Ominous
Narnians met trolls. Vogons met mice and otters. Jedi met Death-Eaters. Captain Hook met Inigo Montoya. Bowstrings twanged, swords clanged, poetry was uttered, lightsabers bzzanged. The Force stopped working, and Voldemort found himself unable to utter anything but “Bleep-bleep-bleep!”
In the midst of the chaos, the Doctor glowed. Streams of light emanated from his hands and face. For a moment the light obscured his majestic eyebrows, and then they were gone, and he had a new face. It looked an awful lot like Boromir's face. The Doctor's new hair flopped down over his eyes, which widened. “I'm ginger!” He blinked. “Well, it looks sort of ginger...” He reached up to touch his hair. “I suppose, in some lights, it could be called slightly reddish-brown. Or hazel? But it also looks blondish... This is all very confusing. On the bright side, at least it's floppy! I like floppy hair – I think...”
There was a pop, and someone appeared beside The Doctor. He looked up. The face was fuzzy and indistinct, but then it cleared. “Jack! My TARDIS has been stolen!”
Jack Harkness grinned. “That's why I'm here, to get you out of this strange alter-universe!”
“Why are you wearing a monk's robe?”
“I'll explain later!” Jack grabbed the Doctor, then pushed a button on his funky wristwatch. They disappeared.
The two last CBers stared at each other across the space where The Doctor had been. They looked down at the weapons in their hands, noticing them for the first time, and then looked up at each other in horror. Now they both knew – the identity of the murderer was no longer a secret.
Curio stared at Everinne. Everinne stared at Curio. No one else stared at them, because everyone was too busy fighting their battle for the good of the universe/galaxy/world, etc. In slow motion, the buzz and clang of weapons faded away. Curio gripped her pistol. Everinne clenched her hand around her sword. If they fought, who would win? Was there any way of reasoning with the murderer, or was she too far gone by then? Did they have to fight? Suddenly the sound of the battle raged back with a vengeance.
The CBers turned and ran away from each other, pushing through the throng of fighters. They must get out, get away, hide from the horror of the murders committed in the past thirteen days. Don't look back, run, keep running, don't stop. Don't blink.
* * *
George collapsed onto a twisted piece of pipe, sweating profusely. Thor's Hammer fell from his grasp with a thud. “If that doesn't fix it, I don't know what will!” George gasped, “I've been hammering for hours now.”
The engine crossed his arms and tapped a foot. “I'm better than before, but definitely not fixed – I still have a headache, so some part of my calibration instruments must be out of sync. Whoever sabotaged me knew what they were doing...”
George sighed. “That reminds me...” He pulled the strangest tool out of his strange and friendly-looking toolbelt and pushed a button. The tool buzzed and hummed in a not-very-friendly manner. George's eyes widened. “Interesting...” He pushed another button, and disappeared in a wash of light, which might have looked, to an uneducated observer, suspiciously similar to my No-Gore Teleporters.
The engine furrowed his brow.
* * *
The noises of the battle above drifted down through my decks. Everinne leaned against a wall, panting. She clutched the sword in her hand. Curio was really the murderer? She had known that one of them was, but for it to be a specific person, to put a name and a face to the title of “murderer”, and of all the CBers, for it to be Curio? Curiosity killed the cat, Curio killed the CBers? It was too much to believe.
In another dark corner of my hold, Curio sat, resting her head in her hands, the pistol on the floor beside her. She would need it now, to defend herself. Now that she knew that Everinne was the murderer, she wished that she didn't. Because to survive, she would have to stop the murderer before she herself was killed. But did it have to be Everinne? Curio had always wondered who the murderer was, but she had never thought that it would come to this – her, alone against the murderer, the one who had killed all the other wonderful CBers...
Everinne sighed. Her mind was made up. She looked both ways along the corridor, picked a random direction, and began walking. She would find the murderer, and stop her once and for all.
Curio picked up the pistol and stood up. She knew now what she had to do. She would find the murderer, and stop her once and for all.
* * *
Elsewhere, in some fashionable part of France, a blue box appeared from nowhere. Glennis fell off the side, gasping. It would have been enough to make any passing civilian drop his baguette and beret in shock, but fortunately there was no one around. The door opened, and Inspector Scotty and Aldo come out, arguing heatedly.
“What do you mean, you're not the murderer?! Are you not the fellow who put that fruit in the fruit bowl before the fight in which Air died? Did you not oh-so-suspiciously reveal your prowess at disguises at the hotel? You could have been anyone on board, and no-one would notice! And were people not killed by butter knives and being baked into cakes? At first I suspected the lampshade on floor 444B, but it did not take much for me to realize who you really are... the muderer!”
“I am no murderer! I put the fruit under the Shakespeare paintings because they had asked me to do it, saying that even though they were paintings they still liked the smell of citrus. The other unfortunate deaths that you mention I also had nothing to do with, I was nowhere near the Larry Incorporated Radio Broadcasting studio at New Year's Eve, and I despise butter knives. If you know so much about everything that happened on the RMS Tiny, you would know that I was the one who didn't want there to be knives on the table for the CBers' first meal. And as for my disguises, I... I have a secret.”
“AHA!” Inspector Scotty pointed his truncheon accusatorily at Aldo.
At that moment, Glennis groaned from behind them. Aldo spun around, and gasped. “Glennis! How did you get here? Are you alright?”
Glennis sat up woozily. “I've always wanted a bit of adventure! Provided it's not too dusty and has its tie on the right way.”
Aldo helped Glennis to her feet. “Are you sure you didn't come just for my cooking?”
Glennis smiled. “That too. You do make a delicious walnut mousse.”
Scotty frowned. “Don't change the subject! I need to know this secret of yours, Aldo! For security reasons! If you can prove to me that you aren't the murderer, then I must go back to the RMS Tiny at once, the CBers could be in danger! So hurry up!”
Aldo sighed. “Well, it's like this... I'm a spy.” He looked at the ground. “My code name is 003.1456, or 'Double-O-Pie'. I used to work on behalf of Culinary Conspiracies, a subdivision of the Chefs for Champagne Committee. After the Spaghetti Incident and my flop in the Alps, I was kicked out, and after drifting for a while I was hired by The Ominous to cook and look suspicious. I didn't know there were going to murders, but one of the passengers assured me that this was all normal.” He looked up at Glennis. “But now that the RMS Tiny is wrecked in the desert, and there are barely any passengers left, I want out.”
“Wait a second!” Inspector Scotty whirled around and pointed his truncheon at Glennis. “YOU could be the murderer! You were in the Larry's Studio at the time of the murder, you argued for the knives at the start, you knew where Pandora's Fedora was and yet didn't tell anyone! And you love cleanliness so much that the CBers' perpetual chaos must have driven you over the edge.”
Glennis shook her head, aghast. “You really think I would have had anything to do with those dirty murders? That I would have bloodied the floors or messed with green powder? It's true that the Fedora needed dusting, but I was just returning it back to where I found it – I didn't want to be accused of theft. And as for the knives, I was told that there would be murders, and although I found the thought awful, I wanted them to be over and done with as soon as possible, and I thought that knives would be the cleanest thing. Afterwards, one of the CBers thanked me, saying that the sharp knives had been just right for cutting up a pineapple.”
Inspector Scotty gasped. “I see a correlation here! One of the CBers! I thought I had eliminated all the CBers when interrogating them, but I must have missed someone... That Everinne person was acting rather odd, she answered all the questions correctly!” He turned back to the blue box and rushed inside. “Goodbye, I have to go stop a murder!” The door slammed shut, and the blue box disappeared.
Glennis and Aldo looked at each other. “I guess it's just you and me now.” said Glennis.
Aldo smiled. “Would you prefer walnut mousse or chocolate cake?”
* * *
Everinne rounded the corner, past the statue of Julius Geezer. Curio sidled along past windows that looked out into nothing, then turned a corner.
Everinne looked at Curio and Curio looked at Everinne. They had found what they had been looking for.
They steeled themselves, determined not to be swayed from the right path.
Curio cocked her pistol.
Everinne raised her sword.
They charged.
CLANG! Or was it BANG!? I'm not entirely sure what happened next, but my No-Gore Teleporters did what was required of them, and a bright light filled the corridor.
When the light cleared, there was nothing but an old sword and a rusty pistol left in the corridor.
A piece of the wall moved, and Inspector Scotty peeled off his wall suit. “What just happened? Which of them was the murderer? Did they both die? Or were they both working together?” He wandered off down my corridors, muttering with confusion.
* * *
END OF DAY 13 PART 1
(February 27, 2017 - 9:08 pm)