"Mlykhed, I must have another slug," said Master Kraka of Honkytown, giving a meaty round golf ball a tap with his luckiest tusk-carved club, sending it rolling across the carpet into a sideways "World’s Greatest Boss" mug at the other side of the well-appointed office of his bungleberry plantation. "Another slug, Mlykhed, at once!"

  "Your highness already has nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine and a half slugs, of every imaginable shape, size, and color!" said his flackfizer Mlykhed, bowing humbly.

  Kraka began stamping first one foot, then the other. Kraka stamped around in circles. The round pale face of poor Mlykhed grew even paler at each stamp.

  "There are no more slugs in Honkytown," he pleaded. "Your highness must know that. The slug hunters have tracked them all down, and even if there were more, we cannot afford to feed another single slug. I beg of your highness to consider the nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine and a half already eating us out of our homes. The Honkytowners are complaining of the slug tax and- "

  "Silence!" screamed Kraka, jumping into the air so that he could stamp both feet at the same time."Will you get me a slug or not?" the master asked, pausing with one foot upraised. He spit out the words, with the brownish spittle landing on Mlykhed’s face.

  "I would if there were any more, but there are no more slugs in Honkytown!" wailed Mlykhed, who wore a sensible brown suit. Down came Kraka's foot with a terrible stamp. He flung his golf club at the flackfizer, narrowly missing his head by a few Sifillis-inches.

  "Fahrvergnügen!" screamed the monarch of Honkytown. "What kind of a flackfizer are you? I, Kraka, must have another slug!!" He walked over to his bag and selected a nine-iron. Then he sat down on his couch full of decorative pillows.

  "Your highness knows best," murmured Mlykhed, rolling up his eyes and putting his finger tips together. It was time to try out his plan.

  "There are other countries besides Honkytown," said Mlykhed loftily. "Now I presume your highness was thinking of an odd, unusual sort of slug; something bigger and better than the kind now in the plantation reservation?"

  "How well you understand me," sighed Kraka, sinking back among his cushions. He sat with his knees far apart, swinging the nine-iron back and forth between them.

  "I have a book," confided Mlykhed, placing his finger mysteriously beside his nose, "and if your highness will but excuse me I will fetch it from my condo."

  "Are you going to get a slug out of a book?" asked Kraka derisively, running his soft hand through his blonde crew-cut. He adjusted the baby blue sweater tied loosely around his neck. It complimented his pink pastel dress shirt perfectly.

  Now, while Mlykhed goes for his book, I must tell you that Honkytown is a barbarous land and the gammon-colored Honkytowners themselves are a short-tempered clan of troublemakers. When they squoze their groins, crotches, or pubises a loud "HONK!" sound emitted, hence the name of the town being Honkytown.

  In olden times the Honkytowners used to descend upon the communes and municipalities that surrounded them and steal their natural resources and all the dusted diamonds and videotapes and anything else of value, enslaving citizens to work on their bungleberry plantations and leaving destroyed communities in their wake. But Nobgoblin, the Royal Thaumaturge of Bonertania and Empress of Quirk Quadrant, put a stop to that. One night, flying over Honkytown in her veiny fruitbat-drawn half-a-bug chariot, she had dropped a greyish-pinkish-brownish book and it had fallen on the oldest Honkytowner- a chemical-processing machine worker named Ned- hitting him a terrible blow on the head. It had been a blow to them all, for in black blood letters on the first scroat-skin page of the zebrahog-flesh-bound book stood this sentence:

  "From this day on, any Honkytowner leaving Honkytown shall lose his head. By order of Tremorroid Titiana, Ruler of all Bonertania."

  There were other warnings in the flesh book, but the first had changed the whole course of the town. No Honkytowner was brave enough to venture out of Honkytown after that, so the thieving raids on other countries had stopped instantly. The Honkytowners, deprived of the pleasure of stealing from their neighbors, stole from each other, and were always quarreling among themselves. The humanoids and yokai and robots and aliens of the surrounding communities would come to the borders of Honkytown to bargain for the bungleberries, mayonnaise, and white bread for which the land was famous, but Kraka's grandfather Ang Mo, who was then master of the town, disagreeably decided that since no Honkytowner might leave Honkytown no outsider should enter his land. Fences were posted on all the borders of Honkytown, and warnings posted on the fences, and soon no one came near the horrid little gated community, so that it went on growing more mean all the time, as people are bound to do who have no friends or neighbors.

  When Kraka assumed the throne from his father he tried to divert the minds of his quarrelsome subjects by organizing slug hunts. There were many slugs in the uninhabited parts of the desert, and for a time hunting slugs kept the Honkytowners out of mischief. But soon they were quarreling over even that, and the hunting expeditions were more in the nature of battles than pleasure excursions.

  Master Kraka, in despair, had confided to Flackfizer Mlykhed that he much preferred the slugs to his subjects. So Mlykhed had mildly suggested that he keep a few for company. Kraka, who was terribly bored with his duties as master, was delighted with the idea and issued orders that hereafter all slugs should be brought to plantation.

  At first he had kept two or three in an enclosed molybdenum cage in his vanilla garden. He insisted upon more and more slugs, and added more and more cages, and as his subjects grew more unmanageable, his affection for them increased. Eventually, as Flackfizer Mlykhed had stated, there were nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine and a half slugs in the collection.

  Mlykhed came whirling back into the plantation office, a large book under his arm.

  "This book," puffed Mlykhed proudly- but he got no further.

  "Give it to me," commanded Master Kraka, snatching the volume from Mlykhed.

  "’Soda and the Sinister Snatch,’ by Zachariah Smith," read Kraka. Zachariah Smith was the royal scribe of Bonertania and often published accounts of the adventures of the Sifillis Celebrities. Kraka opened the volume with trembling fingers. But he got no further than the second page, for there was a picture of the most splendid slug he had ever seen in his whole Honkytowner existence. It was almost seven feet tall (including the eye-stalks), had arms, and wore clothes. Underneath the photo stood the words "This is the famous Dr. Lubricious Slugg, formerly of Mount Bottom, photographed at Videotape Palace in Schmegma City."

  "A slug that’s a doctor? A doctor that’s a slug?" gasped Kraka. "A humanoid-sized doctor slug! How singular! How rare! That is the slug I want, Dr. Slugg!" Suddenly they were interrupted by fifteen heavily armed Honkytowners bursting into the plantation office, crotches a-honkin’.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  "Slug!" screamed the first. "Big Slug! Giant Slug! An absolutely enormous slug!" screamed all the others, whirling their respective weapons until the confusion was terrible.

  "Perhaps it is Dr. Slugg!" puffed Kraka, springing rapturously from his throne, and next minute entering the building’s courtyard. There stood a very lumpy and peculiar-looking slug, for in the slug’s mouth seemed to be a Spij?kenian nekroklown’s head. The clown’s face struggled to speak but the tight intestine lasso was choking him. A terrified, surprisingly unlumpy little Krapaterian boy looked on with big, moist eyes.

  "Haole cow, that’s an odd looking beast," puffed the ruler of Honkytown, again adjusting the sweater draped over his shoulders. “Take this ugly thing away, Mlyky, and lock him up with the other slugs. This slug is a big slug but not the right big slug. But at least that’s one more slug and I can say I have over ten thousand slugs.” He gestured to a large, mean-looking Honkytowner. Take him away, Mr. Charlie! But I am not going to be satisfied until I have the real Dr. Lubricious Slugg! The buckra stops here-ra!"

  "Come on," growled Mr. Charlie, the Honkytowner that held the intestine tied around Poo-go’s neck. He gave the intestine a sharp tug. Suddenly there was a shrill scream, and Tiny Tirdly flung both arms around the trembling slug-costume-clad Spij?kenian.

  "You shan't take him away," cried the little boy stormily. "It isn't a slug. It's Poo-go!"

  "Not a slug!" cried the master of Honkytown hoarsely. "Why, how dare you disappoint me like this?" A sob of rage choked Kraka's voice.

  "Loosen that ‘stine around his neck and he’ll tell you!" cried Tiny Tirdly. Mr. Charlie followed Tiny Tirdly’s instructions.

  "I apologize for not being a slug," giggled Poo-go as he tried to catch his breath. "Ten thousand pardons!"

  "Ten thousand puddings?" screamed Kraka furiously.

  "Puddings by all means, if your highness prefers them," coughed Poo-go hastily.

  "I told you there were no more slugs in Honkytown," wheezed Mlykhed. "I knew it wasn't a slug all along."

  "Well, what is it then?" asked Kraka angrily. "The little brown fellow's a boy of some kind, but this other?" He waved scornfully at the poor nekroklown.

  "A hoo-hoo, your highness!" hissed the pale flackfizer Mlykhed. "A hoo-hoo or a fairy or a thaumaturge, that's what he is."

  "Now don't call me names," giggled Poo-go, who had finally regained his breath. "I'm Poo-go. We fell into this charming country through no fault of our own. There is something very queer about it... One minute Tiny Tirdly and I were in Krapateria in a circus doing a bit of a trick and-"

  "I knew it was a trick," exclaimed Mlykhed triumphantly. "He admits it!"

  "Silence!" cried Kraka, who was beginning to enjoy the recital. "You were in a circus? Mlykhed, what is a circus?" Mlykhed shrugged.

  "It's a show, with stuff and things," explained Poo-go hastily, for he could tell by the puzzled faces of the Honkytowners that they had never heard of such a thing. "And we were in it. I put Tiny Tirdly on my shoulder and shouted a silly rhyme, and in a flash he was gone. I shout it again and I'm gone too!"

  "That brownish-green creature," cried Mlykhed, with a wave toward Poo-go, "is undoubtedly a thaumaturge!"

  "I suppose you deny being a thaumaturge?" Kracka asked Poo-Go.

  "Oh, absolutely!" giggled Poo-go. "My business is fun. I make people laugh and thus prolong their lives."

  "A funny business," sniffed Master Kraka, with a puzzled look at Mlykhed. "Well, you will have to make me laugh to prolong your life, and the only thing that makes me laugh is slugs!”

  “Why not compel him to serve us?” said Mlykhed the Flackfizer of Honkytown. “Let him go to Schmegma City and bring back Dr. Slugg for you.”

  “That’s it! Unless you can capture Dr. Lubricious Slugg of Schmegma City and bring him back to Honkytown, you shall be whipped mercilessly, then thrown into the slug reservation, whereby nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine ravenous slugs will tear you to bits." The nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine and a half slug was a bottom half and did not eat. "Do you agree?"

  "Why not send some of your valiant tribesmen to capture him?" giggled Poo-go nervously. "I, I have never captured a giant slug or any other creature in my life."

  "Because it is written in the book of Nobgoblin that any Honkytowner leaving here will lose his head. You are not Honkytowners" droned Kraka, honking his crotch for emphasis. "If you take my advice you will go at once. All this arguing keeps me awake, and when I'm awake I lose my temper, and when I lose my temper other folks lose their heads, and when that- "

  "I'll go," sighed Poo-go. All the Honkytowners cheered "OFAY!" and honked their groins, pubises, and crotches.

  Rubbing his hands gleefully, Kraka led them out of the plantation, through a double line of the Honkytowner guard, towards the great iron enclosure that surrounded his town. On the way they passed the slug enclosure. The ravenous slugs were snarling and quarreling among themselves, but as soon as Kraka came in sight they began calling him names and screaming for their dinner.

  "Be quiet, my little pets," chuckled the leader of the Honkytowners good-naturedly. "This is not dinner, only a silly thaumaturge."

  "Give us the little boy, then," gurgled the largest of the slugs- which was about a foot and a half long- while licking his moist chops.

  "Give us the little boy," gurgled all the other slugs immediately. Kraka ignored them, and soon they had reached the fence that surrounded Honkytown.

  “Travel southwest until you reach a turquoise cobblestone road and follow that till you come to Schmegma City. There you will search for Dr. Lubricious Slugg. If you run away instead of hunting for Dr. Slugg, I shall know of it.” King Kraka pressed the white-dusted-diamond ring on his right middle-finger against Poo-Go’s head. “Now you are marked, and when a marked one disobeys me, my thaumaturgic ring turns black. If it turns black I shall know you are deceiving me, and in that case"- Kraka held up his finger so that Poo-go could see his ring- "in that case I shall take it off, and if I take it off you will both turn into poop statues and find yourselves unable to move until you decide to do as I have commanded.”

  Poo-Go had a short attention span and struggled to take all this in.

  “And you won’t be purple alien-poop statues, you’ll be brown non-alien-poop statues,” Mlykhed added for emphasis.

  “NOW!” shouted King Kraka, “Good-bye, my gross-faced squat circus thaumaturge and little brown boy, a pleasant journey and a swift return!" The subjects watching this exchange began cheering and honking themselves.

  Poo-go was too shocked and astounded to answer. Grasping Tiny Tirdly’s hand firmly, he rushed off, until the raucous honking of the Honkytowners and the dreadful roaring of the hungry slugs could no longer be heard.

  "And this," puffed Poo-Go, "this is what comes of trying to be whimsical. Never try to be whimsical my boy."

  "No, sir," answered Tiny Tirdly. Then the little boy farted nervously.

  *