The Reluctant Adventures of Pigglebottom Broadsword

Chapter Twenty-One

Shortly after their early lunch (which lasted a total of 12 hours) Pigglebottom and Lord Gran Dios staggered, rather squiffily, back to their cabin to rest. As Lord Gran was particularly drunk, he, unfortunately, forgot his previous etiquette of allowing Pigglebottom first entrance to the cabin and instead crashed head first into their joint room, and in the process flattened his and Pigglebottom's beds to a fine dust. Almost instantaneously he began to snore as Pigglebottom curled up in the only free corner of the cabin with his blanket and attempted to get some sleep. After tossing and turning for a few hours, Pigglebottom decided to give up trying to sleep as the sound of the snoring was equivalent to 20 Elephants having a very stern disagreement. He instead got up and took a wander through the trains and carriages. His cabin was located in the 3rd carriage from the front out of a total of 20. His knowledge of the train that he had been on for almost an entire day extended to his cabin and the dining cart which, unsurprisingly, was in the 4th carriage right next to their room, which Pigglebottom now understood to be the reason why Lord Gran Dios was so wholeheartedly set on having the specific room they found themselves in. Pigglebottom wandered through the now empty dining car, night had descended on the land and so the waiting and kitchen staff had all retired for the evening. As he strolled past the table that Garrison had sat at earlier, Pigglebottom smiled as the faint smell of urine entered his nostrils, and then grimaced as the smell itself is of course wholly unpleasant.

The fifth and sixth cars of the train were all private cabins. On occasion, giggles and squeals (and even a couple of unsettling groans and howls) could be heard coming from within the rooms. The door of Room 6 in Carriage 6 had a note stuck to the door saying 'If you're interested, come on in', being in a sleep-deprived and still fairly drunk state Pigglebottom inquisitively pushed the door open gently, revealing a middle-aged man standing completely naked with nothing but a small teacup covering his most private of areas. "Fancy a cup?" the man said as Pigglebottom quickly darted into the next carriage as fast as he could.

The seventh carriage was designated 'For Older Persons' and there was considerably less going on. Only the occasional crack of a hip, and a small voice that muttered "my teef jus fell owwt" to which another replied "I know, they're still on it!", were audible to Pigglebottom's ears. The eighth and ninth carriages of the train were storage. Parcels, boxes and crates all labeled with signs such as 'DONT YOU DARE BREAK' and 'KEEP YOUR MITTS OFF', all of which sat piled upon each other, shaking every time the train hit a bump in the track. Near to the end of the carriage, Pigglebottom felt his nether regions gently brushed by what appeared to be the tentacle of something that was sticking out of a crate marked 'DANGER, HIGHLY PERVERSE', it was at this point Pigglebottom decided to end his exploration of the train and return to his room (or at least the hallway outside of his room).

He was about to enter the dining cart once again when he noticed a strange glow now coming from the crack beneath the door. A blue-ish hue seemed to peak out from beneath the door and as Pigglebottom grew closer, the hue began to extend towards him until it rose into the air and formed a gaseous shape of what appeared to be a see-through spectral doorman of sorts. "Name?" the blue-ish hue enquired.

"Pigglebottom Broadsword" he said, somewhat shaken and surprised. A flat square shape appeared in front of the specter "names not on the list" the bigger shape said after a few moments.

"I'm just trying to get back to my cabin, I'm in carriage 3."

"You ain't on the list, you ain't wearin' shoes, and you ain't got a female specter with you, the place is a spectral-sausage party tonight, so you ain't coming in" the shape said sternly and in a matter-of-fact fashion.

"I'm not trying to get into whatever this is, I'm just trying to get back to my room" Pigglebottom said in an increasingly irritated tone.

"You heard me didn't ya? I said you ain't coming in, get that through your skull!" the specter continued.

"At least I have a skull and not just some general, empty blue area!" Pigglebottom shouted infuriated.

"Who do you think you're talking to? I don't get paid enough to be treated like this, it aint my fault I ain't solid, you're just like my mum you are!" the blue-ish hue suddenly began violently sobbing as his gassy form dispersed through a few open windows on the train. Pigglebottom stood confused for a moment, before proceeding to enter the dining cabin.

A thick fog enveloped the dining car and stung his eyes as he tried to walk through the cart to reach the other side. The further he advanced through the carriage, the more he heard bodiless voices uttering such sentiments as "watch where you're going" and "where do you think you're touching?". Through the thick mist, two figures suddenly began to form, as they got closer their true form began to be revealed. They were two medium-height she-beasts of some sort, with the eyes of a succubus and the teeth of a pensioner crocodile with a drug problem. As they drew closer to Pigglebottom, so did the stench of the drains next door to the Kroydome public showers and mortuary. He could feel his hair curling and bending any which way away from the two quickly approaching females. The homelier of the two (it was an incredibly close-call) approached Pigglebottom and slowly inserted into his ear a long, slimy, cabbage-smelling tongue which then proceeded to wiggle up and down his earlobe. She whispered "ever tussled with a terrible twosome?", to which Pigglebottom replied, holding back his vomit; "I can't say I have, and unfortunately I think the stench is far too unbearable for me to be able to handle anyway". Usually, Pigglebottom wasn't the type of man to make such crass comment regarding another's body odour, however, being sleep-deprived and still somewhat sloshed from the previous session with Lord Gran, the words had escaped his mouth with nary a second thought.

"Stench? STENCH!?" the previously quiet individual now piqued up furiously. Unfortunately for Pigglebottom, the creatures did not see this as an insult and were instead extremely aroused. You see, the two individuals that Pigglebottom had happened upon were indeed descendants of the Succubus race, however, this particular family had bred with the Snockgobbler race, which had meant not only a significant decrease in intelligence (the Snockgobblers were horrendously inbred) but they also gained their descendant's love of all things whiffy. Therefore, Pigglebottom's words were, in fact, a compliment, and to some perhaps even a declaration of love. The terrible twosome took the words, unfortunately for Pigglebottom, as the latter, and each grabbed him by his wrists, hauling him off through the collective smog and out of the carriage.

After a few confusing moments, Pigglebottom was now being dragged by his ankles, which resulted in his head constantly banging on the floor until his legs were dropped as they arrived at the couples' room, the stench of which was emanating throughout the entire corridor. The less homely of the two lifted Pigglebottom to his feet, and shoved him into the room where he found himself lying in a pool of what he presumed was their lunch, but was actually something akin to their bodily fluids which are expelled twice a day in a violent, spurting rage. As the smell forced its way into Pigglebottom's nostrils, so did his dinner force its way back up and out of his mouth onto the floor. Again, the two beasts shrieked, this time with a more disturbing tone. Pigglebottom had gone from being an eligible bachelor for the two to devour simultaneously, to a heathen. You see, as a result of their strange mix of Succubus and Snockgobbler traditions (let's refer to them henceforth as 'Succlers'), ones' own expelled fluids were considered an offering to their god 'The All Mighty Slobbler'. As such, Pigglebottom had performed an amazingly offensive and sacrilegious act. As the two Succler's advanced on Pigglebottom, their eyes burned with rage and their 7 pairs of lips (only 6 of which were visible) drooled with cabbage-flavoured mucus. Pigglebottom shoveled further backward, inching closer and closer towards the wall. In an instant, Pigglebottom felt the wall behind him bow as it made a slight cracking noise before crumbling completely down under the weight of Lord Gran's right arm. As his arm crashed to the ground, crushing both Succler's beneath it, his snoring stopped momentarily, before starting again almost instantly, this time even louder than before. That night, lying covered in a mix of his own and someone else's vomit (among other things), Pigglebottom prayed, he thanked whoever it was that was looking out for him. He thanked them for Lord Gran, his obesity and the luck that he was only next door to his own room. Composing himself, Pigglebottom began to climb over Lord Gran's enormous rib cage to the only free corner of the room, settling down with his blanket he fell fast asleep in an instant.