Life After Undeath

“I like it!” I praised Kemper, “Is that story fiction or nonfiction?”

I saw Juno and Griff amusedly shaking their heads, but Kemper responded that, “The past is told by the winners, lady!, and so (since I’m always a winner) that story is whatever I want it to be! Muahahahahahahaha!”

We all chuckled, and Osiris offered to tell the next story, and we all agreed that this seemed like a fine idea.

“There once was a man who always traveled around with a bag, and sometimes people would get curious about what was in the bag.

He would never reveal to anyone what was in the bag though, and so people eventually got frustrated and a bunch of folks ambushed him, killed him, and took his bag!

Now they would open the bag and find out what was inside. It was too bad that he hadn’t just complied, or else they wouldn’t have had to resort to desperate measures, would they have?

They greedily opened the bag to find that there was nothing inside. Nothing inside. Nothing inside???? Nothing inside?!?!?!?

But they were wrong, because it wasn’t nothing inside, it was just nothing visible inside.

The invisible weapon-person who was inside instantly began slicing and dicing all of the people who’d killed their friend to bits!

The weapon-person then ran over to where their friend lay motionless on the ground and tried to resurrect him.

The resurrection worked, and the man stared in horror at all of the sliced-and-diced people who were around him.

“You shouldn’t have done that, my friend.” he told the weapon person, “Can you resurrect them too?”

The weapon-person told him that they could resurrect them, but that the bodies were damaged beyond repair, and so they could just put their souls into some nearby trees.

“I suppose that that’s what has to be done then.” the man said, and so the weapon-person quickly transferred all of the people’s souls into some nearby trees.

“I can’t move!” one of them yelped, and another one responded, “Why is that tree over there talking?” and another one said, “You’re a tree, you nitwit!” and then another one realized what was going on and declared that, “We’re all trees! Noooooooo…”

“You shouldn’t have killed me and opened the bag.” the man responded to all of the tree-people, “You’re lucky that you’re even trees right now!”

“That’s right!” the weapon-person agreed, “If I’d waited another 5 minutes or so, it woulda been afterlife time for y’all!”

“I’m not sure if the afterlife would’ve been better or worse than being stuck in place as a tree like this, though.” one of the tree-people countered, and another one agreed with that sentiment by adding, “Yeah! You didn’t do us any favors, bud!”

“Weeeeeelllllllll…” the weapon-person replied, “I could chop you all into bits now, and let you go to the afterlife. Does that sound good to you?”

“Noooooooooooo!” all of the tree-people cried out in horror, and they were so terrified that the weapon-person might carry out their threat that they all got a burst! of energy and managed to uproot themselves and run away!

“Well,” the man said cheerfully, “that settles that!” and the weapon-person got back into the bag, the man tied up the bag, and the two of them continued traveling around until they ran into an evil looking knight who was exiting a very scary looking mini-castle.

Before the knight had closed the castle door, the man heard a woman’s voice coming from inside of the castle. It sounded like she was calling out for help!

“What was that sound?” the man asked the knight, and the knight said, “Ummmmm… Nothing.”

“I don’t think that it was nothing though,” the man said suspiciously, “I think that you’ve got a captive in there!”

The knight sighed, and said, “Now I have two captives!”

The knight’s words proved to be correct, because a net immediately fell from above where the man was and trapped him in place.

The knight then dragged the man into the castle, and tossed him into a dungeon!

The knight then left the castle, and the man started calling out for whoever had been calling out for help earlier.

It turned out that she was in a nearby dungeon, and the two of them were able to hear each other well enough to have a conversation.

“My name is Liver,” the woman said, “and that wretched knight kidnapped me! He says that I have only two options. I either marry him or I rot away in this dungeon.”

“Luckily, there’s a third option for you now!” I told her, and I let the weapon-person out of the bag.

The weapon-person quickly freed us from the dungeons that we were in, and the woman and I fled from the castle!

Once we’d fled for a while, the weapon-person got back into the bag, and I closed it up and began carrying it again.

“So,” I asked Liver, “was there any particular reason why the knight chose to capture you in particular?”

“Not that I know of.” the woman said, “I’m not like a princess or anything, so I’m not sure why he targeted me of all people.”

Suddenly!, the same evil knight rode up to them and said, “How’d you two escape? Those dungeons are really secure!”

“Why’d you kidnap this woman?” I asked, “Answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.”

“I kidnapped her because I had heard that she was going to be sacrificed to one of the wretched gods, and so I figured that even I’d be doing better by her than her evil people were!”

“Whaaaaaaa?” Liver asked in disbelief, “I always heard that only people who volunteered to be sacrificed were sacrificed to the gods!”

“Ha!” the knight said, “They were going to slip a drug into your drink that would make you VERY open to suggestion, which would’ve made you agree to be their sacrifice. It’s what they’ve done with all of their “willing” victims!”

“I’m glad that you saved her from being sacrificed,” I said, “but just because you saved her from being killed didn’t make it okay for you to threaten her with either rotting away in the dungeons or having to marry you! Why are you so insecure that you feel the need to use diabolical methods to try n’ pressure people into marrying you?”

“I guess that I figured she was still better off with me than she had been with her people, but I suppose that what I was doing was still wrong.” he admitted, and then he turned to her and said, “I’m sorry, Liver. I promise never to try to pressure someone to marry me ever again.”

Liver accepted his apology, and the man, the woman, the knight, and the weapon-person all continued traveling around in search of more adventures!…”