THE BALLAD OF BOOKER DA WHIP
Sing, Muses, not of heroes fair,
Whose tales grow stale on bardic lip.
Give voice instead to stranger fare,
Of Booker, née Bokk-Hur Da Whip.
This story starts with Booker’s end,
When he and others made a vow
To search for Narp, their kobold friend,
Alone and lost upon a cow.
But to the north, in colder clime,
Abominable men of snow
Dwell brazenly amidst the rime
Of frozen caverns hid below.
‘Twas one such yeti Booker sought,
Along the tracks of giant feet.
The hobgoblin approached the spot
Where Bessie lay in chunks of meat.
Then suddenly the yeti’s paws
Ensnared the hapless hobgoblin,
Beset was he by chilling claws,
Near ending life renewed again.
‘Ere could he fight, or flee, or fly,
The beastly foe rent flesh from bone.
With scarce a thought and half a cry
Bokk-Hur Da Whip lay still as stone.
No heaven waits for Booker’s lot
When spirit vile is stripped from skin,
Nor sweet nirvana, mercy-wrought,
Is granted to a heart of sin.
Into the darkness Bokk-Hur plunged,
To lands bereft of earthly soil;
A soul in limbo, twice expunged
Of human want and mortal coil.
The flood of evil everywhere
In shadows drowned the goblinoid,
And scarce could Hobby G prepare
For voiceless terrors in the Void.
Eternities of silence passed,
But all too soon, as Booker feared,
The black abyss receded fast
Whilst hoary mists of gray appeared.
A swarm of silver butterflies
Were fluttering amongst their ilk,
As they before his mildewed eyes
Began to weave their spectral silk.
From tusk to toe was Hobby G
Astounded by the ashen haze,
Wherein with eldritch harmony
A gray cocoon the moths did raise.
And from this ghostly chrysalis
Emerged a form in red bedecked,
Whose Cult of Argent Artifice
Had ushered Booker to their sect.
‘Twas Visser, Lord Inquisitor,
A Cardinal by holy trade,
And to his half-dead visitor
Admonished him with this tirade:
“Is this the servant we exhumed,
Descendent of marauder’s bane?
Pray, fail us not, else be consumed
By He who made the Void His thane.
“Because thou lack my master’s brains,
I’ll cut my purpose to the quick:
The candle of His favor wanes
And soon He’ll burn you to the wick.
“Our Wicked King impatient grows
With thine wonted incompetence.
So mind thyself, else face the throes
Of punishment for failure hence.”
The poor hobgoblin pleaded ruth.
While Visser listened, lips a-pursed,
He told him all the ghastly truth
Of misadventure from the first.
Their task was simple, so they thought,
To find a relic in a shrine,
'Til Adrai Varstead sold and bought
The group to gods less than divine.
Now offered as a sacrifice,
Into the den the whipper delves.
In summary, it would suffice
To say that they had found themselves
In halls of freak experiments,
Through which the party had to fight.
Besieged by twisted supplicants
Who served the Mistress of the Night,
They slew their craven enemies.
The mutants cleared, they made it out,
Save little Narp, whose injuries
Left their alchemist’s fate in doubt.
Then with a five-fingered discount,
From town a moocow Booker led,
To rest his pal on bovine mount,
Until the frightened cattle fled.
Thus does the tale full circle draw.
The Cardinal weighed every word
As if the tension out to draw,
‘Til Visser to Bokk-Hurr averred:
“With reverence shouldst thou exult
In serving as a Lore Warden:
To guard our legends, and consult
With ancient wits of wiser men.
“So heed my words, hobgoblin thrall;
Stick to thy task and stay alert.
In order to thy doom forestall
The prophecy thou must avert.
“Your mission for the Wicked King
I’ll not reiterate anew,
Except to warn before parting
Thy destiny to ne’er eschew.
“The Scion soon shall play its hand,
Foretold by prophet savages.
Stay wary of the monstrous band
Who hold you now as hostages.”
As from a nightmare, Booker woke.
The Void was fading, like a dream,
Whilst all the warnings Visser spoke
Evaporated into steam.
With bleary eyes he looked around,
Prostrated on a mound of bone.
To horrid fate was Bokk-Hurr bound
While Narp Yarp sat upon a throne.
Had kobold to the darkness turned?
Would Booker to his fate succumb?
Could gnomes escape, their lesson learned?
What lies ahead is yet to come.