You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools, a play in one-half act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Lemmy, noted baritone bassist & collector of blow-em-up baubles
Fryer Bungy, English conjurer & skillet gourmand
Kid Darkthrone, not-very-noted local misanthrope, reformed
The Potato Witches of the Caucasus, pastiche weirdos who know a big secret
Baba Yaga, dancing Slavic sorceress
Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, made not of iron but of duh
Aide-de-camp, NPC & Hessian
Bear, bait, & lovable ursine scamp

When we last left etc., 'twas some Jedi mind tricksy that both created a new alliance with such deft aplomb that the League of Nations would be sucking their thumb in laudanum shock, & freed the rebellion from the nefarious clutches of the Dark Lord of the Skillet, Fryer Bungy. DUCHESS, EARL, LEMMY, & KID DARKTHRONE stand, having left the German dime store with ten thousand marbles & one other thing, you'll see. Drink up, shoot in, let the third act begin.

DUCHESS: We're --

LEMMY: fucked --

KID DARKTHRONE: mumblejumblewhiskey.

EARL: Stay mellow, hep cats.

OTTO, FRYER BUNGY, & AIDE-DE-CAMP enter, exiting a billowing cloud of dust & a strangely rhythmic yet dissonant rumble in the distance that's less distant with each dissonant yet strangely rhythmic rumble.

LEMMY (enraged): Fuckin' wankers!

LEMMY clocks AIDE-DE-CAMP on the skull with his bass, knocking him out.

OTTO (chuckling): That Hessian was our last hope.

FRYER (giggling): No, there is another.

OTTO: (cackling with snotty glee): & another, & another, & so on, & so on, & so on.

A colossal column or ten of Berk-heads, each of each of the hundreds as tall as a really tall house with equally tall pointy olde tyme helmets you know the ones, march menacingly out of the dust, with menace, & probably some guns.

EARL (chortling): You fool! You foolish fool!

OTTO: Ja, sie blieben quieten und don't call me stupid!

POTATO WITCHES enter.

WITCH #1: Earl --

WITCH #2: use --

WITCH #3: the --

EARL: Schwartz?

WITCHES, ALL THREE: The earplugs!

EARL rolls the marbles, all ten-thousand of them, one for each foot of OTTO's army, that's five-thousand, & since they're marbles & these are real big contraptions made of iron what else, but rest assured that the POTATO WITCHES didn't rest but sent a carrier pigeon to call not for help in desperation, but to initiate phase two of their brilliant counter-counterstrike that would make the Grande Armée blush if they hadn't been freezer burned outside Pooty-Poot's Playhouse. Oh yeah, while the Berk-heads are busy stomping, all the good guys put in their dime store ear plugs. BEAR enters.

BEAR (growls with gusto): *growl*

FRYER: Everything louder than everything else!

The shockwave rattles not just the bones of all present, but the moustache off OTTO & onto the German soil, swimming in shards of Krazy Leim.

OTTO: Gott im himmel! Mein ears! Mein moustache!

In the obfuscating confusion, KID DARKTHRONE, being a kid & thus smaller than everyone else, rushes in between the giant metal legs tripping over each other, grabs the prize moments before it is crushed like so many marbles, & since the stache was magical like a Bag of Holding or a +1 broadsword, I hope that was clear if not sorry, the army crumbles into nuts & bolts & galvanic whirring machines, rusting real quick like one of those time-lapse photographic essays.

DUCHESS: Now, Lemmy, to fulfill your part of the bargain, help us find --

BABA YAGA enters riding her dancing hut & holding the Fabergé Potato, which she pickpocketed from OTTO in the inveigling discomfiture.

BABA YAGA (crowing): this?

DUCHESS: Baba Yaga!

BABA YAGA: That's my name --

EARL: We'll wear you out!

BABA YAGA (sighing): Who writes this thing?

EARL: Don't ask.

WITCH #1 (serious): You --

WITCH #2 (seriouser): must --

WITCH #3 (seriousest): retrieve --

LEMMY: Lemme ask ya somethin' Baby Yags, howsabout --

BABA YAGA: You have the bluest eyes I've ever seen.

LEMMY: They's brown ya fuckin' blind bird.

BABA YAGA (winking): I do need glasses.

LEMMY (nudging): I fuckin' knows how ta get two pairs for the price 'a one.

BABA YAGA: Oh, Lemmy.

LEMMY: Oh, Baby Yags.

You would of course be cordially invited to the wedding of Miss Baba Yaga & Mr. Ian Kilmister but since that was a textual interpolation by a hand devious cough DUCHESS cough, we'll stop here. As for loose ends, FRYER BUNGY either escaped into the Black Forest, was abducted by Atlanteans, or was hired as cook by a traveling harlequin comedie-burlesque troup depending on which rumor you choose to believe; OTTO VON BISMARCK went back to Berlin where conflicts with Der Kaiser would almost sideline Germany's chances in the 1974 World Cup; the Fabergé Potato is back on the mantle in the Museum of Palimpsest Oddities where it belongs; & as for who caught the bouquet, oh, let's say Moe.

fin