toilet humor

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Four

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

The Living Sixteen
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The marsh of gore beneath the Fith did not go on forever. The Fith only showed in patches in the Pipes, the rest of the ceiling composed of bedrock or rounded rusted metal. After two drops of walking Vyra leapt up onto a stone plateau with bonepicking. Rob followed.

“Private privies!” he exclaimed at the sight of it: a city constructed like no other he had ever seen. The buildings moved, the layered circles of their construction shifting back and forth like seaweed in a gentle current. Many had walls of perfect crystal clear as glass that sang along with the motion. The towers were taller than he could see and occasionally coupled with each other. Yet despite the constant activity of the stone, the place was abandoned. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Three

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 54 minutes)

The Pipes

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There was a time in Porce where the tiles, toils, and sinks were not the height of civilization. Before the Age of Building, before the Age of Tragedy, things lived within the walls and pipes of Porce, feeding on moisture and lighting their way by thought. Modern tales spoke of the Pipes as the underworld: a pit of damp suffering where evil souls and bodies were stored for all eternity, denied the mercy of complete rot. Those who believed in the eight gods and those of the Toil Papers both believed this. They were only partly right. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Two

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 38 minutes)

Enough Stock for Soup

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Veer Keystonr could not see much of anything from his place at the bottom of the lifeboat. He could only trade information with the other bodiless members of the Calcitheater Rob had rescued. (Blaine’s Note: Veer is a skull we mentioned earlier, recognizable by the iron crown bonded to his head. He tutored Alast in arithmetic when he first joined the crew. In fleshed life he was a human ledger, and his memory for numbers seems to have only improved since then.)

“It was Qliomatrok! Can you believe it?” one of them muttered. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part One

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 6 Comments

(reading time: 1 hour, 23 minutes) (reading time for entire novel: 12 hours, 52 minutes)

By

Blaine Arcade (in a sense)

The Second of Four Bathroom Breaks

As a child not quite out of diapers yet, did you ever have the fear that the toilet would suck you down into it and you would drown or be crushed, or both, in its pipes? I didn’t, but I’ve heard people say things like that. It’s always a joke; they’re always reflecting on how dumb they were, how frightening new things are, and how a toilet might carry with it all the fears associated with water in general. If you showed one to a small animal it would just think of it as another place it could potentially drink or drown. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Fights (Finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

(reading time: 1 hour, 2 minutes)

A Beast Fights

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The tables for the feast had buckets crafted into them because bergfolk celebrations often devolved into dancing right where you ate; this way they could not be kicked aside. The buckets were filled to the brim with all sorts of strange refreshments: spiced green cleansing water, warm red oystie sauce, pure blue toil water, and a foaming drink called scrub-throat that kept its bubbles for days. The bergfolk swished them about in their mouths and noses, sometimes holding one nostril closed so they could blast a fountain of it out the other. Alast watched as a woman gladly opened her mouth to accept a jet of cleansing water fired from a neighboring nostril. It might’ve been rude not to join, but Alast couldn’t bring himself to do it; he let any liquid that came his way splash across his shirt instead. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Fights (Part Eight)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 34 minutes)

Cracking the Knuckles

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Captain Rob moved through abandoned streets. The folk of Dhonshui had been evacuated from the part of town near the gates, a district called Quig, before the assault began. The closed mint was there and Rob made his move as soon as the last rows of soldiers came through. Luck was on his side, as Inguin had not done anything about the bronze disk Alast had hidden the piece of the Reflecting Path inside. The search Rob had endured for the supposedly swallowed piece was not his favorite thing, but it was far better than anything Yugo had planned. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Fights (Part Seven)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 26 minutes)

Trespassing Reflections

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Second Stone Door was now out of their reach, according to the information they received at the next ekapad station. Yugo’s only stated goal was the tiles, and he did not seem happy about one slipping from his clutches. His forces moved faster than ever, off the established roads and into any territory they saw fit. There were not enough aker shortcuts to keep them ahead of bonepickers indefinitely, so a change of course was required. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Fights (Part Six)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 45 minutes)

Yugo’s knuckles

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“Damr told you to what?” Roary hissed just as he hopped up and closed the door. The current and former cabin boys were in the school’s kitchen; Rob had ordered them to earn their keep by peeling and washing vegetables for Oobla’s cooks before they stepped in to prepare dinner. Alast stood behind the slate counter with an oddly-curved blade in his hand perfect for skinning squish-squashes. The pile of vegetables and their leafy tops was so towering that Alast and Roary had quickly turned to conversation to stave off boredom. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Fights (Part Five)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 21 minutes)

Crosstahl

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It was the boy’s first city, and it could have easily been his last if he hadn’t overpowered his awe and remembered to breathe. The ground before their party was an ancient split: a crevice of stunning depth and length that ate up the horizon just as well as any ocean.

“In the time before the Age of Building, four tiles met here,” Rob proclaimed. “Nature has eaten them away, turned them to soil and dust, but their convergence remains, hollowed by rain and river. Feast your eyes upon Crosstahl: the city of crossroads.” Continue reading →

Captain Rob Fights (Part Four)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

(reading time: 1 hour, 11 minutes)

The Greasy Skull

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Tunka tuhunk tunka tuhunk tunka tuhunk. Alast was woken by the sound of a hundred footsteps on deck while enjoying a brief half-drop nap between his chores. He’d been onboard long enough to know those weren’t the sounds of hauling in fishnets or the dancing that sometimes accompanied Herc’s melodies.

He dropped to the floor. The only other occupied hammocks had gravefolk in them, their thin arms slipped through the holes in the ropes, hanging down like broken branches. Quietly navigating between the rows, he saw Manathan’s face turn towards him, but couldn’t tell if the skeleton was asleep or not. Continue reading →