Grueburn joke went into something else. If some upcoming contest hits the right theme, I might just link it here.
Well, here's my submission. It's pretty damn atrocious. If I get a new bout of inspiration, I may type a jot more. (Haven't checked grammar very thoroughly.)
Tumbleweeds rolled across the desert sands, the howl of a single coyote piercing the moonless, starless night. The dramatic orb of a full moon had stared down at the two lone wanderers still some days back, but, all of a sudden, bitemarks had appeared on its surface. After some minutes of baffled staring, the man had concluded that something had indeed eaten the heavenly body. Like a giant cracker nibbled into nothingness by a colossal, invisible mouse.
This loss had somewhat spoiled the correct atmosphere. Still, the man possessed his bulky six-shooters and the impressive ankle-length duster that billowed in the wind behind him. His spurs clicked and clanked with every step he took, his scuffed cowboy boots raising small puffs of dust from the arid ground. A well-burnished Sheriff's badge gleamed from underneath the coat lapel, the striking garment also exposing tight jeans, a checkered shirt, and a broad gun belt complete with two tasseled holsters and a hefty buckle engraved with the Old Glory and a scowling eagle about to take flight. Most of all, he prided himself on the tall, broad-rimmed Stetson sitting in a jaunty angle atop his head, and the reflective shades that obscured his eyes.
At least, that was how he had wanted to represent himself. The truth rang with a different melody. The alternating winds kept wrapping the hem of the coat around his legs, hampering his advance. The hat purchased from a drift store back in the perceivable reality was a few sizes too large, and thus flopped over his eyes with every other tread. The shades served no purpose whatsoever in a world devoid of a damn sun, so they perched above the rim, unused. Still, he had to maintain his well-honed image of a Western Sheriff.
His new deputy ruined the impression beyond repair. Oh, he had tried his best. Pinned a badge cut out of some tinfoil he had found in one pocket to the man's stone breastplate with a bit of chewing gum. Folded a semblance of a cowboy hat out of a sheet of newspaper, and attached it with some paperclips to his ridiculous hair standing upright even in a strong gale, reminiscent of a bundle of twisted copper wire. It looked beyond stupid. But, by tarnation, he would not accept a partner resisting the spirit of the profession!
He was approaching a dilapidated village crouching beneath the lightless sky, the buffoon trailing him at a few yards' distance. As a matter of fact, the brainless lump had wanted to lead, but the stomps of his gargantuan granite boots had uplifted so much sand into the air that he had been in the verge of choking. Even now, the ground oftentimes jolted and heaved beneath the massive footfalls, causing the Sheriff to stumble. For a deputy, something smaller and more quick-witted would have sufficed, but the past days had offered nothing else besides this twelve-foot lummox with eyes staring into the opposite directions and a permanent, insane grin writ upon his face. As if a banana had gotten stuck sideways into his mouth. Darn typical of his luck. And what in all the seventeen damnations did it carry? A blasted
sword! As if some cobwebbed museum piece would serve anything in an honest gunfight!
The only profit had so far come from the smattering of acid-green critters with demented owl-eyes that pursued the Giant like lobotomized puppies. They carried some kinds of will-o-wisps in their cupped hands, providing light enough to illuminate the path ahead for miles.
Which was how the Sheriff had discerned the shantytown ahead in the first place. A premonition deep in his gut told that here he would meet his arch-nemesis eye to eye. Yes. Here he would find Roger Covenant and pump the bastard full of bullets.
The distant coyote or wolf or whatever in blazes it actually were wailed again. Clouds shifted across the heavens. The teetering, moldering shacks loomed ahead as jagged, dark shapes against the backdrop of a dry riverbed and barren mountains.
"Giddyup, pardner. We'll teach 'em curly wolf who's 'em auger inne town!" the Sheriff twanged, a half-chewed remnant of a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth. He uttered this just to break the silence. The buffoon could gallop faster than a rabid mustang with two barrels of coffee in its system, should he so desire.
"Slayher slayher areyoufools! Hiihiihii! Slayher!" the Giant tittered to nobody in particular. The green creatures at his wake puled a few incomprehensible mewls. Sheriff Lytton possessed no inkling whatsoever about their nature, aside from the fact that all the beings of this realm were utter lack-wits. Or at least the lot he had met so far.
"Havin' a-hog-killin'-time dere, eh?" the Sheriff muttered, and decided to shut his own trap. One more
slayher or
areyoufools, and he might just empty the barrels of his pistols into his own ears.
The ramshackle buildings grew larger with every step, rotting boards and hanging windowpanes creaking in the wind. Tumbleweeds tumbled. A second coyote and a third joined to cry at the absence of the full moon. The Sheriff spat out the cigarette butt and, with a quick gesture that swept the hem of the duster to one side in an impressive arch of flying leather, drew out the revolvers. Green light reflected from inlays of silver upon ivory, depicting American icons from a Coca Cola bottle to Mickey Mouse ears to the face of Abraham Lincoln. The barrels continued to cyclopean lengths as he pulled them out of the holsters, seeming almost too huge for the two leather cases hanging on either side of his legs.
Even Sheriff Lytton did not understand that his white gold belt buckle had created a rift in the space-time continuum, a crack in the Arch allowing wild magic and other eldritch energies to boil exactly where his gunbelt sat. Hence, unknown powers had, in the concealment of the holsters, endowed his revolvers with clandestine powers, and, indeed, granted them surplus heft. Instead of only six bullets, each could now shoot seven and a half besides argent laser beams of the purest, most distilled wild magic the Land had ever kenned.
Now, he librated the weapons in both hands, and stared into the gloom of the long, timeworn street running through the abandoned town. The Giant halted next to him, and rubbed at the hilt of his enormous, upraised sword with equal glee, maundering "Slayherslayerareyoufools!" under his breath. Mimicking the Sheriff, he spat over his shoulder, and adjusted the angle of his paper hat rather too tiny to fit the size of his skull, which granted it the appearance of an ugly hairclip. The glob of spit hit the eye of one of the green toadies, and melted with an audible hiss and a wisp of black smoke.
Something stirred at the other end of the street, in the deep murk of the decaying hovels. A sudden gleam of red. A wet, gargling sound issuing from behind the raggedy corpse of an old porch.
"Reach fer 'em skies!" Sheriff Lytton shouted, and pointed his guns straight at the shadow that had begun to weave its way out of the shelter of the buildings.
Doesn't it load for people, because I tried from two different IP's and works fine for me? Thanks, tho, and also the reason why I can't change any character places is mentioned in the thread.
(you did link me to the texted old version...)
But we'll get her up and running with some diamondraught and wild magic and the blessings of Sword-Mother Glower Thunderroar.
This one's gonna be tough to beat.