Bonus Scene: Prologue To The Prologue (from The Superfriends Of The Ring)

MEMO

RE:                Bulbo’s Book May Not Have Been Entirely Accurate

From:             Galadtameecha, Owner, Elf Resorts International

To:                 The Allies Of Goodness

The world is changed, and nobody likes change.

I can feel it at the water cooler, I can smell it in the break room. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. Let me explain.

It seems that in his book There Goes My Back Again (published in the Uttermost North as The Wobbit), the former contractor/thief Bulbo Bunkins may not have expressed two key concepts of the book with complete accuracy. This has created great confusion and must be addressed.

In case any of us are unclear about these concepts (I here address myself to the Wizard and Project Manager Pantsoff, in the unlikely event that he is actually reading this memo), let me be specific.

First of all, the ring that Bulbo “won” from the creature Gol-Gol is not a run-of-the-mill Ring Of Invisibility, such as you or I might swap for a Holocaust Cloak or a Wheelbarrow. It is, in fact, the most powerful and evil object in Little Earth.

It seems like it was only yesterday that the Really Great Rings were forged. Three were given to the Elves, of course, because they were the best rings available at the time. Seven were given to the Dwarves, because the great fathers of the dwarves, the creators of the song “Heigh Ho,” also numbered seven. Nine were given to the Kings Of Men, because the Queens Of Women felt the rings were too gaudy.

But they were all of them bamboozled, for another ring, a really REALLY great ring was made. In the land of Bordor, in the fires of Mount Dum-da-dum-dum he created it. The Lord and CEO of Bordor Enslavement, Banking And Destruction, Smoron contracted the forging of a super-ring to control the others. Into it he poured his impatience, his pettiness and his will to grow his corporation through acquisition. He could never have afforded to forge it in Bordor, so instead hired a skilled craftsman from the Uttermost South who did brilliant work at a very competitive rate. The ring was named after this craftsman: The Juan Ring.

One by one, the freedom-loving lands of Little Earth were either destroyed or bought out through the power of The Ring, but there were some who insisted on negotiating better deals. A Nearly Last Alliance of Elves and Men, who were to be allied many more times in the future as The Allies Of Goodness, marched against the Axis Of Evil.

The goblins and trolls and rargs that attacked were hideous. The air was filled with our arrows and their screams. The skies were unfortunately cloudy despite a forecast for a mild, sunny day. The allies were about to win the day when Smoron made a rare personal appearance. Even though he was an elf, his form was that of a giant warrior with uncomfortably spiky armor, which may explain his bad attitude that day. He was smoting Elves and Men all over the place. He was about to smote Isadora, son of the late King Of Men, Ellen-Doll, but he first stepped on Isadora’s sword, Nasal, and broke it in twain out of sheer spite.

But Isadora took the hilt of Nasal and somehow killed Smoron. No one knows how. I didn’t see it myself. Enron tells me it was a cheap shot to the groin, but others report that there was a weak spot in Smoron’s armor just inside the left breast. In any event, Smoron slowly vanished with a cry of “You cursed brat! Look what you've done! I'm melting! What a world! Who would have thought a pathetic human like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Oh, look out! I'm going! Oh! Oh!”

His size 72 Extra-Tall suit of armor was left behind, useless to Isadora even with significant alterations. But Isadora noticed that The Ring magically re-sized itself. He picked it up but didn’t try it on, perhaps because he was wearing gloves. Others say he didn’t like it initially because it looked like a wedding band and he was unmarried. But he knew value when he saw it, so he kept it.

On the way home from the battle, Isadora was ambushed by a gang of goblins. They hadn’t yet heard that the battle was over and their capo di tutti capo had been vaporized. Isadora had discovered that The Juan Ring would make him invisible, so he dove into a nearby river to escape. What he didn’t know was that The Juan Ring would not give him the power to breath underwater, hold his breath indefinitely, or swim in full armor. He drowned, of course.

The Ring managed to swim like a scallop, jetting through the water by expanding and contracting, until it came to a new bearer, the most annoying creature imaginable. No one knows for sure, but we can assume he said something like “Well, looky here! I’m gonna call you My Precious, I say, My Precious!”

His name was Gol-Gol, and he was kind of crazy to begin with, but wearing The Juan Ring turned out to have some undesirable mental side effects. Again, we can guess that his internal dialogue, which he always spoke aloud, was along the lines of “Mine, I say, all mine! With your help, Precious, I’ll kill scrawny little goblins and eat them raw in a cave for the next thousand years! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!” That was mostly The Ring talking.

Finally, it was stolen by the aforementioned thief, Bulbo Bunkins, a Wobbit from Wobbiton. He invoked the ancient rule of Finders Keepers when he removed The Ring from Gol-gol’s dismal home and tucked it into his little waistcoat. Bulbo reports that the last thing he heard Gol-gol say was “Carn sarn it! Bunkins! We hates, I say, we hates it forever!”
He didn’t stick around to see what would happen next.

In addition to his incomplete story of The Juan Ring, Bulbo also reported in his book that according to Pantsoff, Smoron had been defeated. While Pantsoff certainly said this, the statement is dangerously wrong. It is certainly true that The Axis Of Evil was defeated at the Battle Of Six Or Seven Armies, thanks to the last-minute arrivals of The King Of The Eagles and his Squadron Of The Eagles, as well as The Incredible Bjork.

It is also true that Smoron, while attempting to rebrand himself as “The Neccomancer,” was defeated by The Superwizard Council and thrown out of his corporate headquarters in Murkywood Forest. Unfortunately, though defeated, he melted away as he did at the hands of Isadora. Pantsoff was supposed to seal Smoron’s melting remains in an Invincibilium capsule to prevent this, but he was busy posing for a victory portrait at the time.

To sum up, The Juan Ring is far more dangerous than Pantsoff realizes, and Smoron is still at large and dangerous, despite melting away twice. If you see Pantsoff, please let him know. Action needs to be taken immediately to avoid market instability that would diminish the fortunes of us all.

Keep coming back for more of Superfriends Of The Ring. To read my loving, insightful, full-length parody of The Hobbit,  order a copy of my eBook The Wobbit on Amazon for only $3.00: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ZR9ELK .  

If you don't have a Kindle reader, you can download the Kindle app from Amazon for free and then read The Wobbit on your Mac, PC, smartphone or microwave oven. The download is easy, just visit http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/

To visit The Wobbit website: thewobbitaparody.com

A Long-Expected Brunch, part 1 (from The Superfriends Of The Ring)

When Mr. Bulbo Bunkins of Bug End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a brunch of special magnificence, no one expected that such a wealthy wobbit would only offer a cash bar.

Bulbo was very rich and very peculiar, and regarded by his neighbors as “queer.” Sixty years earlier he had taken a contract job as a consultant which had, against all odds, won him a fortune. Even more annoying to his neighbors was the fact that he seemed to stop aging. At ninety he was much the same as fifty. At ninety-nine he looked fifty-one. At one-hundred-one he looked forty-nine. At one-hundred one he looked fifty again. At one-hundred-ten people began to say he’s had some work done, but they secretly thought he has a portrait in his basement that ages instead of him. This was ridiculous, because he lived in a basement apartment underneath a beauty salon, and any magic portraits would have to be hidden somewhere else.

“It will have to be paid for,” they said. “He must be using some expensive vitamin therapy for the super-rich, because his diet is horrible and he gets no exercise. Mega-doses aren’t natural, and trouble will come of it!”

But so far, trouble had not come. Although he was cheap by nature, Bulbo had always tipped generously and bribed freely just so his neighbor wobbits would leave him alone. He remained on visiting terms with his relatives (except, of course, the Snackbag-Bunkinses) and was adored by the local riff-raff for his well-publicized but surprisingly rare acts of charity. Like most Dorks (the family on his mother’s side) he had no close friends until his younger cousins were old enough to join him for late nights of role-playing games.

Bilbo’s favorite cousin was young Promo Bunkins. Since the mysterious deaths of his parents, Promo had lived with his cousins the Buckiebrands of Buckiebrand Hall in nearby Buckieland. It was easy to remember the mailing address.

At the age of ninety-nine Bulbo adopted Promo and made him his heir. They had the same birthday, September 22, which seemed to Promo to be a suspicious reason to adopt someone. And since Promo was a tweenager at the time, he was not looking forward to having combined birthday parties with Bulbo. A hundred-year-old guy is usually not much fun to party with, even if he looks fifty.

Keep coming back for more of Superfriends Of The Ring. To read my loving, insightful, full-length parody of The Hobbit,  order a copy of my eBook The Wobbit on Amazon for only $3.00: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ZR9ELK .  

If you don't have a Kindle reader, you can download the Kindle app from Amazon for free and then read The Wobbit on your Mac, PC, smartphone or microwave oven. The download is easy, just visit http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/

To visit The Wobbit website: http://www.thewobbitaparody.com

A Long-Expected Brunch, part 2 (from Superfriends Of The Ring)

Promo endured twelve years of combined birthday parties, not realizing that Bulbo had something quite exceptional planned for when Promo turned thirty-three, his wobbit “coming of age”. Bulbo was going to be eleventy-one, a clearly Dorkish way of saying one hundred eleven. (The Old Dork himself had only reached 130 due to a raw diet and hyperbaric therapy) 111 is a very respectable age for a wobbit, since they tend to die in middle-age from “death by misadventure” or from illnesses caused by poor personal habits.

In anticipation of the coming event, tongues began to wag in Wobbiton and Buythewater, like the tails of so many animal-shelter dogs. Local wobbit Ham Sammich, known as the Grasper, took this as an opportunity to share his anecdotes about tending the gardens at Bulbo’s condo. Bunkins had purchased his apartment below Virginia’s Beauty Parlor when he became rich. Trying to live up to his new role of “job creator,” he hired Sammich as gardener, primarily because it meant his new servant would never have any duties inside the condo.

Sammich, who Bulbo employed without benefits, was a dreadful old bore. He was old, but actually younger than Bulbo, but because of Bulbo’s mysterious eternal middle-age, Sammich acted like his cranky grand-dad. The Grasper attributed his own long life to avoiding work and drinking beer, and did both regularly at a small inn called the Ivy Drip. He was addressing a small audience. Small even for wobbits.

“I swear,” slurred Ham, “tha’ Misser Bulbo’s all right!” Bulbo indulged Ham’s belief in his own genius at growing rutabagas. “Master Hammich,” Bulbo would often say, “you’re awesome at growing rutabagas!” But Bulbo wasn’t around at the moment.

“Sure, Bulbo’s all right,” said Daddy Shortlegs (a neighbor of the Grasper), “but who’s this young Promo Bunkins that lives with him? Bunkins or not, he’s really a Buckiebrand from Buckie Hall, where folks are so queer.”

“You’re right, Dad!” said the Grasper. “And I’ve never seen tha’ young Promo out on a date. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. They do have queer ways in Buckieland, across th’ Buckiewine River. Still, as long as his ‘dad’ keeps paying my wages, tha’ Promo is all right, too.”

“Did I ever tell you about how Promo’s parents died mysteriously?” the Grasper said. “Promo told me in the strictest confidence, so if you repeat this, tell everyone it’s a secret.”

“You don’t say, Grasper!” said Ted Sandywobbit, the Wobbiton miller, who always liked to butt in.

“Oh, yeah! Prob’ly killed each other! Mr. Drono Bunkins and tha’ poor Miss Tremula Buckiebrand. They were paddleboating on a second honeymoon at the Murkywood Wood-Elf Lodge when the paddleboat capsized. Horseplay was suspected, or perhaps even rough-housing. And they were both somehow related to Bulbo. Tha’s  even more mysterious.”

“That doesn’t sound mysterious at all. Not much of a story. More of an anecdote. I hate those paddleboats, all that pedaling. No wonder they fell in.” The miller was hard to please.

“Anyway, Promo went to live with the Buckiebrands until Mr. Bulbo adopted him. What a shock tha’ must have been to the Snackbag-Bunkinses. First his eternal middle-age and then a new beneficiary suspiciously being named.”

“What about the rootball card collection, and all the silver and gold?” said Daddy. “And the jools?’

“The what?”

“I’m sorry, the ‘jewels.’ What about them?”

“He never had any jewels,” Ham said, “and Mr. Bulbo refused to diversify his portfolio, taking only gold as payment on his contract instead. As for his rootball memorabilia, all of the cards, programs, merchandise, jerseys, and even a rare game ball are all going to Promo.

“But my boy Sham can tell you all about that.” Ham’s son, Sham Sammich, was following in his footsteps, which meant drinking and watching rootball games while on the clock for Mr. Bulbo. There was hardly enough work for one of them. “Sham’s a rootball nut! He knows the rules better than a referee. The game’s not the same anymore.  All the expansion teams ruined it. It’s a huge waste of time in my opinion.

“Horsecollar tackles and false starts! I says to him. Rutabagas and ghost-payrolling are good enough for me and you! Pay attention or you’ll get caught goofing off! I says.

“You can says what you want, but that Bulbo’s got strange interests beyond rootball,” said Sandywobbit. “Visits from comic book collectors and weird foreign musicians. He’s even had dwarves calling after normal business hours, with that old self-employed “wizard,” Pantsoff. Bug End is a queer place, and it’s folk queerer. Queerer by the moment, in fact.”

“Shouldn’t you be at your mill, doing your milling, Mr. Sandywobbit?” said Ham. “All I know is my Sham is going to Mr. Bulbo’s party. I hope he brings a date.”

Keep coming back for more of Superfriends Of The Ring. 

To read my loving, insightful, full-length parody of The Hobbit,  order a copy of my eBook The Wobbit on Amazon for only $3.00: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ZR9ELK .  

If you don't have a Kindle reader, you can download the Kindle app from Amazon for free and then read The Wobbit on your Mac, PC, smartphone or microwave oven. The download is easy, just visit http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/

To visit The Wobbit website: http://www.thewobbitaparody.com