Day 115

[from Striker Man]

"You think Ryan's done with his exams yet?" asked Striker Man. "It's been seven weeks now." In that time, Striker Man and friends had been stuck in the temple, unable to proceed with the storyline without the narrator present. Striker Man was currently sitting on a swinging pendulum of doom, casually reading Steven Gerrard's autobiography - "I like the part where he doesn't win the Premier League" - while The Genius was attempting to play poker with Stuporwoman. The key word in that sentence is "attempting".

"Three nines," said The Genius, laying her hand out on the table. "What do you possess, Stuporwoman?"

Stuporwoman took one look at the cards in her hand, and then ate them all. "I'm hungry," she said.

"Why do I even endeavour…" muttered The Genius. "Nevertheless, now that the narrator is present, we can advance."

"Can it wait a minute?" asked Striker Man. "I've just gotten to the part where Stevie G doesn't win the Premier League."

"You're the one who was complaining for two score and eleven days that we were impuissant to advance due to the narrator's nonattendance!" complained The Genius. "And you've been making those Steven Gerrard jokes for an entire month now! It is not amusing!"

"Someone's a Liverpool fan~" said Striker Man jokingly.

The Genius sighed, but otherwise ignored him. "Let's just get going," she said. "Come on, Stuporwoman."

Stuporwoman gobbled up the rest of the playing cards, then followed The Genius as the two stick figures headed further down the dimly-lit sandstone passageway. Striker Man, realizing they really were going to leave him behind, quickly scrambled off of the swinging axe and followed them, stowing his Steven Gerrard book away in that strange hammerspace that all stick figured were apparently able to access.

"How much further do you think this goes?" asked Striker Man.

"Probably a substantial distance," The Genius replied.

"We'd better press on, then," said Striker Man, "so we can get to the end before the narrator stops writing again for another six weeks."

Stuporwoman suddenly burped, regurgitating a playing card that she then snatched out of the air. It was the ace of spades. "Is this your card?" she asked, showing it to Striker Man.

"How do you keep doing that?" asked the incredulous stick figure.

"Doing what?" asked Stuporwoman, shortly before burping up the queen of diamonds.

Suddenly there was a loud clunk, as The Genius stepped on a loose floor tile. "Watch out!" she cried out. A second later, a hail of poisoned arrows began firing at the group from every direction. Of course, with the trio being mere stick figures, not a single arrow struck them, and the arrows clattered harmlessly to the floor. "Well, that was a pointless trap," remarked The Genius.

"I'd say it had rather a lot of points," quipped Striker Man. The Genius groaned at the terrible pun, and the three continued on their way.

After a few more minutes of walking and mild peril, including Striker Man almost falling down into a pit of spikes, the trio finally came across a heavy stone door. "This has gotta be the entrance to the treasure room!" said Striker Man.

"If so, then there will most likely be some manner of ambuscade ready to ensnare us," said The Genius.

"I don't think ambulances count as treasure," said Striker Man, a little confused.

"Ambuscades!" insisted The Genius. "It means traps! Opening this door will set off some kind of trap! I explained this to you in the previous instalment!"

"Oh yeah, so you did," said Striker Man. "I guess the narrator must have forgotten. Doesn't matter, the audience probably will have forgotten as well."

"Well, anyway," said The Genius, "we should be very careful when opening this-"

SLAM. Before the other two could react, Stuporwoman had rushed forward and charged into the door, knocking it down. The stone slab landed on the floor with an almighty crash, opening the doorway to the treasure room. In spite of The Genius' warnings, nothing else happened, except for a dizzy Stuporwoman staggering backwards and then vomiting up a straight flush. Striker Man poked his head inside the treasure room and quickly let out a gasp.

Inside the treasure room were numerous gigantic piles of gold coins, some of them stacked as high as the ceiling. There were other riches too: mounds of silver, heaps of precious gems, mountains of jewellery. And under the laws of finders-keepers, it was all theirs.

"Loot at all this- I mean, look at all this loot!" exclaimed Striker Man. "There's enough here for The Gaffer to turn our club into the next Barcelona! Heck, we could even buy Barcelona with all this loot! We could buy the entire league!"

"Or fund the cure for cancer!" suggested The Genius.

"Or buy lots and lots of pickles!" suggested Stuporwoman.

"Or we could just keep it all to ourselves," suggested Striker Man, prompting glares from the other two.

"Well, first we must retrieve it from within these catacombs," said The Genius. "Let the plundering commence!"

"Yeah," said Striker Man, "and let's start taking the loot while we're at it."

The three of them made their way into the treasure room. Still there were no traps going off. "I don't like it," said Striker Man. "It's too quiet."

"I'll take care of that!" said Stuporwoman, and with that she started spontaneously beat-boxing.

"That wasn't really what I had in mind," remarked Striker Man, "but thanks anyway."

Striker Man came to a halt in front of a particularly large pile of gold. "I think I'll start with this pile!" he said. "This will be our new 100,000 seater football ground, complete with golden lavatories, golden labradors, and a fifty-foot statue of Maxim Tsigalko! Made entirely out of gold, of course. Now, come to Striker Man…"

Striker Man reached out for the gold, but the moment his hand touched the pile, the entire room suddenly started to tremble ominously, the coins on the pile jittering and teetering. "What did you do?" asked The Genius wearily.

"I didn't do anything-" said Striker Man.

"FREE!" bellowed a voice that came from seemingly nowhere. "AT LONG LAST, I AM FREE!"

"I hope that's a genie, come to give us three wishes," said Striker Man.

"Ooh! Ooh! I wish for pickles!" said Stuporwoman excitedly.

Sadly, it was not a genie. Instead, from out of the enormous pile of coins came a ghostly-white stick figure with a long purple cape that fluttered out behind him despite the lack of wind. His eyes were completely red, and glowed faintly in the dim light of the treasure room. "I AM FREE!" proclaimed the figure. "NOW THAT I HAVE RETURNED TO THIS WORLD, I, FARUK AL-FARUK, WILL SET ABOUT CONQUERING IT AS I DID THREE-THOUSAND YEARS AGO!"

As Striker Man and The Genius looked on in horror, an oblivious Stuporwoman asked, "Do I still get my three wishes?"