Chapter 5: Pot’s Remedy for Risen
“Quickly! Tell them a joke!” Yerdl panicked.
Yerdl and Ismi disappeared under their pots, it wasn’t that they wanted to leave their son to face the hordes of risen alone, but it wouldn’t be any good if they were taken out by his jokes too.
Kejo turned this way and that, struggling to think of a joke, panicking wildly.
“Oh I’ll just go with the one I used on the pirates!” he wailed.
A murder of humour issued out from his maw like an ill-omened flock of tainted and highly depressing birds, the air shuddered in revulsion at this not only being a bad joke, but a rehash that didn’t even apply to the current situation, if it had been an affront to jesting before, it was a cardinal sin now.
As bad as that was, the risen did not fall.
Instead there was a collective moan, followed by a few others.
-That was terrible- this was a the general cry.
There was other moans though, such as;
-Ships don’t have piers-
-You kept calling the guy by different names-
-What do you have against dogs anyway?-
-I felt like I died again-
-That was deader than I was-
The risen then seemed to shamble a little faster, as if there were more motivated to do something unpleasant to Kejo. Their eyes did look a bit less blank, come to think of it.
Kejo hurriedly tapped against his parent’s pots.
“They aren’t stopping, and they think my joke was really bad!” He wailed.
Yerdl was first to pop his head up.
“Well, they aren’t wrong son, it is why we were safe from the bandits”
Ismi was second.
“Well, I guess his jokes must be bad enough to die from rather than re-die from”
“Oooooh, what do we do now?” Kejo began to stumble about in circles.
“Stay calm, stay calm, we just need to find some way to deal with them, risen have a bunch of weaknesses don’t they? Something like salt?” Ismi wavered.
“There is something, hang on a moment while I think” Yerdl said.
-Slugs actually, though a friend of mine once said that works in another dimension-
A bovine-like skeleton said as it tried to heft itself up onto the carvamel.
“Oh, I didn’t know that, thank you!” Ismi said to the risen.
-My pleasure really, say do you think you could give a gent a boost?-
Realising it was a risen Ismi shrieked and grabbed the frying pan she kept near the front for just such occasions.
One satisfying bong later and the boveleton fell to the ground in a head, a bunch of other risen got caught up in trying to put him back together.
“Oh, doesn’t the honey drink work on risen too?” Yerdl oblivious to all that occurred.
Ismi looked unhappily at one of the two crates they had, then she sighed.
“Kejo! Stop running around, help me crack this crate open!” She said.
Together they split the crate, then taking out a few of the milky white bottles, Kejo, Ismi and Yerdl pulled out their stoppers and tossed them into the crowd of risen.
Those touched by the honey drink settled down right away, and those that didn’t just vanished with a content aura.
The Caralids breathed out a collective sigh of relief.
Then the risen started to fight over the bottles, then they turned their gaze to the caravamel.
“KEJO, YERDL, PUSH THE OPEN ONE OUT!” Ismi took decisive action.
Father and son put pot to crate and with a creak it toppled off, smashing into the crowd.
“HYIAH!!” Ismi screamed, whipping Turmeric’s reins.
The twipstrider was more than happy to comply and they lurched off, leaving the risen behind to swarm the shattered shipment.
The Caralid Family did not breathe well until the village was well out of sight.