Chapter 45: Flop as the fish, Crash as the Wave, Plonk as the…

Gosgos, jam enchanter scuttled though Sunfollow tower, he was cackling wildly as he hurried over to his most recent victims.

The jams in the jars along the walls shivered at his passing.

From within his robe he pulled out a large jar, within this was a marmalade that had a sinister aura. He opened the jar, the marmalade burst forth transforming into a savage mound with a dripping mouth.

The vile enchanter began throwing his captives into the marmalade, cackling all the while.

“It’s over” Blame complained.

Marlequant was silent… had he knocked himself unconscious?

Blame was about to ask when Gosgos made his way over. The duck jam quickly hid, he didn’t want to be found with one of Gosgos’ prisoners.

Gosgos paused upon seeing Marlequant collapsed before the prison bars.

“Eh? Eh? Did he eat a strong jam or something? Maybe he’s just really weak, hmm, yes.” Gosgos mused.

Gosgos picked up Marlequant’s seemingly limp body. He weighed it up and down.

“A bit scrawny, I don’t think I’ll get a good jam from this one”

Marlequant almost twitched. Who was scrawny? Surely a fine hero such as himself, a shining example of male otterhood would make a correspondingly fine otter jam? Thankfully Marlequant did not raise an objection.

He was tossed carelessly onto the others. A small grunt almost escaped his lips.

“Eh? Eh? What was that?” Gosgos mused.

He stalked over to the pile of people on top of the sinister marmalade, he stared penetratingly at this pile. Marlequant tried very very hard not to sneeze.

“Must have been a jam”

Gosgos shook his head and lead the marmalade into his dungeon of transformation. He had used jams to carve this out, it was not a room that originally present in Sunfollow tower. It was a gloomy room filled with tainted sugar. There was mounds of the stuff lying about. Along with that there was countless amounts of empty jars. Esoteric runes presumably focused on jam were scrawled all about the dungeon.

“Now, to begin!” Gosgos cackled.

He put a paw inside his robe, then he frowned.

“Firelord’s flame, where did I put it?”

Gosgos began patting down his robe, failing to find what he was looking for he began looking through the piles of sugar and jars.

“Where is it?” He snarled.

In spite of this, Marlequant did not move, he did not attack. Marlequant was the opinion that it was ok for heroes to do sneak attacks when the foe was a mage of some sort. Marlequant had actually practised his heroic sneak attack quite a bit, along with his heroic playing dead technique. These two things were actually two of the techniques he was best at.

Gosgos pulled out a wand from a pile of sugar with a triumphant shout. The wand looked like a simple spike of caramel.

“I hate working without a wand” He muttered before tottering over to the marmalade with its pile of people.

It was fairly flat at this stage, likely Loro was a bit much for it.

He pawed over his victims wondering which to turn into jam first, he began to pull on

Turmeric’s tail.

“This one will make a very good jam, I can feel it, might even eat it all myself”

Marlequant’s eyes sparkled this was his chance!

Before Gosgos could tell what was happening, Marlequant flopped like a fish his three pronged sword flopping out and he fell past the evil enchanter cutting him in two! Not only that but he flopped again, his sword flopping upwards like a fish breaking the surface of water. His target this time was the wand! Marlequant’s sword struck against it causing a blinding light to flash.

Next thing Marlequant knew the marmalade had slapped him away!

As Marlequant floundered through the air he looked in disbelief as the two halves of Gosgos began to slide back together what was between them looked like jam! Occaisionally bursts of sugar would fly out from his chipped wand.

“HOW DARE YOU!” Gosgos shrieked.

“I dare heroically! Vile villian!”

In mid air, Marlequant wriggled as a fish does escaping a net, flying back towards Gosgos. This caused Gosgos to shriek again, this time in fright.

The marmalade mound tossed its pile off its form and tumbled like a wave towards Marlequant.

“Hahah!” cried Marlequant.

The marmalade crashed down upon Marlequant but with his sword in front he passed through as the fish passes through water. His feet touched the ground and he skipped toward Gosgos as some fish do the waves.

“Have at you fiend!” Marlequant shouted.

Gosgos however was not beaten he stumbled back and tore jam jars from his body and tossed them at Marlequant. This only served to slow Marlequant down, as he flopped about and between the jars which then would just smash against the ground, the faint image of a fish surrounded him!

It was as if he was less an otter and more some massive fish with three bladed horns!

“HAHA! IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE FOUL JAMMANCER?”

Gosgos did that disturbing thing where he smiled in spite of having a beak again.

“RISE!” he shouted.

The jars he had tossed out had shattered and the jams that came out shot forth spiralling towards Marlequant still, they did not manage to stop his flopping. They did however, stop him from moving forwards.

“Ha! See, you are helpless before the might of my jams!” Gosgos sneered.

Then he waddled over to his marmalade to revive it, poking it with his wand.

Marlequant was not in a good position. He could not keep flopping like a fish trying to get back to water forever. So naturally he wasn’t going to keep doing so.

“Three times” Marlequant muttered.

He waved his sword as he flopped. The sword was not moving like the horns of a fish, it wavered, it crashed like waves and then it shone! It cut through the jams surrounding Marlequant! A foaming wave of blade-light!

The bladewave crashed toward Gosgos. Who let out another shriek of terror at this coming toward him. He flung out the marmalade like a cloak and the wave tore it to nothing, but in the process it too faded away.

As Marlequant skipped toward Gosgos, the foul enchanter waved his wand that was shooting out more random spouts of sugar, it was turning red as if some great fire had been lit within it. Marlequant was just a few steps from cleaving the enchanter apart again when Gosgos shouted out.

“JAR!”

There was two plonks. One was a massive jar’s lip hitting the ground, the other was Marlequant slapping into the side of the jar.

“Ha! I’d like to see you escape this jar, this monarch of jars!” Gosgos sneered.

It was at that moment that his wand reached critical instability and exploded.