Ah-huh. And here it finally is. Munky speaking. The following is a collaborative fanfiction of teh uber spiffage by myself, and fellow writers (both of whom update more frequently than me) SilverFx and Indescane. It features characters Az, Jaysen, and Shard, from the independent works Bandit’s Sin, Aurora’s Redemption, and Drifting Dimensions, respectively. So yeah, enjoy, “like” if you like it, and leave literate comments! (Though I may be guilty of wistful thinking, there.)

Here’s our MMOID’s for future reference.. listed in alphabetical order, for no hard feelings! xD
DaMunky89: link
Indescane: link
SilverFx: link
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§ Mixed Nuts – Chapter One

—

It is your typical toilet, walls of white tiles stained yellow and lined with mildew. There are your typical graffiti, little strings of numbers under a typical sign of “cALl 4 A hOt TiME@” that no one sober paid attention to (the travel agency had a field day selling their travel packages to the Lava Dungeons) and the typical “Shoot Over Here” line that no one actually could as of yet. You’d need a fireman’s hose to accomplish something that high, if you get what I mean.

So, your typical toilet. Cue in some spooky organ music now, turn on the green lighting, and it could be a haunted toilet. Of course, there isn’t going to be anything as cliché as a hand creeping out of the haunted toilet bowl-

Wait a minute. Please tell me it’s just my prescription. I knew I should have made that optician appointment earlier-

Another hand comes out to join the first. Cue louder organ music.

Unfortunately, the appropriately haunting strains are interrupted by a loud thud. The sound has a certain quality to it that suggests the meeting of porcelain with metal helmet. “Damn the Dark Lord.”

Ghosts don’t curse, do they?

“That’s my name you are using in vain, young Jaysen.” A deep voice rumbles from the depths of the toilet.

“Blame yourself, Dark Lord. This is a stupid way to hide a hideout.” A dishevelled looking young man emerges from the toilet, rubbing his head ruefully.

»JAYSEN
Having wished to be a Bandit since his birth, Jaysen’s first thought when he finally got his contact lenses and actually looked at the Dark Lord was… Actually, he was too busy laughing to think. Ever since then, he has been hanging around Kerning with his best friend Wayne, much to the despair of the monsters there. He is currently looking for that shifty figure that sold him his last Shadow set, having vowed to do something unmentionable in these pixels to punish that person for selling him faulty goods. But it sure doesn’t help when you have a little voice telling you that maybe you shouldn’t have bought things from shifty figures in the first place…

—

The posters on the brick walls of the fair-but-grimy city of Kerning rustles in the afternoon breeze. Cries of ‘lvl21 FiGTR LLOOKIN 4 PQ@@@@’ and ‘ned gf must b lowr lvl! HAVE NX’ filled the air as per usual; a squeeing young warrior dressed in white and wielding a fish spear is bouncing around, frantically trying to escape a young assassin who is hurling black Mokbis at her.

It is a typical day in Kerning City.

With the exception of the wind blowing eerily down the main street, that is. Normally Kerning is quiet and sheltered enough to stop the breezes, which put paid instantly to the drop games near the sewer. It is almost heart-warming to hear the indignant screams of the high-levelleds as any number of 100-meso bills cascaded into the murky liquids.

Suddenly, with a stagger and a huge amount of creepy groaning, a figure garbed in a Tablecloth emerges from the aboveground Subway entrance, a manic grin plastered over a face that is normally tanned but is covered unrecognisably in bits of cloth, Weird Medicine and clear blue slime. Making ‘wooooo’ sounds at the top of its voice, the apparition lurches in the direction of the sewer area, towards Lakelis and a group of lower-levelleds.

»Azrael
Better known as Az, a beloved nutcase of the most eccentric type, this bandit (the only LUK dagger among the lot) harbours an angsty background and a double personality. This won’t keep him down though, and when that isn’t the foremost thing in his mind, usually the flavours of Victoria’s sundry monsters or ebil-flowershop-conspiracy theories are. His hobbies include eating, annoying his best friend Li, and food poisoning.

Equally heart-warming are the shrieks of the newbs and the infuriated PQ fairy, as the apparition runs amok screaming, “WOOOO! I BE WRAITHY!”

After some extensive terrorizing and a good deal of dodging Lakelis’ staff, the apparition straightens. The dodging has dislodged a good amount of residue and monster remnants from him, and it is revealed to be a young Bandit in a Black Knucklevest set, laughing maniacally. His garb, however, is obscured by the Wraith tablecloth wrapped around him toga-style.

Leaping out of the way of one last whack from the PQ fairy, who threatens, “I’ll tell the soldiers at Eos Tower about you!”, he weaves his merry way to the Fusion Bar, still grinning madly and beginning to hum out an out-of-tune song about drunken fairies.

—

It is your typical bar-in-the-daytime scenario in the Jazz Bar: the atmosphere is subdued, a little lazy, the speakers hidden all over the dance floor playing soft music instead of the loud techno variety. The lone bartender rubs an empty beer stein absentmindedly behind the bar counter, having only just served his twelfth customer in the past five hours.

The proprietors of the Bar used to claim that this is ‘Where the Fun Never Sleeps’, but unfortunately for that advertisement campaign, even the most conscientious alcoholic needs his or her forty winks. Needless to say, it pretty much flopped after a while and the owners had to settle for an asterisk and a disclaimer in font size 0.0005 that read ‘at least after six pm.’

Pulling his slightly dented Red Pilfer off his head, the disgruntled Jaysen examines the helmet as he walks towards the bar top. “First my Shadow set, now my Pilfer!” He mutters under his breath. “How can a supposedly ‘top grade helm’ lose to a toilet bowl?!” He stopped in his tracks, his light blue eyes blinking a little at the mental image that his own sentence conjured up in his mind. I shall not say anymore, because it is better for your mental health that you, dear reader, have absolutely no clue about the details of that image.

“No Eye-cursed way.” Jaysen shook his head hard, trying to disperse said image. I really need to get my hands on that dude and so make him pay for this.

“Y’ be wantin’ a drink, sah?” The bartender gestures with his cloth.

“Yes, please.” Jaysen tosses the Pilfer on the bar top in annoyance. The Pilfer lands with a metallic thunk and proceeds to slide into a forlorn halt near the edge of the counter. “Tequila cocktail, and a cold-blooded murder to go.”

“Tequila cocktai’ an’ whut, sah?” The bartender blinks, his mind moving as slowly as SilverFx figuring out where to dump all those apostrophes to make up his thick accent of indeterminate origin.

“Ah, nothing. Just fix me the first, good man.” Jaysen waves him off. Leaning against the counter on one elbow, he regards the room, noting that it was half-empty and not caring if that description meant that he was pessimistic. Besides, he argues to that little voice inside him, to judge a person’s outlook on life on his choice of synonyms is as senseless as the idea of having a toilet as a hideout entrance, right? “Busy day, isn’t it?”

“No way. You are only mah thir’teen customah this mornin’, sah.” The bartender says as he turns to pick out the ingredients needed.

“Thirteen?” Jaysen raises an eyebrow. “Is that not supposed to be unlucky?”

“Dunno, sah. Me ma always said that fur’teen was unluckier.” The bartender quickly mixes up the cocktail and slides it across to Jaysen on a coaster. Jaysen reaches out to take the glass, but someone taps him on the shoulder plate of his Marine Shadow top, stopping him mid-reach.

“Don’t drink that yet.” That same someone says.

“Why ever not?” Surprised, Jaysen turns to see that that someone is a fellow bandit, his tanned face serious and solemn as he stares at the cocktail glass before Jaysen. If that isn’t strange enough, Jaysen observes that the bandit has a large white Tablecloth wrapped all around him, fastened at his shoulder by a clumsy fist-sized knot.

“There’s something… seriously, very wrong.” The younger bandit squints more intently at the glass of alcoholic drink.

“What is?” Jaysen joins him and stares at the glass too, which glinted innocently in the yellow sunlight pouring through the single large window of the bar. The two bandits keep at it for a while, before the newcomer suddenly slaps the bar top with a loud ‘Ha!’, startling Jaysen.

“He forgot the lemon slice!” He announces triumphantly, one finger raised towards the bartender in cheerful accusation. “Tequila cocktails always have one lemon slice as garnish.”

“So sorry, sah. We ran out o’ lemons just da’ otha’ day.” The bartender shrugs. “Want a drink, sah?”

“Do you have…” The younger bandit glances around before leaning in conspiratorially and whispering, “Essence of Wraithy?” The blank look he receives from the bartender almost makes Jaysen grin before putting on a solemn face, trying to share in his fellow’s plight.

“I don’ think so, sah,” says the bartender, looking rather put out. “Would y’ like a Margarita instead?”

“A Margarita?” Frowning, the tanned newcomer tilts his head to one side. “Well, then, do you have pureed Death Teddy? Tasting deathliness would be happy.”

By now, Jaysen has silently muffled a number of laughs at the myriad expressions crossing the poor barkeep’s face. The other bandit has either not noticed entirely – unlikely, considering his profession is that of a thief, which requires you to be on the lookout for annoyed ‘victims’ at all times – or is simply ignoring it. Finally, after a lengthy discussion involving numerous monsters and very amusing facial contortions on the bartender’s part, the tanned bandit sighs.

“Fine then,” he says, sounding almost as though he is resigned to a great and terrible fate. “Pineapple daiquiri. Make it so.”

“So, what’s your name, dude?” Jaysen asks as the two move away from the counter and sink into two red leather chairs at one of the empty tables. The barkeep can be heard muttering about how the fourteenth customer proved strangely unlucky for him, instead.

“Azrael.” The other bandit says, fiddling with the knot of his Tablecloth toga. “But Az will do. And you?”

“Jaysen.”

“Jaaaysen.” Az drags the first vowel sound out loud as he experiments with the name. He shoots Jaysen a sly look. “Could I call you Jayjay?”

“Only if I could call you the equally absurd title of Angel of Death.” Jaysen gives him a dry smile. Thank goodness for ammunition from random fantasy literature. “What do you think?”

“Well.” The junior bandit appears to consider, then shakes his head. “I don’t think so, then. Because if you’re the Angel of Death, you need a book. And a scythe. Books are hard to carry around when you’re close to being set on fire by ebil nasty Fizards near the Wraithys. They’re more flammable, too.”

“All the better for you and me, then.” Jaysen shakes his head and grins, raising his cocktail glass in mock defeat. At the bartender’s call, Az goes to collect his drink, and returns in great glee to explain to Jaysen how the little paper umbrellas are really used to control the amount of blue mush in the L forest.

After an extensive discussion of paper umbrellas being unlucky for fourteen people in Kerning City, and the blue mush being part of Nella’s crime-fighting squad, the LUK bandit leans back with a rather pleased grin spread across his face. Should Cheshire cats exist in Maple; he is what they would resemble.

Now, they are both rather distanced from the lightly yellow tinted window across the room, but if either of the pair is to press an ear to the glass, he would be able to hear faintly the beginnings of a commotion outside.

—

On the other side of the little yellow squares –divided up neatly by hardwood frames you see, crowds parted hastily in the streets as a grizzled thief in armoured blacks and ridged silvers of a Dark Steal set squared off with a significantly more powerful mage sporting the ornate robes of a Green Enigmatic.

“You there!” The mage declares harshly, pointing a skull-topped staff wound in silver veins directly at him, “You’ve been avoiding me for nearly three weeks! WHERE is my money!”

The thief raises his hands defensively, suppressing a snarl. “I told you on the comm. last night! I’m on a few jobs, I’ll have your money soon enough! I just nee-”

“Need another month!” the man interrupts, “I’ve given you nearly a month already. The loan was for one week. And I told you that last night as well.”

“Just one more day!” the bandit inquires hastily, sliding slowly a hefty curved blade from the sheath behind his back. “I’ll have your money tomorrow!”

But the mage will wait no longer. “I could have quoted that from yourself last night ruffian, this ends now.” The hand gripping his staff beginning to glow.

—

There is a great bellow of pain outside, and the conversation of the bandits inside (which had moved onwards to discourse upon what exactly is under a Wraith’s Tablecloth) is suddenly interrupted as a third thief of their kind so rudely collides with the window described to you earlier, sending splintering wood and fragments of glass skittering across the floor as he makes contact with the ground with a dull “thunk” quite like Jaysen’s Pilfer, only much, much louder.

»Serkoth Sharddrael
Preferring to go simply by Shard, this marginally sane bandit of little known origin is the antagonist as often as one of our good guys (or he will be, once DaMunky gets around to telling the rest of his pre-DD story). He has shady connections here and there with the Kerning underworld, preferring brute force in survival than the careful avoidance of connection to his past crimes. This means he lives a rather rough lifestyle, but some people like it that way.

The other patrons, unsuspecting, scatter to the far walls with shouts of fear and surprise. The bartender ducks under his counter hastily, and the three bandits jump to their feet immediately, as per endless training and conditioning required within the early roguish regime, though the newcomer doesn’t see the others quite yet; he seems far more content to concentrate instead on the mage who appears out of thin air before him, in a cascade of blue sparks.

At the first shower of splintered glass, Jaysen’s hand goes instinctively to the Korean Fan dangling from his belt at his side. What sort of idiot picks a fight with one of the Dark Lord’s bandits right outside the Dark Lord’s lair? “That’s suicidal,” he says that last aloud.

Shard growls angrily, and shaking his head, curls into a crouch to press his toes between the floor and wall behind him, for just a moment before launching into the air, the wickedly curved blade of his Cass raised beside bared teeth. Light flashes briefly as the man slashes his wizard adversary through twice. But, as opposed to appropriately bleeding, hopefully dying, the man instead flashes blue to reappear aside, balanced precariously on head and seat of a chair tipping back onto two legs by his momentum. Drawing himself up to full height, the wizard raises staff and free hand into the air, calling down lightning from a glowing orb summoned at ceiling level.

The bandit dives out of the way, off to his left to spring onto the near wall, and rebounding, into the air again, flying forward to fling his Cass through the air with the flowing momentum. It spins end over end through the air, but before the point finds his adversary’s face, the magician teleports through the flying dagger, to grab him by the scruff of the neck, collar entangling in the cold, withered fingers of a powerful hand.

As the flying knife blade sticks into the far wall behind them, the mage raises a glowing staff head threateningly, and the previously stunned adventurers observing snap to attention; The bandit obviously being the underdog here, it wouldn’t do to see a brother in arms so thoroughly thrashed and not intervene. They look at one another once, and nodding, thereafter rush in to do what they can. Shard can only twist futilely in attempt to break the man’s grip, but his fellow bandits advance quickly on either side with aid of haste, and jumping into the air, they bring up their own weaponry to come down with a sharp thrust. Their antagonist is forced to teleport away again, or else be twice run through the skull, and Shard, dropped, disappears upon reaching the floor again. Soon after, the Cass in the wall vanishes as well, and under the cover of shadows, Shard returns to rejoin the fray, irritated at his previous helplessness. Rushing forward to scruff the still disoriented wizard, Jaysen realizes he’d met this man before.

“Cyrodyn!” Jaysen half-growls. Seeing the man properly now, he would recognize that mage’s face anywhere! It is the very same shifty figure that he has been hunting for all this time, right down to the very same fancy green robes. “You’re that dude that sold me my old Shadow top and Pilfer! You pathetic cheat- Oof.” The rest of his furious grand proclamation are lost as Cyrodude viciously elbows him in the ribs and breaks free from Jaysen’s grip.

Turning with the momentum of the elbow shot, Cyrodyn whips his staff up and over his head for another ethereal attack, but is interrupted by a certain flying wraithy bandit’s aerial body check, knocking him down only part way before he teleports clear again, to growl in frustration and lash out with a quicker to cast spell, magic claw. Recognizing the simple flick of his staff as an attack, Jaysen raises his dagger to block the invisible raking slashes, and then dashes forward to counter. The mage is ready for him, but not the kick to the back of the head Shard vouches to add, making the wizard stumble forward into Jaysen’s upraised blade, the hard steel sliding easily into his left shoulder.

Coughing up blood, the man glares fiercely, and with another flick of his wand Jaysen is frozen solid, blue and immobile on the spot. He thereafter teleports aside again, to avoid Shard’s descending dagger behind him. Cyrodyn fumbles with the knife hilt, tearing it out with a pained grunt, and pops a white healing pill produced from his pocket belt, the wound closing over with unnatural speed. It is all he can do to step backwards hastily as Az darts forward again, slashing madly with a kind of happy, insane gurgle that says too much drink and too little distaste for stabbing things.

Shard knocks the icy Jaysen hard on a shoulder with the hilt of his Cass, shattering the frozen containment.
“Bloody icy hell. I’m so not going to El Nath in this lifetime.” Jaysen gasps as he lays out flat on his back on the floor, teeth chattering like mad clappers. Even then, Az drives the rather distracted wizard back across the Jazz Bar, knocking over tables and chairs with a noisy crash here and an angry shout there. With little help from Shard, Jaysen gets to his feet and they make to set upon Cyrodyn again, stopping stock still only to a deep and tremorous roar of anger.

“Trash my liquor joint, will you!?” rumbles an angry atonement from behind the restroom door, which blows off it’s hinges with a blast of dark purple energy. All combatants stop to watch as the toilet beyond begin to glow eerily, emitting a sense of ominous and evil power. “You will regret this, puny mage! For disrupting my sleep, and my alcohol supply!” there is a great din of rushing water, as if every toilet in the world is flushing backwards, and the porcelain bowl in question spouts semi-transparent fluid into the air, a harbinger to the Dark Lord of Kerningcity’s eminent and powerful explosion from said fecal sittery.

The voice speaks again; “I am the Lord of darkness! Behold my migh-” there is a tremendous metallic *CLUNK*, and a long pause, during which Cyrodyn and the three bandits look one another over in mild bewilderment. “Flipping OW! You’ll pay for that too!” (Jaysen sniggers contentedly.) Rising out of the toilet finally, the Dark Lord glows .. darkly, casting the shadow of a shadow upon the shadows in.. the shadowed bathroom stall.

“Eep!” is Az’s contribution, as the Dark Lord flashes brightly, raising one heavily armored palm into the air to grasp a giant throwing star, materialized of shadow. The bandits jump wisely aside, but escape only because he isn’t aiming for them. With lightning speed, the Dark Lord swings the great projectile bit across his body, sending it spinning across the room to spear the wizard gaping at him, there. The star keeps going though, Cyrodyn and all, spinning out of the Bar entirely, wizard whipping around and around, until it thereafter succumbs to gravity and crashes to the ground. Bleeding profusely, he shouts out in pain, attracting a gaggle of curious onlookers, and the neighborhood cat (whose name is Mipsy, how about that?).

The Dark Lord smiles smugly.
“I thought that might be your reaction. Don’t let me catch you in here again.” And having said that, sinks resolutely back into the toilet with a soft splash. Grinning manically, Shard advances on the pinned mage, ahead of the other bandits.
“Looks like the thieves win this one, old man.”
“Not quite yet, Serkoth.” Cyrodyn utters weakly, “I’m not done with you by a long shot.” Raising a small green amphibian into the air, which he’d recently extracted from the ever trusty pocket belt, he gives a pained grin.
“What’re you trying to pull, mage?” the bandit demands through gritted teeth, and raises a boot to step on him.
“Just a present from a friend of mine, to you.” he laughs, and crushing the preserved frog between his nails.

Shard, in mid stomp, stumbles back in reaction to the thick green smog that spread instantly from the mage’s hand.
“Poison! Get back!” he is able to gasp, coughing violently, before falling unconscious. Az and Jaysen do just that, and are not able to advance for another minute or so. The tainted smoke clears to revealing Shard, and only Shard, out cold beside a bloodied Avenger throwing star, and a spent town scroll.