Welcome back, everyone!

I just received word from Dr. Garlic, and he went to the Town Mall yesterday. (Yes, you read that correctly. Mall.) He had a pretty good time there — just him an’ his explorer buddies … and the two other shoppers. And the shopkeepers. Or was it just one shopkeeper? Perhaps they were all related and very similar in appearance and dress? Or maybe … it was just one highly magical shopkeeper running all the shops…

Well, regardless of the extreme oddness of the place, that mall sure had some cool stuff! Dan Dirtie wanted to go on the rocketship ride while Al was getting a haircut, but Dr. Garlic suggested he play something less childish: a crane game! At first, that didn’t seem to turn out very well for Dr. Garlic; Dan was totally addicted to the thing and wouldn’t let Typhon play even once. Sitting around got pretty boring after a while, so Dr. Garlic decided to go explore the mall a bit.

Soon he came across a moderately curious little shop. Or rather, shoppe. Ye Olde Weapon Shoppe, to be exact. He figured he might as well stop in for a bit, as Dr. Gene was getting the super deluxe two-hour-long hair-cut-and-wash-and-dry-and-repeat (or whatever it was called), there would be some time to kill before they could go to the toy shop together.

The shoppe front had a beautiful stained glass window and (for contrast, I suppose) a disgusting cobweb hanging in front of the doorway. Dr. Garlic slashed it out of the way and stepped in for a look. Right away he noticed something quite interesting: A spear on the wall which was fashioned, he imagined, as his broken one had once been! Dr. Garlic promptly asked the proprietor about the possibility of getting some repairs done on one of his own weapons.

“Oh, yes,” the fiend replied with a crazed look in his eye, “Dat vould be possible … but it vill cost ya quadruple!” Typhon thought for a while, then accepted in the end. Sadly, he did not think to ask just what was being quadrupled…

Anyway, after about thirty minutes or so (which Typhon spent staring at the very interesting stained glass window), the repairs were done, and Dr. Garlic’s spear was restored to (what might have been) it’s former glory! No longer simply a staff and knife, the finished spear was a sight to behold, especially in the mystical light of that awesome stained glass window.

Then Dr. Garlic noticed something he hadn’t seen before — a bow, much like the one he had gotten at the San Antonio Symphony! In fact, it looked almost exactly the same, just perhaps with a little more wear. Typhon wondered if it could be one and the same — he had been forced to part with it several months ago, after all. Perhaps it had made its way here?

Dr. Garlic decided he had to have that bow. The starting price was something like four thousand dollars :!:, but the strangely familiar fellow somehow haggled it up to twenty thousand! As you can see for yourself, Dr. Garlic was very reluctant to pay; with the bow and spear together, he ended up giving the kooky shoppekeeper fellow almost half of his spoils from Gooba’s throne room! It was pretty much a complete disaster.

Well, disaster took a break for a while, because Dr. Garlic made it safely back to the barber shop. Al’s haircut was soon over. Dr. Gene had some non-complimentary things to say about the barber, who apparently knew nothing about cutting hair — the guy actually tried to “de-scalpinate” him, whatever that means.

The group walked on to the toy store and went inside for a look at the wares. It had tons of toys; some were even different shapes and/or sizes! Dan and Al saw this big battle motorcycle & sidecar that they wanted, so while they bought it with a few coupons they had brought along, Dr. Garlic had a look at the giant shelves of toys. One of the action figures there apparently startled him, because he somehow ended up smacking it with his staff.

As Dr. Garlic wrote in his journal:

26.07.12

I can’t believe I just did that.

Well, I guess I shouldn’t have been so jumpy, but this action figure (of Ramses the Mummy King, nonetheless!) seemed to snarl menacingly at me. I was so frightened that I smacked him right off the shelf. Of course, being just a simple action figure, he broke upon hitting the ground.

The shopkeeper got pretty mad and started shouting at me. “Vhat are ya doing?! Ya broke Ramses! He is collectible!” I assured him I would pay for the damage and tossed Ramses back onto the shelf. That was a big mistake.

Ramses smashed into a Jack-in-the-box, causing it to spring open with dangerous speed and slam its head into the shelf above. The whole shelf broke off and came crashing down, taking the glass toys (!!!) that rested upon it down as well! I apologized profusely as the shopkeeper fellow stood there in shock. I took a step backwards, and in doing so, stepped on a piece of glass! Well, if any of you readers have ever stepped on sharp broken glass, you’ll know how I felt.

I must have jumped five feet into the air, because when I came back down, it was with a giant crash. Actually, the crash was probably the shelf of toys that I landed on. They (surprise, surprise) were all pretty much destroyed. By this time, the shopkeeper guy recovered and shouted, “VHAT HAVE YA DONE?! MY TOYS! My vondervul toys! THEY ARE RUINED!”

I pulled the little piece of glass from my foot and tried to tell him I was extremely sorry and that I would pay for the damages, but he yelled all the louder: “YAR GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!” I replied that I knew I was, but while I gestured, I bumped a toy robot with my hand. It fell over, of course, knocking down a bunch of other toys like dominos. I tried to stop them, but only succeeded in knocking down the bowling ball shelf. The bowling balls fell down and broke the rest of the toys.

Needless to say, I paid through the nose through those toys I broke. I had to pay all the rest of my spoils from defeating Gooba to appease the greedy fellow, but it was probably my own fault.

After I finished paying for the mess I’d made, I left the ruined toy shop. The shopkeeper seemed to be missing something and was looking around for whatever it was in the pile of broken toys. I was on my way to the outside of the mall when some police ran past me, shouting, “Jehosophat Wilmer Sprinkle! We have you surrounded! Come along peaceably and you will not be harmed!”

I realized then why I thought I had recognized the fiend: it was because I did indeed recognize him. He was Dr. Sprinkle! The police continued: “You are under arrest for high crimes against the populace! You have the right to remain silent, but should you choose not to, anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law, where you will be proven guilty and sent to prison … or worse! You will not get away with any of your crimes!”

Just then, Sprinkle, screaming like an insane person (for obvious reasons), leapt maniacally out of the store with a glass shard in his hand! At first I thought he was trying to attack the police officer, and so did the officer’s backup, because he tasered Sprinkle.

Then both of us realized that the crazy fellow had tried to use the shard as a weapon, but got it stabbed into his hand in the process. The police removed the glass shard, handcuffed Sprinkle, and ripped his beard off! I was shocked until I realized it was just a fake beard Sprinkle had been wearing to make himself look older; probably he just used it to gain sympathy from his unsuspecting customers.

After that, I decided I should probably catch up with Dan Dirtie and Dr. Gene, who were probably outside already. We departed from the strange mall and walked along for a while until the time came to say farewell.

It was sad, but I know we’ll see each other again. Dan got pretty emotional and said to me, “I can’t remember your name right now, but I’ll never forget you, dude!” We got a group photo so we can all remember our fun times together.

Whew! That was a pretty long post. Unusually long. WordPress says it’s about fifteen hundred words long. Probably my longest post yet. 🙂

I hope ya’ll enjoyed it; I know I did. Why not let me know which parts you liked best by replying in the comment section?

Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope to see ya back here for Dr. Garlic’s next adventure!