Voodoo Kitten Unicycle

"All this talk of waiting for a vast conquering navy is familiar," Guybrush mused to himself as he headed further away from the chanting cultists. "But LeChuck usually sticks with his skeleton pirates, not vikings. Hmm."

There were red lettered signs warning people from continuing down a certain hallway. But his experiences had taught him that good stuff could be found past such warnings, often something vital. Luckily, there wasn't any guard here that needed coaxing or tricking to get past. Guybrush could just walk past the signs and see what was being hidden.

What lay past there was a mix of an office and a storehouse. There were pots, crates, and chests sloppily stacked in a corner and against two walls; it would take some time to search, but could be worth it. The smell of the place was chaotic, like an old incense store with smoke imbedded in every crack of the wooden walls. There were some bent up file cabinets, but the one drawer that was jammed open didn't have much in it. Opposite those, there was a secondhand desk with some chips and scratches in it. A stack of books, a ledger, a pen in a fancy holder, and one of those kinetic swinging ball structures was on top of it.

From underneath the desk, there came a familiar grumbling voice. "...probably bribed his way into being the focus, but although money is the root of evil, it is not the trunk of it! Nor the canopy! He won't be able to hide from the raging fiends of hell that I'll summon to get back at him for this travesty, mwa-hah-hah-hah..."

"Hey, is that you, Murray?" Guybrush asked, coming around to the back of the desk.

"Huh?!" A bonk came from underneath the desk. "Ow... No, no, it's not. Nobody's here, so don't go snooping around under the desk and go on your merry way."

That was strange. Ignoring what he said, Guybrush came to the corner of the desk. "You certainly sound like him."

"I said, nobody's here!"

"You have to be somebody to be conversing with me," he pointed out.

"Are you kidding? You speak with inanimate skeletons, pyrite parrots, and goofy hand puppets! I'm... I'm just your imagination, see?"

"I could look down there and see," he said, putting a hand on the desk and starting to lean over.

"DON'T DO IT! Seriously, don't."

"What happened?" Guybrush asked in concern. "Did somebody stick sparkly cutesy stickers over you?"

"No, worse than that," Murray grumbled.

"They mistook you for a headhunter's mug?"

"Ew, but no."

There was something more current that could explain why an evil voodoo skull would want to hide. "Did somebody sneak in while you were asleep and put a silly hat on you?"

"Wha... how did you know?"

"It's been happening all over this island: some strange thief keeps stealing people's hats and exchanging them with other people's hats. There's been a huge ruckus over at the bar of pirates challenging each other over the stolen hats." As he'd been trying to sort out the issue peacefully, Guybrush had re-exchanged hats dozens of times over the past couple of hours.

"Well who's the awful no-good lout who's doing this?! I launch a curse on him so vile that he will forever smell like rotten kimchi!"

"Gross." He shrugged. "I haven't figured out who it is yet. Luckily, I don't have a hat to steal. But what kind of hat would you have been wearing?"

"Oh, it was a grand one, worthy of my status as the Great Skull-General of the Blood Moon Watchers!"

He raised an eyebrow at that. "You're in charge of this cult?"

"Yes, of course! Who else do you know is charismatic and eeeeeviiilll enough to do so?"

"You've got a point," Guybrush said, although Murray's charm was mostly in how ridiculous he was. "What kind of hat did you have?"

Thankfully, that helped to cheer him up. "It wasn't so much a hat as the greatest crown you'd ever seen! It's full of dark voodoo energies because it's made from two dozen skulls of poisoned mice! If you saw me wearing it, you'd be so full of terrified awe that you too would bow down and worship me, mwa-ha-ha-ha!" Then he sighed. "Not like the headband that got left on me, it's... it's just awful! it's a shameless evil that I want absolutely nothing to do with it! But I'm stuck without the hands to take it off."

"Didn't I give you Santino's skeleton at one point?"

"Yeah, but you cut me off him! Besides, that guy must have been completely lame and boring in life. His bones had no compatibility whatsoever with my powerful evil power!"

"So you never figured out how to move them on your own," Guybrush said.

"We weren't compatible, that's the deal," Murray insisted. "Get me the bones of eeeeeviiiillll and I will become the Dread Master of the Caribbean!"

That was one favor that Guybrush wouldn't grant. But the hat could be fixed. "Actually, I picked up your mice skull crown from a shopkeeper in town. She was glad to be rid of it."

"Oh yeah? Hand it over!"

He took the crown out of his pockets, but told him, "I'll have to bring you out to swap hats; you mind if I take the other one?"

"Uh... I really don't want you to see me like this," Murray said quietly. "Or anybody. But I suppose it's got to be done. Keep your feet back."

Guybrush stayed where he was at the corner of the desk as Murray rolled out from under it. But not rolling in his usual manner. He was now perched on top of a black unicycle; a faint green glow indicated there was some voodoo at work to help the skull become more mobile. On top of his skull plate, there was a frilly pink headband made with sequins and white fluffy rabbit ears.

"By Poseidon's chest hair, who could be so cruel?" Guybrush asked. "And yet incredibly amusing."

"It is not amusing in the slightest!" Murray insisted, making the bunny ears quiver. "Just get this stupid thing off me!"

"All right." He swapped out the headbands; he wasn't sure who the bunny headband had come from, but he had a feeling it would be obvious. To keep Murray happy, Guybrush made sure the mice skulls were straight. "There you go."

"Ah, as it should be. My evil shall be forever renown, mwah-hah-ha-ha!" All the little mice skulls clattered along with him.

"And your cult is going to help with that?" Most of the people in the other room didn't seem like they'd last long in a fight, especially one with a pirate.

"Well, I have been giving that second thoughts," Murray admitted. "I thought that if I became a wicked charismatic cult leader, then I'd get dozens of people willing to do anything I said, no, hundreds! And they would, to some extent. But then they're so needy, always talking about their foolish miseries and insecurities, then expecting that I can solve all their issues just like that! They're cowering wimps and won't do anything for me until I fix their petty problems."

"A lot of people are like that," he said, then had second thoughts. "The latter part, anyhow. It's great that you're helping others now!"

Even though he was a voodoo-enhanced skull, Murray still pouted. "But I don't want to help others! I'm all about helping myself! I want to be raising the legions of hell to spread massacre and misery across the Caribbean! Not advising some whiny chump about his shallow attraction to some high-maintenance high-demand woman."

"Well, you want to come traveling around with me then?" Guybrush asked. "You've got a wicked unicycle this time... except for the decal." It was one of those puffy stickers that had a cute black kitten on it.

"Hah, you have no idea what you gaze upon!" Murray said, bouncing on the seat. "This is the Hellbender Grand Triple Deluxe Unicycle with eeeeeviiiilll voodoo cat enhancement!"

"What's so triple about a one-wheeled bike?" Though it might just be one of those marketing ploys.

"It's triple the evil of the standard unicycle," he claimed.

"And that cat looks more like a cutesy kitten."

"Perhaps it is a voodoo kitten instead, but don't you see the genius of it? Evil in an innocent form is the most devastating evil of all! I've considered summoning a league of voodoo kittens to raise hell and cough up cursed hairballs, but taking control over any kind of cat is a daunting task."

"True," Guybrush said with a nod. "Your evil voodoo kitten has a big pink ribbon tied in a bow around its neck."

"WHAT?!" He spun around, but couldn't see the decal from his perch on the seat. "Oh for the love of... It was supposed to have a red ribbon, dyed with the blood of its enemies! And have you noticed the eyes? They glow in the dark with eeeeviiilll intent! My voodoo cat, err, kitten unicycle was to be the ultimate expression of my inner corruption."

He had to smile at that. "Works pretty well, I think. It shouldn't be too hard to paint the ribbon red, and I know where we can get some red paint." Or at least nail polish. That might even be the place to see if anyone owned the bunny headband.

"Hmm, would you help me with that? Then I'll come along with you on whatever cockamamie adventure you're having now." He hopped around to face forward on his unicycle. "Besides, far more interesting things happen around you than could ever happen to these soppy cultists, even if they worship me. What kind of treasure are you after now? Or did you muck things up again?"

"No, I was just out to get some bread," Guybrush said, starting to check over the room in case anything useful was lying about. Murray shouldn't mind him taking stuff from here. "But then the baker woke up to find his puffy white chef's hat replaced with a lime green thirteen-gallon cowboy hat. He won't bake any bread until he has his proper hat back. And wouldn't you know it, things just snowballed from there. I still haven't found that chef's hat."

"Typical," Murray said, wheeling himself after him.

Now that Murray could get around on his own, it was possible he could turn into an actual threat. It all depended on if he could get something to replace arms as well. Guybrush felt like he could keep a good eye on the talking skull. Maybe even be a positive influence on him. If not, well, he was also pretty sure he could stop Murray as well.

"Well if you've got nothing more important to get than bread, can we also wreak vengeance upon a poet?" Murray asked.

"A poet? What, is he writing stale love lyrics that get turned into obnoxiously catchy pop songs?" Guybrush asked.

"No, he's committed anachronistic plagiarism, and only gave me a two-bit part in it!" He fumed, making the mice skulls rattle. "He took the poem 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' and replaced 'The Carpenter' with me, 'The Talking Skull', and 'The Walrus' with that idiot Stan, 'The Salesman'. And I'm depicted as crying! It's ridiculous!"

"Weird, I wonder what kind of effects anachronistic plagiarism is going to cause," Guybrush said, rubbing his chin. "We've been fine so far, but is there some kind of breaking point?"

By the time he figured out that riddle, he got into trouble for taking so long to pick up a loaf of bread.

The Salesman and the Talking Skull

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright-
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done-
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead-
There were no birds to fly.

The Salesman and the Talking Skull
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Salesman said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Talking Skull,
And shed a bitter tear.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Salesman did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."

The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head-
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat-
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more-
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Salesman and the Talking Skull
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

"The time has come," the Salesman said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and monkey heads
Of voodoo and the Louvre
And why the sea is boiling hot-
And whether plaid can move."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Talking Skull.
They thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," the Salesman said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed-
Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."

"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Salesman said.
"Do you admire the view?

"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Talking Skull said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf-
I've had to ask you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Salesman said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Talking Skull said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Salesman said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Talking Skull,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none-
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.