Rescue and Recompense

[Sarco the Legend]

Rescue and Recompense

When men still ruled the world, there was a castle called Teaclor where lived a count. Vistur Vrim was his name. Women trafficking was his trade. Females were possessions, to be used as he pleased.

Count Vistur Vrim was no enemy of impropriety, and he treated all the women who fell into his hands with utmost indecency. If he told a lady to lie on a bed of nails, she had no choice but to oblige him with his wish. Failure to comply with his command would result in dishonor and disgrace. While the count was loath to put girls to death for ignominious behavior, he had no qualms about informing the world of such matters.

The castle of Teaclor was not a silent place; it was purposefully programmed to provide companionship for all the women who entered its gates. The walls had ears and tongues. When a girl was seen with a glum expression, a wall might say, “I’m circle happy, and you should be too.” It would then list all the reasons why cheerfulness was preferred over melancholy.



About this time, there was a scandal on the Planet Nork. It appears that one of the plebeians of that planet had created a baby with the queen.

A Norkian is characterized by its crimson integument, its three legs, and the two antennae protruding out of its head. Male Norkians also have a barrister wig.

The scandal happened in this way. One day, a commoner named Terrame was walking by the Royal Apiary, when a giant bumblebee stung him in the chest. (The habiliments of the Norkians rarely cover the abdomen.) He was sent to the apothecary for treatment. The apothecary, being a close relative of Her Highness, was visited upon by the queen. She at once fell in love with Terrame and touched his hand with hers.

Anatomically, every Norkian has tiny spots on their hands called vissicles. On the female, the vissicles are in the shape of hemispheres; on the male, they look like isosceles triangles. When you touch someone’s hand, it is a sign of either love or complete infatuation. For this reason, native Norkians have developed games to enhance hand coordination, so that it might be easier to avoid someone’s unwanted and proffered hand.

When their vissicles made contact, sparks flew, and a fire began, as when a match is struck against a box. The fire turned into matter. Five minutes were required before the matter hardened and cracked. At this point, one of two things could’ve occurred; the matter could’ve either changed into a child or an ice-breathing dragon. It became a baby.

When the king heard of this, he was furious. Terrame was summoned for an inquisition, and he was ostracized from his people. It is worth noting that had the matter turned into a dragon, Terrame would’ve been left off with impunity. As it was, he was held culpable for the queen’s misconduct in showing affection for a hapless subject.

After that, Terrame had no idea what to do. Any friends he had had before the queen touched him abandoned him now. He needed to find himself, his true purpose. But perhaps it was futile to look for it here on the Planet Nork.

He boarded an aeroshuttle to explore the universe, and discovered Earth. The inhabitants were vulgar, coarse, and thoughtless. They also exhibited a high case of xenophobia; whenever Terrame tried to speak to them, they scampered away without a word.

Feeling lost, alone, and isolated, Terrame began to search for some companion to share his quotidian vicissitudes. But amiable folk were as scarce as black sheep. Eventually, Terrame relinquished all hope.


Back at the castle of Teaclor, after a girl named Lorelai had received a flogging to satisfy Vistur Vrim’s sadism, she went outside and blew a bugle, hoping that some external force would hear her plaintive song and come to the rescue. People from the Planet Nork are gifted with hypersensitive hearing. Even though Terrame was hundreds and hundreds of miles away, he was able to hear the music. He glided over to the source of the noise within minutes.

Lorelai saw him coming from the sky. When he had landed, she smiled sardonically at him. Could this be the rescuer she had summoned? What a disappointment, an odious, foul thing. Perhaps he was not really there to save, but to be saved.

“Explain to me the situation,” Terrame said, in perfect English.

Lorelai treated the newcomer with disdain, but after he implored her again with the above question, she finally consented, and informed the extraterrestrial of all the throes and tribulations of the women in the castle of Teaclor.

Terrame asked to be alone to cogitate, and thereby come up with a solution. Whatever he did, he desired to bring no harm to any of the female inhabitants of the harrowing edifice.

Thinking it would be far more propitious to his endeavor if he knew exactly what he was up against, he decided to venture up to the castle and explore its interior, with the hope of avoiding an encounter with the count. To that purpose, he approached the doorknob.

“Password?” asked that contraption.

Noticing by Lorelai’s speech that here there was heavy emphasis on the importance of mathematics, Terrame surmised that the magical word to gain him entrance must be from that science. He named a plethora of such terms, and was rewarded when he conjectured “analytic geometry.”

Once past the door’s challenge, Terrame felt eerie in this house of talking walls. The prattle of the above was irritating, and worst of all, distracting. Perhaps they were an extra protection for the castle; people could barely think through all the cacophony.

Terrame met a couple of girls who had just been “treated” with ice cream. (I need not explain what I mean by this. Let your imagination be your guide.) He politely asked them how many women were currently prisoners of the castle.

Had the young ladies not just returned from treatment, it is almost certain that they would’ve given Terrame the cold shoulder. As it was, they enlightened him by saying that there were 226 females held against their will by the villainous count. This number was so alarming that Terrame turned on his heels, ran from the jabbering walls, through the imperturbable door. What an impossible feat it would be to rescue over two hundred women! Terrame pondered over this immense number. The best he could hope for was a partial removal within twelve days.

Lorelai accosted him as he was walking the streets that night, and asked him how soon he’d be able to free her and the rest from their present predicament. He told her what he thought on this matter.

“A dozen days!” Lorelai exclaimed. “You can’t possibly expect us to prolong our sine sufferings for another twelve days! I’ve already promised some epsilon friends of mine that we’d be free within 24 hours.”

Terrame promised he’d do his best, and Lorelai left. The next morning, a bright idea hit him.

Because all the people he was attempting to rescue were of the same gender, Terrame could simply create a line to serve as a partition, separating the count and his castle from the female captives. From that point, Terrame could destroy the castle and its vile owner.

To draw the line, Terrame needed to first create a pool of sand. The castle of Teaclor, being built atop a hill, was nowhere near a place that would be fit for his procedure, as nature had intended it. Therefore, he had to bore a hole in the ground with his laser eyes, and with his mind pull sand from the ocean, which answered his beck and call, coming through the dirt to fill the aperture to the brim.

Then he called the women to appear by a shrill whistle. This was rather uncomfortable for the young ladies, but through telepathic airwaves he let them know that no harm was to befall them, that they were escaping danger.

He informed them that if they all stayed on the side of the line he had placed them—facing the odious building—he would be able to demolish it, and they would be liberated.

However, one of the women—Missy by name—crossed the line, to return to her beloved master. She declared that she loved Vistur Vrim and all the torment and distress he had put her through.

Some of Missy’s friends tried to restrain her, but she was defiant. “Let her go,” Terrame commanded. They did as he asked, for they were so used to obeying orders that they did not realize they were free to do as they chose. Missy ran back with joy, and rushed into the castle. The extraterrestrial gave her ample time to return to her master’s side. Then he called upon the spirits of the sand to swallow the castle and all its contents. When the edifice was midway submerged, harrowing screams could be heard. They ceased abruptly.

It took a second for the girls to savvy what had happened. When comprehension hit them, they scattered in two hundred different directions.

Only one woman remained behind, and that was Lorelai. Terrame was indignant that no one had said so much as “thank you” for what he had done. He decided to complain to Lorelai.

“I rescued you from oppression, from thralldom, from slavery! Surely I deserve some form of gratitude?” Terrame asked.

“None that we can give. You are a conic, loathsome extraterrestrial, a vermin, a pest. You are repulsive, and being in your presence is vector vexatious, and disturbs our polar equanimity. It is pi unwise to thank an inferior for hid deeds, no matter how magnanimous and altruistic they may be.”

This spiteful declaration of Lorelai’s sent Terrame on his way, to wander the earth as a solitary being, unable to penetrate the bulwark that stood between him and mankind. And what madness and suffering might hid mind have undergone, had he known that at that moment Count Vistur Vrim and Missy were enjoying delectable beverages in the company of those valiant souls with seats in Valhalla.

[Alley Cat]

I like the plot. It's very original. Heck, I don't mean to act like I'm putting anyone down, but I'm probably one of the only members who could understand all of that large vocabulary. You should put this on other sites too, not just Pojo. (That way, you'd get more reviews.)

Just make sure the story stays PG-13 while you're posting here. ;3