Kaks wrote:Ok, ok! Isn't the Dalosinian capital surrounded by a highly flammable treacle swamp? Given that the only remotely fireproof place is the asbestos laden inner city ( people coughing their lungs out, the magnificent dawn chorus of Dalosin! ), how did you manage to go through the fire with just the help of a few horses?
A very astute question, Commander Kaks! I see the Credits earned by your modelling career on your tuition fees were not wasted!
Indeed, there is a vast and treacherous black treacle swamp which was set abaze by King Rhinitis the IInd after his abortive war against the Hordes of the evil (by Dalosinian standards that must be exceptionally bad!) Emperor Zneekibastid the Innumerable. It, of course, is created from the run-off of the spring rains from the Sugar Mountains percolating through the soil of Teaatis and, after being heated by the intense sunlight, forms a think morass of treacle-like sludge that has over the centuries surrounded Dalosin. This brings me to a short-form explanation of the wildlife of Teaatis.
The
Coda Zoologica Xenomorphae, the foremost series of books covering the vast subject of xenobiology and xenomorphology has an entire chapter (some 80,000 pages) devoted to the creatures of Teaatis after the 'Conflagration of the Treacle Swamps'. Many creatures in the general area were forced away after the swamps were ignited, but some few remained, eking out a poor existance in the permanent clouds of thick, choking smoke and intense heat. There is a species of toad, the Teaatisian Fire-proof Sugar Cane Toad (
Bufo marinus Teaatis Nomexii), which lives exclusively in the intense inferno, feeding on the cook carcasses of any creature fool enough to try venturing into the swamps. One species of bird, the Greater Teaatisian Crow (
Corvus Corax Infernum), managed to survive by evolving its feathers to have both a fire retardant quality (due to it's diet of Fire-proof Sugar Cane Toads) and to be constantly growing. This is very handy since the Greater Teaatisian Crow makes it's nest on the very edge of the swamps and regularly hunts for the Fire-proof Toads within the burning expanses of swamp. The tales of the Pheonix originated on Teaatis after off-world visitors watched the Greater Crows returning to their nests wreathed in flames, seemingly unharmed. The largest beast to exist in this hellish landscape is the Teaatisian Horse. This animal is not, as the name suggests a quadripedal mammal of the Genus
Equus (which has nothing to do with naked 'boy wizard' actors), but is in fact a 2 and a half ton quadripedal lizard of the
Corytophanidae family. which feasts on both the Greater Crow and, by imitating it's mating call, the Fire-proof Sugar Cane Toad. This diet makes the Horse all but immune to the fires of the Treacle Swamp, over which it can move at remarkable speeds, due to the webbed and oily skin of it's feet. It developed this running speed to effectively chase and catch the Greater Crow, which can fly at speeds of upto 80 standard kilometres per hour.
After Rhinitis the IInd set the swamps ablaze and was promptly deposed by his son, the people of Dalosin had to rely on the ancient asbestos mines beneath the city to build houses and clothing to protect themselves and their carts when they shipped food and other products into and out of the city and through the winding and often shifting paths of the Swamps. For the city's further protection Rhinitis the XXVth, after seeing the great speed and power of the Teaatisian Horse from his newly rebuilt castle, The Monstrous Carbuncle of Dalosin, ordered forty Horses to be captured and tamed so that he could raise a cavalry regiment. This regiment, the Chocolate Fire Guards (named after the rich brown colour of their uniforms), served with distinction and increased their numbers to one hundred up til and including the reign of the soon to be doomed Rhinitis the XLIInd.
Unbenownst to Rhinitis, the barbarians had also caught and tamed Horses and were using them in their raids upon other monarchs' lands. This is how they were able to cross the swamps so effectively and start throwing gobbets of burning treacle through the windows of the fire-retardant houses, before the Chocolate Fire Guards were able to react. Rus and the Lobstoids, being the resourceful fellows that they were, were able to persuade some of the Fire Guards to consider a life in the infantry by means of dragging them bodily from their saddles and beating them into unconsciousness. Thus were we able to gallop across the swamps, wrapped in asbestos blankets and wearing the ceremonial breathing apparatus of the Fire Guards, to the safety of the Dubious Profit.
If only those damn blankets had covered my head completely. The fur on the back of my ears took weeks to grow back once the burns healed....
Now.
There's something I've never really reconciled in my mind and that is:
Could
LittleBear explain the circumstances that lead to him landing an Ancient Earthian
Lancaster Bomber on Lave's major moon and how he came to have a payload of Erxesoanian famous Sebese juice in the bomb bay?
. For instance (and this is by no means a challenge, just pointing out the obvious) :
