For an all-too-brief, blurry moment, as Susa was being hurled up into the rafters by a bevy of flapping and twisting tentacles, indeed even as he was yelling, he experienced an almost perfect moment of zen. He didn’t really hold with those Buddhist interlopers, but they had some good ideas, and he was right in the middle of one. This ain’t so bad, he thought to himself. It’s about to be, but this right here ain’t so bad.
Then his back connected with one of the catwalks. He heard a sickening crack, and it actually took him a moment to realize that his spine hadn’t been crushed. One of Roddy-droan’s tentacles had. He saw it, flopping limply and bent at an impossible angle, even for a flexible appendage like that. It was an easy enough problem for a multi-talented guy like Susa to solve.
He stuck out his sword and sliced the thing off.
He heard Susa cry, “Time to die, Melichor!” Oh, sure. Gwydyon always managed to get the easy jobs (not necessarily through any skill of his own, just that damnable luck he had), while Susa wound up doing all the real work. Now, that wasn’t to say that Gwydyon didn’t have other fine qualities, but he just seemed to always get off easy.
Susa noticed that his legs were beginning to hurt. He looked down and saw why. While he’d been lollygaggin’ hell-spawned tentacles had wrapped around his ankles and had started pulling, like they were racking him or something. Well, that wasn’t going to stand, anymore than he was about to start chanting, “Ia! Ia!” or some damn thing.
He started chopping away, slicing tentacle ends off to and fro. As bits went flying, he heard a cry shudder up from the ground, both through the air and vibrating through that pulsating mass of gross insanity that was holding him up. The Roddy-droan didn’t like that, eh? Well, that was reason enough to keep doing it.
At one point, he missed and cut a sandbag counterweight free. It plummeted down to the stage, and mangled what little was left of the Plinko! stand. Sand spilled everywhere, puffing up like a little cartoon cloud below him. Man, that thing had to be splinters by now.
He sliced off another tentacle, and only realized as he started falling that they had been the only things holding him up there.
He only barely heard it, but it echoed his sentiments precisely: “Shit.”
He landed, ass-first, on Bob Barker’s head. Melichor collapsed beneath him like a department store dummy, Gwydyon’s blade still stuck in his chest. Susa leapt up off the floor and danced around, rubbing his backside. “Owww! Sonuva…you got a hard heard, Bob, you oni-faced sheepstiffer!” He lashed out with a booted foot at the body on the ground, catching flank and doing absolutely nothing but making himself feel better.
Turning with an only slightly wizened warcry, he launched back after the Roddy-droan, sword held high. He dove behind the announcer’s booth, tentacles following him, minus a few ends that flew out, lopped off and dripping a smoking black ooze.
When Gwydyon turned back to Melichor, after staring, somewhat dumbfounded, after Susa, the demon-thing was back on its feet, head now canted at angle that might have been reminiscent of the broken tentacle.
The Welshman’s reaction was typical. “Huh.” Without any further fanfare, he planted his besneakered foot on Melichor’s chest, grabbed his sword, and pushed.