"Germania! I can't believe we're BACK in Germania," Keiler moaned. "If we'd only known!"

The minute Nindy and the boys left Jot's office, Keiler had begun to complain. "I can't believe I left the forest for this. The Deminator! I should have stayed in the Schwarzvald and just let Odin's Raging Host catch me."

"Now, Keiler, it's not that bad," O-kakashi had said. "Not yet."

Keiler opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he might have said is forever lost to posterity for they suddenly found themselves being escorted to the edge of town by a crowd of people shouting encouragement and advice.

"Yggdrasil. That's where she is. In Yggdrasil."

"No, she's not, she's in Sussex."

"I heard she was in Valhalla with Odin." (Keiler gasped at this.)

"You're gonna need a baby tooth! Nothing like a baby tooth for protection!" a man in a Viking helmet shouted.

"No, no ... take these herbs. They'll open any locked doors you run into." (This from a man in a toga.)

"Ridicule her! That's the way to destroy her, lassie. You can satirize her right out of existence!"

"Don't be silly, McTavish. They'll need weapons against a chainsaw!"

At this point someone pressed a samurai sword into O-kakashi's hand. Someone else handed Tin a Hoplite spear, and yet a third citizen gave Keiler a slingshot. "Hang on," Keiler began, but already the townspeople were pushing them out the gates.

"Well!" exclaimed Nindy. "People here are certainly in a hurry to get that comm panel fixed!"

Once they got to Germania, it took more than two centuries, but they finally found out where Cornellia was staying. Ironically enough, she was practically next door to the Schwarzvald, living in a castle halfway between Castle Frankenstein and Notre Dame Cathedral. The Phantom of the Opera was her next door neighbor. The plan was to sneak in, steal the chainsaw, and get to Hellas as fast as Tin could carry them, which was why everybody was walking now. Tin had to conserve his strength.

"Castle Frankenstein? I didn't know that was a real place," Nindy mused. "That man in Darmstadt said there really was a doctor here named Johann Conrad Dippel who built a person out of body parts and then tried to bring him to life using magic rites. That's just ... creepy." She shivered.

"Oh, there are all kinds of strange things in the castles here," O-kakashi replied. "That castle we passed not long ago was supposed to be the home of a vetala or kitsune or ... oh, what is the Germanian word for it? Ah!" he said after thinking about it a minute. "A vampire."

"Vampires?" Keiler exlaimed in alarm. "We're going up against vampires?"

"No, no! Oki was just saying one lives or, uh, un-lives there," Tin replied. "You know, they also say there are werewolves in the forests here."

"Really?" O-kakashi breathed. "I've never seen a werewolf before."

"Not only that," Jojo went on, picking up the conversational theme, "Burg Hohenzollern over there is haunted by the ghost of a woman in white who—"

"Aiyyyyyyyyy!!!!" Keiler exclaimed. "Enough!! Do we really want to sneak into this witch's castle?"

"She's not a witch, Keiler," Tin explained patiently. "She's a demi."

"Whatever she is, she has more power than I do! Look, I'm just going to go back to hiding in the Schwarzvald. Okay?" he said, turning to leave.

"Now, now ... you aren't either," Nindy declared, grabbing the back of his shirt. "We won't let you. Besides, it's too late. We're there. See?" She pointed to the double towers of an ancient castle overlooking the Seine.

"What's that? What's that??" Keiler blubbered.

"It's the castle of Cornellia the Enforcer Demi of the Wild West," said Tin.

"We're going in there?? But ... it's scary. I can't!"

"Now, now," Nindy said soothingly. "It's just a castle. It's perfectly safe."

"I see," Keiler replied. "This must be some definition of the word safe I haven't heard before."

Inside the castle, a flurry of activity was taking place. Cornellia's Aggie legions were all busy decorating the castle for Celtia's upcoming Samhain celebrations. Some were carving turnips — since Cornellia had outlawed pumpkins because of their color — although the faces always seemed to come out upside down. Some were removing the cobwebs from the corners, while others followed them around spraying fake cobwebs in the now empty spaces. They'd been doing this for three days and had reached a point where they were replacing fake cobwebs with newer fake cobwebs, but no one had yet realized this. One particularly resourceful Aggie was hanging specially designed wall sconces she had invented to hold the candles her less gifted team was lighting at both ends. The largest group was in the kitchens dying all the rugs and draperies black.

Cornellia stopped two of the creatures who were carrying a huge vat of some very pungent liquid. "Is that bleach?" she inquired. The Aggies nodded vigorously. "And what do you plan to do with it?"

"Draperies, ma'am!" one of them said briskly. They both smiled as though highly pleased with their ingenuity.

"Sooooo," Cornellia drawled, "you plan to make my nice ... newly dyed ... black ... Samhain draperies ... GRAY??" she bellowed. The Aggies looked at each other, stricken, and started to shake their heads with even more vigor. "MORONS!! Take it away!" As the duet scurried away with the vat of bleach, she murmured, "Aggies. You gotta love 'em."

A short Aggie with a shock of blonde hair scurried up to Cornellia. "Oh, Empress of the Known Universe," he panted, "the guards in the village have been attacked and now there are five very odd looking characters climbing the footpath to the castle. A girl, a dog, a boar, a scarecrow, and what looks like a bronze statue ... although I don't think he's finished yet, because one of his feet is—"

"Okay, enough, already! A person can't think with all your rambling. So ... coming to me, is she? Good, that saves me from having to whip up a whole batch of grams. Bring me that girl and her dog. I think a little banishment is in order. Turning demis into dogs for literary purposes is one thing, but squashing them is something else altogether. Where will it all end? And take some of those little orange conscripts from U.T. with you. If she's going to drop houses on people, she can squish them. Too many of them around anyway."

(Narrator's commentary: For those of you unfamiliar with the Wild West, UT is a small orange-and-white university in central Texas that had always been a thorn in Cornellia's side.)

Meanwhile, Nindy and the boys, having knocked out the village guards, were struggling up the steep hill that led to the castle. Fortunately for Tin's leg and Keiler's nerves, a carriage met them halfway up and a short blonde man stepped out. "Her excellency, Cornellia, Empress of the Known Universe and Enforcer Demi of the Wild West, requests the presence of you and your ... dog ... immediately," he entoned. Well, it was hardly the covert expedition they had planned, but perhaps this could work to their advantage.

When they arrived at the castle, Cornellia was in the kitchen supervising the work. "Forgive the mess," she said, waving her hand negligently at the mass of activity. "We're trying to get ready for Samhain. Have a seat."

Nindy climbed onto a tall stool next to a counter and watched as Cornellia cleared a space among the dozens of Halloween candles that covered every flat space in the kitchen (even parts of the floor) and placed her chainsaw on the counter behind them. When the demi turned back and gave her a strained smile, Nindy glanced toward O-kakashi. He nodded almost imperceptibly. "So, um ... what did you want to see me about?" Nindy asked, innocently.

"Well, how can I put this? It's my responsibility to make sure the AwZ Code of Conduct is followed. Now, I find there's the little matter of my aunt, on whom you dropped a house in The Orient."

"Oh, but that was an accident! I'm very sorry."

While they chatted, O-kakashi snuck around behind Cornellia. He had to stop several times when she glanced over at him. At those moments, he pretended to watch four Aggies who were attempting to spraypaint a sofa. The chainsaw glittered in the candle-light only inches away.

"But the code of conduct," Cornellia was saying, "specifically states that you may NOT kill or cause long term harm to another person's character within a roleplay storyline without express written permission from the 'hands behind' the character being killed or harmed."

"But we haven't killed or harmed anyone's character," Nindy protested.

"You squashed a demi!"

"Yes, but she was imaginary."

"Hmmm...." Cornellia considered this. "Well, it's true you never named her. I suppose ... well, that might be —"

Before she could say more, O-kakashi reached for the chainsaw. Unfortunately, the movement caught Cornellia's attention and she jerked her head around to look at him. "WHAT are you doing?" she began, snatching up the chainsaw. She said nothing more, but her eyes widened in shock. The chainsaw sitting, as it had been, amongst fifty lighted candles and O-kakashi being made of straw, turned out to be a recipe for disaster. Startled by Cornellia's shout, he jerked his hand back and brushed his sleeve against one of the lighted candles. His arm burst into flame.

"Oh, my!" Nindy exclaimed. "O-kakashi! Don't move!" Cornellia turned back to look at her just as Nindy grabbed a bucket and filled it with the only liquid close at hand ... a very pungent mixture in a vat next to the counter.

"No! Don't!!" the demi shouted. "Don't throw that—"

But it was too late, the bleach was already splashing thru the air and landed SPLAT directly on O-kakashi's arm ... and Cornellia's head. The demi received the worst of it, as both she and O-kakashi's arm were drenched in bleach. True, the flames went out, but Cornellia's lovely yellowish gold trim turned white instantly and the deep maroon of her gown faded to orange.

"You wicked brat!" Cornellia shouted. "Look what you've done!! I'm Orange!! ORRRAAAAAAAANGE!!! Oh, the shame, the shame! What a world, what a world!" and she dropped her chainsaw and ran away to hide in the nearest tower.

Cornellia's Aggie legions were stunned into motionlessness. Their leader ... dressed in U.T. orange! What should they do?

"Psst ... Keiler ... get the chainsaw," Tin whispered.

"I can't! They might attack me."

"Keiler, we need to hurry," Tin insisted. "She might change clothes and come back ... and she'll probably be really mad!"

"Oki, do you think they would attack us?" Nindy murmured.

The Aggie closest to Jojo turned to a fellow classmate and hissed, "What should we do?"

"How should I know? I'm only a freshman!"

"I have an idea. Nindy, you get the chainsaw. Tin, get ready to run," O-kakashi whispered. He stepped forward and held up an Aggie classring he had appropriated from the guard at the gate. "Class of '83!" he shouted.

"Ah!!" the guards all sighed and one by one they began to shout: "Class of '72!" "Class of '97!" "'02 here!" "'69!"

While they all were occupied with the Aggie mating call, Tin grabbed up Nindy and the chainsaw, O-kakashi, Jojo, and Keiler all at once. "Quick, before they come to their senses! We have to get to Hellas!"

Sources:
Castle Frankenstein
Wikipedia: Vampire
The Tooth Fairy Legend
Do you have Triskaidekaphobia?