
 '##::::'##:::'#####:::'########: VIVA LA REVOLUCION! CERDO DEL CAPITALISTA!!
  ##:::: ##::'##.. ##:: ##.....:: ===========================================
  ##:::: ##:'##:::: ##: ##::::::: THE HELOTS OF ECSTASY PRESS RELEASE #480 !!
  #########: ##:::: ##: ######::: ZIEGO VUANTAR SHALL BE MUCH VICTORIOUS!  !!
  ##.... ##: ##:::: ##: ##...:::: ===========================================
  ##:::: ##:. ##:: ##:: ##::::::: "The Final Voyage of The Golden Unmutak" !!
  ##:::: ##::. #####::: ########: by -> Tan Adept                          !!
 ..:::::..::::.....::::........:: 2/3/99                                   !!
 !!========================================================================!!

        Dramatis Personae:
        ==================

        Purplefoot:  Alias Art.  The most feared pirate captain on the high
                     seas.  Purplefoot sailed the Golden Unmutak through
                     many voyages over many seas, with the finest crew ever
                     seen.

        Jolly: Alias Aster.  This flower was the lookout for the crew.
               Generally restricted to a pot, she spent most of her time
               in the crow's nest.

        Princess Red: Alias Tasha.  Despite her royal background, she had
                      no qualms with doing a bit of cleaning.  Her mop
                      never far from her side, she was responsible for
                      swabbing the decks.

        sTan Adept: Alias Tan Adept.  While a pterodactyl, he was known to
                    occasionally don a shell in the interests of his
                    gastropodic side.  His large wings were often an asset
                    for the crew, but his voracious appetite required many
                    raids for food.

        sGnome (pronounced sGah-nome): Alias PezMonkey.  Like sTan Adept,
               she had a gastropodic side.  However, in contrast with sTan
               Adept, her shell-endowed personality was tempered by a
               healthy dose of simian attitude.  Aboard the Golden Unmutak,
               she was responsible for the cooking, ensuring at all times
               a well-balanced meal to ward off the threat of scurvy.

        Caitlin: Alias Synikalle.  A sheepdog with diverse interests, she
                 spent a portion of her time aboard the ship as the
                 figurehead, fulfilling a responsibility normally reserved
                 for the nonsentient.  As she was far more intelligent
                 than any block of wood, she did an accordingly excellent
                 job.

        Soybean: Alias toasty.  Mostly a background player, she attended
                 to a variety of important tasks on the Unmutak.  During
                 most of the famous battles the crew fought, she was
                 sleepy.

 !!========================================================================!!

        Nadir had come to the lives of the pirates.  Once the terror of
 the high seas, age had come upon them all.  While they still sailed, they
 now spent most of their time on land, occasionally trudging back to their
 ship to make repairs, hoping to stave off the once-mighty vessel's further
 decay.

        One day, the sun was shining brightly, and the old pirates were
 feeling in higher spirits than usual.  sGnome, sTan Adept, Purplefoot, and
 Princess Red were sitting around in their house chatting idly when the
 aptly named Jolly rolled in on her wheeled cart.  sGnome greeted Jolly
 with her usual "Hey, kitten!", who replied with a witty "Hay's for horses."

        Being landbound had probably been hardest for Jolly.  As a flower,
 she normally would have never had any opportunity whatever to travel.
 However, when she joined up with the crew of the Golden Unmutak, she'd
 found herself with an unparalleled opportunity to seek out new shores.
 After the virtual retirement of the crew, she'd been holed up in one
 house, in a crowded part of the city, without the sunlight and adventure
 she craved.  Today had inspired her, though, and she was determined to
 inspire the rest of her friends to take a real voyage.

        Jolly teased the others, "What game should be play?  We could play
 bazoo or jungle."  She paused, allowing the others a chance to consider.
 "Or we could play boat!" she shouted.  As hoped, her enthusiasm was
 contagious.  "Where's me grog?" bellowed Purplefoot.

        After a brief moment to remember their duties, they headed to the
 Golden Unmutak.  The paint was peeling and the deck was dirty, but the
 pirates were not about to let that dampen their spirits.  The black flag
 of the skull and crossbones was still intact, and they were ready to go.
 As they surveyed their ship, they noticed one thing drastically amiss.
 Their figurehead was missing!  A giant solid gold unmutak, it had been
 at the prow of the ship since the earliest days of the crew.  Part of
 their first booty, they had always had it with them.  Even this was not
 enough to dissuade them from taking to the waves, and they set sail at
 once.

        Their usual raiding spots seemed to have figuratively dried up.
 The domains of ships, water, and even the route taken by a tugboat were
 all empty.  As they sailed further, Purplefoot checked his map.  Ahead
 should be an area called "Aqua".  Perhaps there they would find some
 victims to relieve of their gold and treasure.

        From the crow's nest, Jolly saw a few individuals aboard a ship in
 the distance.  She cried down to Purplefoot that a ship was sighted and he
 took an impressive stand upon the deck.  sTan Adept took to the skies
 above, prepared to rain terror from the skies upon the first victims of
 the day.

        "Arrrrrrrrr, me matey, ramming speed!" ordered Purplefoot.

        "Aye!" replied Princess Red, following orders quickly.

        From his vantage point in the air, sTan Adept was the first to
 address the hapless ship.  "We will loot and pillage your ships, for we
 are the lords of the high seas!" he shouted in a loud voice.

        "We will take your wives and daughters!" threatened Purplefoot.

        As the Golden Unmutak drew closer to her target, Caitlin climbed
 aboard the ship.  "I am the figurehead." she said, and Purplefoot
 immediately appointed her to the position.  Her phallic nature was bound
 to inspire fear in the crew's victims, even if it was not as reknowned as
 the original golden statue which had once adorned the ship.

        The pirate ship drew closer and the crew noticed something strange.
 Those on the victim ship seemed to merely be stuffed dummies.  They dido
 not react in any way to the pirate ship approaching, and as the crew got
 up alongside the Aqua, they discovered not a shred of treasure or even a
 sign of life.

        Frustrated, the crew looked to Purplefoot for new orders.  They
 passed through some far away locations, including a region known as
 Ceylon, and finally made their way to an area inhabited by people known
 as Mormons.  The pirates burst upon the Mormons shouting and yelling,
 inspiring fear in those they had set upon.  Cries of "Arrr!" and "Arggh!"
 assailed the ears of the polygamist Mormons.  

        Once the pirates were close enough to the Mormon ship, they sprang
 across to begin looting.  Purplefoot made his way to the cargo hold,
 scimitar in hand and began to collect the most valuable treasures he could
 find, including an ancient holy-looking pair of golden tablets upon which
 seemed to be inscribed a novella-length book.  sGnome anally raped a few
 Mormons with her sword while sTan Adept brought up great winds with his
 mighty wings.  Battered, the Mormons showed little ability to defend
 themselves.  When the majority of the looting was complete, Purplefoot
 slashed the sails of the victims, leaving them floating on the high seas
 to die.

        Purplefoot declared the Kingdom of Ansi to be the next place for
 the Golden Unmutak to sail.  The brightly colored art made by the
 inhabitants of Ansi were valued by many, especially in the heyday of the
 Unmutak's crew.  Despite a decline in the world's interest for Ansi art,
 it was still certain to be a profitable raid.

        During the trip to Ansi, Princess Red was displeased with the
 condition of the ship's deck.  She'd noted how dirty it was and couldn't
 believe she had forgotten her mop.  Before she had too much time to be
 saddened by her carelessness, Jolly announced that they were nearly upon
 a vessel worthy of an assault.

        Purplefoot noticed the sharks circling around the Golden Unmutak.
 Surely some of these sharks were the same who had once followed the ship
 in their youth.  Rarely did a shark go hungry when it followed the Golden
 Unmutak, for Purplefoot was bloodthirsty and threw many a victim into the
 water to be devoured by the creatures of the sea.

        The Ansians were decidedly more prepared for warfare than the
 Mormons had been.  While they were still outmatched in combat capabilities
 as compared to the pirates, they did have a few magical powers at their
 beck and call.  After one Ansi ship had been pillaged, with sTan Adept and
 Purplefoot retrieving a number of tapestries and bolts of Spanish silk,
 the captain of the Ansi flagship cast a silence spell upon the Golden
 Unmutak.  Without the ability to give orders to his crew, Purplefoot
 signalled to Princess Red to retreat.

        Back away from the shores of Ansi, they looked over their loot.
 The swords sTan Adept had plundered were of very high quality, and the
 chests they had carried off held not just gold, but jewels as well.
 Princess Red had also found herself a fine mop with a silver handle.  Many
 of the crew members thought to themselves just how much they appreciated
 Jolly's idea of piracy this day, but didn't immediately think to thank
 her.  In fact, they even neglected to water her, taking her for granted at
 the top of the main sail.

        The next place the Unmutak headed was inhabited by people united
 by a man named Jesus.  Supposedly, he was an ancient Roman who, upon his
 death, had become immortal.  Fate was not with these victims of the
 pirates, though, for their supposed savior failed to help them in this
 time of need.

        While unarmed, the followers of Jesus were skilled in martial arts.
 Princess Red battered some of the seamen with her mop, but during one of
 sTan Adept's swoops down, he was kicked soundly by one of the seemingly
 defenseless sailors.  While he recovered quickly, his pride was hurt, and
 he took a number of the sailor's shipmates and threw them into the sea,
 rending them with his claws.  During this battle, Purplefoot revealed
 some of his own magic, and selected a small number of the victims for a
 particularly gruesome fate.  He delved into their puny little minds and
 ripped all that was good from them, leaving them a shattered husk of
 angst.  This penultimate evil done, sGnome found the young of some of the
 victims and devoured them as Purplefoot stole more chests of gold.

        In the pirates' culture, teenagers were the most capable members
 of a crew but in the region to which the Golden Unmutak sailed next, the
 teens were helpless, weak individuals trying hopelessly to find others
 with something in common.  They were wholly unable to deal with the
 assault of the pirates, and were terrified even by Caitlin, who had
 assumed the form of a dog for the time being.

        Taking the gold and women from the pitiful teens was hardly an
 effort for the experienced pirates.  As Purplefoot gave orders, the crew
 pillaged the ships and took the booty back to their own.  Only one member
 of the teens seemed to have a spine to stand up against the pirates with.
 This one, Mayzer, asked in a cocksure manner, "Purplefoot?  Are you on
 drugs or something?"  Purplefoot cut him down immediately with his retort,
 "Drugs are for landlubbers!"

        Mayzer was then bound as sTan Adept extended the plank.  While
 Mayzer was at first unwilling to walk down the plank, a sharp poke in
 the posterier with a sword convinced him to move forward.  Mayzer went
 further down the wooden path upon which he was set.  Closer he drew to the
 shark invested water and as he was about to fall in, sTan Adept snatched
 him up and deposited him back on his ship, laughing.

        While Mayzer was defiant, the others of his crew placidly sat by
 while they were relieved of their gold and their purity.  As the Golden
 Unmutak prepared to sail off, sGnome regaled the teens with a final poem:

                We are the pirates who will eat your mothers.
                We like to rape your sisters and fuck your brothers.
                I am the cook and the poet;
                And I bet now you know it.
                We have a dog and a flower
                And a pirate leader with pirate power.

        The land of Church seemed, at first glance, to be inhabited by
 people much like the followers of Jesus.  However, further examination
 revealed that none of the supposed people present were actually present,
 and had merely left well-made mockups of themselves to hold their places.
 The crew was frustrated again when they went to the land of Wen, which
 was similarly empty of real people.

        After a brief visit to the University of Illinois at
 Urbana-Champaign, the pirates decided to heard back to port.  Along the
 way, they found themselves in a region where it seemed nearly everyone was
 a poet, or at least interested in poetry.

        Most of the crew tried to recite poetry, all at the same time.  The
 cacophony that resulted bought pain to the ears of the pirates' victims.

        Princess Red found it frustrating to recite with all her mates
 reciting at the same time, but did her best:

                Water, Water everywhere
                I'm raping and ravaging
                So I don't care
                I mop the ship deck
                And water the flower
                And sometimes when I'm lucky
                The captain kisses my neck

        sTan Adept recited a haiku:

                Voltron will eat you.
                He really wants to eat you.
                He thinks you'll taste good.

        And finally, sGnome graced the poets with her own work:

                We are pirates of the deep.
                We write deep pirate poetry.
                We like to rape and rhyme and pillage
                And then we kill and make you lick up the spillage.
                We have lots of things on our ship
                And we will bite your lip.

        While some of the poets were belligerent, they were pacifistic,
 and only countered with words.  Eventually, the pirates and the poets
 reached a standstill, though Purplefoot vowed to come back and conquer
 them at a later time.

        On their way back to their own land, they passed through a land
 of food, which delighted sGnome.  She took an opporunity to refill the
 food store of the Golden Unmutak, and made sure that everyone had a large
 glass of lemonade.  Parched throats felt better, and the possibility of
 a bout of scurvy was eliminated.

        Eventually, tired out, the pirates reached land, docked their ship,
 and went back home.  They might never sail again, but today they had
 relived the joys of their earlier days.  Never again would they be full
 of angst, for they were still mighty pirates, even if they were retired.

 !!========================================================================!!
 !! (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! HOE #480, WRITTEN BY: TAN ADEPT - 2/3/99 !!
