The children scurried through the forest and into the mine, one clutching a treasure map and compass. Moptop recognized some of them from his old job, so he decided to follow, mainly for purposes of amusement. He soon deduced, from their excited chattering, that they were attempting to steal the gold of the ancient pirate lich. He followed them until they reached the chamber of the lich, where he was awaiting the youthful adventurers. "Now you must past the test!" the pirate rasped, as he waved his arms and conjured a jumbled mix of letters. "What is my name?"
Moptop vaguely remembered that this was from a book. If one could remember the being's name, he would be rewarded with treasure. Moptop racked his brain, trying to remember that passage from the book as he watched the children, one at a time, try to rearrange the letters. None had been successful.
"I've got it!" thought Moptop, as the image of the book's page appeared in his mind. It read, in large black letters, "My name is ROGE DOGER." Smirking, Moptop took his place in the line, just behind the last child.
Moptop looked over the child's shoulder and felt a rush of shock through his body when he saw that the lettered tiles read "bababababa." The child presented the tiles to the lich, who replied, "You are correct! My name is BA BA BA BA BA!"
With this, Moptop vanished from the mines, appearing in a backyard party held by his old job. He was relieved to see Notop there, but was soon under a barrage of questions and smalltalk from the annoyingly friendly children, and, even worse, their parents.
One such woman, though Moptop tried to talk privately with Notop, kept butting in on their conversation. "Did you get the point of that marketing exercise?" She asked them.
"Well," replied Notop, "I think I got more of the historical point of it all."
"It was simple," said Moptop, who was becoming more and more irritated at the woman. "If you're trying to market a fancy, Persian hotel, then you need to use evocative language to sell the 'exoticness' or whatever. I mean, it's semantics! Just say, 'come and be refreshed in the fertile crescent of luxury' or something. IT WAS SIMPLE!" Moptop was now pacing back and forth, raising his voice and gesturing violently.
"Oh my God!" the woman said, turning to Notop. "You know who he reminds me of? He's Greg, my mother!"
Moptop screamed.
Notop offered to give Moptop a ride home, which was fine until he turned around into the the backseat to find something, completely abandoning the wheel. Moptop took a couple seconds to realize this, and then grabbed the wheel to keep the car on the road. "Ah, good thinking," Notop said, still digging around in the back. "The old emergency side-grab."
"Whoa! What are you doing?" shouted Moptop. Moptop now had to squeeze partially into the driver's side of the car to reach the brake pedal. The road was now along a high cliff side. Moptop tried his best to maneuver the vehicle in this fashion, but the road took a sharp turn. As the car swerved, Notop's prized fishing lure began to fly out the window. Moptop attempted to grab it, but he flew out of the window as well.
He fell hundreds of feet, landing in the river below. He was amazed that he survived the fall, because the water was very shallow--it only went up to about his waist. The river and surrounding cliffs were beautiful, but Moptop was too angry about the circumstances leading to his arrival in the river to truly enjoy it. He located the fishing lure, pocketed it, and began walking through the water, which would inevitably lead back to Miskatonic.
After hours of wading, in which he saw some algae-covered pigs walking around and many happy tourist families camping on the riverbanks, he indeed arrived at Miskatonic and stormed through the main parking lot toward the commons building. He burst through the doors and found that some sort of small, formal dance was in progress. Notop was ballroom dancing with a girl while Mrs. Notop looked on in disapproval. Moptop approached and, with a glare, handed Notop the fishing lure.
"Oh, wow! Thanks!" said Notop. He took the lure and lovingly examined it, but it slipped out of his hand and shattered on the floor. Moptop prepared to strangle him.
"Oh, here. Why don't you cut in?" Notop said, thrusting the girl into Moptop's arms.
"Uh. Hi." said Moptop. He felt quite awkward and nervous about dancing with a nicely-dressed girl, especially considering he was still wet and covered in seaweed. "Listen, I'm not a very good dancer anyway, and I just got out of a river, so. . . ."
"Oh, come on. It's easy!" replied the girl. "Just follow me!"
They danced, Moptop still feeling uncomfortable but managing the steps with a small degree of competence. Soon, the string quartet concluded the gentle accompanying music and the couples came to their final steps. Moptop decided to properly introduce himself to the girl.
"So, I'm Moptop. . . ."
But before he could continue, the girl kissed him, getting bright lipstick all over his face. He could see Notop giving him an embarrassingly exaggerated thumbs-up from the corner of his eye.
