Monsters are Monsters

Again the gnome read the title: Wringling Sisters' Sideshow by Grommel Nock. He had no idea who Grommel was but he had heard of the Sideshow. It had not shown its face in the northlands for some seventy years now, probably most other Races had forgotten it, but not the gnomes. Flucky opened to the first page, in part it read:

Myne Grandpater, who taught me t' playe cards and watcht th' Eighth Daye night-fights w' me everie weeke, once upon a tyme took me t' one of th' cruelest, yet most fascinating spectacles of decades - th' rows of malformed peoples... human, dwarf, gnome ...forced t' displaye themselfs t' a gawkin public at th' Wringling Sisters' Sideshow.

Flucky spat upon the ground of the library, his blood pressure rising at the thought of the 'malformed' gnomes to which this author was refering. ~~damn!why couldn'tIfind "YeHistorieof yeGreeteWarresof yeWeste andye TragikAftermathe" byAetherfels ofVernalia or"EspeciallyDullTopics inThermodynamics" byRobert theObtuse!!!~~ He had little inclination to read this book, but did not throw it away either, for it was one of the last of the dragon's horde. He carried it to Chucky.

"Whatcha got!" said Chucky with excitement, hoping that it might be a tome of mystical powers. When he learned it's title, he too was less than impressed. But he took the book and walked over to the second, more damaged book. "We can take this one but we'll have to go slow or it'll fall apart."

After giving the library another look-through Chucky decided to poke within the Nock book before heading out. Sitting upon an ash-covered desk he opened it to a random page:

Homeotic mutants be gripping in theyr wyrdness, but what dost theye teach us about th' Will of th' Life-Gods? We must avoid, I dost believe, th' tempting but painfullie naive idea that theye representest th' long- sought 'hopeful monsters' that mightest validate extreme fanaticist views that goodness can be found within evilness (a notion that I regardest as a fantasie borne of insufficient appreciation for th' destruction that even a child of evil can doeth t' th' world).~~

"Damn straight!" growled Chucky as he closed the book and put it back into his handbag.

"What'sthat?"" asked Flucky.

"Monsters are monsters and that's that!" he answered. "I might actually like this book."

1. Before they can leave the library, however, other creatures entered, and as Chucky had just so eloquently noted: monsters ARE monsters!
2. Chucky and Flucky try to leave the cave. Somebody has other ideas.

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