The Hall of Condiments

by Jon Hartford

:)" She ran out towards the guards before Ted or I could stop her.

  "HARUHI!" I shouted.

  The guards turned around at my shout just as she ran into them, knocking them both into the moat. They started panicking and splashing around, trying to climb up the slick walls, but were unable to get out. "Haha! Tough knights can't stand a little water? You two are pretty pathetic." I ran out towards the bridge, but just as I got to it the water next to them erupted in steam and spray. A huge gummy sea-monster surfaced and grasped the two mustard bottles with its rubbery talons.

  "Yo, dude, lookit' this." It said. "Jus' what I needed, bro. Grill party shoppin's all done. We gots the hot dawgs, we gots the buuuuuns, and now we gots the mustid. Can't be forgettin' no mustid."

  I watched the horror as it promptly abducted the mustard bottles and retreated in a swimming manner along the surface, its terrible gummy spikes and snout protruding above the fearsome deep. We ran across the drawbridge without looking back.

  The road curved through the fields back towards the forest. I ran along, barely taking time to notice the careful dressing of the salad fields, the juicing of errant crops, or the construction of a small cottage, made of cottage cheese. As we reached the edge of the forest, I stopped, panting, holding my burning sides.

  "Kenny-chan, you can't stop now. :o We must keep going!"

  I dropped to my knees, perspiration dripping on the cold, cruel ground. "Go without me... warn the world. Maybe you can get help before they tear me apart... before they end my small, humble life... but if you can't... just don't forget me, okay?"

  Haruhi kicked me in the head.

  "Oof!"

  "Get UP. >:( You fathead wuss!"

  "Alright, alright, just let me catch my breath..."

  She tapped her foot impatiently.

  Ted jogged up from behind us. "Great weather for a light run, isn't it?" he shouted, slapping me on the back as he kept going.

  "Hyperactive psychopath..." I panted.

  He sprinted past us and turned a corner ahead. We heard a scream.

  When Haruhi and I got to Ted he was brushing himself off and gaping at an unhappy-looking horseradish jar in a fancy purple cloak. It was adjusting a ridiculous pointed hat to cover its bald screw-on plastic lid. Haruhi spoke up. "Hai! :D Who are you? :O"

  The horseradish jar scowled. "Fools, peasants! Before you stands the most powerful wizard in this whole land. And there are a great many wizards in the land. In fact, out of all the wizards in the whole world, only the most powerful come here. And I'm the most powerful of them all."

  "O_o Oookay, well good luck with that, we're just going through here so we'll be on our way..."

  "Nay, take not a step further! If you do, I'll bring a horde of lightning bolts down on you all!"

  "Uh. Ted, can he do that?" I asked.

  Ted scratched his chin. "Hmm. No. The matter synthesizer can't make lightning bolts, since they're energy, not matter..."

  "Ha! Faker." I shouted. The horseradish wizard slumped and looked down at his feet.

  "...but of course, he could bring in a horde of giant hungry alligators or poisonous snakes or vicious crows or..." The forest around us was suddenly filled with a racket of horrible animal noises.

  "TED. What's wrong with you? You said you wouldn't help them."

  "Heh. Sorry."

  "Now, listen to me! You may pass, but first..."

  "Let me guess, three questions? :P"

  "...uh, no, first..."

  "Play a game of 'chess' with the 'gods' using us as pawns?"

  "...No, I..."

  "Pass some stupid contrived test? ^o.o^"

  "...HEY, STOP..."

  "Go on a pointless dangerous quest?"

  "AAHH!! Shut up." He threw his hat on the ground and stomped on it. "I quit. From now on I'm going to be a bard or minstrel or something."

  "O_o Oookay, well good luck with that, we're just..."

  "I know. I'll go along with you? Do you want me to come along and sing you a sorry tune while you mourn over your missing cup?" He pulled a lute out of a pocket and raised it to his lips.

  "You'll be useless. We don't need a bard." I said.

  "Sure you do... you have to have somebody there to exaggerate the great victory you're going to win..."

  "No."

  "...what if I promise to share royalties?"

  "No." I shoved him out of the way and we continued down the path. "You're probably tune-deaf anyway."

  "Hey, how did you know that?"

  We walked off and left the horseradish. He shouted something after us about a prophecy and horrible mortal danger. I couldn't hear what he said. It was probably unimportant.

  A few minutes later we reached the end of the forest and made it to the wall where we had entered. The half-finished and misspelled entrance sign was the happiest sight I'd ever seen in my life.

  "Sorry about not helping, Ken," Ted said as we walked up to the turnstiles, "this AI is obviously not intelligent enough to outsmart people. You won. But don't worry, I have tons of ideas for making beta 2 much better!"

  "Halt!" A swarm of mustard-bottle knights jumped out of the forest and blocked us with safety only feet away. "Good job, now seize them." The mayo king was carried out of the forest as the knights surrounded us. "What? You didn't think you could outsmart me, did you? Just when our plans are finally ready to be unleashed? With world domination minutes away?"

  "Noooooo. =( We won't let you!"

  "Ha. And just how do you plan to stop me? Who do you think you are?"

  Haruhi shoved one of the mustard knights away and stood up straight. "I'm from the UN Department of Rogue AI Prevention. :) My three-hundred agent response team will be here in moments with every kind of weapon known to man. Ha! :D"

  Ted and I looked at her. "Really? You're some kind of secret government agent?"

  "Yep. :D"

  "And there are three hundred agents about to swarm the building?"

  She paused. "Uh... well... there would be... if I had remembered to put in my time card this morning..."

  "Lock them in chains and drag them off. Let's get that power re-routed and turn this matter into an army."

  A group of bottles wearing lab coats tottered through the door and into the control room. "Yes, sire."

  "In less than ten minutes I'll have an army of millions of bottles ready to march on the nations of the world. If you worthless goofs have anything to do, you better do it now." He turned away and the knights started hustling us back away from the entrance.

  "Ted?" I asked.

  "I can't think of anything."

  "Haruhi? Isn't there anything you can do?"

  "Er... not unless you have a cell phone? =^.^="

  "No, I left it at the apartment. Ted?"

  "Don't own one."

  "Then... no. I can't do anything. /o.o"

  I shrugged. "Fine, I give up too."

  I heard a knock on the wall. Everyone turned to look. "Sorry to bother you folks, but we had a complaint about the noise in here. Could you try to keep it down please?" Two policemen stood at the entrance, the spokesperson an older man, with a hyperactive young trainee at his side.

  "I apologize officer, we're done with the ruckus. Sorry about that," the mayo king said.

  "Okay, just remember, you only get one more warning about the noise ordinance before we have to fine y'all." He turned to leave.

  "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO STOP." I lunged from the knights' grasps and plunged several steps before the they jumped on top of me. I pulled my head and one arm free from the dog-pile. "You have to help us stop the greasy mayo king from his horrible plans."

  The younger officer spoke up. "Sorry, but we can't join in your sick fantasies now. We're on duty. And, again, we're sorry to have been disturbed by you... I mean, sorry to have disturbed you. Bye." The policemen walked towards the elevator to leave.

  The mustard-bottle knights gagged me so I couldn't say anything else. The elevator reached our floor and opened to let in
the departing cops. A scientist bottle came around the corner and bowed in front of the mayo king. "All the power in the building is being redirected to the matter synths, sire. We'll have the army built in no time." I heard a high pitched whine start to sound behind us and turned to look as the slight noise changed into a roar like a jet taking off in the other end of the room.

  "We have to do something now, Ted!" I shouted into his ear. He shook his head and yelled back, "don't need to," and nodded behind us. With all the building's electricity redirected to the matter synthesizers, there wasn't any to run the elevators. One policeman was yelling into his radio and the other at the mayo king. The knights charged. I heard gunshots and yelling as the lights went out, plunging the chaos into even more chaotic chaos. Something hit me on the head and everything went completely black.

  A minute later the lights came back on. The floor in front of me was empty, except for the slowly winding person mover snaking out along the floor, motionless. I staggered to my feet and wandered into the entry way next to the elevator. Ted was arguing with the officers and motioning angrily at the control panel, which was shot up in dozens of places. Haruhi was staring out of a broken window at the skyscrapers nearby. I walked over to her.

  "Hai, Kenny-chan! ;) The matter synthesizer shorted out and started taking everything apart again. ^o.o^ So everything is okay now. :D" I looked down and saw a trail of something icky leading out of the window and down the side of the building. Haruhi picked up a phone from the control board and started dialing a number. "Er...I have to call in--the mayo king got out. :/ Who knows where that freak is now. :*)"

  I took the opportunity to leave while the cops struggled Ted to the floor and handcuffed him. A dozen reinforcements were taking over