Botober 21: The Stinky Mountain
Oct. 21st, 2020 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alfvaenBotober story 21 here...a little bit juvenile perhaps, but they started it. The prompts, that is:
The Stinky Mountain
Karena wrinkled her nose as a cloud of stench passed over her. "Margarelon!"
"It wasn't me!" the brownie protested. "Oh no! Look!" He pointed up at Mount Malone.
The heretofore pretty and friendly-looking mountain had cracked open near the top and stinky clouds were drifting out of a hole. "Ick!" Karena said. "We have to fix that mountain! Or else all the pudding inside will leak out and we'll all be buried up to our necks!"
Quickly they jumped onto Karena's flying pillow and flew up to take a look at it. The hole was bigger than she'd thought from down on the ground. The crack wasn't growing any wider, though. "If we can plug the hole, maybe it'll fix things," Karena mused.
"But that hole is so big! What can we use to fix it?" Margarelon wailed.
Karena thought. Chewing gum? No, they'd need all the gum in the kingdom to plug a hole that size, and they'd never be able to chew it in time. A bathtub plug? But nobody had a bathtub that big, not even Selma the Cyclops. It would be cruel to put an animal in there, because it would have to stay there forever and would get really, really bored. "Maybe some kind of plant?" she said.
"The trees aren't big enough, and even if they were we wouldn't be able to carry them," Margarelon said. "But wait--what about one of those big mushrooms? They're pretty light!"
So they zoomed back down to the meadow on the flying pillow and found a field of giant mushrooms. Karena was pretty sure they weren't intelligent; at least, she'd never heard them talk, not like the big flowers. Margarelon got some measuring tape and they checked a bunch of them until they found one that was big enough to plug the hole. Then they went and borrowed Selma's big crosscut saw and slowly sawed through the stalk of the mushroom. It was too big to fit on the flying pillow, but they tied a rope to it and then to the pillow.
The mushroom wasn't that heavy, but it was big and unwieldy and swung back and forth as they lifted slowly into the air. They both made sure they were strapped securely to the pillow, which was a good thing, because the pillow flipped completely over once and it took several minutes for Karena to flip it back upright. But eventually they made it up the side of Mount Malone, the mushroom swinging like a pendulum underneath them.
Karena inched the mushroom over closer to the hole, coughing as another stinky cloud burst forth. "Yuck!" she choked. But she got the stem of the mushroom into the hole, and then lowered it further. Margarelon jumped off onto the slope of the mountain and helped push the mushroom further up, until it was mostly blocking the hole. Karena cut the rope, then they both tamped the mushroom into the hole as much as they could. Finally, satisfied it would stay in place, they rode the lightened pillow back down to the meadow.
Everyone in the meadow cheered as they came back, glad they wouldn't have to smell those stinky clouds from the mountain any more. Selma the Cyclops made them all a gigantic pudding pie, and they all ate pie until they couldn't stand another bite. "At least we're not buried up to our necks in it, right?" Margarelon said.
- Things: A soft pillow that can fly
- Concepts: Pudding
- Advanced: A flatus cloud
- Terrible: A plug
The Stinky Mountain
Karena wrinkled her nose as a cloud of stench passed over her. "Margarelon!"
"It wasn't me!" the brownie protested. "Oh no! Look!" He pointed up at Mount Malone.
The heretofore pretty and friendly-looking mountain had cracked open near the top and stinky clouds were drifting out of a hole. "Ick!" Karena said. "We have to fix that mountain! Or else all the pudding inside will leak out and we'll all be buried up to our necks!"
Quickly they jumped onto Karena's flying pillow and flew up to take a look at it. The hole was bigger than she'd thought from down on the ground. The crack wasn't growing any wider, though. "If we can plug the hole, maybe it'll fix things," Karena mused.
"But that hole is so big! What can we use to fix it?" Margarelon wailed.
Karena thought. Chewing gum? No, they'd need all the gum in the kingdom to plug a hole that size, and they'd never be able to chew it in time. A bathtub plug? But nobody had a bathtub that big, not even Selma the Cyclops. It would be cruel to put an animal in there, because it would have to stay there forever and would get really, really bored. "Maybe some kind of plant?" she said.
"The trees aren't big enough, and even if they were we wouldn't be able to carry them," Margarelon said. "But wait--what about one of those big mushrooms? They're pretty light!"
So they zoomed back down to the meadow on the flying pillow and found a field of giant mushrooms. Karena was pretty sure they weren't intelligent; at least, she'd never heard them talk, not like the big flowers. Margarelon got some measuring tape and they checked a bunch of them until they found one that was big enough to plug the hole. Then they went and borrowed Selma's big crosscut saw and slowly sawed through the stalk of the mushroom. It was too big to fit on the flying pillow, but they tied a rope to it and then to the pillow.
The mushroom wasn't that heavy, but it was big and unwieldy and swung back and forth as they lifted slowly into the air. They both made sure they were strapped securely to the pillow, which was a good thing, because the pillow flipped completely over once and it took several minutes for Karena to flip it back upright. But eventually they made it up the side of Mount Malone, the mushroom swinging like a pendulum underneath them.
Karena inched the mushroom over closer to the hole, coughing as another stinky cloud burst forth. "Yuck!" she choked. But she got the stem of the mushroom into the hole, and then lowered it further. Margarelon jumped off onto the slope of the mountain and helped push the mushroom further up, until it was mostly blocking the hole. Karena cut the rope, then they both tamped the mushroom into the hole as much as they could. Finally, satisfied it would stay in place, they rode the lightened pillow back down to the meadow.
Everyone in the meadow cheered as they came back, glad they wouldn't have to smell those stinky clouds from the mountain any more. Selma the Cyclops made them all a gigantic pudding pie, and they all ate pie until they couldn't stand another bite. "At least we're not buried up to our necks in it, right?" Margarelon said.
