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(Insert Title Here) BoB

     It was one of those traditional gatherings, one of those gatherings that was almost ritual. The novices were taking competency exams, so the rest of the guild, went to have a rather loud, incognito breakfast at a cafe somewhere in Harbortown. The group stayed pretty much split, with a few on one side, a few on the other and a handful of nomads going between them.
     The gathering wasn't meant to be a time of rejoice, nor a time of mourning, just a time that was needed for being away from the guild hall.
     "How many of them do you think we'll have to get rid of this time around?," Gringito sat sharpening and polishing the blade that Bob had given him just before aftermath.
     "Probably not too many, we'll get another bunch of Brunhildas, if we're lucky," Bob sat in the corner booth, "I might even get to kill them again!"
     "Bob! The death of Brunhilda was a sad time and you don't get to do it again," Gringito tried to look serious, "But it sure was an interesting way to get rid of a novice!," he burst into laughter.
     Durrack walked in carrying a bundle of clothes and a fishing pole. He looked like he had just come from a wild week and a half of fishing.
     "What's going on?"
     "Not too much," Bob motioned him to sit, "Where'd you go?"
     "Gone fishin, and caught a big ole fish, but I let it go."
     "Well, ok. What were you doing fishing?"
     "Getting out of the playhouse."
     "Well good, you needed it."

* * * * * *      The group on the other side was getting a little loud. Almost as though they had engaged in an argument of guild proportions.      Pumbaa stood up and belted out "... hey! That tournament was cool! We need to have another.
     But he was silenced because they were trying to stay quiet. The group was getting restless, and needed to be let out of reality and pushed elsewhere. Bob stood up in his booth and proceeded to motion for everyone to leave quickly and quietly. Everyone left more than enough to cover everyone else's bill.
     Then the group went into the outside world, which was a frightening experience. They were faced with real people carrying on real lives and dealing with authentic problems. So everyone flocked to the playhouse for more loud and fun.
     It was a royal pain in the arse, trying to get everyone to move to a centralized location. It was a lot like trying to herd hyperactive 3 year olds. They all had their own ideas about what they want to do, but if they wanted to go they had to stay with Bob.
     "I feel like Little Bo Peep," Pookie walked behind the group. And then it happened. He saw the best outfit in the world, so he went and bought it.
     Bob stood up on a bench to make sure everyone was with the group. Ba'al jumped up on the bench and whispered something into Bob's ear.
     "Say WHAT?!," Bob looked around at the group, and then back at Ba'al. "Pookie did what?!" He got off the bench and walked towards a cart of apples. There was a person in a blue dress and a rather large, hook shaped cane.
     "Excuse me," Bob uttered, "I'm looking for a guy that was just with our group."
     "BOB!," Pookie turned around.
     "What are you doing?!"
     "I'm buying an apple."
     "No no, what are you doing in that dress?"
     "Oh, I was just saying how much I felt like Little Bo Peep, so I decided that I'd better look the part too."
     ". . .," Bob turned around and resumed course to the playhouse. "I have strange feeling that I'm on a voyage to the twilight zone."
     Durrack looked at him and commented, "Well, at least we didn't have to pick him up for posing as a woman or indecent exposure," he laughed, "and we didn't have to go to lost and found to get him...," he was on the ground laughing.
     "Durrack, it's really not that funny," Durrack turned an unhealthy shade of purple, "Wait, no, you've been smoking that weird stuff again haven't you?," Durrack was now almost out of breath. "You'd better take a breath pretty soon," Bob walked away, "on second thought," Bob walked back, "don't. If you're gonna get involved with that again, I don't want anything to do with you. You can kiss your room in the Playhouse good-bye, and you can kiss our friendship good-bye," Bob walked away, "When you're sober, we'll talk."
     The group proceeded to the Playhouse as a herd of hyperactive, slightly disoriented, loud group. They stopped at a small glen, under a sign. Jamethiel looked up and squawked at it, she pulled Asthras over and pointed out the sign, "Interesting." Jamethiel looked at Bob, then at the sign, and then at Pumbaa and back at the sign. She squeaked again.
     "You guys put up an advertisement?!"
     "Yeah," Bob replied slowly, "It's generally a good way to get business, you know, so that we can stay open?"
     "Yeah, but why not just use fliers or something?"
     "Because we needed something new. Something original. So we came up with the bobboard."
     "The WHAT?!"
     "What? You got a better name for it?," Pumbaa asked, "We thought it was fine."
     "Well, if it will make you sleep well, Bob, then I s'pose there's not much I can do. But I still think the name should be changed."
     To what?"
     Jamethiel shrugged, and some villager yelled out "Billboard!"
     Bob looked at Pumbaa, they both shrugged, "OK!" *****************      By the time they had all reached the Playhouse it was dark, everyone was tired and wanted to go to sleep. So Pumbaa took half the group and Bob took the other half and they were split into guest rooms.
     Quinine sat in his bed and looked around the room, particularly at the desk. It looked like Bob had used this room as a study. (But he knew better and knows that Bob doesn't study.) There were inks of all colors, pens of all sizes, book bindings, papers and book stamps.
     He went over to the bookshelf to see what was there. He ran his finger across the hard leather bindings and then pulled one out that had an interesting stamp.
     "I can't believe he uses stamps to identify his books!," he pulled out and opened one of the books, "Normal Life?! Why would he, or anyone, call a book Normal Life! I wonder if it's an instruction manual for learning how to live a normal life." ************      Bob went up to his room by way of the bar and maze. He wandered through the maze, making sure that Pumbaa wasn't passed out somewhere in the depths of the concrete tomb. He wasn't. So Bob kept nursing his drink and wandering, getting lost, himself.
     "What is the point? I just don't get it," He was talking to a statue on a painting on a wall, "I just don't understand what drives a person to want to do something that would mess up their body so bad."
     Durrack stumbled through, mostly sober. "I thought I might find you here."
     "What do you mean by that?," he sat down.
     "Well, besides an acute shortness of your personalized bar glasses, and a prominent supply here, I figured that all I had to do was follow the smell of liquor," Durrack sat next to him, "I'm really sorry about this afternoon..."
     "You know, I would've that you, being mostly mortal, would give you some perspective on how valuable life truly is. I'm not mortal, so I do what I want because I know it wont kill me. I've had a very long time to screw around with what I can get away with.
     "I don't think that can truly appreciate being able to die unless you have a couple times. Sometimes I wonder why I'm immortal. Why do I have to stay here and find out what's going to happen? What makes life so valuable that I have to stay here and live it?," Bob looked seriously at Durrack, "What makes life so fuckin valuable that I have to live to see every last moment of it?!"
     "...I don't know," Durrack trailed off.
     "The simple truth is this: I live everyday to see how people deal with the different scenarios. I live everyday because I have my ghosts from the past that haunt my mind, ghosts that will be there and accumulate until I die."
     "Durrack looked at him, looked deeply into his him and then stood up, "Bob, we've been friends for an extremely long time, and I see that you seem to understand what livin' the good life means. So I figure that I owe you the benefit of the doubt on this one," Durrack pulled out a small tin, "This is the last time I'll carry this little tin. I'm all done with this stuff, but I'm gonna need your help."
     "You've got it." ************       Forzan tiptoed around his room, not knowing what else might jump out at him from the 2" shag carpet. He picked up the letter opener that was on the desk and backed over to the door.
     As he reached back to open the door he caught a ripple of moving shag out of the corner of his eye. Panicking and unsure, he struggled with the doorknob, hearing the muffled "waves" of shag moving closer to him. He turned around in time to watch the waves disappear towards the closet. So he went back to the desk again, feverishly looking for the key to the door.
     He dug through the drawers but didn't find a key, instead he found a toaster. He made his way back to the door and tried to kick it open. The waves of shag came out of the closet, Pookie watched the ripples in the carpet. As they got closer and closer, Pookie got more and more paranoid. In an act of self-defense, he threw the toaster at the lump in the carpet.
     There was a muffled grunt, and then there was no more movement. Pookie went to investigate the lump.
     "Are you ok?," he carefully walked over to the lump, "I didn't mean to hurt you," he reached into the pile of shag and pulled out a small being, roughly the size shape of an Ewok. It had a large cut on it's head.
     Pookie put it back into the rug and walked away. ************      Bjorn and Gamora found themselves on the pool level. The air smelled of salt and moldy wood. There was a rather large noise coming from out in the hall, they both headed for the door and discovered Pumbaa had not locked their door. They left their room.
     The noise was constant and from the direction of the pool. It was almost like there was a pool party going on. They ran back to their room to get appropriately dressed and equipped.
     When the two of them reproached the pool doors, they pumped their water guns, made sure the water balloons were securely fixed and the air horns were easily accessible. Bjorn kicked the door open, a white fog flowed out from the room and the noise stopped. Bjorn and Gamora walked slowly into the pool, making sure to look at everyone.
      "That one!," Gamora said pointing at Ba'al. They took aim with their guns and fired. They both emptied their tanks, when they turned around they saw everyone else in the pool leveling their weapons at the two of them.
     "Ummmm...... hi?," the two of them made a move for the pool, but Pumbaa arose from behind the group with a large piece of water weaponry leveled at them.
     "Mthd dirn," He sounded resoundingly like an old mafia Don, smiling slyly.
     "He says don't move," some little henchman novice said from the left of him.
     "Bjorn, grab your air horn," Gamora whispered.
     They both reached for their air horns. Pumbaa pulled the trigger at the same time Bjorn and Gamora blew their air horns. The water from the gun and the sound from the air horns met mid-air. The two combined and then vaporized. The room was filled with a thick fog. Both ladies slipped quietly into the hot tub and listened to the rest of them be confused.
     "Success," they sat quietly in the pool.
     After the steam cleared a little, Pumbaa went over to the two of them in the pool, still armed with their water balloons.
     "Why did you do that?"
     "Why?"
     "Because it's just one of those days," Bjorn soaked him with a water balloon. ************      Bob and Durrack found their way out of the maze and to the stairs down to the main floor. On the way to the kitchen for something to eat, they met up with Gringito and Taliesin wandering into the dining room.
     Bob grabbed a sandwich for himself, went into the private lounge and sat in his chair. Gringito and Taliesin came in after Durrack sat down.
     "Can't you see the sign on the door?," Durrack was being impatient.
     "Yes I can see the sign. I'm here to see Bob though," Taliesin snapped at Durrack. Durrack sank into his chair and tried to fall asleep.
     "Bob, can we go up to the roof?, Taliesin motioned that it would be Gringito that would go with.
     "Why?"
     Gringito looked at Taliesin and shrugged, "Ummmmm, because we want to."
     "Ok, well, I"m gonna finish my sandwich and then I'm going to do an inventory check, and then I'll take you both up. OK?"
     "Sure," they disappeared into the halls. ************      Jamethiel and Torisen sat in their room, "I can't believe they expect us to sit in this room! I'm going to see what's actually here," Jamethiel stood up and went to the door.
     "I think that whatever you choose to do, you should mind where you go."
     "Why's that?"
     "Because this place is huge and intentionally built to be confusing."
     So Jamethiel opened the door and stepped quietly from the room. After looking both ways down the hall, she decided to head towards the lighted ladder. When she got there she began to smell the salt and moldy wood.
     "That's definitely a smell I wouldn't want in the Guild Hall," she wrinkled her nose and proceeded up the ladder, "I can't imagine why he would want that smell. I sure he could fix it with some cedar or something."
     She reached the top of the ladder and was immediately greeted by the guards, "Where are you going?"
     "I'm looking around this place," she tried to push her way through the guards.
     "Miss, unless you have an escort, you can't go through this part of the building."
     "Why not?," she grew agitated.
     "Because, Miss, this floor is for members only"
     "Well, how do I become a member?"
     "Talk to Bob, Pumbaa and Durrack," they started to hook her up with rappelling gear.
     "What the hell do you think you're doing?!," she tried to weasel herself free, "if you touch me there again I'll kill you!"
     "We're sending back down the chute. And I don't think you could even hope to give us a paper cut, much less kill us," they backed her to the edge, "have a nice evening."
     "I'll bring this up with your superiors!"
     They laughed, " I'd like to see him do anything about it," they pushed her down the chute and watched to make sure she went all the way to the bottom before retracting the ladder into the side of the chute. "My superior told me not to let her up here," one guard explained to the other. "They told me not to let her off the first floor."
     "Well, I'll have to be sure to tell Bob and Pumbaa about how rude these guards are," she stood up, and looked up the chute and saw no ladder. "Well, I guess I'll just have to find another way up." She unhooked herself from the gear, it retracted itself. ************      Lothar and Asthras wandered the halls stopping at every so often to look at some particular nothing in general.
     "I wonder if the Peggum court is still open," Lothar sat down in the hall.
     "I'm sure I wouldn't know," Asthras stepped around a corner. Lothar stood up and followed her.
     Asthras stood in silence facing a slightly open door, her jaw hit the floor. Lothar came around the corner and nearly knocked her over.
     "Sorry!"
     "Shhhhhhh," she pointed at the door, "look at that!"
     "Pretty cool, huh?"
     "I wonder how they can keep that many in one place," Asthras walked slowly closer.
     "What do you mean? This is a library, they're supposed to have it full. In fact there's another one just like it upstairs."
     "Are you serious?," her eyes grew wide and then she passed out.
     "Shhhh," the librarian stood at the door of the library, tapping her foot and holding a ruler. ************      Bob rang the bells to signal that dinner was ready, and everyone came running to the formal dining room doors. Bob pointed out the more basic "etiquette" for the dining room.
     "Since this is not the Guild Hall, and it is my source of income, I'd appreciate it if you would behave like the civilized folk that I know you are. So go ahead into the dining room and take a seat, order a drink and wait for everything to be placed before you dig in. Also, please no food fights, I paid a lot of money to get all the stains out from the previous party. Lastly, please keep in mind that my servers are trained, so they can be left to do all the work. They will serve you and clear your plates.
     "Oh, and one final thought, this isn't a fine dining experience and if for some reason you're feeling a little generous, you may leave a tip. But you don't have to, and I don't recommend it. I pay them quite well."
     "After dinner there will be a pool party downstairs," Pumbaa offered, standing next to Bob.
     "If you don't feel like cramping up and dying, Bob and I are sponsoring a pool and darts tourney up in the bar. Grand prize is undecided as of yet," Durrack stood next to Pumbaa.
     "Needless to say, there's plenty to do here tonight. So please enjoy your night."
     "Let's eat!," Bob opened the doors to the dining room and welcomed everyone in.
     The group filed into the the dining room and enjoyed a civilized dinner. A few people went down to the pool and all the others went upstairs for the tourney. ************      The next day, the guards picked up the passed out bodies and took them to separate rooms, the cleaning crew set to work in the bar and around the building. All in all, the cleanup wasn't as bad as they thought it would be.    The End

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