Things Only a Man Can Do

Originally posted on Tales of the Parodyverse.

Characters in this story are owned either by myself, or other posters on
the Board.

With apologies to Terry Pratchett...

One of the disadvantages of bring the High Priestess to a Blasphemous Elder Creature who tends to ignore (or badly misunderstand) any effects in the lower sixth dimensions, is that you end up with no real sense of time. After all, when a single day can be spent in several different places along the time axis, the idea of a personal calendar tends to become a little silly.

Thus, when the Shoggoth greeted Ebony with the happy news that it was "that" time of year again, her response was "Oh gods. Not already."

It should be noted that - unusually for a High Priestess - Ebony was an equal-opportunity atheist.

It was the time of year that, for obscure religious reasons, the High Priestess of the Manga Shoggoth needed a man.

At least she had a little more choice these days. The men of the Refuge were usually excluded from the list (except in emergencies), and her job tended to give her a rather limited social life. These days, however, she had such luminaries as the Lair Legion to fall back on.

She gave the male contingent a quick mental run-down whilst soaking in her onsen.

Mumphry Wilton: By all accounts would have been a good choice if he were about a century and a half younger.

Hatman: A possibility, but he was really too nice to be exposed to such a thing.

Visionary: He would have been good, except for the fact that several other females would object, and probably take it out on him. Besides, given his relationship with the Caphans, it was probably best to give him honorary "Man of the Refuge" status.

Yo?: Although any dimension would be improved with the addition of Yo, in this case, Yo = No.

Pot luck, she thought, and started the long journey to the Lair Mansion.

As it turned out, the available parties were Al. B. Harper, CSFB and Trickshot, who listened attentively to her tale.

"The Shoggoth deals with many alternate dimensions and realities. Many years ago, one of my predecessors was taken from one such realities. In this reality the world was conquered by the Amazon nations. They built a great civilisation, made many advances, and eventually discovered the secret of life itself. As their civilisation grew, men became less and less important, and when the secrets of life were discovered they realised that they could do away with their menfolk altogether.

"This, of course, was their curse. Only when they had wiped out all their men did they realise that they had certain... needs that only a man could supply. As a result, they gave up one of their number as a High Priestess to the Shoggoth, in return for the supply of one man, for one week, once a year."

This, of course, caught the immediate attention of CSFB and Trickshot, who (perhaps with some truth in one case) considered themselves God's gift to women.

Al, on the other hand, beat a hasty retreat. As he worked closely with such persons as Amy Ashton and Miss Framlicker (both of whom disclaimed any interest in him whatsoever, sometimes quite often), he felt that discretion was the better part of saying alive and not being castrated. Ebony was a little upset about that - Al might have been a good choice.

Trickshot and CSFB making their cases was, well, embarrassing. CSFB made a big thing of his experience, including going one-on-one with Kama Sutra during the Lair Legion World Tour (admittedly he came second, but that was only because of two dislocated legs). Trickshot's résumé, on the other hand, was colourful, wide-ranging, and probably not in the least bit true.

In the end, it came down to a round of Jan-Ken-Pow, both parties blindfolded to negate any advantages of a super-fast reaction speed. CSFB still won.

A few minutes later, Megan Foxx entered the room, just in time to see her little boy disappearing into some weirdly-glowing portal. Not being a chthonic scholar (and being - arguably - sane) she did not recognise it as a highly customised chymeric gateway. She did, however, recognise it as a sanity-mangling glowing gateway into which her son had just disappeared, and noted the presence of the High Priestess of an Elder Creature in the room. Megan was quite capable of simple addition. Naturally, she demanded an explanation.

Ebony recapped her explanation. Trickshot started to check for available cover.

"So, there is a world of women that have removed men from the equation of life.", Megan summarised in a flat voice.

Ebony nodded.

"Women that haven't seen a man for a year."

Ebony nodded again.

"And you have sent my little Dream there for a week."

Ebony nodded. Trickshot prepared to dive for cover.

Megan exploded into howls of laughter.

The week passed. Pretty much the entire legion were present to welcome home the conquering hero. Megan had stocked up with candy and drinks.

At length, the chymeric gate opened, and CSFB staggered through, supported by two undeniably amazon women. His hair was tangled (rather than simply being chaotic), he looked like he had attempted to pass through a hedge several times, and the thumb and forefinger of his left hand were badly bruised. He looked exhausted. As it happened he could just about stand up, managing three steps towards the sugar supply before collapsing. He then crawled the rest of the way.

One of the Amazons turned to Ebony and Megan, and made a fine obeisance.

"Most Holy; Matriarch; We apologise for the condition your male is in. When we explained our desires he threw himself wholeheartedly into fulfilling them, but he began to flag after the first day."

Not wishing to give the matriarch the impression that her male was useless, the other amazon added "Even then he did his very best, but he was hungering for something that our food did not contain. Something called kolah?"

"It's OK" replied Megan. "I guess that a world of Amazons wouldn't have much truck with junk food."

The pending discussion was interrupted by the first amazon noticing one of the other occupants of the room.

"Most Holy, Who is the venerable male over there?"

"That is Sir Mumphry Wilton, leader of the Lair Legion."

To nearly everybody's surprise, the two amazons made a deeper obeisance to him.

"Mumphrywilton," one of them intoned formally. "We are honoured to be in your presence."

There was a stunned silence in the room, broken only by the weak sound of scarfing from somewhere under a pile of candy.

"You know him?" ventured Trickshot.

"Why, yes." replied the first amazon, a level of awe still in her voice. "He is a legend amongst our people."

"He did in one week what most mere males would have required months to do." added the other "We had to add many of our people to the chosen to keep him occupied for the week."

The silence changed from "stunned" to "shock and awe".

"On her deathbed, my grandmother insisted that her urn be placed on the shelves he put up. And they are still as stable as the day they were first raised." said the first amazon, with evident pride.

"Well," said Sir Mumphrey modestly. "One should always do a good job."

He then noticed the confused stares from everyone in the room (except Ebony, Megan and CSFB).

"Well? What else did you think they needed men for?"

Footnotes:

The idea behind this story came from Faust^H^H^H^H^HEric, the first illustrated Discworld novel; written by Terry Pratchett and illustrated by Josh Kirby. I quote:

In the jungles of central Klatch there are, indeed, lost kingdoms of mysterious amazonian princesses who capture male explorers for specifically masculine duties. These are indeed rigorous and exhausting and the luckless victims do not last long.*

* This is because wiring plugs, putting up shelves, sorting out the funny noise in attics and mowing lawns can eventually reduce even the strongest constitution.