"Blast it, Merilda, I told you to find me an orphan!" the all-powerful Wizard boomed in his den, while his goblins coward in the corner.
He stood before his caldron, which brewed the image of a head of a person with which Butterbeard was speaking to. The old hag looking back at him from atop the pot look neither amused nor threatened by Butterbeard's shouts. "You didn't specify 'orphan'," the pale, wrinkled face said in a patient monotone. "You said grab a human child who looked lonely. You're just lucky I found a male that fit the bill-you can thank me now for assuming that preference for you."
The bill she was referring to was an agreement the old wizard had with the old witch-someone he loathed to associate with, but who usually was good at performing tasks for which he was too incompetent to do himself-though he'd never admit it. He'd paid her seven small rubies-jewels were the main form of currency among magical beings-in order to find him a non magical human of about 13-young enough to be trained to perform the tasks of a good tower slave-but old enough, Butterbeard hoped, that he would not be tasked with changing any diapers. The witch had lived up to her bargain, but had misunderstood Butterbeard's desire for an Oliver Twist type of orphan, as opposed to one with a still living mother-someone who would care should he turn up missing for, oh, a lifetime.
The high and mighty, or so he self proclaimed, wizard elder of the magical land in which witches, goblins, ghosts and zombies fought for supremacy, was not at all happy to learn that the boy he had chosen to become his new pet already had an owner. Or, as he called it, a 'mom.'
"Foolish hag of a toad's wart! Stealing a man is one thing, but stealing a child is serious business! Why do you think they always kidnap orphans in the big stupid adventure stories the humans read? Now the whole Earth is probably looking for him!"
"I wouldn't go so far as to say the entire Earth," replied the witch, who despite the mix up, had far more experience with mortals than she lead on. "Unless you plan on going back to the non magical realm, you won't even need to encounter the consequences of this. Why are you so worried?"
"Because!" he shouted, then suddenly grabbed his lips. "If the Order of Krudd were to hear about my trouble-making between the realms," he said in a low voice, "This could spell disaster…"
"For you," she snorted. "Fine, then. Send him to me, and I'll send him back-"
"What, are you mad!? He's already seen the place! He knows too much-that which the mortal eye should never see, less their innocence be ruined forever!"
The witch raised an eyebrow and didn't attempt to talk him into a relatively easy forget-me-do spell for the child. She was already thirty minutes into call with the wizard, watching him from the smoke of her own cauldron which created a wobbly but clear screen, he could sense that while Butterbeard called Gordo a mistake, he wasn't entirely ready to be rid of him. For whatever reason that was. He was just using the misunderstanding as an excuse to rant. "If you won't give me him back, then you're on your own with this one-oh, and I'm keeping the rubies," she said, giving a snake-charming smile. "I've already had some of them sent in for new earrings-don't they look lovely?" she said, pulling back her gray, spidery hair, to reveal quite gorgeous giant red gems studded to sagging lobes that resembled loose skin hanging off of a freshly boiled chicken.
Butterbeard tossed a glass of clear liquid into the caldron and caused the witch's head to evaporate from the fog above the rim, ending the wizarding call. When it came to Merilda, he was used to ending the call without a goodbye. The wizard zoomed away from the caldron and yanked one of his hand-written spell books off of the shelf, knocking over and smashing a jar of live beetles as he did.
"I knew I should have scouted this one out myself." the wizard proclaimed, tossing various spices and ingredients into his cauldron, causing the foam to go from yellow during the call, to blue bubbles. "Never trust a witch to do a wizard's job... "
Butterbeard bewitched a large spoon to stir the pot while he ranted and raved, circling his magical office, zooming over beetles, somehow managing not to step on a single one as they scattered for an exit. Lucky things. "This gives me a chance to use a spell I have been tweaking," he said aloud, finally starting to calm down. He tapped his fingers against his skull. "Let's see… a teenage boy is energetic…. Needs the hair of a rabbit, smelly, needs the tail of a warthog…"
As he spoke, he tossed the ingredients from his shelves into the pot, and the thick blue liquid bubbling up from the rim became two shades darker before the wizard was finished. After dropping a single hair from Gordo's head into the pot, he began chanting like a snake charmer above his caldron as the bubbles continued to rise, high above his head, popping and shrinking into smaller bubbles, which popped even smaller and smaller, until they on the whole took on the form of a child. As the microscopic bubbles became a solid mass, a dummy-Gordo was revealed. It looked exactly like the teenager Butterbeard currently had chained away in his cell, but upon asking the dummy "what is two times seven?" and having him respond, Butterbeard was pleased with the dummy's very non-suspicious answer of "POPSICLE!"
A perfectly normal human boy
, he thought smugly.
Though realistically, the only mortal familiar with Gordo who would ever buy that answer from him for a second would be his frustrated math teacher, the other problem with caldron dummies was that, though they looked real, and felt real when you poked them, and cried "OUCH" when you pinched their arms, they don't perform tasks well-as well as the person they are impersonating, anyway. Which, in Butterbeards eyes, meant they were perfectly suitable for living the lazy, mundane lives of the human mortal, while the real human was put to use for however long Butterbeard intended on keeping him. Or until the boy died. Whatever came first.
"If Gordo's mother is every bit as preoccupied as Gordo claims, she won't notice a thing," the wizard muttered to himself, generating a rip in reality from the tips of his own bony, magical fingers that would lead straight to the non-magical realm. Somewhere close to Gordo's school, if his coordinates were roughly correct. There he shoved the dummy through the rip and closed it quickly so as not to let him crawl back through. Considering for a split second whether it would have been wise to tell the dummy what to say when his mother and the police questioned him about his whereabouts during his 56 hour disappearance, the wizard quickly shook off the worry, sure that the dummy would think of something to say. Whether it be a logical, thoughtful lie or shouting the word "DOMINOES!" really didn't matter to Butterbeard. He did his part.
He dusted off his hands for a job well done, gazing around the room, feeling in control once more of the land that he so loved to believe he controlled.
The Land of Krudd, as it was called by locals, was conveniently tucked away between that realm of the non-magical humans and the one with the spider-frogs (which Butterbeard admitted he was quite fond of the latter). But far enough away from the eyes of mere metropolitan mortals that the shock of encountering it often left humans too damaged to send back. At least that's been proven to happen to him 8/10 times.
Other than being the disputed, but unchallenged most powerful wizard in the land, Butterbeard was notorious in the Land of Krudd for a number of things-one of which happened to be his ungodly curiosity of mundane, non-magical humans, and what magic did to their physical and mental well being. In seven hundred and more years alive, one could only spend so much time among goblins and witches and warlocks and other countless magical things before things became, well, tedious. These days, he hopped through realms more than the average solitude-loving wizard, and often brought back with him, what he called, 'Pets.' These pets, as it turned out, were men. Human men. Men who had no family, no jobs, no wives, no notoriety that when Butterbeard took them, they weren't very well missed (at least that is what he assumed, as no one came into the Land of Krudd to look for them. If they were looking for them, he thought, they must not be trying very hard.). Of course, it was easier for Butterbeard to try out his spells on the humans. They were just like wizards, but had no magical means with which to defend themselves. Other than being guinea pigs to his magical tests, with time and training, he figured they could serve him better than his loyal slave Goblins-Twinkle, and Rotten the Minus, respectfully. Often, the humans Butterbeard scouted for were ungroomed, rural looking fellows who resided in the rural parts of the English speaking world, and did not take easy to their surroundings in Krudd. So much so that they often they died of shock before Butterbeard could let them starve to death. (He was aware that humans needed to eat, but the old wizard was carelessly forgetful. And if he didn't assign Twinkle and Rotten the Minus to feed and water the human, there was nobody around with a non magical stomach to remember for him.)
But even with his slave Goblin's help, the humans didn't last very long. Their new enslavement often left them incredibly depressed, or insane. And that made Butterbeard depressed. Or annoyed. Mostly annoyed. And it finally occurred to the wizard that perhaps it was useless, and slowly he gave up on the project to introduce mortal men to Krudd. They were too set in their ways, these men, too old. And for three-hundred years, Butterbeard had given up his pet project.
Quite recently, however, it occurred to him that maybe he was simply looking for the wrong pet. That's where Gordo came in.
He was exactly the type of rock-brainwashed, rebellious, middle school attending youth Butterbeard had been hoping to get his hands on. What he hadn't accounted for, however, was for Gordo to turn that rebellious behavior on his captor. Though Butterbeard was well beyond the point of having children, for the first time in his life, the wizard was tasked with trying to train the rebellious teen into becoming an obedient child. And what he found was, children aren't quite like dogs after all-or goblins, for that matter. They don't just assume orders from a new master at the drop of a pointed hat. What Butterbeard didn't realize was that this was perhaps due to the boy's revelation a few days into his captivity.
Was Gordo scared? The first day, he was terrified, shivering in his cave. He dreaded most of all when Butterbeard confronted him. But then Gordo met the Goblins, that's when he made the critical realization. Seeing how incompetent they were made Gordo realize that his hosts were not so terrifying after all. Even he knew that Butterbeard, for as powerful as he was, and with no doubt that the wizard had the ability to do horrible things to him if compelled, that he could take all of his warnings, all of his threats, with a grain of salt.
At first, Gordo pretended to be as scared as he was when he first arrived, but after finding himself that the Goblins knew he could slip in and out of his shackles with ease, and as they didn't seem to have the mental space to fix the problem, Gordo relaxed further. When the Goblins were occupied, and Butterbeard was on a brief errand, he slipped out of his shackles and began searching the tower, getting acquainted with his surroundings. As his courage increased, so did the amount of distance he gave himself from his cell. He even found a small magical device that could charge his music player without the use of electricity (though the player might have now become radioactive). This was how he discovered that magical devices and non magical devices were compatible.
Remembering that home was rather miserable in its own ways-bullies, mean teachers, a mom who spent more time at work than at home-Gordo found that he didn't loathe the Land f=of Krudd as much as he did when he first arrived. In fact, his newfound enthusiasm was part of what compelled the old Wizard to want to keep Gordo-never had a human come so far as to like the place. What an insult! But still, very intriguing.
And since the goblins were in charge of his feedings and waterings-and they feared Butterbeard's wrath if they were to let the child starve-Gordo was fed quite often. It was still gruel, but notorious gruel for the growing slave in training.
As he curled up to sleep in his bed of hay, there was but one thing he did miss about the metro world-the warmth of his bed. The cell was comfortable through the day, but at night, the temperature dropped to dreadfully uncomfortable cold. And being so far underground was no help. The magically dimmed fire from the torches didn't offer much help for his situation.
It seems like he had just fallen asleep one night when he thought he heard a rustle outside his cell. Sometimes it was a rat scurrying across the floor, so at first, he payed no attention. But then there was a whoosh-much like Butterbeard made when he popped in and out of rooms. An apparition sound, but softer. With an audible shiver, he turned over in his hay bed lazily to see what the dumb wizard wanted, much like he would have done on a saturday morning back home towards his mother.
A pair of bright purple eyes was staring down right at him in dim light of the moon.
If Gordo were to ever scream once in his time in Krudd, now was the time.
"Shush!" a female voice shouted in a whisper, and Gordo noticed cherry lips moving beneath the large eyes. "Not so loud, you N.M! Your shrieking might actually wake the idiots!"
Gordo had flinched and covered his face, but lowered his arms as he was called. "W-What did you call me?"
"N.M.," she said, her voice risen to a low but comfortable volume above a whisper. "Non-Magical. That's what we call the non magical humans," she replied calmly. "At least that's the the more tasteful word for it. The ones from your realm have a number of impolite names here-Hang on," she said suddenly, twisting on her heel and snapping her fingers. All the cell torches simultaneously burst into brighter flames before Gordo's eyes.
He sat up straight in his bed of hay and stared back at the silhouette in front of his cell in awe. No longer a set of terrifying giant cat eyes in the moonlight, the girl that the voice belonged to looked to be just about his height, and roughly his age, but that's where the similarities ended. Now with better light, he could see an outline of her red hair and tanned skin. Her clothes were fitted, but just barely so, and tied at the waist with a rope. The often skimply-clad girls from his school would consider her day clothes pajamas. Actually, if it wasn't for her clothes, she looked just like a girl that he could have walked passed at his school before-well, that and her purple eyes.
"What's your name?" the girl asked.
"My name... is... uh…" he trailed off, suddenly forgetting everything about himself. Even with her face revealed, her purple eyes appeared so massive, he wasn't sure if they were really mouths that would consume him whole.
"Ugg? That's the name of that cave-person Butterbeard dragged in from the primitive regions. Too bad for him, the caveman thought he was a yellow club..."
"I mean," Gordo swallowed hard. He hadn't been without water, but suddenly his mouth was so dry, it felt like he had been walking through a desert. He couldn't remember the last time a girl had approached him like this-and he was only in Krudd for two weeks. Be cool. Be cool. Be cool! "It's Gordo. Gordo's my name."
"Fires, I hope that's not what he named you," she replied.
Now Gordo was no longer intimidated, but annoyed. "No, that's my real name! In the real world!"
She turned up her tiny, cute nose was a sight scowl, and 'hmphed' in fake offense. "Krudd's as real as anywhere else. I thought you would have been one of the smarter ones, you having lasted this long."
Her eyes briefly fell on the shackles dangling empty on the wall behind Gordo, forcing Gordo to look back at them with her. It must have crossed her mind that Gordo had found his way out of the cuffs without magical assistance. In truth, it wasn't so much that Gordo was smarter than the others who used to be stuck in the shackles, but that Butterbeard had not accounted for the hands of a thirteen year old to be smaller than the hands of a full grown man, thus much easier to slip out of the cuffs at will.
Seeing that this person apparently wasn't here to harm him, he mustered the courage to begin questioning her. "Who are you? What do you want with me?"
"Word of mouth was that Butterbeard brought home a new pet," she said, "And I couldn't stand the thought of him letting another one rot." She looked Gordo up and down. "I didn't know he'd go for a kid."
"Another… what?"
"Didn't he brag to you what this is all about? Butterbeard likes to take in non-magical humans as test rats. Been doing this for a few years now. The kingdom is pretty peeved with him, especially since he drags them in from other realms-disrupts the idea of magical and non magical harmony, or something of that nature, I don't remember exactly."
"Wait, that thing you did-with the torches…" Gordo's heart sank. The little bit of hope he had vanished. "That means you're one of them."
"One of what?"
"You know," Gordo shrugged, gazing away from her massive eyes, to the floor. "A witch."
"Oh, blazes no!" she dropped the sack she'd been carrying. "I'm no witch. I'm a sorceress… in training, anyway." She scoffed and put her hands to her hips. "You're not allowed to have full title until you're seventeen, no matter how much you throw around your fireballs-that's what dad told me."
"Your dad?"
"Has anyone around here happened to mention since you were here the name 'Inferno'?"
Gordo gulped. He had indeed heard this name in his time being here. While the self-proclaimed great wizard sneered and laughed at nearly every name he tossed around in Gordo's presence, clearly not intimidated by any of the magical lot he referred to, the one Butterbeard seemed to express genuine, unsarcastic loathing for was someone by the name of "Inferno." If the current Gordo, who had a better understanding of the true nature of the strange world before him than his unfortunate pet-predecessors, was going off his gut feeling, a wizard or whatever have you that possessed a name like "Inferno" was probably overcompensating for a real doubt in his intimidation. However, for as relaxed as Gordo was beginning to feel in Krudd, he still feared making Butterbeard angry-the boy still doubted that he knew more than half of what the unpredictable wizard was capable of. And if Butterbeard was intimidated of someone, it had to be nasty.
"Antisocial creatures, wizards are," she went on. "That's one of the differences between wizards and sorcerers-Sorcerers like to hop realms and build relationships, offering assistance with their powers. Wizards tend to stay by themselves, living in big, secluded places, like this tower."
Gordo gave himself a moment process the information before letting himself stand up and and walk to the end of his cell. "You never get caught breaking in here?"
"Sometimes," she said, a flame prickling out of the tip of her finger like a smoking gun, and she blew on it until the flame went away. "Though I prefer to not-it's a lot more fun to watch Butterbeard think he's gone senile when he can't find his jar of bird eyes, and what not," she smiled innocently, holding up one of the jars she stole just to mess with the old wizard's head.
"How did you get passed the Goblins?"
"It's not really that hard." She gestured over to the cell to the left, where the Goblins rested in snoring slumber, completely unaware of the intruder. "They're not light sleepers. Not even worth wasting a sleeping spell on." She looked back at him. "But if you're so worried, I'll collect my potion ingredients and be on my way."
She turned to leave, but just when she was five steps away, Gordo shouted, "Wait, stop!"
"Not so loud!" she hissed again, flipping her head back in such a way that her pigtails whipped the air. "You really do want to wake the idiots, don't you?"
He was struggling to form the correct words. "I thought…"
"You thought what?" she asked, coming closer once again.
"I thought… you… I thought were here to send me home!" Gordo sputtered, not afraid anymore of waking the Goblins. She was the first person to talk to him so frankly since he came here. Panic struck him in the chest to think of her just leaving him when he still had so many questions, let alone the thought that she might help him perform the magic needed to take him home.
"Oh!" her eyes trailed away from his to the sac she had brought, which was still laying on the floor. To Gordo, it was just like saying, You poor thing. You thought I was here to rescue you. "Well, I… would if I could, but I don't actually know how," she shrugged.
"What do you mean? You're magical!"
"Breaking through a cell is one thing," she said, "But traveling from realm to realm is a higher level of magic than what I'm capable of. It's actually a weaker point in my family-That's why I'm trying to branch away from just the Fire Arts now, before I get my license. She clasped a hand to her chin. "But maybe I could read up on trans-realm spells…"
"Do you think you could send me back if you knew how?" Gordo asked, with a hint of shyly. Despite that he was just coming to terms with the idea of spending the rest of eternity in this place, he wasn't entirely ready to shut the door on the possibility of ever going home if the opportunity presented itself. And the little feeling that had risen in his stomach at the idea that she was going to help him do that proved to Gordo that despite his lack of affection for the people and chores at home, he was torn.
"There are possibilities," she said politely, but with a frown. Suddenly he sorceress reached between the bars and tugged on his shirt to inspect for tightness, but in the teenage boy's mind, it registered as an unwarranted pass. "I see I wasn't too late."
"I'm not starving." Gordo swatted her hand away, then felt a twinge of regret. That was the closest a girl had ever come to touching him since he became old enough to appreciate them. "But, thanks, or something…" Sweat was beading on the back of his neck. How had the temperature changed so much just getting closer to her?
"I'll leave the sack with you, anyway," she said, picking up her bag and handing it to him through the bars. "I'm sure it's better than the slop he's feeding you."
Gordo was tempted to push it back at her. Something about this girl made him want to refuse her charity-he didn't want anymore help from her than he absolutely needed-but at the same time, he was desperately craving food that wasn't fit for a pig trout. He peeked inside, and seeing something that resembled dry cake made his stomach jump for joy. "Uh… thank you."
"You must be really special if Butterbeard has remembered to keep you fed and watered this long," she said, again kindly, but with the kind of frankness that confirmed to Gordo that Butterbeard did indeed tend to starve his pets. But this fact did not bother Gordo so much at the moment. When she said 'special,' he thought she might have fluttered her eyes at him, but maybe she had just blinked. He couldn't be sure. He couldn't look directly at her gaping eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. But he knew that something inside him definitely fluttered.
"Oh, I don't know," Gordo said, trying not to blush. "I mean, I pretty much destroyed the place my first day here. His head literally exploded."
"You did THAT to Butterbeard?" she cackled in such a way, Gordo wasn't sure if she was lying about not being a witch. "Fantastic!"
He forced himself a smile, at which point a harsh music suddenly erupted from his pocket. The girl's smile feel, and she backed away from the bars of Gordo's cell, alarmed. "What in the great balls of fire is that?"
Quickly, Gordo fished into his pocket to find the source of the noise. "Oh, it's my Uncopyrighted Musical Player," he said as he pressed the pause button in a way that she could see it. "I must have hit the 'play' button on accident."
"Musical player?" she asked in wonder. "You mean there's an entire band trapped in that little white rectangle?"
"Not just one band," Gordo smirked, feeling satisfied that he had something to impress her with," But a hundred. Look:" he gestured for her to come forward and read off the list as he put the player on shuffle and played a snip of each song. "Deaf Lion, Greenest Day, Dat Foregin Guy, Mudley Crude-"
"I've never heard music like that," she remarked. "How do you get all those musicians in there? To play at your will?" she asked, in dreamy wonder.
"It's called a 'Computer.'" he said, "I can tell you more about it-if you promise to help me get back home."
Gordo couldn't be sure if her expression said that she was aware that what he was really after was to spend more time with her. "Very well," she smiled cooly through cherry red lips. "I never thought I'd be making a bargain with a mundane human-Oh, and before I go..."
She reached up and untied one of her pigtails, combing through her hair with her fingers and gathering enough loose strands to roll together in her hands. Gordo could feel the heat radiating off of her as she generated enough friction to cause the hairs to burn up in her hands. The foul smell of burning hair was almost immediately replaced by something fresh and familiar. And when she unclasped her hands at last, a tiny red flower sat in her palm.
"Take this. It'll keep the place at an even temperature at night," she said as Gordo took it in his fingers. "Just give it a few strokes and it'll do it's job."
Despite being conscious of how weird it was to be sniffing what was essentially this strange girl's hair, Gordo held the little flower under his nose. The smell was now wonderful, but he didn't see how it could do what she claimed it could-it was only mildly warm to the touch. Rather, there was a part of him that wanted to ask her, and her radiating warmth, to stay a little longer. He had so many questions-about her, about Krudd, about everything. His head swarmed so much he almost forgot to ask a very important one. "Wait! You never told me your name!"
"Hottie," she said, with no hint of embarrassment. "Hottie McSizzle."
Gordo paused for her to give a sign that she was joking, and when she did not, a snort of laughter broke through. "Shut up! You're lying."
She turned up her nose at him, although her poster hinted that she wasn't as offended as she sounded. "Mortal boys." And she stormed away.
Gordo was tempted to call her back, but he did not know what to say. When she was out of earshot, Gordo let go of his breath. "And I'm supposed to be the one with the stupid name," he muttered rolling his eyes.
Having her leave left an empty space in his chest that he hadn't noticed was there before. He lingered in front of the bars of his cell and the magically lingering warmth of her presence until he became aware of how tired he was, and reported back to his hay bed. A shiver or two later, he began rubbing the flower in his palms frantically, and at first he thought it was only the friction that was causing his hands to burn. But soon he realized the flower was quite hot, and held it away from his palm by the finger tip. And true to Hottie's word, the heat stretched around Gordo's immediate area like a,weightless, invisible blanket. Gordo tucked the flower into the pocket of his jacket and curled up into the hay, his head filled with the kind of content thoughts that didn't not belong in a prisoner's cell, but of mattress bed that he would have otherwise laid his head down on that night, were he not taken here against his will. Whereas Gordo ached for that mattress and that bed and that room of his on his first night in the cell, it seemed easier now to remember just how cold and lonely it actually was. Monotonous. While if his grades were any indicator that he wasn't the brightest kid in his class back home, he could probably hatch an escape plan and leave Krudd if he really put his mind to it. Yet he was beginning to feel more and more reluctant to leave this place.
If this teenage sorceress in training was more aware of the reality of things than Butterbeard and the other adults running this place-did the Goblins count as adults?- Gordo could see himself getting along just fine here. He drifted off into a restful sleep, his last amusing thought of the red haired girl who'd spoken so kindly to him turning his wizard master and his goblins into baked Alaska.
Like Robot Jones, Wizzard of Krudd is another cartoon by Greg Miller and Mike Stern that did not go as far as it had the potential to go. Unlike Robot Jones, this didn't even get passed the pilot stage.
This was a really good short. Few cartoon shorts from shows like Random Cartoons! prove they have the story potential worthy of being a full blown series. That's why only a handful of them (Chalkzone, My Life as a Teenage Robot, The Fairly Oddparents, in Nick's case) ever become shows-it's not just because they don't feel like funding everything that is tested as a short.
I don't even think the reruns of Random Cartoons are syndicated on Nicktoons Network anymore. It's a real shame they just passed up this one cartoon. Then again, Nick is probably still kicking itself for giving up Adventure Time after seeing what a cash cow that was.
I wondered if Krudd getting ignored might have been due in part to the wariness of stuff like Harry Potter for "supposedly" being satanic by certain cynical parental groups. Or if it was just very unlucky. I could believe either.
Anyway, these are some one-off bits of dialog inspired by the show. I doubt this is going to get a lot of attention, but it was fun to write, regardless. And if anything, it's working evidence how much this cartoon had going for it. Even so, I probably didn't do it that great a justice.
The Wizzard of Krudd & characters (c) Greg Miller & Mike Stern + Nick? I think the network still owns this even if it didn't get turned into a series but I have no idea.
