Here I'm going to start a recap for every character and their original franchise that gets introduced with each chapter. So from the first chapter:
1. Cerebus (The long-running independent comic book Cerebus by Dave Sim)
2. Richard George (Also from Cerebus, as a parody of the Beatles' George Harrison and Ringo Starr)
3. Bacchus (The also long-running independent comic book Bacchus by Eddie Campbell)
4. Wednesday (The American Gods novel by Neil Gaiman)
The traveler's face was gaunt and travel-worn. His skin was dry and tanned, with even the bulge of his unusually large nose carved harsher and more arrow-like against his face. It might be weeks, or even months before it regained it's moist, fat sheen. Such was the price of long travel through the Dry Dry Desert.
Sweat could be the price of both desert heat and long work or travel, and at this moment it was the latter, the Southern climate being considerably less sweltering. So combined with a cool breeze, the traveler found the sweat a rather pleasant experience, so much unlike that lukewarm, sticky sweat that had characterized his body for the past 2 weeks.
It was only as a conclusive gesture of sorts, and not for any sweat-relieving purposes, that he took his prized red cap and wiped it across his brow. Stitched onto the quaint headwear was his first initial, a letter "M," and its removal revealed a nest of thick, short brown hair with a double-pronged sprout growing on the back– a pleasant, childish peculiarity in an otherwise adult body.
The rest of his face held a pair of large (although not by any means interconnected) blue eyes, and what might have been the most handsome, well-groomed mustache in the extent of the then-known world.
And below this singularly recognizable face was a pair of even more recognizable blue overalls. Not just typical denim blue, but a sort of eye-catching indigo blue, over a bright red undershirt. Tied around his waist was a leather belt complete with a substantial amount of holding devices for seemingly everything except a cup (the ingenious "cup holder" would not be invented until at least after 1300 NE). A long, powerful sledgehammer, a heavy wrench, a large leather pouch, and a stethoscope were its contents other than that instrument displayed most prominently on the belt: a sturdy, reliable plunger.
With white workman's gloves, the traveler rolled up his sleeves and put them at his sides, taking a deep, contented breath at the sight of the establishment he hoped would ease his weariness at least a trifle.
The bar was a short, long building of gray stone with a roof made of both thatched straw and elongated planks of timber. It struck the traveller as thoroughly medieval–that is to say, of the construction technology and style characteristic of the era in which he was living– but in an odd but placable way comforting. Having gone all-too-used to the bizarre architecture of the kingdom far north that he was… "escaping" from, it was nice to see another building that better resembled the places he was used to in his native home.
For whatever reason, he scanned the roof over many, many times. It was as if he were expecting it to be made of fungi, or some other such absurd notion.
The roof must have passed his inspection, because it wasn't much longer until he he smiled and strode towards the front door with it's "Open" sign. Which was another comfortably familiar set piece.
But something caught his eye.
A turtle. Sluggishly crawling, under duress of its heavy shell, across the hewn dirt between the traveler and the watering hole's front door.
The traveler froze in his tracks. His fingers began to twitch.
The turtle paid him no heed, it's long neck keeping its head level to the path ahead, perhaps determined to avoid the eye contact of superstitious, brightly-dressed foreigners.
The sweat on the traveler's brow intensified. His fingers twitched even more, inching themselves with the turtle's speed, and then a little more besides, to the large leather pouch on his belt. His legs began to wobble as well. Ever so slightly, his tight brown shoes rose above the dirt.
The turtle continued.
The traveler's fingers jolted backwards to the pouch, until only an inch away, ceasing mid-motion, and making a slow, jerky course to the sledgehammer.
The turtle had just reached the front of the door.
The traveler's fingers had almost just reached the sledgehammer, but had then precipitously changed their course back to the pouch.
The turtle was half-way across the door.
Sweat glistened from the traveler's brow as he remained half-paralyzed, half-ecstatic in indecision. His eyeballs swerved from turtle to belt from belt to turtle from turtle to belt…
The turtle had just passed the door's threshold, and was nearly out of the traveler's way.
Like a man possessed, the traveler suddenly grabbed hold of both the sledgehammer and the pouch– his physical strength and dexterity such that, without muscle definition under his sleeves, he could hold the sledgehammer competently in only one hand– and leaped a step back. His body hunched over into what could only be described as a fighting stance, as he stared down his "opponent."
Then he blinked. Slowly at first, and then rapidly.
The turtle was now well past his frontal vision.
The traveler's grip relaxed immensely on both the implements he had withdrawn from the belt, and he let out an enormous sigh of relief. Putting the hammer and the bag back on his belt, he once again wiped his brow with his cap. This time also as a concluding gesture.
His gloved hand found its way to the door handle, and making the required pull, he entered the bar.
Although the traveler had not noticed, the turtle had at one point raised its head in apprehension at the blundering buffoon.
Why the Koopas want to imitate these people, I have not the slightest idea. mused the reptilian.
–––––––
Cerebus was relying on the intoxicating effect of the alcohol to dull his sense of hearing, his interest in the conversation he was utterly failing not to eavesdrop on requiring such an effort of disinterest.
His combined aardvarkian and barbarian constitution was such that it took a very, very great quantity of alcohol to inebriate himself, so he tried to accomplish the same effect by drinking what comparatively little alcohol he had very quickly.
"Ale. Ale. Ale-er… stout." The barrage of orders, the rapid rise of the wooden mug off of the counter, the steady chug of beverage down his throat, and the quick press of the copper coin on the table over and over again were contributing each on their own to a repeating chorus of tavern activity. A chorus that reminded the bartender with some melancholy as he went to fetch the requested stout, that it was this volume of sound that was normally characteristic of several customers, not merely one.
"With some grenadine." added Cerebus hastily. Shrugging, the bartender complied, distilling the red bar syrup into the drink. It was then that he remembered that regardless of how well the bar did on any individual day, he still got paid by the owner. This thought soon returned him to a cheerful disposition.
While the speech of Bacchus and Wednesday began to slur and tilt against Cerebus' tall ears, like the rocking of a riverboat ferry as it hits strong currents, it was mostly comprehendible, and Cerebus' unwilling eavesdropping continued.
"What brings you to this fuckin' backwater?" said Bacchus.
Wednesday smiled. "Well, I might ask 'what brings one such as yourself so obviously far from any wine, women, and song,' " he gestured widely to the almost empty tavern. "But that might stretch the boundaries of propriety."
Bacchus' tight lips curved into what might have been either a thin smile of annoyance or humor.
"And what's gotten the classic old god talkin' like such a prude? Been hangin' around those city folk?" said Bacchus.
"I'm afraid that I find myself altogether too civil when in casual attire." replied Wednesday.
"Oh, I'm sure the barkeep wouldn't mind if you brought in one of your wolves just to fill up the air." Bacchus put a hand to his chin. "What was the name of the big one that bit my hand last time we met? 'Fickle'…'Freckle'…"
Wednesday half-chuckled, half-grunted.
From his perspective, the mostly-silhouetted figure of Bacchus could be seen much clearer. Its sides were lined with a series of long, unhealthy-looking cracks, stretching from his eyes to his ears to his mouth. Whether they were scars, wrinkles, or some disturbing fusion of both could only be guessed. The thin lips that they were beside were the exact same color as wine stains, and had tall, steep walls of skin above and below them, complete with their own light creases.
Meanwhile, from Bacchus' perspective, Wednesday's glass eye wasn't too difficult to make out, mainly because of how large and luminous both his eyes were. The reflection of light off of his good eye was like the flickers of campfire light off of a dark cave wall. Even the slightest movement sent the lights dancing hypnotically.
"Freki." replied Wednesday, snapping Bacchus out of his eyeball-enraptured trance. "It troubles me that you were only two syllables off. Why Bacchus, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you haven't been drinking your usual hogsheads of wine."
Bacchus rolled his comparatively bland (if alcohol-dulled) eyes. He made a forlorn glance towards a small, circular wooden pedestal at the other end of the bar.
Wednesday, perhaps from training, and certainly from personal knowledge of the man he was talking to, understood the glance's significance immediately.
"Is there a girl here?" asked Wednesday, his good eye glimmering just a little more so than usual. Suddenly, Bacchus' reason for staying in such an unremarkable bar became all too clear.
"A nymph more like." said Bacchus, using the term the same way others would use "angel" or "goddess." "The tavern dancer. If you haven't seen her yet–and it's obvious that you have not– then I can only hope that your death isn't entirely joyless."
Wednesday wanted to laugh at the joke, and maybe even challenge the assertion (although that would be unwise, as there were few better judges of beauty than the man he was talking with), but the 5-letter word in Bacchus' reply put him on edge.
Uneasily, he slumped in his seat, then sighed.
–––––––
"Oy shed… 'Dijja hear about th' wintah awp north?"
The words of the heavily-banged young bartender had to be repeated several times to Cerebus before they sounded like anything other than churned mush.
Cerebus' mug had been filled and refilled an uncountable number of times, and between his mystified eavesdropping on the strangers' conversation and the dull pounding of the ale behind his eardrums, it took him a few moments to process the question, even after hearing it.
Richard George sighed as Cerebus shook and adjusted his head with both hands. When he spoke, his voice came out in a sick, intoxicated wobble.
"Yeah… Cerebu-" he hiccuped. "-heard about the winter up-" he hiccuped again. He had once been told that hiccups were the drunkard's sneezes. "-north."
He took a deep breath. Or rather attempted to take a deep breath, as it was interrupted by more hiccuping. Yet a little of his hard, irritable gravel returned to his throat as he spoke again.
"Serves 'em right for leaving the old gods for that pussy 'Light' of theirs. Down here, we got real gods." The gravel in his throat turned to mush towards at end of his sentence as he hiccuped once more.
The barkeep shrugged with practiced neutrality, and was about to continue his task of wiping off Cerebus' mug when the door opened with a pronounced creak.
Stepping inside was the overalled traveler. He looked around the place, and was disappointed greatly by its emptiness, as it did not go well with the line he had been practicing the exclamation of for some time.
Nonetheless, he still said it.
"It's-a-me, Mario!"