New disclaimer: I certainly don't own MST, wish I would …
I guess you're going to spot the quote, unless, and I hope for your sake this is not the case, you haven't seen the "Final Sacrifice"-episode …
4. Master digger
The place where the treasure was supposed to be buried, was the castle owned by the notorious Lord Peter, before he died and consequently turned into a demonic spirit, who killed people he didn't like the look of.
Apparently the only difference to his habits as a living person had been that he didn't need any sleep in between killings any more.
Nowadays the castle was just a ruin and all that was left of its former splendour were the five pillars of the great hall, standing in a circle and in their middle, the infamous white marble step.
While everything else, even the walls, had fallen to decay, this plateau stood miraculously intact, and could easily be observed from any spot of the surrounding debris.
A curtain would have added the final touch. It was the perfect stage, practically aching for some traffic.
Wilhelm had wanted to take one of the citizens along, as a witness for the Rising of the Petermännchen. But what he'd got, after much bickering and throwing of various vegetables, was a small delegation: Roland the mayor, old Karl and his mate Fridolin, Bertwin of course and Mrs. Schenker, the innkeeper's wife.
Paul the blacksmith, strong and good-natured, had not volunteered but the general agreement was, that he was somebody to keep his head around supernatural phenomena. He had once been seen working through a thunderstorm.
The people had been curiously eager to come along, considering that they were all in deep awe of their local evil spirit and feared him with all due respect.
Right now, the lot of them was eyeing Jacob rather sceptically.
"Why is he going to do the digging? No offence meant, but he does look more like a paperclip-man to me …"
"What?" Wilhelm raised his voice in indignation before his brother could even react. "He once fought a bridge troll single-handedly. Armed with nothing more then a pen knife and a rotten piece of goat-cheese."
Jacob gave an embarrassed smile and tried very hard to look like someone who habitually wielded overdue dairy products with fatal ferocity, as once again inquisitive eyes mustered him all over.
"Yeah, maybe …" the doubting tone in Karl's voice was not quite restrained. "But that was magic stuff, I reckon that's different. This is about ordinary hard work."
The older Grimm put a hand on his brother's shoulder and treated his principals to a reassuring simper: "Well, Jacob is a master-digger. Really. Well, if I didn't know better, growing up with him and everything, I'd think he was raised by a family of moles."
Jake's smile took on a glassy quality.
"What, you mean like Alfred J. Kwak?(1)" the mayor wondered, furrowing his brow.
"Um, yes." Will agreed, not really emphatically.
Tapping his lips with two fingers the red-faced man squeezed his eyes half-shut in an effort of remembrance: "I don't think he was very good at digging. He doesn't have hands, just wings."
"Well, Jacob here does have a pair of hands, as you will see if you observe closely."
Spotting the strain in Wilhelm's voice the mayor hurried to give in: "Oh well, let's get started then."
"Well, off you go master-digger!" Will ordered cheerfully, slamming his brother's back.
"Raised by moles?!?" Jake hissed at him through tight lips.
"Well, it convinced them, no?" Wilhelm defended himself. "Now go and show a bit of muscle power, little brother."
Bracing himself Jacob walked over to the circle of pillars. "One day, I'm so going to give him a piece of my mind …" he mumbled to himself.
Pretending to do a few warming up exercises, he hooked himself to the wire-mechanism they had put up in the early morning hours. Then he grabbed the shovel and started digging.
From behind the little mound of debris, where they'd taken up station, the townspeople watched him critically.
"Oh my." sighed old Karl after about a minute.
"What?" Will frowned at him.
"I'm glad that poor old Mister Mole isn't here to see this, or he'd be averting his blind gaze in shame, mark my words."
"What?" Wilhelm repeated, feeling the anger rise in his chest.
"He does realize he only has one night for the task, does he?"
"Well, " Fridolin chipped in "he might be the first one to get his neck broken for absolutely miserable work with the shovel." Both men cackled.
"Eh, I don't know what's up with young people these days. They don't seem to be able to put up a decent day's work…" Karl shook his wrinkled head sadly.
"Will you lot shut up?" Will demanded infuriated.
"Yeah, you're being mean. He's working hard." said Mrs. Schenker in motherly tones. But then added with anything but maternal interest: "Look at the way he's sweating already. A treat for my sore eyes indeed."
"What?" not realizing that he was getting a bit repetitive, Will turned his head sharply and had to suppress a light shudder at the view that presented itself.
"Mind you, " Mrs. Schenker's voice penetrated his short absence "it's nothing against a hot summer's day at the smithy, eh Paul?"
Noticing that he was staring, Wilhelm tore his gaze away and turned back to the old lady, who was grinning from ear to ear and nudging a completely unabashed Paul.
"Will you stop …" Will started, but bit his lip and stopped in time. 'Will you stop lusting after my brother!?!' was not only ridiculous, but also rather hypocritical.
Mrs. Schenker interpreted his enraged look in a different way: "Oh don't worry laddie, you're a cute one as well." she smirked. "I wouldn't have minded you doing the digging."
Will jumped when he felt some rather private regions invaded.
'Christ!' he thought. 'Did this old frump just pinch my bottom? I don't believe these people. This is better going to be a well paid job…'
Karl and Fridolin had in the meantime found a new reason for complaining. "Are you sure this is the right dog? I always figured it was the opposite one."
"No!" Will shouted, patience slipping once again. "It is this one! We've worked it out, alright? By supernatural, heroical, scientific means of working magical riddles out in a very accurate and completely non-erring way! Right?"
"Yeah, all right." Karl gave him a disparaging look. "Do you know you got a bit of a temper?"
"Young hotheads." Fridolin agreed, shaking his head one more time.
"Would you like some chamomile tea to calm down?" Paul offered his first words for the night. "I brought some in my thermos flask."
TBC
(1)
Does anyone even know Alfred J. Kwak? It used to be a children's cartoon series on TV, about this orphan duckling and he indeed was adopted and raised by a mole.
I did some research and found it was a Dutch-German-Japanese co-production.
Now that sounds weird …