This is Boull. Here, the Celtic nations are in a primitive state of development. Meanwhile, the Great Powers grow, breed, and build new technology all around them.
Ah, Paraná...These lands are part of the great Kaingang Empire, one of Boull's Great Powers. Here, the climate is little different from the Deep South's.
This is Curitiba. It's a major city in the empire. Here, the pyramid is still popular. And the Kaingang live and work in them.
Karen Page is in chains. She stands on an altar in revealing clothing...if the Celts would dare call those clothes. The wood pile she stands on stinks of oil. Poor Ms. Page is only one flame away from the end.
The chains run from her wrists, up to the ceiling. Aloft, there's an open skylight. Alas, it's not a skylight; it's a flue.
Her hair's grown big, blonde, and bushy. It itches. Karen would love SO much to scratch it. Alas, that's impossible to do when she's in these chains...
Alas, a key levitates across the chamber. With bugged eyes, Karen watches it, as it makes its way to the cuffs around her wrists.
It undoes both cuffs, releasing her. She screams, as two pieces of wood levitate...with her standing on both of them. They levitate away, and down. Karen hesitates at first...but she dismounts both.
Her feet are still bare. The temple accommodates for this...by re-dressing her...as she came, by re-conjuring her clothes all over her.
Over all of this, a great jaguar statue towers. It bares its fangs down at Karen...and makes her feel small and helpless. Becoming clothed again doesn't change this experience for Ms. Page.
Nonetheless, she smiles up at the jaguar, and nods. "Thank you," she says softly. Without another word, she ascends the stepped well that she's been in, and makes her way to the exit...down a short yet dark hall, where the light of day awaits her departure.
Alas, she slows, as she reaches the spot where this tunnel ends. With hesitant eyes...she surveys one last statue that's in his temple.
It's of a barber...cutting someone's hair. At this, Karen sighs. She was hoping to postpone this... But since the gods of the Kaingang have spoken, she might as well act...even though she's not a Kaingang.
Ray Stevens, she's going to hate this...
High on a wall, there's a hoop. Many times, a rolled-up armadillo, bound in a netted bag, flies right through this hoop. It always makes the hoop, each time. And there are more than a few laws of physics that would keep this from happening...
Outside the ball court, a little white sedan approaches. Its windows are shaded. It parks before a great facade. Its pillars are numerous, and made of stone. They stand atop a stepped wall.
In heels, Ms. Page ascends these steps. She's going to feel like taking off her shoes, once she gets into that barber chair...
In the ball court, a bunch of clay pots are set up. They have hideous designs painted on them.
With a sawed-off shotgun, a marksman aims at one of them. One very loud shot later, and that clay jar shatters to bits.
The shot causes Ms. Page to scream. Alas, she tries to get a hold of herself, as she follows the signs to the barber chair.
They're in creepy tunnels below. The tunnels are like a maze. There are spiny rats down here. At that, it's a good thing Ms. Page isn't down here barefooted.
Her hair stands up, though, as she struggles to avoid the rats. There are so many. And they're not alone. Looks like there are tarantulas, roaches, and fer-de-lance vipers down here, too...
At last, she finds the barber chair. She descends one last ladder of steps to get down to it. Once down here, she slips out of her pumps, and parks her elegant booty in that barber chair...which, alas, has pixelated camouflage upholstering.
Shuriken blades hang from the walls. Throwing knives do, too. Karen is REALLY starting to feel scared about this...
Upstairs, the barber prepares himself. He dresses up in a scary black robe. He takes up a pair of katanas, and goes downstairs, into the tunnels. On his way to the barber chair, he dices up many spiny rats, roaches, fer-de-lance vipers, and tarantulas. With his perfect marksmanship, they don't stand a chance.
As he descends into the barber shop, he cleans his cutlery, and sheathes it. He then finishes the descent, and pulls a mechanism, hidden in a wall. Behind him, the barber shop door seals itself.
One wrist and ankle at a time, he chains Karen to the barber chair. Now Karen REALLY feels nervous...
The Ronin removes his hood...revealing the face of Lester L. Lester...the Bullseye. He's got a little target carved into his forehead. Otherwise, his hair would be blonde...if only he'd let it grow. He's clearly ex-military...
He's also got a New York Yankees tatt on one arm. THIS looks interesting...
He removes his robe. Underneath it, he wears a shirt that says, in big bold letters, I HATE BLONDE CHIX WHO BRING BLIND LAWYERS THEIR COFFEE.
Now Karen REALLY feels nervous...
For this, Lester draws his blades. He stands before Karen, and crosses them. He wears an eyepatch over his recessive eye. He'll need it, to give her this haircut...
"Well," he asks her. "What'll it be, beautiful?"
Karen's scared to death, of course. Alas, she shouldn't be. She is what she is. She works for her little lawyers, brings them their little coffee cups, types their little reports, and helps the Devil of Hell's Kitchen protect his little homefolk. If anyone should be ashamed, it's Lester...for being so scary.
She can't afford to tell him the truth...so she improvises a lie. "I throw darts at a pub...in Hell's Kitchen," she says. "All the guys there hate me, because I've scored so many bullseyes, I make their girlfriends look like the Blind Lady. I also hustle pool. The guys hate me for that, too. I've got scars on my bare legs...as punishment for having dwarfed their balls in front of their homeys' balls."
At this, Lester smiles, and sheathes his katanas. For this, Karen rests at ease...and smiles.
And then, rapidly, Lester starts pulling shuriken and throwing knives off the wall, and starts throwing them at her hair, cutting it...one thrown blade at a time. Karen should be more scared. Alas, she doesn't know that Lester NEVER misses.
When Ms. Page comes back upstairs, she looks even more like a page than before. Her hair isn't quite as short as Lester's...but it's closer to her scalp than it was. She almost looks like a pixie. If Matt Murdock could see, he'd SO want her more...