Chapter IV: Meeting the Beast
(Inside the Palace.)
Daxter and Cogsworth were busy arguing, again. "Look what you've done! It's was all your fault! Have a sip of tea! Sit in the Master's chair!"
"Awww. I was just trying to be hospitable!" Daxter argued back.
Back at the doorway, Keria had just entered the Palace. "Hello, Daddy, are you here." She spent a while looking around the Palace.
Now, in a bathroom, Ashley the green Ottsel was busy making sure all of the little Ottsels got baths.
"Ashley! Ashley!" One of the little Ottsels cried. "There's a girl in the Palace."
"Now, Philip, don't you go around telling fibs like that." Ashley scolded, now in the tub. She picked up the Ottsel and put him in the tub.
"But, there is a girl in the Palace, Ashley!" The little wet Ottsel cried.
Another Ottsel, a blonde one named Tess, ran up. "Ashley, there's a girl in the Palace!"
"See? I told you!" Philip said.
Back with the arguing twosome,
"You are a wax-eared, irresponsible, slack-jawed..." Cogsworth said, He was cut off by Keria's shouts of,
"Daddy?"
She walked by the room where Daxter and Cogsworth were arguing, however that stopped.
"Did you see that?" Daxter asked, he and Cogsworth followed the girl as she made her way down the hallway. "It's a girl!" Daxter said in astonishment.
"I know it's a girl!" Cogsworth said.
"Don't you see? She's the one!" Daxter began to follow her. "She's come to break the spell!"
"Wait a minute!" Cogsworth said, but he followed Daxter. They opened a door, to attract Keria's attention. It worked. She headed up the stairwell that was behind the door.
"That's odd, I knew someone was here." She walked right past Daxter and Cogsworth without noticing them. She heard coughing. "Daddy?"
"Keria?" Came a voice from a cell.
"Oh, Daddy!" She ran up to the door and reached her father though the bars. "Oh, Daddy, your hands are like ice! We have to get you out of there!"
"Keria, I want you to leave!" the Sage coughed.
"But, I just found you!" Keria protested.
"No! You must leave!" the Sage said.
"Who did this to you?" Keria asked.
Suddenly there was a noise behind her, in the shadows, she spun around. "Who's there?" she asked.
"The Master of this Castle." An oily voice said. Keria could just make out a human-shape in the shadows.
"Please let my father out." She begged. "Can't you see, he's sick!"
"Then he shouldn't have trespassed here!" The form said.
"But he might die!" Keria sobbed. "It's there something I could do?"
"He is my prisoner!" the man yelled. "There is nothing you can do!" The thing turned away.
"There must be something..." she trailed off as she came to the realization of what she had to do, "Take me instead."
"Humph! You!" The thing said, but he trailed off, "You would... take his place?"
"No, Keria, you don't know what you are doing?" the Sage yelled.
"Will you let him go?" Keria asked.
"Yes." The thing said.
"Come into the light." Keria asked
The thing slowly stepped into a beam of light, revealing a hideous being. It's skin was as pale as death, it had two horns growing out of the top of his head, his pitch black eyes held nothing. No pity, no concern, nothing. She gasped and backed up against the door of her father's cell.
"No, I won't let you do this!" the Sage yelled.
"But you must swear to stay here forever!" The beast said.
Keria stood up and approached the beast. "You have my word." She said.
"Done!" the beast went to release her father, Keria collapsed on the ground. The Sage ran up next to her.
"No, Keria, I'm old and have lived my life!" He said, but the beast started to drag him away.
"Daddy!" Keria yelled as she watched her father get dragged away.
The beast dragged the poor Sage outside. "That girl is no longer your concern. Your animal waits for you. Don't try to come back!"
Keria, back up in the tower, watched as her father rode away. She sobbed.
The beast came back up the stairs. But Daxter stopped him, "Uh, Master?"
"What?" the beast turned its head and faced the quivering Ottsel.
"Well, I was thinking, since the girl is going to be with us for quiet some time, I thought maybe you could offer her a better room?" The beast snorted at Daxter and passed by, "Then again, maybe not."
As the beast approached Keria she looked up at him, "You didn't let me say good-bye! I'm never going to see him again and you didn't let me say good-bye!"
The beast grew uncomfortable in the presence of this crying woman. To break the silence he said, "I'll show you to your room."
"My room?" Keria asked, confused. "But, I thought..."
The beast gestured around, "Do you want to stay in the tower?"
"No." Keria said.
"Then let's go." The beast turned to lead the way out of the tower.
Soon, they got to the door of Keria's new room. "The Palace is your home now, so you can go anywhere you want," The beast said, and then he added, "Except for the West Wing."
"What's in the West Wing?" Keria asked.
"It forbidden!" The beast snarled. "If you need anything, my servants will attend you." Keria stepped into her room. "You will join me for dinner, that's not a request!" The beast slammed the door, and Keria began to realize just how trapped she was. She ran up to her bed and began crying her eyes out.
(Back in the village, Tavern.)
"Who does she think she is?" Erol demanded in his chair by the fire. "That girl has tangled with the wrong man! No one says 'no' to Erol!"
"Darn right!" said the servant helpfully.
"Dismissed! Rejected! Publicly humiliated!" Stormed Erol, "Why, it's more than I can bear!
"More beer?" asked the servant.
"What for? Nothing helps." Erol said, "I'm disgraced."
"Who, you? Never!" said the servant. "Erol, you've got to pull yourself together!" He started to sing:
"Gosh, it disturbs me to see you, Erol.
Looking so down in the dumps.
Every guy here'd love to be you, Erol.
Even when your taking your lumps.
There's no man in town as admired as you,
You're everyone's favorite guy!
Everyone's awed and inspired by you!
And it's not very hard to see why!
No one's slick as Erol,
No one's quick as Erol,
No one's neck's as incredibly thick as Erol!
For there's no one in town half as manly,
Perfect, a pure paragon!
You can ask any Tom, Dick, or Stanley,
And they'll tell you whose they prefer to be on!"
The men in the bar join in:
"No one's been like Erol,
A Kingpin like Erol,"
The servant sang:
"No one's got a swell cleft in his chin like Erol!"
Erol sang:
"As a specimen, yes, I'm intimidating!"
The bar rang out:
"My what a gut, that Erol!"
The servant sang:
"Erol is the best,
And the rest is all drips!"
The bar rang out:
"No one fights like Erol,
Douses lights like Erol.
In a wrestling match nobody bites like Erol!"
Erol's fan club sang:
"For there's no one as burly and brawny."
Erol sang:
"As you see I've got biceps to spare."
The servant sang:
"Not a bit of him's scraggly or scrawny."
Erol sang:
"(That's right!)
And every last inch of me's covered with hair!"
The bar rang out:
"No one hits like Erol,
Matches wits like Erol!"
The servant sang:
"In a spitting match nobody spits like Erol!"
Erol sang:
"I'm especially good at expectorating!"
(Ptooey!)
The bar sang out:
"Ten points for Erol!"
Erol sang:
"When I was a lad I ate four dozen eggs,
Every morning to help me get large!
And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs,
So I'm roughly the size of a barge!"
The bar sang:
"No one shoots like Erol,
Makes those beauts like Erol.
The servant sang:
"Then goes tromping around wearing boots like Erol!
Erol sang:
"I use antlers in all of my decorating!"
The bar sang out:
"Say it again.
Who's a man among men?
And then say it once more.
Who's the hero next door?
Who's a super success?
Don't you know? Can't you guess?
Ask his fans and his five hangers-on.
The servant sang:
There's just one guy in town who's got it all down
And his name is...
The bar rang:
"Erol!"
The song ended by the door opening, Samos stumbled in. (LES: Yes, I got sick of writing out 'Old Sage' all the time.) "Help!" Samos cried out, "Someone help me!"
"Samos?" The bartender said surprised.
"Please! Please, I need your help." Samos cried, "He's got her—he's got her locked in a dungeon!"
"Who?" asked the servant.
"Keria! We must go!" Samos said, "N—not a minute to lose!"
"Whoa! Slow down, Samos!" Erol said casually, "Who's got Keria locked in a dungeon?"
"A beast!" Samos cried out to the bar. "A horrible, monstrous beast!"
"Is it a big beast?" one man teased.
"Huge!" Samos said.
"With a big, ugly mug?" another asked.
"Hideously ugly!" Samos answered.
"And sharp, cruel fangs?" someone asked.
"Yes! Yes! Will you help me?" Samos asked.
"All right, old man. We'll help you out." Erol made a small gesture with his hand, and Samos was thrown from the bar.
"Crazy old Samos." Said the bartender.
"He's always good for a laugh." A man at the bar said.
However, Erol was not listening to this, "Crazy old Samos, hmmm? Crazy old Samos. Hmmm." Then he began to sing again:
Servant, I'm afraid I've been thinking.
The servant sang:
A dangerous pastime...
Erol shut him up with:
I know!
But that wacky old coot is Keria's father.
And his sanity's only 'so-so.'
Now the wheels in my head have been turning,
Since I looked at that loony, old man.
See, I've promised myself I'd married to Keria,
And right now I'm evolving a plan!
Erol whispers the plan into his servant's ear, after a while the servant said, "Now I get it!"
"Let's go!" Erol said, then they both started singing together.
No one plots like Erol,
Takes cheap shots like Erol,
Plans to persecute harmless crackpots like Erol!
Then the bar sang:
So his marriage we soon'll be celebrating!
My, what a guy!
Erol!
Outside the bar, Samos was wandering the village square. "Won't somebody help me?" He called into the night.