Welcome to Fort Castle Inn Keep!

Pull up ye olde barstoole and proffer a pint of mead, fair marmalade! The elders predicted you would save us from the vile talons of Evil King Stabface!

Hail and well met weary traveler! Please enter my humble establishment and relax! I am Grublor Muldoon, the barkeep of Ye Olde Tavern located here in majestic Fort Castle Inn Keep, the last remaining outpost of civilization perched on the edge of The Plains of Eternal Suffering and General Unpleasantness. I don't recall spying your face around the streets; is this your first trip to Fort Castle Inn Keep? It 'tis? Wonderful! Well in that case, allow me the chance to introduce myself. I am Grublor Muldoon, the barkeep of Ye Olde Tavern located here in majestic Fort Castle Inn Keep, the last outpost of civilization perched on the edge of The Plains of Eternal Suffering and General Unpleasantness. Feel free to ask me anything you like about this town, but I'll probably respond by repeatedly stating I am Grublor Muldoon, the barkeep of Ye Olde Tavern located here in majestic Fort Castle Inn Keep, the last remaining outpost of civilization perched on the edge of The Plains of Eternal Suffering and General Unpleasantness. May I ask your name?

Oh my! So you're... you're The Chosen One?!? You are the one foretold to free our land from the deadly, dark clutches of the nefarious Slaughterions and their twisted, sick leader, the infamous Evil King Stabface? Praise be to The Fairy Queen! I am Grublor Muldoon, the barkeep of Ye Olde Tavern located here in majestic Fort Castle Inn Keep, the last remaining outpost of civilization perched on the edge of The Plains of Eternal Suffering and General Unpleasantness. Our people have been breathlessly waiting for you to deliver us from the vile horde of doom, just like the elders predicted in "The Big Book of Ye Olde Prophesies and Ribald Anecdotes About the Farmer's Wife, Volume IV!" Our bravest men are joining the noble ranks to fight back the enemy's rapidly advancing threat, but our fighters fall in battle like matchsticks crushed beneath the mighty foot of a 12-eyed cyclops! We were afraid all hope was lost... until you showed up with your legendary Sword of Sacklunch and a heroic bravery foretold in ancient eternal prophesies of eternally ancient lore. You are our last hope, the only being left who can save us from the infinite pain, suffering, and torment that Evil King Stabface's legion of the damned wish to inflict upon us with reckless abandon. We all owe our very lives to you, and if it were not for your selfless sacrifice, we would surely be doomed. Allow me to welcome you to our town of Fort Castle Inn Keep and describe a little bit about us and our fair city.

Although we're absolutely thrilled you arrived here and brought your award-winning collection of shiny weapons and magical undergarments with you, please don't think that we'll treat you any differently than anybody else. Yeah you're the talk of the town and certain villagers refuse to stop repeating the same insipid three lines about you over and over and over again, but life goes on and we're not going to interrupt our daily routines for you. For example, don't expect any of our citizens to move out of the doorway when you are clearly attempting to enter a building so you can purchase a magical elf smoothie which regenerates hit points. We have all been raised to spend every single hour of every single day mindlessly pacing back and forth, walking in random directions and accomplishing absolutely nothing, and the appearance of some guy who spent the last three days swinging a glowing stick at a two headed anthromorphic pig really won't change anything.

Occasionally our exciting travels take us to the doorways of shops, inns, and other buildings which have a single entrance / exit, thereby violating all primitive fire safety laws. We don't give a crap if you're running face-first into us for hours, desperately pushing on our doughy bodies so we might eventually decide to take an arbitrary step to the left or right. We have all been trained to lurch in a seemingly random direction once every 10 seconds, and we're not going to destroy this precious tradition for anybody, no matter how important you are. Sure you've traveled thousands of miles and killed thousands of monsters just to save our miserable little peon lives, but the entire world doesn't revolve around you and this ain't gonna' change no matter how many layers of magic glowing purple armor you layer on top your concave, sunken chest.

Welcome to our poorly planned and designed town! The architect was drunk when he built this place, which might explain the two squares of sand in the middle of nowhere.

If you finally manage to wedge yourself through the narrow door of a shop, don't expect us to start cutting you crazy deals on health potions, magic elixirs, or anything else you might possibly require to save us all from the forces of evil. Yes, we all truly appreciate the fact that you decided to spend your free time shooting arrows into giant bats who are somehow related to Evil King Stabface's plans for blowing up the universe, but you know what? We didn't ask you to. We didn't huddle around and sign any "Ye Royale Olde Petition For Some Big Square Jawed Asshole With Huge Hair to Save Our Generic Kingdom at the Last Possible Second" because we have nothing better to do.

And speaking of saving us at the last possible second, why the hell don't you try saving our kingdom a little earlier perhaps? Here's an idea: get up off your ass and lend us a hand BEFORE our first 800,000 citizens are murdered by bloodthirsty invading monsters. It's absolutely wonderful that you decided to sit on the sidelines and wait for our family members to be slaughtered by floating slime monsters and undead x-ray pirates just so you can appear in the nick of time and save us from complete annihilation, but I think my parents' corpses would've probably appreciated it a bit more if you began fighting for the goodness of eternal light and justice and all that shit BEFORE they had their heads chopped off by sentient celery stalks named "Xangu" who only speak Japanese for some reason.

Anyway, back to what I was talking about. We are all painfully aware that you are saving the universe from this monumentally evil entity who spends all day sitting in a giant rock chair shouting, "MUAH HA HA HA!" really loudly. We can hear that jackass laughing all night. We know he's there. Me and some of the guys from the Ye Olde Item Shoppe down the street called the cops on him like ten times a day every day for a few months because nobody could get any sleep due to his obnoxious "MUAH HA HA HA" outbursts which took place every 10 seconds. If you think it's easy raising a cranky two-year old who is constantly woken up every few minutes by an asshole in a black cape laughing at jokes that don't exist, then you need to chug a few hundred Anti-Idiot Potions. I guess this whole "opening the dark portal and summoning demons who lay waste to everything" deal that King Jerk dreamed up is probably to get revenge on us for calling his old landlord and getting him thrown out of the Enchanted Emerald Castle Apartment Villa last Spring. That place had an awesome pool and ye olde hotte tubbe.

So yes, we know you're saving us all from a grisly death, probably one involving a whole bunch of little evil identical monsters who dress alike but wear slightly different wardrobe color schemes. That doesn't mean that we are contractually obliged to give you a discount on the various generic weapons, armor, and items we sell. No way, buddy. Did you know that, as of today, you're the 63,573rd person to walk through our lovely town of Fort Castle Inn Keep with grandiose plans of saving the universe from imminent destruction? You want to take a guess as to what happened to the previous 63,572 folks before you? Well why don't you go ask them yourself, you can find most of their pieces at the bottom of Haunted Volcano Witch Ghost Fireball Wizard Lake. Make sure to cast the spell "Reverse Stupid Mistakes Which Got Our Dumb Asses Killed" on their corpses before attempting to engage them in conversation.

Simply put, we don't have the resources to cut every hero a deal. If we were to start giving away our world famous Fort Castle Inn Keep Rings of Probable Improbability to each and every drooling dope who plodded through our town claiming he was going to vanquish the forces of evil, this town would dry up quicker than Princess Esmoolina's right tit. Yes it will still cost you 200 gold to stay a night in our inn. Yes we will charge you 4,000 gold for a Large Wooden Shield of Mastication. Yes you must pay 12,000 gold for an Iron Scimitar of Undead Tomfoolery. I don't give a crap if you're the mayor of Elftown, you still gotta pay. And no, we won't give you a line of credit. Your expected lifespan upon leaving the town can be measured in nanoseconds, and there's no way I'm sending my apprentice out to Hangnail Swamp so he can retrieve the set of Elven Bubble Wrap Armor you rented from me shortly before getting killed by a really large mosquito that can somehow ejaculate acid everywhere.

Oh, and while you're here, I'd like to ask you a few questions that myself and the other residents of Fort Castle Inn Keep have for you. Perhaps you could help shed some light on the following subjects:

This is my dream house. Note that it has everything anybody could ever need including a torch and water pitcher. Please do not search the barrel, there's nothing in it. Trust me.

After a long day of standing behind a counter and repeatedly reciting the names and prices of every item in stock, I like to head home and relax in my cozy one-room house furnished with a wooden chair, wooden bookshelf, wooden table, and wooden door. I don't want much, just a nice little square house that doesn't have unnecessary, cumbersome rooms like a bathroom or kitchen. Unfortunately, I (and many other upstanding citizens in this town) have noticed that objects from our home seem to be "missing" once we return at night. What happened to that pile of 37 gold I had on my table this morning? Or that health potion Fustanko the Wizard kept on his bookshelf? What about the lightning bolt spell Shopkeeper Rugmo proudly displayed near his fireplace? Although we don't have any concrete evidence that you did it, we know SOMEBODY has been breaking in through our unlocked doors and helping themselves to our worldly possessions while we sit here constantly listing every single wooden shield in stock. Since you're the only person who has entered this town in the past 200 years, we have a pretty good suspicion it's you.

There's this 15-year old kid who's been wandering randomly around the town well for at least a decade now. We have no idea when she first showed up there or when she takes a break to rest or eat or take a crap. All she does is walk in random directions all day and fidget a lot. Whenever we walk up to her and ask what's going on, she just responds, "my brother Tarvid the Irritable was capture by Evil King Stabface's guards! I miss him so much! Could you help get him back? If you free my brother then I'll give you this Magenta Oak Truffle Ring which seems useless to me but undoubtedly holds some magic power that might be required to move a previously unmovable object that blocks your pathway." She recites that same damn speech EVERY TIME we try to ask her who she is or why she's hanging around our well or when she plans on leaving because she's scaring all the normal people away. We ask if she's lost and she starts blabbering about Tarvid. We ask if she has a social security number and she launches into her Tarvid speech. We don't know what the hell this kid is talking about and we have absolutely NO interest in a magic ring, so we were wondering if we could pay you to either kill her or push her into the well.

The King is speaking in code! He says you are a faggot and I do not disagree with his highness!

SOMEBODY recently filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau claiming that Mortaki's Magic Shoppe was violating federal trade laws by selling the "Fireball," "Lightning," and "Heal" series of upgrade spells. Hey, you know what buddy? If you don't want to buy Lightning 2, you don't have to buy Lightning 2. If you are the jackass who bitched about us and claimed these spells encouraged nothing but purchasing expensive and unnecessary upgrades, then DON'T BUY THEM! Anybody worth their weight in gold pieces knows that Lightning 2 is a completely different spell than Lightning 1. For example, it does almost twice the damage! If you could figure out some magical way to make Lightning 1 do as much damage as Lightning 2, then maybe you might have a case, but right now you're just wasting our time with all this damn paperwork from the government. And before you ask, no, you can't simply just staple two copies of Lightning 1 together and therefore cause twice the damage. That's not how stuff works, and if you think otherwise then maybe you should park your fat ass behind a counter and peddle magic pieces of paper all day instead of running around like a retard and stabbing invisible lizardmen with knives or whatever it is you do.

While you were sitting there and incessantly moving the items in your inventory around for no particular reason, Dwarfo the Giant came in and let me know that the other folks in this town have taken a vote and decided that we don't really want you to bother saving us. Just go on ahead and skip our town; head over to the Vagrant Gypsy Vagabond Trader Loner camp on the edge of Vampire Dinosaur Swamp and see if they can put up with you standing around and being an annoying, holier-than-thou jerk long enough to sell you a mana potion. Maybe you'll be able to relate to them better than us because we threw those assholes out of town last summer once we realized they would never stop standing around in the middle of the road with their caravans loaded full of Enchanted Doghide Hair Helmets and Moderately Stunning Broadswords of Limited Liability.

Oh what's that? You're a tough guy? You're pulling out your sword? Okay hero, you want to start shit with me in my own Ye Olde Towne Shoppe of Magicale Warese? That's fine pal, but before you decide to embark upon the quest of infinite pain from my boot kicking your balls up into your larynx, let me tell you one thing: I am Grublor Muldoon, the barkeep of This Ye Olde Tavern located here in majestic Fort Castle Inn Keep, the last outpost of civilization perched on the edge of The Plains of Eternal Suffering and General Unpleasantness.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise

Ryan "OMGWTFBBQ" Adams doling out the last of a two part special Goldmine. As I mentioned last time, this two part Goldmine was started by forum Goon Djarum. His initial post was the following:

"So yesterday I walk downstairs to get my mail, along with the tons of free magazines and bills I get this.

Since when has the Postal Service been sending out such great little safety notices? Well of course the first thing that I thought of was to post it on here for everyone to partake in the fun."

The Goons busted out 20 pages of Photoshop fun, and today we have the last 10 pages. However, I need your help with the PAGE OF SHAME. I've never been good at handing out criticism; that's where you guys come into play. Take a look at the PAGE OF SHAME and whip out your monocle and fine silver. Come up with some great slams and send them to me at OMGWTFBBQ@somethingawful.com. I'll make sure to have the best of the photoshop putdowns with proper recognition up bright and early for tomorrow. I now present to you this week's Comedy Goldmine, "A Safety Message From Your USPS Letter Carrier Part 2."

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)