I wish I had somebody to draw backgrounds for me. And pay my bills. And punch people I don’t like.

I guess everybody wants that.

So how obvious is it that I hate doing backgrounds? Ahaha…

“Checklist of a Hero’s Journey” was the working title of the webcomic, but I always thought it was too long, and changed it to “Idiodyssey” at the last minute. Originally, the checklist itself was going to play a bigger role. Going back to the concept of this webcomic… have I told this story before? My, I hope I’m not rehashing some dreadfully old story. You know how sometimes you talk to people and they just tell you the same stories over and over, and you want to just punch them in the freakin’ head?

Where was I?

The original concept of this webcomic came from the movie Eragon, which my friends and I went to see, and by “see” I mean “sit in the back and make fun of.” My favorite part was where Eragon evolved into Charizard. Anywho, one of my friends - I assume it was Laserdragon, from whom I have stolen a great many ideas - mentioned it was like going down a checklist of the hero’s journey. And I was like, “:o!”

So originally, the idea was that he’d have a long, detailed checklist, and try to avoid making new checks. He’s still going to check things off, but I didn’t really want it to be that central of a plot point. By which I mean I’m not meticulous enough to plot that far in advance.

(By the way, as I write this, I have the plot loosely mapped out up until chapter five. Pretty good, huh? For me it’s amazing!)

“Lina…”

“Hm?” Upon hearing the plaintive cry, Lina turned to face her protector.

Gourry leaned on his sword. His face was gaunt; his eyes, dull. “Lina,” he repeated, “I’m not going to make it.”

Lina felt his pain as though it were her own, mostly because it was. She, too, felt as though every part of her body was on the verge of collapse. Still, she planted her hands firmly on the man’s ginormous shoulder guards and gave him a little shake. “Maybe we did miss lunch, and the breakfast before that, and the midnight snack before that… but if we stop now, Gourry, we will miss dinner! The biggest and therefore most important meal of the day!”

Then Gourry’s hands were on Lina’s shoulder guards, and he stared at her in that super-intense way that always made her blush, despite its tendency to be immediately followed by an exceptionally stupid statement. Tears welled in his eyes as he said, “It’s all right, Lina. I forgive you in advance for eating my dead body.”

Lina found the cannibalism joke in rather poor taste. “Hey now…”

“If there’s anything left, carve me up and crawl in for warmth,” he sobbed. “My last act as your protector…”

Lina kicked him in the face, and they resumed their travel.

Gourry saw the inn first, whooping with joy as he gripped Lina’s arm and veered her off-course. Lina did not see it at all, but she trusted her partner’s animal instincts, and when he broke into a run, she followed. (Though, to be fair, she would have followed anyone at that point if she thought there were a chance they were moving toward food.) And soon, Lina spotted it as well, a log cabin nestled (hidden) in the woods. They nearly broke down the door in their enthusiasm, howling in hunger.

There was a woman inside - a blonde, around Gourry’s age - and she greeted them with the same horror as though Mazoku had entered her door. In fact, a Mazoku had entered that door, but it was earlier in the day, and he’d been far more well-mannered than the demons now crossing that threshold.

To her credit, she quickly choked back her shock. “Right, then. Let’s get you to that dining room before you eat me.”

In the dining room, a busty barmaid flirted relentlessly with the only other customer, and their hostess beat her over the head.

“Is this what you call mopping the floor? We have more customers!”

“In a dive like this we shouldn’t have any,” she whined, earning herself another smack.

“You’ll find it harder to take their orders with my foot up your derriere!”

Lina cut in, “Just bring me everything on the menu.”

“Make that two!” Gourry piped in.

“In fact, just cook up everything in the kitchen.”

“Make that two!”

The women headed to the kitchen in a haste suspiciously resembling sprinting.

As they waited for their everything, Gourry asked, “Where are we going, again?”

“It’s not like I told you already today, or several times before that.” There was no real irritation to Lina’s words, as she was saving her energy to give him a good fork stabbing once the food came. “We are heading to Eff City, in Eff Prefecture, the capital of Eff Kingdom. Its magic academy is called Eff U, and it’s generally a pretty effed-up place. Are you following me thus far?”

Gourry, poised to parry with his butter knife, did not bother to feign thoughtfulness. “Nope.”

“I thought not. Well, we weren’t headed there for any real reason. It just seemed like the closest place with food, you know? It would have been, too, if somebody hadn’t lost the map.”

“Even if you say it that way, you were the one who set it on fire.”

“Shut up. Anyway, even if we didn’t have a reason, I have the sinking feeling something’s going to come up soon.”

“How come?”

“Didn’t you notice that guy sitting in the corner?” She jerked a thumb at the inn’s other customer, who smiled and waved politely.

“Well, of course I did, but…” Gourry scratched his cheek. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“Are you supposed to… that’s Xellos, you idiot, Xellos!”

“To tell the truth, I was a bit concerned that you’d forgotten me as well,” said Xellos, looking ever-so-sad.

Lina jabbed a steak knife in his general direction. “I refuse to deal with you on an empty stomach! You’re just going to have to wait after dinner!”

He held up his hands, the picture portrait of innocence. “Fair enough! It takes a braver man than I to come between Miss Lina and her dinner.”

“Really?” said Gourry. “But when it comes down to it, there’s no place I’d rather be.”

He grinned at Lina, who blushed before she could properly parse his words. Then she forked him.

* * *

Excel had been in the customer service business to know when people were being serious about eating everything in the kitchen, and she treated the situation with a battlefield command that would’ve made Mr. Owner proud, had he not been out hunting bears. “Take out anything they can eat raw, and then come back and start baking. I’m going to throw together some starches and fry up some of the m-meat.” It was hard for her to speak the word aloud, as though holding it back would change the fact that she would not be eating it that night.

“Don’t you find it suspicious?” asked Elgala. “That anybody would show up out here, let alone three different people?”

“Yes, but you’re only saying that because you don’t want to cook. Go.”

The battle of dinner raged on both kitchen and dining room fronts; so fiercely and like many battles, it became quickly apparent this one would have no true victor. No sooner had their customers’ appetites been whetted than the food ran out. Elgala was in the unenviable position on the front lines, caught between ravenous demands and the throat-slitting motion that Excel was making in the kitchen door.

“Well, ah… there’s no more food in there… except what we’re holding back,” she added a trademark vocal thought.

“What are you holding back?” demanded the woman.

“Er… n-nothing, of course… Crap! I think this inhuman creature already knows about the spaghetti!”

“Inhuman… creature…?” She clenched her fork until it bent.

“Spaghetti, please!” cried the man, motioning frantically for Elgala to the kitchen.

Elgala went with resignation, out of the frying pan and onto the plate. She feared her senior’s wrath more than even the hungriest of monsters.

Excel, drained of her once limitless-seeming energy, stood quietly over the stove. She stirred the spaghetti sauce like a witch over her cauldron, her apron caked with tomato sauce and blood. “This was our second-to-last resort,” she said, icicles dripping from her voice.

“I, Elgala, am sadly aware of the fact. And that our first last resort is back home.”

“Elgala,” said Excel, stirring the pot slowly, not turning to face her.

“Y-y-yes, Senior? Please don’t kill and eat me! At least cook up Senior Hyatt first!”

Ignoring that thought, Excel said, “I’ll need Hyatt’s medicine.” Elgala gasped so loudly that Excel shoved a hand over her mouth before she could think anything too loudly. “Didn’t you hear them talking at all? Do you know who that is?”

Elgala peered in at their guests. “If I had to make an educated guess at this point… Shabranigdo?”

“No, no, no! Didn’t you hear what that big, blond ape keeps calling her? ‘Lina, Lina.’ That’s got to be Lina Inverse!” Excel’s voice was low and grave, like the teller of a scary story. “The fabled Lina Inverse… I thought she was a myth, just like most of the things I believe in, but it’s just like all the rumors say! Comes in like a whirlwind, eats everything in sight, haggles on the price, and - the most terrifying part yet to come - tips badly.”

“I, Elgala, seem to recall tales more related to death and destruction…”

“Speaking of which…” Excel crossed the kitchen to where the corpse lay in a pool of its own blood, and gave it a gentle prod. “Ha-chan, you still dead? …right. Silly question. Forgive the intrusion on your personage.” She rolled up her sleeves and began to ransack the body; after less than a minute, she’d produced a whole armful of pill cases, vials, and potions.

Elgala followed her back to the stove. “My, my Senior has turned to poisoning. I didn’t know she had the gall!”

“You bet your bulbous behind I do!” The blonde’s eyes gleamed as she dumped the drugs into the pot. “Lina Inverse will rue the day she ate our dinner!”

I’m old, so this is the only Zelda I can reference in good conscience.

(Well, that’s not entirely true, I think I could do a nice riff on Link to the Past, but it’s probably too late now.)

SPOILER: In this chapter, Gin makes a friend!

“Fake-Ex-Hero, get in here! I need your brain!”

There was a deeply ominous foreboding that accompanied this statement, and Almaz glanced around frantically for somewhere to hide. However, he did not search quickly enough, and before he could do little more than squeak in protest, he had been dragged into the lab and shoved into a chair.

“Please don’t–” he began, but he soon realized that he was not strapped down, and that no violation of his personal space had been made. He peered quizzically at Mao, who simply dumped a pile of papers front of him.

“I’m starting on this new project, but I haven’t decided yet… of course, they’re all utterly fantastic and worthy of my genius, so I could let you pick one and it wouldn’t even make a difference.”

Almaz glanced down at the mass in front of him. There were blueprints, sketches, and schematics, all for various models of robots. He let out the breath he was holding. “Oh! Could it be that you just wanted my opinion?”

Mao’s stare was cold and defensive. “What of it? Wipe that dopey grin off your face or I’ll ask someone else!”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Almaz, but it took some effort to choke the smile down. Even besides the fact that he appeared to have escaped dissection, Mao’s clear embarrassment meant that this was a gesture of friendship, and that on some level even the little demon acknowledged it.

(All right!) he internally monologued, (If this is Mao’s way of opening his heart to me, then I’m going to take it seriously, and definitely pick the best one!)

He regarded the plans thoughtfully. There was variety to the designs, ranging from B-movie arm-flailers to toaster-dogs to METAL GEAR. Looking them over, Almaz discovered that he rather liked all of them, albeit in the way that he would really prefer they all stay fictional rather than be brought to life by Mao’s twisted imagination. Still, there was one that caught his eye immediately, and he picked it up to examine it more closely.

(Wow, it’s just like something out of Mobile Suit Superalloy 00! I’m surprised Mao could think of something that doesn’t reek of evil, or rather have “EVIL!!” painted on the side to fool people into thinking it does… but then, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. Haha, he’s a fanboy too, deep down. I probably shouldn’t encourage him to build something with this much arsenal… but on the other hand, I think this mecha is proof that he’s growing as a person!)

“Definitely this one,” Almaz said.

“Ha, I thought you might choose that one,” Mao replied, nodding. “That seems like your taste.”

“Say, what’s it for, anyway?”

“Well, you had that birthday last week that I completely forgot about, and then I accidentally pushed you down that mineshaft…”

“You did that on purpose. But… aww, Lord Mao, I’m–”

“…which reminded me of how quickly and easily humans die.”

“–flattered?”

“So I’m going to get started on Almaz Mark II.”

“…eh?”

Mao, already lost to the world of science and heavy breathing, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hm… I already have the jar set up, but it’ll take a few days to build the Maximum Omega Plasma Cannon…”

“J-jar? Uh… when you said you needed my brain…”

“And I’m going to need to work on the battery life… you may have to run on AC power for awhile.”

“Um. Can you maybe just back up a few steps? To the brain thing? Before my subconscious succeeds in repressing it?”

Mao’s glasses glinted as he looked up from the blueprints. “Are you still here? Go for a walk or something. I’ll call you back when it’s time to be fitted.”

“R-right! A walk!”

“Don’t walk too far.”

“C-c-certainly not! Just a brisk stroll! Back before you know it! Ahaha.”

As he plotted his escape route, Almaz sure hoped that Mao’s heart wouldn’t close up again when he fled the Netherworld and assumed a new identity.

Two more comics to go for this chapter!