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The party headed for the Five Flagon's Inn where the Jan Springer show was being taped. The wildly popular show had an extensive audience among the citizens of Athkatla, and the party after taking the shadow dragon in the Umar Hills needed some rest and recreation. When Ribaud handed them a free group pass to the crystal ball show after spending a thousand gold at the Adventurer's Mart, Charname asked if they all wanted to go. It sounded diverting enough to fit their mood, so they entered the packed set.
Jan Springer sprang into the set. A puckish and rather evil grin decorated his face.
"Today, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a special treat for you tonight. Presenting Knights who wear naughty lingerie and the women who love them!" said Jan.
As the curtain opened, a stupified group of some of the most distinguished matrons in Athkatla were revealed, a look of horror and embarressment on their faces. One woman that the party recognized as Maria Firecam, wife to a member of their party who had journeyed with them only a short time before returning home, shakily stood up.
"This was suppose to be Oprah!!! You vile little rabble rouser and side show barker! How dare you trick us like this!!! My husband will surely find out about this, and he'll..." started Maria Firecam.
"Why, you can talk to him now! Here comes the entire Order of the Radient Heart!" interrupted Jan as a group of knights walked in in their parade armor. They stopped in the middle of the stage, and the knight at the head opened his visor.
"Maria??? What in Torm's name is this! Maria, what are you doing at the Armor Polish Exhibition?" asked a very perplexed Keldorn. Obviously because of the full tilting helm worn by the Knights, they missed a lot of verbal interplay.
"Keldorn, we have been scurriously tricked into appearing in the Jan Springer show!!! Why the vile gnomish ruffian accused you of wearing...I can't even speak the words!!!! A vile and reprehensible calumny and defamation that is certainly enough cause for you and your fellows to thrash him most throughly!" cried Maria. All the Knights gripped their ceremonial two handed swords and looked at the still smiling gnome.
"Now Sir Keldorn, and your fellows, a Paladin must always tell the truth, correct? No matter how personally embarressing and distressing to your reputations and honor, am I not correct? The theme of today's show is Knights who wear naughty lingerie and the women who love them. Please correct any inaccuracy in that statement." replied Jan with complete confidence.
Mortification and shame showed on the revealed faces of all the knights. Some of them even dropped their swords, and one poor fellow covered his face and started to sob uncontrollably.
"Keldorn? I don't understand. Why aren't you thrashing that vile gnome?" asked Maria.
"Maria, love of my life, light of my being, I fear that he is speaking the truth." replied Sir Keldorn manfully. Sir Ryan Trawl, whom the party recognized, gazed on Sir Keldorn with wonder and awe at the sheer courage the aged Paladin displayed.
In the stupified silence that followed that most extraordinary statement, several of the wives of the knights fainted dead away. Maria, however, visibly steamed up until the inevitable explosion followed...
Maria shrieked at the top of her voice "KELDORN DOUBTFIRE FIRECAM!!! YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT THIS SHAMEFUL STATEMENT IS TRUE???!!!!"
Jan whispers to his head bouncer ogre, "Tazok, old buddy, this has turned out better than expected!" Tazok grunts and nodds his head. He gripped the inflated pigs bladder that all the bouncers in the Jan Springer show were equipped with, for handling guests who totally lost it. ( Of course, this happened about every other show, and due to liability concerns, the bouncers, both ogres and gnomes alike were armed with very non-lethal weapons for crowd control.)
"Maria, please! Its not what you think at all! It has to do with military necessity and our gambesons!" The very illogic of that statement stopped all the mortified knights and weeping matrons in their tracks.
"Keldorn, what on Toril has wearing...I can't even say it!!! Have to do with the garment you put under your armor?" asked Maria with a shudder of disgust, and utter perplexity.
"Yes, the gambeson...made of layers of thick wool felt, so thick it takes a week to dry, and years to break in...you can never ever get rid of the itch of raw wool felt...its bad enough on the arms, and legs and torso, but on a man's..." replied Keldorn with a grimace. All the men in the audience sucked in their breaths in sympathy. A itch there was simply no laughing matter.
"Yes, I know you need the padding of the gambeson to take the blows to your armor, and I know exactly how smelly and uncomfortable that thing is...and I can certainly understand your situation with...urm...you know..." replied Maria sympathetically. She remembered all the times she helped Keldorn remove his armor, when his career kept him closer to Athkatla. The first thing he required after a few hard days of campaigning was a good hot bath, with strong soap and a very stiff bristled long handled bath brush. She blushed at all the times helping him scratch his back led to other things...including their children.
"So years ago, I am most ashamed to admit, I filched some of your silk things before leaving for a campaign...else I would have shamed myself by trying to scratch...you know, and it wouldn't have worked anyway since I had armor on...it saved my dignity and made the long campaign endurable...and some of my fellow knights found out about it..." said Keldorn with a woebegone hang of his head.
"So that lacey red teddy I ordered from Calimshite, with the peekaboo panels that I thought vesper stole..." asked Maria.
"I'm wearing it right now..." replied Keldorn.
At this point, one of the knights who still had his visor covered shouted out in a voice that the whole party recognized...
"I CAN ABSOLUTELY ASSURE YOU THAT I AM NOT WEARING ANY FRILLY FEMININE UNMENTIONABLES!!!" shouted Sir Anomen. He had also travelled with the party for a short time, before leaving with Sir Keldorn.
"YEAH RIGHT!!! STRIP HIM!!! STRIP HIM!!!" yelled the audience, scenting blood.
Tazok and other bouncers advance enmass, and despite his furious shouts and screams of protest, removed his armor and padded garments to reveal he's wearing a black calimshite maid's outfit...with sheer fishnet black stockings. The other knights ignored his desperate pleas for assistance, figuring out that Anomen finally got what he deserved.
Anomen screamed, "HOW DID THAT GET THERE!!! I SWEAR TO YOU THAT THIS IS SOME HORRIBLE MISTAKE!!!"
Sir Ryan and the other knights look on him with disgust...
"Oh Keldy...urm...why not have some silken undergarments made to order by our tailor?" she asked in perplexity.
"Impossible!!! Those are the garments of a gigalo!!! This was merely a military expediency for the purpose of comfort and hygene!!!" he replied heatedly.
"Yeah, right..." mocked Jan.
"Silence knave and buffoon!!! Maria, I did actually think of that years ago, and at the time I was worried that our tailor would blab, bringing public condemnation on the Order. I guess that's a moot point right now..." glaring at a sniggering Jan Springer.
"Urm...not all the silk things I have are all that comfortable...you know, I'm missing some of my thongs..."
"I'm afraid you're going to have to look to Vesper for them..."
"Thanks buddy, good save..." whispers the bachelor Sir Ryan Trawl.
"Well, I'll forgive you this time, but..." said Maria.
"Only if you model them for me tonight." Maria finished the rest of her sentence in a whisper.
"Deal!!!"
"I love you, Keldorn Firecam!"
"And I love you, Maria Priscilla Firecam!" the two of them embraced, Maria crying and Keldorn shaking in relief.
Sir Anomen sobbed, "I'm so touched...this is so moving..someone give me a hug!!"
"Dragon crap! Where is the violence, where's the hitting and screaming? I thought for sure I had them!" muttered a unhappy Jan Springer to Tazok. He was sure that this particular episode would result in a rating booster of a major riot.
At this point a very disatisfied Jan Springer leaped to the top of his desk, and yanked his shirt off, reavealing the suit of chainmail that he started wearing 24/7 since he started the show. He quickly grabbed a bed pan from a pile of them lying behind the curtain of the stage, and put it on his head, in obvious imitation of a knight's helm. (The next show to be taped on the set was an episode of "Athkatla Hospital", the long running soap opera.) Then he started singing.
We're Knights wearing silk and sable,
We'd prance but in armor we're quite unable,
Please don't be mean, we're not drag queens
This itch is quite abominable.
Comfy things we need a lot,
Or we'll be doing the itchy crotchy trot-alot.
We're Knights who dance on the table,
Our feathered Boa's are formidable,
Our dancing is bold, to earn your gold
Just to pay for trims in black sable.
We're all stage mad in the Chapter,
A ceiling brass pole has us in a raptu-u-u-u-ure!
In war we're tough and able,
Quite indefatigable,
Between our quests we wear skimpy vests,
with glittering falsies and of course black sable.
It's a hard life as a righteous knight,
But with sexy lingerie we feel ALRIGHT!
Jan got his riot. The Paladins of the Most Radient Heart gave a gigantic shout of rage and indignation, and pulled their swords out of their scabbards. The force of bouncers, ogres and gnomes alike, tossed their pitifully inadequate inflated pigs bladders, and grabbed the nearest handy weapons...from the pile of bedpans lying around for the next show. Sir Keldorn at the vanguard was swarmed over by 3 gnomes, wielding bedpans as they mobbed him like rabid pirahna poodles. The gnomes, as they were wont to do in intense combat, shortened their traditional war cry from "Your knees are mine!" to "KNEE!!!" The gnomes shouting "KNEE!!!" used their bedpans to great effect, bashing the knights in their parade armor, the weight of it making their movements sluggish, as they flailed away with the flats of their swords. The ogre bouncers grabbed the first thing that came to hand as they finally engaged the knights. The gnomes had grabbed all the bedpans stacked behind the stage, so they were forced to grab the fake shrubbery stacked beside the bedpans in anticipation for the show being taped after "Athkatla Hospital". The ogre bouncers advanced en-mass on the cowering Sir Anomen, who had tried to run away from the general melee, and proceeded to pummel him with the fake shrubbery from the set of "Gnome Watch", the show by Jan Hasselhoff. Most disturbing of all, his moans and shrieks of pain soon changed to something completely different...
At this point, Charname had enough. Rising from his seat, he called the party together, and they left the Five Flagon's Inn.
"Well, on second thought, let's not stay in Athkatla. It is a silly place. Off to Windspear hills! We Ride!" Charname began to trot in his armor, and the party all followed, trotting along in their full plate mail armor, each party member followed by a squire clapping two coconut shells together.
As usual, poor Valygar was heard to grumble, "You'd think it would kill him to buy some real horses!" as he faithfully trotted behind Mazzy, clapping his two coconut shells together.
