The Chicken Hero Saga Chapter 10: Caged Heat

  In the week that followed the imprisonment of the Deboner things had gotten boring.  There was a momentary glimpse of excitement when he fell out of the bed one morning, but attempts to prove if the bed had turned evil proved fruitless for the Hero.  Sure the harvest was as busy as ever, but there was no sense of imminent danger, only the constant worry that the aged serving wench Marius would expire at any minute.  He wasn't sure if he was the only one who saw that black faceless guy in the robe following her, but hey, she had asked for someone to follow her with a meal so he thought nothing of it. He would do anything to cure his boredom, he even began to partake in the games of Bogeyus the procurer of goods, seeing how many items in the harvest he could count at one time, and then trying to beat that record the next day, the life of a procurer of goods was no life at all, all they did was read, and read, and read.

  Taking a walk to clear his head the Hero found himself at the mall of Avalon, but it must have been early as it seemed none of the shops were open, and there were very few townsfolk there.  He looked down to check his portable wrist sundial but as it was raining it was of little help.  He made a mental note to invent a type of sundial that ran on batteries, he then made a mental note to invent batteries.  At this hour the mall of Avalon seemed like a ghost town, he thought how funny the idea of a ghost town would be, ghost store owners, ghost blacksmiths, ghost kids flying their ghost kites, he chuckled to himself at the absurdity of this scenario, but as he began to look around the chuckle vanished, for as he looked around he noticed something wasn't right, something wasn't right at all.

  It had been too early for the shops in the mall of Avalon to open, but yet there townsfolk enclosed in all the stores, sorting out things, arranging things here, and putting things there. This would seem mostly normal if there weren't barriers set up stopping these people from leaving the store.  It wasn't just one shop that had the wall put up but all of them, in each store there was one, maybe even two people trapped, looking out him in fear like a serving wench at the harvest when the mother of all serving wenches went on a rampage. He ran to the nearest shop and banged on the glass partition as hard as he could, it was a strong glass, one that could even stop bullets, if bullets had been invented yet.  He screamed at the no doubt frightened peasant shop girl "DON'T WORRY LITTLE ONE, I WILL GET YOU OUT OF HERE!" to which the girl responded "I'm sorry sir we don't open till ten." Such a brave girl, but she was obviously terrified, he knew the girl most have been worried about who would cook her husband's meals if she were barricaded in there forever, but that she was trying to put on a brave front.  He ran to all the barricaded shops screaming that he would save every last one of them, and they all responded with the same quizzical look and the same response "I'm sorry sir we don't open till 10." What was going on here? Were they all being programmed to say that? What else were they being programmed to do? Running as fast as he could, he arrived where the people usually congregated and took a break at the mall of Avalon, the intermission.


................................................INTERMISSION...........................................................................


  Now that he had made it through the intermission with nothing happening he began to search for what could cause the people to be contained like this.  To the Hero the mall of Avalon had always been strange, parts of the year townsfolk dropped off gifts to the massive tree god known as the Tree of Happiness, other parts of year townsfolk  took their children to get the picture taken with a over sized bunny rabbit, and there was also a place where you could buy bread twisted into irregular shapes. As he searched for some way, any way to free these people something registered in his mind, it was something all those trapped workers had said, a time, ten o'clock, whatever was happening must be happening then, he looked down at his portable wrist sundial, but since he was inside that didn't help much, in frustration he cast the watch aside, it had always bothered him anyway. Not knowing what else to do the threw things at the barricade hoping the walls would fall, he wished his brother Robbieus was here, as could probably take the barricades and throw them two towns over.

  As he tossed every item he could find he was enveloped by a massive shadow, and an overwhelming scent of pine freshness.  He turned to see the biggest tree he had ever seen and knew without a doubt it was the tree god the Tree of Happiness.  His voice boomed as he spoke "WHO GOES THERE?"..........."It is I the Hero, and I have come to free these people." "THESE PEOPLE BELONG TO ME NOW, THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THEM." "Listen here you overstuffed pine cone, I am not leaving here without these people, free them at once or you will be hanging from every wagon from here to continents across the world." "Puny man, you do not scare me, and if you think you can beat me, well I may be a giant tree but clearly you are the biggest sap here." "Oh, a little tree humor eh, but just a lesson pal, I'm the Hero, I make the wisecracks, people tell me I should be a comedian but I'm thinking of..............branching out." Curses, he always forgot his sunglasses. "Besides, I thought you were the Tree of Happiness, this doesn't seem to be making people happy."

 "Do you know what it's like to be me human, no, how could you, you are but a mere mortal.  Every year for centuries people have come to me bearing gifts, giving what they could.  However, each year the tributes have been less and less, no one worships me like they used to. I SHOULD BE FEARED, but instead when the season of tributes is over, do you know what they do? they stuff me in a closet, and restrain me, THEY DON'T EVEN GIVE ME WATER, and I begin to wither and die, sitting literally on pins and needles. WELL NO MORE, if these people don't want to give me tributes I will take them, along with their souls, and the souls of anyone who tries to stop me......" interrupting the Hero spoke up "Um hold on a sec, how come you didn't scream the part about the souls? I mean surely that had to be an important part of the speech right? I mean it just seems like something you would want to emphasize." "Really, can I start over?" "Well we kind of have to get a move on here, time is wasting." With that the Tree of Happiness began his assault, launching an airstrike of pine cones at the Hero, who managed to bob and weave successfully, lunging at the tree he was repelled by the sharpness of his needles, needles so sharp they could even cut through his trusty and effective chicken string.

  He had to get the giant tree away from the people, maybe that would lessen it's hold on them, he ran toward the moving stairs but the Tree of Happiness followed suit. "SILLY MORTAL, I AM A GOD, YOU CAN NOT ESCAP...........HEY HEY WHAT'S HAPPENING...........I'M STUCK......I CAN'T MOVE...HELP ME SILLY MORTAL."  Looking back he couldn't help but laugh, here stood the mighty god, stuck in the moving stairs, seeing his opportunity he ran and lunged at the colossal twig, unleashing a mighty tackle the tree began to snap in half, as he watched the tree fall to the floor, he noticed something else, all the doors began to open, running from store to store people were quick to return the favor for all his help, welcoming them to their stores and asking how they could now help him.

  As a crowd of onlookers gathered to see the fallen tree god, two women stood up above, their vengeful eyes not on the tree god, or the people, but on the Hero, they had found him now, and he would pay.