h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anyone want to play a different sort of game? I've had lots of fun with collaborative stories before. One that worked well was where each person posts as follows. The previous poster leaves a sentence unfinished, so for your post, you finish the sentence, add a full sentence of your own, then end with a partial sentence. I'll start, but since there is no previous poster, I get two sentences, then a partial. Got it?

Once upon a time, it was a dark and stormy night and a solitary light burned in the highest tower window of the castle. Inside, Count Rudolph sat sadly at his desk looking dejected, reading and rereading the letter he had recieved that day. "There must be a flaw", he thought, as he...


(Now, the next person to post should finish that sentence, add a sentence of their own, then finish with a partial sentence.)

... tossed the letter over his shoulder. "How COULD they have given me the bill for seventy-five thousand barrels of pickles!" He stood up and ...

...stalked over to the hallway door. "Where's my dinner, you Wench? I swear I've only kept you around because...

... you're the only woman I ever knew who could make oatmeal just like mom always did! What do you want me to do to help you get a meal ready on time?

"Well" she said, you could start by...

...being a bit nicer."

He got a hilarious expression on his face for a moment, but then he cleared his throat and decided to start again. He said ...

..."I'm sorry. Nice, you said? Then why don't you...

...Come on over here and...

(I dare you. )

...help me move these pickles. Betty, for that was the wench's name, entered the tower room and gasped when she saw all the barrels of pickles.

"Count Rudolph", she said, "Your pickle...

... jars appear to be in a pickle."

His jaw dropped. "Your puns are worse than your service! If I had half a mind ...

I might be able to come up with a pun too."

He looked at her with admiration on his face.

She just sighed and said...

...It's just something I picked up at wench school - nothing to it, really. Just then a crow flew up and landed on the windowsill. In it's beak, it held...

...a piece of cheese. While the wench stared at it in amazement, the Count lunged for it. But the bird...

.... flew out the window calling "My cheese! You don't get any"

However the bird, being a bird brain, forgot that when it opened his mouth to speak, the cheese would fall out of his mouth. This was good news to the count, but unfortunately the cheese fell into...

...the open window of the pickle delivery truck as it was going away down the road. the pickle delivery truck driver couldn't believe his luck as he had been feeling a bit peckish just then. consumed with the thought of the cheese snack he failed to see...

that a giant sea serpent had come up on the beach,
and was standing in the road, blocking the truck's path.

"Hi, there, sailor," said the sea serpent seductively,"
I'm looking for my daughter Betty, who is married to
Count Rudolph, the pickle heir. Ah, you must be...."

"...her weekend play toy. She writes every week about what she does with you in the cold dungeons when her husband pays no mind to her. Could you tell me..."

"... where you get your hard-wearing equipment? I've tried Argos with zero success. I'm starting to feel a little..."

....behind. How dare you said the wench.
Oh no groaned the mechanic, I never said wench, I said pass me the...

...out of my depth, so to speak. Especially since I have lost my magic cheese, which was stolen by a knight in black armour. I'm starting to wish I had never...

simulpost!

The next poster can follow whichever post suits their fancy.