The Gnawer

In fear did I freeze before the hideous gaze of that gnawing fiend! Closer he came and a terrific scream I scrame. Horror and despair!

Then the Sha-Una loped forward to greet the Gnawer and patted him hairily upon the head. I knew then the black face of betrayal. The Sha-Una had delivered me thus into the hands of my enemy! I wailed and shuddered my lobes. Alas, I am undone!

“Good heavens, man. Is that absolutely necessary?” spoke the Gnawer.

“Devour me now and work thy toothy deeds!” I cried.

“Good heavens! What a silly man!” he said, and the Sha-Una nodded in hairy approval.

“Will you not gnaw me hideously then?”

“Indeed I should say not!”

Then did that lightly-clad man reveal his purpose! And was it hideous? Was it hellish and pungent? Nay! In fact, I was soon to find that many things once thought lobidious and terrible were in fact the works of this marvelously behatted man and his efforts to aid my needful quest.

“Never met a person of Pan-Dimensional birth, I take it, eh?” he asked.

“You mean like the mice?”

“Good heavens, no! Let me explain.”

Then did he leap from the ground and land upon my right shoulder. He pointed a finger and ordered me to hasten. Having complied in bafflement, we soon came to a tidy sort of a building upon the edge of that Voonville town. “Smithers and Jouncey” proclaimed the shingle upon its face. Then the Gnawer leapt again from my shoulder and placed himself back upon the ground before me.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “I am Jouncey, and this is my trading post.”

Then did I venture within that tidy place and witness wonderous things revealed. But alas, I must gloan in full before they may be here related.