Hello, humans and other pea-distributing races around my pond.
You may have noticed that my most recent post was when Book 4 of Neverstone was released, and the saga was concluded. This may have led you to believe that I, the world’s premier LitRPG waterfowl, had given up on the saga and left this blog to gather dust and/or for Uzbekistani weasel smugglers to yoink my password and turn nedcaratacus dot com into the silk road of exotic varmints.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. (Except for that last bit. …the scoundrels.) As such, I owe the lot of you an explanation.
You see, just after I had reiterated for the umpteenth time that “BOOK 4 IS UP” and hit the post button, I heard the most vile pitter-pattering noise from behind. No fewer than 16 pelicans had me surrounded, each one demanding the $952.38 I owe them in Royal Match microtransactions. But Ma Caratacus raised me right — and she taught me that once a duck has a debt, he never pays it, because anyone who would hound a duck for an outstanding fee is clearly sick in the head!
Alas, scarcely before I could reply to that end, I was staring through the semitransparent membrane of a pelican’s throat-flap. The next time I saw the sun, two weeks had passed, and I was in Novgorod. Apparently the big cheese of the pelican Bratva wanted to personally give me a pair of cement shoes for such an insult.
So, they did. Fortunately, they were just some knockoff Adidas gym shoes they carved out of cement and they didn’t even fit me, so we called it a wash.
Nevertheless, I was stranded in Russia, with four major factors working against my journey home: One, no money. Two, there’s that international boycott that’s been making the rounds since the whole Ukraine business, and I’d technically be a live animal export. Three, it’s too far to fly on my own. And four, I’m afraid of commercial air travel. There’s just something wrong about hopping in an airplane and letting a flightless creature at the controls do the flying for you.
(And before you ask, the language barrier wasn’t an issue. If you’re a human, it’s one thing, but all a duck needs to know is “кря-кря.”)
Pro: no one threw me bread, which any bird lover knows would fuck me right up. Con: everyone threw me semechki instead, which basically tastes like salt-flavored Flintstones vitamins.
Two months of this salty nightmare passed, and I was growing desperate. But opportunity came knocking: I got a callback to be on this local game show called НУХ-УХ. It’s kind of like Jeopardy, except instead of answering in the form of a question, you have to answer in the form of “How dare you. Who gave you the right to ask me something like that? Your nose isn’t exactly clean either. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand unless you’re willing to confront everything you’ve ever done, first.”
I stopped playing halfway through and left with a check for two million rubles, because apparently that’s the only way to actually win.
By stretching out my winnings as much as I can, I was able to purchase a medium-sized bag of popcorn and a tiny plastic motorcycle helmet replica. That last one’s important, because that’s actually how I was about to get home.
Step One: put on the helmet to ensure a safe landing.
Step Two: find a guy with a chip on his shoulder.
Step Three: face westward.
Step Four: as him, “how come you guys always spell the letter R wrong?”
One punt later, I landed off the coast of Maine. And after taking a bus home and getting stuck in traffic for over a year… here I am, rock you like a hurricane.
(And my butt still hurts. Good Lord. Dude’s toes were like battering rams.)
Anyway, come this Monday, I’m going to give the lot of you an update on Elvish culture in the world of Neverstone, which was itself inspired by Romani, Italian, and — what a coinkydink! — Slavic culture.
Thanks for your patience, and keep on duckin’.
Ned Caratacus: Author, Scholar, Duck 