The Bad Boys' Soft Boys' Lonely Hearts Club - The Full Package

Chapter 3: Storming The Necrodancer's Keep

You know what rustles my giblets more than first chapters? The first chapter of a sequel. These authors think one is braindead enough not to have a modicum of information retention of a book we most likely just binge read, because they spend the whole first chapter of book two re-introducing the same characters and settings we already know. Nobody starts the story in book two, right, J. K. Rowling? You frigid homophobe. You know you didn't have to introduce the Dursleys every single damn book, right? Fat, assholes, one has a bushy mustache, we get it. It's an insult to our intelligence.

If you think nothing good happens in chapter ones, then put your briefs in a box and toss it to the Atlantic ocean, because nothing happens in chapter ones on a sequel. Not "nothing good," but nothing at all. Is just a parade of old characters being mansplained to adoring masses on a setting we already know, just saying "Hey, we back, babes." And you, hypothetical reader, don't need to be subjected to such inane babbles. You're smarter than that. You don't need me to talk down to you as if you were a gerbil who lost a nut, said nut being in its mouth, right, Lemony Snicket? You convoluted buffoon who uses the first chapters of every one of his thirteen books to explain who is the eldest of the Baudelaire and who does what, as if we don't know one bite good, one reads well, and one is in for a world of hurt in a male dominated field who will objectify her and berate her for being a woman engineer. Jesus.

No, I refuse to embrace this culture of using the first chapter of a sequel to once again tell you about who I am, or the fact that I'm cut like a diamond made of razors, or that my butt can crack a walnut by the sheer force of my clench. You already know that, right, whoever wrote Twilight? Using the first chapter to make a virginal description of some shiny bloodsucker with the charisma of a wet sock, and just about as appealing.

The point is, you're smart, you have a good memory, you don't need to be handheld by a bunch of character exposition and dialogue that either makes you feel like an idiot, or implies that the character are idiots who only speak in incredibly obvious information that they should all know already but have to say out loud because you, the reader, are apparently a terrible victim of a head injury and forgot about everything.

In case you have been a victim of a head injury, then I'm very sorry, and hope you recover promptly. Also, go lay down and eat some watermelon.

But I'm digressing. I shall not subject you to this because I love you and respect your intelligence. Well, I do judge you for reading this instead of watching something good, like Breaking Bad. Now, that's a show that doesn't insult your intelligence. As such, I have decided to skip chapter one and all that nonsense, and go straight to chapter... three. Yeah, second chapters are also kind of bad since they introduce the secondary characters and do the whole shebang once again.

Sure, they usually introduce some important plot points that do go ahead and impart the whole thing, but if you have read this story before - which, if you're reading this chapter, you have done already - you know I don't give a flying, rolling, or motorized fuck about the plot. In fact, if going directly to chapter three bypasses all that whole "having a plot thing," then better for me! I don't plot. Plot will not help me with my ultimate dream of being a customer ser-hey! I almost felt for that one. Fucking plot man, how does it work?

So let's do this, shall we? No chapter one, nor chapter two, just chapter three all the way. It might be confusing since we just skipped two whole chapters of content, but you're a smart cookie. You can roll with it and get some context clues of what's happening, right? Right. Let's just start this awesome chapter three. This is for your well-being. Just don't get too confused if things don't inmediately make sense.

So, the castle is bathed in the crimson of the blood moon, only seen once every hundred years. The banners of knight's past litter the battlefield above rotting corpses and pearlescent bones, alongside whatever was left after looters and carrions feasted upon the dead.