RP #3

As our previous attempts at an RP proved to be much too loose to maintain a followable plot, we've decided to try again, this time with a set of rules.
Let's see how things play out with a skeletal frame to keep things together.

Guidelines (violation is optional, though not recommended):
1: No character's positive attributes should outweigh their negatives.
2: Limit of one specific setting per user. For example, person A starts role playing a clown in a circus, and person B does a bird in a tree nearby. Person A cannot jump to a bear falling off a cliff unless it is directly related to the circus tent, or nearby tree.
3: Character expendability shall be measured by their name. No name means they're open to sudden unexpected death. Having a first name means they deserve at least three posts before a notable death occurs. A first and last name grants them two posts, and their death done off stage.

Setting:
Our role play takes place in the magical kingdom of Droo.
This role play takes place… how 'bout in a sleepy little western town called Bedspring. It's buildings include but are not limited to a saloon, a bank, a tavern, a town hall, a cantina, seventeen barber shops, a pub, an electronics store, a sports bar, a laundromat, a roadhouse, an antique store, a speakeasy, and an enormous warehouse twice the size of the town itself guarded by a rusted padlock and a low chain-link fence.

Conflicts:
-The evil chancellor Coal steals Princess Valvida's body on Octavio's Graduation day.
-A bill was passed making all alcoholic beverages illegal in the county of whereverthecrap Bedspring is. I dunno, we'll improvise that.
-Competition amongst barbers is leading to violent behavior.
-A band of rogue bulldozers terrorizes the local farmers.
-Tornado.

Note that any amount of the above information is subject to total negation.

And now, I'll start us off.

The sun was shining, but Clunk the squirrel couldn't see it behind all the rain clouds. Despite this, he was very hot in his little hole in the oak, and unbuttoned his sweaty plaid shirt in discomfort. Rain drops pelted against his round windows, fat and lukewarm. "Ugh," Clunk thought in despair, "how am I ever going to enjoy my vacation under such shitty conditions?"

Raphael, the quietest person in the world, was banging on Clunk's door at the next moment, much to the discomfort of Clunk the squirrel. "That moron's still here? I've told him a thousand times I don't want to buy any mirrors (a thousand exactly, come to think of it), you'd think he'd get the point by now!"

Audible but muffled through the two-inch glass windows, Raphael the quietest person in the world could be heard yelling "Clunk! Cluuuunk!"

"Go away," Clunk shouted in Newman's Own 100% pure annoyance, "I don't want anything to do with you!"

"But... but mirrors-"

"NO! Absolutely no mirrors allowed! Can't stand the things, and that makes one thousand and one times I've told you now!" Clunk then walked to the thick window and made a motion to shut the shades. Finding no shades to shut, he instead made the frumpiest wrinkle-face he could manage (which is quite incredibly frumpy, considering his face is always frumpy by default). He also looked relatively Chinese. Old Chinese.

Raphael made a face like Rick Moranis in response then fled clumsily up a nearby hill, stopping only once at the top to turn about and yell "You're not a real squirrel!"

"I am too a squirrel," mumbled Clunk, and he sat down again on his straw toilet chair watching reruns of that terrible Ghostbusters cartoon.

It was the episode where Slimer ate Peter's hot dog, framed Raymond, and while those two argued comically, Egon solved the case with Louis and Gozer's help. Although Clunk had seen the episode at least a dozen times, he had no idea what was going on. Usually, the only reason he watched the mindless kids show was to wind his brain down after a hard, tedious day of delivering mail.

'But I'm on vacation now,' Clunk thought to himself while a barely animated Egon rubbed his chin. 'What the hell am I watching this shit for now?' His marble eyes glanced over to the shadeless window splattered with warm rain. Combined with the intense heat, the thick glass gave the appearance of a melting slab of ice. 'Fifty two weeks in a year, and it had to rain the hardest, and be the hottest, on MY vacation.'

In an angry habit he'd adapted after the war, Clunk grabbed his limp, shabby tail and pounded it hard against the side of the straw toilet chair. He felt worthless, sitting on his rear all day in front of a television, shedding and sweating, itching and biting to get up and do something, but lacking the external motivation. In a climatic effort to alter his day, he stood from his chair, scratched his rear, and changed the channel.

Marley was sad. He'd been sad for two days now since he'd given up hope of ever fulfilling his destiny. The war was over and peace now prevailed in its all of its quiet happiness. Fighting, killing, destruction and disorder in general was now a thing of the past. These are all very depressing things to think about for a hand grenade.

Marley didn't know how he'd gotten inside Clunk's television set (he was asleep when it happened). For years he had hoped someone would find him. But now that war was over, even if he was found he wouldn't be used. "Woe is me," thought Marley in that one voice that's always used when reading sad text in a little golden book, "I'll never be used for destruction as I was made to do. If only I could blow up at will, but alas that's not how grenades work."

Then, somehow, he just exploded. If you were there, you would have just seen Clunk say "Dern old piss of a vacation; this SUCKS!" *KABOOM*

The fire department arrived at the late Clunk the Squirrel's house mere minutes after receiving the concerned calls of adjacent neighbors. It was soon followed by the one firetruck that slept within it, driven by Elmer the Volunteer Firefighter. He wasn't a koala.

Once the firetruck caught up to the mobile fire department, he scolded it for leaving him and Elmer behind. The fire department, being actually a very large tortoise capable of holding the not-koala's firetruck inside its shell, retaliated by pointing out that the scene was right across the street from where he got up from. To this, the truck, which was in fact a talking firetruck, said that the tortoise could have still waited for he and Elmer to get ready before leaping up and taking off without a word.

Elmer was not a koala for a very good reason, and it was for this very same reason he had no say in this conversation, nor any say in where the truck went. The truth was that Elmer USED to be a koala, until the previous week when he became something entirely different; a dead koala.

As the firetruck and enormous tortoise bickered and babbled, Clunk the not-squirrel's treehouse remained as it was, with just a bit of smoke from the smoldering television set leaking out the broken window. Alas, there was no fire, nor a massive amount of structural damage. It would seem that the explosion accomplished only two things; it interrupted the weather forecast, transformed Clunk the Squirrel into naught, and caused the neighbors to phone the inept fire department living right across the street.

Elmer's rotting face fell forward, landing plop onto the firetruck's deafening horn button. Being an entirely automatic machine, the horn button was the only button in the entire truck's interior.

Louder than anything, the horn was meant only for two things: emergencies of the highest degree of risk and horror, or by accident. This time (like always) it was by accident, but it still frightened the wits and bejesus out of Simon the fire department. At top speed and without even an instant's delay to look surprised or shocked by the horn, Simon fled down the street. Being a tortoise his max speed still gave GorDon the firetruck plenty of time to cuss him out, and this GorDon did, oh how he did (or so he thought) and for good reason: every time Simon had been scared in the past it meant six weeks of "running" away, followed by another week of crying and gradually calming down before finally resuming natural status as a fire department vertebrate. GorDon had done this too many times already; once.

Also startled by the horn, Mr. Winky-Patch-Hippy-Rubber-Raspberry-Flowerhat-Missus (or Guts for short) realized his error, grabbed Elmer's head and jammed it back onto its spine, yelling "Sorry!" to poor GorDon who was busy trying to swear but too polite to even sound like it. Guts was a collection of the less popular Mr. Potato Head parts stuck into the belly of a dead Koala.

Nine hundred years later…

The Scenic Slums, as the aristocrats nicknamed them, were coated four layers thick with colorful graffiti. This was the hangout for the baddest of the bad. No lowbrow hoodlum could go about with the F-bomb on his tongue before being shot in three places, and dumped in the river within a St. Joe minute. Otherwise, most sensible pedestrians got along just fine with the locals, and paid their rational dues every week to keep it that way.
Time flowed differently in these slums, as the sun was blotted out by the neighboring factories. Being either dark, or extra dark, no one bothered with the rest of the world, and lived by the clock at St. Joe's, which ran a bit slow due to the heavy cloud of pollution that ran right through its mechanics, gunking the gears to run at about 3/4's the speed of the rest of the world.

The gang that owned these parts were nicknamed The Artists, as they had some of the most creative and integrate graffitis on every building in a three mile radius, except St. Joe's, which looked just as it had three hundred years ago except for the many layers of pollution. The Artists took good care of St. Joe. It used to be a church, preaching the love of some uppety deity, but now acted as a sanctuary for the homeless, icon of pride, and symbol of hope. Plus they ran a hooker joint on the second story.

For the most part, life in the Scenic Slums promised peace for those who lived there, and no tolerance for those who didn't. So it's little surprise that when Tyrone saw a mystic portal open up behind a dumpster, and two short men from the magical land of Droo step out in bright purple garment, he whipped out a pistol and shot them both square in the face.