The Story of the Tower of the Sun Bandits

Captain Fizbroth and First Mate Hoofler tredged through the hot sand. The last five continents did not help them in any way other than giving them much needed sailing experience.

First Mate Hoofler had spent years in the Atlantic learning how to dive for oysters before meeting Fizbroth by chance during once such trip. Fizbroth was clinging to a blackened piece of wood, floating helplessly hundreds of miles from the mainland. Imagine the good Captain's surprise when, from below, the camel lifted him from the cold ocean into the colder night breeze.

They got to chatting, and upon asking Hoofler how the devil he could make it so far from the coast, it was revealed that instead of collecting fat in his hump, he could collect air. Though this limited the distance he could travel, having to stop every now and again for a bite to eat, he was no disappointment. In fact, on their first journey Fizbroth noted that Hoofler could go farther than any other camel he had known. What was the difference? Determination or pure willpower?

That wasn't important. What was important was getting back at the sun. Captain Fizbroth and his crew of forty men had been sailing under the Island of Giant Glass Lenses during a cloudless summer afternoon when a passing sunray angled just perfectly through one of the giant glass monoliths. The boat was blazing at every bend except what was submerged beneath the waves, but the structure became too weak and, panel by panel, the ship Fizbroth and his men had built, Professor Journyman, dissolved into the ruthless sea. The men who were caught directly in the sunbeam were killed instantly. Many more were lucky enough to grab hold of a floating plank, and many more still were too sick to fend through the currents.

Fizbroth stayed afloat with near a dozen of his men for two weeks and when all seemed hopeful, a typhoon swept them all up and spat them out in different corners of the ocean. Fizbroth awoke to find himself clutching onto the plank, but with no fellow floaters anywhere on the horizon. It could have been a week or a month when Hoofler saved him, but Fizbroth knew one thing for certain: he had to teach the sun a lesson.

Hoofler brought Fizbroth to shore, and they wandered into the nearest town with supplies. With Hoofler's permission and patience, Fizbroth devised a contraption that would help them immensely. It was a simple tube with many syringe-like needles at the bottom that dug through Hoofler's hump, secured by suction. Fizbroth built a modestly sized ship of sorts on the top of the pole and ran the pipe through it.

With a large enough feast before departure, Fizbroth and Hoofler could transverse entire seas without the noble camel having to come up for air. Whenever Fizbroth would spot distant land, he would shout down the tube and Hoofler would rise, turning the boat into a crow's nest, giving the captain a better view of the dangers ahead.

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Captain Fizbroth and First Mate Hoofler had been to five continents, looking for any surviving crew from Professor Journyman who had floated ashore, and some clue as to how they could tame the sun, or at least communicate with it. Fizbroth was not a violent man, he simply wanted answers. So far, they had been completely unsuccessful in both endeavours. Neither of the two gave up easily, though, and that made every day a zesty one.