"What the...?!?" Al mutters as he barely jumps out of the way of the flying sword.
"Hey! You coulda hurt someone with that!" Rocky reacts with lightening speed to his master's yelp and viciously uproots the helpless privet bush, shaking it in its mouth like a - well, I was gonna say like a dog maiming a squirrel, but that's really much more gruesome than an ancient, half-blind basilisk gumming a piece of vegetation to death.
Al's eyes grow wide in seeing Berserker Bill in his berserking fury running toward him. Almost without thinking, he points a fist in Bill's direction and blurts out what sounds like
"Blurgle!", and a greenish/purplish glow bursts forth from a ring on his fist and envelops Our Lord And Master His Mighty Potentate Berserker "Sheriff" Bill, stopping him in his tracks - and just in time, too, as his (none-too-clean) fingers were mere inches from Al's throat.
A look of pained surprise grips Bill's face like a Mind Flayer on, uh, someone with more intellect than a raging barbarian. He doubles over, gripped by the arcane glow (which is also accompanied by a funky "eeeeOOOOeeeeOOOO" noise (Al explained later that this was merely for effect and served no useful purpose)), and staggers backwards a step or two. He then spins around and tries to take another step, but jerks his body upward instead, as if trying to give his navel a bit more sun. He rocks from side to side, moaning and groaning and grasping at the empty air, like a hairy, dirty street performer in a dance macabre.
(Al, who has no patience for this sort of thing, merely sighs and rolls his free hand in a circular "let's get this moving along" motion.)
Bill's arms finally drop like wet noodles to his sides, and as his head lolls about on his neck, he cranes his head upward and blurts out,
"Rrrooooffff.... Fff - izz...", the plentiful spittle that once erupted so mightily from his mouth now merely oozing into his stubble and down his neck (and even a little into his once-venerable chest hair, making it a bit less sproingy).
Al, confused a little bit, glances up at the roof and shrugs. He regains his composure and steps out from behind Bill's now seemingly intellect-less (yet still standing) body. He smooths his ruffled robes down and slicks his hair back into place.
"I really didn't want to do that, honestly," he says with just a hint of genuine remorse in his voice,
"damn these lightning reflexes!" A gurgling, growling noise catches his ear at that moment and he looks down at his reptilian companion and rolls his eyes. He picks up the leash and gives it a yank or two until Rocky releases the now leafless ex-shrubbery.
"Now I'm sure the rest of you will have better sense than to try something like that, yes?" He waits just a split second before answering that himself.
"Yes. As I thought. Don't worry, he's perfectly fine. Well, physically, I mean. Mentally, eh, he'll be out for a while. It depends on the mind..." He looks at Bill and gives a "meh" shrug of his shoulders that doesn't exactly fill you full of hope.
"He could be out for hours, days, weeks, months... Who knows? His intellect might even bubble up to the surface every now and then just to become buried again. But, in the long run, he'll come around... Probably... Anyway. You have all the info I've given you, and you still have the majority of your party intact. I suggest you go ahead and embark on this quest of yours, while the gettin's good, as they say. And take... This... Along with you, if you would be so kind," he adds, gesturing at Bill's still-drooling husk of a body.
He stands there waiting for you all to stir, but is momentarily met by only your silence, and your own surprised faces, jaws agape in astonishment.
He sighs.
"Come come now, it's not all that bad..." He glances toward Bill, and does a double-take as he notices more drool cascading in gleaming rivulets down his chin.
"Well... Alright. Maybe it is." He thinks for a quick moment, and something dawns on him. He raises a pointed finger and exclaims,
"Ah! Here. Have a monkey."
With another of his trademark *POOF*'s a very confused but very cute little rhesus monkey appears on Bill's shoulder. It is dressed in an adorable little embroidered red velvet vest with matching hat. It chitters and chatters for a second as it gains its bearings.
"I'd call it a helper monkey, but it never helped me, that's for sure," Al says, that last bit trailing off into an under-breath muttering.
"Now. I do believe you're in a position to start a new chapter in your adventuring. So, I bid you luck, fair weather, and adieu. Please hesitate to bother me again."
And with a final *POOF*...
You find yourselves
standing outside the front door of The Old Bald One-Eyed Salty Red Dog Tavern.
