Jallus huh? That's a new and original one! 83

edit: grrr, luckster posted before me, this was directed at the other guy
you're not the first to take that chapter the wrong way... inever really looked at it like that. he wasn't playing with them, he was sneaking in,at first he was being sneaky, and as i explained before the hack, he wasn't enjoying the fighting and killing, but the adrenaline rush he got from it. but now that i look back, i probably could've done that a little differently...

CHAPTER 18 – Poison
The Officer pulled what was left of its arm out of the water. The piranhas in the waters around him were obviously willing to take a bite of anything that fell into the marshes. Around the officer’s boast were a small fleet of others, each carrying a few hoodlums to their destination: the cave of bad dreams. Not that they knew what it was called.
They had been sent to find some sort of elixir, which would apparently be a good power source for Andre. For some reason, the pirates were afraid of the cave, but the Hoodlums had no idea why.
Finally, they found the cave. Careful not to push each other into the water, they all jumped out of the boasts and landed on the small area of land around the cave. The officer cautiously approached the cave entrance and peered inside.
“Ha! And what makes you think I’ll just give you the elixir?”
The officer jumped back in surprise; he couldn’t even see anything inside.
The Guardian to the cave of bad dreams then appeared, rising from beneath the ground. Below his hat was a large green body, with two large claws, one of which held a Skull on the end of a staff. He glared at the hoodlums with his single, imposing eye, and his speech revealed rows of sharp, rotting teeth, enhancing his fearsome image. “I can read your feeble minds! You don’t even know the name of this place!”
“huh?” the officer said, confused and afraid.
“I’m not going to let you in. Only those who know this place’s name may enter.”
Annoyed, the officer issued a command to his troops. Simultaneously, they all pointed their weapons at the guardian and prepared to shoot.
“Ha! Fools.” Before they could pull the trigger, the Guardian spat a large ball of flames at his opponents, lighting several hoodlums on fire. Then a long brawl broke out between the two sides, but despite his fireballs and huge claws, he was slowly overcome by the waves of fire. Unable to continue, he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. “Fine then, enter.” He managed to say before becoming unconscious.
The officer began to run into the cave, telling his troops to follow before a he heard something.
Stop! The officer looked about in confusion until he realized the voice was in his head. He figured it must be the voice that was telling Andre what to do. The Skull! The elixir is in the Skull! Walking over to the guardian’s motionless body, he observed the skull on his staff. Sure enough, it was filled with a bubbling, purple liquid. Picking it up, he began laughing with an evil joy, and was soon joined by his comrades.

Rayman woke up slowly and peacefully, without even opening his eyes. He felt very relaxed; almost too relaxed, as though he could easily fall back to sleep and never wake up again.
“Rayman, wake up!”
Rayman opened his eyes fully, but still felt drowsy.
“Rayman! Thank god! We were worried you’d never wake up!”
Rayman laughed sleepily. “Yeah, thanks Murphy”.
“I wasn’t joking.”
“What?” Rayman sat up slowly, feeling a slight pain where he was struck by the shuriken. Looking towards the source of his pain, he noticed a bandage. Carefully unraveling it, his wound was revealed to be pussy and infected, with a green taint affecting the area around it. “What?! How did this happen?!”
“It’s robot zombie poison!” Otto the teensie doctor had just entered the room. “It has found its vay into your shuriken vound, vich is much more deadly zan ven it is inhaled. It vill make you fery tired, but don’t fall to sleep or you seriously might nefer vake up!”
“Vell zen”, Murphy said in a manner intended to insult Otto, “How do vee cure zis problem?”
Offended, Otto jumped up and hit Murphy in the head. After complaining of the pain, Murphy rose a little higher.
“Anyvay:, Otto began, “ze only cure is ze elixir of life!”
“Well, time to go back to the marshes.” Rayman said blandly.
“Are you crazy?” Murphy exclaimed “The Marshes are surrounded by Pirate strongholds, and I hear some hoodlums got in there too. Not to mention piranhas and the swamp monster. Eek!”
“Well it’s either die here or die there. Besides I need something to keep me awake!” With that, Rayman ran from the room in search of the nearest teensie warp.
“So,” Murphy said to Otto, flying a little higher just in case. “How long vill it be before he dies? Vill he make it?”
“I’m afraid it’s not likely. I estimate he only has a few hours left to liff.”
End of Chapter
Question 16: How did he get poisoned?

CHAPTER 19 – Sleep in the Marshes of Awakening
“Ssssaaaaaaaaaaaam!” Rayman called. “Sssam? Hello?”
Sssams’s head popped out of the Murky water. “Hello Rayman. I sssee you’ve come to visit me. And – oh my, what happened to your ssstomach?”
“Long story. But I need the elixir of life to cure it.”
“Ah, so you need to get to acrossss the marshes?” Sssam asked, looking out behind him. “I sssaw some Hoodlums here before so we’ll have to be careful.” He continued looking into the distance, awaiting an answer. “Rayman?” he turned to see Rayman with his head bowed down and his eyes closed. “Rayman!?”
“Wha? Oh, sorry… we need to get there quickly.”
“okay, hold on!”
Rayman fired an energy ball at Sssam – not like the ones he used to destroy pirates, but similar to what he fired at the purple lums.
Not hesitating for a second, Sssam sped out into marshes, pulling Rayman behind him with the string of energy that now connected them. Rayman was thoroughly enjoying himself, and he never found it boring even though they did this almost every time he visited. After all, there wasn’t much else to do in the marshes.
Going faster than ever, they reached the cave in record time, where they were shocked to find the guardian on the ground, barely conscious.
“So… back for the elixir?” He said, his voice even more horrible, but quieter than before.
“Yes! And soon! Please, the world could be at stake!”
“I know… but I don’t have the elixir… it was taken by the hoodlums… and while I was injured, many creatures have escaped from the cave.”
“The Hoodlums!?” Rayman exclaimed. “Where did they go?”
As soon as the guardian pointed, Sssam took off again, with Rayman creating a new link. Before long they could see the small motorized boats the hoodlums were using.
“Sssam! Try and get ahead of them and I’ll jump on!”
“Ok Rayman!” Sssam further increased his pace, using all his energy to get Rayman there. Finally, he found his self slightly ahead of one of the boats. “Rayman! Are you ready?”
No answer.
“Rayman?” Sssam turned to see that there was no-one behind him.

Rayman floated peacefully down in a blissful state of semi-consciousness. He felt unimaginably tired, and closed his eyes happily. Relaxing, he sank further into darkness, welcoming the pure black below him with open arms. All he could hear was the seemingly distant, and very soothing noise of water moving around him He loved the stillness, the peace the purity. He was not breathing; his heart was not pumping; all was still, peaceful, relaxing, blissful, happy…
Something suddenly jerked him from his trance. His heart resumed beating, and much faster than ever before as he found himself in a state of sheer panic. He suddenly realized that his lungs were screaming for air, and that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. How far down was he? Which way was down? Which way was up? What had awoken him?
Hoping for some answers, he expelled some of his much needed energy to create a bright ball of light. Still, he could not see the surface or the bottom, but what he could see added to his fear; a swarm of piranhas circled him hungrily, one of them attempting to chew what looked like a part of Rayman’s shoe. Instinctively he began firing balls of energy at the toothy fish, attempting to deter them. One of them dived towards him, but he reacted fast and knocked its teeth from its mouth.
Suddenly, he realized that he had closed his eyes again. But he didn’t care. The state of bliss returned…
“No!” he said aloud, snapping himself from the trance. At once he made a snap decision to start swimming. For all he knew he was swimming down, but at least he had more of a chance trying than staying still.
Without thinking, he instinctively gasped for air but only managed to get a lungful of water and began violently coughing, each cough only adding to the pain in his chest and putting another mouthful of swamp water into his lungs. It was then that he lost all hope. This time, he closed his eyes willingly and welcomed the peace of death. The trance returned, and he was glad to die peacefully.
But it did not last long; something grabbed onto his foot, jerking him from sleep again. Damn Piranhas! He thought. why can’t they just let me die in peace! Frustrated and upset, he began to cry heavily. But then he suddenly found himself moving through the water rapidly. Slowly, a vague light became visible and he quickly realized he was being dragged up towards the surface by whatever was on his foot.
Sssam exploded out of the surface of the water dragging Rayman with him. Rayman then vomited all the water he had inhaled and very joyfully took a deep breath. But the joy was short lived; just as he was about to start laughing hysterically, he found himself being dragged back under. Dread struck and he almost started to cry again, but then he found himself back above the water.
“Sssorry about that” Sssam said. “It wasss a ssshortcut. Look!”
Rayman looked up; they had caught back up to the boats thanks to some underwater shortcut.
“Don’t go back to sssleep Rayman, Now go!”
Rayman fired two shots; one at Sssam’s scarf, so that he could ski properly, and one at the closest boat, which knocked it’s driver into the water. Then, he found a small above-water slope, which he used as a jump. Letting go of the bond between him and the serpent, he was propelled off the slop and onto the boat, and before the passengers could turn their heads, they were kicked overboard and sank to the bottom of the marshes.
Rayman took control of the boat and immediately added some speed to the vessel. The Hoodlums in the other boats opened fire, but they were lousy shots, whereas his shots always hit the mark, which he proudly demonstrated to the occupants of several other boats. It wasn’t long before there were only foru boats left; him and three others. The remaining hoodlums applied some extra force to their accelerators so that all the boats were now going at top speed.
Rayman was in trouble now; he would have to use some nice driving skills to catch up and get the elixir, and the deathly sleep was constantly threatening his consciousness. He sped around a corner tightly, so that the distance between him and the next boat was unnoticeable. He jumped across and commandeered the vessel, but the others were too far ahead, and one of them had the elixir.
Then out of the depths, a swamp monster suddenly popped up, swallowing the lead boat before the hoodlums even saw it. Luckily, the one behind it – the one with the elixir – was given enough time to react, and swerved out of the way. Rayman swerved too, and when he got around it, he noticed that the hoodlums were already on land, and were getting into a hot air balloon. He realized something bad; he wasn’t going to make it in time.
Putting his hands together, Rayman began charging a large ball of energy. Meanwhile, the balloon took off, and started drifting back the way the hoodlums had come. This was his chance. He threw the ball at his feet, and the resulting explosion propelled him into the air – and onto the balloon. Before long, only one hoodlums hadn’t been knocked into the bog below; the officer. Rayman turned around after pushing a soldier over the edge to see the officer’s gun pointed squarely at his face. Just as the gun went off, Rayman dropped to the ground and kicked the hoodlums in a single movement.
Rayman celebrated briefly before he realized that the officer was still holding the elixir. Panicking, he hurriedly ran to the edge and reached for the falling elixir, but it slipped through his hands. Then he threw his hand down as far away as it could go, and couldn’t reach. He again lost all hope. But it was then that Sssam saved him again. His little green tail pooped out of the water just in time to catch the elixir.
“Thanks Sssam!”
End of Chapter
Question 17: Specifically: what has escaped?

As always, good chapter. Love that you include so many characters. :3

i just like all the characters. plenty of chaters and therfore plenty of characters to go!

hey look! an update!

CHAPTER 20 – The Escapee
The limbless figure swam through the marshes with determination. He was fearful; he seemed to radiate a sense of terror and not even the piranhas were brave enough to get close to him. Even so, he shot a ball of energy at one every now and then; not as a precaution, but just for fun.
The first part of his goal was now achieved; he had escaped. While the guardian was injured, it was no longer able to keep warping him back into the depths of the cave. But now he needed to find some dry land. The he could get to work on his major goal: kill Rayman.

Rayman threw the skull shaped flask into the water. Immediately after gulping down the elixir, he could already feel himself becoming truly awake and full of energy, as though he could stay awake for days.
“Ssso, Rayman, I guesss you’ll be leaving now?”
“Yeah. Sorry Sssam, but there are important things to attend to.”
“Goodbye Rayman.” Sssam said glumly, before sinking back into the marshes.
“Bye Sssam! I’ll be back, don’t worry!”
“Not for a while though!” Said a small voice behind Rayman, which caused him to jump in fright. “ We have things to do!”
Rayman turned around to see that the teensie who had spoken to him was already creating a portal for him to go through. “So, back to the council then.” He said.
“Uh, not exactly.” The teensie replied. “Uh, Ly will explain”.
“Wha-” Before Rayman could question, he heard a familiar voice in his head.
“We think we know where another orb is!” Ly said excitedly. “The portal leads to picture city. Renk will be waiting there. But hurry, we heard the pirates may be planning an attack there. They definitely know about the orbs somehow. Anyway, good luck Rayman!”
Without hesitation, Rayman jumped into the portal, thanking the teensie as he went through.

The messenger nervously marched into Razorbeard’s cabin on the Bladed Avenger.
“Uh, sir? The scout force just got back from that continent we didn’t explore last time.”
“And?” Razorbeard said frustratedly, and almost threateningly.
“We can’t launch the attack.”
“What?!” Razorbeard cried angrily, banging his fists on his armrests. “Why not?!”
“The entire population is made up of…of…of….”
“Spit it out you worthless grub!”
“It’s like an entire population of Raymans! Every single one of them…limbless, big nosed, the lot!”
Razorbeard jumped out of his chair and quickly limped over to the messenger. Despite being half its size and completely unarmed, Razorbeard was somehow still very frightening to it.
“Did it occur to you that Rayman is probably unique?”
“Uh-“
“And that maybe he has powers that the rest of them don’t?”
“but-“
“And that in all likelihood, they are just like any other civilian on this planet, weak and useless?! Go forward with the attack! They may look like Rayman, but they aren’t! Rayman won’t be there to stop us! And besides, we need that orb! Now get your pathetic self out of here before I send you to join your predecessor!”
“Yes sir!”

Rayman found himself spinning around, surrounded by swirling colors and patterns. Long ago, this sensation made him feel a little ill, but by now he was used to it, and actually enjoyed it a little. Then, reality started to materialize around him. As far as he could see, pencil towers reached point-up for the skies, and the ground was formed of giant erasers placed in a grid-like pattern providing the floor of picture city, the land of images.
Just near the portal was Renk carrying his goo-gun. “How’s things? Ready for action? The city’s up on defense ready for a pirate attack. Primary weapon: Space Mama’s singing.” Renk chuckled at his own joke. Rayman didn’t find it quite as funny, having actually heard her singing.
“So where’s the orb?”
“It’s in Space Mama’s crater. I don’t know why she’s keeping it, but I don’t think she’ll give it up easily. But I do know why the pirates want it; it’s the orb of technology. Who knows how they could use it?”
“Whoa. So, when’s this siege?”
End of Chapter
Question 18: What did Razorbeard mean by the messenger’s “predecessor”?