THE MUNCHKIN OF THE MALK CLAN


        "Listen to the music, the Warehouse awakes for the Clan Malkavian
        The Naivaklams listen, the Tomatoes rage, they too are Malkavians
        To the laughter as loud as the thunder
        To the laments as soft as a sigh
        And some say this story is just a joke
        So who cares if it doesn't rhyme?"

        "Listen to the sounds; they are beautiful, no? Because you know,
the malks don't have fun all by themselves."
        "They DON'T?"
        "No, silly newbie; it takes a fishmalk or three to start the place
_really_ jumping. But what are these fishmalks?"
        "What?"
        "Who are they?"
        "Who?"
        "How did they come here?"
        "How?"
        <SPONK>
        "Quiet, I'm telling a story here. Just join Clan Naivaklam, and the
Spooke will tell you-"

        "Bright was the daylight as someone crept in through the
Warehouse's sewers again. Four frightened newbies slipped into the
Warehouse of Clan Malkavian. Why there were sewers I don't know; how they
found us is obvious, but: Little did they know the Old Guard was there to
weed out the fishmalk blood.
        "Hagbutt longed to purge the world of all who weren't him, and he
saw pink fluff everywhere except within; but all of that is academic, for
the newbies ran into the Reverend Omnicynic!"

        <Omni sneers, more by implication than by expression; the newbies
try to stand their ground, unwitting of their fate. "Take them to the
Laboratory," Omni intones, turning his mount, which was no doubt once
recognizable as something other than a pulsating black tentacled mass.
        "Newbie! What have you got there?" snarls a generic newbie eager to
suck up to an oldbie by following his seeming inclination.
        Omnicynic, delayed in his return to an experiment, snapped, "A dead
fish no doubt, or a gun. Take it from her.">

        Spooke flourished his trenchcoat dramatically, spraying dog hairs
in a gentle cloud over the listening newbies. "She ran!!" he commented as
an afterthought, grinning with the Childer at the futile cowardice of the
newbie.

        <Omni charged after the newbie, tired of having to put up with
channel springers constantly, and needing to test the speed of his mount
anyway. The newbie ran desperately towards the logoff sign, but all for
nought; Omni casually reached down and took the bundle in her arms from
her. Screeching like a skalded cat, the fishmalk was Nick-killed in the
process.
        Examining the bundle with detached interest, Omni was so surprised
he nearly had an expression at the nick of the contents. "A newbie? A
FISHMALK!" Disgusted, he was about to dispose of the thing when the Holy
Erehwon logged on.
        "STOP!" cried Erehwon! "Give the newbies a chance! You may have
scared off another recruit to the august circle of writers this day!"
        "I am innocent; the newbie ran, and I pursued," scoffed Omni,
dismissing the notion.
        But Erehwon argued so passionately, so rationally, that Omni was
humbled, and vowed to be mentor to the newbie, and raise it as his own;
even then, his twisted mind was ticking off ways to put this turn of events
to use. And the Malks of the Warehouse gave him a cruel name, a name that
means "Having Lord, Death or Chaos in your nick"; _Sporky._>

        "So here is a riddle to guess if you can, straight from Clan Malkavian.
        What is the difference 'tween a raven and a writing desk?? Ask the
Mad Hatter if you can...
        <brief checking of notes>
        Oh, and what makes a munchkin and what makes a malk??
        And remember to join Clan Naivaklam!!"

        Spooke smiled at the sleepy newbies, but his propag- his story
wasn't finished yet. Raising his voice slightly, he continued:

        "Interesting as I know this story must be, fear not, for it isn't
over yet. Studies show that there is a high percentage of follow-ups and
conclusions to previously stated facts!! And so it is here as well; the
poor Sporky typed painfully, slowly through the days, tending Omni's lab
and growing in knowledge of ethics, conduct and grammar, until one day..."

        <Sporky looks down on the crowd of competitors at the Parrhesian
Games, sorrowful over his inability to join them. His test subject friends
insist that he go down and play if he wants, as Omni surely wouldn't notice
one little post or two, and Sporky is encouraged enough to try-
        When suddenly Omni appears, having overheard the conversation on
his closed-circuit monitoring system. The Reverend has been feeling faint
stirrings of emotion, almost qualms over the state of the list since he
began kidnapping and torturing the newbies... who would have thought the
nList would miss a newbie or two? They were all alike, hopeless fishmalks
vying for imagined status-
        Nevertheless, Sporky was the one witness, aside from Erehwon and a
large number of what used to be newbies, to his actions. It wouldn't do to
let him loose without studying the possible effects first.

        "The Parrhesian Games are a hodgepodge of bad posts and vile
influences. You are forbidden to go there."
        "...But Mentor, _you_ go every year-"
        "I'm an oldbie, I _must_ go! The study is useful to me. _You_ have
no studies to recommend it."
        "But-"
        "Silence, Sporky. Remember what you have been told.
        You are a fool, and you are a munchkin, and these are crimes for
which the malks have little pity! You do not comprehend-"
        "You are my one defender..."
        "I who teach you, fend for you and keep you-"
        "I am a fishmalk..."
        "I who look upon you and don't sneer-"
        "Only a fishmalk..."
        "How can I protect you if you don't stay in here, away in here? Be
faithful to me-"
        "I'm faithful-"
        "Grateful to me-"
        "I'm grateful-"
        "-And Stay. In. Here."
        And so Sporky was chastened, and apologized. Accepting the apology
absently and reminding Sporky to tend the beakers, Omni left, off to attend
to his experiments and duties as the poster boy for Hell.>

        Petting an empty bit of air next to him, Spooke grinned
reflectively. "Just a bit longer, newbies, then you may torpor and
assimilate (and join Clan Naivaklam if you are the possessor of Talents
4-6, or good cannon fodder). Ravnos honor, this can be a teaching story
too, you know-"

        <Captain Teo strode onto the nList, faithful Man-eating Couch
following him docilely and Hammock slung over his shoulder and full of
spraypaint cans, after long absence, and after deleting all the hundreds of
posts he couldn't be bothered to read through, discovered that he had no
idea what was going on. After several newbies didn't deign to answer his
query, he sighed and walked on, reading and piecing his way into the heart
of the nList.
        Presently he came upon a repetetive but potentially good rythym of
writing, and saw a small white dog dancing about a beggar's hat in happy
leaps and twirls. A midbie mentor hurried her mentee along, exclaiming,
"Don't listen to them! They're newbies; their posts are junk."
        But Teo had no such compunctions, and he gave the newbies some
credit before looking past the writer and the dancing dog to the dancer
beyond.
        Oh! she was beautiful, and smiled at him (as female malks were wont
to do), but before he could say a word, quick private /msg notified the
trio of newbies that intolerant fishmalks were approaching. Grabbing up the
credit and running, the newbies ran for it, but the little dog dropped the
hat, and barked to warn the dancer.
        Attempting to salvage it quickly, she was intercepted by two
braindead fishmalks and self-proclaimed oldbies. "What've you got there,
newbie?" sneered one, brandishing a gun so big that his lack in other areas
was blatantly obvious. "Yeah, how'd you get any credit?" drawled another,
sipping a substance with far too many y's in it in an attempt to look goth
and suave.
        "For your information, I _earned_ it," the spirited newbie snapped,
scowling and holding the hat of credit close protectively, which didn't
stop the fishmalks from trying to siphon it. "Newbies don't earn any
credit," sneered the one with the bloodywyne, grabbing hold of the dancer
so roughly that some slopped unsuavely to the ground. "Yeah, they
brownnose!" added the other, aiming his massive gun at the dancer's head.
"Give it here!"
        With a sharply applied pair of fangs, the little white dog gave
them something else to worry about, and the newbie dashed offchan with him
and the credit. Seeing that the fishmalks meant to give pursuit, Teo
interposed the Couch quickly. Eagerly it snapped up a fishmalk, but
grudgingly released her, sputtering that she certainly _wasn't_ caught by
the couch because she dodged, at Teo's melodramatic apologies and a boot to
the cushion.
        "I'll teach you some manners, munchkin," snarled the one with the
oversized gun, aiming it at Teo threateningly. Quickly Teo drew his
spraycan, painting a replica of Ukolovik Tile, ready to send after any
attacker. "You were saying... newbie?"
        Too horrified in their awe to be embarrassed yet, the fishmalks
quietly filled Teo in on where he was to go, though they recovered enough
to accompany him and bask in his reflected renown as an Oldbie as they
posted as much as they could, including Teo in their self-centered lengthy
posts to the entire nList, putzing for attention. And so it was that they
led him to the Laboratory.>