The double doors before Phoenix swung open with a cliché creak, a wall of smoke following behind, leaping in slow motion from its shadowy abode.

The crowd gasped in anticipation.

Phoenix wriggled in his bonds, hoping to slide his wrists out from the tangle of filthy ropes holding him to this infernal slab. But alas, if the cultists knew one thing and one thing only, it was how to tie a fool to an altar. He glanced side to side, hoping to spy something, anything, that could help him find his freedom. But it was to no avail. He was in that classic adventurer's situation, where all hope seems lost and he just had to sit and wait, playing the part of the worried victim, until his quirky group of friends rode in to save the day at the very last minute. A rag-tag group of allies would also suffice.

But Phoenix had neither, and he didn't think Bert would be slogging up Mount Butt any time soon. Not when she was on the other side of Can't Be Buried bargaining with bandits.

He wriggled again, just to make a point of it.

And then a voice did speak.

"THINE LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND OTHER STARRY FOLK..."

And the people, they did squeal in exaltation.

It was a woman's voice, and it boomed all over the square, seemingly coming from every direction. It rattled Phoenix's ribcage and gnawed at his headache, and the wild crowd squealing that followed was the boot to the stomach while he was already down.

And the voice, it did speak again.

"PLEASE, PUT THINE HANNNDS TOGETHER..."

And the people, they did prepare thine hands.

It was loud, bloody loud. If the tribal drums were a punch to the brain, this was a mortar strike. Phoenix winced and struggled at his bonds, desperately wishing this was a less enthusiastic cult. Like those suit-wearing money people from Bank Island. They were far more brooding and grim, like a good cult ought to be. Better dressers, too.

And the voice, it did speak once more, but slightly quieter so doth to build thine excitement.

"Forrrr ... theeeee..."

And the people, they did suck in an excited breath.

Phoenix flinched in advance, instinct telling him what was about to happen.

Then it happened.

The voice, it did scream.

"CONSTELLATOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!"

And the people, they did go absolutely bananas.

Phoenix could only squint as the crowd exploded around him. A solitary bugle fought for supremacy above the noise. Begging disbelief, it was somehow even more tuneless than the last musician. Next, through the great double doors sprang a short, plump figure in a garish black robe. Her garb was speckled with brilliant, jewelled stars, the satiny fabric glittering in the dancing light of the lanterns. A collar hugged the back of her neck, rising up in a towering star pattern to halo her chubby face. She smiled wide at the crowd and waved, the two starry guards at either side of the door standing ruler-straight in salute.

Now, the woman hopped and danced her way to the altar, stopping every so often to wash the adoring crowd in her regal smile, ensuring that every one of them thought she was smiling at them, and not anyone else. She laughed modestly, like this massive crowd of screaming fans was totally unexpected and oh my, wasn't this a lovely welcome, oh ho ho.

Phoenix stared at her, at her womanliness, and a plan began to form in his head. A devious plan, filled with heroic banter, sly manipulation, and the subtle art of seduction. All things Phoenix was a master at. The glimmer of freedom beckoned to him at the far end of the tunnel of doubt.

The Constellator was next to the altar now, approaching the VIPs of the shrivelled sultanaman, one-armed WhateverHisNameIs, and the bugle player, who was now more sweat than human. She was still going strong on the instrument, cheeks flaring red, bashing out what Phoenix thought might be the popular Waste tune "How Bizarre, My Foot Fell Off", but which was so layered beneath flat notes and poor timing that it was nearly impossible to tell.

A quiet conversation took place between the Constellator and the half-sultana/half-human creature, who was bowing low (lower than he was already naturally bowing, anyway) with the dagger held in a way that the starry people would almost definitely describe as 'aloft'. The Constellator smiled at him, waggled her fingers above his head and then lifted the dagger gracefully from his tired old bone fingers, which seemed to get a giddy little response from the old man. He inclined back to his regular ninety-degree posture as the Constellator lifted the dagger high above her head.

The crowd cheered again, and from somewhere in the middle of the horde, a pair of undies took flight. They soared like a majestic old dove, flapping and twirling through the night sky before landing in a bedraggled, ungraceful heap on Phoenix's chest. He gasped, eyes rocketing open, shaking his torso to try and dislodge the pile. It was a whole rainbow of colours, but the one it assuredly wasn't was what appeared to Phoenix to be the one it was supposed to be, which was some kind of white. It was almost as if the wearer, deciding not to clean them back to white again, had decided to combine the entire colour spectrum to try get there in the other direction. It had, at least to Phoenix, not worked.

Meanwhile, the Constellator had produced what appeared to be an old microphone, with a long, winding cord taped into the base of the handle and trailing off somewhere into the night on its own. She smiled wide and a high-pitched feedback screech silenced the crowd.

She lifted the microphone to her large lips, then paused to let a dramatic silence fill the space. "Good citizens of thine Starry Place," she spoke, her voice casting clearly over the entire square with the volume of the Big Bang. "I stand'th before you but a humble servant to the Stars, praise be Their glory."

Phoenix tried to listen, but his attention was being drawn continually in by the underwear, which was now crawling of its own accord to the edge of the altar.

"As thine great Constellations be'th witness from behind their Cloudy Wall, we gather on this beautiful night for a most momentous of occasions."

The underwear, after hesitating for a moment looking over the slab's edge, was now lowering itself down slowly, clinging to the edge as it sought for a foothold somewhere on the altar's side. Phoenix stared in utter horror as it vanished from sight moments after.

"We have before'th us thine Grubby Chef, from the Place of the Burny Drink!"

The Constellator waved her arm in a wide, slow arc above Phoenix's body, an eruption of boos and hissing meeting her from the crowd. She smiled, a proud parent of horrible children that only she knew how to love. On his altar, Phoenix strained to see over the edge to spot where the underwear scuttled off to, but it was gone, vanished somewhere into the black. Another creature to scare kiddies at night.

"We all know'th the Place of the Burny Drink, a place of sin!"

"BOO!"

"A place of debauchery!"

"HISS!"

"A place of drunkenness!"

An uncertain silence answered this one.

The Constellator frowned. "A place of debauched, sinful drunkenness!"

"BOO! HISS!"

She smiled again. "Tonight! On this very night. This night of nights..."

Phoenix finally re-joined the scene. He looked at the nearest cultist - the one-armed Who'sHisFace - and grinned. "She really knows how to drag out a speech, huh?" he whispered.

The one-armed man scowled. "Shut up!" he hissed back.

Phoenix shrugged, or at least tried to.

"...This night that we now'th occupy. The Starry Place and its people will have'th their revenge against the Robotically Handed She-Demon, and the Stars will bathe in the blood of her Grubbiest of Chefs.'

The crowd cheered once again, delight on each and every one of their faces. You could have injected them with liquid bonkerberries and they'd still not end up nearly as blissful as they were right at this moment.

"For on this night of night of nights, I will open the Grubby Chef so'th that thine great acidic tears of thine Stars might cleanse his insides, and spare us - but humble servants - of thy heresy that is the Place of the Burny Drink."

Phoenix made raspberry noises with his lips, staring up at the smog. "Man," he muttered, "this speech is really starting to drag on." He grinned childishly, rolling his head to the left to see if the one-armed Who'dYaCallHim heard such a tricky, delightful play on words. "Get it?" he asked. "Started? Like, stars? Eh? ...eh?"

The man quite deliberately looked away.

Phoenix frowned. "Ah fuggedaboudit, you don't get it."

And the Constellator continued. "Let us bathe, good Starry people, let us bathe for the night is filthy with the sin of sinners. Let us bathe for how can we not, knowing there are such devils in our world? In our minds? In our homes?"

Some of the crowd shook their heads, waving hands of "Amen" in muttered, angry breaths.

"Hey, hey you!" Phoenix shouted at the Constellator. "Over here!"

"Let not the sinner into thine home, good people. Good Starry people. For if he gets into your home, he, well, he gets it all grubby!"

"No, not grubby!" cried a voice.

"But I jus' cleaned m' hut last month!" cried another.

"Hey ... hey!" Phoenix continued. "Hey, listen!"

"So that is why thee are gathered here'th this evenin- oh what the hell do you want?!" she growled, stopping mid-sentence and glowering at the adventurer. Her stare was like that of an angry schoolteacher, lips set in a perfectly straight line of utter contempt. It was a childhood image Phoenix could relate to.

But he smiled as charmingly as he could, despite remembering Mrs. Truman and her love of cats (the nine-tailed variety). Phoenix reckoned he could disarm anyone with his suave eyes, perfect lips and rugged chin. Except Mrs. Truman. "What I want, oh lady lord, who is so beautiful and intelligent," he started, staring straight into her soul, "is a mere fleeting moment of your most precious and important of time. I have come to your village with a divine purpose, and did I mention that you are oh so talented and your village so prosperous and beautiful and quaint, but in a good way, not a sarcastic way?"

She glared back. She could have chiselled stone with that glare.

"Yes, oh Wise One who is the most supreme of supremes. I, eternally in your shadow of greatness and beauty and masterness, have come from the Place of the Smack-dab, err, Drink, to trade with you, oh beloved ruler of the people on this mountain, which is a nice mountain. It is my most humble and innocent and, um, gratitudious pleasure to beg of you for a one-one-one consultation in your chambers, gorgeous and intelligent Const- err, leader of the Starry Folk. For you see, not only am I a renowned and gentle lover, famed for his tenderness and great skill with womeny bits, but I am also here to make you an offer that, I most humbly assure you in no way maliciously, just FYI letting you know in advance, that you simply cannot refuse."

The Constellator raised an eyebrow.

Phoenix grinned in what he believed was a confident, charming manner. He put on his best mesmerising eyes. Mesmereyes.

She continued to stare. "An offer I cannot doth refuse?"

Phoenix nodded calmly. "Yes indeed, oh sweet and loving and almighty lord. A tender, passionate and explosive consultation, then an offer you cannot refuse."

She slowly brought her gaze to the one-armed ThingamePerson. "Roger, hun, can you please gag him?"

And soth, the hero was gagged.

A sly smirk flickered on the Constellator's stupid pudgy face as Phoenix tried not to taste the years of built-up filth on the rope now invading his mouth. He had heard what contamination can do to a person. He spat at the rope and tried pushing it out of his mouth with his tongue, letting saliva pool at the front of his mouth and dribble out, rather than swallow it.

He was not having a good time.

"Let the sin wash away!" cried the Constellator, raising the dagger. "Let us bathe, together! Begin the ceremony!"

* * *

Smack-dab wasn't quiet anymore, and Meatsack was starting to get upset. He hunched as tightly as he could in such a small chair, hoping desperately that the noises would go away. But every time he ignored them, they would come back louder and louder than before.

Bang bang bang, went the front door.

Bang bang bang bang.

Meatsack dared to glance behind him, his youthful curiosity temporarily overpowering his utter dread at what the noise might be. Many a young Waste adventurer throughout time had died in precisely the same manner. But in Smack-dab on this night, Meatsack spied a young figure, face pressed up against the dirty brown glass, spying back at him. The figure's eyes lit up when they made contact with Meatsack's, and the figure jumped enthusiastically out of sight. Meatsack shot back around, eyes forwards, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the figure was jumping out the way for something else, and not because they made eye contact. He wished he hadn't recognised the boy outside. He liked him. He was nice. He liked Meatsack back.

Bang bang bang.

"Come on, Meatsack! Please open up! It's bloody freezin' out here."

Oh no, the Voice was back. He had heard it a number of moments before, back when it was yelling with the Other Voice. There was some kind of argument, which Meatsack tried very hard not to eavesdrop on because dropping eaves was rude, or so Berty said. But there was an argument with or without Meatsack's understanding it, and the Other Voice seemed to have disappeared since. Now it was just the Voice remaining - that of an old man, one that Meatsack vaguely remembered as being kind and friendly, but who was definitely not allowed in the bar at this moment. Berty Bert said to let nobody in. Not even buddies or pals. Nobody. Nobody in.

Berty Bert.

He wished Bert was here.

* * *

In the original "Smack-dab" paperback, this chapter finished on page 169 - putting us just over halfway. It's a long read for Wattpad, I know, so if you've stuck the book out this far and plan on continuing know that I love and adore you. It means the world to me.

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