While you're waiting for the next thrilling update to my ongoing saga, The Interim, I thought I'd tide you over with this. Now, if you're familiar with the show Mystery Science Theater 3000, you probably know what a MSTing is. If you're not, allow me to enlighten you. Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a show about a guy and two robots making fun of bad movies. There's more to it than that, but that's all you really need to know. They talk over the movie and make jokes at the film's expense. Sorta like this. A MSTing is an MST3K fanfic that subjects a written story to that same treatment (often using the characters from the show).
Now, I don't have an infinite amount of time on my hands, so I'll only be doing the first segment. Also, you may notice a few differences between the story as it appears here and the way it shows up in the official thread. This is because this is from an earlier draft of the story which, quite frankly, wasn't as good. So, without further ado, I present you with this brief MSTing.
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An Account of the Events of the Interim of Grignr the Nerevarine, Between the Fulfillment of the Bloodmoon Prophecy and His Departure to Akavir
Being An Anonymous Account Discovered, Compiled, and Edited by Bereditte Jastal
Publisher’s Note: The non-academic nature of this account
CROW: …makes it a perfect candidate for inclusion in a fifth-grade history textbook.
(it is clearly written in prose form, with considerably more detail than one would expect from a typical “journal” or even a memoir)
MIKE: Oh, well now the writer is just flattering himself.
makes it a tome of questionable historical accuracy.
TOM: So, basically, it’s like the movie 300, only with less latent homoeroticism.
The Nerevarine as portrayed in this account
MIKE: By Dolph Lundgren.
– a Nordic male named Grignr, married to an Imperial Legionnaire named Imsin the Dreamer, is b- [a blurry food stain blots out the next few words] –sistent
TOM: I believe the words being obscured are “-latantly incon-.”
MIKE: No, it CLEARLY says “-lueberry stain re-“.
CROW: You’re BOTH wrong. It’s “-itchy, demanding, and in-“.
with the details of Hasphat Antabolis’s authoritative (though not universally accepted) account, The Life and Times of the Nerevarine, which
TOM: is a really boring read.
[Another food stain, this one with the general texture and coloration of kwama cuttle]
CROW: Cuttle? What the hell’s cuttle?
MIKE: Oh, it’s just something that’s been CUT into very litTLE pieces.
It should be noted that Antabolis’s account of the “interim” period (detailed in Volume IV) is rather sketchy compared to the immaculately detailed chronology of the first three volumes. Many of the events related in this text are
MIKE: Unspeakably dumb!
[The rest of the page has been torn out, presumably used as a napkin].
TOM: Or as rolling paper.
Chapter I
My name is Grignr.
TOM: And I'm an alcoholic.
MIKE & CROW: Hi, Grignr!
As Nerevarine, I am the greatest warrior and hero in the province
CROW: As President, I’m an overzealous, evangelistic chicken-hawk with an unfortunate fondness for call girls.
– and probably all of Tamriel.
I am the protector of Morrowind, and military commander of all of Vvardenfell.
TOM: I am also the three-term mayor of Hobbiton, sheriff of Goobeldygobbeldyville, and King of the Renaissance Festival in Dingledongleopolis.
I have killed the devil Dagoth Ur, slain the mad goddess Almalexia, and survived Hircine’s Hunt.
TOM: [Rutger Hauer] I’ve watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.
I have slaughtered entire dens of vampires without anyone to assist me.
MIKE: [Grignr] Why, I’ve even sorted out the laundry, just like Mom asked me to.
CROW: All this and he STILL can’t get laid.
And I now found myself sloshing along a cold, wet, rocky coastline, struggling just to avoid getting my own socks wet.
MIKE: So, he’s trying to be master of his domain?
CROW: Maybe “Socks” is just a pet name for his sister’s –
MIKE: Don’t say it, Crow. Don’t even think it.
We were one of several detachments
MIKE: [Adman] That came with my eight-pound Oreck XL!
that I myself had sent to seek out and destroy smugglers caves along the coast west of Gnisis. I led at my own insistence. As Hortator and Knight of the Imperial Dragon, no one could argue with me.
TOM: Oh, yeah? Well, I bet I could argue with you!
CROW: Yeah! I’ll argue with you so hard, it’ll make your HEAD spin!
MIKE: I also take issue with that claim!
“Tread carefully, men,” I called back to the twelve Redoran soldiers who trudged miserably behind me.
TOM: [Grignr] I just had this carpet cleaned YESTERDAY.
“We’re a long walk from Gnisis. Anyone who breaks their ankle without a Divine Intervention scroll on them is getting carried back to the Temple!”
MIKE: [soldier] So I wouldn’t have to walk?
TOM & CROW: YAY! SELF-MUTILATION!
“Understood, muthsera,” grunted Tedril Doren, commander of the detachment.
MIKE: [Doren] God, what a jerk.
The wind blew furiously, carrying a light, misty, but ever-worsening rain. A storm was coming, and night was fast approaching. And the men were starting to get tired.
CROW: [Soldier] Yeah. Tired of trudgin’ around behind YOUR worthless ass.
“We’ll keep marching until nightfall,” I said, turning my head toward the lieutenant, “and then we’ll head on home.”
The soldiers behind me grumbled a bit,
ALL: [soldiers] *grumble* *grumble* mutiny *grumble*
but I could tell they were fairly content with knowing that the march would at least end sometime.
MIKE: Likely in their deaths from total exhaustion.
Doren hastened his gait to move abreast with me.
CROW: So…they’re plastic surgeons? See…cuz, they’re moving a –
MIKE: We get it, Crow. (pats Crow on the head) Nice try, little buddy.
“May I speak with you privately for a moment, sera?” he inquired in a low voice.
MIKE: In bed?
“Fire away,” I replied quietly.
CROW: And so he did. Grignr took an arrow to the chest and died a painful, horrible death. The End.
“Are all these men really necessary?
TOM: Aren’t I enough for you anymore?
Could you not have conducted this raid by yourself, sera?
MIKE: Wait…Sarah? I thought his name was Grignr!
It seems an awful lot of trouble for us to have to go through.”
CROW: [Doren] Can’t we just legalize hemp and save ourselves the effort?
“You can never be too careful, Doren. We might catch them in the middle of restocking. Not to mention the amount of contraband we already have to carry back.”
TOM: …to my house. There’ll be a party afterwards. Wanna come?
I could tell that inwardly, we both knew the pointlessness of this mission.
MIKE: Not to mention this story.
Even if we killed every man and mer in every cave on the island, there would always be others to replace them. The drug trade is a horrid, unkillable beast.
CROW: You mean like Ann Coulter?
But I knew better than he did – I knew of a way that I could really stem the tide.
It was all a matter of bribing the right person:
TOM: Isn’t it always?
Orvas Dren. If I could convince Orvas Dren to tell me the names and locations of the major members and safehouses of the Camonna Tong
CROW: I’d win FAB-ulous prizes!
MIKE & TOM: (cheering noises)
(an organization that I controlled in theory, but not in practice), I could send the full fury of the Dunmer and Imperial military after them, setting the drug trade back months – maybe even years.
MIKE: Oh, but where’s the fun in that?
But I dared not do such a thing.
TOM: [Grignr] My private stash could only last me so long before I ran out.
It would shatter the uneasy peace I had forged with much of my own House Hlaalu, and put myself, my family, and many of the people I had sworn to protect in danger. And so here we were, scrounging and combing through the caves of Vvardenfell for a pest that could not be exterminated.
CROW: Rob Schneider?
We marched silently for a minute or two. We were sloshing through the water to skirt a small cliff face
TOM: Now that’s just mean, making people wear women’s clothing. What did Cliff ever do to you?
when a voice suddenly emerged from the rear of the ranks.
“Come look, sera!” one of the soldiers exclaimed.
MIKE: [Grignr] Okay, but my name’s not Sarah. It’s Grignr.
“I think I see an opening! It’s…submerged, but there’s a door there.”
The rest of us doubled back to see what he had found.
CROW: [soldier] Ooh! A seashell!
“Yes, that’s a cave, alright,” I said.
TOM: Thank you, Detective Obvious.
“And from the looks of it, there are or have been people in it. Doren, have one of your boys dive down and check it out.”
“Yes, sera.”
MIKE: [Grignr] For the last time, it's...oh, never mind.
He turned to a subordinate. “Arinith, I hope you can swim.”
MIKE: [stoner] Yeah, I kinda hope so, too.
“I can, sera,” the soldier answered. He dove into the frigid water, nudged the door open, and ducked his way into the cave.
CROW: You know, that sentence perfectly describes the night Chelsea Clinton was conceived.
We waited for him to return. We waited for two minutes…three minutes…four minutes. Finally, after about fifteen minutes,
MIKE: Our pizza was ready.
Doren spoke. “I do not know what is taking Arinith so long, but I think we should assume the worst.”
TOM: He has fallen to the evil forces of Rob Schneider.
“I agree,” I said grimly.
TOM: [Grignr] Agreeing with people sucks.
“Which is why I’m going in. I want you and everyone here who can swim to follow me.”
CROW: [effeminate] We’ll be doing a DARLING little synchro routine!
“We’ll be right behind you.”
MIKE: And by that I mean “really, really far behind you.” Seriously, you might not see us. But we’ll be there. Yep. Sure we will.
I dove in and entered the cave.
TOM: …where I went on a journey of self-discovery before defeating the Threshold Guardian. I then made my way through the Road of Trials, which I endured with the help of supernatural aid provided by a mysterious Mentor figure. These trials may or may not have involved an encounter with a Shapeshifter, Goddess, or Temptress. Finally, I obtained the Ultimate Boon. This success was followed by a temporary Refusal of the Return. Finally, I returned to the place where it all began and spread the Boon among my fellow man.
MIKE: And they all lived happily ever after.
CROW: The end.