Bathroom Monologue: Enchanted Armor

But most of the meteorite metal was used to build a sacred suit of armor for Yas Hathan. It covered every joint, and though thin, no blade or arrow could pierce its breastplate. When he walked into battle it glowed with a pale silver light that tripled his strength. Yas Hathan felt so empowered that he would not remove the armor, even in bed – and there are numerous apocryphal stories suggesting what the armor tripled there. He wore it to court and weddings, to feasts and funerals. When the neighboring Kyle Empire finally relented and signed an armistice, Emperor Kyle demanded he remove the helm and look him in the eye, ‘lest they fight to the last man. Yas Hathan tried, but found the visor stuck to his cheeks. He struggled with his gauntlets, but felt no flesh beneath the metal plates. The city alchemist used a bent light to examine inside the grates of his helm and reported the armor had not only bonded with his body, but replaced his skin whole, and that there was no way of telling how deeply it had gone. Mortified, he wandered his halls aimlessly, scaring away his servants and family. They heard him cry that he felt his blood slowing, and his heart turning to iron. His oldest boy came down to check on him but could not find the old man – at first. That night they recognized the hall had an extra suit of armor, heavier than the rest. The conqueror has served as a great tourist attraction in the region for two hundred seasons since then.

Bathroom Monologues: What Gets Into These People?

Faye Boswell is widely regarded as the greatest journalist of her generation. From her coverage of the greater and more entertainingly dubious messiahs, to her defiance of the Kyle Empire's sedition laws, to her quirky movie reviews, she has always been willing to risk herself for a story, be it a dictator or director that would come for her head afterward. Yet one must wonder how someone who weighs only ninety pounds and has no self-defense training (revealed on camera during her series on the National Archery Association) could have survived all her brushes with wyverns and angry fanatics. The truth lies in the dozen contracts on her life. After her first breakthrough story (exposing the anarchist ninja cult that was bent on toppling the stock market), she realized she would need protection. She contacted the dozen most successful and boisterous bounty hunters in the world, and in the most morally ambiguous case of attempted suicide in history, hired them to assassinate herself. However, they were not simply to jump her in the parking lot - they had to slay her on her 100th birthday. Should she die a stroke of the clock sooner, they would receive no payment - but if she was successfully assassinated on that date, each mercenary would receive 100,000 Deutsche Marx (TM) for every year she had been alive. So Faye Boswell's dirty dozen has spent the last thirty years saving her from the trouble she brought on herself, fending off trolls, testing her food for poison, and even giving her diet tips. They'll be damned if they don't collect, which means you'll have at least one story to look forward to on the evening news, at least for the next fifty-three years.

Bathroom Monologue: The Refund of the King

Agentius was every ounce the rightful successor to the recently deposed throne of the Kyle Empire. He was the son of Celmets Kyle the 4th (and a buxom librarian), narrowly avoiding death in the coup by witlessly blending into the crowd of children in the local nursery - a curious skill shared by most infants. He was raised by humble monks until he reached that tender age when the elderly no longer feel guilty about kicking an irascible, ungrateful bastard child out of their monastery. From that day on, Agentius lived the life of any rightful rulers of a recently overthrown country - hand-to-mouth, with absolutely no chance or thought of becoming king. He had a hard enough time arguing digits off his bar tab. He met his best friend, fiancé, and twelve of his present co-workers at a rustic carnival, when he broke all of them out of their cages. Some might consider starting up a shipyard with twelve infant krakens to be a wee bit foolish. Some might consider getting engaged to an Elf whose normal diet consists entirely of human flesh to be unwise. Some might even consider their first meeting to be vandalism. He considers it highly satisfying. Indeed, the twilight hours on every Saturday morning, just before he and the last of his comrades pass out from their most recent frivolous celebrations, are the only times Agentius feels like a king. And, it's the only time he wants to.

Bathroom Monologue: Those who do not suffer fools usually miss their own foolishness

Emperor Kyle did not suffer fools. If a poet stuttered at recitation, he was banned from the court. If a philosopher dared cite a disliked theologian, she was imprisoned indefinitely. If a doctor failed to cure him within a week, he was beheaded. He pushed science, literature and taxation to new levels - never had the culture been so rich, as everyone in his court could attest. Ignorance was not bliss; it was a crime. That was why it was so funny when the starving masses overthrew Kyle's government, for ignoring them so long.