by Larry Homer

"The Eye Scream of the World" is actually a script for a parody of TEOTW, written more or less in the classic style of Mad Magazine parodies. The first three installments are conveniently compiled on one webpage, at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/1815/wot/Scream.html, and I believe Part 4 is still visible on every Bulletin Board where I habitually post these things. Please let me know if you actually liked this one :)
 

Page 16.
Panel 1. 
MAD: I say, Rant, the last time we got temporary employment in the common room of an inn along the one and only big highway that can lead us to Caemlyn, a rich, powerful Dorkfriend managed to spot us as soon as he stepped in the door!

RANT: That's right, Mad! So only an idiot would keep trying to do our vaudeville act in other inns during the rest of the trip once he knew the enemy would SPECIFICALLY be on the lookout for it!

MAD: Right! Now, we're approaching another town, so are you ready to prove whether or not we're total idiots?

RANT: Ready anytime you are!

MAD: Let's go!

Panel 2.
MAD: Yo! Innkeeper! My buddy and I have a little vaudeville act we like to perform, and we'll do it for nothing but food, drink, and a place to sleep!

RANT (looking straight out at the reader and shrugging with a helpless grin as he speaks): Hey, you know and I know that Mad and I are doomed to act like idiots all through this series, so why waste time denying the obvious?

Panel 3.
They are in the stable now. Rand is resting on a haystack, looking quite ill.

MAD: Terrific. As soon as we started to perform, Rand started shaking like a leaf . At least we got a place to sleep in the stable. Good thing no Dorkfriends had time to spot us during the ten seconds we were in the common room! For once, we can sleep soundly under a dry roof without fear of -

SKILLI MAINE: Excuse me, did you say your friend was sick?

MAD: Then again . . .

Panel 4.
Mad now his own magic dagger pressed against Skilli's throat, while her dagger is embedded in the wall, smouldering a bit. We left out the action sequence where she attacked him, etc.

MAD: A Dorkfriend, eh? I should have known that the author wouldn't miss a chance, however slim, to let you bozos find us again!

SKILLI: You misunderstand! I was just going to bleed your friend! It's an old folk remedy for reducing a fever - you drain off some excess blood!

MAD: Then why is the knife burning a hole in the wall?

SKILLI: That's leading edge medical technology you're looking at there! Sterilizes the wound as fast as it makes it! Keeps your friend from getting an infection!

Panel 5.
Rant and Mad now have her tied up to keep her out of trouble while they plot their next move.

RANT: Mad, I think we should let her live.

MAD: Why, so she can come back with another burning dagger and try again? 

RANT: But if we kill her in the stable, it'll make an awful mess and we'll be tossed in a dungeon for murder of a helpless woman!

MAD: Good point! So first let's take the time to carry her out of the stable to some remote spot where the body won't be found for at least a week or two, and -

SKILLI: You'll be sorry when the Moredrawl comes looking for me!

MAD: Rant, you bleeding-heart liberal, you talked me into it! Let's just leave her be and take off at a dead run! It's a winning strategy that always worked for us before!

Panel 6.

RANT: Tell me, Mad. If a Moredrawl is headed this way, and if it has a horse (as they usually do), which we definitely DON'T, and if they don't get tired easily (whereas I feel like death warmed over), and if it's smart enough to know that we'll keep following the highway east (where else would we go?), how long do you think it will take the Moredrawl to catch up with us?

MAD: I keep telling you, Rant, the Script says we aren't going to get caught by a Moredrawl anytime soon! Trust me on this!

RANT: But I don't get to SEE the script that tells everybody else what secrets to keep from me, right?

MAD: Right!

RANT: What is this nonsense? Do I have a "kick me" sign stuck on my back or something, that nobody ever gives me a straight answer about anything important?

MAD: Don't be paranoid! This is all for your own good, really!

Despite Mad's hasty denials, this seems like a good time to mention that Rant has, stuck on his back, a sign saying KICK ME, as we can see in this panel :)
 

Page 17.

Panel 1.
RANT: Well, Mad, we finally made it to Come'on'in! One of the greatest cities in the world! Originally built by Ochre masons, it has stood the test of time for thousands of years, and has been the capital of the modern nation of Opendoor (a matriarchy, you know) for a solid millennium and still going strong!

MAD: Rant, I read "Fodor's Guide to Opendoor" as many times as you did, so you can stop quoting.

RANT: Oh, sorry!

Panel 2.
RANT: Hello, innkeeper! We're friends of a friend of yours, old Tom-Tom the Gleeclubman!

INNKEEPER: Can you prove that?

MAD: Well, we have his cloak, his harp, his flute - he shoved them at us for safekeeping before he got in a fight.

INNKEEPER: You could have taken them off his body. What other proof do you have?

RANT: He also said something about, "Tell my old buddy that I never once revealed what he makes his sausages out of, but if he isn't polite to you boys, then shout it out loud that they are mostly-"

INNKEEPER: Sit down! Any friend of Tom-Tom's is a friend of mine! Let me offer you food and lodging on the house! What can I get you to eat?

MAD: We're not fussy! We'll take anything but your homemade sausages!

Panel 3.
LOVEABLE: Hello, I'm Loveable the Ochre! Pleased to meet you, and this seems like a good time to give you the condensed version of my life history to date! I'm only ninety years old, so it won't take more than a few days -

RANT: Er, charmed, charmed, but unfortunately I have an urgent appointment to go loiter in the street. Perhaps some other time?

LOVEABLE: You humans! Always rushing off to get married or fight a battle or die or some other hasty deed! Why, if a true Ochre decided he was ready to die, he'd still take ten or twelve years to ponder exactly what bequests to make in his last will and testament! But do humans show that much consideration for their heirs? No, they just -

RANT: Goodbye! I promise I'll give you time to tell me all about yourself, LATER!

Panel 5.
Rant is standing on top of a stone wall.

RANT: So that's Lowdown, the latest Phony Dragon to be captured by the Ice Sedate organization after illicit use of the Fun Power! Sure am glad I climbed up on this steep wall to see him over the crowd! But he's giving me such a nasty stare . . . almost as if he senses we have something in common! What on earth could it be? Bad taste in clothes? Gee, suddenly I feel dizzy . . .

Panel 6.
This panel is actually a text box, with no colorful illustrations. In large letters, it says:

"Multiple Choice Question for all readers! Rant is now falling off the wall (behind this text box, where you can't see it) because:

1) He had a sudden relapse of the mysterious fever that afflicted him a couple of days ago, around the time Skilli Maine tried to kill him.

2) Lowdown the Phony Dragon has the power of the evil eye, which can knock you off balance (literally) and used it.

3) His ta'verner luck, which ignores his OPINION of what would a lucky thing to do next in favor of living its own life instead, decided to push him over into the Palace Gardens so that one of his future Significant Others can practice mothering him.

4) Shameless contrivance by Jordan with no particular rationale behind it.

5)Other? (fill in the blank space below this question with your personal slant on this vital issue!)

[LARGE BLANK SPACE HERE]

SOUND EFFECTS (at the very bottom of the panel): CRASH! 
 

Page 18.

Panel 1.
Rant falls on his back on the ground, just happening to land neatly in front of ELAMEBRAINE (she was sitting on the ground fiddling with some herbs). 

ELAMEBRAINE: Oh, you poor boy! I suppose I'll just have to nurse you back to health!

RANT: Hmmm? Oh no, I feel fine! Really!

ELAMEBRAINE: You're my witnesses, boys! He MUST have hit his head too hard! A beautiful princess (myself) is offering to give him tender loving care, and he declined! Obviously his wits are still a bit scrambled from that fall, and he NEEDS my medical assistance!

GO'WAN: Excellent logic, sis!

Panel 2.
GO'LEAD: Be that as it may, I guess I'll just have to nip off and inform the guards that an intruder is on the grounds!

GO'WAN: Go'lead, you're no fun! Didn't you ever just want to sit in a quiet garden, and hold a girl's hand, and gaze up at the moon in the crisp evening air, and not be interrupted, and so forth?

GO'LEAD: Yes, I tried that once. I caught pneumonia.

[NOTE: Go'lead's answer is quoted, verbatim I think, from a certain work of science fiction by one of the field's greatest authors. We have to get some literary allusions and such into this parody SOMEHOW, after all! The first person to correctly identify the author of that work, and its exact title, will receive that ultimate accolade for distinguished achievement - a hearty handshake from yours truly the next time I meet him face to face!]
 

Panel 3.
MOREGAZE: Tell me, how did you come into the palace gardens and why do you have that Sword of Unbreakable Material? You look like a mere farmboy, but normally a Fighter-Class Adventurer would have to be at LEAST a Level 8 character before he qualified for such a high- powered magic item under the standard rules for such things!

RANT: I had climbed up on the wall to see the Phony Dragon, and I just happened to slip and fall right into the lap of your daughter! This Fun Power-wrought blademaster sword is just a gift from my daddy, a farmer in the land of the Two-and-a-half Rivers! 

MOREGAZE: That story is so utterly ridiculous that I deduce it MUST be true! Surely a liar could do a better job of finding a PLAUSIBLE explanation!

RANT (thinking): That's what she calls logic? Man, one of these days I have to try to sell her some real estate in Shutup Lookout!

Panel 4.
Elaida: This I Foretell! Blood and terror shall sweep across the world, and this man stands at the center of it, for better or for worse!

MOREGAZE: Why, is he causing all that blood and terror in your vision?

ELAIDA: No, he's just stuck at the center of it because he's too dumb to move out of the way! He keeps crying out, "Does somebody have a roadmap I can borrow to find the fastest route to a Non-Blood-and-Terror District?" But everyone just hurries past him without stopping!

MOREGAZE: Hmmm. That doesn't make him sound too dangerous. I guess we WILL turn him loose!

Panel 5.

ELAMEBRAINE: Well, Mister all'Star, you ought to be grateful to me! If I had told Mother that you're just the sort of hunk I always dream about snuggling up with, she would have locked you in the dungeon!

RANT: Snuggling? Er . . I . . . that is to say, I wouldn't . . .

ELAMEBRAINE: How cute! Suddenly your face matches your gorgeous red hair PERFECTLY! How did you do that? Oh well, maybe we'll meet again soon and you'll have lots of time to explain it to me . . . in PRIVATE!

NOTE: Yessir, we just can't get enough Foreshadowing in this story! As Berke Breathed once put it in his infamous Bloom County comic strip, that's "Foreshadowing: Your Guide to Quality Literature!" and let's face it, this parody needs all the Quality it can find!
 

Panel 6.
GO'WAN: I feel obligated to warn you, Rant all'Star, that you had best not continue trifling with the affections of my darling sister! I know your kind! Charming flirts who think you're irresistible to every girl you meet!

RANT: Trifling? Irresistible?

GO'WAN: If I thought your intentions were dishonorable, I should have to take measures!

RANT: Measures?

GO'WAN: For instance, that loveable way you look blank and keep repeating things as if you didn't understand them is certainly a way to bring out a nice girl's mothering instinct, but in your case it's overdone!

RANT: Overdone?

GO'WAN: Well, you've been warned! Watch your step!

Panel 7. This is just a long thin panel (a tall rectangle, basically) with a big sound effect filling it up:

C
R
A
S
H
! 

Page 19.

Panel 1.
Go'wan is helping Rant arise from where he fell facedown on a flight of stairs.

GO'WAN: Clumsy today, aren't you?

RANT: Why didn't you stop me from stumbling on those stairs?

GO'WAN: I tried! I said, "Watch your step!"

RANT: I didn't think you meant it literally!

GO'WAN: Well, all'Star, is that MY fault?

RANT: Stupid place to put a staircase, anyway.

Panel 2.
We're back at the Inn. Rant has just burst in on Morphine, Lean, Peering, Night'mare, and Egging. 

RANT: Morphine, Night'mare, so good to see you again! You might want to come look at Mad! I think he's sick!

NIGHT'MARE: Fever? Convulsions? Vomiting? 

RANT: No, it's not a conventional disease! He keeps raving in a strange language at night, saying things like "Iceway Edatesay areway otnay otay ebay rustedtay! Ootay luelesscay otay accomplishway ANYTHINGWAY inway reethay illenniamay ofway effortway!"

MORPHINE: Pure gibberish! Pay it no mind! We'd better have a look at him, though!

Panel 3.
Mad has the dagger clutched in his hand, but Lean naturally managed to grab his wrist before he could do anything with it. Morphine is looking shocked, and Rant, in the doorway, is looking sheepish.

MORPHINE: He tried to STAB me with that thing! And I'll bet it hasn't even been washed lately!

RANT: Oh yes, I forgot to mention the OTHER little thing about Mad! His mysterious dagger from the accursed city of Shutup Lookout!

LEAN: Oh, I see. Such a commonplace thing, it entirely slipped your mind?

RANT: Well, doesn't EVERY big fantasy epic have some poor slob who finds a weird magic item and clutches at it frantically while his personality starts to take a turn for the worse?

LEAN: Hmmm . . . Tolkien and the One Ring . . . Brooks and the Sword of Shannara . . . Kay's Fionavar Tapestry and the Baelrath (or some other possible items) . . . I guess you have a point! Sorry I gave you a hard time about it! It WAS perfectly normal!
 

Panel 4.

RANT: So, Peering, now that Mad is recovering (for the time being) what happened to YOU since I last saw you at Shutup Lookout?

PEERING: Well, my eyes just happen to have turned yellow from bad diet - HA HA, nothing serious! - and Egging and I were held prisoner by Brightcloaks for awhile - and we heard a really weird story about the Eye Scream of the World (what a silly name!), but basically it was just your usual hodgepodge of weird little episodes during a long cross-country trip in a fantasy epic!

RANT: Eye Scream of the World? That's odd, Mad and I had a dream about Babbles'on wanting to melt that thing, but we thought it was just too many anchovies on our pizza!

LOVEABLE: By an astonishing coincidence, I've been meaning to ask an Ice Sedate a question about possible threats to the Eye Scream of the World! There was a man who just happened to stumble through our steadying going on 20 years ago . . .

MORPHINE: HEY, AUTHOR! I WANT THE AUTHOR OF THIS PARODY! What is this nonsense, having three different people suddenly burst out with wild stories about the same exact thing? Do you expect your readers to swallow such tripe, even if it's funny?

NOTE UNDER HER WORD BALLOON: Don't blame me, Morphine! This is exactly the way Jordan did it in the ORIGINAL material! Cross my heart and hope to die! --- Larry

MORPHINE: That's no excuse! I think you AND Jordan are carrying this "totally illogical ta'verner luck" too far to cover up bad writing! I've got half a mind to quit this job right now and look for a better -

NOTE UNDER THAT BALLOON: Morphine, are you familiar with what famed movie director Alfred Hitchcock once said, rather enviously, of colleague Walt Disney's special perks as a director of animated features where the stars only existed as paper and ink? He said, "Disney has the best casting - if he doesn't like a character, he can just tear it up!" Let me point out, Morphine, that you too are only a cartoon (in this ongoing parody) -

MORPHINE: All right! All right! I got the point! But will you please TRY to make these sudden plot twists more credible in the future? 

NOTE: No promises, sorry. Now, let's get back to the story development, shall we? --- Larry
 

WILL Morphine carry out her threat to go on strike until this story makes more sense? WHY does Babbles'on intend to melt the Eye Scream of the World, and WHO cares anyway? WHEN will Larry Homer find a way to actually make some money off this ridiculous work of "Quality" literature? The answers to these questions are remarkably insignificant, but that makes them just the sort of thing that WoT fanatics love to chew on!

Mat's 'gibberish,' for anyone who doesn't happen to know Pig Latin, translates as "Ice Sedates are not to be trusted! Too clueless to accomplish ANYTHING in three millennia of effort!" Just being helpful. - Raina.

Raina's Hold / Raina's Library / Other People's Humour / The Eye Scream of the World