Thaumaturducken

Every time you put one meat inside of another meat, Satan laughs because that’s hilarious and he has a good sense of humor. Turducken was actually invented by the Devil, but he never took credit for it because he got the idea from a wizard spell called Thaumaturducken which is when a wizard hides a duck inside of a spell.

It’s a pretty good gag, really. Imagine being blasted in the face by a level five fireball, and right before your eyeballs melt out of your head you think, “Wait is that a duck?” Actually, imagine it happening to someone else. That’s probably funnier. Obviously, the duck gets burned up in that version of the spell, but that’s a bonus for a hungry wizard who probably used a ton of calories in the battle he just won.

If you have time and aren’t doing anything right now, I’ll tell you the story of how Thaumaturducken almost cost a princess her best jewelry.

This princess’s name was Carmelotta, and like most princesses back in Once Upon a Time times, she was usually bored because no one would let her do any of the cool boy-things like going hunting or dying in a war. For real, she used to sneak out, like, multiple times a week and get up to all kinds of mischief. She had bitten a goblin, made out with a pirate in the moonlight, and one time caught a frog who looked just like the Minister of Defense. Everyone said it was uncanny, as the Minister didn’t even look that much like a frog. Really, it was freaky.

But by far, her favorite thing to do was to go to the taverns and gamble on things. She would bet on anything and was almost unnaturally good at it. Sure, she would play poker and “Who’s your Uncle” and “Tweek the Weasel Teat” like everyone else, but she would also bet on things like how far down the bar she could roll an egg without it breaking or who would lose an ear in that night’s bar fight, and she almost always won. Yes, it’s true that she was the one who started the bar fight that time AND the one who cut off that guy’s ear, but everyone (except for the guy) agreed that was within the rules.

One night, she was in the Four-Legged Pony drinking it up and having a good time when a stranger with a long beard walked in carrying a gnarled old staff. Now, I know you’re going to want to judge her for not recognizing a wizard when she saw one, but first of all, a lot of people just looked like that back then, and secondly, she had no idea that she was in a story about a wizard, so don’t be so superior. For all you know, YOU’RE in a story about a wizard right now and don’t even know it, even though you’re in the middle of reading the story inside of the story. See, things aren’t always what they seem are they? And even more often, they aren’t what they don’t seem. Think about that next time you start feeling like you’re so freakin’ smart.

Anyway, Carmelotta was feeling good because she had just won a bet about how far up this prostitute’s leg a spider could crawl before she freaked out and had to brush it off.

“May I congratulate you on your gambling prowess young lady,” said the wizard sauntering over. “I was certain ‘yon whore would brush the offensive creature away before it made it past her mid-thigh.”

“Well, it sounds like somebody don’t know how tough ol’ Myrtle here is. Ain’t that right, Myrtle?” said Carmelotta.

“Fuckin’ A.” said Myrtle.

“Fucking A, indeed,” said the wizard. “Now,” he said turning to Carmelotta, “if I might interest you in a bit of a wager myself.”

“I don’t know,” said Carmelotta. “I don’t think I need a new stick.”

“Well then,” said the wizard pulling a small grayish rock out of his sleeve, “how about this?”

This is a great wizard trick, and if you decide to start learning spells, I would highly recommend adding it to your repertoire. You take a rock, or really any worthless object that you don’t care about, and cast a spell to make anyone who sees it covet it above all else. It still looks exactly like a rock or whatever. Like, they don’t look at a rock and say, “Oh I must have that delightful kitten!” They can clearly see it’s a rock. They just want it really, really bad and have no idea why. In fact, someone cast this spell on Jason Statham in the early 2000’s which is how Transporter 2 got made.

Anyway, Carmelotta was totally in. “Sure,” she said. “What do you want if you win? How about a kiss from a real, live princess?”

“Oh that’s okay,” said the Wizard. “I’m actually asexual, but I would take that matching necklace and earring set you’re wearing.”

Now, here’s the thing about that – the princess knew better than to wear her really expensive-looking stuff to the tavern. Most people were smart enough to not mess with a member of the royal family, but get a few drinks in your average farmer and they start thinking they’re clever enough to pull off some scheme like, say, hitting a lady in the head while she’s not looking and running home as fast as they can. The thing is that, unbeknownst to her, Carmelotta was wearing her best jewelry. She thought she was just wearing some boring polished stone pendant with matching earrings, but it turns out they were actually made from a magical black pearl that had been forged in the fiery breath of a dragon enchanted by a mermaid. The dragon was enchanted so hard that it could breath fire underwater, and the great heat and the laughter of the mermaid had caused the pearls to melt into one of the world’s rarest and most magical substances.

The wizard had been researching the substance and had finally tracked a few pieces down to a dwarf who had forged the necklace and earrings and given them to the king to celebrate the birth of his first daughter. The dwarf tried to tell the king how valuable they were, but there was a really good juggler at the feast, and the king kept shushing the dwarf so he could watch. It occurred to the dwarf that you don’t really need to hear a juggler, but if you’ve ever been shushed by a king, you know that it’s better to stay shushed and not question it.

“What’re we gonna bet on?” asked Carmelotta.

“How about something simple?” said the wizard. “I just happen to have this chicken right here.” (At this point, he almost gave himself away by pulling a full-sized adult chicken out of his robe.) “She’s due to lay an egg any second now. If you can guess what kind of egg it will be, you win. If you’re wrong, I win.”

This is a kind of a bet known as the False Sucker, wherein the scammee thinks they are the scammer. It seemed like the wizard was expecting Carmelotta to guess either white or brown, but any relatively clever person would think, “Ah-ha! I will simply say ‘a chicken egg’ which is technically correct and I will win the bet! This dude is a sucker!” But, if the dude in question is a wizard who knows Thaumaturducken, then the real correct answer will be “a duck egg.” I know this seems like a very specific situation, but it’s still probably a good idea to keep it in mind if you want to hold on to any magical jewelry you might have.

Carmelotta got a big smile on her face and started to say, “Well guess what? I’ve only ever seen one kind of egg come out of a chicken, and that’s a chic–”

But before she could finish, Myrtle hit her in the leg.

“Cor!” said Myrtle. “And how do we know dis old man ain’t stuffed a duck egg up dis ‘ere chicken what for to fool innocent ladies such as ourselves?”

“What?!” cried the wizard. “That’s revolting!”

“It is, ain’t it?” answered Myrtle. “But that don’t mean people don’t do it, right? In fact, there’s a certain blacksmith in the village what will pay two extra silver if you lube up a hard-boiled duck egg and push it up his arse whilst telling him what a pretty lass he is.”

“The second silver was so you wouldn’t tell anyone about it!” shouted the blacksmith as he stormed out of the tavern slamming the door behind him.

“Wow,” said the bartender, “I wonder what crawled up his ass?”

Twenty minutes later, after everyone got done laughing, they turned back to the bet.

“Never mind about all that,” said Myrtle. “Just guess a duck egg, my love. Dis one’s got pervert written all over ’em.”

“Fine then,” proclaimed Carmelotta, “a duck egg!”

“Oh for crying out loud!” shouted the wizard. “Have your stupid rock! I’ll just turn myself into a mermaid and enslave my own dragon!”

So saying, he slammed the rock down on the table and stormed off. No one knew what the fuck he was talking about, but they all cheered because Carmelotta had won another bet.

Outside the tavern, the wizard and the blacksmith bonded over what jerks everyone inside were. They actually ended up becoming good friends and hanging out all the time. The blacksmith would forge beautiful swords for the wizard to enchant, and the wizard would make duck eggs appear in the blacksmith’s butt. It was an odd relationship, but it worked for them, and love, in whatever form one finds it, is always a beautiful thing.