One Last Adventure Story

Dearest Rodrigo,

As adventurers, we often speak of lasts that are no such thing. This will be the last time we outrun an alligator with diamonds for eyes, we say. Or this is the last time we will participate in a fire ceremony to endear ourselves to the villagers. And yet, perhaps not even a full year after we’ve cried, ‘no more,’ we find ourselves charging charging from the swamp, pursued; or sighing and telling Olga, ‘Pass that flaming clutch of ignited ferns this way, will you?’

Today will be a different kind of last in two ways: first, it will be definitive, and second, there will be no relief, only sorrow.

Let me explain: as I mentioned in my previous letter, I suspected that the various attack dogs I’d run into were being controlled by my twin sister and your former fiancé, Mlegan Tamperhorn. And I was right. Moreover, I found her, Rodrigo!

I received an invitation from Fiona to the condemned sanitarium from which she and Dr. Green were running their operation to bring about my end. I found them in the main lobby, with my sister at their side. She had almost no hair, which made it easy to see the Venezuelan Brain Tick lodged in the side of her head. As you know, it’s a terrible body-depleting parasite that puts its vessel into a trance in which they are susceptible to diabolical suggestions. So, she was not an enemy after all, but a prisoner within her own mind!

Seeing this did lift my spirits somewhat, but there was the issue of Fiona and Dr. Green wanting to kill me. And I was outnumbered. Or so they thought. Little did they know that I had not traveled alone. In through the great skylight above us came crashing the Lake Guard, the collective of warriors I’d met while exploring the Lake of Visions. These seized Fiona. Dr. Green made a run for it, but I was able to lasso him using a rope of snakes I had subdued on my journey there that day–thanks again for that lesson on reptilian pressure points, old friend!

The building then began to rumble. Apparently, the reason for its condemnation had been the instability of the ground beneath. It sounded as if a colossal sinkhole was about to open up and swallow us whole. Luckily, I had some extra subdued snakes and was able to fashion them into a rope ladder so that the members of the Lake Guard and I, with Mlegan and the two criminals in tow, could climb up through the skylight. On the roof, Dilly waited with the gyrocopter we’d constructed from bamboo and palm fronds, based on a napkin doodle of yours. We were able to fly to the safety of M’s manor, where the authorities were waiting for Fiona and Dr. Green.

But this is not about them, nor about M. It’s about Mlegan. As you know, the Venezuelan Brain Tick slowly erodes the body in its entirety. We have removed it, but Mlegan is very far gone. She won’t make it without a miracle, or more specifically, a donor. She needs a strong working heart, one just like hers used to be, her heart’s twin, if you will. But I can say this without pause, Rodrigo: she will have one. Mine.

Mlegan has spent the last however many years in a terrible trance. You have spent the same span of time waiting for her to surface, so you may know love again. Meanwhile, I have enjoyed a lifetime’s worth of adventures nearly every day. It’s only right that I give myself to you two, who have suffered so long.

This is why I began with a discussion of lasts. This will be my last letter to you, Rodrigo. The surgery is in an hour. You will have no chance to intervene.

Also: I want you to have my Que 1080p HD Video Sunglasses. Perhaps if you wear them, it will be like I am there with you, seeing life through your eyes. Although, not really. I’m not sure why I decided to end with this, but alas, there’s simply no time left for a rewrite.

Thank you for all of the great adventures,
Gleg Tamperhorn