Back at Buttfuck, Wee Frodo–in his Genghis Khan-style furry earflap hat–and his lazy-ass mother reunite. The mom informs Wee Frodo that the castle master is also named Frodo. The kid goes, “Really? Your name is [Frodo]? That’s my name too!” Wow, thanks for putting your brilliant powers of deduction to work on that one, kid. The mom orders her son to thank the Buttfuck Master, and says she wants her boy to be just like Frodo when he grows up. Listen to your mother, Wee Frodo. Shooting for the stars is for special people. Aim for mediocrity, and you’ll get to be the landlord of a condemned shanty in the boondocks someday.
Following everyone expressing their relief that Wee Frodo wasn’t mauled by monsters, the scene fades out and next thing we know, we’re back with Mr. Baggins and a whole week has gone by. Longest. Black Screen. Ever. If delivering a letter to Ass Castle and saving some monkey kid with an earflap hat from a boar actually made the cut of Important Events in this chapter, I can’t even imagine what boring-ass tripe the game designers skipped over just now.
Loading ...While Frodo’s waiting for something relatively interesting to happen, he goes down to Martha’s and checks on his lottery tickets. Yes, I actually bought some. See, the lottery can be tricked into handing out many buckets of potch if you just keep resetting until you get something good. On this particular lottery, Frodo lucks into winning the second and third prizes, for a total of 130,000 potch. But when he takes his winning tickets to Martha to cash in, she’s got something on her mind and wants to kvetch instead of handing over the goods. She whines to Frodo that she’s “depressed” because she hasn’t had customers in ages. Well, she has a customer right now and she doesn’t seem to care. Bitch. “You’ve been master of this castle for a while now,” she moans, like he’s been there for months rather than a week and a half. “Can’t you do something to help?” Frodo asks her if she knows what he could do to help, if she’s so fucking smart. “That’s your job, not mine,” she snaps. “What’s wrong with today’s youth? Kids today are so lazy!” Frodo starts to wonder if his Councilman father sent him here to set him up for murder. Because he is so close.
After this scene, Martha is still grousing to herself about Frodo being a lazy teenager and won’t cash in Frodo’s tickets. You know, Frodo could take that 130,000 potch and plug it into the local Buttfuck economy, or he could use it to go out and bribe some suckers to come here and buy lottery tickets. GIVE HIM THE FUCKING MONEY, YOU WITHERED UP TOAD.
Of course, this begs the question of where Martha is getting the money to pay out all these fabulous prizes. There could be a regional lottery commission or something like that which handles the prize money, but it would be so like Martha to be sitting on millions of potch in her little shack and still be whining about how poor and put-upon she is. So I’m going to assume that she’s filthy rich and just hoarding it instead of using the money to help everyone here. It just gives me one more thing to hate about her.
Frodo leaves Martha alone and asks Piccolo if he’s seen Cogsworth around. Once again, Frodo is looking for lovin’ advice on what to do as castle master. Piccolo attempts to use his “fortune-telling” to find Cogsworth, to no avail. Piccolo is as shitty at fortune-telling as he is at spellcasting. But he doesn’t use this opportunity to nag Frodo about having no customers, so he’s still better in my book than stupid Martha.
Samwise hasn’t the faintest where Cogs is, either. When Frodo admits that he’s just bored and wants Cogs to occupy him, wink, Samwise perks up. “Would you like to do some combat training with me?” she asks hopefully. She adds, suggestively, “It’ll get your heart pumping.” Frodo blanches and gets away as quick as he can. Samwise is nice and all, but last time he checked she was also a girl.
Juan is also not helpful, so Frodo gives up and returns to the manor, where he finds Cogs emerging from the basement. Frodo’s eyes light up and he runs to his rotund boyfriend. “I have to talk to you,” he whines needily. “Where have you been? I was looking for you.” Cogsworth admits that he’s been holed up working on the castle’s financial books. It’s been taking him a while to sort things out, because, hello, THEY’RE POOR!!!!!! Cogs even says he’s been selling stuff to make ends meet. He then asks Frodo if he has any plans for generating some money. Frodo shrugs and says, “If we don’t have anything, we don’t have anything.” True, Frodo, but less than helpful.
Cogsworth is overcome with worry. “If we don’t have anything,” he says, “then we can’t maintain the castle. We’d run out of food, and that would be the end of it. We’ll have to let Muto, Juan and [Samwise] go. We can’t afford them.” I’d say they could kill Martha and eat her, but she probably has poisonous bile running through her blood and that would just ruin the meal. Frodo doesn’t like the idea of firing anybody, even if it is lazy-ass Juan. He asks Cogsworth to gather everyone in the courtyard. Hmm, maybe Frodo has an idea!
Of course he doesn’t. He merely gathers everyone together to tell them the bad news he just heard from Cogsworth, and to ask if any of them has a solution. Martha immediately points the finger of blame at Cogsworth for mismanaging the castle, like he could have somehow kept the place afloat with no income whatsoever. Shut up, Martha. Go swim in your lottery money. Samwise and Muto panic at the prospect of losing their jobs (Juan isn’t there to hear this so I assume he isn’t all that worried). Frodo shuts them up and says he needs them all to brainstorm, because he is in way the fuck over his head and hasn’t a clue what to do.
Samwise announces that she has an idea. Well, sort of. “When I was a child,” she says, “this place was crammed with stores and colorful decorations. People came here from all around to shop. Money flowed freely and good times were had by all…. I think we should open up lots of stores here.” While that does sound like a gay paradise befitting the good name of Buttfuck Castle, Frodo points out that it takes money to open up stores. Cough it up, Martha. And Cogsworth adds, “That’s not all. We’d need permission from the Council for such a venture. They’d never agree.” Frodo would like to hear more, because he knows nothing of these foreign Zexen ways. So Cogsworth ties on his Exposition Ascot. “The Zexen Federation began as an alliance of merchant guilds,” he explains. “The Council, which is the highest government authority in Zexen, is made up of members chosen by the Master Guild, the most powerful merchant guild in the land. The fussy Council has to approve every single store opening, and it takes hefty bribes to convince them. How could we do that?” In short, the Zexen Council members are corrupt assholes and You Can’t Fight City Hall. All completely new pieces of information here.
Given this problem, Frodo comes up with an alternative solution: instead of opening shops themselves, they could lease the land to other people, and then those suckers would have to deal with bribing the Council. Cogs is still worried that the Council will get wind of this and put the kibosh on the whole thing, but Frodo tells him the Council can suck his halfling dick for now. Everyone is happy that unemployment, homelessness, and starvation have been temporarily beaten back. But Cogsworth is being a total killjoy: “Wait a minute, [Frodo]. You can’t make promises like this. You don’t know the Council!!!” It’s at this point, after Cogs and Frodo have been discussing and arguing about the Council for a good five minutes, that Martha cuts in with, “What’s so important about the Council, when we’re not even officially in Zexen territory?” After scolding all these young’uns for not knowing their local history, she decides to give them all a lesson in exposition.
“This land is jointly controlled by both Zexen and Grassland,” she starts with something we’ve already heard. “When I was young, things were peaceful between Zexen and Grassland.” This should be a clue to Martha’s immense old age. She goes on, “This was an important landing for Grassland’s pastoral people, and was open to Zexens, too. That’s why a Grasslander like me is allowed to do business here. Is this making sense?” Frodo stammers a bit, until Martha tells him he should check out his bedroom for a document proving her claim. Cogsworth has no knowledge of any document like that, and you’d better believe he’s very familiar with Frodo’s bedroom.
The gang stands around eating popcorn while Frodo enters the manor and goes up to his bedroom to find this piece of paper. After he’s stared at one stack of boxes for about two seconds, Samwise and the others come in to help out. And I was about to be all cynical about them not helping. I feel so silly now. There’s a short montage of everyone rifling through Frodo’s dainties and unmentionables, with Martha yelling at any complainers. Finally, Frodo finds it. Martha spares a thin smile in Frodo’s direction, although it’s about as pleasant as her usual expression. With this one piece of paper–they’d better go to Kinko’s and make some copies for safe-keeping–they now have the legal standing to turn Buttfuck Castle into the Mall of Grasslands. Cogsworth is still freaking out, but Frodo will make him feel alllll better later, when everyone else is gone.
No more candlelit suppers for two, Cogs.
Quick cut to the run-down building next to Martha’s lottery. Frodo announces that they will turn this building into an inn and boarding house for shoppers and business proprietors. Frodo appoints Cogsworth to the task of running the inn. Frodo also wants Cogs to serve up meals here so they can all eat together. Cogs, of course, has his usual worrisome objections, but agrees to run Cogsworth’s Love Lodge and Rib Shack.
Frodo then asks the group for one last favor. “Beginning immediately, this will be a free trading area–with nothing to do with Zexen or Grasslands,” he says, except that it is tied to both of them so this argument makes no sense. “Anyone out there can lease space for a business, so let’s get the word out fast!” I’m not really sure why he’s telling them this, since it will be Frodo himself doing all the advertising. Whatever. The scene ends with all of them pumping their fists in the air in unison. Go Team Buttfuck!
I now regain control of Frodo. He reluctantly turns down Cogs’s offer to stay the night, and then goes outside to talk to Martha and Piccolo. They ask him if he’s out selling their land like a good boy, and Martha asks in a slightly nicer way than before if he’d please get a lot of customers to come here. I still hate her, but at least now she’s being nice to Frodo. Even though I haven’t gotten my fucking lottery money yet. While Frodo and the two Grasslanders are standing around shooting the breeze, they hear Samwise yell “Evildoers!” and they run over to see what her problem is.
If you haven’t figured it out, Samwise is yelling at Ace and the rest of the 12th Unit. We now get to see this scene from Frodo’s perspective, which means it’s the same scene but with redundant parts cut out and slightly different camera angles. So I’m not going to bother recapping it. However, I will point out that in this scene, Frodo is sad that the 12th Unit did not come with the intention of opening a business, and wishes more people knew about their “free trade area.” Which now seems a little ridiculous, given that they decided to make it a free trade area three seconds ago and Frodo hasn’t even left the castle yet. Chill out, son. If you pimp it, gay men will come.
After Geddy and his cronies leave, Frodo snits at Samwise that she needs to stop badgering people who come to the castle. “I can’t afford to let anything get past me,” she counters. “A lot of bad thugs disguise themselves as innocent people, you know.” So what about the people–like the people who were just here–who don’t look innocent? They must be perfectly decent, then. I think the point is that Samwise indiscriminately tries to make Swiss cheese out of all visitors.
And now, finally, Frodo gets his 130,000 potch in lottery winnings. He could put that money into castle repairs and salaries for the paid help, but instead he’s going to blow it on frivolities, which we’ll get to in the next recap. In part eight, Frodo and I will go on a recruiting binge like you’ve never seen before. See, I’m trying to play it up as really interesting so you’ll actually want to read it, because playing through it was about the dullest experience of my life. And now that I’ve piqued your interest…read on!