Bye Bye Empire, Empire Bye Bye

Captain Stuart Turnips and Scaramanga had just entered the mysterious magick shop approximately 2000 yards from the donnybrook at the Lucky Dragon.* The shopkeeper emerged from behind a curtain and greeted them with great curtesy and deference.

"Mr. Scarmanga so delighted to see you on this day, your reputation precedes you, how may I serve? And is this young companion your son? What a fine young boy!"

Captain Stuart Turnips corrected the shoppie,

"No my name is Turnips, Captain Stuart Townshend. I am a descendant from the Townshend line of England. My father is Lord Townshend whom some call Lord Turnips."







The shopkeeper smiled at the lad.

"Ah so. We have a gentleman in our midsts. The young man is of the aristocracy. How do you come to be with Mr. Scarmanga? Ah, never mind, I'm sure the readers can go back and look that up. What do you need with Woo?"

Scaramanga looked puzzled as he didn't know what woo meant in this context based on his understanding of Cantonese.

"Woo?"

The Shopkeeper laughed.

"Name is Woo. This is Woo's shop of magicks, potions and spells. No finer store exist like it on the entire eastern coast of the great Eurasian world island. Some may say we are finest store in entire world but there is that store in Livonia Mall in Michigan that has that claim right now."

With that the shopkeeper turned to the side and looking down, shook his fist in a silent act of prideful defiance and muttered sotto voce.

"Livonia Mall Cutlery World I shall defeat you!"

His voice raised again.

"So what can Woo do for you? Hold on, ret Woo guess. Engrish gentleman assassin and young Engrish gentleman sea captain are both running into shop and out of breath. You must need to escape from imminent danger from many, many foes. If it was one foe, surely Scarmanga would have shot with amazingly accurate skill with Golden Gun (tm)."

Scaramanga nodded.

"Its something like that."

Mr. Woo (if that was his real name) continued.

"Ah so we can dispense with the magic items designed to kill one opponent. For you are so truely brave and powerful not to run from just any fight. No, Englishmen would never have gotten to where they ruled 25% of the globe if they just picked up and ran from any fight. "

With that Mr. Woo turned and looked at a dusty black and white photo hanging on the wall of the shop. It was of a group of young soldiers taken some 20 or so years before.

"You see Mr. Scaramanga. I was there. I was in British forces on the so-called Gin Drinker's Line when the Japanese attacked in 1941. I know all about British honor. I was there when this city fell with barely a fight because Englishmen were busy buggering little boys half a world away. My unit fought for General Maltby who wasn't given resources to defend this place from the Japanese because Englishmen half a world away were too busy fighting Germans, Italians and Zombies. ..."

With the mention of zombies, Scaramanga and Captain Stuart gave each other a look. Something might not be right with Mr. Woo they thought.

Woo continued...

"So I know it is impossible that the esteem Mr. Scarmanga, world-known assassin could be fleeing from a fight or from his friends."

With that Scaramanga and Captain Stuart began to pick up on Mr. Woo's sarcasm which although laid on pretty thick was also being dispensed from behind a dreadful accent.


*roughly 1820 Meters, 1.13636 Statute Miles, or 0.9874698400863999 Nautical Miles