Chapter XL: Boat on the Raging River -Lich (with help from Multex707)

Lich opened his eyes, but could only see a haze of colour. He could smell rock dust, as if he were standing in the middle of a busy quarry. His thoughts were currently confused, he was disorientated. As his mind settled back into its normal frame, he found himself panting and leaning with one arm against an oak tree by the stream. His body had kicked into recovery and was returning all systems to normal; now coherent thought and 20/20 vision had come into play. After regaining enough breath, he looked up and righted his sense of direction, remembering the ford to be upstream. Suddenly, a whack in the back of the head and a Cm7 chord made him lose his balance and Lich tripped forwards, half stumbling half running into the water.
As he surfaced, he heard a voice speaking, its tone about middle to high. Lich was unable to recognise the words at first, but his mind started to deduce. It seemed to be Koopan, with a mixture of Yamamushroom, and a Yoshian verb at the end of the sentence, obviously like Pandoran word order. Suddenly, Lich recognised it to be the language of Mana, the universal language, Rhenzin. He then relied on what he had learnt in how to speak it. He concentrated and wiped his mouth with his fingers, creating a smear of Mana across his lips. He would now be speaking through the Mana, it translating his words into Rhenzin.

"Gyah, typical," the voice said, "ignore someone stuck in a comical situation like this, why don't you?"
Lich turned around and saw a small blue creature wearing red sneakers, hanging upside down from an overhanging branch by its shoelaces, wielding a red guitar. The creature looked similar to a rabbit and its ears dangled well above the ground.
"Yes, I know what you're thinking, I'm a musical mutated bunny rabbit," it sneered at him.
"Actually, I was thinking along the lines of a blue Rabite..." Lich replied and smirked.
"Well, stop staring like that and get me down from here...gyah, you'd think that returning from petrification'd stop you from helping someone out, wouldn't you?"
Lich swam over and heaved himself out of the water onto the muddy bank, then stood up, his eyes level with the creature's fluorescent green ones.
"I saw what happened, you must excuse my friend over there," the creature said pointing to what appeared to be a black sphere on legs dressed in a green sportscoat, face down on the ground. "He ran into you, and all his antidotes and things splashed all over you."
"Well I must give him my thanks, Mister..."
"Nehn Ehm, but call me NM."
"...Mister NM."
Lich then looked up at where NM was tied to the branch. It wouldn't be too hard for him to reach up and untangle the shoelaces, so he walked around NM, stood on his toes and pulled one towards him.
NM dropped from the tree onto his head, the guitar playing G12, then his legs toppled forwards, away from Lich, and soon NM was lying in the mud. Angry muttering could be heard for a moment before he propped himself up, now a canvas of brown and blue.
"Thank you very much, mister..."
"Lich."
"Yes, Lich," he growled and stood up.

Groaning could be heard behind Lich, and he turned around and saw the black sphere getting up and rubbing his head, or what would be his head area. He seemed to mumble something in its own native tongue, then turned around and saw the two of them. He seemed to be taken aback slightly by Lich's presence, and saw the shattered glass of vials nearby, deducing that this orange lizard infront of him was the statue he ran into. He didn't have any proper eyes as such, one was a brilliant diamond and the other was robotic, but they stared at Lich with some degree of recognition for some time before a mouth appeared below them and said in Rhenzin, "Lich?"
"Multex? That you, buddy?" Lich replied, then gave a giant smile and walked forwards, threw his arms out, then wrapped them around him. "What by Undine are you doing here?"
"Get off me, you big hairless lizard," Multex replied with a chuckle, pushing him away.
"What? You two know each other?" NM said, his small mouth wide open, behind Lich.
"Old friend of mine from Yamauchi, NM," Multex explained.
"What? You two know each other?" Lich asked, in the same stance as NM.
"Yeah. He's from Parallel Earth, friend of mine introduced him to me. Lich, meet Nehn Ehm, NM, meet Lich."
"We already have," NM said, stepping out from behind the Yoshi, showing his muddy front.
"Lich, what have you been doing?"
"Uh...he was stuck up a tree," Lich said, smiling awkwardly.
"I see," Multex nodded. "So, Lich, what brings you to this madhouse of a planet?"
"Some guy called Havering left instructions for me to go to Dinokan, met him there, sent me hurtling here."
"Say no more."
"You too?"
"Basically, yes."
"Well, we're in the same boat."
"And it's in a raging river," Multex said, looking serious. "I've already met my fair share of trouble."
"As have I. My namesake."
"You told me about him once...now you have first hand experience. I hope we don't run into him."
NM coughed and said, "Shouldn't we get going? This person you don't want to run into might come here..."
"You're right, NM. Anyway, Lich, I'm scouting the local terrain, perhaps you could come along. After all, someone with a Swiss-army-knife-Boomerang is useful."
Lich laughed, and slapped Multex on the back. "It's been getting kinda lonely."

Havering looked into the crystal ball, and saw Multex.
What's this? he asked as he scried some more. He's got a friend helping him out! And the orange lizard! This is not good! This is not what I wanted!
Havering threw his glass of wine against the wall, it shattering and clinking onto the floor.
Right, he thought, his face in a ghastly frown, It must be implemented immediately.