The Hitchhiker's Guide to Battal

Penned by Jan'et Plain and included in The Resundering and Beyond for no discernible reason (though fans have suggested that perhaps the main character, Harold Copperblack, is a lost descendant of Perilous Circumstances). Jan'et prepared to write this book by going to her local Barnes & Nobel and bought a large random "representative" sample of novels from the Fantasy/Sci Fi section based largely on cover art. She then read them voraciously, taking copious notes on style and story elements. The Hitchhiker's Guide to Battal was the result of what she considered to be a much better researched and informed genre-appropriate novel based on careful examination and reflection. This sincere effort to "conform to the pattern" has lead to one of the most hilarious and skewering, although entirely unintentional, parodies of typical fantasy cliche.

Plot Outline

In ancient times, the Queen of the Tooth Pixlies forged from the lukewarm fires of The Mountain Filled with Warm Lava, the One Tooth – a false tooth to bind all life on Battal under her rule. In Book 8 of The Elemenstor Saga, it is heavily implied that Bibee is the leader of the Tooth Pixlies, a like-minded group of Pixlies who have had it with being good natured and happy and instead wish to spread misery and pain throughout the world. Bibee uses them, extracting her mad vengange on all of Battal's children, one tooth at a time. The Hitchhiker's Guide to Battal opens with a prologue set during this time, portraying Bibee as poised to take over the world.

Far, far in the future--during The Ending Times--a man named Harold Copperblack wakes up to learn that his house is going to be razed to make way for the pending apocalypse. He is then visited by the Wizard Mardrangion, who reveals that the moldering heirloom on his mantle is the One Tooth and must be destroyed posthaste.

"Will that save my house?" asks a hopeful Harold.

"Er, no, probably not," replies Mardrangion. "But if you save the world, you could build a new house..."

Their conversation is interrupted by Harold's young friend Tower, an eccentric who has always claimed to be from "elsewhen," who tells Harold that it's time he headed home to New Sailebrook, and would Harold like to come with him if only they can get their hands on a suitable craft for travel? Mardrangion thinks this is a splendid idea.

In short, Harold gets roped into recruiting a team for an All-Stars game of Twenty-One Man Gafroom, assembling celebrities from across time and space in Battal in order to save it from utter destruction. This he does by traveling to the long-lost Ziggurat of the Hierarchs, where he finds a mysterious blue armoire that seems to work timesorc'ley of its own accord when he climbs inside; basically the armoire is deeper than it appears, and effectively becomes a corridor to other times and places. Eventually, Harold has assembled 19 others from across the history of Battal, convinces some of the more rivalrous ones to work together, and plays with them an Epic game against the Tooth Pixlie's evil team for the right to cast the One Tooth into The Mountain Filled with Warm Lava.

And of course, all throughout, the eponymous Hitchhiker's Guide to Battal--Tower's little guidebook to the ages--helps them along.

Spoilers

The Twenty-One Man Gafroom team is triumphant, and the One Tooth is destroyed. Unfortunately, due to a mix-up earlier in the book, the tooth is destroyed before Harold actually inherits it, creating a massive paradox. Everyone is returned to their own timelines, Tower finds himself a wanderer in time, trapped in the past, driven by an unknown force to change history for the better, leaping from time to time, working to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next gear will be the gear that takes him home. It has been suggested that this paradox centers on the year 40,000 and is indeed the real reason for Battal's eventual demise--an Epic artifact being destroyed before it has wrought its Epic influence on the world.

The Team

The team recruited by Harold is absolutely brimming with Epicness. Naturally, fans endlessly debate the appropriateness of the team choices, who would have been a better historic choice, how the Froomen could all have been first-stringers, et cetera. The team includes:

When she finds out she is "second-string," Holl'onnianya quits and is replaced in a pinch by Alanamara. Also along for the trip were Vaxin the Tiny, as self-appointed captain of the cheerleaders, and Mardrangion's faithful wife Mau'de, who is never far distant but does not particularly care for Twenty-One Man Gafroom.