"Mer! I'll save you!" Gob hoblin screamed, charging at the werewolf JD clone that had Mer hiding up a tree.

"Save me too! Save me too!" Mac and Shadow screamed in unison.

Gob hoblin gave them sceptical looks, "Just wait until there's three of me then."

"NOOOO!" they all screamed and started throwing leaves, bricks and their shoes at him. Werewolf Clone JD grabbed one of the shoes in his teeth and ran off to gnaw it.

"Wish that worked with Bugs Bunny JD Clone," Shadow said wistfully as she ducked the madly swinging giant carrot.

Finally Gob hoblin clocked Bugs Bunny JD Clone in the face. First the weird rabbit with JD's face swayed a bit, then took a big bite of his carrot, said "That's all folks," and dropped unconscious.

"I know what we're having for dinner tonight," Mer said, looking at the rabbit.

"Now, this is amazing," Mac said, finally appearing from the tower.

"How come you were screaming for help?" Mer asked her. "Even though you were safe at the top of Six Tower?"

"Huh? Was I? Guess I just wanted to join in the moment." Mac rubbed her toe across the ground.

"Aww, you wanted to be in deadly peril too," Shadow said, giving her a hug and surreptitiously sticking a poster on Mac's back that said Try and kill this one next. Hey, I never said you can cure people of wanting to do the universal domination thing.

Mac accepted the hug and at the same time put a piece of paper on Shadow's back saying Do better than try.

Mer calmly hugged them both and removed both notices, handing them to an anonymous newbie, then whacked that newbie with her stick as it'd tried to put both the notices on Gob hoblin's back. "Can't get good help any more."

"What's with the lack of members rushing to our aid?" Shadow demanded, looking around in bewilderment. "How come even Johnny Depp didn't come rushing to save me?"

"Maybe they're in the tower," Mer said grimly.

"Playing strip poker," Gob hoblin said.

"They owe me a new pair of jeans from the last game," Mac said.

"Why are we just standing around as JD clones swarm around us, armed with nuclear missiles, tanks and cookie dough?" Shadow asked.

"Just waiting for our writer to get her butt in gear and send us some climbing gear so we can get into the tower while surreptitiously avoiding all six hundred and counting JD clones," Mer said, sharpening her pointy stick with a mega-size pencil sharpener.

Immediately three packs of climbing gear appeared and everyone lunged forward to get one, but Shadow wasn't in time. "Hey!" she yelled up at the sky, which was a very pretty stormy grey at the time, "What's with the shortage of climbing gear?"

Almost immediately, a jetpack fell at her feet, with a piece of paper pinned to it, which she read aloud obediently: "Climbing gear: $120. Jet pack $600. Free -- the look on all your faces when you're struggling to climb the tower walls while Shadow watches from the sky."

"Onwards," Mer said, "To the tower," and did the dramatic pointing to their destination, which was the tower that someone had painted purple. Shadow jetted off ahead of them, then very kindly did the Eye from the Sky thing, of telling them just how many JD clones were waiting to cannibalise them. "Guys, George Bush JD Clone has just helped Cannibal JD Clone in laying the table."