So let’s take a break from dudes hitting each other with swords
and talk about a LADY hitting dudes with a sword
she is the Bradamante I mentioned before
and she is subject to more crazy magic shit
than a fledgling prince in a snowglobe full of wizards.

So like for example
after she kills Sacripante’s horse and rides off
she runs into this knight crying in the hills
(the medieval wilderness is where knights go to cry
presumably they think they will not be found
but when the whole wilderness is full of sadtimes armormen
it’s really only a matter of time.)
anyway Bradimante’s like “Sup loser”
and he’s like “Man, my girlfriend got stolen
by a dude with a flying horse
so I ditched the army I was commanding to go follow him
(which prolly means I shouldn’t have been in command of an army but w/e)
and I found his HUGE METAL CASTLE IN THE MOUNTAINS
and I hid there because I suck
but then this dude Ruggiero and one of his boys showed up
and the knight came out with his flying horse
and zapped them with a laser light show from his shield
and I passed out and I guess he took them prisoner.”
and Bradimante says “Wow, you suck.”

But what she’s thinking is “Wow, I need to go fight this flying dude”
because for one thing, he’s a flying dude
how often do you get to fight those
also he lives in a shiny metal castle and shoots lasers from his shield
he’s obviously a time-traveler who thinks it’s funny to kill knights
which means he deserves to die
PLUS
Ruggiero is Bradimante’s boyfriend
so she’s not about to let him live in Chez Shinytimes forever
so she’s like “Bro, lead me to this castle, bro”
and the bro leads on.

But this bro has a secret:
he is actually LORD PINBALL OF THE JERKLORDS
[name altered for the sake of not looking it up]
and he has serious beef with Bradimante’s fam
so instead of leading her to a castle
he leads her into a cave with a big hole in it
and then pushes her down the hole
because I guess he really didn’t care about finding his girlfriend that much.

Then Bradimante is in the hole
but it’s fine because it turns out that the hole is MERLIN’S TOMB
and there’s a sorceress there
and she’s like “Sup Bradimante, I’ve been waiting for you
Merlin’s ghost told me all this cool shit about you
come hang out.”
So she takes her into a crazy room full of the ghosts of all Bradimante’s unborn children
and introduces her to all of them
and half of them are named Azzo and the other half are named Alfonso
oh and somewhere in there she says Ruggiero is gonna get stabbed to death in a field
but it gets conveniently lost in all the names
and then the sorceress is like “Man, I sure don’t care enough to keep talking about this.”
and Bradimante is like “No wait, tell me about those two kids over there
they look like assholes.”
and the sorceress is like “Yeah, they are.
It’s cool though, the rest of your kids are pretty dope.
Anyway, here’s what’s up:
in order to kill that flying knight, you need a magic ring
I’m gonna take you to a hotel
and there’s gonna be this other dude there
hired by the king of Africa to do the same thing you’re trying to do
and he’ll have the ring
so just steal it or whatever.
It’s fine, he’s from Africa.
We’re at war with Africa and also pretty racist
as will become obvious when the poet describes this guy in a couple pages.”

So Bradimante goes to the hotel
and there’s this dude Brunell there
and he has the ring
so Bradimante travels with him to the castle
which he knows how to find
and then she beats him up and takes the ring
and is like “HEY, TIME-TRAVELING KNIGHT
COME OUTSIDE AND FIGHT ME LIKE A TECHNO WIZARD”
and the dude comes flying out on his robot horse
carrying a book that is either a spellbook or an instruction manual
and starts shooting her with force-lances or telekinesis or laserbolts or magic maybe
but she’s immune to it because of the ring
so finally he uncovers his laser shield
and she’s like “OH NO, YOU GOT ME”
and falls down and pretends to be dead
and then when he comes to tie her up
she punches him in the face and sits on his chest.

She’s about to cut off his head, but he’s real old so she feels bad
and instead she’s like “Bro
why did you travel all the way back to our time
just to kidnap a bunch of people and have a sweet palace in the mountains?
Other than the obvious reasons.”
and the old dude is like “Well there’s this guy Ruggiero
and he’s gonna die in battle
and I really like him for some reason
so I came back in time and captured him
to keep him safe from danger
and I have been snatching hot chicks and knights for years now
in order to populate this wicked cool party palace I built just for him.”
and Bradimante is like “…
…………….
….
..
………WHAT?
Okay first of all you can’t travel back in time to change the past
this is not the fucking Terminator
causality doesn’t work like that.
If he’s gonna die in battle
he’s gonna fucking die in battle.
Second of all I am not having my boyfriend banging sluts in a technopalace
third
I want your horse and your cool shield.
Let me into the castle so we can get out all the prisoners.”

So the old guy lets her into the palace
but then at the last second he does some magic and WHOOSH
the castle disappears
and he does too
and all these hot chicks and studly knights are left standing in the mountains
like “What the hell, we were having a party.”
and then Ruggiero sees Bradimante and he’s like “…Yay!
I’m so glad to be with you in this barren mountain landscape
instead of having a fivesome with captured vixens
hoorayyyyyyyy.”
and Bradimante is like “Yeah yeah whatever, slutbrick
just lemme capture this flying horse and we can go.”
But that flying horse won’t be caught.
It just keeps flying to different mountains
until finally it ends up in front of Ruggiero
so he grabs it and climbs on, to bring it back to Bradimante
but he gets pranked
because it turns out this was the wizard’s plan all along
the horse has been programmed to take Ruggiero way out to the middle of bumfuck Egypt
where no one can EVER HARM HIM
so he takes off at Mach 5
and Bradimante is just standing down there like “Aw, fuck.”

So the moral of the story
is that some relationships just aren’t meant to be.

Now a number of you have asked me to tell this tale
But only violent sex-warlord Alexxxander the Great
was studly/generous enough to actually MAIL ME A COPY
so I finally started reading it
and wow
I really truly get why a book like this might make a guy like Don Quixote go insane
like seriously
if you try to behave like the people in this book
I claim no responsibility for your brutal, well-deserved death.
Let’s start at the beginning:

So there’s this chick Angelica
like most medieval damsels
Angelica has spent the past few years as little more than a very sexy football
being passed and intercepted by knight after knight
all of whom are SUPER CONCERNED with “protecting her honor.”
One of these knights is named Orlando Furioso
but then Orlando takes her to France
where there is a big war happening
between everybody and everybody
and Charlemagne is like “Haha you know what’s a great idea?
If I take that chick you have
and offer her as a prize to whoever kills the most dudes in this war”
and Orlando is like “WTF?
It’s like, don’t you even see that my name is in the title?”
and Charlemagne is like “I’M CHARLEMAGNE, BITCH
I FUCKED A LAKE
TRY TO STEP TO ME? THAT’S A BIG MISTAKE
I DON’T NEED MY OWN POEM, I’M A CAMEO MASTER
OH SHIT, WHERE’D ANGELICA GO? DAG-BLAST HER!”
And Orlando is like “Ok ok, stop rapping so we can go find Angelica.”

But Angelica has already been found
because she made the mistake of fleeing into Medieval Woods
forgetting of course
that Medieval Woods are where EVERYONE IS
so she almost tramples some random knight named Rinaldo
and he sees her and he’s like “OH WOW, SO SEXY.”
and she’s like “SHIT SHIT SHIT”
and they immediately embark on some Apollo/Daphne shit
except Angelica has a fucking horse so she gets away
and runs straight into ANOTHER night named Ferrau
who just lost his helmet in a pond
and he sees Rinaldo chasing a hot chick and he’s like “STOP THAT
I’LL FIGHT YOU FOR HER.”
so they start fighting
and Angelica is like “Wow, fuck this”

See, Angelica knows Rinaldo
they used to date
except it was the kind of dating where she was really into him
but he was not at all into her
and then they drank some witch-juice or fairy jizz or whatever
and now she hates him and he loves her
like in Midsummer night’s dream except WAY more violent/complicated.
So Angelica is like “I better get out of here
before Rinaldo figures out I’m me
and not just some random piece of ass in the forest.”
So she leaves those two dudes to beat each other with swords.

Then the two dudes beat each other with swords for a bit
(which they prolly should do anyway
because I think they’re at war right now?)
until finally Rinaldo is like “Bro, time out
do you see that chick anywhere?”
and Ferrau is like “Aw shit, where’d she go?”
and Rinaldo is like “I dunno
but as it stands, we have nothing to gain by killing each other.
what we should do is team up
so we can find her
and THEN kill each other
FOR THE RIGHT TO BANG HER.”
and Ferrau is like “That sounds awesome!
Man
I hope no one ever invents women’s rights.”

So they both climb on Ferrau’s horse
(Rinaldo lost his somewhere)
and gallop off into the woods like best pals
to find a woman to kill each other over
but then the path splits
and they are too dumb to figure out which way Angelica went
so they just split up
and Ferrau ends up right back at the pond where he lost his helmet
so he’s like “Oh well
Better try to get my helmet.”
so he takes a stick and starts poking around in the water
and a FUCKING ZOMBIE JUMPS OUT
and it’s like “Bro, not cool
this pond is my house
and you should know this
because you DUMPED MY BODY IN HERE
AFTER KILLING ME
you said you’d dump my helmet in too
BUT IT LOOKS LIKE YOU FORGOT
UNTIL JUST NOW
SO I’M TAKING IT BACK, MOTHERFUCKER.
Oh also I’m Angelica’s brother
so probably she had a good reason for fleeing you just now.”
and Ferrau is like “Aw man. I feel like a total tool.”
and the Zombie is like “Yeah, you really should.”

Meanwhile Angelica is just hauling ass through the woods
but then she gets tired
and decides to nap under some trees
which goes well for about six seconds
before some dork wakes her up with his excessive crying.
He’s like “BOO HOO HOO
A WOMAN’S VIRGINITY IS A PRICELESS TREASURE
WHY ARE WOMEN ALWAYS SQUANDERING THEIR VIRGINITY ON STUPID ASSHOLES
WHY CAN’T THEY SQUANDER IT ON A NICE GUY LIKE ME?”
and Angelica immediately recognizes him as King Sacripante of the Saracens
who has had a huge pathetic crush on her since forever
so she’s like “Hm, this guy is pretty lame and I’m not attracted to him
but I’m magically bound to hate Rinaldo
Ferrau killed my brother
and Orlando Furioso has Furioso RIGHT IN HIS FUCKING NAME.
This guy seems like the lesser of countless evils.
Hey Sexy-Panties, what up?”
And Sacripante is like “OMG MY QUEEN”
but then a knight in white armor rides by and kills his horse
and as Angelica helps him climb out from under it
and tries to reassure him that he’s not as big of a failure as he obviously is
a messenger comes by like “Hey guys
have you seen a knight in white armor go by?”
and Sacripante is like “Yeah I just got mauled by one
right as I was about to get smooched on by my lady.
Fucking white-knighting son of a bitch.
Who was that?”
and the messenger is like “Oh that?
That’s just some chick named Bradamante.”
and Sacripante is like “NO WAY
NOT A GIRL
HAX
HAXXXXXX.”
So you see, this sort of behavior actually predates the internet.

Anyway, then Sacripante and Angelica pile onto Angelica’s horse
it’s embarrassing and slow
but suddenly a horse appears!
It’s Rinaldo’s horse!
This horse fucking loves Angelica
and Angelica loves the horse
because she didn’t drink any horse-hating potions, I guess
so she grabs it and Sacripante gets on
but then HERE COMES RINALDO
chasing his dumb horse
and he’s like “Oh dang
I just found my horse
and my lady
and some chump I can hit with a sword
I ask you:
COULD THIS DAY GET ANY BETTER???”

But that’s a question we’ll just have to answer next week.
In the meantime, here’s a moral for you:
try to never wear armor
it seems to make people think it’s okay to hit you with weapons.
Angelica doesn’t have that problem, all I’m saying.

TO BE CONTINUED.