The gaping crack Montana and Vira had fallen into closed up behind them, just as the crack that had swallowed Pucas did earlier in the story. Titiana was heart-broken, and had her friends split up and look miles around for another hole or cave that might lead underground so they could search for their fallen friend. After two days of searching Titiana had to reluctantly decide to move on. B.M. Foulfinger assured the flatulenz fairy princess tremorroid that when they returned to the city he would invent a Montana-and-Vira-Detecting Device that would help them locate the duo.

  So Titiana, B.M. Foulfinger, the Ratsack Golem, Nate Goiterhead, Agent Orange, a limping, deaf Gashmouth, Bruce, Jo, Cockadoody, and Cydroidobot and his son moved on towards the Fartmeister’s fartcano headquarters. The Sledjbot4000 stopped thwunking the ground when they were about a quarter of a mile away from it.

  Whenever the fartcano wasn’t expunging malodorous farts it was mostly quiet in the Fartcano Dominion as there were no throatwobbler mangroves to fart melodically or fetid protogophers to titter shrilly. Titiana was a little awed by the silence, and all the others were quiet and grave except Gash, who, as they trotted along with Ratsack and Nate upon their back, recited a queer poem:

  "Would a fleshwood ‘coon to a fartcano go?

  Aye, aye! I sigh, they would, although

  Had they not a dead wood head

  They'd turn and run back home instead."

  By and by, when our friends drew near to the Fartmeister’s fartcano headquarters, the way grew dark and gloomy for the reason that the high peaks on either side shut out the pinkish-yellow sunshine. Any sense of a pleasant landscape had been left far behind them, with and only rough, pimply, chocolate-colored skinstone and rough, veiny, chocolate-colored fleshrock remaining. Soon they arrived at the Fartmeister’s fartcano, but it was just a blank wall with no doors or orifices.

  “How do we proceed?” asked Titiana.

  “You must call for the king,” answered Cydroidobot’s son.

  Titiana cried out in a loud voice:

  "I demand that the Fartmeister appear to us!"

  There was no reply. The fartcano let out a tiny rancid fart.

  "You must not command the Fartmeister," said Ratsack, "for you do not rule him, as you do your own people."

  So Titiana called again, saying:

  "I request the Fartmeister to appear to us."

  No reply at all.

  "Try entreaty," said Jo the Prolific Rhinoceros to Titiana. "If he will not come at your request, then the Fartmeister may listen to your pleading."

  Agent Orange scoffed.

  "Do you wish our ruler to plead with this nefarious Fartmeister?" the leader of Schmegma Force asked. "Shall the flatulenz fairy princess Titiana, tremorroid of all of Bonertania, lower herself to a creature who lives in a stinky fartcano?

  "No!" they all shouted, with big voices; and B.M. Foulfinger added:

  "Our tremorroid must always maintain her dignity, just as I maintain mine.” Then the educated emancipated finger let out a wet fart.

  "I'm not too proud to beg," said Nate Goiterhead nervously, climbing off of Gashmouth’s flat back. “I'll call the Fartmeister."

  "Please do," said Jo; "and if he makes goiter pie of you I'll willingly eat you for breakfast tomorrow morning."

  So the goiter-headed garbage golem named Nate stepped forward and loudly said:

  "Please, please, please oh great and mighty Mr. Fartmeister, king of the fart ghouls, please come here and see us."

  A low growl came from the fartcano. Then a door in the brown wall creaked opened, there was a loud, echoing fart sound, and then a booming voice cried:

  "Enter!"

  "What if this is a trap?" asked Cydroidobot.

  "So be it," replied Titiana. "We came here to rescue the poor kween of Farshtunkener and her ten children, and we must run some risks to do so."

  So Titiana led the way, hand in hand with Nate Goiterhead, and entered a long passage which was lighted by glowing brown dusted diamonds set in the rocky walls. There was no one to escort them, or to show them the way, but all the party pressed through the passage until they came to a round, high-ceilinged lobby. There were hallways and elevators, and several a large orifices, the largest of which unpuckered open. Our friends passed through and discovered they were in a luxurious home theater. They walked to the front of the room, stood in front of the 200 inch T.V. set, and looked at the Fartmeister, who sat upon a very comfortable looking black recliner.

  He was a half flatulenz fairy/half fart ghoul. He had erin green skin and his earlobes were pointy, but not so pointy that anyone would comment on them. He was bald with a black beard and wore a purple, high-collared robe covered in black velvet thaumaturgic icons. He looked up from a zine about Schlingian diaper dramas, took his blackstone roachberry pipe out of his mouth, and said in a friendly tone of voice:

  “Welcome to the esteemed Tremorroid Titiana and this renowned gaggle of Sifillis Celebrities! Please, tell me why you have come all this way to see me, and what I can do to make you happy."

  "Your majesty," said Titi, "I have come here to ask you to release the good kween of Farshtunkener and her ten children, whom you have enchanted and hold as your prisoners."

  "Oh, no; you are mistaken about that," replied the Fartmeister. "They are not my prisoners, but my slaves, whom I purchased fair and square from the king of Farshtunkener."

  "But that was wrong," said Titiana.

  "According to the laws of Farshtunkener, the king can do no wrong," answered the King of the Fart Ghouls, eyeing a ring of roachberry smoke he had just blown from his mouth.

  "But you are treating them cruelly," said Titiana, who was much distressed by the Fartmeister's refusal.

  "In what way?" he asked.

  "By making them your slaves," said she.

  "Cruelty," remarked the King of the Fart Ghouls, puffing out more wreathes of smoke and watching them float into the air, "is a thing I can't abide. So, as slaves must work hard, and the kween of Farshtunkener and her children were delicate and tender, I transformed them all into farts, put them in ornate jars and scattered them around my rumpus room. I really think I have treated them with great kindness."

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  "But what a dreadful fate is theirs!" exclaimed Titiana, earnestly. "And Farshtunkener is in great need of its royal family to govern it. If you will liberate them, and restore them to their proper forms, I will give you a hundred jarred farts to replace each one you lose."

  The Fartmeister looked grave.

  "Suppose I refuse?" he asked.

  "Then," said Titiana, firmly, "I guess my country will conquer your domain and oblige you to obey my wishes."

  The Fartmeister laughed until he choked; and he choked until he coughed; and he coughed until his face turned from erin green to bright red. And then he wiped his eyes with a light blue handkerchief and grew grave again.

  "You are as brave as you are pretty, my dear," he said to Titiana. "But you have little idea of the extent of the task you have undertaken. Come with me for a moment."

  He arose and took Titiana's hand, leading her to a little orifice at one side of the theater. The Fartmeister farted brightly and the hole unpuckered and they walked through it and down a flight of stairs, ending up on a balcony.

  A vast cave extended for miles and miles, and in every direction were fart ghouls receiving and sorting and cataloging pilfered farts. All around the walls of the cave were hundreds of doors of molybdenum, and these extended in rows far away into the distance, as far as Titiana's eyes could follow them.

  While the Tremorroid gazed wonderingly upon this scene the Fartmeister farted five shrill farts, and at once all the doors flew open and solid ranks of fart ghoul ninjas marched out from every one. So great were their numbers that they quickly filled the immense cavern and forced the busy workghouls to abandon their fart processing.

  It was evident the ninjas were perfectly trained, for they stood in straight rows, rank after rank, with their battle axes and samurai swords held erect and true, as if awaiting but the fart of command to level them upon their foes.

  "This," said the Fartmeister, "is but a small part of my army of fart ghouls ninjas. They are silent but deadly, and no ruler upon Sifillis has ever dared to fight me, and no ruler ever will, for I am too powerful to oppose."

  He farted shrilly six times, and at once the martial array filed through the molybdenum doorways and disappeared, after which the workghouls again resumed their labors sorting farts. The rejected farts were sent into tubes that lead the skyward-pointing maw of the fartcano.

  Then, sad and discouraged, Titiana returned to her friends, and the Fartmeister calmly reseated himself on his comfy recliner and began packing his roachberry pipe with fresh roachberries.

  "It would be foolish for us to fight," said the tremorroid, who was still new at her job. “I'm not sure what to do next.”

  "Ask the Fartmeister where his kitchen is," suggested Jo. "I'm hungry as a woebegone wobbegong."

  "I might pounce upon the Fartmeister and tear him in pieces," remarked Jo’s super best friend Bruce the Retiring Ocelot.

  "Try it," said the King of the Fart Ghouls, lighting his pipe with a lighter covered in red and black electrical tape.

  The sunglasses-sporting ocelot crouched low and tried to spring upon the Fartmeister; but he hopped only a little way into the air and came down again on his hooves in the same place, not being able to approach the recliner by even an inch.

  “He is too great a thaumaturgian to oppose," said Bruce, in rare show of pessimism.

  "It seems to me," said Ratsack, thoughtfully, "that our best plan is to wheedle his majesty into giving up his slaves.

  "This is the most sensible thing any of you have suggested," declared the Fartmeister. "It is folly to threaten me, but I'm so kind-hearted that I cannot resist wheedling. If you really wish to accomplish anything by your journey here, my dear Titiana, you must wheedle me. Wheedle, wheedle, wheedle away"

  "I am very anxious," Titiana said slowly, "to liberate the royal Farshtunkener family who are currently farts in jars in your rumpus room. Tell me, sir, how this may be accomplished."

  The Fartmeister remained thoughtful for a moment, after which he asked:

  "Are you willing to take a few chances and risks yourself, in order to set free the people of Farshtunkener?"

  "Yes, indeed!" answered Titiana, eagerly.

  "Then," said the Fartmeister, "I will make you this offer: You shall go alone and unattended into my rumpus room and examine carefully all the farts that the rooms contain. Then you shall have permission to touch eleven different jars, yelling at the same time the thaumaturgic words 'vaayu kadaththal,' and if any one of them, or more than one, proves to be the transformation of the kween of Farshtunkener or any of her ten children, then they will instantly be restored to their true forms and may leave the fartcano in your company, without any objection whatever. It is possible for you, in this way, to free the entire eleven; but if you do not guess all the farts correctly, and some of the slaves remain transformed, then each one of your friends and followers may, in turn, enter the rumpus room and have the same chance I grant you. I make but one condition," added the Fartmeister, his eyes twinkling.

  "What is it?" Titiana inquired.

  "If none of the eleven fart jars you touch proves to be the transformation of any of the royal family of Farshtunkener, then, instead of freeing them, you will yourself become enchanted, and transformed into a fart inside of a jar.” Titiana gasped in horror. “A very nice jar,” the Fartmeister added.

  Hearing this condition imposed by the Fartmeister, Titiana became silent and thoughtful, and all her friends looked at her uneasily.

  "Don't you do it!" exclaimed Nate Goiterhead. "If you guess wrong, you will be transformed into a fart!"

  "But I shall have eleven guesses," answered Titiana. "Surely I ought to guess one object in eleven correctly; and, if I do, I shall rescue one of the royal family and be safe myself. Then the rest of you may attempt it, and soon we shall free all those who are enslaved."

  "What if we fail?" inquired Cydroidobot’s son.

  "We must not fail!" cried Titiana, courageously. "Having come all this distance to free these poor people, it would be weak and cowardly in us to abandon the adventure. Therefore I will accept the Fartmeister's offer, and go at once into the royal rumpus room."

  "Come along, then, my dear," said the Fartmeister, getting out of his recliner, "I'll show you the way."

  He approached an orifice on the wall opposite to the one leading to the fart sorting chamber. He farted three long low farts and it unpuckered, and Titiana, after a smiling farewell to her friends, boldly passed through.

  She found herself in a long hall. The ceilings were composed of great arches that rose far above her head, and all the walls and floors were of polished marble exquisitely tinted in many shades of brown. Thick brown velvet carpets were on the floor and dozens of brownish-orange lava lamps provided illumination.

  “Is this the way to the rumpus room?” asked Titiana.

  “No, my dear,” smiled the Fartmeister. “This IS the rumpus room.

  And that was when Titiana noticed that upon many, many hundreds of shelves and tables were clustered transparent glass jars of every size and description, the lids seemingly made out of all sorts of metals, glass, clay, bone, cheese, skinstone and dead fleshwood. This immense hall was what the Fartmeister referred to as his rumpus room.

  Titi realized how dangerous was her task, and how likely she was to lose her own freedom in striving to free others from the bondage of the Fartmeister. But, having undertaken the venture, would not abandon it. The Fartmeister left her to do her choosing and exited through the orifice, which puckered shut behind him.

  The willowy flatulenz fairy spent hours examining the jars, searching for some sign of which farts were the kween of Farshtunkener and her ten children. Some of the farts were invisible, others were tinted, with every color imaginable being represented.

  For her first guess Titi settled on a jar containing a transparent fart with a number ten carved into the molybdenum lid. She touched it and yelled the words "vaayu kadaththal," as the Fartmeister had instructed her to do when she guessed. But the jar remained as it was before.

  Titiana moved on to a bright yellow fart in a jar with a green dusted diamond for a lid.

  “Vaayu kadaththal!”

  Again she was unsuccessful. Three guesses; four guesses; five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten she made, and still not one of them was right!

  The tremorroid shivered a little and farted nervously; for now but one guess remained, and her own fate depended upon the result.

  She resolved not to be hasty, and browsed the shelves and tables once more, gazing earnestly upon the various farts in jars and trying to decide which she would touch. Finally, in despair, she decided to leave it entirely to chance. She shut her eyes tightly, then advanced blindly with her right arm outstretched before her.

  Slowly, softly she crept forward until her hand came in contact with a bone-lidded fart jar. In a low voice she yelled the words "Vaayu kadaththal."

  The rumpus room was quite empty of life after that. For upon the edge of a small round table rested a small jar with a black plastic lid. The almost imperceptible silver fart within was all that remained of Titiana of Bonertania.