There's an old saying in the muscle-bound barbarian hero business. Actually there are a LOT of old saying in the muscle-bound barbarian hero business. This is mostly because the average muscle-bound barbarian can't read. And so an oral tradition is necessary. (Although if asked, most muscle-bound barbarians would think that an oral tradition is something that pleasure slaves are trained to do.)

Anyway, the saying pertinent to this part of our story is this: "Never, ever give a witch, wizard, or sorcerer an even break. 3 feet of steel through the gizzard will mess up any spell they are trying to cast on you at the time."

In Gonad The Ballbarian's case, this was a little too long for him to remember. So his teachers simplified things for him. "If you see someone trying to cast a spell on you, kill him her or it."

Gonad had wandered away from the city a week ago, and he was very bored. In a whole week, he hadn't seen any monsters, demons, wizards or even a thief. For that matter, he hadn't even seen any luscious tavern wenches or beautiful pleasure slaves either.

This could be explained in part by the simple fact that he had been wandering in circles about 20 leagues from the city the whole time. The other part of the explanation was that no wizard, demon, monster, or thief in their right minds would come within a mile of the big Ballbarian.

At long last something shiny in the distance attracted Gonad's attention and he wandered over to see what it was.

Now some say that this was just dumb luck, but the Goddess of Chance and Fortune tends not to like folks who cast such aspersions on her intelligence.

The fact is, Lady Luck has a huge crush on Gonad. As a result, he is the luckiest S.O.B. on the planet.

Be that as it may, the distraction served to break Gonad out of the circular path he had been following and started him off on his newest adventure.

As Gonad neared the shiny object, he could see that it consisted of a pair of deep brass bowls attached to a (to him) bewildering array of straps.

It was about then that our hero heard the sound of a girl singing in a lovely voice.

Gonad followed the singing until he came to a stream where a beautiful young lady was bathing,

Gonad stood stock still, (except for his pee thingy, which reacted to the sight of a beautiful nude woman by instantly springing to rock hard erection) and so the woman in the stream didn't notice the big Ballbarian standing on the bank of the stream for several moments.

When she did happen to look up, she saw a massively muscled Ballbarian standing there with his loincloth standing straight out in front of him like a banner.