Abruptly the tent was gone, the picnic table was gone, the hammock was gone, the cot that a moment ago had borne a writhing eager naked lady on it was gone. All was smoke and ruin! The sea roiled as the sky split asunder! It might have started raining blood; it’s hard to tell. There was a lot happening.

Percivale panicked, which was a pretty reasonable response, and dropped down to his knees and prayed a little prayer about how grateful he was that he hadn’t made the mistake of sleeping with the strange woman, and also would Jesus mind helping him out, as regards the hellish nightmare-scape he’d found himself trapped in?

Suddenly he and the lady were both together, back on the lady’s ship. She was pissed! As she spoke the wind roared, and when she moved her arms the waves of the sea moved, too! It was freaky, is what it was.

Percivale was still naked, but somehow he’d got his sword back, so, he had that going for him. He felt overcome with shame over getting drunk and agreeing to become this lady’s sex slave, pretty much. Because he wanted to show how sorry he was, and also because he was still drunk, he… There is no easy way to put this. He castrated himself, right there on the deck of the ship.

With a great rush of air, the lady vanished. Percivale was left alone, drunk, bleeding, castrated, naked, and on the deck of a ship that wasn’t his. It’s not looking great for him.

And then through supernatural good fortune, Nacien arrived! He came sailing in aboard his white ship, which he ran up alongside the lady’s black one.

“Ahoy!” he called. “How hast thou done sith I departed?“

“Ha ha,” responded Percivale bitterly. “Do you have any clothes and bandages and coffee?”

We cut to sometime later, aboard Nacien’s ship. Percivale had just related to Nacien the whole sordid story of himself and the mysterious unnamed lady.

“Seriously? Were you not listening to her? She basically spelled it out.”

“What?”

Nacien smacked Percivale on the back of his head. “That was the Devil! She was the master fiend of hell. C’mon. You paid attention in Sunday school. Brightest angel in heaven, kicked out for arrogance, and I can’t believe I have to explain this to you. It really was pretty frickin’ obvious.”

Percivale was at a loss. “I almost had sex with the Devil?”

“You almost lost your fight against the greatest champion of this world, is what almost happened. But you won! And because you won, you also lost a part of yourself, as was prophesied back during the dream sequence. ‘If you lose, you won’t get anything sliced off,’ that was the prophecy.”

“Oh man.” Percivale had, in the tumult, forgotten about the self-mutilation part. He groaned as it came back to him. “I don’t suppose you can miraculously restore me?”

“Nope. But I did fetch you your armor.”

Glumly, Percivale donned his armor. “What now?”

“Well I gotta be going.” Nacien stood up. “But whenever you’re ready to proceed to the next stage of your quest, head down below decks.” Then he beamed out, Star Trek style and I am not even kidding.