Poet, biographer, and master of the Kimbuki Bassoon, Hugh Gabilshatush was one of the great chroniclers of the ninth century, surpassing even the work of Jarvis the Narcoleptic.¹ However recent findings have cast a shadow upon Hugh’s motivations for becoming the best and brightest.

Early Life

Born Angus McSpleen in the rundown Siblas district of Bodea-Lotnikk, the poet was born with Qiri Syndrome, a rare disorder that renders the person afflicted with the inability to use their imagination. The only cure for this malady was licking fengaks, in particular the yellow-green ones ² While this treatment was the only one guaranteed to work it did have some obvious side effects: Angus changing his name to Hugh Gabilshatush and the newly renamed Hugh becoming a poet. ³

Recruitment

Hugh’s early successes at Fengak inspired poetry were a complete failure. His “Ode to a Chartreuse Colored Froggie on a Cerulean Colored Day” was complete and utter trash. ⁴ However it did attract the attention of a group known as AID, Alchemy is Dangerous, who thought that the young poet would make an ideal recruit. ⁵ Hugh agreed to join and was given the assignment of “watching over” a prominent alchemist, Grayson Dawes.

The Dawes years

Hugh spent a large majority of his time documenting Dawes’ exploits, chronicling them in two books, one for AID and the other for the general public ⁶ Dawes was a rather difficult man to deal with, so Hugh’s Fengak licking increased dramatically, explaining some of his fantastical writings during this period, including those of the Xtant Mountains. It was this excessive licking that did result in Hugh’s famous knocking out of Dawes. It is unclear as to whether Hugh had a hallucination that transformed Dawes into a monster of some sort that had to be defeated, or whether the Fengak poison caused Hugh to have an epiphany that Dawes was an incredible prick and needed to be beaten unconscious.

Later years

After Dawes incarceration, AID continued to make use of Hugh, having him spy on the alchemist community at large. He conveyed his findings through the infamous Sonnets of a Beaker which turned out to be a rather ingenious code that has only recently been broken. ⁷ The sonnets were Hugh’s last great work and he died shortly thereafter mistaking a Nekrotoad for a Fengak and attempting to lick it.

¹: Jarvis was actually awake for most of his life, it was his works that that earned him the title.

²: Not to be mistaken for the green-yellows ones, which still worked. For that matter so did the red ones, blue ones…

³: Seriously, only a man that licked Fengaks could come up with a last name of Gabilshatush.

⁴: Of course now the ode is famous but when the artist is deceased a work of crap becomes a work of art.

⁵: Originally the name of the group was Alchemists Are Dangerous but the group wanted to be able to use their initials in regular speech without sounding stupid, so they became Alchemy Is Dangerous instead.

⁶: Upon comparing the books there is no visible difference between the two other than the covers which said, “For AID” and “For the General Public” One would assume that Hugh tried to write in a different style for each book, but what can you expect from a Fengak-licking poet.

⁷: At least they assume that it is a code.

Submitted respectfully,

W. T. E. Campsworth

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