Editing Hassan (section)

===Crazy Hassan and the Explorers===

I ventured into the trackless wastes, going to the ruined cities mentioned in the earliest writings which mentioned Crazy Hassan. Unfortunately, upon the first night after our arrival at the site of Al-Gibreel, we were set upon by a sandstorm unlike anything we had ever seen. My group and I survived by taking shelter in one of the surviving structures, but upon emerging the following morning, we found that our camp had been destroyed, with almost everything in it. The horses that had trekked for hundreds of miles with us to this gods-forsaken ruin were nowhere to be seen. It looked like we were stranded, and most likely doomed. It was then that one of the local guides I had hired spotted something... a banner, hung over the doorway of what remained of a great temple... it read:
"CRAZY HASSAN'S USED CAMEL EMPORIUM!"

There it was, plain as day... Everyone saw it, and we were pretty sure it wasn't a mirage, since mirages aren't usually banners advertising "BETTER-THAN-NEW CAMELS AT LOWER-THAN-BARGAIN PRICES!". This was... strange. The banner wasn't there when we arrived, we'd been at the temple yesterday, and last night's storm would have made it physically impossible to travel under cover of night. The confusion was broken by a voice that belonged to nobody in the group, coming from the direction of the temple.

"WELCOME, GOOD FRIEND CUSTOMER, TO CRAZY HASSAN'S USED CAMEL EMPORIUM!"

Startled, I looked to see where the voice was coming from. It was a disheveled little man, turban wrapped around a fez, wide-opened eyes twinkling with some sort of strange madness, a wide grin filled with teeth that had probably never seen a dentist, wrapped head-to-toe in dirty brown garb that I could smell from 30 feet away... He matched the description of Crazy Hassan from the legends!


He walked out to greet us, bowing or shaking hands as appropriate, constantly talking.

"I SEE YOU GENTLEMEN ARE IN NEED OF CAMELS. EVERYONE NEEDS CAMELS, AND CRAZY HASSAN'S CAMELS CAN FILL EVERYONE'S NEEDS! COME, COME INSIDE AND I SHALL FIND THE RIGHT CAMELS FOR YOU!"

He ushered us into the temple, and I was even MORE stunned. He'd turned it into some sort of showroom, filled with camels! He brought me in front of camels, and I followed out of what I can only assume was some sort of dumbfounded "what-in-god's-name-is-going-on-here"-ness. Crazy Hassan just kept talking, giving sales pitches for each of the camels. He brought me to a camel dressed up in a winter coat.

"POLAR CAMEL! GREAT FOR LONG TREK OVER ICY SNOWS! AH, BUT THIS IS NOT THE CAMEL FOR YOU."

Then, a camel wearing a swim-cap, goggles, swimfins and what looked like a gargantuan inflated inner tube wrapped around its body.

"AQUA CAMEL! NO NEED TO BRING WATER, CAMEL GOES THROUGH IT! BUT STILL, I SEE THIS IS NOT THE CAMEL FOR YOU."

Then a camel with, of all things, giant wooden wings strapped to its body!

"SKY CAMEL! YOU BUY TODAY, I THROW IN MAP OF CLOUDS FOR FREE!" It was at this point I recovered enough of my senses to try and get some sort of explanation.

"Now hold on just a minute here!" I shouted. "Just whom are you and how did you get here? We examined this place just yesterday, would have noticed a camel herd like yours if it were anywhere else, and the sandstorm last night means you couldn't have arrived then." He just smiled a crooked, knowing smile at me.

"Ah. Hassan has been here for longer than you know, has traveled farther than you have gone. Once sold many camel to Sultan of Al-Gibreel. Al-Shaitan spy poison his horses... Bah, camels better anyway." He reached into one of the pockets of his robe and pulled out something... "Sultan paid with this." He held it out... a necklace with a ruby the size of a human thumb, on an ornate gold chain. No mistake, this was one of the lost treasures of Al-Gibreel! He kept talking, anecdotes about former customers of his... Taken from the very legends I had studied, some of them from manuscripts that only had a single remaining copy! It was around the time that he asked if I wanted to meet his wife, after going through the legend of Malimot of Killik-kilik, that my skepticism finally broke.

"You... you ARE Crazy Hassan..." Questions flew from my mind, backing up in my throat in their mad rush to be asked first. I just stared, and Hassan gave that knowing smile again.

"Answers come free with Camel."