If this story doesn't compare to the earlier works in the Verbal Voodoo series, it's because I wrote it on a scank dodgy PC of dume, rather than an authentic Bloxed Acorn.

Although just over two years had passed since the non-peasant rebellion, much had altered in the merry old land of Bloxed.

For a start, there had been a rather successful coup d'état by a group of scholars, Messrs Heywood, Barr, Dolan and Foyston, who had managed to eradicate the disc drives from nearly every Acorn computer in the queendom, not to mention installing Windows upon them all. Although they had made their policy clear from the beginning, CZ, Queen Of Bloxed, had not seen their threat as serious. After all, they did call themselves "messers" and despite staking out buildings containing Acorn computers for hour after hour, they didn't seem to have a clue what they were doing. At any rate, she was far too busy playing Consequences with Sir William Vasey Of Pants and round table football with Camilla The Terrifically Nice Person to pay them much heed.

But one fateful day, the preacher Father Middleton gave a sermon on acceptable usage of Acorns, and she discovered, to her horror, that there were very few Acorn computers left in captivity provided the capability to play Bloxed. Rohan The Terrifically Nice Person was as distraught as CZ, Queen Of Bloxed, and attempted to install Bloxed on them using magical means, but without aevil, his efforts were without avail.

As a consequence, the citizens of Bloxed turned their attention to games that were more compatible with their new machines. At first Queen CZ's brother, Sir Jon Of DOOM, attempted to promote his kingdom as an alternative, but since Father Middleton declared that downloading software would result in eternal suffering in Belgium, er, Hell, under The Dark Lord Steve Van Boven, er, Satan, the poor peasants were reluctant to follow this practise either.

However, Sir Jon Of DOOM was an easy going sort of chap, so he changed his name to Sir Noj of Solitaire, a game which was far more instantly accessible to the masses, and even advocated by Mike TheCoolPerson as an advisable way of testing out Lord Liversidge's computer. But that's later in the story.

And so as the peasants gradually forgot the yoj that causing earth shattering kabooms by embarking on the quest of beating Sir Noj's time of 122 seconds (a feat only achieved by Lady Judith Of Liverpool, who got 113), the empire of Bloxed gradually began to crumble. And with it went the incestuous relationships of Queen CZ and her friends, as they sought new lives among the chaos (which had nothing to do with The Good Sorceress Chaos whose only concerns for nobility now lay with Princess Leia).

CZ, Queen Of Bloxed, and Sir William Vasey Of Pants' marriage began to deteriorate when the front page of The Bloxed Times reported rumours of Queen CZ getting rather too merry at a ball in the Castle Of Buskers and getting rather too friendly with Sir Christopher Bagot Of Cricket, who, since verbal voodoo had ceased to work, she was destined to be truly, madly and deeply in love with for the rest of eternity. D'oh!

A few months later she and Sir William Vasey Of Pants decided to separate entirely (into ent and irely, one assumes), for he had yet another obsession - Marks And Spencers - which he was unable to stop talking about. For her part, she had been offered temporary residence in the province of Cambridge.

Her reason for going there was two-fold. Firstly, she wished to study Computer Science, so that she might learn how to get Bloxed working on everyone's computer again. Secondly, it appeared to be an ideal place for nobles like herself, given the presence of a Queens College, as well as one for Kings. The intentions of another Prince William to study there the following year added to the appeal.

However, this sojourn was not to last the expected three years, but a single month. In order to study Computer Science, she was requested to leave her Acorn in the castle of Bloxed and take with her a scank dodgy PC of dume. Although she undertook this activity courageously and with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, after surviving a week without Internet access, her pathetic excuse for a computer broke. From then on, her days consisted of much misery. To add illness to injury (fainting in the shower, resulting in black eye), she contracted whatever virus the computer had. Eventually, she had no option but to return to the castle of Bloxed.

Hence began a time of much grimness. Although she was reunited with her beloved Acorn, and a knight named Sir Dave The Dodgy declared her scank dodgy PC irreparable and gave her a new one that functioned much more readily, she had a couple of problems. (Well, a couple more problems, on top of the poor mental health and an over-inflated ego.) Firstly, there was the matter of money. Although she had withdrawn enough gold pieces to keep her going for a term when she visited last visited Gringotts- sorry, The Royal Bank Of Barclays (now, there's an idea, a VV / Harry Potter crossover!), she had to survive a whole year now. Apart from the fact that the upkeep of the castle was more costly than her renting of a room the size of a planet in Cambridge, she had developed a habit of exchanging gold bars for Yorkie Bars and couldn't seem to stop buying CDs. They weren't even royal CDs (for that would only include those by Queen, Prince and King), not even gold CDs (for most of the bands she liked hadn't sold ten albums, never mind three hundred thousand), but typical seedy CDs. Although The Dark Lord Steve Van Boven helped her out, her tastes were more eclectic than U2 and The Cure, ranging from the platinum (heavy metal) of Motorhead to the Diet Coke (light pop?) of Ant And Dec. She invested in sounds from the AOR-dominated mid seventies and the punk that had destroyed it. 80s soft rock, the grunge that had wiped it out, and the Britpop that had triumphed over that a few years later. And, Mykos forbid, samples from the pile of pants that dominated today's chart (no doubt helped there by Sir William Vasey Of Pants with his Spice Girls obsession). Not to mention-

(At this point The Almighty Author realised this was quickly becoming an excuse for CZ, Queen Of Bloxed, to show off her CD collection, and demanded that the story continued.)

Furthermore, since she intended to study Film at the considerably less royal University Of Kent At Canterbury, she felt that in order to form meaningful relationships with her contemporaries, she should spend her free year doing something remotely normal. Her lifeline (her Internet connection) now ran through her scank dodgy hempfiend of dume, so it made sense to learn a little more about how it operated. Her parents, Sir Ian Of Pianos and Linda The Little Red Hen were eager for her to find employment and her friends had more or less deserted her. (Sir William Vasey Of Pants was still spending all his time at Marks and Spencers. Camilla The Terrifically Nice Person had gone to London so as to earn enough gold pieces to get to Uganda to spread her terrific niceness. Rohan The Terrifically Nice Person was studying Computer Science at Manchester, also intending to find a method of restoring the Queendom Of Bloxed to its former glory. Sir Christopher Bagot Of Cricket was studying Optometry in the vile land of Bradistan, because after his close encounters with CZ, Queen Of Bloxed, he thought learning how to get his eyes tested would be advisable. Alice, Queen Of Everything, had gone to Australia to live among sheep, as she thought they'd be more rivetting conversationalists than her former husband. Maid Marion had gone AWOL as usual.) All this led her to the only option of Getting A Job At AWSDHDSL (Armstrong Watson Scank Dodgy Hempfiend of Dume Solutions Limited).

The seven months she spent there were incredibly dull and lonely, despite getting to spend a large amount of time sending e-mail to Camilla The Terifically Nice Person and The Dark Lord Steve Van Boven, playing Solitaire for aforementioned reasons, creating animated worms and gaining an ESDHDDL (European Scank Dodgy Hempfiend of Dume Driving Licence.) She didn't discover how to make Bloxed work again, but did earn enough gold pieces to visit her friends Princess Sae, whose magnificent hair would no doubt prove useful for getting her out of a tower someday, and Queen Twi Of Handcuffs, and two of the former rebels, Queen SJ, Living Proof That Not All Canadians Are Aevil, and Lady Meaghan, Fan Of Robert Cormier (who had changed the spelling of her name since the non-peasant rising).

At sporadic intervals during this period, CZ, Queen Of Bloxed, met up with Sir Christopher Bagot Of Cricket. Since his eye-testing capabilities had yet to reach their full potential, many of these encounters resulted in activities so scandalous she were glad the Bloxed Times had run so short of gold pieces that publication had ceased several months ago.

This dodginess did not even reach an end when Queen SJ's distinct lack of interest in Sir Christopher Bagot Of Cricket expressed during the non-peasant rising was reversed, and he returned it. However, when he attempted to have his wicked (or wicket) way with Helen, Maid Of Milton Keynes, (no, it doesn't sound as good as Maid Of New Orleans, but never mind), CZ, Queen Of Bloxed, decided she wanted nothing more to do with him. She looked forward to her imminent pilgrimage to Canterbury, where she planned to live a moste holie existence as Mary CZ, Nun Of Bloxed. (The fact that her religion was Sushi rather than Catholicism didn't worry her too much.)

However, this intention was quickly forgotten when she became acquainted with a lovable rogue named Squire Jean-Pierre D'Arbecey. Despite the French name and fondness for (re-en)acting as a Norman, he was simultaneously of Welsh origin (he often called himself "Bryn Halliday" to avoid confusion) and a third century Ukrainian (a Goth).

He converted CZ, Queen Of Bloxed, to Gothdom. As a result, she exchanged her dark blue, magenta, yellow, light blue, green, purple and orange robes (so coloured because Bloxed pieces are those shades) for black ones; shed her crown so she could brush her hair so that resembled that of one of her favourite minstrels, Robert Smith; and changed her name to CZ, Queen Of PVC. (After all, it rhymed, if pronounced with an American accent.)

And so, she had made the transition from life in splendour in The Castle Of Bloxed to life in absolute squalor in Squire Jean-Pierre D'Arbecey's bedroom. The purchase of the new robes and an increasing fondness for Mars Bars quickly decimated her supply of gold pieces, and so luxury was exchanged for poverty. And the admiration she'd had from her subjects was replaced by confusion: they couldn't imagine their former sovereign in fishnet tights. Nevertheless, she was happy.

And, since she was now a Goth, she died happily ever after.