Best not to use any
American currency. If the aliens turn out to be Anti-American, then
mixing your change with their blood could cause a massive explosion that
would reduce this mountain to a smoking crater. Or something. Whatever
the case, you're not tossing any valuable coinage into the blood.
Luckily, you happen to have a ruble in your pocket, and since the
Russian government has declared you a non-person, you doubt you'll have
any occasion to spend it.
You pour a small, blocky puddle of alien blood onto the ground and toss
the ruble in. The blood ripples as the coin lands, or at least you think
that's rippling. The resolution on that blood is so bad that it looks
more like a series of small pistons going up and down. Anyway, the ruble
slowly disappears into the "rippling" blood. Moments later, a face
begins to materialize out of the orange goo:
"Behold! I am the great
Grigori Rasputin! Finally, I am free from my monetary prison!"
Ah, so this coin housed the spirit of Rasputin. You learned about him in
your World History class in high school. He had a beard.
"Glad to be of help. So, um, how did you wind up in that coin?" you
wonder aloud.
"Well, there I was in the Russian court," he explains, "when suddenly
everything started going south on me. The, uh... Czar was trying to have
me killed, and so were his kids. Yeah, them too. Anyway, I decided to
hide myself in a coin until... whatever I was involved in... you know,
until it all blew over, and stuff. Now, I'm free, and I can... get back
to it. Right?"
Wait a minute. There's something weird about this Rasputin character.
You remember he had a beard, and this guy has a beard too, but you also
remember hearing something about a Russian princess, and Rasputin being
crazy, and... well, you don't remember much, really, but there's still
something up with this guy. His story's just a little too perfect.
"Hold the phone, buddy. Hold it right up to your ear and listen to me:
Are you sure you're really who you say you are?"
"Of course I am!" he responds indignantly. "Who else would I be?"
"A big fibber, that's who!"
"..." You let your remark sit for a while, and soon, the imposter breaks
down and admits the truth. "Ok, I admit it!! I'm not the famous Grigori
Rasputin! I'm his distant cousin, Roger Rasputin. I just wanted to get a
little piece of the borsht. Is that so wrong!?"
Roger starts blubbering over his situation, and complements his crying
with some full-scale wailing. Loud wailing. It doesn't quite dawn on you
how loud his wailing really is, however, until the mountain starts to
give off a low rumble. The good news is that you got away from his
crying. The bad news is that you prefer not to travel by avalanche.
Fortunately, the annoying sensation of bouncing down a mountain with
several hundred tons of snow behind you ends quickly, albeit with you
crushed like a guy getting crushed beneath an avalanche of snow. Darn,
that wasn't a very good simile.
