Many a night at the Explorer's Lodge I'd heard stories of that strange, exotic vista the armchair adventurer chaps had come to call "4chan". These tales were short but florid, undoubtedly tall but with the spark of plausibility. Never one to rely on the ramblings of others, I set out to uncover the truth of this ferocious enigma myself.

"Cheerio, lads!" I called out and stroked my fabulous mustache, "I'm off to sort out this '4chan' business. Be back in time for tea!"

I took a steeling belt of my bold, 16-year single malt and marched to meet my destiny.

When I entered the deceptively placid borders of 4chan, I was caught off guard by the cordiality of the first sign post. The wording was level and quite reasonable; civilized, even. All the reports I'd heard, second-or-third-hand at best I'm sure, led me to believe that my safari would lead me into a nest of yahoos and cannibal beasts. By the condition of things before my own eyes, I wouldn't have been shocked to find a bellman for my bags and a mint on my pillow.

Woe to the arrogant sod who forgets what his mother taught him. The angel is a chaste observer. It is the devil who will shake your hand and smile.

Like gift wrapping on a box filled with angry hornets, that kind, rational sign post that served as my misinformer hid the true horror of this place from my discerning gaze. I wandered into a lively throng and was instantly confounded by the jabbering of the natives. They spoke in an indecipherable pidgin of half-thoughts and meaningless references to pop cultural ephemera. I cannot be certain, but I believe the traditional salutation of the 4channer is to accuse one's conversation partner of homosexuality straight away, however baseless or irrelevant one's orientation may be to the potential conversation. When I attempted to test this theory, the tangle only grew more intricate.

"Ahoy, there, you unscrupulous, lad-buggering fop!" I said to one of them who seemed to know his way around, "Might you direct me to a local cartographer?"

In response, the foul creature bombarded me with a series of hieroglyphic symbols which meant nothing to me and possibly had nothing to do with my question. One was a crude drawing of a popular young actor with a pistol awkwardly situated atop his hand with what I can only assume was a rap lyric scrawled below it. Another was a graphic depiction of a man adrift in a vaguely erotic sea of girth that may or may not have been a woman at some point in her life. From there I grew distracted as the throng of channers erupted into a sudden theological debate that threatened to spiral into irretrievable violence.

As I attempted to escape I passed by such bizarre scenes that I fear I may never sleep soundly again. Cats in doll clothes being forced to play pianos, leather-clad pig-men threatening all passers by with bottles of gin, ranting racist agitators and prostitutes stolen in their youth from a Catholic school that I'm sure no longer stands. I encountered an anthropomorphic squid who attempted to warn me of a trap, but it was already too late. I had fallen into the sadistic snare of 4chan, made unclean in body and soul by its spiritual horrors. When I encountered another squid-man, I approached him thinking he would be helpful. Instead, he merely roared and attempted to kill me for touching his book.

If you discover this chronicle, then the penis-shaped rocket I discovered in one of 4chan's infinite corners had enough fuel to carry my message beyond the borders of this awful place. The more selfish part of me wants to implore you to send an army and rescue me from this place, but my waning rationality and nobility compels me to warn you away from any such action. I do not want to think of what these monsters will do if they get their hands on guns.