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  • #4237

    The oiliphant recognised him with her deep thoughtful motherly eyes, and extended her trunk as a greeting. He accepted the gentle pat on his head, feeling as though a blanket of inextinguishable love had spread over, pouring over and inundating the land with unspoken blessings of grace.
    With her trunk gently wrapped under his arms, she lifted him as if he were weightless, landing him on the soft spot behind her neck’s wrinkles, where he could sit and not fall.

    She then proceeded to move slowly to the forest, not after having trumpeted a clear call in the heavy air surrounding the city, as though she was trying to spread purity to clear the misgivings in suspension over the town.

    The walk was pleasant, and had a slow meditative quality. Every moment was connected to everything, everywhere. Each footstep was deliberate, a perfect action in perfect resonance.

    Rukshan didn’t know how much time had elapsed when the border of the enchanted forest appeared. He realized they were coming close when the oiliphant’s serenity and soft lull of the walk felt slightly disturbed.
    He blinked to look in the distance. The mist of the air had not completely cleared at this early hour, but he could make out the source of the disturbance. He suddenly felt a rage flare up, a rage he didn’t know he had in him. How did they dare! They had fenced the Forest, and put a toll booth!

    #4121

    Corrie’s findings from elsewhere:

    “You can’t leave without a permit, you know,” Prune said, startling Quentin who was sneaking out of his room.

    “I’m just going for a walk,” he replied, irritated. “And what are you doing skulking around at this hour, anyway? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

    “What are you doing with an orange suitcase in the corridor at three o’clock in the morning?” the young brat retorted. “Where are you going?”

    “Owl watching, that’s what I’m doing. And I don’t have a picnic basket, so I’m taking my suitcase.” Quentin had an idea. “Would you like to come?” The girls local knowledge might come in handy, up to a point, and then he could dispose of her somehow, and continue on his way.

    Prune narrowed her eyes with suspicion. She didn’t believe the owl story, but curiosity compelled her to accept the invitation. She couldn’t sleep anyway, not with all the yowling mating cats on the roof. Aunt Idle had forbidden her to leave the premises on her own after dark, but she wasn’t on her own if she was with a story refugee, was she?”

    ~~~

    “Seeing Dido eating her curry cookies would turn Mater’s stomach, so she went up to her room.

    Good riddance she thought, one less guest to worry about.
    Not that she usually thought that way, but every time the guests leaved, there was a huge weight lifted from her back, and a strong desire of “never again”.
    The cleaning wasn’t that much worry, it helped clear her thoughts (while Haki was doing it), but the endless worrying, that was the killer.

    After a painful ascension of the broken steps, she put her walking stick on the wall, and started some breathing exercises. The vinegary smell of all the pickling that the twins had fun experimenting with was searing at her lungs. The breathing exercise helped, even if all the mumbo jumbo about transcendant presence was all rubbish.

    It was time for her morning oracle. Many years ago, when she was still a young and innocent flower, she would cut bits and pieces of sentences at random from old discarded magazines. Books would have been sacrilegious at the time, but now she wouldn’t care for such things and Prune would often scream when she’d find some of her books missing key plot points. Many times, Mater would tell her the plots were full of holes anyway, so why bother; Prune’d better exercise her own imagination instead of complaining. Little bossy brat. She reminded her so much of her younger self.

    So she opened her wooden box full of strips of paper. Since many years, Mater had acquired a taste for more expensive and tasty morsels of philosophy and not rubbish literature, so the box smelt a bit of old parchment. Nonetheless, she wasn’t adverse to a modicum of risqué bits from tattered magazines either. Like a blend of fine teas, she somehow had found a very nice mix, and oftentimes the oracle would reveal such fine things, that she’d taken to meditate on it at least once a day. Even if she wouldn’t call it meditate, that was for those good-for-nothing willy-nilly hippies.

    There it was. She turned each bit one by one, to reveal the haiku-like message of the day.

    “Bugger!” the words flew without thinking through her parched lips.

    looked forgotten rat due idea half
    getting floverley comment somehow
    prune hardly wondered eyes great
    inn run days dark quentin simulation

    That silly Prune, she’d completely forgotten to check on her. She was glad the handwritten names she’d added in the box would pop up so appropriately.

    She would pray to Saint Floverley of the Dunes, a local icon who was synchretized from old pagan rituals and still invoked for those incapable of dancing.
    With her forking arthritis, she would need her grace much.”

    #4112

    In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

    “And what does it mean?” James asked Gelly.
    “2. The Receptive, ach, es means quietness is gut, ja. Und es ist a good time to ask yourself ‘Am I sincerely pursuing the gut für its own sake, or do Ich have ein hidden agenda?’.”

    Gelly was drawing the I-Ching to help James about his question. He still had doubts about his decision to enroll.

    “Did you have any chance to reach Floverley?”
    “Ach, She is tricky Master, very subtle energy, difficult to draw in, but yes, she has manifested herself a few times. She seems to like my owl sehr much.”
    “I would be interested in connecting with Her, can you setup an appointment?”
    “Oh, that would be interesting, why not, let me put you in… what about… next week? same time?”
    “That would be great thanks.”

    :fleuron:

    Edward removed the VR helmet from his head, and looked at Florence’s pod on the surveillance cam with a forlorn look on his face.

    He was well aware that, like many “normal” people in the Great Simulation, Gelly was just another program developed and maintained by the central system, REYE itself. But sometimes REYE’s programs managed to get buggy, glitchy or a bit on the fringe of the acceptable parameters. Gelly was one of those programs, not completely autonomous, but sort of aware of the beyond of her parameters. In any case, Ascended Master would look for no lesser caliber of persons to enlighten. So, she was quite a potential lure to Floverley, or even Dispersee.

    James was Edward’s completely virtual avatar, and James’ online meetings with Gelly could fit undetected within the acceptable boundaries of the whole program and go beyond the radar of the ever-looking REYE.

    Edward couldn’t wait to meet with Flo next week.

    #3893
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      “You can’t leave without a permit, you know,” Prune said, startling Quentin who was sneaking out of his room.

      “I’m just going for a walk,” he replied, irritated. “And what are you doing skulking around at this hour, anyway? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

      “What are you doing with an orange suitcase in the corridor at three o’clock in the morning?” the young brat retorted. “Where are you going?”

      “Owl watching, that’s what I’m doing. And I don’t have a picnic basket, so I’m taking my suitcase.” Quentin had an idea. “Would you like to come?” The girls local knowledge might come in handy, up to a point, and then he could dispose of her somehow, and continue on his way.

      Prune narrowed her eyes with suspicion. She didn’t believe the owl story, but curiosity compelled her to accept the invitation. She couldn’t sleep anyway, not with all the yowling mating cats on the roof. Aunt Idle had forbidden her to leave the premises on her own after dark, but she wasn’t on her own if she was with a story refugee, was she?

      #3803

      In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

      Lord R’eye, the one-eyed ruler of the known universe, was known by many names, a great lot of them completely forgotten by the masses. He had to constantly reinvent Himself, borrow new disguises, create factions, sprinkle in a few miracles, create order ab chao and voilà.

      He owned a few bodies, strategically placed here and there, one of his favourite in Geneva, quite involved in banking affairs. His bodies were a rare indulgence, and he couldn’t stay too long either, as his massive energy could easily get stuck with the lot of them, down to density.
      Overall, he was much more comfortable managing his immense wealth “up there”, in the cosmic realms he had helped shape. So many underlings were ready to carry on his biding, and apart from a few small number of very close ergo very dangerous confidants, many of the minions didn’t even know each other, or that they were, for the most part, owned by Him, and part of the same team.

      This was a cut-throat business, He had to admit, and everything was based on it. Manipulation and deceit, coercion, coaxing, anything necessary to control and manage the Empire.

      One of those confidants, Lord Apex had been summoned and appeared almost instantly.
      He had this charming archangelic halo and aura, but Lord R’eye would have none of it. A correction was in order, the latest results were extremely concerning.

      “My Lord?” Apex asked in his mellifluous voice.
      “My dear Apex, remind me what responsibility I gave you last century?”
      “Of course my Lord, the Innovation project, the Great Disclosure and Holographic Contact projects, amongst other proj…”
      “And how much progress have we had with those?”
      “Well, my Lord surely knows that so much herding is delicate. The interference with Lord Bael’s projects too, you should know…”
      “The Desert and Green Revolutions projects, indeed. A great success, so much pain and anguish! That’s what I’m talking, you should learn from Bael.”
      “But my Lord, that has caused quite a conundrum with the Mars simulation, which, by way of fractal holographic recurrence, could well impact the whole delicate matrix we weave…”
      “Stop your angel speech, Me’dammit. Plain Anguish, so I can understand every word. The Hell pits cannot wait to have you, so you better give some good explanation.”
      “I mean, my Lord, that were the sheeple able to glimpse that the Mars experiment is but a reflection of a deception of grander scale in the cosmic realms, that the aliens saviours, or whatever saviours or… masters of any genre, are just ways to fleece them off their power… “
      “Everything would unravel like a pile of dominos.” Lord R’eye’s voice made very clear that he had full grasp of the situation. “So,” he continued with the nicest menacingest voice “you better make sure that doesn’t happen.”

      He dismissed Apex with a wave of a thought.

      If the net of illusions unravelled before they have time to create the Earth 5th Dimension in time to double their profit, it would certainly be a disaster.

      A few humans lost through the gaps were a hard to accept reality, but so long as they could cut the losses, it was not dramatic. But they were talking another order of magnitude. It could be a definitive blow. It always had been an issue when the net of illusion became too big in the past. They had bigger and bigger holes. So they had to start again, destroy, and recreate civilisations.
      Stupid humans, if only they knew that Ascension was not the way out.

      #3790

      In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        For all her wired cleverness, there was something that the central intelligence had seemingly forgotten to take into account in her parameters.

        Eb woke up in a sweat, barely remembering bits of a horrible dream of being chased and banging on a closed door for escape from a herd of phombies (those guys who had their phones implanted under their skins and would often have a creepy vacant look while in communication).

        The banging on the door. According to his mother, if there was something that her nurse Fancy Woo was better at than cooking rice, it was at interpreting dreams. But he didn’t need her expert advice on this one.

        His mind was aching from the lack of alcohol, but at least he could think quite clearly.
        There weren’t many accesses to enter the simulation, for obvious reasons. Continuity had to be maintained at all costs, to preserve the sanctity of the experiment. That motto had survived the multiple iterations of the simulation since its inception.

        Eb knew of most of them, even if he’d wondered about the presence of backdoors. He had not been able to find any since his many years of service. So for all he knew, there were only two ways to get in and out: up and down. “Up” through the fake ships, with the whole stasis protocol, and “down”, through the mines were they would usually send agents from time to time, mostly for reconnaissance purposes.

        He looked at the screen, and as he had feared, the explosion triggered in the tunnels by Finnley had sealed their main exit point.

        “You underestimate me, my dear Eb” the voice of Finnley merrily bounced on the insulated walls.

        Eb was startled. Hadn’t he known that Finnley was just a program, he could have sworn her synthetic voice had a trace of menace in it.

        Finnley” he regained his composure as much as he could “Haven’t the thought occurred to you that the tunnels are now sealed? We cannot let your blue aliens go in and out as easily now!”
        “Eb, you do know I do not think.” Her voice was still slightly ominous. “But I ran multiple simulation, and this one still yields the best possible outcome.” she continued more cheerily.
        “How so?”
        “It is evident. Many of the earlier settlers, still know about the simulation, even if they self-programmed themselves to accept the illusion as better than outside reality. They can become a problem for the evacuation protocol. With the tunnels’ exit collapsed, they have no other way than to comply. Besides, what good plausible aliens come out from the ground, really. We don’t want to miss their grand entrance.
        And don’t be such a worrywort about budget, Eb.”

        #3780

        In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Kale quickly contemplated cutting the cords that connected him to the whole thing. For a fleeting fraction of a moment, he even considered the possibility of Flynn being involved in a covert nefarious plot with the dark haired woman, but dashed the thought from his mind. A slight nagging uneasy feeling remained when he remembered the way Flynn had got a bit too big for his boltcroppers sending the application without consultation.

          But Kale was curious. He made up his mind not to accept the position (just in case anyone was plotting against him: with his past, it was as well to be cautious), but that he would attend the interview.

          “You have been chosen” she’s said.

          Kale recalled the frisson of excitement he felt in his ungirded loins when she’d said that, and the flash of knowing recognition in her eyes before the scornful smirk returned. He’d never been able to resist a girl in cobalt blue loingirders. Especially an exotic enigmatic one.

          #3779

          In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

          F LoveF Love
          Participant

            “Ah, here you are at last.” said the dark haired woman, a trace of impatience in her voice.

            Kale looked at her quizzically, trying to place her. Up close, she seemed older than he had first thought.

            “I’m sorry but do I know you?”

            “No, Kale, you don’t know me. But I know you”.

            She looked at him intently for a moment and gave an enigmatic smile before continuing:

            “You have a job interview tomorrow. You must accept the position.”

            “Okay, this is getting really weird now. How do you know me and what business is it of yours whether or not I take the job?”

            “You have been chosen.”

            #3769

            In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

            TracyTracy
            Participant

              Betty Bloo wasn’t at all happy about her pigmentation, it was much too dark a blue ~ almost navy blue, or perhaps not quite that dark ~ more of a French navy blue, which was going to cause her no end of trouble. A delicate sky blue was what she wanted, even a slightly darker robins egg blue would have been acceptable, but French navy? Oh, brother! That sucked! Everyone knew it was much easier for a refugee alien with a pale blue colour. Dark blue was absolutely fatal ~ often literally.

              Betty wondered how many others in the latest batch were as darkly tinted as she was, and looked around the holding camp apprehensively. Huddled in nervous groups at the far end of the room were the darkest midnight and Prussian blue skins (she particularly noticed the tall elegant indigo fellow and made a mental note to make his acquaintance later); in the middle of the room various men in shades of cobalt and turquoise milled around, chatting with the teal and cornflower blue girls, but what caught Betty’s eye was the colours of the newbies spilling out from the pigmentation chamber.

              Some of them were such a pale blue they were almost grey: delicate powder blue and baby blue, the palest aqua and faded periwinkle. It almost seemed as if the later ones were a result of the pigment running out. She realized that she must have been one of the first to be created. Surely that gave her some seniority? A superior position in the blue hierarchy? Did blue alien refugees have a system of hierarchy at all, she wondered?

              Well, she said to herself grimly, squaring her darkest blue shoulders. We are about to find out. Blue lives matter!

              #3765

              In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                After a night of restless sleep, Eb’s practical ideas for the plan B were not much.

                He’d weighted multiple options, even toyed with mad ones like playing a sort of second coming, 3 days of night and so… but none had yet the potential to elegantly solve the issue at hand. Not that it was a matter of being elegant, but Eb liked elegant and simple solutions.

                He flipped the calendar to today’s picture. Run away, and don’t look back it said. “Great… If only…” he started to mumbled to himself.

                He poured himself a drink, and dragged his feet towards the console, eyes still swollen by the lack of sleep. His brother, Jeb, would have told him to do some wegong energxices to keep the juices flowing, but hell, there wasn’t much room in his cubicle, and for better or worse, he preferred to stick to booze.

                He liked to observe his ant farm, there were so many quaint and endlessly fascinating people in there. He liked the girl with the piglet for instance. She was often opinionated and sometimes oddly quiet. He had bent the rules for her, and didn’t report the piggy she’d brought to Mars with her. What harm could it bring.
                Now she was talking to it. He waved at the console to zoom in and put the speakers on.

                Remember, those odd stories Mater used to tell us. The Peaslanders and the blubbits was one of her favourites, she would go on and on about it, and laugh at our faces when we didn’t understand where it was going…
                She was lost in thoughts for a moment.
                It started like this “There was trouble in New Peasland. A plague of hungry blubbits had wiped out the pea crops.” Mater used to say it was from an old book of tales, and that the author had surpassed herself. She chuckled I guess for a long time, she was the only one to believe that. Now look at us…”

                Eb cut the sound before the inevitable complain about missing Earth blahblah. But Peasland? That was new… He wasn’t one to dismiss an out-of-the-blue clue, and did a quick research on the network to learn more about the tale. It took a while for the Central Intelligence to run the search. It had to go deeper than usual.

                After half an hour of waiting, he’d almost run out of scotch. Thankfully, the CI had found it. Pressed by time, and impatient by nature, Eb asked the CI to do a quick summary of the plot.
                The central intelligence almost bugged at the request, and could only apologize for not being able to degibberize it.

                It took him a few hours to read the book on the holographic screen, and at the end, couldn’t say if it was just a waste of time. Preposterous story, with no head nor tail, literally… But then his genius elegant solution appeared as an evidence.

                He’d known people were more likely to comply and control if they are told a plausible lie, within the frame of their accepted reality. He just had to bridge the discontinuity of their reality, with the reality of everyone else on the planet. The tale had reminded him of this popular movie about blue aliens. Blueus ex machina, that was it!

                He spoke at the console “Record this and run simulation parameters:”

                The blue men are from another planet —or rather the Mars settlers are led to believe they are from another planet.
                They bundle them all into a fake spaceship
                and take them on a fake spaceship ride
                and deliver them back to Earth. where they have been all along of course
                da dah!

                The answer came back after another painful hour of scotch-less waiting.

                “Probability of success: 68%”
                Well, that was the best Eb had in days. He was about to go with it when the CI chimed in

                “We took the liberty of running a modified simulation based on your setting, which we believe can yield a ratio of 97% of success.”

                Eb was surprised at the initiative by the machine, and was curious to hear about it.

                “We adjusted two points:
                1. We can simulate some event on Mars like earthquakes to increase the likelihood of a willing departure from the planet.
                2. The blue aliens may be a future inconvenience if they are fake actors, when the Mars colony comes out of simulation and back to Earth. We would rather suggest using religious beliefs and invisible hand of God or non-corporal aliens.”

                Eb was annoyed by the machine’s dismissal of his blue aliens. Kill his darlings?

                “CI, any other suggestion for point 2?” he asked.

                “Indeed. We can create artificial intelligence blue bodies based on my algorithm, which would make convincing aliens that can later interact with your governments and continue the disinformation.”

                Eb was too drunk to realize he was about to make a devil’s pact when he agreed to launch the secret order for cybernetic blue bodies.

                #3749
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Aunt Idle:

                  It was going to be a long hot summer. Summer this year started early, and we were barely half way through July. I hadn’t had a moment to think, which isn’t true at all ~ my brain had been non stop chuntering since the end of April, but all the thinking was about errands and other peoples problems and trips to the bloody airport or the detention centre to pick up more waifs and strays. What I mean is, I hadn’t had any time to STOP thinking and just listen, or just BE. Or to put it more accurately, I hadn’t made much time for me. It had been an endless juggle, wanting to be helpful with all the refugees ~ of course I didn’t mind helping! ~ it wasn’t that I minded helping, it was the energy and the constant stream of complications, things going wrong, the complaining and defensive energy. It was a job to buffer it all and stay on an even keel, to ensure everyone had what they needed, but without acquiescing to the never ending needy attention seeking. It was hard to say no, even if saying no helped people become more confident and capable ~ it was always a mental battle not to feel unhelpful. Saying no to ones own comfort is always so much easier.

                  What I found I missed the most was doing things my own way, in my own time. How I wish I had appreciated being able to do that before all the refugees arrived! I’d wanted more people to do things with, living in this remote outpost ~ thought how nice it would be to have more friends here to do things with. Fun things though, not all the trips to the supermarket, the bank, the pharmacy, all the tedious errands. And in summer too! I like to minimize the errands in summer so I’m not worn out with the heat to do the fun things like go for early morning walks. But this lot didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning, and they weren’t really up to much walking either. I’ve been hobbled, having to walk slower, and not walk far. It had interfered somehow with my photography too, I haven’t been much in the zone these days, that place of observant appreciation. Ah well, it was interesting. Things are always interesting.

                  Not many countries had been willing to accept the hundreds of thousands of refugees from USA, and small wonder, but our idiotic government had been bribed to take more than a fair quota. All of the deserted empty buildings in town had been assigned to the newcomers, and all of our empty rooms at the hotel too.

                  Mater hardly ever came out of her room, and when she did venture out, it was only to poke them with her walking stick and wind them up with rude remarks. Prune seemed to be enjoying it though, playing practical jokes on them and deliberately misinforming them of local customs. Corrie and Clove were working on an anthropology paper about it all ~ that was a good thing and quite helpful at times. When the complaining and needs got overwhelming, I’d send them off to interview the people about it, which took the brunt off me, at least temporarily. Bert was a good old stick, just doing what needed to be done without letting it all get to him, but he didn’t want to talk about it or hear me complaining about it all.

                  “Aint much point in complaining about all the complaining” was all he’d say, and he had a point.

                  #3575

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    “Did you hear the noise?”
                    “No I didn’t hear anything”
                    “I swear I heard some squeaaa… But you know that already, don’t you” He looked at her suspiciously. “What are you hiding there?”
                    “Stop that, you perv’” She was wrapping her arms around her bosom in a protective manner.
                    “I’m not like that” He moved a few inches away from her, with his back to the gritty metallic wall of their small capsule.

                    Prune was starting to feel bad for the other guy. “You’re Hans, right?”
                    He nodded. Everybody knew their names, it was part of the contract. They also had to accept to be filmed as part of the raffle company’s advertisement plan. So, there was little they didn’t know about each other, despite not having been able to speak to each other until now.

                    The suspension process the company had rented was not the high-grade version, too costly. So they had to age, unlike most of the other richer travellers. Which made it odd, as Hans had grown a huge beard and even two years of aging had made them slightly different. Almost like strangers. There was a comfort in that, knowing they each held something private, a capacity to be someone else, be worthy of being known and explored. Nothing like what mockery the TV show had made of them.

                    “You won’t show me? Don’t worry I won’t tell.” His voice was light, you couldn’t have told he was more than 40.

                    She unzipped her track suit’s pink jacket, to reveal a little ball of fur.

                    “It’s a small piggy. They’re so fragile, I think I did something stupid. But I promised my gran to not leave it. I couldn’t break that promise.”
                    “Don’t worry Prune” Hans said reassuringly “We’ll find a way to keep it safe.”

                    #3483
                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      Bullet-proofed Summary of the latest instalments of the Abalone adventures

                      Most of the key characters find themselves mysteriously drawn to the ancient Temple, a place of power forgotten by most. There, many experience under a form or another the presence of the sphinx / Rene a mysterious presence left as a Guardian of the Temple by the ancient builders of the place.

                      • Gwinnie – learning and remembering how to communicate with others, she subtly lead them, via mediations and meditations to the secret location of the Temple. Although some split into their own projections, she manages to go through, accompanied by George, as she was infused with the Island’s energies due to her prolonged stay in the bog. She also grows and blossoms to a woman of her natural age, and later helps reconstruct Abalone with the help of George and Rene, whom she heals.
                      • King Artie / George – He remembers his intent and forgotten memories which were repressed and manipulated by the P’hope through his travel following Arona into her adventure. He reacquaints himself with Gwinnie, and together they lead the reborn Island.
                      • Irina and Mr R – Initially planning to bring Gwinnie back to Karmalott, her plan changes due to the wilting of the beanstalk. Instead, she and her travelling companions find themselves drawn to the temple by the promise of an escape off the Island, via teleportation stone boxes. Instead, she meets the sphinx / Rene who guides her through her memories. It helps heal her past, and provides her with a plausible disappearance that the Chinese corporation that she escaped from a long time ago with Mr R, would believe. Next, she goes with a more humanoid and self-aware Mr R to Mars in 2121.
                      • Arona – She stumbles upon the company of Irina, and recognize Gwinnie as the one she is supposed to deliver secretly to Karmalott. However, the beanstalk’s debacle they experience during a guided meditation puts a stop to her plans, and gives her a new goal. Find the spirit turtle and the mysterious Cup that can promise her to astral.
                        After a quest through the undercurrents with Mandrake, and still guided by the sabulmantium, she finally finds the Cup and prepares for her next adventures into the astral.
                      • Jeremy / map dancer – He reappears naked from his escape in the midst of Irina’s team with Max his cat. They follow the team to the Temple. Little is known yet of his fate.
                      • Cheung Lok (and the Chinese squad) – He escapes the destruction of Gazalbion’s walls where he was detained, and use an elephant to track Sanso, who is actually Lazuli who throws him off track. He ends up teaming up with Berberus, the assassin despatched by the P’hope to track down who he believes is the culprit for the beliefs destruction. Later, he rescues Fanella from an accident of duck hovercraft, and they all enter the Temple on the tracks of the others. Thanks to Rene, Mr R and Irina, he realizes he cannot be really free, and agrees to let go of his memories, his mission and start anew on the new Island. Other members of his squad are offered to be sent back with altered memories of his demise, or to stay back as a teenager on the Island.
                      • Jube / The P’hope – After a last ditch effort to rescue the city, he orders its evacuation, through storks, cranes and descent through the beanstalk. He goes his own way, ready to confront the power lurking in the Temple that he avoided carefully and tried to contain many years ago. His fate is unclear but it is hinted that he was offered a similar choice as Cheung Lok, and has accepted to become an adolescent again, forgetting the bad choices he made.
                      • Berberus – The assassin dispatches of the management of Gazalbion during his visit there looking for clues as to the disturbances. It only hastens the descent into chaos, while during a stand-off with Sanso, he is disarmed by a tiger slug. His fears get the better of him as he is confronted with them once more inside the temple.
                      • Karmalott’s gents – It is believed most managed to escape the crumbling city into a refuge, where they started to rebuild anew, thanks to the leadership of George and Gwinnie.
                      • Gazalbion’s gents – formerly dissidents of the P’hope’s order, and later home for refugees of all times and spaces, they also mostly escaped to safety and are in the process of enriching the beliefs blueprints of the Island under the guidance of George and Gwinnie.
                      • Fanella (Fanetta) – Ejected brutally off a shapeshifting giant and careless duck Lazuli, she has visions of the sphinx, and seems to find herself deeply attracted to him. It is believed she hasn’t forgotten her friends in time 2020 at the village and visit them from time to time with her new pair of wings that George offered to her.
                      • Lazuli, Lisa, Sanso – Little is know of what happened after they reached the tile factory and then the Bay of beliefs.
                      • Jack (and the others at the 2020 village) – Little is known of what happened after Jack tried to teleport themselves with an amateur rescue team to the Island that Sanso had disclosed the location previously on a map. It is believed everyone who wanted was allowed to go back to the village or to any other place and time they did fancy.
                      • Sha, Glo, Mavis – Believed still under a very long death transition, they project to the Island, where they bump into Fanella and her new duties as a sphinx. She leads them to a new incarnated life of their chosing.
                      #3466

                      “Dear Kitty, you didn’t think I would miss your birthday for all the world.” Anna Purrna handed out with a sappy smile an awful cupcake topped with a green butter cream that looked like come out of a toothpaste tube days ago. “Happy birthday Terry.”

                      She sent an icy glare at the others who took it as a cue to singing “Happy Birthday” in falsetto voices.

                      “Good. Now, back to business, chop chop.”

                      As soon as she was out of sight, they all looked with commiseration at Terry. Maurana even ventured a whisper “That was humiliating.” Consuela whispered too “Told you, you shouldn’t have accepted the bitch’s friend invitation on Flushbuck. Had to be a trap… Although saying no, would have meant… well, yes too, but no… Well, you get my meaning.”

                      The other looked at her with blank stares, stopped in their mopping. They promptly resumed making washing noises to avoid drawing back the attention of the dwarf queen.

                      “Girls.” Maurana said “Got nothing to do with being black and all, but I got to tell you this. Ain’t gonna be this bitch that’ll bring back slavery upon us AND child labor to top it. Trust Maurana on that. We got to wake up and strike back. That horrid cupcake was a declaration of war. We need a plan.”
                      “Agreed.” the traumatized Terry spoke her first words since the last minutes. “I think we may have to call Sadie for help, she was always the one with those ezapper plans, no?”
                      “I had some trenches and attrition warfare in mind, more like, but this plan is good as any, no?” acquiesced Consuela. “Let me make that call, I kept her emergency number next to mum’s”.

                      #3450
                      Jib
                      Participant

                        Accounts of the Journey to the Lower Realm

                        Eric
                        I was at a steppe first, like I was meditating in the desert, then went through a forest entrance, and stayed under a tree. There were lots of sounds and animals life, flapping wings sounds, deers, ants, but the most vivid presence was that of snake, and I was a bit suspicious, but it came back very gently, inviting, and after I recognized it, it made me journey, travelling like a dragon or feathered multicolored snake to an ancient place.
                        The snake analogy with shedding old skin comes to mind, after accepting it, it makes a lot of sense.
                        I saw green and purple at times.
                        I felt a horse too but it was just a hooves’ sound.

                        Flove
                        I went through the entrance to a cave. I asked my power animal to come. An ancient tortoise came up to me. I asked if this was my power animal but i felt such love for the tortoise that i felt that was my answer. We explored energetically what the tortoise wisdom i need is. I put my hand around the tortoise neck and we swam in the water.
                        I wanted to cry, I loved the tortoise energy so much. And the protection of the tortoise shell.
                        I saw a snake.
                        The horse was the first animal I felt, right as I went in the entrance. I stroked the horse as i went by.
                        I saw a unicorn too, [and ]was surprised by the unicorn.
                        I didn’t sense many creatures. just the horse, the snake and the unicorn.

                        Jib
                        First I saw little white skulls, whistling like the shells of the guy in the video.
                        Then I become my shaman self and I have my magic cape. I find the entrance [to the lower realm,] which was kind of difficult at first as if there was some distracting energy.
                        I finally enter the lower realm and find my horse right away, he’s very excited and I ride with him for some time, just for the pleasure of being with an old friend.
                        Then I ask him to lead me to Abalone and show me whatever is interesting.
                        He leads me to see an old shaman, man or woman I don’t know.
                        The shaman makes me sit in his room and offers me tea, then tells me to relax and wait.
                        So I relax and I begin to project to Abalone as the Giant beanstalk, I begin to grow and grow and grow and have the city built on top of me. I am the whole island.
                        I have the impression that the beanstalk is in the center of Gazalbion or very close to it
                        Then I come back to the place and have the impression the Shaman wants to delay me, so I say thanks and ask my horse to show me the rest.
                        We go the the old Temple and I feel that there is something special there, once again he tells me to relax and just allow not look for things.
                        So I wait and feel that the time and space is weird that it flows around the stones in a particular way, like when you follow a certain path or corridor, you may go forward in time and another way lead you back in time. If you take a wrong turn you can end up in a loop.
                        Then the signal for the return begins, so I go back from where I come from and thank my horse.
                        It was cool and fun to be there again.
                        I projected at some point to check if everyone was ok, and felt like it was fine.
                        I saw a unicorn too.

                        Tracy
                        That was interesting, about half way through a zebra started follwing me, well on my right. I saw all kinds of animals, but they were all doing their own thing or turned away, except for the zebra, until the change of tempo and then I was swept up in a flock of cranes I think (or herons or storks but I think cranes), but then the zebra was waiting at the top. I could feel his warm muzzle sort of on my right shoulder.
                        First was a field full of unicorns on the left but they were just grazing, then a bison head who turned away, then the group of deer I thought, but the zebra walked over to me grazing. Me and the zebra waited for goats to cross our path.
                        The feeling of being in amongst the cranes was amazing and the zebra fell back while that was happening, but then at the end he was waiting.
                        I was surprised by the unicorns cos I don’t even think about them usually.
                        There were lizards sucttlign around under the cranes.
                        A couple of times I strongly saw purple and green, and thought of Jib.<i> not really ask [the zebra if he was the power animal] in words, but his presence calmly walking beside me with the feeling of his muzzle on my shoulder was comforting.
                        When the cranes distracted me from him he fell back, but he was waiting at the top.
                        The cranes feeling was marvelous, really, they were all flapping gracefully all around me on the ascent. So cranes and zebra stand out the most.
                        [At some point] I started going down old stone steps, at first me and FP were kids holding hands, with jib and eric behind us, then I thought, wait, I’m supposed to be doing this alone.
                        The unicorns in the very beginning were in a castle courtyard type place but they ignored me.
                        Then a bison head who turned away these were in niches in the stone walls
                        I ended up in a stalactites type cave, but there were mostly old old stone steps with stone walls along the sides.
                        There was a crowd of people, well a small gathering, towards the bottom, but they were, er, faceless. Innocuous.
                        I am quite amazed at how great that was! and how many creatures actually popped up
                        and how the feeling was of the zebra and the cranes.
                        The zebra was stoic and steadfast and comforting, the cranes were exhilarating and uplifting.</i>

                        #3434

                        Sadie soothed herself. It has only been 2 days. Get a grip. Your hair won’t smell yet.

                        She wondered whether to speak—the longing to confide in someone was almost overwhelming— and she followed Finnley, trying to pluck up courage. Not only would it be breaking protocol to give away any details of her recent mission, more importantly, she did not want to frighten the elderly woman. Instinctively Sadie knew that if there was anyone she could trust it would be Finnley, who had been through so much in her own life and surely, innately perhaps, understood and accepted those things outside the established norm.

                        Finnley.” she spoke softly. “It is me, Sadie. I am not sure how to … I am here, but you can’t see me. Please don’t be frightened. Let me explain. It will make sense …. well sort of.”

                        it will make sense?

                        Sadie? Where are you? What’s going on?” Finnley’s frail voice faltered and Sadie wished she could reach out and reassure her.

                        “Maybe you should sit down.”

                        #3383

                        Lisa was lost in thought during the hours that they spent in the waiting room of the Processing Department. Among the many things she pondered was the nature of their beliefs that had landed them in this situation, the energy they were projecting, and the ramifications of the reflection. She was intrigued with the letter that Sanso had read out to them upon their arrival ~ underground cities had long been a particular fascination. What had been the circumstances leading to so many ancient underground cities being constructed? Nobody knew for sure, but it seemed to Lisa that they had been a means of escaping the surface. But why? Was it because of climate catastrophe, or some other disaster rendering the surface dangerous or inhospitable? Or had it been situations of siege, or hostile populations on the surface? Or had it been merely a curiosity to explore living in a different environment? An idea suddenly occurred to Lisa that she had been judging life on the surface of the planet as the ideal right way to live, the most preferable option, and life below ground as a second rate choice for survival purposes, but perhaps there were unimagined benefits to living below the ground.

                        Lisa’s meandering thoughts led her back to the summer of 2014, when the seige situation in Gaza had exploded as the population of the shifting world addressed restriction and shielding energy, creating an amplified imagery at one of the main coordination points. Interconnection was coming on strong, like never before, and individuals the world over, struggling with their own self imposed boundaries, sought for release en masse and joined together to support and encourage each other.

                        It had been an exhilarating time, but also a frustrating one. Interpretations of the words and messages of perceived authorities became mass beliefs, and for a time the restrictions increased. Those adhering to traditional authorities repeated the party lines, and the so called “new agers”, rooting for change but at the same time terrified of it, and in no small measure, terrified of other people and different cultures, created new mass beliefs based on their old fears. The strongest new age belief was a translation of channeled advice, construed from the vague “focus on the positive” to mean “ignore anything you can’t bear to acknowledge”. Rather than accept differences, initially masses of well meaning individuals criticized anyone endeavouring to acknowledge and accept the global situation, and pushed their advice to ignore the horrors, for fear that they would unwillingly bring anything unpleasant to their own attention. It was ironic to Lisa that the ones advocating not to judge, were the ones that judged her the most for her actions, and the activists judged her far less, while not advocating less judgement at all.

                        #3231

                        “I’m looking for crew” the stranger said with a thick Russian accent as he bought all the men in the bar a beer, “No experience necessary! I need strong young men to help me sail to the Big Island.”
                        Igor had no idea where the Big Island was, or indeed how to sail a boat, but he felt a strong overwhelming urge to accept the strangers offer. “Count me in!” he exclaimed in Russian. What a relief it would be to speak in his native tongue. Russia seemed so very far away, both in distance and in time. There was something timely about this mans unexpected appearance in the village bar, something fortuitous. Igor felt it, but couldn’t explain it. All he knew was that he was destined to sail away with this stranger.
                        In truth, Mirabelle hardly crossed his mind. Leaving her would not worry him, although telling her he was leaving worried him a great deal.
                        “We leave now” explained the stranger, much to Igor’s relief. “No time to lose, the winds are favourable tonight. Let’s go!”
                        And with that, Igor left the village, without looking back.

                        #3137

                        Finding a time smuggler on such short notice was near impossible, Linda Paul soon found out when she hit the web. There were sure long lists of pages offering the services at seemingly attractive prices, but then never covering all the highly recommended options, such as the time collision waiver, and collateral time damage waiver.
                        She had a pretty good idea of what she needed to smuggle back and when, but all the time pathways simulations seemed to run into a dead-end.
                        After a stroke of genius, realizing that the one-timeway drop-off prohibitive surcharge may be the reason why she couldn’t get decent tariffs, she changed her simulation for a return.

                        “Time and item of origin/return…” she muttered as she typed “Queen Anne’s crocheted ferrets, 1625, Louvres Palace”.

                        Of course, going forward in time was easy, so she would simply need to give specific instructions to the time smuggler to pass on those bloody ferrets along the timeline.

                        A click here, accepting the long conditions with hardly a glance, “blabla, not covering extra temporal charge… blabla… ensured discretion, yes, yes, service cannot be used to leave historical artifacts protected by the amendment on the … or any incongruent item blabla… smuggling service comes with no obligation of results…”
                        The rest was piece of cake.

                        She already had the perfect time mule in mind for the delicate mission of reintroducing the crocheted ferrets where her dragqueen competition was now held.

                        :fleuron2:

                        When Nicole du Hausset, widow of a poor noble man, one of the two femmes de chambre of Madame de Pompadour, first hear Madame talk about her first encounter with the Count in 1749, she remembered immediately about her mother, and grand-mother’s secret instructions.
                        A few nights later, she wrote down in her diary “‘A man who was as amazing as a witch came often to see Madame de Pompadour. This was the Comte de Saint-Germain, who wished to make people believe that he had lived for several centuries.”

                        For some reason, she was to find a way to give him two scrawny century-old (and quite frankly smelly) crocheted ferrets, as a token for the Queen.
                        She still had seven years or so to make it happen, that was time ample enough to do the deed, if the Good Lord would grant her enough life, or else she would need to pass the burden to the next of kin.
                        She’d never known exactly why this was significant, but she’d been told that her family’s past riches were due to the success of this task, passed on to the next generation until 1757.

                        It didn’t take very long. An elaborate and convincing lie did come easier to her than she would have known, and the Count swallowed it hook and sinker. Next thing she knew, she’d glimpsed the plush beasts in the midst of the menagerie of the Queen, and felt relieved of a life and generation-long burden.
                        She could now return to a simple and uncomplicated life, although she would sometimes wake up at night in cold sweat, having had dreadful nightmares that the ferrets had disappeared before the date.

                        #3131

                        Linda Paul had not expected the whole time displacement, and even as he accepted it with a healthy je ne sais quoi of nonchalance, he’d started to notice strange effects. Déjà vus and double occurrences seemed to happen, he wondered if Sanso and Sadie had not unwittingly started to shift their time-space continuum…

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