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  • #750
    F LoveF Love
    Participant

      I take it from that you don’t know where the wedding dress is currently. Well if you do come across it would you mind letting Felicity know. said Tina haughtily, switching the phone off abruptly.

      Al’s words running through her head she started walking quickly nowhere in particular.

      Tina, what’s the point of these experiments we have been doing with Becky and Sam if you are going to keep relying on the phone all the time? And why are you trying to sort out the dress for Felicity, it isn’t your problem.

      It wasn’t the so much the words which had stung, after all he was right, it was the annoyance she thought she had heard in his voice.

      She felt him making contact, quickly blocked, feeling too hurt to be open.

      She knew he was tired, god knows he had put so much into the wedding preparations, as he did with all his projects. He was fast building a reputation for his ground breaking experiments with body processes. Tina loved Al whatever he looked like, which was just as well really considering some of the rather bizarre effects he managed to produce.

      Becky had been a bit irritated with her as well, Tina you are so last decade, nay century even! she would say, rolling her large eyes dramatically. Becky too was racing confidently and exuberantly ahead. Her intriguing contributions to the reality play never failed to amaze Tina. Her own contributions felt stolid, words trapped in a big gluggy ball of last century energy, she had to work hard to extricate each one.

      It was nearly dark, raining harder now, wind-driven rain. Tina liked it, the rain complemented her mood and disguised the self-pitying tears streaming down her face. There were very few people in the street. Just the long line of shop windows, glass faces warmly lit, overhangs offering some shelter from the rain, though it wasn’t shelter Tina was looking for.

      Her long hair whipped around her face, wet blue satin clung to her slim frame.

      Sam had taken off unexpectedly and suddenly to Australia. He had been gone only a few days and she missed him. Dear Sam, his wicked and irrepressible sense of humour could make her laugh even in the blackest of moods. He too was playing with new potentials, forging new and exciting paths.

      The others are probably all communicating with their advanced telepathic skills right now, laughing at dumb old last century Tina, she thought morosely. In fact even last century I would have been so last century, judging by my spectacular lack of success at anything I have undertaken recently. A vision of her recent humiliation in the ballet dancing class sprang to mind. She winced and quickly blocked the distressing image of the dance teacher drawing her aside after class and gently suggesting she might try the Ancient Kuzhebar Motional Practices beginner’s class, to get some basic rhythm, before attempting the ballet. ….

      An elderly woman who had disembarked at the nearby gondola stop splashed by her, and, illuminated momentarily by the street lamp, Tina felt a flash of recognition. The woman turned suddenly towards her, smiled, gesticulated with her free hand, the other was clutching a large bag, towards some distant bushes. She mouthed some words at Tina, but these were lost in the wind. Tina waved and managed a reciprocal smile.

      She noticed a Positivity Robot parked in front of Samantha Lingerie, and found herself drawn towards it, 3D images of models wearing the latest in underwear fashions rotated in the shop’s window, their faces beaming irritatingly at her. These Positivity Robots had been all the rage in the early 2020’s, you did not see as many of them now. On impulse she stood in front of the robot, touched the screen, allowing it to read her energy. “negative 21” its glass face discreetly informed her. The words “I AM PERFECT flashed up on the screen as a suggested thought pattern to implement. Tina grimaced. I wonder how low I can make this damn thing go. The idea made her giggle and to her alarm shot the meter up to a positive 12. Bugger, a bad start!

      What am I going to do with myself, Mr PR, if you are so positively smart?

      I AM PERFECT…. I AM PERFECT …. I AM PERFECT ….

      perfectly grumpy, perfectly insecure, perfectly last decade, perfectly soaked to the skin, Tina watched as the meter climbed all the way up to 55.

      She glanced at the shop window, just as a smiling model wearing a minuscule open net dress and nun’s habit rotated by. She felt an inexplicable burst of amusement as the meter climbed to 57.

      #742

      Due to the unusual events in the year 2026, Nishanti and her five sisters lived in the reconstructed ancient city of Hingapooloopi that had been submerged beneath the ocean for centuries. There had been a series of tsunami’s and eathquakes and volcanic eruptions resulting in an enormous hole appearing in the sea bed into which a considerable amount of Indian Ocean sea water had disappeared, lowering the sea levels in some locations, mainly those that had risen slightly due to shifting tectonic plates.

      Ten year old Nishanti and her five sisters (Hinni, 3; Yaso, 5; Yuvani, 7; Eromi, 13; and Nanda, 16) had lost their parents, and indeed most of their relatives, due to an unfortunate mishap in the kitchens two years previously in the year 2032 at the wedding party of their brother, Chandra. Gayesh, Nishanti’s eldest brother had mistakenly included poisonous red berries in the desert. Fortunately, Nishanti and her sisters had been reading the Snoot Q&A column in The Tarty Nun girls magazine that they had procured without their parents knowledge from a school trip of American tourists, in which Snoot had advised against red fruits.

      Hingapooloopi was located on the land bridge , once again exposed, between Sri Lanka and the Indian continent. The reconstruction had been an enormously interesting undertaking, and Nishanti’s uncle Roshan had been involved in the ground work excavations. He found many artifacts, which he smuggled off the building site, and secreted under the floorboards of the old family home in the highlands . Perhaps the most interesting one was the crystal skull; certainly it was the one that Nishanti found the most intriguing.

      #681
      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        New Venice, February 2034

        Al had finally completed his body experiments. The results were encouraging, and would probably help understand more of some bodily processes.
        Obviously he’d had some fun with them, these past few years —it was a nice way to learn more about himself, and to bring some of that knowledge to other people. Essentially, it was mostly to show them that what centuries of so-called “modern medicine” had done was to make them defiant of their own bodies. The mass creations of all these diseases not so long ago was still very much embedded into people’s imaginations. How ironic was that most of these diseases were coming from the body itself.
        So, what Albert was doing in his experiments was to push the limits to show how greatly adaptive the body structure was. It was nothing different than what scientists of the last decennia were doing on laboratory rats with many uncouth cocktails of injections —except that the trigger was for the most part an internal projection, no needing great amounts of artificial adjuncts.
        Becky’s sudden and impressive illnesses, shortly before her wedding had not worried him too much, because he knew that at times the body needed to adapt to new settings and environments, albeit not always physical ones.
        Another thing he knew well enough for having experienced it was that distrust was the most difficult part during this adjustment process. Distrust of the body, of self and of course of others. It was a delicate subject and most of their ancestors way of tackling the subject had been to reinforce the distrust in one’s own body. Pills and antibiotics could do wonders, but they were not that innocuous when they were used as ways to tell one’s own body it was not behaving the way it was supposed to be. As far as the symptoms were sometimes elusive, their physical effects could be quite unpredictable, depending on the patient’s state of mind.

        That reality play they were all writing to record their various connections has always been great fun. They had been toying with the idea of great changes, new frontiers of the mind and spirit and expansion of their consciousnesses.
        It had started during Becky’s infancy, were she was inspired by her step-mother and a bunch of her friends who were doing all kind of meditations and strange “imaginary” stuff. And two years ago, she had found old digital archives and had been amazed at some of the changes that had occurred during so few of the past years of her own existence, much of them mirroring these “imagined” changes.
        So, she had enlisted Sam, and Al and Tina to join in that reality play, to continue the projection into that “Shift” of the mind and see how farther it would take them.

        But there was something that Albert had always found a bit far-fetched was Becky’s confidence in such strides in their expansion of the mind. Doubtlessly he was acknowledging that things were changing —the last discoveries in how magnetic fields affected DNA and thus the bodies had been even compelling enough to have scientists reassess their stance on how DNA and evolution of species worked. But he doubted that everything would be a perfect utopia. And pain was such an inherent and useful part of their human experience that he was not conceiving how any consciousness expansion would get rid of it.

        So, back to Becky’s illnesses which were mirroring his owns, a great deal of them was also about accepting that pain not as a flaw in the way they were creating their reality, but as something real, useful as a mechanism of feed-back. Accepting it didn’t meant cherishing it and holding dearly to it, it merely meant they had to recognize it as a way of the body to bring back the diverted awareness into the body. Well, Al wasn’t sure it would always be necessary to have it, but for the moment, the species was not entirely accustomed to being present into the body. Perhaps when it learns that, pain wouldn’t be necessary…
        To reassure Becky, he had reminded her of how as a child she had grown teeth, and that had been perhaps one of the weirdest most disturbing and painful experience children experience in relation to their bodies, but her parents had been telling her all along it was just growing. She just had to trust her body knew better. Or like Krustis the clown was saying, it sure won’t help a man if he notices a thumping sound in his chest to have it stop…

        Well, in a few days time, it would be Chinese New Year. The large Chinese population of New Venice made it a very loved holiday, and Becky and Sean had decided to wed on that day, February 19 th where they would all step into the year of the Tiger.

        How funny, Al was thinking, leaning over the railing of the balcony, looking at the sunset reflecting over the waters… These funny people that Becky had known in her infancy, the original FGF, they had seen New York under waters in their meditations… And that yellow car…
        They had discussed a lot about this event, and some had been disquieted by that fact, fearing some impeding catastrophe. But all in all it had been a smooth occurrence. Authorities had been aware of the issue, and though they did not yet know all the mechanisms at play, they had been preparing some measures to avoid the city being flooded.
        There had been lots of debates, as most politicians were advocating of building of dams to prevent the rising sea levels to enter the city.
        But the studies of Dutch experts had been the most convincing, and New York City official soon decided to follow the example of the implementation in Netherlands of moving and adapting structures, constructions of buildings and plains liable to be flooded, and even buildings and roads construction on stilts structures, which Dutch had come over time to prefer to the dams, no matter how technically efficient…
        Another imagery of adapting structures with the flow…

        #671

        In the flying car, Al was mentally reciting mantras and drawing symbols, and was distractedly participating in the conversation which he could follow thanks to telepathic transfers he grasped from his friends conversations.
        His gums were now much better, and he had recovered a wonderful smile with shiny pearl-white teeth.

        The car interior was now a bit small for them five, and Tina’d had to press herself on Al and Becky, who was almost disappearing in her boubou full of folds, her head wedged against the hat and the hat against the roof of the car.

        Can’t we get some air in there? asked Tina, who was feeling she needed to breathe more.
        Err… Let me check

        Sam’s friend was looking clumsily at some buttons for one to release the hood.

        Watch out! Becky cried, propping up her hat which had fallen on her eyes.

        They had narrowly missed a bunch of balloons floating in the middle of the buildings.

        Jeeze! It’s no better than the submarway this thing… Becky was being fidgety at everything and was wishing for the whole wedding preparations to soon be over.
        Is that a frog we hear? asked Armando who had finally released the hood, having Becky clutch her hat, as well as little Chump, with the strong wind now blowing on their heads.
        WHAT? FLOG A TIRE? Tina was shouting now, seeing now all the benefits of being able to telepathically communicate…

        A click on a button. The hood was again put on top of the car.
        Bit too noisy, hey? said Armando
        Well, didn’t really mind said Albert dreamily

        Oh dammit! Is there a damn frog in that car’s engine or what? Armando was stressed.

        Tina looked at Sam in the rear-view mirror and spluttered affectionately. Al had just mentally expressed he was experimenting with new yeast actions in his digesting system, and that there was some minor inconveniences on which he would have liked some discretion… His belly was swelling funnily and making gargoyling noises…

        Ahahah, a frog… perhaps even a blue-bullfrog with all that frogging noise! Tina was feeling surprisingly exuberant.

        #663

        There you are! said the man to the dark figure who had just landed on the wrought iron railed balcony I believe your trip was good!
        Absolutely, Sir. Everything went as you said.
        Good, very good.

        The Baron was a tall man with an impressive build and a broad chest due to his lifelong passion for boxing. With his grey waxed moustache on his round rubicund face, he was giving the impression of a perfectly refined gentleman, but his disarrayed hair and his blue twinkling eyes behind his monocle were contrasting sharply and suggesting either a genius or a madman.

        While Carla was getting rid of the cumbersome fly-like apparatus, the Baron was taking deep puffs on his pipe, releasing pink-coloured clouds smelling of vanilla.
        The interior of the manor was of grisly aspect, but for all matter and purposes, the Baron seemed completely oblivious, as he was savouring his smoking on the stained worn bottle-green velvet sofa.
        In actuality, the manor looked like a total ruin, and that, combined with the habit of speaking his mind which had gained him a reputation of heinous callous grizzly in society, had slowly severed him from all exterior contact.
        The Crazy Baron, as the people of the nearby village had called him, was indeed very glad of this state of fact, which allowed him a complete privacy. As he liked to say to a few trusted people, being mad was the surest way of being left alone. Providing him what money, threats and coercion wouldn’t surely have given as surely. It was not completely safe either of incursion, but these, mainly due to a few young and curious daredevils from the village, could be easily thwarted thanks to the motion-sensors that were dispersed along the property and an appropriate anonymous call to the police. Because, unknown of but a few, underneath the old structure, was a room that, despite lacking a view, was not lacking of anything high-tech…

        Do you want to know the details? asked Carla, interrupting the Baron in his thoughts.
        Not really. I suppose you gave that old crone of a Viscountess the fright of her life, but well, I suppose she deserved it… Many would agree of course, though never in private. Ahah!
        Well, now you make me think of it, I reckon she forgot herself a bit in the process…
        Ahahah! If only it could have taught her something… The manic laughter of the Baron was as chilling as it was infectious.

        Suddenly regaining his poised demeanour, the Baron resumed:
        Now, tell me, was it a genuine one?

        #658
        ÉricÉric
        Keymaster

          The new shop was splendiferous. It had all people could imagine about pets and stuff, pets most people wouldn’t have imagined existed. There was even a whole division for the pets health, with permanent vets…

          The “Rent’a Pet Shop, Boy!” was taking a whole building, with no less than thirteen storeys, and when Sidonie entered the huge hall at the ground floor, which was slightly above the waters’ level, she was awed by the quantity of animals which where stored in the facility.
          She didn’t know what she wanted for a start and now she was beginning to feel lost.

          A beautiful tall black woman, with short hair and wearing an ample avocado-coloured boubou and carrying a little dog close to her chest passed by her and Sidonie could hear her muttering apparently incoherent bits to herself
          Come on Chumpy, the doctor said it will be alright after that surgery, here, here little thing, breathe, breathe and say YES… Oh Lordy, I’m gonna be late, and Sam will be bugged if I make him wait in his friend’s flying car…

          Sidonie was mesmerized by the woman, who suddenly turned to face her and said winkingly “I’d rather not go for a squawking parrot if I were you, they can’t keep quiet… and not a magpie either… Al said this new breeds of nine-tailed foxes are great, but I can’t really get used to anything else but dogs… Oh, I must go, need to have the last alterations done on my wedding gown… How can they expect that I remember all of this!

          And the woman went running out of the shop…

          Sidonie was baffled… A nine-tailed fox… Why not, sounded like a nice idea. At least, she could start by renting it, and if it was a nice companion and Tonio was OK with it, she would adopt it…

          She asked a vendor where was the fox section. The vendor took a very professional look to ask her if she meant the new genetically engineered breed of foxes, or the classical breeds, desert, arctic or continental…
          Sidonie was lost for a moment, then remember the lady had said they were new breeds, so she asked for the new ones in an intimidated voice.

          Upstairs, thirteenth floor, on your right after the jump said the vendor and beware of the shrimpigators

          #1616

          In reply to: Synchronicity

          Jib
          Participant

            Great it works now :)) earlier today it wasn’t working, error 500!!!
            and it’s 14:53 that’s again a demonstration of my great power ;))

            well a few synchs… since a few days, we are having with Eric synchs with the name Fletcher, related to Fletcher, the chief of the mutineer in the bounty…
            there is also Jessica Fletcher in a TV series, who’s a novel writer… like crime books and so on… I don’t remember the name of the series in English but it’s “Arabesque” in French. (Murder, She Wrote In English)

            well yesterday I was looking for something… I don’t remember what it was and only the synch :))
            I found that a new movie called Fletch would be created, and apparently Fletch is a series of books, about a man called Fletch , well actually Irwin Maurice Fletcher… who’s a journalist.
            What I found funny again was that the writer created a spin off of the series of books after the introduction of a character named Flynn :))

            In the first movie the actor George Wendt plays Fat Sam ;))

            Well that’s all about Fletcher.

            Going to work this morning, as we moved to a new building I took another way… and crossed a Celine Robert Street :)) and a Massue Street (massue is a club).

            I found that funny :p

            #626
            F LoveF Love
            Participant

              There was a tentative knock on the door and Finnley, the weekly cleaner popped her head around.

              Oh Ms Tattler …. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in here at… she checked the wootch on her wrist, 5:57 am .. but I saw the light on …. A horrified expression passed fleetingly over her face as she took in condition of the office.

              Perhaps I shall come back later Ms Tattler, she said retreating, and making a note to have a word to the building supervisor, Mr Arak, as soon as possible. Mind you this wasn’t the first time she had spoken to Mr Arak about the issue of Ms Tattler living on the premises, to no avail. He was mad as Almad that man. Perhaps I will bloddy resign while I am at it too, she thought. Perhaps I will tell him to bugger his job, shove it where the sun doesn’t shine! Finnly cheered up greatly at the prospect.

              Elizabeth, exhausted, only dimly registered the interruption, looking up for an instant she waved vaguely in the direction of the door, and then returned to her frenzied writing, eager to capture the last remnants of her dream before it faded.

              #448
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                Lucius was quite franky exhausted. Building roads, always building roads….endlessly long boringly straight ones. He was fed up with it; the only thing that kept him going was his imagination. If he let his mind wander, he hardly felt his aching back. He didn’t think of Rome, Rome, nothing but Rome, like so many of his compatriots, he thought of other times and places, and imagined what they were like.

                He imagined who had walked this valley before him, and who might walk it after him. He imagined a girl in a swing hung from a fig tree, twirling round and round, and wondered who she was. The image came with a feeling, a feeling of anticipation and excitement, full of enthusiasm and delight. Lucius began to feel a little disorientated, so strong and clear was the image, and wondered why a fig tree was growing right in the middle of the road he was building. He opened his mouth to shout No! We can’t build the road here, this is where the girl swings!….and shut it again quickly. It was getting harder and harder to stay focused on the present and not say anything strange out loud. He looked around furtively, but nobody had noticed.

                Phew! he said, or the Roman equivalent of Phew, and buckled down to the task of building the road.

                #413
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Dory was browsing in the airport shop, waiting for her flight back to Spain. She picked up a copy of Reportilda, the travel magazine, to read on the plane. A couple of the articles highlighted on the cover caught her eye:

                  Dragonfly Swarms Across The Straits…extinct species emerges from Sahara desert and swarms to rural Andalucian mountains….

                  Travels With Lemur…..hilarious excerpts from Marco the Pole’s diaries…..

                  Andwenden: The Forgotten Ones…….psychic archeologists discover ancient pyramid building culture…..

                  Tuareg Update…….the future looks sunny for ancient nomadic culture as US pulls out….

                  #410

                  On Mount Elok’ram, the old abbot Hrih Chokyam Lin’potshee was gardening.

                  Despite his old age, and his being at the head of the Monastery, Hrih Chokyam was always doing his hour of gardening with great application and talent, as was asked to everyone, from the youngest to the oldest monks studying here.
                  The Monastery was a place of healing and teaching, dedicated to Margilonia, the Elder Goddess thought to have created the Earths. As a matter of fact, gardening was the simplest —yet most effective— way to fully appreciate the grandness and the interconnectedness of the whole of creation.

                  Hrih Chokyam remembered when he was a little child in the vast fertile plateaus in the Eastern part of Dam Adbor, bordering the high mountains. He had always loved the mountains, better than the plains, or the towns where the wars and plots were fomented endlessly. So he was wandering many times in the mountains, to collect herbs and also just for the fun and exhilaration of climbing higher and higher, and seeing the world as a small thing that could be placed into his hands.
                  His parents had wanted him to become a farmer, but some wealthy neighbours had thought he was showing signs of being able to do much better, and even proposed to have him pursue a career in the administration of Dam Adbor’s capital.
                  Young Hrih had considered the proposition for some time, and one day, went deep into the mountains to make his decision.
                  There he’d got this powerful connection with an enveloping warm manifestation of Margilonia, who prompted him to go higher than anyone had ever been on the top of the mountains, were a natural point of great potential magical energy was. Here, she had conveyed to him, he would have a monastery built, a perfectly clear channel for this yet untaped magical energy.

                  Ninety nine years ago that was.
                  Hrih had been higher than any human had ever been, in the search of this point, knowing he would feel it resonate with him. The mountains, he had learned were not as empty as humans had thought, and there were many other kinds of sentient beings living here, far from the wars below.
                  Interestingly, assisted by these magical sentient creatures and Margilonia’s energies, building the structure had been easy. He had never thought harnessing magic would be that easy, perhaps just because the traveling magicians coming at times in the village to do some healing or just funfair exhibitions were making that very difficult, and requiring lots of training.

                  The truth was, magic was everywhere, only people had become blind to it, or just lazy to use it. But old Hrih, even if his eyes were not as sharp as they used to be, could see it clear as day. Magic was in everything. Especially in one’s own very existence.
                  That was the first of the things people coming to learn in the monastery had to understand. Deceptively simple, yet the most difficult lesson for many of them. He had to admit, he had struggled quite a bit with it too, during the endless wandering into the vast mountains. But there had always been a root to eat, or some fresh mushrooms or eggs apparently left here just for him… He laughed now, thinking of it.

                  Hrih’s life had been so fulfilling. He knew he was weak now, and would not see the springing season, and he was thinking he had to choose someone to take care of the monastery. Few people went to stay here, for as they had learned and applied what was to learn, their own passion was coming back to them, and they would not need to stay any longer.

                  But a few days ago, a young one had come, announced to old Hrih by a singing rosy finch.
                  As usual, all was provided when things were ready for it.
                  Hrih had no doubt that the hesitant young man would be the next one to hold the title of Lin’potshee, or “Precious Elder”.

                  #354
                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    — But we’ll have to find a pseudonym, Al had said to Becky, as they were discussing the unusual play last day.
                    — Yes! Becky had said enthusiastically.

                    And Al had known he was going to love the surprise that Becky would be finding for them.

                    Now, he was waking up, and the sun was bright and the sky clear above the waters. He’d had dreams of a huge reception, with lots of foods at all levels of a huge building, that people were eating and eating, but still there was always enough for everyone, and more, diversity too.

                    And there was this groundhog day dream before (and a popping blue dot in his peripheral vision as he was jotting down his thoughts, err he always thought jolted, that would make Becky laugh again), and in his groundhog day, he was winning millions in many different ways, but all that money had a purpose to help him in a rescue mission. He could not die before his mission was accomplish, or everything would start again, and again the abundance would be here in the form of millions…

                    When he saw Becky’s last entry, he wished he could hug all of them soon…

                    Yurara Fameliki… I love that name, he said to the noisy bird nesting on top of his window…

                    #344
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Becky waited patiently at the doorstep on the third floor of her apartment building, trying to hail a gondola cab. The canvas bag over her shoulder was heavy. In it she had a thermos flask of rice water and poppy heads for her friend Sam, who had telephoned her with the news that he was unwell.

                      While she waited, she wondered about Tina and Al. They hadn’t said anything, but Becky sensed there were some issues bubbling under the surface. Tina’s strange behaviour when she answered the phone; Al’s uncharacteristically rude discounting of the outing she’d planned for them all….well! They will soon bounce back, Becky thought, If there’s anything I can do, I’m sure they’ll ask. Meanwhile, Becky chanted the mantra, It Matter’s Not; Everything Is Perfect…..

                      #327

                      The rain was pouring cabbages :weather-showers: for several days now, almost the whole week… Baul was fed up with that filthy weather of Cromash Tur. The capital of this 4th kingdom was quite nice and pleasurable, but it lacked sun and warmth… Baul had come to Nâabooli, the capital of Cromash, in order to settle an arrangement. Something quite particular that he couldn’t find in his own land of Erpet Mesh. He’d been travelling for weeks with his guards and servants when he arrived in the city and all that for some foo’kin rain! But something more important than brooding and pouting was on his mind.

                      Tonight he was alone, no servant, no guard… he was wearing a black coat made of goat skin on his usual blue and yellow silk robe, he couldn’t wear anything else, his skin was too smooth and delicate. He was spending great amount of money to take care of his body, it was his own pride, and he considered himself as a very handsome and appealing male.

                      The man he was about to meet wasn’t hiding, but oddly was acting in full sight. Nonetheless, Baul didn’t want to be seen with him, Baul was an ambassador of sort from Erpet and he couldn’t be seen entering in an Assassin’s house. In Cromash, the Assassins were quite a respectable and wealthy, but in Erpet they were outlaw… one of the numerous differences between the two kingdoms, one they would never agree upon. Baul found it quite useful though; many times he’d met Ar’Am Khra, one of the best of this profession.

                      For this meeting, as always, Baul had chosen a tavern, the Landgurdy, called after one of the former 12 kingdoms. The 4 remaining ones were at war most of the times, they couldn’t maintain peace more than a few years at best, and Baul had found many ways of benefiting of this situation. Merchant, Ambassador, and much more. He was thriving with plotting :face-angel: :face-devil-grin: and it was quite useful to be one of the ambassadors of Erpet Mesh, offering him safety wherever he was going. It was one of the few respected rules that were common between the Warring Kingdoms.

                      The Landgurdy was quite a crowded tavern, and the owner was a friend of his, though not really officially. There was that private room on the rear of the building, know only of a few chosen “friends”, so they could enter unnoticed by the usual customers and by would be spies. The rear door was seemingly leading into another building, and some arrangements had been made over the years.

                      Baul knocked the code at the door, and a vasistas was open quickly and closed even more quickly. The door opened then and he entered in the darkness of the house. If anyone opened the door, he or she wasn’t there anymore, but Baul knew the place quite well as it wasn’t his first meeting with the Assassin.

                      :fleuron:

                      The Assassin was waiting in the small room, square shaped with only a wood table and one chair. No window. One dim lamp.
                      He was sitting on the lone carved chair. His clients needn’t sit.
                      They were mere beggers.
                      The one that was coming now, was quite amusing.
                      The first time he met him, Baul was quite young and inexperienced in his own skills. Though he was quite ambitious, Ar’Am Khra had to admit it.
                      The usual reaction when seeing the Assassin’s pale complexion was shivers and disgust. He was used to it and it was a game that he had enhanced with a little bluish glowing dagger tattooed on his forehead.
                      The dagger was the mark of his profession, though not so obviously exhibited by the others. Cowards.
                      At that first meeting, Baul didn’t react the way his other clients did. And it was not influenced by his utmost concerns at that time. Beside his inexperience he was quite engrossed in what he had called his “mission”.
                      Ar’Am Khra did not know of any mission, there were merely contracts.
                      And he was doing what his clients were paying for.
                      Accomplishing his contract even after the death of his clients.

                      He was remembering of an amusing event.
                      A client had hired him to end the life of another man, and the second man went a few days after to his office to beg him to kill the first man.
                      The Assassin accepted the contract.
                      A few days later he killed the second man.
                      He executed the first one not long after that, thus respecting the second contract. :yahoo_skull:

                      He never questioned the motives of his clients.
                      It was not for him to judge or to understand. Though most of the time he did understand quite well.
                      His main motivation was the payment and his own pride in expressing his skill with subtleties and newness.

                      The door opened smoothly. Baul entered the room.

                      :yahoo_alien:

                      :fleuron:

                      Yann and Quintin had an interesting chat during the afternoon. Yann had some new impressions about the map of Lord Wrick annotated by Quintin. Something about the Warring Kingdoms, triggered by a dream of an Assassin in one of them. It was frustrating not to be in the same room so Yann could show Quintin directly on the map, but with Internet there were some other options.

                      The names of these lands were Ata’Meliu, Dam Adbor, Erpet Mesh and Cromash Tur. These 4 Kingdoms were rather scattered on the Lan’Ork part of the continent, pieces and bits everywhere, though Ata’Meliu was more in the center and the South of the Lan’Ork, Dam Adbor in the East and in the North, and Cromash Tur in the West and South West parts, Erpet was divided in 2 main areas, one located on the Northern land just before the Isthmus of Ghört’s Hammer, and a smaller one lost in the middle of Ata’Meliu.

                      Yann only had the impression of 2 of the capitals, Naat Medin was the one of Erpet Mesh and Nâabooli of Cromash Tur.

                      Quintin just sent him the map so he could draw some more comments and sketch the boundaries of the Warring Kingdoms. He didn’t know why, but he felt some movements were about to begin, some reconfigurations of the borders :world:

                      #279

                      Once Illi had realized she was dead and could ‘go’ anywhere she liked simply by creating the ‘place’ around her, she decided to take a long relaxing holiday on a deserted tropical island. She would float in the warm lagoon, feast on coconuts and pina coladas and mangoes, play with the dancing lemurs and build fantastic sand castles on the beaches. As she visualized it, it appeared as if by magic all around her…the sun warm on her head, the sand between her toes, the gentle breeze fragrant with exotic blooms and the sound of gossiping parrots filled her senses. She closed her eyes and flung her arms wide in appreciation for the physical joys she had recreated, breathed deeply and relaxed for the first time since she had died. Finally, she felt like she knew where she was, even if that ‘somewhere’ was as ‘nowhere’ as ‘anywhere’ else, just another ‘elsewhere’ really…..

                      Illi stretched out on her back on the golden sand and squinted up at the cloudless deep blue sky. How nice, she thought, not to have any aches and pains, not to have to worry about shifting and those bloody belief systems, how simply lovely to just BE, with no perceived responsibilities, no interruptions…

                      Just then out of the corner of her eye, Illi saw movement in the sky. Something was descending onto the island. Illi couldn’t make out what it was, and wished she had a pair of binoculars. Silly Illi, she said to herself, reaching for the binoculars that had appeared beside her. I keep forgetting I can create anything at all.

                      Holy Moly! A great fat roly poly nun with a huge jolly grin was wafting down from the heavens, with an irridescent turquoise fairy in tow. They were landing on her island! We’ll see about that! Illi jumped to her feet and stomped off the beach and into the mangroves, sloshing angrily through the watery roots….. until she realized she could hover above the ground, which was a much easier way to travel.

                      Hovering was much quieter too, and the jolly fat nun and the bluegreen fairy were quite unaware that Illi was peering at them from behind a peachy hibiscus bush. In fact, the blooms on the hibiscus had grown to a most ridiculous size, and Illi could hardly see past them. She hovered to the side a bit, and decided on impulse to make her presence known to the intruders.

                      BOUH! :yahoo_skull:

                      #1308

                      In reply to: Yuki’s Livrary

                      ÉricÉric
                      Keymaster

                        September 24 th

                        Quintin remembered a snapshot of the notes that Dory had taken during her first trip to the Madagascan caves, a year ago.

                        Relevant extracts:

                        At one moment, I saw some hooded figure in the sideways tunnels… He vanished on the left, couldn’t follow him…
                        […] HE KNEW HIS WAY INSIDE !
                        When he vanished, I had the vision of something, […] like the layout of a labyrinth, of cave tunnels — that are all underground and the many entrances are all over the world… PORTALS
                        focus opening/doors ; time/space…
                        The central cavernous part is some kind of key center, where anyone can meet…

                        This has inspired Quintin to write some notes too.
                        He has the vision of these portals organized as clusters, like a tree, with branches and leaves… I will send him a more detailed image, but that may take him some time to digest!

                        September 26 th

                        The latest additions to the story have inspired Quintin. He had some inkling of how “essence” (or what is somewhat referred as “oversoul” ) and all the “focus” of essence (or lifetimes) interplay, and are not as separate as they sometimes seem to be.

                        Here would be what we will say to him, if he wants to listen:

                        « Now, terminology can become tricky as, for much time, you have been accustomed to be considering of your experience as the projection of that of an “essence”, somewhat separate from you, the lowly focus.
                        Of course, you pretend the contrary, and become quite nifty in brandishing sentences like “I am essence, and I create all of my reality”, which you are and do actually, but that you do not always believe and trust.
                        These terms of “essence” and “focus” were given to you as means for you to better understand the interplay of consciousness. In the beginning of the acquaintance with these new terminologies, you have felt them remotely blurry and unrelated to previous concepts, which was the intention. But now, you once again objectify your understanding in something too rigid at times, and that little story is giving you a hint of what your real power is.
                        And you begin to really experience it, and really pay attention.

                        « As was expressed many times, “essence” is no thing. It is an action.
                        The “essence” is each of you, that very portion of you that you feel when you slide your attention into the comment box.
                        In that, your purpose, you see, is only to experience, nothing more, nothing less.
                        And then time, as you know it, becomes irrelevant, you see. Your natural time is expressed through you and your explorations.
                        Notice how playfully, as essence (essence playing focus or focus playing essence), you let your natural time unfold, and at times find some strange weather pattern in your awareness that needs clarification. As essence, you playfully find the most perfect habits [shapes and clothings] to wrap around you, and continue your story.
                        Just as your dreams at night overlap and blend into each other.
                        Just as Rafaela created new focuses [Sam and Becky] to continue to play and make the story expand for all of the other focuses, Dory included.

                        « That “I” of you is ever present, and is reflected perfectly in others’ perceptions, as you are drawing them to you purposefully. Do not brush aside their adjuncts, for they are also you, having moved your pawns forward, so to speak, through their moves.

                        « Thus understand that the story is a continuous stream reflecting the essence that is you, and your travel through the various guises you borrow.
                        In that manner, it does not matter how much sense it makes in linear terms. Because, in a way, it can’t make sense in these linear terms.

                        « Let us explain this in other terms.
                        When you found difficulties in understanding the “scheme” so to speak, the figure that is drawn by the participants, it is because you apply the linear understanding of what such a scheme should be.
                        In that, you only perceive the “plot” as a succession of dots without a continuity, whereas the continuity is to be found in the other stories interwoven.
                        You are accustomed to stories where a single individual is enacting throughout the play, in a linear continuous fashion. The individual goes through many different actions, but is always the same in your perception.
                        Here, the tricky thing is to notice the continuity throughout the various habits [clothings] taken by the essence(s). It matters not that the essence takes that guise of say, a pirate sailing on high seas, just after having been an old crafty Lord in his windy castle. The underlying aspects of his exploration has been continuous and coherent: in this case, exploring and making sense of one’s exploration. It is just that a certain appearance has been perhaps more fitting to express certain aspects or qualities of essence, but the exploration has been one, throughout the entirety of the experience.

                        « We will let you ponder this, and we will continue our own story, writing about you… »

                        September 28 th

                        This sand symbol that Quintin has brought up seemed to have come from many directions at once. Each character has connected it, in various ways.
                        Armelle (Arona) to her magic, Rafaela (Becky) to her collecting customs, etc. etc.

                        Let us say that this symbol is not as innocent as it may seem. There are lots of associations with sand.
                        It is solid, yet fluid. In association with water, it can be used to build, and also to erode. It can shift into many forms, one of which is your glass, and your electronic components.
                        And most of all, it is, after your very oxygen, the most abundant constituent of your reality.
                        It is almost limitless in your understanding.
                        As is your magic.

                        This magical device we made Quintin see in a visualization is an analogy of your very action of creation as essences.
                        The sand which molds itself to make forms and shapes in three dimensions is in fact likened to your consciousness. Each grain of sand represents your links of consciousness that bind together to do your command.
                        The shapes are moved by your essences, in which you may see that the essence is no thing at all, but is a continuous stream of action, not separate from others’.

                        As Quintin said to Fiona, some individuals do differently when they create and shape their sands.
                        In analogy with the coloured sands, some people like Quintin enjoy using other people’s colours in shaping his own characters, while some others prefer to keep their own colours, to create a more definite sense of individuality. But they integrate the others’ movements and shapes nonetheless, regardless of how much they perceive it to be coming from them.

                        With that said, let us see how much more will appear from that sandbox…

                        September 30 th

                        The Wrick family tree as it is now (or “will be” drawn around the time of the twins in 2057).

                        The Secret Life of Margaret Wrick , a newspaper cut from 2033.

                        October 7 th

                        The dragon Naasir’s dream
                        A panorama illustrating the portals between the worlds created by each of the participants… But who is dreaming, really?

                        And an illustration of Chiara’s encounter with the glutton “dreggun” Buckberry

                        #237
                        F LoveF Love
                        Participant

                          Magic is easy peasy
                          My hand is sore
                          This poem is rubbish
                          So I won’t say any more

                          Well we must thank the Gods for small mercies said Mandrake, sighing heavily. Arona laughed. Her mood felt so light again, as though something had really, really, REALLY fallen into place for her.

                          Up ahead the tunnel widened. Arona gave a small gasp as she saw what appeared to be a coatstand with a black cape standing in the middle of the path.

                          My Cloak, she cried, astonished, and feeling sure that the crafty dragon was behind its unexpected appearance. Hmmm, what a mouldy old thing, she thought, as though seeing it for the first time.

                          There was a note pinned to the cape:

                          I build up castles. I tear down mountains. I make some men blind, I help others to see. What am I?

                          Arona hesitated only for a moment. Sand! She said, delighted with herself.

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