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  • #3719
    EricEric
    Keymaster

      “Someone told me that gazing at the clouds doesn’t count as a manuscript, dear”

      Godfrey? Are you back now?” Elizabeth raised a contemptuous eyebrow.

      “Well, I figured you needed some help… Oh, bugger, I guess the truth is that Mars gets boring rather quickly. I should have taken my chances with France instead.”

      “Go figure.” She raised painfully from the couch “Evelyn would call me an evil Yankee-bashing witch to say I’m not surprised, but the hell with her, she always, hem mars everything. Now be a dear, fetch me a hot cup of vegemite, and tell me all about it.”

      #3572

      In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

      EricEric
      Keymaster

        It had been two months since the aurora. They had started to refer to it as the Cloud Aurora, since after it, rocks had started to leak moisture in all manner of places.
        Long, thin clouds had begun to appear just a month after, and the atmosphere composition seemed to alter itself as well, irrevocably.

        Everyone was busy doing analysis, sending reports to Earth and extrapolating on data. But John was more interested in running more explorations and extending the area of his scouting.

        Tonight, a new commercial ship from Earth would arrive. Mostly rich tourists bored with Spain or Italy, but a bit of fresh blood too, most likely winners of a stupid settler raffle. It had taken them years to arrive; it was hard for John to imagine being crammed in suspension, floating through endless void and cold space for so long.

        But then, he himself was quite excited being here to monitor the inexorable changes set in motion on the red planet.

        #3532

        In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

        TracyTracy
        Participant

          heard box passed book
          tell wondering clouds vacation
          above feet trouble walking
          smell bog certain mat
          dreams began map project sister

          #3481
          AvatarJib
          Participant

            Second Journey ~ August 24th, 2014

            Duration 24 minutes

            Directions : Meet with your power animal, ask them to lead you to the upper realm to meet with your guide. Ask the name of your guide and what they will be likely helping you with. Ask them for your personal symbol and how you can use it. Then follow your power animal into showing you the potential development for the stories.

            Accounts

            Eric
            My snake animal guide appears very fast, I see its eyes first. It shifts into a powerful cobra, and fans out its hood into multiple heads, like Ananta (Shesha Naga), and says I can call him Nagini (like in Harry Potter, that’s also the playful name I give to the plush snake at our doorsteps).
            It wraps its multiple heads around me like a ball, and we woosh into the ground to what I guess is the underworld, it seems like a long coiled path around a sort of vortex, after a few moments in a sort of crystal cave, I’m a bit skeptical what we’re doing there, I catch a glimpse of a white horse from the back, so I guess Jib’s Conan is checking on us, and restate my intent.
            I go though the light of one of the brightest glowing crystals, and the travel resumes, this time like the giant snake wraps ourselves in coils around a column of rocks, and we climb that high mountain very fast. It reminds me of Mt Meru in Buddhism or the Immortals palace in the Chinese Buddhist tales (like in the 2014 movie The Monkey King).
            The place is like a beautiful platform/palace of giant proportions, with a golden light. When we arrive, the snake becomes much smaller, and golden too, and wraps itself around my left arm. It guides me to explore different places, a temple, a place over the clouds where there are dances, etc. I decide to rest under a tree and meditate and be open to possibilities.
            The snake shifts around in various forms as if to reflect the nature of my mind, a giant parasol, or a stream of many paths at my feet. It connects me to a picture I saw of a Buddhist painting where the mind represented as an elephant is led by the monkey brain around a snake-like path. I realize the person I saw briefly earlier is the guide that helped Sunwukong (the monkey king) and seems to be the guide I’m looking for.
            (I find the name later is Puti or Subhuti).
            When I mentally ask for a name, the name Pachacamac comes strongly. He shows me many things related to my symbol. As a spinning cube with the floating feather in the middle and the arrow pointing towards the heart. The spin of the cube creates illusion within illusion, the arrow wobbles but stays towards the heart.
            He shows me a chasm and how to create a bridge over the clouds, by showing me the mirror image in my heart chakra. The bridge is built inside. At the same time, I was trying to focus on the music to deepen the trance, and realized outside (one storey below) was Jib’s music played on the speakers, aligned with the one playing in the headset, although a few seconds off, the rhythm was perfectly in synch…
            He also shows me another image, of a deep well deep inside the mountain that we can see from above the clouds. The image inside is dark and fluctuates with the water’s surface, and also reflecting quite a small portion of the beautiful landscape around.
            He explains that the well is the world we create, the mind and the perception is the water’s surface. It’s the external world, while the heart is all that we perceive as we discuss.
            There are other things shared at a subjective level.

            Francie
            After I connected with my power animal, we went to the upper world. We went through water to get there until we came to land.
            I asked for my main guide.
            I think I took on the characteristics of my guide. by that I mean I felt myself become a different being, and then switched back and forwards between myself and the other. It was very clear. The other was masculine, strong, very alert, very watchful, powerful.
            I asked for the guide’s name and received the answer, Carlos.
            I asked for the area which the guide would work with me. I have had a sharp pain in my left abdomen under my rib for half an hour. I felt my guide reach in and do something energetically in that area. The pain left and has not returned.
            I asked for a symbol and saw what looked like a key-hole shape.
            There was a key too.
            It was a very particular shape.
            There was a door. And the key hole was up very high in the door.
            I had to reach up high to get to it. And I put the key in.
            I wasn’t sure if those were symbols.
            The key hole and the key were shapes.
            I was tracing them with my hand.

            Jib
            I settle in myself and arrive directly in a kind of lava world. There are stalagmites and magma puddles, it’s very fiery and earthy. Then I call my horse who just nudge my left shoulder, he was already there.
            I ride him first and take time to bond with him. Then ask him to take me to the upper realm to Michel. Without much transition I am there, I feel a definite difference of feeling and texture. I say hi and ask Michel if he can show me the use of my personal symbol or particular aspects to it.
            The he focuses my attention to the octagon and the connection with the number eight. He shows me how it connects with the musical octave and sounds as a resonator. It can also be used like the shamanic drum. The coil inside is connected with the circle, the spiral and the labyrinth. My symbol is a kind of labyrinth with the diamond representing the central room where the graal is, so to speak.
            He shows me other stuff that I don’t recall at the moment.
            When I realize that it will be all, I ask my guide if he can introduce me to another guide that can help me with the use of my symbol. He sends me in a direction that goes up in a cave world. There are faceless figures, I don’t pay much attention to them. When I arrive, the guide sits me on the ground and a journey inside my symbol begins. With the octagon connecting quite strongly with the lava and earth again. I am in a lava world again, which is strange. I ask the guide what is his name and I suddenly understand it is Athumbra the Dreamwalker from whom I’m fragmented.
            He shows me the connection of my symbol to the fire and earth, and the depth of the world. He suggests me that instead of focusing on the shape of the symbol I connect with how the different parts connects together and to other aspects of consciousness, and how they are representative of my own energy personality. Not try to look outside for an answer in a way at the moment.
            So I begin to experience the shapes, and it turns like a clock, take different colors, etc.
            This will be something I’ll have to do again.
            Then I ask my power animal to show me what would be interesting to me to explore in the story now.
            He shows me a nest and I connect it with the stork nests I’ve been talking about in the last comment and that I used in the quote of the week picture. Without consciously connecting the two. I’ve written the comment before making the picture.
            It will have to do with how the nest is comfortable but don’t make you learn much about life and your potentials.
            Then he showed me something related to ants and colonies, that I connected with Mars, the colonies of Mars. There is something about community and social network for me to explore.
            Then I asked him to help me decipher the energy transmission Eric sent to me the other day, and it had something to do with networks again and how we create a space of something through our relationships, the space of love, the space of friendship, and we create fields and connective tissues that we nourish through experience and attention and involvement.
            At some point in the beginning I briefly wondered what was happening with you guys and felt propelled into something like water and impression of struggling with current, there were two moon crescents holding together by their “backs”, and purple or pink colors.

            Tracy
            The Zebra walked towards me across a grassy plain then I circled him, floating, and we went down a slope through the trees, an old road paved with stones. We wound down and came to a great expanse of metallic pink water, like a wise (typo! wide) river.
            There was a guy in much heavy stone coloured rough clothes on with a very old face who didn’t look at me, he was on a raft with a long pole for steering. Asked his name and got Frudo. (was slightly skeptical that I got the name right) The symbol was like a clubs of cards, 3 circles interlocking with an in flow of the stem part. Domain was water, flow and fluidity (and dams, apparently).
            We went down with the raft on the wide pink river, and the pace increased and there were people of all kinds lining both banks, watching. The wide river came to an immensely steep and deep waterfall, but there were pools and much smaller waterfalls on either side of it. All the water was pink.
            We navigated from pool to pool on the right of the waterfall mostly, each pool had people, some of the pools were dammed, and some were more open and easily flowing to the next pool. Some dams were high and some pools had people looking over the edge at the waterfalls below their pools.
            In a pool on the right, a very fat pink baby was sitting in the middle, I picked him up and held him and asked his name and it was Ezekial.
            Then a fly landed on my right shoulder and I looked to the right and saw a scrunched up face of my mother, with a tight smile. My breathing started to get constricted and I saw mustard yellow mangle of tubes like intestines in that pool.
            Then there was a lot of fingers stroking and pulling threads out of the dam around that pool, like pulling soft pink wax. Breathing continued to be restricted, and some becoming vapour or mist stuff that wasn’t very clear or droplets leaping from pool to pool as an alternative route to surface pools and waterfalls….
            Then went down down down into a vast pool of pink water, faster and faster towards a narrow tube at the bottom, and then flipped over onto my back and saw the sun far above and rose slowly floating towards the surface.
            Several times I saw purple and light green.
            The breathing thing was interesting if not so pleasant.
            The personal symbol may be connected to the flow from pool to pool somehow.

            #3476

            The layer of clouds that had been covering Abalone for so many years had cleared up in no time. So much had changed since they went through the labyrinth of time in the old temple three weeks ago. Karmalott and Gazalbion were no more. The giant beanstalk had simply disintegrated after the mass beliefs that kept it standing were reconfigured, and Karmalott had fallen on its land counterpart. It was hard to tell one from the other when they first came back to the place.

            Gwinnie looked at the giant storks nesting on the cliffs of the sea of beliefs. Her heart bloomed, she felt appreciation and gratitude over Abalone’s Nature. She had spent so many years in the bog that it had infused her with the wisdom of the island. She had been able to go unharmed through the corridors of time, because she simply knew whenre to go.

            As soon as they entered the Lion mouthed door, she had taken George’s hand and whispered : follow me and you’ll be safe. That man was so trusting in life and he had such a pure heart that he did as she said. He’d told her afterward that despite all the images and illusions, his mind was focused on the green light in his heart.

            When they arrived in the central room of the pyramid, she had changed. Her skin was still green, but she had found in the corridors the years she had lost in the bog.

            They had decided to stay and make a fresh start. The former King of Karmalott was now helping with the reconstruction of the entire island. With his natural leader talent, he’d been creating pooling teams of magi and non-magi for different tasks : clearing the ground of the fallen cities, regrouping the lost souls, soothing the injured and building the new transitional Spas. With Gwinnie’s innate knowledge of Abalone and his innate trust, they could do marvels at bending beliefs and reality.

            Actually, the transitional spa was Rene and Fanella’s idea. The two of them had been very helpful, especially since Gwinnie had repaired the sphinx. He was created to guard the temple and warn people who wanted to enter the labyrinth of time with an enigma. The corridors of time were not for the faint of heart, but to help people contact their inner knowledge to grow past their fears and blockages. What his creators had not foreseen was their own departure of the island. Rene was attached to the temple and left behind as they took no material possessions with them.

            His flaw was that he needed people, and as no one was coming anymore, with time he became obsessed with the idea of making new friends. Forgetting his other duties and his connection to the timeline of Abalone, his obsession leaked and the island was thrust through time and space, intersecting with earth reality at specific dates and places. It was becoming more and more difficult to control it and the bogs anomalies were becoming harder to contain.

            Fanella simply recognized Rene as the tall ebony man in her vision. She told them the yellow man, that had saved her from drowning, had disappeared quickly as soon as they entered the labyrinth, but the hook-legged man had seized her and they were caught in the most horrid nightmares. She was saved because his hook got stuck in a tiger slug pit. Rene swore he had nothing to do with it, although it was clear he had a soft spot for the young maid.

            A week after they got out of the labyrinth, the girl had come to Gwinnie in the Garden of El Refugio. The green woman was helping with the introduction of new species of plants to Abalone’s circle of life.
            “What is this plant ? “, asked Fanella.
            “It is an okra. I’ve found it in the memories of one of the recently disengaged person from Earth.”
            “The fruit has such an unusual shape.”
            The silence that followed lasted for a few minutes. Gwinnie was focused on establishing a fulfilling symbiotic relationship between the plant and the island ecosystem, transforming one to acclimate the other and vice versa.
            “How are your friends ?” asked the green woman.
            “My friends ? Oh! They are good. Enjoying the spa and the new attractions.”
            It was clear the young person had something in mind. Her loving glances to the sphinx during the last week had made it clear to everyone. The girl finally blurted it out.
            “You know, Rene,” Fanella blushed as she said the name, “with the recent arrivals of transitioners, he’s got a lot of work for just one sphinx.”
            “Oh! I’m sure he’s going to be just fine with that.”
            “Yes, but, you know he’s been alone for such a long time.”
            “Yes, Fanella?” Gwinnie stopped to look at the girl. She seemed frail, but she had this inner strength that helped her cross time and space before she ever came to Abalone.
            “I want you to make me a sphinx so that I can be with Rene.” She said that without blushing, but pink colored her cheeks at the mention of the name.
            If Gwinnie ever had a doubt of being in transition, it was dissipated. Her surprise almost broke the delicate connection of the okra with the island.
            Becoming a sphinx wasn’t a trivial request. They still had to discuss about it, of course, and when it was obvious it wasn’t just a passing fancy, Fanella was granted her wish.
            As a sphinx-wedding gift, George gave her his wings.
            “They are robust and will serve you well”, he told her.

            #3469

            Fanella was riding her new zebra friend in a big dry meadow. Something she had never seen before. There were other animals with them and it was delightful. The flight of the cranes transported her up to the clouds while the crocodiles would clap in unison in the marshes.
            The zebra had told her his name. Rene he was, and glad he’d met her before it was too late. He also said something that she didn’t quite understand. “Other friends are coming, you don’t have to worry.” Why worry when she was with Rene ? Other friends ? Lisa was coming back for her with Sanso ? “We’ll meet soon”, said Rene. Now she was having hallucinations. He was a tall man, half an ebony skin, half white and black zebra stripes. But he was already fading away.
            The return back to reality was harsh. She gagged and disgorged sea water on the beach. It felt as if she had been torn inside out.

            “There, there. Welcome back young Miss. You’re safe, now”, said a man. He was wearing a smile but she felt it was just a facade.
            “Are you okay ?” she asked. Even in the midst of drowning, her maternal instinct was stronger. Surprised showed up on the man’s face.
            “What do you mean ?”
            “You’re all yellow.”
            The man laughed. “I’m quite normal, young lady. Quite normal.” He put his jacket on her shoulders to help keep her warmth as social rules demanded. It was relatively dry, whereas he was drenched. He must have took it off before rescuing her from the sea.

            “We should have left her to the barracudas”, said another man. He wore a blue turban, casting a shadow on an already hard face. It was marked by a circular fresh scar around his nose, made by countless small sharp teeth. The flesh seemed to pulsate painfully. She shuddered when she saw his hook-leg, the hook half burried in the sand. She didn’t want to imagine what he could do with it.

            “Don’t pay attention to Berberus”, said the first man, “We have no business in hurting young beautiful ladies.”
            Something in his smile told her that it wasn’t always true. She forced herself a gracious face, as she had learned to do with the noble men back then in Versailles.
            “Thank you for rescuing me, Sir.” She pulled on the edges of the jacket as if she needed warmth. “My name is Fanetta”, she added, lowering her eyes.

            #3464

            As distance grew between the P’hope and the city, the damage to the beanstalk had seemed to diminish. Funny how insignificant it seems when you looked at it from a distance, he thought. Unfortunately storks weren’t strong enough to fly above the clouds, and he had to go through a heavy rain above the Sea of Beliefs. Even if it was over now, his already heavy P’hopal robe was soaked, yet his mount was flapping its wings bravely to fulfill its duty.

            Jube could see the temple ruins. Sandwiched between the coastline and the bog, it was surrounded by wall of mist. Inside, old stones and broken columns were scattered around a lake, a stepped pyramid in its center. It looked like the mist was dissipating following a trail near the south. The P’hope squinted and saw a bright orange spot where it would open. He took his magnifier made of calcite crystals and looked through it. He clenched his teeth. The King was there, two great wings on his back. Spoiled brat, why don’t you never do as you’re told, he thought. He looked at the others and almost fell off the stork when he saw the little green one.

            Despite the change of skin color, he’d recognized her. So, Gwinie was alive. There was no time to lose. He suppressed a strong desire to confront them straight away, it would be counterproductive when he still had time to weave his web. He put the magnifier back in his bag and steered his mount toward the ruins.

            There didn’t seem to be any entrance on the pyramid’s faces, the P’hope tried to make his mount land on one of the step, but the animal didn’t respond to his orders. Instead, it glided over the water toward the top of one of those big columns still standing, missed it, slumped down on a patch of grass, and decided to stay there. Ranting about birds and incompetence, the P’hope managed to extricate himself from the mess of feathers and legs. He sniffed with disgust. With the humidity, a strong smell of wet fowl had impregnated his robe. Feeling stuck and heavy, he considered getting undressed, he still had his silk gown underneath.

            “Happy bird day!” said a cheering voice behind him.
            The P’hope felt a sudden rush of panic, the voice sounded like his aunt Ursula. He looked around, guilt on his face as if caught a hand in his pants. He had forgotten it was his birthday, he had never liked birthdays. Who could possibly know ? It took a moment to his mind to make sense of what he was looking at. It looked like a pink zebra with a melting candle on its forehead, but the form seemed yet uncertain of itself. That was disturbing.

            “I’m Rene, I hope we can be friends,” said the pink zebra. The creature fidgeted as if it had drank too much from the moat. “We can begin the party now, or wait for you friends to arrive. I’m so excited !”
            Jube shuddered, the animal had a crazy spark in his eyes that made him feel uneasy. He looked at the stork which hadn’t moved since the crash landing. No h’ope from Heaven.

            #3444

            In an effort to shake off the troubling feelings that lingered long after she awoke, Mirabelle went to find Jack to tell him about her dream. She found him hunched over his computer, frowning.
            “Ah, Mirabelle, pull up a chair and let me tell you about the strange dream I had last night.”
            Intrigued, Mirabelle listened, saving her story until after he had finished relating his.
            “There are too many coincidences for this to not mean something ~ something important. The parallels are everywhere! Look!” he said pointing to the screen.
            “Crumbling cities, structures smashed to smithereens and clouds of dust, facades of houses blown off revealing ordinary objects and furnishings in hideous juxtapositions, and crazy angles. And look here” he said, “ nothing as far as the eye can see but rubble, but one wall left standing, almost intact, with the map still hanging on the wall.”
            Jack turned to Lisa with a tear in his eye, and with a shaking voice he said, “I dreamed of a city like this last night, with all the facades blown off the constructs, and all the people were faceless as if they were wearing masks, but no! not like masks, there were empty holes where the faces had been, like bottomless black holes that made me dizzy to look at them.”
            “But it was just a dream Jack” replied Mirabelle, wondering if she was reassuring Jack or herself. “It doesn’t mean anything, probably that cheese you had for supper.”
            Lisa was in the dream” Jack replied. “And Ivan, and Fanella.”
            Mirabelle shivered. “They’ve been gone a long time, do you think something’s happened to them?” she paused and then added, “I had a disturbing dream too. It was my parrot, HuHu. He was calling me, oh! he was calling and calling, but I couldn’t see him in the fog, as I tried to follow the sound of his squalking in the swirling mist, I’d hear him behind me ~ no matter which way I turned he was always behind me, as if I was always facing the wrong way.”
            “Well” said Jack, squaring his shoulders. “Faced with these two dreams, and with the delayed return of Lisa, Ivan and Fanella, I think we should face up to it and send a search party to the island. Now, enough of that long face, Mirabelle! Run along now and find Igor, and tell him to prepare for teleporting. He can go with you.”

            #3442

            The P’hope could be seen everywhere: leading the Builders to work double shifts to strengthen the collapsing structures of the flying City, exhorting the Magi to contain the failing beliefs of people back to virtuous resilience by ways of special masses held throughout Karmalott, and ensuring with the Sentries that all tremors of civil unrest was properly contained and the ring leaders properly admonished into good conduct.

            The situation at the secret political prison known as Gazalbion was alarming. With most of the dangerous interlopers free to roam Abalone, and no walls to contain new prisoners, it could take a while to rebuild its walls, and the P’hope didn’t have the luxury of time on his side. It meant that no civil and belief dissidents could be brought there at the moment, and any spark of disobedience could spread like wildfire.

            The P’hope dreaded what could happen if, despite all the efforts, the beanstalk was beyond repair. He knew his faltering belief in it could only hasten its fate, but even so, he wanted to be ready for the worst.
            Considering the limited amount of rescue storks which were available off the walls of the city, it was likely that the result would be of apocalyptic proportion. Nevertheless, he refused to consider evacuating for the moment, even knowing it would take days for those on foot to climb down the bean’s tendrils.
            Especially, as he was now in the perfect position to be the hero of the day.

            He had been robbed of his share of light many, many years ago.
            At the time, a young boy had arrived from the sea and from an outside world to Abalone. Jube, who was not yet the P’hope, was a striving leader of a group of survivors of the island. The bog’s dangerous and foggy emanations and its wild life were a threat of all instants, and he had soon realized there was strength in numbers. Many lost souls had gathered, but didn’t have the strength on their own to remain focused on a reality they wanted, a dream made reality.

            He, Jube the Brave, had such strength in himself. But even so, they were only less than a few dozens of men and women in the camp, and the reach of what they could create was only good enough to sustain them for short periods of time.

            But the boy named George had arrived from afar, and things had changed gradually. Jube had found out pretty quickly that the boy had the great potential to bring people together, and hold their beliefs like a mighty rope made of the thinnest of strands of hair. So he had offered to mentor him, while at the same time working his words into suggestions, and shaping the boy’s future to fit his own dreams.

            That’s how the beanstalk started. The first sprouts were so tiny and frail, but the more people came and believed in the leadership of the one who was to become their King, the more it grew, and lifted them above the clouds and the fog of their minds.
            Years had passed, Prince George became King Artie as another suggestion of the P’hope which had the side-effect to cloak Artie from his memories. The P’hope grew in power, always in the shadows however.

            For a while, people were happy. Truly happy. But progress was inevitable, consciousness had to move and grow, otherwise their dream of a City would have been another foggy and soul-numbing projection of their feeble minds.

            The first real threat happened when Abalone, in one of its inexplicable changes of time and space, drew to them a stranger. True to their principles, they had welcomed her, nursed her, and given her a place of choice in the Magi’s ranks despite her young age. But she could see clearly between the cracks and the varnish of order. Worse, she could see the P’hope’s intentions were not so pure.

            So it become soon apparent to Jube that the young Gwinie had to disappear, and her followers had to be contained. For the sake of the great Karmalott, and to shield everyone from the impending chaos, the same chaos they had came from victorious many years ago.

            He and his minions had struck in a very swift and coordinated movement. Gwinie was tragically lost in the bog during her rite of passage. A truce was arranged with her followers, and they were allowed a concession, with enough resources to survive. They ultimately built Gazalbion, which also became, in a mutual arrangement, a political prison for Karmalott, unknown to virtually everyone in the City. The Processor, one of Gwinie’s former followers, was glad to receive prisoners who would add to the strength and mass beliefs of his encampment. The P’hope in return, was glad to be rid of difficult problems.

            That was so long ago, but it rang like a warning from no further than yesterday.

            They had never found out what the old temple’s ruins were for, or by which civilization before them they were built. They were as old as the island itself, and seemed to be doomed, full of an ominous power he couldn’t and feared to harness. If anything else failed, he would go back there. Maybe that was his only solution.

            #3441

            Dark clouds had gathered in the sky, the temperature had dropped of several degrees, making the breeze feel colder. The group had been walking for hours in the bog toward the elusive temple. With the darkness of the clouds, its mirage had begun to fade away. Greenie had said they’d better stop when the image was gone because they could become lost.

            They had managed to make a wet campfire, and were trying to get warmth from the fleeting flames.
            “I had a strange dream last night”, said George to Arona who was sitting next to him.
            She smiled politely, not sure she wanted to hear about the winged man dreams. She considered standing up and being rude.
            “I was a teenager”, he continued, wrapping himself into his wings.
            Arona rolled her eyes inwardly, looking around for help. Mandrake was sleeping under her cape.
            “An island appeared one day on the coast, people thought it was an ancient magic island and feared to approach it. It was visible only for a couple of days. It was such a weird dream.”
            “Maybe you should write it down”, said Arona.
            “Oh! Probably not, if the P’hope gets hold of it, I have the feeling it’s not in my interest.” He grinned like a kid. “Anyway, I knew in the dream that the island was still there, it was still reachable. So one day I took my father’s boat. It was a small boat, not made to go too far from the coastline. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I went into the mist, completely trusting I would find this island that everybody feared. It was rising tide, and I had to fight the current pushing me to the shore. I think it’s a dream who brought me there, a dream of a girl calling me in a garden. George
            “Is that all?” asked Arona after a moment of silence from George.
            “Yes, it’s most certainly a silly dream, I’ve lived in Karmalott my entire life.”
            “You’ll have to work on your dream telling, pal”, said Mandrake, “the punchline is missing.”

            Nobody noticed how the flames of the fire were dancing into the green girl’s eyes.

            #3395

            A series of powerful meditation sessions with Greenie (Gwinie had told Irina she didn’t mind the moniker) had Irina more and more sure-footed in the strange reality of the island.

            There was always confusion when she tried to change her surrounding too forcefully. All the transitions seemed like traps to dull her senses back into old familiar patterns, such as securing the perimeter, and idle talks with Mr R. Simple things like changing her focus from one object to another was proving challenging, and she had to keep herself awake grounded in shifting sands, staying clear from the comfortable dreams.

            Thoughts of the light city in the clouds carried her, and she’d programmed Mr R to help her with reality checks. Mr R, unlike what she’d thought initially, was not completely immune to the effects of the changes of reality. She surmised it was because it was an evolved AI, and he probably incorporated evolved perception constructs into his programming. In a sense, he was programmed to chose between alternate realities to fulfil the expectations of those in his care. Without this choosing program at his core, or whatever speck of consciousness it was, he probably would have been immune as any piece of inanimate matter —but also probably less useful, as her reality would have been irrelevant to him.

            Irina had found out that she was actually lucky to have found Greenie, since during her long sleep, she had maintained a sort of ground reality based on the blueprints she was familiar with, which seemed quite close to what the City called “reality”.
            Meditations had revealed, by parts that Irina had interpolated, that Greenie was trained to be part of an order of people, who betrayed her and left her for dead. Her training had helped her survive, and even in Greenie’s quasi-autistic state, had helped Irina too.

            Irina decided (and hoped it was the first time she had) to go to the cloud city, and help Greenie return to her rightful place.
            It did cross her mind that it was maybe what Management had wanted her to do all along, and that her island could only be her gift if she claimed it.
            Feeling the thought leading her towards unwanted manifestations and slumber, she snapped out of it.

            “Mr R, prepare everything, we are leaving at dawn. To the beanstalk.”
            “Madam, everything is already prepared, as you asked hours ago.”
            “Very well Mr R. Then let’s make dawn happen and let’s paddle.”

            #3372
            EricEric
            Keymaster

              More on the mysterious island of Abalone and the city of Karmalott

              (initial background)

              We find out that the island named Abalone has some unaware people trapped in isolated pockets of their own dreamlike experiences (that usually loop onto themselves for people not trained in being conscious enough to actually remember their dreams). The Surge Team girl hunting giant mosquitoes is one such case.
              Hopefully, Irina seems to manage to get a more stable and peaceful experience, while somehow being tied to the bog-like area where she extracted the teen girl she calls Greenie (whom we find out later more about).

              The island was claimed by the Chinese across time, but they were never successful, as the nature of the island seems to have broken all their attempts. Nevertheless, Cheung Lok, who was hunting down Irina to retrieve her robot is sent on a doomed mission there, by being parachuted off a plane above its current believed location.

              We find out there is a large City built above the clouds, named Karmalott by the locals, possibly on top of a large beanstalk which can be perceived only by those knowing and believing in it (and possibly able to bypass some counter-charms placed by the magi and the protection of the Sentries (who can create creatures of nightmares for the purpose of protection from unwanted ill-believing souls).

              The main area of the Island is called by people from Karmalott, the Fog Abyss, or the Pit of Lost Souls. It seems certain rites of passage involve young people and would-be knights going to and back the Fog Abyss, usually protected by Magi for safety purpose (avoiding them to get trapped for all eternity if they are not able to break the fog of their own creations or get enlightened).
              It seems Greenie (or Gwinie, being her real name) was purposely left in the bog for yet undetermined purposes.

              In Karmalott, we find out the Order of the Magi, ruled by the P’hope who are in charge of resting and balancing the mass beliefs so that the City can thrive.
              The City is ruled by the King, who has military power over the Sentries, led by the General Parsifal. He is assisted by the Chamberlain Downson, a strange figure who seem to know many secrets, such as the Saint Amber Graastral Stone Cup, which is purported to hold many powers, and bring illumination to the virtuous.

              Other layers of the organization are to be explored, such as the place of the feminine in the society.
              The rule of the King appears to be just and fair, although the reality is maybe less spotless. The motto of Karmalott is “Only in unity can we thrive” (or in broken Latin, sed in unum proficio), and it reflects in the democratic principle of public petition, where anyone can ask for rules and manifestations to be bent or adjusted.
              In reality, it seems most people have become used to a way of life without any strife or war, and petitions are rare.

              It is not known at this point if there are other areas on the island where significant people have managed to gather consistently enough to be able to create a mass-believed reality with the same level of development as Karmalott, but it seems unlikely, as the state of the island is monitored by the Sentries, and they would detect significant changes and clearing of the Fog, while the P’hope would surely detect any conflicting beliefs that would clash with the ones entrusted to him.

              (to be continued…)

              #3368

              “I’m rubbish at meditation!” Irina said, opening her eyes after her tenth session in a row.

              But she stopped surprised. What was Greenie doing here, smiling at her, with her hands pressed against one another, and a sleeping parrot in her lap?

              Something had happened, something different… Prayer or meditation seemed to be the only solution she could come up with. What was happening? She was again in a loop of sorts, but so close to a breakthrough…

              She looked at Greenie’s eyes, and started to remember… The flight above the clouds, the city…

              Gwinie!” Irina’s eyes widened. “That’s your real name, isn’t it?”
              Bits of informations were passing by, like a dream about to slip out of reach, but she relaxed, and like gently untangling a ball of cotton wool, considered the delicate bits of feelings of the dreamlike meditation, yes, the flying, the clouds, the… beanstalk? Something else, more dangerous, shrouded… What had happened to the little girl?

              #3359

              Jube the Brave was mistifying the waterbees’ hives in the P’hopery’s garden. The p’hopolis harvest looked promising.

              Dressed in his usual black robe and wearing a silver zucchetto, the P’hope liked to think of himself as a simple man when he was alone. Although, simple he was not. His main function was to keep balance in the mass belief clouds around Karmalott, the city in the sky of Abalone. It had been decided long ago that in order to keep this balance, the P’hope should be male and female in equal measure. Since it was hard to find hermaphrodites in Abalone’s population, the P’hope had to be male during half of the year and female the other half.

              As a man, his motto was “Only imbeciles never change their mind”. Which he zealously applied to keep people in line with his purpose.

              #3358

              King Artie was walking in the gardens along with the Chamberlain, on his way for a cooling bath in the rainwater tanks carved below the castle.

              They stopped on the edge of the main courtyard, from which a large part of the land nearby could be seen. Plumes of steam where raising around the areas where the river’s water fell onto the land below. For the palace and the land were built high in the sky, believed to be latched upon an immense lump of earth, raised from the island by the roots of a giant beanstalk.

              King Artie had never ventured outside of the castle. “Tell me Downson, is it true what they say, about that giant beanstalk? I’d like to see it sometime.”
              The Chamberlain replied shaking his knuckle-less hand in the air. “Oh well, Majesty, a trip can be arranged, for certain. It would require some magi to guide us, but it can certainly be done. And of course, yes, it is true. Might not have been the case before, but you know, matter and reality sinks their roots deep into beliefs. Whatever the good people believes is, in fact,… actually true.”

              But King Artie’s mind was already quickly gone to another topic, not being too fond on dwelling on the metaphysical.
              “Any word from Parsifal? Seems to have a unusual high activity of lost souls in the fog down below…”
              “No, your Highness, no word yet from the Royal Sentries. Indeed, there has been unusual activity. Some people, I believe with a very active mind and quite an imagination. We had to ask our Priests to conduct a mass to repair a huge hole that appeared a few days ago.”
              “Good. You should ask them to have the good people pray for some rain too. That damn heat is unbearable.”
              “Of course, Sire. But you know, the good people’s beliefs are fickle, and apart from the farmers, a lot of the townsmen would prefer endless sun and no clouds. Hopefully our dear P’hope Jube the Brave will pray some sense into them.”
              “Indeed. Otherwise, a good fall down the Fog Abyss will sure clean up our mass beliefs of those heretics, I expect.”

              #3344

              Fanella took Sanso’s advice and sobbed heartily. It released vast misty clouds of yellow and green energy that she had been bottling up during the recent traumatic experiences with teleporting. The coloured mist filled the room and poured out of the open window, tinting the sea mist pea green and bile yellow. Fanella was still hiccuping and blowing her nose when Sanso arrived, displacing the yellow green mist with a gust of orange red, and a foul odour.
              “Excuse me for a moment dear” he gasped, doubled over clutching his abdomen. “One can only cloak a signal for so long before it goes into spasm.”
              Fanella forgot her crying bout at the sight of Sanso on the floor imitating a sagging cow, but was glad she had a tissue handy to cover her nose with when the room suddenly filled with noxious orange gas, expelled with a trumpeting sound equal to the horns of Gabriel.
              AHHHHH” he said, smiling broadly. “I think we should get out of here now.”
              “Yes, let’s!” replied Fanella, trying not to choke.
              “What a relief! I wasn’t feeling my usual self, trying to digest that signal. Now I feel back to my usual stalwart and trustworthy self.”
              “Thank Flove for that!” responded Fanella, also feeling very much better, and ready for the next adventure.

              #3259

              The early morning sea mist was evaporating as Fanella strolled around the village picking up dog shit. She reminded herself to fully appreciate the damp coolness, before the scorching summer sun enveloped them in a bone warming blanket, and then reminded herself to appreciate the bone warming effects of the full sun later. As she retraced her steps she noted how differently everything looked on a return journey, how piles of dog shit had escaped her notice while going one way, but were obvious on the way back. It reminded her of something she’d read recently in one of the books that Lisa insisted she read to improve her English ~ A Field Guide To Getting Lost . Hah! Had there been a cruel irony in that choice of book? Fanella had felt lost ever since she arrived in 2020. But according to the book, getting lost wasn’t a bad thing, not at all.

              To be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.

              Fanella sighed. All sounds very philosophical, but I’m still stuck in the wrong time zone.
              Another passage from the book popped into her head:

              We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the desire between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing.

              Fanella gazed up at the sky ~ the blue of longing was taking over, as the white wisps of clouds dispersed.

              The people thrown into other cultures go through something of the anguish of the butterfly, whose body must disintegrate and reform more than once in its life cycle…. how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly….No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.

              Charming, Fanella thought, just bloody charming. Rotting soup of change, that just about sums it up. No wonder I wake up every morning with my bones feeling like mush.

              #3062
              F LoveF Love
              Participant

                flower synch! but her mind was dulled with tiredness and she could not explain, although they questioned her relentlessly.

                “Just align with whatever path you are on… it is by far the easiest way” she whispered as she dropped off to sleep.

                She woke to find herself on a path. It was dark and only the ground directly beneath her feet was visible. It was hard to move forward under these conditions and she desperately wanted to see more. She fought with the darkness until, eventually, she realised the darkness was an illusion. With that realisation she took hold of the darkness and it fell away in her hands revealing a stage.

                The stage was bare, other than an old boot and a plain wooden chair. She sat on the chair and looked around.

                “This is a bit gloomy” she said. “I want flowers”. And deep crimson wild sweet peas appeared. “I want lots of flowers! And I want blue sky and sunshine and a few fluffy white clouds and a gentle sun shower for me to dance in and a rainbow to fill the sky with wonder.” And as she wished, the bare stage was transformed to a landscape filled with a vibrant profusion of colour and life.

                #2811

                In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens

                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  It was hot, although not as hot as usual for the month of August on the southern slopes of the Serrania de Ronda. It had rained, the black clouds and thunder a welcome respite from the searing dry heat of an Andalucian summer, plumping up the blackberries and washing the dust from the leaves of the fig trees. Blithe Gambol hadn’t seen her old friend Granny Mosca for months, although she wasn’t quite sure what had kept her from visiting for so long. Blithe loved Granny Mosca’s cottage tucked away in the saddle behind the fat hill and there had been times when she’d visited often, just to drink in the magical air and feast her eyes on the beauty of the surroundings. Dry golden weeds scratched her legs as she made her way along the dirt path, and she was mindful of the fat black snake she’d once seen basking on the stone walls as she reached into the brambles to pluck blackberries and take photographs.

                  Rounding a corner in the path she gasped at the incongrous and alarming sight of a bright yellow bulldozer just meters from Granny Mosca’s cottage. The bulldozer was flattening a large area of prickly pear cactuses. Unfortunately for the cactuses, it was fruiting time, and Blithe wondered if Granny Mosca had first picked the fruits and suspected that she had, those that she could reach. Nothing that could be eaten was left unpicked ~ Blithe remembered the many sacks of almonds that Granny had given her over the years, very few of which she had bothered to shell and eat.

                  The bulldozer was making an entranceway to the tiny derelict cottage that was situated next to Granny Mosca’s house. Granny had asked Blithe if she wanted to buy it, and she had wanted to buy it eventually, but the purchase of a derelict building hadn’t been a priority at the time. Now it looked as if she was too late, that someone else had bought it, perhaps to use as a holiday home. Horrified, Blithe called out for Granny, who was often in the goat shed or away across the hidden saddle valley cutting weeds to feed the poultry, but there was no sign of her. Two alien looking turkeys gobbled in response, and the black and white chained dog barked menacingly.

                  As Blithe retraced her steps along the dirt path it occured to her that whoever was planning to use the derelict cottage might be a very interesting person, someone she might be very pleased to make the acquaintance of in due course. After all, she had noticed that the holiday guests staying at the casitas on the other side of the fat hill were all sympathetic to the magical nature of the location, many of them arriving from a previous visit to a particularly interesting location in the Alpujarras ~ a convergence of ley lines. When questioned as to why they chose the fat hill casitas, they simply said they liked the countryside. Either they weren’t telling, or they were simply unaware objectively of the connection of the locations. Blithe could sense the connections though, both the locations, and that the people choosing to vacation at the fat hill were connected to it.

                  For one hundred and forty seven thousand years, Blithe had had an energy presence at the fat hill, although it was half a century of her current focus before she remembered it. She had felt protective of it, when she finally remembered it, as if she had a kind of responsibility to it. This place can look after itself quite well on its own, she reminded herself. The fat hill had watched while Franco’s Capitan looted the Roman relics, and watched as Blithe stumbled upon the remains of Roman and Iberian cities, and the fat hill had laughed when Blithe first tried to find the entrance to the interior and got stuck in thorn bushes. Later, the fat hill had smiled benignly when Granny Mosca led her to the entrance ~ without a thorn bush in sight. The cave entrance had been blocked with boulders then. Blithe had given some thought to an excavation, wondering how to achieve it without attracting the attention of the locals, but now she wondered if one day, when the time was right, she would find the entrance clear, as if by magic. Magic, after all, was by no means impossible.

                  {link: feast for the birds}

                  #2434

                  “These old ezines and blogs are fascinating” remarked Periwinkle, passing the one she had just been reading to Daffodil. “Thank goodness some folks had the foresight to print some of them!” :news:

                  “I know, imagine if they hadn’t. We’d have no artefacts for the collection. Well, we have all those flat discs, but no way to decipher them. Oh, did I tell you? Bignonia found something even older than the discs!” :search:

                  “NO!” exclaimed Periwinkle “Do tell!” :yahoo_surprise:

                  “Yes, even older! Funny looking contraption, with two reels and a ribbon. An information storage device, so they say, although they haven’t discovered how to decipher it.” :yahoo_nerd:

                  “I wonder why we’re still not simply accessing that information without, well, without messing around with the physical contraption, you know?” :yahoo_idk:

                  “Wouldn’t be any point in being here in the first place, if we weren’t going to mess around with physical things, silly” replied Daffodil. :yahoo_doh:

                  There was no answer to that, so Periwikle didn’t answer. She continued to thumb through the printed pages. :news:

                  Periwinkle and Daffodil sat together on the patio in the warm spring sunshine, sipping lemonade :fruit_lemon:
                  and leafing through the papers. Bright white clouds in cartoon shapes romped across the blue sky, :weather-few-clouds:
                  and the birds chattered in the trees, :magpie: :magpie:
                  occasionally landing on the printed pages and cocking their heads sideways to read for a moment, before flying off to tell their friends, which was usually followed by a raucous group cackling. :yahoo_heehee: :yahoo_heehee: :yahoo_heehee:

                  “Dear Goofenoff” read Daffodil, “This one looks interesting Peri, someone here is asking for advice on a problem.” :help:

                  “What’s a “problem”, Daffy?” asked Periwinkle. “For that matter, what does the word “advice” mean? Oh, never mind” she said as she noticed Daffodil rolling her eyes, “I’ll look it up in my pre shift dictionary of defunct words.” :notepad:

                  “She’s asking the Snoot too, about the same problem. Oh, I think I’ve heard of them! It’s coming back to me, the old Snoot’n‘Goof team, they were quite famous in the beginning of the century, I remember hearing about them before in a Shift History discussion.” :cluebox:

                  “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them, but then, I’ve never been into history like you, dear. So what is this “problem” all about, then?” :yahoo_daydreaming:

                  “I’ll read it out to you, it’s way too convoluted to put in a nutshell. Lordy, they sure did complicate matters back then, it’s almost unbeleivable, really, but anyway, here goes:

                  Dear Goofenoff,

                  I don’t know what to do! I am confused about which probable version of a blog freind, let’s call him MrZ, I have chosen to align with. The first probable version was ok, nothing to worry about, and then I drew into my awareness the probable versions of MrZ that some of my freinds had chosen to align with….”

                  “Blimey”, interrupted Periwinkle, who was starting to fidget. “Is it much longer?” :yahoo_not_listening:

                  “It’s alot longer, so be patient. Where was I? Oh yes: :yahoo_nerd:

                  “….and while that was very interesting indeed, and led to lots of usefully emotionally heated discussions, I started to align with their probable version, at times, although not consistently, which led to some confusion. So then I had a chat with someone who was more in alignment with my original probable version, although there were aspects of that probable version that were a little in alignment with the other folks probable version, notwithstanding. I suppose I was still in alignment with the other folks probable version when it came to my attention that there was another individual that might be aligning with a probable version, and my question is, in a nutshell, is it any of my business which probable version the new individual on the scene is aligning with?” :yahoo_thinking:

                  “Well, I can tell you the answer to that!” exclaimed Periwinkle. :yahoo_smug:

                  Daffodil rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear, WE know the answer, but the point is, SHE didn’t know the answer at the time, which is why she asked Goofenoff.” :yahoo_straight_face:

                  “If you ask me, she knew the answer all along” Periwinkle intuited. “What did Goofenoff say anyway?” :yahoo_eyelashes:

                  “He said:

                  Are you requiring a short or a long answer?” :yahoo_raised_eyebrow:

                  Daffodil turned the page to continue reading. She frowned, and flicked through a few pages.

                  “What a shame, some of these pages appear to be missing! Now we’ll never know what Goofenoff said.” :yahoo_skull:

                  Periwinkle laughed. “Well, never mind that anyway, have you seen the random story quote today? Rather synchronistic I’d say, listen to this bit: :paperclip:

                  Illi felt much better, and was sitting at the breakfast table, basking in the warm shafts of sunlight filtering in through the window, and listening to the birds singing in the lemon tree outside.”
                  :weather-clear: :magpie: :fruit_lemon: :weather-few-clouds:

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