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fred (and his) dear aunt (who wore a ) scarf (looked into the) distance (for) clues (for a) holiday (mere) seconds (before they) sat (on) rene (who was lying on the) floor (which) mysterious led (them to) Stuck Island (which was far) away properties (on a ) busy mystery pink (ocean) (more remote than) expected

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

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

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

Trudging along being Sanso and the others on the way to the coast, Lisa’s feet began to blister. “Lazuli, how much further is it? What I don’t understand is why aren’t we teleporting there? I mean, why are we walking when we could just teleport?”
“Yeah!” agreed Fanella, limping from the dog bite on her foot. She had accidentally trodden on the little mongrel while traipsing around the ruins of the tile factory. “Why aren’t we teleporting?”
“That’s a good question!” answered Sanso. “And there is a very good answer! If we teleported everywhere, we would never encounter strangers on the journey, nor would be find any unexpected clues.”
“Not only that,” added Lazuli, “We will soon be coming to some watery lowlands with plenty of bamboo growing, and we need some sturdy canes to make a raft to sail across the bay.”
“I thought we’d just hire a boat!” said Lisa with some surprise. “We have to make our own raft? I’m starting to wish I’d stayed home.”
“You can teleport back home whenever you want to, Lisa” said Sanso. “But then, your island game would be over. Are you finished playing yet?”
Lisa thought about it. Eventually she replied: “ No. But I’ve had enough of all this walking. Why don’t you and Lazuli shapeshift into something useful that Fanella and I can ride?” and continued to mutter something under her breath about chivalry and the good old days.
There was a slight disturbance like a whirlwind of dust, and then Fanella clapped her hands in delight. “What a lovely pair of asses!”

“Follow the elephant before it disappears again” suggested Ivan to Lisa and Fanella who were visibly distraught at Sanso’s unexpected disappearance into the depths of the marshy field beneath their feet.
“That elephant must be connected to some sort of human civilization, elephants don’t parachute on their own,” Ivan deduced, grateful that he had watched so many nature documentaries at the village, and that he could appear knowledgeable to the frightened women.
“Shouldn’t we look for Sanso?” asked Fanella. “Does that strange letter provide any clues? Has he been pushed through a perforation into the honeycomb? Something to do with the underground faded pale people?”
“If we find some of the local inhabitants, we can ask them for help. If we start wandering around here in this mist we will surely get lost, or even struck by another falling elephant.”
“Are we assuming the natives are friendly?” asked Lisa nervously.
“Yes, at this point, we are” replied Ivan. “Until we find proof indicating otherwise. And we must assume that Sanso can look after himself, and that he will join us later.”
“The elephant did look friendly” added Fanella. “Look, he keeps looking back to see if we’re following him. Come on!”

Igor Popinkin had been reading the old book all morning while anxiously waiting for Mirabelle to return from the search for Fanella. Maybe he could find some clues about where Fanella had gone. If he managed to find the missing girl, Mirabelle would be impressed, and perhaps think him a hero, instead of a feckless whoremongering cretin.

The curly beard of one of the men caught Lisa’s attention, and she tuned in to what he was saying, her focus fully on the windscreen reflection now, the car and it’s concurrent timeframe having faded from view. “It’s an honour to be killed by a bull , Intu ,” he said to the woman walking beside him. “Your grandfather’s death is heroic, you will appreciate that in time.”
“Perhaps in time, Balthazar,” she replied, “But I wish he was still here.”
Balthazar patted her shoulder, and Lisa noticed his ring ~ two dolphins leaping. With a flash she understood that Intu’s grandfather had refocused as a dolphin, many centuries later in the silk like sea off the shores of Faro.
“You can write a story about him on a stone tablet when we get to Almodovar. And I promise I won’t give you a hard time about continuity.”
Intu smiled weakly. She did enjoy writing random stories on stone tablets, often wondering if the people of the future would be able to make sense of them and put the pieces together. She had left tablets of stories here and there as she traveled, sign posts to elsewhere and elsewhen, imprinted with the energy of adventure and mystery, laden with clues for imaginative voyagers to unravel in any way their fancies led them.

Sandy Costa had been making a note of all the sightings throughout the year, as well as noting a variety of other apparently unrelated incidents and clues, and he kept them all in imaginary basket. (breaking news: draft saved at 11: 11 again). The Case of the Missing Surge Team and Possible Connection to the Flurge was known for short as the Basket Case.
Sandy was an unemployed channeler, although if you asked him to define himself in one sentence, that’s not what he would have said. He might not have known what to say, but he wouldn’t have said that. Not long after people had started growing their own food, producing their own energy, and writing their own books and magazines, everyone had started channeling their own mumbo jumbo, and Sandy was no longer in demand.
The Basket Case had been keeping him occupied and entertained, and the clues were starting to pour in like rain into an old boot.
Lisbon were expecting the arrival of some potentially interesting characters in the near future, from as far afield as Bangpie, and Caketown. There had been several cases of parallelitisis in Mari Fe’s village, a condition often associated with basket cases. There were whisperings through the sweet pea vines that there was something stirring in New Tartland, too.

Pearl sighed. “I can’t find the location. Even the dog leg method didn’t give me any clues. I’m going to forget this for awhile and have an hour on Flackbook.”

Mari Fe breathed a sigh of relief, and tried to erase Moscow from her mind. But before she had time to refocus, Pearl shouted “Aha! Katarina inserted the address on my newsfeed. Here is it, Mari Fe, look!”

It said:

“19 January at 15:00 in UTC+03

Каждую субботу начиная с 08.12.2012 на Лубянской площади / Every Saturday Moscow, Russia, Bolshaya Lubyanka 2, 107031”

Mari Fe groaned.

“There’s more!” Pearl said, “Baku / Azerbaijan “ ‎12.01.2013 Армия во время митинга в Баку”. She looked at her watch, and frowned.

“Mari Fe, prepare for teleport right away. We have less than 6 minutes to get to Azerbaijan. Toot! Toot!”

“But I only have one pair of thermal socks and one Norwegian wool sweater!”

“Oh cheer up, Baku is among the world’s top ten destinations for urban nightlife, so I’ve heard. And Baku hosted the 57th EuroVision Debt Contest in 2012, too. We’re going to Fountain Square you’ll love it.”

Mari Fe set a strong intention to arrive in summer.

All welcome to do so, we’ll be watching closely :>

Says the word cloud:

perhaps dolores wondering harvey giant dream herself creature welcome eye books full heads stoll sense blue dragon often needed notes messmeerah

Take this as your first clues if you ever need some

“Minky!” called Winky, “Hey Minky, yesterdays attraction was tops, loved it! Great tour!”

“Ah” replied Minky, after a long pause. “What was it that appealed to you the most?” he asked, fishing for clues. He had no recollection of organizing any excursions.

“The Pop In, in that old Charlie Chaplin movie, very clever, I wasn’t expecting that!”

“Aha! Yes!” Thinking quickly, Minky added “I had a feeling you’d like that one”.

Whether or not Arachne was actually better at weaving than Athena is still a mystery, or perhaps it is a moot point and no mystery at all. Weaving is by no means a solitary endeavour, as Blithe found early one summer morning. The river mist was rising and the air itself was dancing in droplets. It was hard to determine if the droplets were falling or rising, or simply milling around on the air currents. Hard green oranges (clearly oranges had been named in winter, or they would likely have been called greens) were festooned with silver threads, linking orange to orange, orange to tree and tree to wire fence, and back again. It was debatable whether or not the individual spiders were aware of the grand overall design of the early morning web links of the orange groves, just as it was equally debatable whether or not the inhabitants of the various Gibber realities were aware of the network of waterpipes that connected the other inhabitants to themselves and each other, and to the other Gibber worlds. Individuals were individuals, whether they be spiders, or Gibblets, and individuals generally speaking were focused on their own part of the tapestry (and often those of their immediate neighbours). Spider 57 on the east fence might be positioned to catch the first rays of sunshine in the mornings, but Spider 486,971 over near the dung heap was in a better position to catch the afternoon flies. And so on, as somebody famous once said.

As Blithe prowled around the orchard capturing potential clues on her Clumera she inevitably became part of the laybrinthine web of sticky threads herself, as they attached themselves to her hair and clothing. All of the gaps between the solids in the field were joined together with spun filaments, just as the Gibblets were joined together with fun spillaments (although leaking waterpipes were sadly misinterpreted as not-fun all too often, despite that they could be used as an opportunity to view the connections of the Waterpunk more comprehensively.)

The individual spiders lacy parlours were framed in wire squares, several hundred, if not more, along the perimeter fences. Not every wire fence square was filled; there were many vacant lots between established residences ~ whether by practical design or mere happenstance, Blithe couldn’t say. Many of the individual webs were whole and perfect, like the windows of Lower Gibber whose inhabitants kept their lace curtains clean and neatly hung. Many of the webs on the wire fence were not perfect in the symetrical sense ~ some had gaping holes, and there were those that appeared to be unfinished, despite showing great potential. Others appeared to be abandoned, hanging in shreds, not unlike many of the residences in Upper Gibber.

The wire framed residences of the field (and likewise the peeling paint framed residences of Upper Gibber) that appeared to be defunct were not quite as they seemed, however. They were simply being viewed from a different timeframe. It was quite possible to view each wire or peeled paint framed en-trance side by side, notwithstanding that they were, so to speak, located in varying timeframes. All that was required was a more flexible viewpoint, and an ability to view more than one timeframe simultaneously. It was all a question of allowing an entrance to en-trance ~ which was, after all, its function.

{link: misty morning; entrance}

They were thick as theives, freinds for thousands of centuries, or even more; sometimes thick, sometimes theives, and anything else you might imagine. They got together again and again in this time and that, here, there and elsewhere, just for the fun of it. There was nothing they liked more than a puzzling occurance, or a riddle, or a basket full of clues to ponder over, unravel, and turn around and around, toying with meanings until they found one they liked. They had a home in The City, sort of a home base so to speak, where they met regularly each night in the dream state, regardless of which time or place they spent their waking hours. It was sometimes a releif to meet up at home in The City and always a pleasure: sometimes it was hard to stay under the radar back down on the ground, it was part of the job to stand out in the crowd, which often resulted in a lynching, or a ducking, or the stocks, at the very least. All too often it ended up on top of a bonfire, tied to a stake.

One day in one of the Decembers, in amongst all the sweet dreams they often shared, they started having some unsettling group dreams, where they all felt like they were betwixt and between, falling through the cracks you might say. It was a feeling similar to dying of thirst, although it wasn’t really a physical thirst, it was more than that, a hungry yearning sort of thing. Some of them had strange nightmares, of a monstrous beast, and some of them actually saw beasts in the daytime too, especially on those falling through the cracks days. When they met up at home in The City, they compared notes about the beasts, and not always, but sometimes they found they were mirroring each others beasts. That often ended up in a heated debate, because the more mirroring that occurred, the more real the beast seemed. Some said that the beasts that appeared when you fell through the cracks were in a deep ravine, in a manner of speaking, and not of this plane at all. Others argued that if the beasts appeared through the cracks, then they were on this plane.

And so it went on, and on. There were many more puzzling occurances to come, and lots of meanings to be considered, rejected, or taken on board for the friends, as thick as thieves, to turn around and around, and hold up to the mirror for closer inspection and dissection. They were making a tapestry, a huge rich colourful tapestry, and all the puzzling occurences, and even the beasts, were depicted in the colourful threads and patterns. They were the warp, you might say, of the weave. Love was the weft.

“Congratulations, Liz” Godfrey remarked drily. “Are you supposed to use three months worth of creative writing challenges in one entry?”

“Don’t be silly, Godfrey, of course not. Rules are meant to be broken, that’s what they’re for.”