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  • #3483
    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

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

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

      • Gwinnie – learning and remembering how to communicate with others, she subtly lead them, via mediations and meditations to the secret location of the Temple. Although some split into their own projections, she manages to go through, accompanied by George, as she was infused with the Island’s energies due to her prolonged stay in the bog. She also grows and blossoms to a woman of her natural age, and later helps reconstruct Abalone with the help of George and Rene, whom she heals.
      • King Artie / George – He remembers his intent and forgotten memories which were repressed and manipulated by the P’hope through his travel following Arona into her adventure. He reacquaints himself with Gwinnie, and together they lead the reborn Island.
      • Irina and Mr R – Initially planning to bring Gwinnie back to Karmalott, her plan changes due to the wilting of the beanstalk. Instead, she and her travelling companions find themselves drawn to the temple by the promise of an escape off the Island, via teleportation stone boxes. Instead, she meets the sphinx / Rene who guides her through her memories. It helps heal her past, and provides her with a plausible disappearance that the Chinese corporation that she escaped from a long time ago with Mr R, would believe. Next, she goes with a more humanoid and self-aware Mr R to Mars in 2121.
      • Arona – She stumbles upon the company of Irina, and recognize Gwinnie as the one she is supposed to deliver secretly to Karmalott. However, the beanstalk’s debacle they experience during a guided meditation puts a stop to her plans, and gives her a new goal. Find the spirit turtle and the mysterious Cup that can promise her to astral.
        After a quest through the undercurrents with Mandrake, and still guided by the sabulmantium, she finally finds the Cup and prepares for her next adventures into the astral.
      • Jeremy / map dancer – He reappears naked from his escape in the midst of Irina’s team with Max his cat. They follow the team to the Temple. Little is known yet of his fate.
      • Cheung Lok (and the Chinese squad) – He escapes the destruction of Gazalbion’s walls where he was detained, and use an elephant to track Sanso, who is actually Lazuli who throws him off track. He ends up teaming up with Berberus, the assassin despatched by the P’hope to track down who he believes is the culprit for the beliefs destruction. Later, he rescues Fanella from an accident of duck hovercraft, and they all enter the Temple on the tracks of the others. Thanks to Rene, Mr R and Irina, he realizes he cannot be really free, and agrees to let go of his memories, his mission and start anew on the new Island. Other members of his squad are offered to be sent back with altered memories of his demise, or to stay back as a teenager on the Island.
      • Jube / The P’hope – After a last ditch effort to rescue the city, he orders its evacuation, through storks, cranes and descent through the beanstalk. He goes his own way, ready to confront the power lurking in the Temple that he avoided carefully and tried to contain many years ago. His fate is unclear but it is hinted that he was offered a similar choice as Cheung Lok, and has accepted to become an adolescent again, forgetting the bad choices he made.
      • Berberus – The assassin dispatches of the management of Gazalbion during his visit there looking for clues as to the disturbances. It only hastens the descent into chaos, while during a stand-off with Sanso, he is disarmed by a tiger slug. His fears get the better of him as he is confronted with them once more inside the temple.
      • Karmalott’s gents – It is believed most managed to escape the crumbling city into a refuge, where they started to rebuild anew, thanks to the leadership of George and Gwinnie.
      • Gazalbion’s gents – formerly dissidents of the P’hope’s order, and later home for refugees of all times and spaces, they also mostly escaped to safety and are in the process of enriching the beliefs blueprints of the Island under the guidance of George and Gwinnie.
      • Fanella (Fanetta) – Ejected brutally off a shapeshifting giant and careless duck Lazuli, she has visions of the sphinx, and seems to find herself deeply attracted to him. It is believed she hasn’t forgotten her friends in time 2020 at the village and visit them from time to time with her new pair of wings that George offered to her.
      • Lazuli, Lisa, Sanso – Little is know of what happened after they reached the tile factory and then the Bay of beliefs.
      • Jack (and the others at the 2020 village) – Little is known of what happened after Jack tried to teleport themselves with an amateur rescue team to the Island that Sanso had disclosed the location previously on a map. It is believed everyone who wanted was allowed to go back to the village or to any other place and time they did fancy.
      • Sha, Glo, Mavis – Believed still under a very long death transition, they project to the Island, where they bump into Fanella and her new duties as a sphinx. She leads them to a new incarnated life of their chosing.
      #3481
      Jib
      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.

        #3475

        Even two weeks after the escape, she still woke up in cold sweats, haunted by nightmares of being chased down narrow lanes, or driving a vehicle that would only go at a snail’s pace as soon as she tried to drive it.

        “Are you alright, dear?”

        The comforting presence of Robert helped sooth her. He brought her a tray with some lemon and cucumber water, knowing it would help with her sore throat. The artificial air of the Mars colony tended to do that.

        “Thank you Robert,… but you shouldn’t have. You’re not a robot any longer.”

        She still couldn’t believe what had happened. Maybe that was the gift of retirement the Management had in store for her all alone. Unexpected gifts, unexpected islands of solitude —even at the closest to Earth in months, Mars was still 122 million miles from her Russian homeland.

        It was still night outside. There, the days were slightly longer than Earth’s by half an hour or so, but she’d adapted to it rather quickly. It was still much better than the torpor on the island where she would loop on her days sometimes without even noticing it.

        “Anything I can do for you dear?” Robert looked appropriately sorry for her, not too much to seem condescending, not to little to seem not caring.

        “Put on some light music will you. The one from Beethoven that puts me in a meditative relaxation…”

        When the deep notes started in the background, she started to relax. Her throat felt fresh and her lungs appreciative of the oxygen produced by the greenhouse plants.
        Although she resisted slightly, inexorably she felt drawn to revisit the memories of the last day on Abalone.

        It always started with the labyrinth, and finding herself alone.

        :fleuron:

        “Mr R? Mr R?” she called. “Gweenie?”

        The labyrinth looked strangely like the laboratory white walls of the Chinese Robot Incorporated Mission Eternal where she used to work as an intern first, then as a head of research for cybernetics advancements. She was quite brilliant for her age, and the prospect of bringing a golden age to mankind was, at the time, quite appealing to her young exalted mind.

        She knew where to go. She had to relive again that day where she’d thrown away all of that for a life in hiding. The mysterious benevolent messages of the Management had started a few weeks prior, leading her to question the motives of her employer, and realizing she’d become quite attached to her creation. The prototype robot from Project R had shown never seen before reactions to stimuli, and a learning curve that was exponential. “R” was meant as Retirement: retirement of the last class of labor workers, of those delicate works that still required a human touch.
        The Management had led her to uncover that under the Corporation’s vision, the prototype would lead humanity to its doom, becoming irrelevant, a flaw in the perfect design of profit they were looking for. So she’d taken the robot, and made a run for it.
        She wouldn’t destroy it. And it seemed the Management had no intention of her to do so. With the Management’s invisible hand, she’d disguised Mr R as a common robot for elites, and led a life posing as an elite with a secret life of a for-hire spy, heist-mastermind, or ghost executioner of similarly exciting prospects.

        So there she was again. The walls stretching to infinity in an endless stream of rooms nested one into the other, the fear of being caught creeping closer and closer.

        “Stop that. Breathe.” she told herself. She was no longer that young innocent scientist. As soon as her fear dissipated, the rooms stream stopped, and everything was back to focus. She walked to the room she remembered clear as day. Mr R was there, still plugged to the mainframe, with a strange black doctor in a white surgical gown and blue mask she didn’t remember was there.

        “Interesting situation you have here.” he greeted her, snapping his gloves to extend his hand to her. “You can call me René, I’m Tahitian.”

        She could feel her lucidity fluctuating and ready to explode in a multiplicity of scenarios, but managed to maintain her focus. She refrained to punch the guy in the face too, and simply took his extended hand with caution.

        “Congratulation.” he said, beaming. “You passed the test.”

        All of a sudden, she was no longer in the same room. She was in the comfortable B&B of 2222. René was in a sofa, comfortably seated, and they were sharing a drink.

        “What have you done with Mr R?” was her first thought.

        “Oh, nothing to worry about, I borrowed it for a while, there is someone else that needed passing through my maze, and he kindly obliged to help. I will show you in a minute. We had a little conversation earlier on, while you were stranded in your past.”
        “How long was I out?” she asked.
        “Oh, time is inconsequential here, but in your terms, a day or two.”
        “Didn’t seem that long…” she mused. “Where have you done with the others?”
        “Don’t worry about them, they are on their own path. Only one should concern you now. A certain Chinese and very persistent man.”
        “Oh, fuck.” was all she said. “I should have guessed, you’re with the Corporation.”
        “Not at all my dear, you can relax. So as I said, we had a little conversation, and you can be proud of you. This robot has broken through, congratulations. You can be very proud of your work.”
        “What do you mean?”
        “He has developed a personality and a consciousness of its own. It’s still budding, but it’s very strong, and he’s quite concerned over your well-being I might add.” he said with a wink.

        Irina was perplexed at the thought, but although it made some sense at a level, her conscious brain was struggling with the implications.

        “Show me what you have to, and release us.” she said to René, getting up from the hypnotizing warmth of the sofa.

        “In a minute” he’d say, “just have a look at the screen, will you.”

        Then, she’d understood. The guy pursuing her, Cheung Lok was there, trapped in his own labyrinth, trying to catch the robot that always eluded him.

        “He would rather die than let the robot go.” she said to René “we could be here for a while”.
        “Not to worry ma chère, his timing has no impact on ours. All of this happens in the now.”
        “So how this plays out usually?”
        “It depends. In this case, all that matters is what happens when he gets the robot.”
        STOP THAT! You can’t let him take it!”
        “Calm down, the robot will be safe.”

        In the next scene, Cheung Lok was securing the robot, who was pleading with him. “Please! I don’t want to become a hairdresser, let go of me!”
        The appeal seemed to have struck a chord, and some memories of Cheung Lok flashed through the screen, and it looked like as if the robot’s struggle mirrored his own to be his own man, free from the expectations of demanding parents, society, Corporation… Their love had been nothing but control, and had put him in chains. He sobbed, wishing for a new life free of these responsibilities.

        :fleuron:

        Irina awoke from the dream again. The last memories were a bit blurry, but still fresh in her mind. René had granted Cheung Lok’s wish. He was sent back to the Island, losing some years in the process, becoming back again a young adult full of unfulfilled desires, and no memory of his previous mission. Before the process happened, he wished for those who were still alive of his platoon to be given the choice to be sent back home with only memories of the robot and himself being destroyed, or to join him on the island, with a fresh future and memories. Surprisingly, most of them chose the first option. Not everyone was ready for a brave choice of facing one’s own desires and power.

        As for her, René had been kind to offer Mr R a humanoid body before sending them through the teleportation boxes to the destination of their choices.
        Mr R had chosen Роберт (Robert) as a name for his new self (she’d been more than relieved he’d avoided René), and they’d agreed to let the boxes find the most beneficial location for them to go to. That’s how they landed in the middle of the central greenhouse of the main colony, in 2121.

        It was fifteen days ago, but still felt like yesterday.

        #3472

        Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of white knuckle hair raising maniac mandarin maneuvers with no respite, not for even a second, the Lazuli duck landed on the beach at the innermost coastline of the Bay and shapeshifted back into his usual human form. As soon as Lisa could straighten out her fingers, seized into a gripping feathers position, she punched Lazuli right in the middle of his joined up long black eyebrow. Then she howled in pain as her tense knuckles met the hard bone of his forehead.
        “You fucking asshole! You jackass show off useless twat!”
        Lazuli looked mildly surprised and asked, “That wasn’t fun?”
        “Flun!! Flinking flool, flu flipped Flanella floff, and flow flea flost fleur!” Lisa was distraught, and with the additional feelings of outrage (feelings are meant to be fleeting, but this one was sticking around) at Lazuli’s reaction, was having difficulty forming words. “I flope flu flan flive with florself, flu fuckflit!!”
        In exasperation Lisa howled, beating her fists upon Lazuli’s chest, then she collapsed to her knees, weeping.
        The intensity of emotion she was projecting attracted Mirabelle and Igor, who made a spontaneous maneuver mid teleport which landed them on the sand beside Lisa.
        Mirabelle retched violently upon landing, while Igor stumbled in haste to evacuate his bowels behind a mangrove tree, both of them giddy and sickened by the abrupt change in direction and the gut wrenching intensity of the situation.
        The unexpected arrivals arrested Lisa’s sobbing mid flow. “Fliraflelle!” she exclaimed, and then added in increasing agitation, “ Oh, for flucks flake! Fly fan’t I fleak flopperly!”
        “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up for five minutes until you’ve calmed down, Lisa” Sanso suggested calmly.
        Lisa took a deep breath and let it out with a full body shudder. “Oh Flanso…”

        “Shhhhh,” he replied gently, “Shhhhh.”

        #3468

        “Fucking hell, THAT is monsoon…” a drenched Cheung Lok said to his unlikely traveling companion.
        It was days they were travelling through the bogs, following an ancient trail of signposts that the hook-legged man seemed to know about.
        The both of them were soaked to the marrow, and every step in the bog became perilous, as with each inch of raising water, there was no telling which hole in the landscape hid a shallow puddle or a deep trench.

        Cheung Lok felt like being back in China, during the rainy season, with the strange and absurd impression that having evoked the notion in the first place was the only explanation for the sudden change of weather. At least that was what the other had explained him, only succeeding in amplifying the event he meant to dissipate.

        How not to focus on rain, when rain is all there is. I bet a hygrometer would tell it’s 100% humid now…

        As soon as the thought was entertained, sure enough there was a funny-shaped hygrometer hanging by a small tree of the mangrove, telling exactly that. 100%

        – “倒霉!” Cheung Lok swore loudly, then got even more enraged when he noticed the Chinese swear word for shit happens “out of luck” meant “mouldy” and was written with the ‘rain’ 雨 radical.

        “You know what you need, a good old tiger slug to suck on your feet, pal. That’s a way to snap out of it.”

        “Well, thanks, but I’ll pass”, snickered Cheung Lok, wondering what flood gates would open if he started to peek into his repressed but genuine desires.

        #3453

        The mirage was no longer a fleeting evasive picture.
        They could see the pyramid’s top quite clearly, drawing them to its spot. By the robot’s estimation, they should already have reached it two days ago.
        But it stood there, unmovable, and somehow still out of reach, an always moving horizon line.

        “May I suggest a drumming session?” Jeremy asked around the campfire.
        Arona raised her head silently but intrigued. The rude cat jumped on a flat stone and questioned him “What do you know about drumming, young boy?”
        “Well, obviously that place is protected from intrusion, and we have to find the key to its entrance. I found drumming can help align our intents and give us inner clarity. Maybe one of us will find clues.”

        It took them some time to discuss about technicalities, assemble a drum with a piece of Arona’s cape, and silence out their chatters, but after an unmeasurable and undetermined amount of time, they were all drawn into a pridanic journey to the rainbow world.

        When they came out of the trance, Jeremy looked at them, amazed and excited by what he had seen.

        First, they had travelled, guided by a herd of unicorns, to the heights of Karmalott, only to find it deserted, with faceless spirits leaving it.
        When they shared their accounts, it seemed they all had seen in some form, the old City descending, with the wilting beanstalk bearing its weight with increasing difficulty. A flight of storks guided many to a safe place, and they’d seen most people would be fine.

        It was then that they saw the P’hope mounted on a creature flying awkwardly like a bat, descending towards the pyramid. Greenie recognized him and with him painful feelings of betrayal came back. George as well remembered old secrets, and why he was the King, and how his departure had precipitated Karmalott’s fate.
        As for Irina, riding on a spirit zebra, she’d found that people from her past were after her and her dear Mr R, and had followed her on the island. Using the teleporting boxes of the temple could send her to a safe place. Maybe on one of Mars’ posts.
        Arona realized, there was little hope she could claim her bounty, as there was no longer a City to bring Greenie back to. But then, a spirit tortoise showed her the Cup she was promised was lying deep in the underground clear lakes under the temple.

        Jeremy was quick to point it out. “That’s it! The entrance is from below, we have to follow the underground currents.”

        #3449

        The Master Builder’s verdict was hard to swallow.

        “Your Holiness?”

        The P’hope knew his options were limited, but somehow he had hoped, in spite of the King’s disappearance, in spite of the odds, that somehow he could manage to keep the City afloat.
        But the beanstalk’s wilting was not something that could be stopped, and the aphids were just one manifestation of the rampant symptoms. Like all living things, there was an expiry date, a deep-rooted belief in death that trumped all the efforts.
        The only thing they could do was to prepare for a difficult landing, and salvage what could be salvaged of his beautiful City of Karmalott.

        “Your Holiness?”

        “I heard you the first time, Downson.” The P’hope carefully removed his silver zucchetto and put it aside.
        “We need to prepare for evacuation. Have the Sentries prepare all the storks and cranes they can find. Send a detachment of Magi to secure an encampment at a safe landing spot. Then give orders to evacuate all the people you can.”

        “What about you, Your Holiness?” Downson’s question was likely to be pure formality, but Jube answered nonetheless

        “I’ll go to an ancient place, the source of power of this island. I wished I could avoid it, but if there is a glimmer of hope, it is my holy duty to follow it.”

        “Shall we send people to escort you?”

        “No, I would prefer to go there alone. It is the kind of powerful places one would prefer to visit alone than badly accompanied.”

        “Then, good luck to you.”

        “As well, Downson.”

        #3433

        Cheung Lok felt himself fall suddenly with nothing to hold on to, when the elephant he was riding suddenly shrank to human size knocking him down to the ground, partly unconscious after the event.
        This Sanso, sure is 麻烦 [¹]. I must to start to believe harder in my luck was his thought before he lost consciousness.

        On the other side of Sanso, a strange man with a turban was struggling with a bizarre striped dog-sized sea cucumber with teeth. Meanwhile, his target, Sanso seemed to leave back to the encampment’s ruins with… his elephant turned… something else.

        That was all he could remember when he woke up a few minutes later and wondered what had happened and how Sanso could have slipped away again.
        Noticing how he was tracking a man that seemed to make a point at having no discernible pattern, the realization came in a flash of blinding certainty that Sanso knew probably nothing at all about Irina, and surely didn’t care at all about warning her. In other words, Cheung Lok was on his own, and the painful clarity was soothed in equal measure by the other realization that he could let go of this 王八蛋².

        Looking around, he noticed the guy with the turban still struggle with the appetizing stripped sea cucumber.
        “Hold steady pal, I’ll ezap that bugger.”
        The other who had turned almost purple took a series of short breaths when he was released from the monster. “Thanks mate, those things are my bane.”
        “No need to thank me, I’ll deep-fry it for us later. Care to join?”
        “Hell why not. Name’s Berberus by the way. And you shouldn’t trust elephants here. It is known.”
        “Thanks for the tip, pal. Cheung Lok.”
        “You’re going back after Sanso?”
        “No, it’s pointless, I just happened to find him on my way to a series of turbulences on the island and couldn’t pass the opportunity, but that one is more slippery than a wet snail during monsoon.”
        “What is monsoon?” Berberus asked perplexed by the yellow faced man with the strange accent.
        “Don’t you mind that. Shall we go?”

        ___

        [¹] 麻烦 máfan in Chinese, can be roughly translated as ‘irritating piece of hemp’, meaning being trouble or vexatious —or some may argue, in this case, unbelievably lucky and difficult to keep track of, in a continuous way or any other way.

        [²] 王八蛋 wángbā dàn : “The King’s eighth egg”, a colourful Chinese way of insulting people, meaning roughly “bastard”.

        #3426

        The Chamberlain was out of options. He couldn’t hide the truth any longer to the P’hope, and had requested an appointment with His P’holiness.

        “My dear Downson, what brings you?” the P’hope’s voice was unusually cheery. They both never seen eye to eye, and had an honest and enduring dislike of each other, however they always had put on a façade of politeness and silky manners.
        “My dear P’hope, I have a confession to make.”

        Suddenly, the P’hope’s hawk eye tensed and looked straight and deep into the Chamberlain’s eyes.
        “Is something troubling you Downson? Spit it out, it will leave you more time to repent.”
        “The King’s missing.”
        “What? Are you sure you didn’t just lose him in the tavern or some other place of holy debauchery?”
        “I wouldn’t have troubled you without being absolutely certain.”
        “This is indeed a grave matter. You know how the King is an important figure for the stability of this City. How long has he been missing?”
        “Three days already. I fear he may have gone out of the City. Before leaving he’d mentioned going to the beanstalk.”
        “Folly! How could you let that happen!” The P’hope raised from his chair and started to pace around restlessly.

        “With that and the beanstalk crumbling down, I cannot help but see some cause and effect, my dear Downson. Of course, it would be heretic to leave the good people in such turmoil without taking swift and firm action. It seems the Divine calls for a change of leadership, my dear Downson.”

        #3424
        F LoveF Love
        Participant

          “Sir Ed, be a darling, summarise the messages. I can’t read 257.”

          Linda’s ezapper responded immediately: “Messages received over 48 hours. Sadie is invisible and requests transfer to 2222.”

          Fuck! I knew that! A wave of something akin to panic swept over her. She took a deep breath.

          “Anything else I should know?”

          “Management applied a temporary memory block to enable you to complete USB mission without distraction. The block has now been removed and full memory returned. Management are not in favour of the girl returning to 2222 at this stage and strongly suggest that you maximise the learning potentials of the invisibility scenario and determine the method of cloaking being utilised in order to assess the feasibility of, and probabilities for, future successful outcomes of Management objectives.”

          Linda sighed. The laughter of a group of young children playing tag in the distance drifted over. For a moment she wished she could deposit the ezapper in the trash can along with the USB stick and just walk away. Far away.

          “Plain english, Sir Ed.”

          “You need to get your butt over to Sadie and find out how she did it.” Sir Ed’s tone was appropriately sympathetic.

          #3420

          Jube, the P’hope, was quite alarmed by the rate at which the beanstalk seemed to wilt.
          The beanstalk was a symbol of his power, as he was the first to believe about it, that the City of Karmalott could be lifted up of the island. At least, that was how the story grew after years of rewrite and belief honing.
          He would usually take such news with passion, and use it to his advantage, but this was different.
          Something or someone had started to shift and mess the balance of beliefs that he had carefully put in place during his many years in charge.

          If any indication, the mass belief organs’ melody was more frequently played out of tune, and he even noticed the strangest birds fly around and in his garden —birds that weren’t supposed to be created in the first place.

          One of the biselords greedier than the others, vying for more power would be a rational explanation. Usually that would happen, and be a good cause for public trial and execution by flying them through the beansdoor. For people’s protection of course.

          But this case seemed more profound, more serious.
          The last report from the team of magi was filled with such unusual unbelievable rubbish, that he wondered if the hairy scent of a revved olution was coming from down below. Now he had allowed the tool called snorkel into mass beliefs, he had a use for some skilled snorkelling spiessassins. He called for Berberus, his turbaned minion with a hook-leg —he’d lost it to a tiger slug, which then paid for it dearly. Berberus being a defrocked magi meant he had training enough to survive the conditions outside the city, and his skills as a master of arms (and legs) would be required.

          After Berberus was gone for his undercover mission, Jube wondered if someone had found out yet the lost ruins of the old temple —they were secured and buried deep under a very long time ago and memory of them erased. He shivered at the thought of them being rediscovered.

          #3419

          “There!”

          The base of the beanstalk was deeply rooted into the murky waters of the bog, and so big and entangled that it seemed like a wall to the little raft carrying Irina, Greenie and Mr R, which was also acting as a propeller engine. And the parrot Huhu seemed to have tagged along, although he would sometimes pop in and out of reality without notice.

          Thanks to Greenie’s input, they had been able to lift part of the fog, and it seemed the more they looked at the great plant, the more believable and real it became.

          “Madam, if I may, I would advise against climbing that plant; it seems deeply infested by some insects. Extrapolating the size of it by the size of its base, I computed we need probably a few days of climbing and we stand less than 0.9% chance making it to the top without it completely crumbling down.”
          “By Jove, don’t they have elevators invented yet?”

          Mr R was about to make some helpful comment when they heard the big splash.

          A big mouldy thing was struggling on the waters not far from them. After checking it wasn’t one of those dangerous tiger slugs they’d encountered earlier, Irina had Mr R manoeuvre the raft closer to the person in distress.

          “Stop fighting! You’re scratching me, my hair! My face!”

          After hauling the thing over the raft, it became obvious it was not some wild animal, although one part of it was. A mean wet black cat with its claws deep in the other’s hair. The other was a woman, of indiscernible age.

          “Mandrake, that’s enough! You get down there!” she said to the cat. Then turning to the others “Apologies, I forgot my manners. My name is Arona, thank you for rescuing us, the terrain was less… dry and mossy than I expected.”

          Before Irina had time to present herself and the others, a voice overhead and wings flapping sounds started to speak “You should have waited for me, sweet darling muppet Arona!”

          “I guess, that is a bit too late for a sassy code name now…” a wet Mandrake snickered vindictively.

          #3378

          Elephants are not used to jump out of planes with a parachute in our reality. So when Lisa noticed a growing shadow around them. She raised her head and it took some time for her to make sense of what she was looking at. The huge grey butt of an elephant approaching relatively fast, desperately eager to establish contact.

          It landed on Sanso who knocked by the shock fall into the bog. Now; there are certain chemicals in the bog that induce the hibernation process in a physical body. Sanso reacted to it quickly, blinked out of the island and found himself in a stasis between worlds.

          “Sorry”, seemed to say the elephant with the cry elephants usually do. Then, it disappeared.

          The three lone travelers looked at each other, feeling deeply lost.

          :fleuron:

          Jube the Brave was having fun, playing his mass belief organ like a jazz musician.

          #3370

          She was stroking the black cat who was complained loudly at the unwanted massage, when the messenger arrived at her door.

          “The King’s Chamberlain would like a word… in private” was all the footman had said.

          “Doesn’t look a slight bit suspicious to you?” the cat told her, shaking and licking the human scent off its fur.
          “Of course it does, don’t come if you don’t want to.” She replied smugly, wrapping her cloak around her despite the sizzling sun and the humidity.

          She followed the messenger, wondering what required such discretion.

          “A weighty matter indeed,” Downson said to her when she arrived at the rendezvous point under a vaulted passageway at a point where the sounds were cancelled out and voices could share deepest secrets in all discretion. “The P’hope has spies in many places… And at least I know of him, so he is not even the most dangerous one, I fear…”

          She was not of many words. Seeing that, the Chamberlain’s continued.
          “There are forces at play that conspire against the King’s rule.”
          She couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.
          “I know what you think, people should be self-governed, but you can see it another way, people’s leaders are also the expression of their beliefs. But never mind the philosophy… You are uniquely talented for a rescue mission.”
          “What do you mean?”
          “You know have powerful allies… tools,… and dragons too, if the tales are true…”
          She tittered softly. The tales were true, all of it except about the dragons being powerful allies for some rescue quest. Dragons were lazy dreamers, or at least the ones she used to know. She replied with magnanimity “Let’s assume I’m the person you need for this mission… What is my compensation for it… And don’t serve me platitudes about the travel being all that matters. That grumpy cat needs to eat.”
          The cat suddenly turned his eyes into the cutest kitty eyes he could do. It would have melted the heart of the most stone-hearted villain in an instant.
          Well played, Mandrake she winked at the cat telepathically.

          “Well, word has it that you are on a quest to astral, and maybe I could help with that.”
          “Continue…”
          “I could arrange an interview with the Fisher Count. As an entrusted Guardian of the Saint Amber Graastral Stone Cup, he could grant you a drink from it.”
          “Tell me more about whomever I’m supposed to rescue?”

          At the sound of footsteps, he stopped, and pushed her towards a column out of sight.

          “Oh, it’s only a cat” the soldier said, continuing his round unaware of the two.

          As soon as the other had left, Downson resumed his talk in hurried tone and quicker sentences.
          “I have good reasons to believe a young girl with great desire to prove herself was sent many years ago to the Fog Abyss as a rite of passage, but she was tricked and left for dead there. The magi who were supposed to protect her only said they had lost her. But something else happened. Last night, one of them came to me full of guilt. He was visited in a dream by an apparition of the young girl and her guardian angel. Something horrible had happened, but she told him she forgave him and that she was alive and well. You need to bring her back to us, and be discrete about it. Somebody wanted her dead and buried, and will stop at nothing to complete the task if they find out she’s alive.”

          Before the Chamberlain left, he turned back and told her:
          “Better be quick to leave, I shall have all that you require prepared for you. And a word of advise… you can trust no one, Arona.”

          #3369
          Jib
          Participant

            Terry used to arrive early. She was always the first at the bar. She found stability and reassurance in the simple acts of opening the door, turning on the lights, preparing and organizing the tables and the little snacks for the customers.

            That day, after she opened the door, imagining daylight pouring inside, cleansing the darkest corners with the Love of the Universe, she found an envelope on the counter near the cashier. It was sealed with red wax.

            On it was written : “Terry Amar Bubble, from the Management”.
            She felt her heart sank. Her mind went blank, certainly a way for her not to put words on the unthinkable.

            When Cedric arrived later, he found Amar still in a trance, holding an envelop. He’d always been taught not to wake someone who was sleepwalking, but he’d also always had difficulties to not break rules. So he simply did what came first to his mind.

            “Time to Wake up! Bitch!” He said, slapping Amar on the face with a queen’s grace. Cedric felt deeply satisfied with the sound of his slap. He’d been practicing on his own face in front of a mirror when he was younger.

            “I received a letter”, muttered Amar. He handed the envelop over to Consuela.
            “Hey! That’s for me too.” Her pronunciation of the last word hanging around in the air.
            She showed the words to Terry who felt confused because it was now written “Terry Amar Bubble & Consuela Cedric Winnie, from the Management”.
            “Let’s open it”, said Cedric, “I don’t want Maurana’s name on the envelope”. He tittered and broke the seal. It made a popping sound and released a golden powder.

            “Wow, did you see that, Terry ? It’s like fairy dust.”

            The message let them both confused. It simply said : “Your new intendant,Anna Purrna, arrives today. Be ready.”

            #3361

            Beside being a casino, the 888 pavilion had a particularity. It was one of those reverse buildings with a ground floor and all the other stories underground. Since the Great Reform of Feng Shui in 2088 by Feng Shui master Jeorge Huhu, who discovered that dead people weren’t actually living six feet under, it wasn’t considered bad Feng Shui any more to dig your home.

            Obviously, for practical reasons, such building could not go too deep in a volcanic island. A column of light in the center assured the lighting of the eight floors by an expensive network of optical crystals. The opacity of the end crystals could be adjusted using polarized filters to create a dark atmosphere similar to the old-time prohibition casinos, or simulate daylight as in the volcanic pool on the bottom floor, which was affectionately referred to as Hell by the 888 pavilion’s employees.

            #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.”

            #3341

            “Is that… a flying drone?” the woman asked, pointing at the buzzing monster that just flew past them
            “Nope, it’s a cicada. The ones around here are huge”
            “No way! That thing was carrying a cat!”
            “Yep. They tend to get hungry that time of year. The mating and all…”

            She gasped for air, unconsciously voicing her thoughts “How come those things became so enormous?”

            The guy replied calmly “There’s a theory… That gaping hole…
            “The one that appeared in the ground a few weeks ago, the size of a football field?”
            “Yeah, that one…”
            “I thought it was the reason why they called the Surge Team, although it’s a bit late, now. What about it? “
            “It’s not really the reason why we called you. The hole was benign, the region was inhabited for years. But it released cubic tons worth of oxygen in the atmosphere.”
            “So what?” she was puzzled.
            “Well, that theory states that insects size is proportional to the amount of oxygen in the air… Supposedly the reason why there were giant insects in the prehistoric ages…”
            WTF?”
            “Yep,… wait till you see the size of the mosquitoes”, he said handing her a shotgun.

            #3330

            With the aid of the holographic map, Irina, Mr R and little Greenie have been exploring the island.
            The next day they found a crashed plane from Aeroflot, not very far from their own landing spot. It was half burried in the mud and covered in green mossy vegetation. The doors were open as an irresistible invitation to enter.

            “A surprise, Mr R. I thought that this place was on your map. If I remember well, it didn’t show such an object.”
            “Forgive me, madam, indeed this plane wasn’t there when I triangulated the map I showed you.”
            “You mean it’s fresh ?” Irina’s voice seemed to suddenly carry some interest. “Maybe we can find some survivors”, she added, already doubting it considering all the moss on teh metallic shell.
            “I’m afraid we won’t, madam. I didn’t want to bother you with that little detail until I was sure. There are objects on this island that only appear after a certain date. Have you noticed it also happens with the vegetation and the insects ?”
            Irina pouted, “I prefer leaving that to your expertise.”
            “Of course, madam”, said the robot, affable. “The paradox is…”
            “Another paradox ? How interesting.”
            “…that it doesn’t seem to include us, or that little person.”
            “Any idea what the implications are ?” Irina began to wonder if there was any danger of being stuck permanently on this island.
            “I have several hypothesis”, he began, “The most probable is the lost room hypothesis. We arrived there through time space displacement and are not a natural part of this environment, hence we don’t change with its natural environment or inhabitants because we are not under it’s time sequence according to the Lehmon’s law.”

            Irina pouted. She looked at little greenie and thought of the implications about how their new friend arrived there. Whenre did she come from ? For her to be a bog mummy, she must have been there a long time. Or did she arrived already bogged ?
            Something caught her attention about the plane and distracted her of further thinking about the subject of their continuity risk in this place. The logo of the plane looked not so oldish.
            “Mr R. ? What do you think the date of the crash was ?”
            “The plane was lost in 2112.”

            Without further thought about safety, she entered the plane, followed first by little Greenie as she have been calling her new protegee, and by the robot who despite still talking about technicalities of accidental space time crossing theory, had turned on his speleo lights.

            Interestingly enough, Irina noted the clothes on the chairs or in the alleyways, here a pair of glasses, there a necklace, all layered as if the person wearing them had been puffed away.

            “Well, well, what have we here ? The light Mr R, please,” said Irina with as much excitement as a snail. He obliged her with his usual professionalism, revealing a teal blue scarf with pistachio green spirals. She took the cloth and stretched it to have a better look. It was one of those artistic kind of hippy abstract patterns connecting you to the cosmos.
            “I can’t think of anybody who would buy that thing, maybe she stole it from one of those duty free shops before they took off,” she said as petulantly as a pitfall trap.
            “Come here little Greenie, it’s time to make you pretty.”

            Irina did not have the chance to play with dolls when she was a kid, she didn’t know if she had some psychological lack or a bad doyle dating from that unremembered period of her life. She had compensated by toying with real people, playing with their emotions and deeper needs, or what they thought they needed. She became an expert at manipulating others, which gave her her first job in insurances, and then in the secret services. But then, she dealt with adults, showing emotions, or a certain level of brain activity. She wasn’t used to children stored in bogs.

            She tried to put the scarf on Greenie’s head, and to smile like she had seen people do in the movies. Although something unexpected happened. Greenie became suddenly distressed and agitated. Then, she punched Irina in the face and began to mumble incoherent things.
            That child is stronger than I thought. And at the same time, she noticed a name in that gibberish. Didnt she just shout : “I frigging love you, Sadie Merrie.”

            “Her brainwave is showing unusual activity”, stated Mr R. “And my sensors indicate the presence has returned, with some friends. They just appeared outside of the plane.”

            #3310

            “Did anybody see Fanella?” Lisa couldn’t help but regularly count her herds (so to speak), and although she wasn’t as authoritative with her friends as she was with her animals, she couldn’t help but notice those last few times that her count was one person short —enough to start worrying her. And everybody knew what worrying did to her.
            “Oh, she’s probably somewhere lost on one of her walks, I’ve asked her to get me some new plastic materials…” Adeline snapped absentmindedly. “And when did you get back from your vacation?”

            Lisa ignored the last part. “That’s the thing, she hasn’t showed up for a while now, and I’m starting to get worried…”

            Everyone suddenly looked at her funny at the mention of the W-word.

            “Maybe you’re right, let’s go look for her… Last time she was ranting about getting lost…”
            “Did you check her makeshift atelier near the cave on the beach?” Etienne happened to overhear the conversation and somehow always seemed to know about the whens and wheres of everybody.

            “I don’t know,… yes, you’re right, maybe we can start there…” Lisa said, breathing deeply “I get a feeling something is not quite right …”
            She turned to Mirabelle and Adeline “you two are coming with me, you know her better than I do, toot toot!”

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