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  • #3076
    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      Hernwick reemerged from the shadows. That happened once or twice every century, rarely more. He coughed out some dust and other unpleasant manners of things, then started some momentum.
      He would have to see what this area’s fashion had to offer first.

      #3046
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Oh vacancy! I thought you said vacation! Of course everyone’s on vacation, ever since the vacating spree at all the unministries and unfactories, yes, factories were factored right out of the equation when the 3D printers came out, and everyone went on vacation. Some of the folks from the unminsitries went on vacation to the new unfactory resorts, which were somewhat unsatisfactory really, and some of the folks went to the new unministry resorts which on the whole were more satisfactory, and generally speaking, in more prestigious locations, notwithstanding that the very idea of prestige was a quaint relic but historical re enactments were popular ~ not at first, but later, when the dust had settled after the initial shuffling around.

        #2993
        ÉricÉric
        Keymaster

          Liverworts had done wonder at the Vatican, actually.
          That, and maybe the out-of-the-body sit-ins of the Occupy The Vatican Library Out of Body team too. So much so that the old cranky current tenant decided to leave his chasuble and tiara and go for more exciting adventures such as sky-diving and bungee jumping.

          The Surge Team’s game was about to change to a whole new level they soon started to discover when their screens started to light up at the same moment the first news report came out with the scoop. Well, the second one actually, because the first reporter spoke only in Latin.

          “So much red can only mean one thing,” a dejected Pearl mused out aloud at her screen.
          “Chinese Bloody New Year?” a distracted Skye answered tentatively.
          “Yes… but no, I mean, it’s not surges any longer… another Wave is on the making… And I fear they’ll overdo the religious stuff with that one.” she added gloomily.

          “Oh, and by the way, anyone seen Aqua Luna recently? I’ve never seen my keyboard so bloody dusty in ages!”

          #2983
          Jib
          Participant

            Aqua Luna’s duster was stuck in Cornella’s keyboard. She was still struggling to free it without paying too much attention to the screen. The red symbols blinking on the maps would have confused her, she would not have understood their meaning or the significance of the buttons she inadvertently pushed in her struggle. She has grown in the countryside, at a time where there was no internet available. She barely used her Oopia telepooh her daughter offered her a few years ago. The truth was she didn’t know how to take the call, even after her son in-law, showed her. Richard, that was his name. “He got the face’s name” she thought imagining the rag was a hair in his nose.

            “I got it!” she exulted, pushing unknowingly the key combination to lock the session again. She returned the keyboard to its former position just as Cornella arrived.
            “Oh! Thank you Aqua, you’re such a sweetie.”
            The cleaning lady who didn’t really understood English put on her talk-to-my-hand smile. And left the room. She would clean the other desks later, she needed a break.

            Cornella’s voice stormed out.
            “What the heck! There has been a breach in the artifact chamber!”
            But Aqua Luna wasn’t paying attention, it was like French to her. She was rather wishing she could taking one of those red limo to go back to her place. The Chicks always used them to go everywhere, but Aqua had to take the public transportation system. That wasn’t fair.

            She sneaked into the garage, not aware of the camera system or the alarm system. Tony, one of the chauffeurs was there.

            #2982
            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              You’re waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can’t be sure…
              Josephinella, the train station cleaning lady, was on night duty. And she was tired of waiting for that damned train with that irritating French accent in her ears, her lungs filled with the engines’ fine coal dust and her nostrils irritated by the pigeons’ smell.
              But tonight was going to be her night, she would get drunk on fresh air, her hair whipping her face, bugs biting her eyes, while she would sing elated woohoos launched at full speed on the last commuter train left unattended by drunk Freddie. That was such a beautiful plan.

              :fleuron:

              Another Dreamliner scare… and a train crash coming your way!”
              “Sounds like a transportation surge to me!” Björk replied on the internal chatting system to her African Twa colleague Kiki Razwa. Björk was not her real name though —it was just a moniker given to her because she liked eccentric costumes. Her real name was Mæja Valbjörnsdóttir,… so ‘Björk’ was better for everyone in that international team, she’d tried to convince herself.
              “Doesn’t internal policy says two makes a clue, three makes a surge ?”
              “Oh, who cares… For me it smells dreamception transportation surge.”
              “Better that than this Mercury retrograde crap, at least that’s more fun to hunt.” Kiki’s reply came up on the screen.
              Björk had come to realize that she would probably have to cover for Mari Fe who was elsewhere but at her post. The last surge being in Europe, so she was in for a trip at the taxpayers’ expense… Not so bad actually, since nothing ever happened on her faraway island.

              #2968
              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                Madam Li contemplated the pill-like translucent object glowing bright red which could barely fit in the palm of her delicate hand.
                People usually said that you could try and hide your age as well as possible on your face, but that hands didn’t lie. Hers actually were still a young woman’s fine delicate and smooth work-of-art.
                The snow had stopped immediately, leaving the weather in the Pudding area as it used to be: a pale mist of polluted fog, thus returning Shanghai to its normal weather patterns. The rote was there in her hand, full of the last surge’s energy, a tempting promise of uncontrollable power, but she had seen far too much power struggle and horrors to be really tempted by it.

                Ed’s demise had taken her by surprise. Although she did look young, it was her heart who really betrayed her. She hated people leaving her, and she would have expected Ed to survive her own death. It was the first time she was considering ever so briefly the thought of retiring. Of course, she still would need to find a replacement at her post, but China was full of eager potentials, that wouldn’t take too long.
                Putting the rote in the diplomatic case, her gaze trailed on the invitation, still on the table. She wasn’t ashamed to admit her first thought went to the cleaning lady who had been careful to dust all around it, without moving it an inch off the glass table top.
                Spain just came as an afterthought, already having lost its appeal as soon as summoned.

                Wrapping herself in her white fur coat, she called for a taxi. She would be just in time for the ice festival in Harbin with a warm dog legs’ soup and some yak butter tea.

                #2886
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  If there was one thing he’d never liked about the Surge Team, Goat was reminded as soon as he crossed the threshold, that had to be the Management.
                  Actually, the Management after years of past grandeur had been heftily trimmed down to just one person, an ageless expressionless Sinese-Bulgarian lady with a hairstyle as plain and ubiquitous as a bowl of steamed rice, the epitome of the chtonian tutelary deity, eternal Guardian of all thresholds.
                  “Good day Antonia.” Goat greeted her, faking the slightest bit of enthusiasm needed to sound polite. Of course, she didn’t answer. Like the Universe, looming and all powerful, all she needed was a request, or better, a long string of numbers from an obscure postal or bookshelf reference.
                  Chopping official documents, the lonely sound of a stamp etching the worn-out surface of her desk was all that troubled the dusty office reeking of onion.
                  “There’s been a delivery for me…” He waited patiently, savouring torturing her with his half-finished sentence. He didn’t have to wait for long though. Maybe she was in a good mood.
                  “Tracking number?” she grumbled without looking at him, fumbling into old logs and piles of carton boxes that may have been there, unclaimed since the time of Baltazar the Great.
                  “There” he handed her a torn yellow stained bit of paper where the numbers were written down in a ornate penmanship. The Management was a place of few words… and even fewer actions he bitterly thought.
                  Working her magic, she handed him the package, wrapped in old Sinese papers that smelt of decaying fish. He barely thanked her, without looking into her eyes, for he knew what was there to be read certainly had no lack of unpleasantness for him.

                  #2863

                  In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    She was right. Maybe he needed a job as a janitor instead, and draw on walls, or write some sotteries pardon my Medieval French.
                    “I’m leaning towards valuing the imagination parts of me.” he’d answered, not quite convinced, as though it were told by someone else, or something he’d read earlier somewhere, on a wall probably.
                    The vole was still there when she’d left. She’d kept moving back to give it space to run off up the dry road, but no, the little thing even held its hand up when she tried to pick it up as if to say NO! thank you I’m fine.
                    He too was fine, surrounded by converging ripples of emotions, but oddly calm.
                    “Too neatly organized stuff gets dusty and boring” he’d said to her.
                    “I know,” she’d answered, ending their brief encounter with a limerick

                    The housekeeping lady of China,
                    Said she’d never seen anything finer,
                    than a wacom of dust,
                    that she sponged and brushed,
                    that housekeeping lady of China…

                    #2853

                    In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      “You know, I think they got a name for your condition” Franlise said while throwing another piece of rotten furniture and a dusty half-plucked stuffed pheasant from the window.
                      “Oh no!” Elizabeth was crestfallen “not my favourite plucked pheasant, let’s at least keep this! A perfectly functioning piece that one, Lewis Someteenth, French expensive furniture dammit!”
                      “You’re a bloody compulsive hoarder, that’s what you are!” Franlise said authoritatively. “Now, move along, let me do my job.”
                      “Your job? And what are you now?”
                      “A professional organiser, of course.”

                      #1295

                      In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                      ÉricÉric
                      Keymaster

                        “Guess it was about bloody time I got back here” Franlise said, her feather duster firmly clutched in her left hand.
                        The matronly black woman started dusting vigourously, sending myriads of half-written papers flying in the air.
                        “My draaafts!” Elizabeth shriek was lost in the gusts of winds.

                        “Bugger, bugger, bugger” the impromptu cleaning lady started to enunciate in a most perfect Queen’s English. “Nothing like some good buggery bugger to start the day and clear the lungs. And many a little makes a damn buggery mickle, isn’t that right darling?”. She said, striking a pilates pose in between the cleaning.

                        Elizabeth stood aghast, not knowing what to say but a meek “Didn’t I fire you?” to which Franlise knew better than to answer with nought but a smile.
                        Drawing a sharp letter opener from behind her back, she nimbly leaned toward Elizabeth, with all her white teeth glowing in the dark apartment where even the aspidistras had long gone dried up and wrinkled, their pots now no more than mere ashtrays.

                        “Well, now, what shall we do about all that spider cobwebs you’ve got yourself wrapped in…”

                        #2845

                        In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                        White Panther
                        Participant

                          Petronella had attended many “Occupy Movement” gatherings- she was one of the first to shuffle eagerly to Wall Street when the Yankee Americans were finally awakened from their stupendous slumber, and when the Spanish were shouting “Viva la Revolucion!” she was silently there, capturing every movement with her Canon IX-25 14.0 Megapixel camcorder and reporting to the rest of the world the rumblings of the impending revolution. This occupation was different, felt different, and conducted in a different manner.

                          She dusted the dirt off the book, looked around to see if nobody spotted her picking the book up, and retreated back into her tent. She brew a fresh pot of coffee, bundled herself in her tiny, yet thick and warm blanket and set the book before her. It was an odd-looking book, none like the books she’d encountered- and she encountered many books! Its cover was plain, covered in a velvet cloth with the title written plainly and boldly on the cover: CANARIA. The name rang a distant bell, but she shook the afterthought and proceeded to open the book. As she opened the first page, another beam of bright energetic light- this time it was blue- swept past her like a hurried flock of bees. This was the fourth beam of light she’d witnessed in the past twelve hours, and she was beginning to think she was going crazy. What made the whole matter even more crazier was that these beams of light seemed to be WHISPERING AND GIGGLING, almost as though they were forlorn inhabitants of the vatican. She ignored the beam of light- yet again- and resumed with her book. Just then, a blip sounded from her tiny Lenovo notebook: Kerry had sent her an instant message on Facebook chat. Slightly chagrined, she leered over and grabbed her notebook, settling the book next to her. Kerry was offline, but she had left a link to a website. Petronella clicked onto the link, and an article popped up on the screen. She skimmed by, having little interest in Kerry’s New Age nonsense. She was just about to close the webpage when a sentence caught her attention: “When you practise remote viewing, you will be accorded a beam of light with its owwn colour that’ll identify with you.”
                          The mentioned beams of light the sentence mentioned were the same she’d been witnessing, so she silently read on.

                          #2840

                          In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                          White Panther
                          Participant

                            Falling…
                            Falling…
                            Falling…
                            Like an overdue meteorite that suddenly usurps the earth’s unaware atmosphere, Jennifer and her greatly interested boyfriend suddenly found themselves on the filthy ground, after the tree in which they were concealing their frivolous touches of childish passion gave in to the ground on account of an astonishing hole manifested the earth.

                            “Canaria,” Jennifer whispered as she dusted herself, resurrecting her fallen self from the earth. Jon had informed her that it was due to rise any moment after the great meeting of the Tw’Elves, but she wasn’t expecting it to occur so suddenly. Jon was the physical host of a channeled entity that synchronized itself with the initial dimension and the alterversity. She had first encountered this entity while wandering around in a dream, looking desperately for lucidity. It was like a vision: there was a blinding flash of purple light, and then when it fizzled, a gentle, yet booming voice manifested itself in the atmosphere and enlightened her of the shift in physical and metaphysical consciousness that was going to occur in the form of risen continents (five in total)- a shift in consciousness that would even out the blurring lines between illusion and reality.
                            The young, nameless one stood up, uttered an awkward cough and muttered: “What?” but Jennifer was already walking in the opposite direction, towards a large, circle rock she termed “Sepritrella”, meaning “place of silence” in the language of the Tw’Elves. “Jenni-” the young man called out hopelessly, thinking that somehow his voice would bring her back to him. Little did he know…

                            “I must call an emergency OOB meeting at the library,” she whispered as she placed herself upon the rock of Sepritrella and begun her meditative state. She fell into a relaxed trance, and suddenly her token colour of blue beamed itself loudly, zooming towards the Vatican Library to meet the others.

                            #2839

                            In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                            White Panther
                            Participant

                              “Yet another splendid piece of synchronicity!” The Leprechaun praised himself, while eyeing the delicious-looking chocolate cake with three layers of vanilla cream that simply willed itself into different flavours before his delighted, excited taste buds. Just as he was about to take his first bite into the scrumptious cake, a multi-coloured portal opened before his very eyes. Unsurprisingly, the host of elves, each in a different physical manifestation, jumped out of the portal and dusted the stardust off their garments.

                              “Mr Leprechaun,” one elf began. He took the form of a Spanish gentleman by the name of Raul Iniesta. “Raul” (as he will be called for the time being until he shifts shape) had long, black hair that he had no intention of bounding, instead allowing its blackness to flow freely upon his neck and over his shoulders like a nightly waterfall of moonlight and starry gazes. He had an almond-shaped face, and his skin was gently golden-brown, as if his physical birth took place on a beach at sunset. His eyes were sea-blue, glimmering gently in the luminescence of his own aura. He spoke in a gentle voice that was mightily influenced by a touch of spanish mixed with french accents.
                              “I see you have taken the form of a Leprechaun-” Raul stepped closer to observe the essence’s current physical. “How quaint.”
                              The Leprechaun dryly stared at Raul. “I don’t see anything wrong with my physical form Mr INIESTA,” he replied, placing emphatic strain on ‘Iniesta’. “Would it have made any difference if I were a flower?”
                              “If you were a flower you’d fit perfectly with my body of hair!” Raul exclaimed. The Tw’Elves laughed heartily at the joke, and an iridescent beam of energy simultaneously rose from their esoteric beings, giving forth a ray of happiness, albeit for a short while, towards the inhabitants of the sleeping dimension.

                              #2724

                              In reply to: Strings of Nines

                              ÉricÉric
                              Keymaster

                                Mandrake sighed. That trip on dragon’s back was a fast and bumpy ride. They’d landed right in the middle of the group of tourists in no time at all, and surprisingly Arona, still high on Nhum spiked tea had failed to notice much of what had just happened, let alone that her progeny was in the midst of them.
                                Even more surprisingly, the tourists had failed to notice their colourful, noisy and dusty landing, not to say the purple dragon itself that Vincentius had to refrain eating one of the big two-humped beasts. That dragon cloaking magic, was a hell of a powerful jinx.

                                “Strange,” Arona said in her mild stuporous state “am I missing some events there? and… is it me, or that travel guide is a cross-dresser?”

                                And casting a suspicious look at Vincentius, almost blushing “and how did I enter into that hot pink bikini?”

                                #2818

                                In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens

                                F LoveF Love
                                Participant

                                  Alfred, the clockwork Murganian, suddenly remembered he had an overdue library book.

                                  He picked up the dusty book from the oven, took off his coat, rolled to the door and pulled a key from his shoe to let himself out. It was such a very long time since he had been out and he was most surprised to find that the seeds he had planted in the sky some time ago had grown to such an extent that his pathway was no longer accessible.

                                  What to do? wondered Alfred. He wondered for a few minutes then realised that wondering was getting him nowhere and action was called for.

                                  “Help” he shouted.

                                  {link – key}

                                  #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}

                                    #2455

                                    “Are you saying that all we need is a giant blinking teabag?” inquired Lilac politely.

                                    “Yeah, I think if you get the guage right on the net, it should work like a dream.”

                                    “And what do we do with a giant teabag full of volcano dust?”

                                    “Lava dust tea? Are you kidding? Sells like hotcakes in some dimensions. The bridge tarts are always smuggling it through portals.”

                                    #2445

                                    Lilac frowned. “But I am too hungry to stop the blubbits.”

                                    “Lilac, this is an unprecedented situation, we must stop the pea dust,’” said Naturtium, rather sternly.

                                    “Well I am confused, are we stopping the blubbits, or the pea dust?”

                                    Naturtium, a rather charming nickname bestowed on her when she was young – her christened name was Nasturtium, looked thoughtful for a moment. “Right” she said at last, “You go and eat. I am going to study the situation carefully. It is imperative we get this right and save the Peaslanders. I suspect they are going to need their heads back …..”

                                    #2407

                                    Peanelope smiled serenely as she gazed at the heads of her loved ones.

                                    “Oh Pixel,” she said, “Is that dust on your eyelid?”

                                    Chuckling to herself she ran her dusting cloth over his face, relishing the control she now had over her dear ones. One of her greatest pleasures was rearranging them on the mantelpiece. Sometimes, if her mood was poor, or she had one of her many men friends visiting, she would make them face the wall. At dinner time she would place them around the table, each head propped up on a large pile of Pee’s precious encyclopeadias.

                                    “More blubbit stew, Pee?” she asked.

                                    #2759
                                    F LoveF Love
                                    Participant

                                      (same random quote as above link #87)

                                      Actually, thinking of Dory made Quintin remember:

                                      “They are really bit rude around here”.

                                      :fleuron2:

                                      Dory stretched and yawned, and took in in a cloud of dust.

                                      Dory wondered out loud if she should have an older man with curly grey hair and a long maroon djelaba and a tall narrow brimless black hat and watch him get laid.

                                      I am so easy really, she thought giving it a last fond stroke. She finally surfaced from the flapping tangle of cloth just in time to see a group of people squatting next to a large oblong hole in the ground.

                                      PFFFFFT! Deserted again.

                                      Dory was getting bored waiting for this motley crew, looking slightly bemused, but smiling happily, she set off in search of Dory.

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