Search Results for 'efforts'

“Do you think Al could be sabotaging our creative efforts? I saw him musing with Sam a moment ago about mummy icons in the random quote.”

While stroking his mustache fondly, Ed Steam had the clearest realization that although he’d done that quite a few times in the past mostly to his advantage, it was a lot of work to rewrite timelines and figure out the hows and whens of everyone in his team.
Maybe it was actually time for him to restore the original timeline while disappearing — by faking his own death to be certain nobody would thwart his carefully thought retirement plan. Then, he could also stop dyeing his mustache he figured… So many things to take care of, retirement would be so sweet.
Although the Egyptian timeturner gave him all the time in the world, he actually felt like he’d lost already a great deal too much of it, and started to enact his plan without further ado.

Procuring a body double was actually not so hard. The last surge had brought a few of them in Thrifteen’s Alley in their Moreguest Facility. A switch and a twist of the pocket portal and a zap and a blink of the miniaturizer was enough to get there and come back in seconds with a frozen pocket-size life-suspended body from the testing stock, with convincing enough miniaturized slim lips, safely put in a test tube in his waistcoat pocket.
A six-shot cudgel from his artefact war trove was all he needed to make sure the amateur assassin in red robes they’d hired would be taken care of easily.
Then, an enscombulator bedazzler ray spray would be enough to convince Mari Fe she’d managed to hit him, buying him time enough to then deminiaturize the thawed slim-lipped body double, to slip in his stead.
Last, but not least, he would then have a few seconds to discombobulize Mari Fe while disappearing with a backup transportable portal. The plan was perfect. The original timeline restored in pristine conditions.
Only for a few minor details of course. He’d almost forgotten to reprogram the mini-man in his pocket with enough memories for him to be a convincing Ed-himself sans la moustache of course. At least, for the short time he would survive (surge victims discovered still alive were placed in life suspension by the team, but this was mostly for medical analysis as they usually wouldn’t survive their conditions).
Oh, and the bloody mustache of course… A squeeze of foolicle solventilator would be enough to make it temporarily invisible.

Simple enough… Well, sandbagging Mari Fe would have probably conveyed similar results with minimal efforts, although the elegance of his plan, as well as the fact that he was loath to hit ladies did unmistakably weight in favour of it.

And with that, he would be back in time for dinner.
In fact, he already was.

“Oh, that’s just because I was making you side-dishes for your breakfast, sweetie”, a Vincentius arms full with fresh fruits of improbable sizes and colours said as he came out of the nearby grove. “Though, I beg to differ with Mandrake, a bottle of Nhum would go great with those, especially the grogonuts.”
“Then, we can go find Yicks’.”

Despite all his best efforts, Yickesy had not yet managed to escape the crutches of chatty Minky who was herding the disparaged group of tourists to weirder and weirder spots.

The leaves were dry. They’d started to change to a brownish hue at the tip, then rapidly withered. They’d hoped it wouldn’t affect the whole crop, and when the first tea bush went down, they quickly uprooted it, for fear it would spread to the whole hill.
But despite their best efforts, the tea bushes went down, one by one, as though engulfed by a deadly plague. He and she were worried for their next year income, as their tea field was their main source of revenue. The highlands had always been favourable to them, and it seemed such an unlikely and truly unfair event given that the beginning of the year had brought an unexpected bounty of huge tea leaves.
What had happened? He was quite the pragmatic about it: disease, pests, too much sun, over-watering, over-pruning… nothing extending outside the visible, the measurable. She was the mystical: core beliefs, did she worry too much about that sudden wealth and made it disappear, the evil eye, greed and covetousness, celestial punishment.

It never occurred to her she could reverse it as easily once she understood what it was all about.
Well, she almost started to get an inkling of that thinking about warts. How efficiently she got those growths when she was so troubled about them, and how they all disappeared when she forgot about them. How not to think about something that’s already in your head? In that case, distraction never worked; it was a rubber band that would be stretched then snapped back at the initial core issue.
Snap back at yourself.
>STOP< – She stopped. Time to read that telegram delivered to oneself.
Everything still, for a moment. Dashed.
She started to look around.
The air was still, hot and full of expectation.
Almost twinkling in potentials.
Like a providential blank page, in the middle of a heap of administrative papers full of uninteresting chatty figures.
The pages are put aside, only the blank page is here.
She can start to populate it with colours, sounds and life, anytime. Lavender maybe. Soon.
But not yet now.
She wants to breathe in the calmness, the comfort of the silence. Even the crickets seem to be far away.
She was alone, and impoverished…
She is alone, and empowered, … in power.

[link:leaves]

“Speaking of infinite details,” said Björn who was watching a circus program with a muscular looking man who balancing his contortionist partner who was attempting to balance plants on her face.

“What?” said Iris who was already dozing on the couch.

“Sorry dear, I was just talking to myself, have nice dreams”, he said, stroking gently her freckled face.

He continued in his head, slightly dozing off himself.

“One two, one two. Testing the acoustics… Sounds good.”

“Funny how these thoughts come in and out… It occurred to me something funny.”

“Can you add a plush toy in your dream?”
“Oh sure darling. What kind of?”
“A baby aardvark”

Björn wasn’t very comfortable yet, he started to toss and turn until he realized he was seated on Iris’ plush aardvark. He fondly placed the little soft thing in Iris’ arms and returned to his thoughts.

“There, it’s inserted…”
“Now, your reality can be viewed to some extent as the most complex, yet the most simple of assemblage. You may liken it if you will to a room with mirrors (*). Ancient Indian mystics have spoken of Indra’s net where droplets of waters are each reflecting all of the other ones; these are the same images.
It is not new information to you, the fact that you are seeing your reflection in your world, or that it is a sort of illusion reflecting you, but this is not the point we want to highlight here.

Consider that the room in which you are is reflected an infinite amount of times in every direction. In a sense, they are all the same. They are you. Now, we come to the interesting part. You may very well decide to explore the room next to you with its shining details, by going through one of these mirrors. Some individuals quite enjoy such explorations, they call it past or future or even probabilities, other dimensions etc. And by moving into the next room, it becomes their present.

You now realize that you have not really moved, since all rooms reflect only you. And you may want to continue in the direction you are exploring and go into more rooms. It’s alright. But some individuals realize that all rooms are equivalent, and that from where you stand, you can view the point you wish to explore in one part of the mirrors reflections. This is being present. You shift your attention, and expand your vision of the tiny part, rather than moving towards it with great efforts.

Now, when you are dreaming, the very nature of dreams is the same. It gives you a whole fractal hologram to ponder. You may get carried away by wanting to remember all the tiny details, because in doing so, what you are doing is simply opening rooms upon rooms upon rooms. And more details will be created for you! Or you can simply realize that the details are all contained within your feeling of being present, and standing in the middle of one of these rooms, and not one of them is more important than the next.

Connect to your feeling, and all the natural movements of your explorations will be automagically connected. And we bid you a nice fractal dream exploration.”

Gloria had volunteered to go fetch whatever thing she could find to feed the measly fire burning in a ice crevice. They were starting to get a bit hungry and the watermelbomb once exploded weren’t giving off much to feed on. She was starting to hallucinate delicious roasted penguins on a fire, with a slice of bread and whale lard, and a smoking cup of algae tisane…

“Golly, this is gettin’ sick! The little buggers are so cute…” she mused, fondly overlooking the flock of penguins on the shore, some diving and catching fish, others nursing, some gliding lazily on the glittering ice.

“Now look at this!” she said “SHA! SHA! Com’ere!”

“What the ‘eck!” Akita couldn’t believe its ears.
“Weeehoo! We’re goin’ome, and on a cruise mind ye!” Mavis was beaming.
“On a frigging iceberg! You can’t be serious!”
“Oh don’t be such a party pooper Akitooh, it’s perfect!” Sharon said
Not even trying to be reassuring, Mavis echoed “Yes! Remember BBC talkin’ about it years ago; just another mad project they said. But I loved that! Mad projects ye know… never thought I would see that in my lifetime. Guess the project has been funded after all. Drifting bagged icebergs to Africa through the Indian Ocean! Now that’s a plan!”
“And look! this one has got propellers, and a little platform,… and a satellite dish!” Sharon was inspecting the behemothic plastic-bagged iceberg on rockets which was bobbing up and down, still anchored to the nearby whale-watching base.
“Hope it’s not teleguided by aliens though…” Gloria said a bit wearily.

“Well, I suppose it’s our best option for now” Akita was trying to be appreciative of the ladies efforts. “And how do we hop on that thing?”

“Oh, that’s easy! Bring the ropes girls!”

Military hospital, Scott Base, October 2008

“It’s BLOODY freezing ‘ere!” a hirsute mop of hair was whining on a camp bed next to two others.

“Would you just shut the flove up, Glo! You’ve been whining for ‘ours now! It’s not bloddy believable…”
“Like Mavis says, Glo! We all got in that same bloddy boat ye know… It’s no bed of stinkin’ roses for us either!”

A long sigh came from Glo, again interrupting the silence.

“A bloddy pity, you have to admit; being a lady, with PMS for years… At least I could console meself I didn’t have to shave like a man for Pete’s sake! And now we’re over with bloddy PMS, we are as hairy as gorillas!”

“Don’t be silly Glo, they said they’d find a cure… innit Sha? T’is not what they said? Vessie promised us!”
“Yeah, just before that little trollop ran away with the others, leaving us in quarantine… Not even a consideration for our efforts to help her seduce the sexy guy …”
“Ungrateful yeah… When we could have stolen the guy’s heart easily…”
“Ahahaha, no blimin’ way! not with your new hairdo Sha dear… Ahahah, don’t mean to be rude!”
“Hey girls, any idea where’s Askitoy?…”
“ Akita ?”
“Put him in confinement I reckon… The poor bloke was delirious, saying he was a WWII soldier…”
“Good thing the bloddy honeycomb didn’t make us loose our sharp wits, eh!”

“The FBI believed that many New Left leaders had a weakness for spiritualist mumbo-jumbo, so a 1968 memo suggested mailing them anonymous cartoons such as the one pictured here (scroll down)

Subsequent mailings (from increasingly closer locations) could say “The Siberian Beetle is Black” or “The Siberian Beetle Can Talk.” Other proposed characters included “The Chinese Scorpion” and “The Egyptian Cobra”–anything with a sinister meaning open to mystical interpretation. According to FBI documents, the messages were intended to cause concern, mental anguish, suspicion, and distrust among their recipients.” –Brian Boling

“…..on another occasion, an agent noted the counterculture’s ‘‘yen for magic’‘ and proposed that the F.B.I. send carefully chosen targets a series of drawings with ‘‘mystical’‘ or ‘‘sinister’‘ overtones. His suggestions included a drawing of a beetle, which would be made all the more ‘‘sinister’‘ by its caption, ‘‘The Siberian Beetle Can Talk.’‘ In theory, the perplexed recipients’ efforts to interpret ‘‘the significance of the . . . message’‘ would paralyze them with ‘‘mental anguish.’‘ In fact, such missives proved more laughable than harmful.”

Beetle sync (with last nights Indian takeaway )……and a sync with my most recent comment about Elvira’s days as an investigator….

From Georges and Salome’s diary

I woke up from my mediation, having seen those whom Georges refers to as “Guardians”. They looked deeply troubled. Apparently, they possess some kind of power that each of them share to an extent, at least the Eldest of them (or Jokans). With that power, they can travel in time and space and undo what another of them could have planted at some point in the canvas of their material reality.

It thus appears of extreme importance that their decisions are reached with unanimity, as they have come to experience. My own presumptions tell me of a time not so far from this now where they were more numerous, but that the competition may have quickly decimated —exhausted, most certainly— those who did not align with the more powerfully expressed movement. Or perhaps they simply parted in different probable versions of this World, which is an eventuality equally as presumable.

In any case, they were distraught over one in their ranks apparently doubting the decision they had just taken. They all knew of the consequence of one of them disagreeing, and it could nullify their efforts. It was thus of great importance that they come to understand, as much for the group as for the individual the source of his anguish. It seems some big changes are being planned…

Ibn al’ Gruk was weary.
That lone grake he had seen flying over the desert settlement this morning had baffled him.
Usually, such creatures where not migrating at this season, and this one was lone too, which was all the more baffling.

The old gripshawk had seen many things in his life, but this was surely a presage of importance. In the myths of his people, the big colourful birds were once thriving in the desert oasis, where they were thought to have appeared in the Old Times. But having been extensively hunted down as food for the gripshawk tribes, they had moved away, and the balance had been broken.
It had prompted lots of the tribes to move apart, in search of food and exchanges, and few of them were now still living in the deserts as they did in the old ways. Many of them, for many generations now, had been creating cities on the coast, and the most flourishing one was Chafik’ An, where a traveling portal had been erected by the humans from Lan’Ork to facilitate exchanges and trades.

All of that, despite his old age (that his long mop of white angora hair under his chin could account for), Ibn al’ Gruk had only heard all of this through the lineage of his ancestors, but he had seen some of the conflicts that had been created, and he understood that change again was in the air.

He felt like he could weave a new tale to entertain the settlement tonight, and perhaps give them inkling as to the new changes to come.
For he felt changes were coming, and that they had been in motion already.

The night was clear, and lots of people had gathered around the big bonfire. They all loved these regular meetings where everyone would meet and share food, drinks and over all, gaiety.

He started to drum low deep sounds and cleared his throat.
A fit of cough got him by surprise, but it was just a hairball that he spat in the fire, which set ablaze immediately, providing some dramatic effect that hushed everyone down.

“In a mysterious land far far away,” started Ibn al’ Gruk, with a growling voice…

Egypt, 2657 B.C.

Lekshen had dreamt of Set that night. The god had appeared to him in one of his familiar forms, that of a long snouted animal .
Lekhsen was wondering why the god had requested such a task for him to do, but he was certainly in the perfect position to accomplish such a task.
Like Set, Lekhsen came from Upper Egypt, the arid land, and he had managed to get a high-ranking responsibility in fertile Lower Egypt as a scribe thanks to the unification efforts of Pharaoh.

But Pharaoh’s daughter had just died… right after her 10 year old brother, and Pharaoh’s himself felt He would not live much longer.
Which would mean that the closest male in the family would be likely to get on the throne of Egypt. And that would be bad news for people like him, as the brothers and brothers-in-law of Pharaoh did not appreciate much His policy.

In the dream, the strange creature had asked him to hide something with the mummy of Pharaoh’s daughter. It had told him people would forget about how Set was fighting for Ra, the Sun, each night that the bark was traveling on the dangerous underworld waters. They would forget, and would demonise him and his people, and he, Lekhsen would have to write the story, and bury it with the Princess. His status would allow him to do it unscathed.

“Would people ever remember they once were One?” had asked Lekshen to the god.
“Only you can tell” had the creature answered.

October 12 ^th

Lots of movements have been started, movements of expansion, and the joint efforts and ventures took off for new exciting potentials when the migration to the new “expanded sandbox” (as playfully expressed by Quintin) has been completed.
Interestingly, it has been relatively painless and quick in both the find of the perfect “method”, and the perfect “tools”. In noticing how the feelings where acting as a compass that was telling him whether he was in the right direction or not, and in trusting them, Quintin has incorporated that tool without previous knowledge of its potential use. He just knew it was right.
And so it is.

October 16 ^th

My dear friend Elias has expressed some time ago this, which may be interesting for the adventurers to read and see how it applies to them…

“I expressed to you at our last meeting that some focuses continue each other as ‘sequels’ of books. … They are continuations, so to speak. Although they are not accomplished linearly, you may view them as continuing chapters of the same story. In this, they would be considered parallel focuses. You may view within your new game many focuses in which you have held experiences quite different to each other. Then you may also view some focuses that are seemingly related. You are engaged with all of the same characters within a continuation of the same play.” [Elias, #142]