Search Results for 'eight'

Jean-Pierre Duroy, the Grand Intendant of the Palace of Versailles woke up every morning an hour before dawn, when everything was still calm, the last fêteurs of the guest nobility were, at last, fast asleep and the stars’ lights were beginning to fade on the dark sky. The Palace was never sleeping really, but this was as close a moment of peace as he could get.
His wife Annie, the Head of the Royal Pastries Chefs, would usually sleep contentedly an hour more, waiting for the chantecler’s sonorous hail to the rising sun.

When he realized he had overslept for the first time in many years of services, he knew there was something not quite right about this particular day.
As usual, and especially during winter, there was much to be done. Preparing the routine menus for the noble tables, getting his army of little people bustling around to stock the fires with wood for the cold-fearing ladies, clean up, wash clothes, drapes and the darn mirrors. Receive the fresh foods from the local markets, clean up the latrines, which tended to get clogged with the dreaded cold… When that was done, he had to make sure the servants were doing their job properly, not abusing the generosity of His Majesty, taking good care of the Gardens, which was an horror when the snow started to melt, ensuring the guards reported to their duties, etc. etc.
And after all that, no matter what, do a meticulous accounting in the Royal Ledger.
Jean-Pierre was but a cog in that enormous machine, but a cog which could make a vital difference between a day gone right, and a day gone awfully wrong.

He had to turn that day around quickly lest it would be the latter, he thought while putting his white starched breaches. A last look at his wife who was starting to move her weight around and yawn, and he was out.

“You’ve fattened.” She had not yet set foot on land that Vera’s first comment to Lulla set the tone.
Lulla threw the rest of the skewer in the bin, and managed a genial laughter. She was not one to take umbrage, much less to hold grudges. And although technically Vera was not right (she had managed to lose a stone since Fat Tuesday), she was still weighing a whooping 23 stone. Far from her 57 kg ideal weight. She laughed to herself at the thought that she was weighing more than two of her ideal self. That had to account for something.
Relocating from the coast of Guyana where she was born to São Paulo had not been easy on her silhouette, as she liked to blame the greasy fast-food here. But at some point she had ceased to care, although such snarky remarks sometimes still managed to push her buttons.

“Yes, I know, look at those leggings, the stripes have that effect on me.” she simpered with a wink that she was sure would annoy Vera no end. “So what are we doing here small Pohnpei, micro-Micronesia of all places anyway?” She asked, pushing her pocket-size folding Eggsway ahead of the curb, while Vera was strolling at her side, in long strides of her fine endless legs.
“To do some cleaning, what else?”

Lulla stopped her Eggsway to look with bewilderment at the stoical Vera.
“Madam Vera Pappaloosa,” she said slowly, with a hint of concern in her voice. “I hope it’s not one of those messy jobs again that require to dress in funny smelly hot pink outfits that make us look like hot pink plastic bag ladies, and swim in it until you’ve lost two pants sizes by sweating them off?”
“Oh, stop it Lulla. You guessed right, I suppose. But don’t worry, you can keep your hat on.”

Lulla was ready to turn her heels, or rather her Eggsway’s wheels around, when she was surprised by Vera’s crystalline laughter. She was all the more surprised that she didn’t even know Vera was capable of laughter, being so expert at concealing her emotions.
“I was just pulling your leg, we’re on a mission to find the next Pope.”

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.

While in the other Eightic Dimension, Lilac —catching a new weebit of inspiration— suddenly went off for a good old clue-hunt and some air-fishing of these whoohoo sparkling flying goldfishes (her morning cup of herbal coffree smelt like concrete today) — meanwhile, in the Peasland Dimension, the aliens had indeed departed. Not without leaving behind a sweet smell of peer compote that nobody knew for sure whether or not it should be considered slightly ominous.
As it should, the Saucerers who had been consulted on that matter had nothing better to do but further enhance the confusion. They all started to dread the arrival of a new species… Strawberries aliens.

After having had a wheel ride in the garden, Grandpa Wrick came back a little less in-tense.

“Mmm, I suppose this game isn’t as much fun as I expected. I want to give it another try, adding a little something more.” he said to the kids when their cartoon had finished. India Louise, Cuthbert, and their friends Flynn and of course Lisbelle (who had been quiet in the background, playing with her pet rabbit Ginger) started listening with a mild interest —the whimsical Lord Wrick having proved countless times he had no qualms at making a fool of himself, and thus at entertaining children.

“What I want to achieve, by playing this game of snowflakes,” he said after a pause “is paying more attention at your stream of consciousness.”

“You see, I’ve been reading the classical Circle of Eights countless times in my young age, and dear old Yurara didn’t have much interest in creating links between her narratives. This is what I want to do with this game: pay attention to the links.

In this game of snowflakes, the stories (flakes) matter less than the links you build between them, and thus the pattern that is created.
We have the choice to continue and detail the previous story, in which case, the link is obvious, or we may want to start another one. But we need to know what, from the previous entry, prompted you to create that special new story you are about to write or tell.

Just like in a dream, when you explore a scene, some object will jump at your attention, and propel you to another dream story. Just like that, I want to spend more time exploring the transitions between each scenes and story blurbs that we tell. The links don’t necessarily have to be an object, of course not.
It can be an idea, a theme, a music, virtually anything, provided that it can make some sense as to why it is used as a transition…”

Seeing the children waiting for more, he pursued: “a good introduction to this game would be for you to try to follow your train of thoughts during the day. Try to do mentally that small exercise before you go to sleep, and remember the transitions of your whole day, and you’ll see how complex it can become, how often you pass and zap from one thing to another.

Take even one event that lasts a few minutes like eating a honey sandwich at breakfast, can make you think of dozens of things like the texture of the bread, the fields of wheat, or the butter, the glass jar filled with honey and the bees that made it, the swarm of bees can carry you even further into another time, or towards a bear or into a movie maybe.

I want that you pause to take time to break this down, so that your audience can follow the transition from one story to another, and that it makes perfect sense for them.”

continuity dimension met answer
lavender yikesy clear meant
far strange light help speak magic
notwithstanding suddenly less
under eight full cave

Peackle dragged his father by the sleeve and showed him the delirious aunt speaking in tongues.

See, dad, I think she got that special direct line with the Eight’s Dimension now…
Oh, I see… a broken Pee said

Their victory over Mother Blubbit seemed utterly and bitterly Pyrrhic at the moment, considering all the nonsense (damned be the Eighth Dimension) their trip has brought to otherwisely very non-nonsensical Peasland. Would they ever get back to normal again?

He preferred to believe she’d just again overindulged on Peaskol, the famoul (famously foul) alcohol brewed from overripe peas known though all Peasland to clean old clogged pipes. That and smoking tea leaves of course…

Suprised by the unexpected visit, Mother Blubbit released a smothering plume of gases and ashes that started to fill in the tunnels of the Furcano.

The effects were not unnoticed, as miles around, Peaslanders stopped in their daily activities (most of them being either sending blubbits ad madres or regulating the size of the peas) to stand in awe of the reactivated Furcano’s tip.
If they had any such flying machines as they had in the Eighth dimension, they surely would have interrupted their activities too for a while… This was an event of grand importance, and maybe consequences.
Mother Blubbit had been challenged.

“I think they’re lost beyond hope” Muckus went back reporting to the evil Majorburgmester
“Oh good!”
“Probably more hopelessly lost than being in the Eighth if you ask me, last time I checked on them, there was a woman running for her head to the Furnace of the Furcano, and all the others following her…”
“Sounds hairy.” the Major couldn’t help but add with a smirk on his face (framed and hanged to the wall) and a twitch in his left nostril.

“Finally the answer we need! Let’s release the damn bird and get back home now! Besides its cage needs cleaning and it’s starting to smell, and I can’t stand this place any longer…” Doily couldn’t be stopped.

Foolishly getting by that that Doily had understood most and perhaps all of the Cloud’s mysterious riddle, and that she even had managed to remember it, by a chance even slimmer than that of crossing the Eight’s Portal alive, Pee agreed with a nod of his neck.

Once the birds’ released (with a good manly slapping as the feathery creature was a bit reluctant and groggy from being rocked in its cage), they were instantaneously and quite unsurprisingly back again near the Saucerer’s house, all safe in their beloved Peasland, ravaged by blubbits holes.

Doily said matter-of-factly to her little troop of headless travellers “Fancy a cup of tea?”

As none of them really cared to answer to the obvious fact that they didn’t have any teapot or sugar not to mention milk, lemon, and of course tea (other than a few random leaves that could have been used as an ersatz) she pursued her inspired tirade “Did you know that the Reunited Landers invented tea-bags by the way?”

Silence again.

“I just suddenly remembered, and it’s the funniest thing believe me… Those bloody Yorkies were sent some tea samples in silk pouches and they thought it the next best thing since the invention of boiled water and asked for more!…”
“Perhaps we should catch the blubbits in silk pouches…” she added after a moment.
“Frankly, anyone wanting to get home?” she then said with a bit of alarm in her voice “This Eighth Dimension doesn’t really got the promises of fun they sold us.”

“I was starting to think the same,” Pee answered raucously, startling everyone off their self induced Kuzhedoor trance state.

Messmeerah (Winky) Maymhe, High Priestess of the Pendulous and Loose Otherworldly Threading, was going for a bath into the Pool of Rejuvenation. Her ineffable beauty had started to show the early signs of time tampering —signs she’d learnt to notice as soon as they’d appear. Luckily, the moons were in perfect alignment for the rituals of Spring Beautusk*.

News were good, very good indeed —which would certainly help in maintaining her perfect brow and forehead in pristine smoothness.
News were so good that she’d sent her minion Minky fetch the boy just right after her white crow Saggin had came back with news of finding him… after all those years (not that years did matter to her anyway, she prided herself on that).

It’d been close to an eternity, and she weighted her words… (in actuality it was a few teens and futile years at most) that she’d been trying to recover the boy, but the dwarfs had played her, and had managed to hide him from her sight.
She had not thought he could be concealed by anyone powerful enough, and it was surely not by the magic of that headless Malvina and her pesky dragons. In fact, the boy had been concealed even after Malvina and her menagerie had left the boy and his caretaker. She was thinking the caretaker in question had a concealment charm far more powerful she thought could exist.

But Minky would surely take care of that.

—

• It should be said that one of the effects of the rituals of Spring Beautusk were a slight stiffness of the overall face (and other dipped body parts), which earnt Messmeerah the cute and albeit ironic sobriquet of Winky, as she hardly managed to blink and was often victim of bouts of winking when she tried too hard.

The Peasland Majorburgmester rubbed his hands with an evil glee.

Fwick was knee deep in kneading for what appeared to be a lunatic idea bound to failure, and more importantly, it’s been weeks that no one had heard back from the expedition to the Eighth Dimension… And frankly, anyone having spent more than a few days in the Eighth Dimension usually was never to be heard of again —or heard speak anything intelligible for that matter, which didn’t make much difference either.
In fact, there had been some reports of sightings of the poor souls’ dog, what was its name already, Gandfleur or something equally ridiculous. But a single dog was hardly a problem, and now he couldn’t see how Peasland would be able to avoid the unavoidable blubbits dominion over Peaslanders.
He’d made that surer than sure; he’d gone again no later than yesterday, concealed under a waterproof floak (a floating cloak for inundated part of the lands), deep into the heart of Peasland’s plains now ridden in burrows to feed the breading mother of all blubbits a healthy dose of blunips. It had cost him most Mungibs he thought he would ever allow to part with, but it was Mungibs well placed. Soon people would plead for a real game changer. And he knew well who would step forward, and it was nothing like those headless twats.

He was in such a jolly mood, he’d called for a party. Well not officially called that, of course —Peaslanders were such worryworts about their crops and the famine that may occur… But a little friendly gathering to celebrate their heroes gone to the Eighth for answers. What a masquerade.

He was indeed in such a jolly mood that he took the sinewy and allwardly beautiful Lady Fin Min Hoot by the waist, and invited her to a delirious dance —it was indeed a dandy day for dancing— and for a little after-hour in his carriage when they are done jiggling their bodyparts (at least in public).

That was then, all tied up in leather ribbons and pillows’ owl’s feathers, when he (and Lady Fin) heard the raucous voice calling.

Gnarfle !
Yes, that was it! that was the stupid name of the dog!…

How come they’d managed to come back?!

“What?” The Majorburgmester of Peasland almost laughed of surprise at the incongruity of Fwick con Troll’s idea. “You’re telling that this…”

“Little spider, yes”
“Contains a potent venom that could wipe the blubbits off the face of Peasland?”
“Absolutely, dear Majorburgmester”
“Are you out of your Fwicking mind, Fwick? What breading this nasty spider could possibly bring us any better than a plague of crop-eating blubbits in rut?”
“I was actually talking of breeding them, sir” Fwick objected
The Mayor continued unperturbed “Besides, we already have our fierce constable Stoll drill the mythic Eight Dimension for answers.”
“That would be placing a lot of trust in that foolish venture, I’m afraid to say, Majorburgmester. To date, very few people have managed to return safely.”
“Oh, who cares if they ever bloody come back Fwick! Come on! All we need to do is extort the answers from his spouse who’s kept all their heads in a safe place, I have no doubt of that.”
“Well… I wouldn’t place my head on this bet if I were you…”

“Ah, bugger off then with your stinking spider, and do your bloody experiments… As long as it doesn’t involve my name, and especially in case any misguided and sad assassination should occur, ahahaha. I’m joking of course.” The Mayor’s face (which was framed and hanged on the wall of the Majorburgmester Hall’s main office) suddenly shut any hint of humanity that could have been left on it.