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  • #5623

    “Who can that be now!” exclaimed May as she made her way to the back door.  A flustered looking woman in odd looking mismatched clothes was standing on the door step.

    I ’ave come to ’elp Finnley wiz ze bedding!” she said by way of introduction, “But I ‘ave lost my baby, ’ave you seen ’er? My name is Fanella.  I ’ave come to ’elp Finnley wiz ze bedding, but I must find my daughter first!”

    “You’d better come in,” replied May, wondering what to do.  Until the right baby turned up, she could hardly give this woman her daughter back.  But the poor woman was distraught, and May wanted to ease her distress.  She would have to try to delay her somehow.

    “There is no need to worry, er, Fanella, as it happens there is an unexpected baby girl visiting with the bosses son, but they are both fast asleep. They are quite safe, but I am not in a position to disturb them yet. Do sit down, you look exhausted.  Let me get you a drink.”

    May handed her a glass of wine. “How on earth did you manage to lose your daughter?”

    “I was just about to ring ze bell but I was so nervous I ’ad to pee so I ran quickly be’ind ze bushes. And when I ’ad finished, my baby was gone!” Fanella started to weep.

    “Did you say you’d come to help Finnley in the bed?” Suddenly May started to wonder if this was another call girl for Mr August. Was he planning a threesome?

    “Yes, I ’ave come to ’elp Finnley,” Fanella replied, “Wiz ze bedding.”

    “And you brought your baby with you?”  aghast, May wondered what to do next. Maybe this woman shouldn’t be given the child back after all.  It had been a long night, with far too many babies.

    #5617

     💫to be sTarted…… 🌟🌟

    #5614
    Jib
    Participant

      Suddenly May had a doubt. She had been so focused on her inner ramblings about men’s reputation, prostitution and what knot that… something felt awfully wrong with the baby. Not the shouting and crying, not even the smell from the dark ages. No something more subtle that kept her awake. She had to be sure.

      She woke up and put on some a brown woollen gown on top of her silky night gown (her little pleasure). She had to be sure nobody would pay attention to her, but she couldn’t resist the soft touch of silk on her skin. Anyway, she went rushing in the baby’s room and unclothed it.

      There it was, right in front of her. It was not baby Barron, it was a girl! She had been fooled by the clothes and the awful mess the baby had done in its pants. And for sure she had looked away because the smell, and she didn’t really liked babies.

      “Oh Look who’s awake!” said the voice of June, thick with bad Maotai.

      May felt the blood drain off her face. She dressed the baby back up to hide the missing appendage.

      “Oh! Nice baby Barron,” she said trying to hide the quiver in her voice. “Look who’s back, your two favourite Aunties.” May turned to face the two au pairs with a forced smile on her face. The baby started to cry.

      #5602
      Jib
      Participant

        Mr August Finest

        August was born in Timboocto, California in 1975. He’s a Black veteran, well-spoken, and comes from a wealthy family from Philadelphia.

        Before he became chief of staff for the Beige House, he shunned a promising lawyer and political career which his family wanted for him, and enlisted in 2001. He served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and got decorated for bravery. However, this life is now behind him, and he prefers to focus on his duties as chief of staff. His deep respect for chain of command prevents him from commenting on his likes or dislikes of the current President, which makes him see the good in unlikely situations.

        In his free time, he collects golf balls and pewter memorabilia from the Civil War.

        #5594
        prUneprUne
        Participant

          I’ve been checking old records those past few days. Yes, I know, not much ever happens, and I’ve got a lot of time on my hands between my studies. Anyway, I read something rather odd about a bit of rare magic… Sorry, getting carried away again, I mean, I found a passing mention of Jasper.

          Guess, the letter is about our long lost brother that nobody ever mentioned. My sisters, with all of their flaws, which I don’t hate them for, have a keen sense of investigation. Must be in the genes, though it may have skipped over Aunt Dodo.

          That, or they have just sent a copy of the Boynitch manuscript to sent her into a spin, that wouldn’t be a first.

          #5593
          ÉricÉric
          Keymaster

            Was trying to get a basic timeline in place for future reference:

            • (1935) Birth of Mater
            • (1958) Mater marries her childhood sweetheart (ref)
            • (1965) Birth of Fred
            • (1970) Birth of Aunt Idle
            • (1978) April 12th, Mater’s husband dies
            • (1998) Birth of Devan
            • (2000) Birth of the twins Coriander & Clove
            • (2008) Birth of Prune
            • (2014) Start of Prune’s journal about the Inn (she’s 6 at the time – ref)
            • (2017) visit of Arona, Albie, Maeve, Hilda, Sanso etc. to the Inn
            • (2020) The year of the Great Fires (ref). Mater is 85. Idle is 50. The twins are 20. Prune is 12.
            • (2027) First settlers on Mars; Prune’s left for a boarding school to pursue her dreams

            Fast forward 15 years later

            • (2035) Idle receives news from the twins (now aged 35) & waterlark adventures.
              Mater is alive and kicking at 100.

            Fast forward a little more

            • (2049) Prune arrives with a commercial flight on Mars, having won a place through a reality show.
              Mater is deceased. She would have been 114.
              Little after, the Mars mission is revealed to be an elaborately constructed mass illusion, and the program is terminated via an alien invasion simulation; like the other survivors from the program, she returns to Australia but cannot reveal the details of the program.
            #5590

            His trip had changed him, Rukshan realized. He doubted it at first, don’t all journeys change the traveller?

            This one had been peculiar, his life had never felt more on the line. Now, even the feeling of this place he now called a home was contrasting.

            He wasn’t despondent, but he wasn’t sure where to focus his energy now. The World outside didn’t lack causes to fight for; that much was a given. The Great Fires in the South had taken a toll on the Austral Dry Lands and started to menace the Great Forest borders. The Heartswood would be safe for now, but with the villagers’ rampant deforestation, what would be next? He was glad to hear that Eleri & Hasamelis were not short of ideas and clever contraptions to tackle the matter.

            Yet, his cause was not this one, though it did stir his heart with sadness and longing.

            Tak and Nesy had come back from school. He was glad to see them so full of life and well-adjusted. Nesy was coming into her powers, even if they stemmed from a dark place, she’d found ways to use them gracefully, listening to nature. For one, Eleri had seen early the appeal of using Nesingwarys’ fear-inducing power to shroud the place and repel Leroway and his thugs. Nesy didn’t like too much to use her powers that way. It would also affect the birds and it made Glynis sad that the place was so silent at times.

            For now, both were pleased to join the team and the little Snoots towards the effort at rebuilding Gorrash.
            All were focused on finding a way to get enough pink clay. They’d started to realize that there was not enough stock left around, and the main supply source was from the now scorched & sooty Austral lands.

            This was a good cause for now.

            #5583
            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              For background ideas and “what’s happening now already?” about the Aunties au Pair thread:

              • June
              • April
              • Norma (Noor Mary)
              • May (Merhnaz)
              • August
              • Pres. Lump
              • Barron
              #5050

              In reply to: Snooteries

              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                Dear Snoot,

                Snoot's frimousse

                It is a great pleasure to see your frimousse again. :yahoo_eyelashes:

                :yahoo_good_luck: :yahoo_good_luck: :yahoo_good_luck: :yahoo_good_luck: :yahoo_good_luck: :yahoo_good_luck:

                #4858
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  “Well, where were we?” Jerk took the articles where he left them when he got up to check the price on one lacking a barcode.
                  The blip blip resumed, with the impatient twitching lady pouncing on the items as soon as they passed the scanning, to cram them into her compostable bag.

                  Days were stretching in ennui, and he started to feel like an android. At least, the rhythmical blips and “Have a good day, thank you for your purchase” were now part of his muscle memory, and didn’t require much paying attention to.

                  He’d renewed the yearly fee to maintain his group website yesterday, but he wasn’t sure why he did it. There were still the occasional posts on the groups he was managing, but the buzz had died already. People had moved to other things, autumn for one. Really, what was the point of maintaining it for 3 posts a week (and those were good weeks, of course not counting the spam).

                  There was fun occasionally, but more often than not, there were harangues.
                  He wondered what archetype he was in his life story; maybe he was just a background character, and that was fine, so long as he wasn’t just a supporting cast to another megalomaniac politician.

                  The apartment blocks were he was living were awfully quiet. His neighbours were still in travel, he wondered how they could afford it. Lucinda was completely immersed in her writing courses, and Fabio was still around amazingly – Lucinda didn’t look like she could even care of herself, so a dog… Meanwhile, the town council was envisaging a “refresh” of their neighborhood, but he had strong suspicion it was another real-estate development scheme. Only time would tell. He wasn’t in a rush to jump to the conclusion of an expropriation drama —leave that to Luce.

                  Friday would have been her 60th brithday (funny typo he thought). Their dead friend’s birthday would still crop up in his calendar, and he liked that they were still these connections at least. Did she move on, he wondered. Sometimes her energy felt present, and Lucinda would argue she was helping her in her writing endeavours. He himself wasn’t sure, those synchronicities were nice enough without the emphatic spiritualist extrapolations.

                  “Happy birthday Granola.” he said.

                  :fleuron2:

                  Another crack appeared on the red crystal into which Granola was stuck for what felt like ages.

                  “About time!” she said. “I wonder if they have all forgotten about me now.”

                  She looked closely at the crack. There was an opening, invisible, the size of an atom. But maybe, just maybe, it was just enough for her to squeeze in. She leaned in and focused on the little dot to escape.

                  #4804
                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    “What if she’s bluffing and it’s a ploy to bargain for a raise…” Godfrey said to Elizabeth keeping his voice down “or even more devious, to get you to write in spite…” he added, slightly concerned about Liz reaction.

                    “Say it bloody loud Godfrey! She wants to sexy up all my stuff, that derelinquant! Caught her doing so waaaay before, she’s never stopped trying. I’m sure her bloody novels are all sentimental romantic rubbish.”

                    Godfrey looked surprised “Funny you say that. She never really struck me as the sentimental type. Are you sure it’s not all jealousy or holding grudge for her disparate appreciation of your taste in art. That rope-snake is very… philosophical.”

                    #4794
                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      The man in the tux with the waxed mustache suddenly popped out from the plane, and back to his headquarters.

                      #4793

                      Bea!” Mari Fe called, “activate thread portal for a switch of realities please.”

                      [>>>>] The man in the tux with the waxed mustache suddenly popped out from the plane, and back to his headquarters.

                      His reconnaissance of the asset went fairly well, even if he feared he had her spooked a little. The poor thing seemed a bit soft on the inside despite her semblance of swagger.

                      Ed Steam’s armoured bears were fast asleep at the entrance, when he reappeared at the center of operations. The full team was almost reassembled: Aqua Luna had been the easiest to convince, though not the easiest to find, followed by Mari Fe, Cornella, Madame Li, Kiki Razwa, Björk, Skye, Jeremy the map dancer and some others recovered from limbo threads of realities.

                      Cackletown, despite the crowing noise of Maurice the cackling rooster, was a safe interspace reality to hide his base of operations.

                      #4791

                      Once he’d finished to tell the story, and let the kids go back to the cottage for the night, Rukshan’s likeness started to vanish from the place, and his consciousness slowly returned to the place where his actual body was before projecting.

                      Being closer to the Sacred Forest enhanced his capacities, and where before he could just do sneak peeks through minutes of remote viewing, he could now somehow project a full body illusion to his friends. He’d been surprised that Fox didn’t seem to notice at all that he wasn’t truly there. His senses were probably too distracted by the smells of food and chickens.

                      He’d wanted to check on his friends, and make sure they were alright, but it seemed his path ahead was his own. He realized that the finishing of the loo was not his own path, and there was no point for him to wait for the return of the carpenter. That work was in more capable hands with Glynis and her magic.

                      His stomach made an indiscreet rumbling noise. It was not like him to be worried about food, but he’d gone for hours without much to eat. He looked at his sheepskin, and the milk in it had finally curdled. He took a sip of the whey, and found it refreshing. There wouldn’t be goats to milk in this part of the Forest, as they favored the sharp cliffs of the opposite site. This and a collection of dried roots would have to do until… the other side.

                      To find the entrance wasn’t too difficult, once you understood the directions offered by the old map he’d recovered.

                      He was on the inner side of the ringed protective enclosures, so now, all he needed was to get into the inner sanctum of the Heartwood Forest, who would surely resist and block his path in different ways.

                      “The Forest is a mandala of your true nature…”

                      He turned around. Surprised to see Kumihimo there.

                      “Don’t look surprised Fae, you’re not the only one who knows these parlor tricks.” She giggled like a young girl.

                      “of my nature?” Rukshan asked.

                      “Oh well, of yours, and anybody’s for that matter. It’s all One you, see. The way you see it, it represents yourself. But it would be true for anybody, there aren’t any differences really, only in the one who sees.”

                      She reappeared behind his back, making him turn around. “So tell me,” she said “what do you see here?”

                      “It’s where the oldest and strongest trees have hardened, it’s like a fence, and a… a memory?”

                      “Interesting.” She said “What you say is true, it’s memory, but it’s not dead like you seem to imply. It’s hardened, but very much alive. Like stone is alive. The Giants understood that. And what are you looking for?”

                      “An entrance, I guess. A weak spot, a crack, a wedge?”

                      “And why would you need that? What if the heart was the staircase itself? What if in was out and down was up?”

                      Rukshan had barely time to mouth “thank you” while the likeness of the Braid Seer floated away. She’d helped him figure out the entrance. He touched one of the ring of the hard charred trees. They were pressed together, all clomped in a dense and large enclosure virtually impossible to penetrate. His other memories told him the way was inside, but his old memories were misleading.
                      Branches were extending from the trunks, some high and inaccessible, hiding the vision of the starry sky, some low, nearly indistinguishable from old gnarled roots. If you looked closely, you could see the branches whirring around like… Archimedes Screw. A staircase?

                      He jumped on a branch at his level, which barely registered his weight. The branch was dense and very slick, polished by the weathering of the elements, with the feel of an old leather. He almost lost his balance and scrapped his hands between the thumb and the index.

                      “Down is up?”

                      He spun around the branch, his legs wrapped around the branch. He expected his backpack to drag him towards the floor, but strangely, even if from his upside-down perspective, it was floating above him, it was as if it was weightless.

                      He decided to take a chance. Slowly, he hoisted himself towards his floating bag, and instead of falling, it was as though the branch was his ground. Now instead of a spiral staircase around the trees leading to heavens, it was the other side of the staircase that spiraled downwards to the starry night.

                      With his sheepskin and back still hovering, he started to climb down the branches towards the Giants’ land.

                      #4790

                      Vincentius?” Arona was surprised to see him back in the cave; she looked at Leörmn with a doubtful raised eyebrow.
                      “Don’t look at me like that, dear”, the dragon replied “he found his own way back to you.”
                      “It was all thanks to YikesyVincentius said.

                      Albie was confused as ever.

                      Albie! Where have you been!” His mother Freda (or was it Lottie?) was howling from the top of the stone staircase overlooking the crystalline blue pool with its shore of diamantine sands. “Come right here immediately! That dragon and these foreign interlopers ain’t no fit and proper company!”

                      Meanwhile, Daisy the beetle was also seriously admonishing (H)Ugo the gecko for his past disappearance. Of course, it was all lost in plics and plocs of glükenitch drops in the water.

                      #4771

                      The Doctor smiled gleefully, rubbing his hands together.

                      His new invention was showing promising results. Minds were being wiped clean, and foggy somnolence was enveloping characters without well-defined characteristics.

                      Better still, he’d found something interesting trapped inside of his Remote Brainwashing machine, crystallized and trapped in a nugget inside one of the vials. It was glowing faintly and had tried to derail his experiment. A little sprite of some kind, or maybe a rebel soul .

                      #4763
                      ÉricÉric
                      Keymaster

                        Charter ,” said Liz munching on her spread of bollocks jam on bread… “Are you going to say we need a charter too?”

                        #4762

                        “There it is, look!” exclaimed Hilda, wiping the sweat from her eyes with a soggy paper tissue. “The mine entrance , I told you it wasn’t far.”

                        “Not far? Hilda, we’ve been walking for hours!” retorted Connie. “We’ll be lucky not to get sunstroke.”

                        “It’ll be shady inside the mine, and the sun will be going down by the time we walk back to the inn.”

                        “Do we have to go inside?” The feeling of apprehension had been steadily increasing as they neared the location, and had now ramped up to an ominous dread. Not wanting Hilda to see how frightened she was, she added, “I mean without equipment, all we have is one torch. What if the batteries run out? We’re not very well prepared, are we?”

                        “So what’s new?” replied Hilda with a snort. “We’re not going to get an exclusive scoop by telling all and sundry our plans, are we? Not to mention sharing anything we might find.”

                        “If we get lost, nobody will know where to look for us.”

                        “Exciting, isn’t it?” snapped Hilda. Connie wanted to punch her. “You wait out here then. I’m going in.”

                        Unwilling to stay outside in the merciless heat, Connie reluctantly followed Hilda into the mine.

                        #4761

                        Barbara’s office was dead silent apart from the regular bips of the machines. The whiteness of the painted walls made it feel like a psych ward. She shivered away the memories that were trying to catch her attention.

                        It’s been two hours since the Doctor had locked himself up in his rage-release room, a spacious soundproofed room with padded walls. Not even a small window to look inside and check if his anger had subsided. Barbara clearly preferred the trauma of the shouts and cries and the broken plates that were hidden here and there for him to use when he needed most. But when he started his therapy with the AI psych module, the damn bot suggested he built that room in order to release his rage in a more intimate framework.
                        Now the plates collected dust and the sessions in the room tended to last longer and longer.

                        Today’s burst of rage had been triggered by the unexpected gathering of the guests at the Inn. The Doctor was drinking his columbian cocoa, a blend of melted dark chocolate with cheddar cheese, when the old hag in that bloody gabardine started her speech. The camera hidden in the eye of the fish by their agent, gave them a fisheye view of the room. It was very practical and they could see everything. The AI engineer module could recreate a 3D view of the room and anticipate the moves of all the attendees.

                        When that girl with the fishnet handed out the keys for all to see and the other girl got the doll out, the Doctor had his attention hyper-focused. He wanted to see it all.
                        Except there had been a glitch and images of granola cookies superimposed on the items.

                        “Send the magpies to retrieve the items,” he said, nervousness making his voice louder.
                        “Ahem,” had answered Barbara.
                        “What?” The Doctor turned towards her. His eye twitched when he expected the worst, and it had been twitching fast.
                        She had been trying to hide the fact that the magpies had been distracted lately, as she had clearly been herself since she had found that goldminer game on facebush.
                        No need to delay the inevitable, she had thought. “The magpies are not in the immediate vicinity of the Inn.” In fact, just as their imprinting mother was busy digging digital gold during her work time, the magpies had found a new vein of gold while going to the Inn and Barbara had thought it could be a nice addition to her meager salary… to make ends meet at the end of the month.

                        It obviously wasn’t the right time to do so. And she was worried about the Doctor now.

                        To trump her anxiety, she was surfing the internet. Too guilty to play the gold miner, she was looking around for solutions to her boss’s stress. The variety and abundance of advertisement was deafening her eyes, and somewhere in a gold mine she was sure the magpies were going berserk too. She had to find a solution quickly.

                        Barbara hesitated to ask the AI. But there were obviously too many solutions to choose from. Her phone buzzed. It was her mother.
                        “I finally found the white jade masks. Bought one for you 2. It helps chase the mental stress away. You clearly need it.” Her mother had joined a picture of her wearing the mask on top of a beauty mask which gave her the look of a mummy. Her mother was too much into the woowoo stuffs and Barbara was about to send her a polite but firm no she didn’t want the mask. But the door of the rage-room opened and the Doctor went out. He had such a blissful look on his face. It was unnatural. Barbara had been suspecting the AI to brainwash the Doctor with subliminal messages during those therapy sessions. Maybe it also happened in the rage-room. The AI was using tech to control the Doctor. Barbara would use some other means to win him back.

                        OK. SEND IT TO ME QUICK. she sent to her mother.

                        #4760

                        Aunt Idle:

                        The old ruse was still working, so I continued to use it. Only way to get a bit of time to myself, especially lately. A bit of quiet time, to think. And there was so much to think about, what with all these people around. I wasn’t put on this earth to make beds and pander to tourists, and the clues were coming in thick and fast. Oh yes, some of these new guests were thick, and some were fast. Anyway, I pretended to be inebriated again and did a pretty good imitation of a lurching drunk to throw them off the scent. They always fall for it.

                        After turning the key in the lock of my bedroom door, I leaned my back against it for a minute and closed my eyes. It was the bird flying in the window at the crack of dawn that got me worried. Now I’m not a superstitious person by any means, but there have been times when a bird in the house has been followed by a death, and things like that stick in your mind. The sight of Mater in that red pantsuit had etched itself on my mind as well, which was almost as worrying as the bird.

                        I went over to the window and pulled down the blinds. The bright sun was making my head hurt. I was thirsty, and wished I’d brought a cup of tea with me, but lurching drunks can’t be seen to be making plans for a quiet afternoon of sober contemplation. I tried valiantly to ignore my parched mouth, but it was no good. I put my ear to the door, and the coast seemed clear so I inched it open, looking up and down the hallway. I sprinted to the bathroom, unfortunately tripping over the vacuum cleaner that Finley had no doubt left there deliberately to trip me up. She was a dark horse, that one. Good at dusting, and reliable, so I suppose that was something. Hard to get hired help out here so we had no choice, really.

                        I smashed my nose on Mater’s doorknob and skinned my shin on the hoover. My nose hurt like hell, and quickly spurted an astonishing quantity of bright blood, similar in colour to that ghastly pantsuit. My fall made a hell of a din so I staggered quickly to the bathroom wash basin for the much needed drink of water before anyone came to investigate the crash, hoping to get back to my room before anyone appeared on the scene.

                        Had the water in the cold tap been cold, it might have been different, but the new water pipes were still above ground, and the cold water was scalding hot from the heat of the sun on the black pipes. I didn’t have a moment to waste, so drank some quickly, horrid though it was. The unfortunate side effect of the cold water being hot was that it encouraged and diluted the blood, making the overall effect look considerably more alarming. I was tempted to blame Mater for the whole sorry affair, for starting the red theme with that damn pantsuit. I actually said “bloody pantsuit”, which struck me as inordinately funny, and made it hard to get back to the bedroom quickly. I was still laughing hysterically, leaving red hand prints and strange red markings along the corridor wall, when Sanso appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

                        “I saw cave paintings like that in Zimbabwe,” he said conversationally, taking a closer look at the bloody hand prints. “I’ve often wondered what the purpose was, the meaning.” He raised an eyebrow and smiled at me. “Have you interpreted these?”

                        I was momentarily speechless, as you might imagine. Then I had an impulse, and grabbed his elbow and propelled him into my room, slamming and locking the door behind him. He was almost unnaturally calm and unperturbed, albeit looking as if he was trying not to smile too broadly, which was just the kind of energy I needed. My kind of man! I gave him one of my famous coquettish looks, which made him laugh out loud, and then I caught sight of myself in the wardrobe mirror and hastily grabbed an old nightgown off the floor and spit on it to rub the blood off my face.

                        “My kind of girl!” he laughed. Oh, how he laughed.

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