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In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
“You’ll never guess what the gazebo landed on! The Lost City of Zed!” Breathlessly, Amy told her father the exciting news of Chico’s successful mission.
“Saddle my horse, Crumpet, we must go at once. The Gazeba must stay there, and we go there for the character building, ” Sir Humphrey replied, struggling to his feet. “Tell everyone to pack.”
“Padre, calm yourself, there’s no rush. Did you just say Gazeba?”
“Of course I said Gazeba, don’t be dense, girl,” Humphrey said irritably, “Your mother was dense.”
I don’t even want to know. Amy shuddered, and went outside to look for Kit.
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
“Ricardo!” Amy said with a raised eyebrow and a note of surprise in her voice. “All I’ve ever seen you do so far is lurk in bushes sending secret messages. But I admire your bold assertiveness, I can see you are on a sudden quest to discover your true potential.” Amy smiled encouragingingly and patted his shoulder. “The sooner we get the gazebo back the better, The Padre is recovering and anxious to host The Character Building Party.”
His chest swelling with pride, Ricardo replied that he was very grateful for her support and attention, and would do his best to restore both the gazebo and his independence, but that he was in a quandary about the conflict of interests between his role in the story, and his value fulfilment as a developing character.
“Yeah that’s a tough one,” Amy said, “But it’s a good question to ask at the party in the gazebo. Hurry and get the gazebo back!”
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
Ricardo noticed, with growing unease, that he hadn’t been included in recent events.
Had he been written out? Or worse, had he written himself out?New characters were arriving constantly, but he couldn’t make head nor tail of most of them — especially with their ever-changing names.
He contemplated slinking back behind the bush … but this tree business, all the crouching and lurking, was getting embarrassing.
For goodness’ sake, Ricardo, he admonished himself, stop being so pathetic.
It wasn’t until the words echoed back at him that he realised, with horror, his internal voice now sounded exactly like Miss Bossy Pants.
He frantically searched for a different voice.
It’s a poor workman blames his tools, Ricardo. Miss Herbert, Primary School. Her long chin and pursed lips hovering above his scribbled homework.
Really, Ricardo. A journalist? Is that what you want to be? His father’s voice, dripping with disdain.
Any hope for a comment, Ricardo? Miss Bossy Pants again, eyes rolling.
Ricardo sighed. Then — brainwave! If he could be the one to return the gazebo, maybe they’d write him back in
Or … he stood up tall and squared his shoulders … he would jolly well write himself back in!
He’d have his work cut out to beat Chico, though, with the elaborate triple-reverse-double-flip of the worry beads and all that purposeful striding. One had to admit, the man had momentum when he made the effort. It was uncharitable, he knew, but Ricardo decided he preferred Chico when he was spitting.
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
“Well, I think that proves my point,” remarked Carob with a smirk.
“What do you mean”, Thiram said crossly, which sounded more like a resigned sigh than a question.
“Remember what I said? You can’t order a synchronicity, or expect one. They always just happen when you don’t expect it.”
“She’s right,” Any piped up. “We can’t just sit here waiting for a coincidence. We have to just carry on regardless until one appears.”
“Aunt Amy?” Kit asked, “How do we carry on regardless if we don’t know what our story is yet?”
“What I want to know is this,” Chico said with a twirl of his worry beads, “Who’s coming with me to fetch the gazebo back?” Chico squared his shoulders proudly, glad that his new colourful beads had replaced the urge to spit. He felt in control, a new man. A man to be respected. A leader.
With an elaborate triple reverse double flip of the worry beads, Chico turned and strode purposefully into the sunset, in the direction of the gazebo.
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
The hat was gone.
Kit stood blinking in the sun, the shape of his new self cooling around the edges like a half-written cookie losing form. Without the cowboy hat, the lasso made less sense. His accent wobbled, then vanished completely. The sunglasses stayed, but now just made everything too dark, even tinted pink.
Behind him, the gazebo creaked again. But no trapdoor this time—only a faint whirring, like a film projector syncing spools.
“It’s reloading,” said Thiram from the sidelines, tapping at something that looked oddly like a pressure-gauged Sabulmantium. “Every time someone hands off a narrative object—like a synch, a hat, a horse even—it updates roles. We’re being cast on the fly.”
Chico looked up from Tyrone, who had snatched one of the Memory Pies and was now attempting to hide the evidence behind a flowerpot. “So… Kit’s not Trevor anymore?”“No,” said Carob, arms crossed. “He’s Trevorless. That identity didn’t bake fully. We have to stabilize it.”
“But with what?” asked Godrick, who had returned carrying a second cocktail, coffee with a glass of water and a slight wry smirk.
Amy, now balancing the cowboy hat on her head as she crouched next to the still-disoriented Padre, called out without turning:
“Bring him another Synch. That’s how it works now, apparently. Hat or otherwise.”
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
As Chico carried the Memory Pie over to Kit, a breeze shuffled the pages of the script lying abandoned beside the gazebo. No one had noticed it before—maybe it hadn’t been there. The pages were blank. Then they weren’t.
Kit blinked. “Did you just call me Trevor?”
“No,” said Chico. But he looked uncertain. “Did I?”
There was a rumble below them. The gazebo creaked—faint and subtle, like a swedish roll turning in its deep sleep.
Then—click-clac thank you Sirtak.
A trapdoor swung open beneath Kit’s feet. But instead of falling, Kit froze mid-air.
The air flickered. Kit shimmered.
And now they were wearing sunglasses, holding a cowboy lasso, and speaking in a faint Midwest accent.
“Sorry, I think I missed my cue. Where are we in the scene?”
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
Chico poured grenadine into an ornate art nouveau glass filled with ginger ale. He hesitated, eying the tin of chicory powder. After a moment of deliberation, he sprinkled a dash into the mix, then added the maraschino cherry.
“I’m not sure Ivar the Boneless, chief of the Draugaskald, will appreciate that twist on his Shirley Temple,” said Godrick. “He may be called Boneless, but he’s got an iron grip and a terrible temper when he’s parched.”
Chico almost dropped the glass. Muttering a quick prayer to the virgin cocktail goddess, he steadied his hand. Amy wouldn’t have appreciated him breaking her freshly conjured aunt Agatha Twothface’s crystal glasses service.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Chico a tad too quickly. “Do I know you?”
“I’m usually the one making the drinks,” said Godrick. “I served you your first americano when you popped into existence. Chico, right?”
“Oh! Yes. Right. You’re the bartender,” Chico said. He fidgeted. Small talks had always made him feel like a badly tuned Quena flute.
“I am,” said Godrick with a wink. “And if you want a tip? Boneless may forgive you the chicory if you make his cocktail dirty.”
Chico pause, considered, then reached down, grabbed a pinch of dust from the gazebo floor, and sprinkled it on the Temple, like cocoa on a cappuccino foam. He’d worked at Stardust for years before appearing here, after all. When he looked up, Godrick was chuckling.
“Ok!” Godrick said. “Now, add some vodka. I think I’ll take it to Ivar myself.”
“Oh! Right.” Chico nodded, grabbed the vodka bottle and poured in a modest shot and placed it back on the table.
Godrick titled his head. “Looks like your poney wants a sip too.”
For a moment, Chico blinked in confusion at the black stuffed poney standing nearby. Then freshly baked memories flooded in.
Right, the poney’s name was Tyrone.
It had been a broken toy that someone had tossed in the street. Amy had insisted Chico take it home. “It needs saving,” she said. “And you need the company.”
At first, Chico didn’t know what to do with it. He ended up replacing some of the missing stuffing with dried chicory leaves.
The next morning, Tyrone was born and trotting around the apartment. All he ever wanted was strong alcohol.
Chico had a strange thought, scrolling across the teleprompter in his mind.
Is that how character building works?
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
Still visibly shaken, Sir Humphrey blinked up at the canopy. “Is it… raining? Is it raining ants?”
“It’s not rain,” muttered Thiram, checking his gizmos. “Not this time. It’s like… gazebo fallout. I’d venture from dreams hardening midair.”
Kit shuffled closer to Amy, speaking barely above a whisper. “Aunt Amy, is it always like this?”
Amy sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and said, “No, sweetheart. Sometimes it’s worse.”
“Right then,” declared Carob, making frantic gestures in the air, as though she’d been sparring the weather. “We need to triangulate the trajectory of the gazebo, locate the Sabulmantium, and get Sir Humphrey a hat before his dignity leaks out his ears.”
“I feel like Garibaldi,” Sir Humphrey murmured, dazedly stroking his forehead.
“Do you remember who Garibaldi is?” Chico asked, narrowing his eyes.
“No,” the Padre confessed. “But I’m quite certain he’d never have let his gazebo just float off like that.”
Meanwhile, Madam Auringa had reappeared behind a curtain of mist smelling faintly of durian and burnt cinnamon.
“The Sabulmantium has been disturbed,” she intoned. “Intent without anchor will now spill into unintended things. Mice shall hold council. Socks will invert themselves. Lost loves shall write letters that burn before reading.”
“Typical,” muttered Thiram. “We poke one artifact and the entire logic stack collapses.”Kit raised a trembling hand. “Does that mean I’m allowed to choose my name again?”
“No,” said Amy, “But you might be able to remember your original one—depending on how many sand spirals the Sabulmantium spins.”
“I told you,” Chico interjected, gesturing vaguely at where the gazebo had vanished over the treetops. “It was no solar kettle. You were all too busy caffeinating to notice. But it was focusing something. That sand’s shifting intent like wind on a curtain.”
“And we’ve just blown it open,” said Carob.
“Yup,” said Amy. “Guess we’re going gazebo-chasing.”
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
“Solar kettle, my ass,” Chico muttered, failing to resist the urge to spit. After wiping his chin on his tattood forearm, he spoke up loudly, “That was no solar kettle in the gazebo. That was the Sabulmantium!”
An audible gasp echoed around the gathering, with some slight reeling and clutching here and there, dropping jaws, and in the case of young Kit, profoundly confused trembling.
Kit desperately wanted to ask someone what a Sabulmantium was, but chose to remain silent.
Amy was frowning, trying to remember. Sure, she knew about it, but what the hell did it DO?
A sly grin spread across Thiram’s face when he noticed Amy’s perplexed expression. It was a perfect example of a golden opportunity to replace a memory with a new one.
Reading Thiram’s mind, Carob said, “Never mind that now, there’s a typhoon coming and the gazebo has vanished over the top of those trees. I can’t for the life of me imagine how you can be thinking about tinkering with memories at a time like this! And where is the Sabulmantium now?”
“Please don’t distress yourself further, dear lady, ” Sir Humphrey gallantly came to Carob’s aid, much to her annoyance. “Fret not your pretty frizzy oh so tall head.”
Carob elbowed him in the eye goodnaturedly, causing him to stumble and fall. Carob was even more annoyed when the fall rendered Sir Humphrey unconscious, and she found herself trying to explain that she’d meant to elbow him in the ribs with a sporting chuckle and had not intentionally assaulted him.
Kit had been just about to ask Aunt Amy what a Sabulmantium was, but the moment was lost as Amy rushed to her fathers side.
After a few moments of varying degrees of anguish with all eyes on the prone figure of the Padre, Sir Humphrey sat up, asking where his Viking hat was.
And so it went on, at every mention of the Sabulmantium, an incident occured, occasioning a diversion on the memory lanes.
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
The wind picked up just as Thiram adjusted the gazebo’s solar kettle. At first, he blamed the rising draft on Carob’s sighing—but quickly figured out that this one had… velocity.
Then the scent came floating by: jasmine, hair spray, and over-steeped calamansi tea.
A gust of hot air blew through the plantation clearing, swirling snack wrappers and curling Amy’s page corners. From the vortex stepped a woman, sequins ablaze, eyeliner undefeated.
She wore a velvet shawl patterned like a satellite weather map.
“Did someone say Auringa?” she cooed, gliding forward as her three crystal balls rotated lazily around her hips like obedient moons.
“Madam Auringa?” Kit asked, wide-eyed.Thiram’s devices were starting to bip, checking for facts. “Madam Auringa claims to have been born during a literal typhoon in the Visayas, with a twin sister who “vanished into the eye.” She’s been forecasting mischief, breakups, and supernatural infestations ever since…”
Carob raised an eyebrow. “Source?”
Humphrey harrumphed: “We don’t usually invite atmospheric phenomena!”
“Doctor Madam Auringa, Psychic Climatologist and Typhoon Romantic,” the woman corrected, removing a laminated badge from her ample bosom. “Bachelor of Arts in Forecasted Love and Atmospheric Vibes. I am both the typhoon… and its early warning system.”
“Is she… floating?” Amy whispered.
“No,” said Chico solemnly, “She’s just wearing platform sandals on a bed of mulch.”
Auringa snapped her fingers. A steamy demitasse of kopi luwak materialized midair and plopped neatly into her hand. It wasn’t for drink, although the expensive brevage born of civet feces had an irrepressible appeal —it was for her only to be peered into.
“This coffee is trembling,” she murmured. “It fears a betrayal. A rendezvous gone sideways. A gazebo… compromised.”
Carob reached for her notes. “I knew the gazebo had a hidden floor hatch.”
Madam Auringa raised one bejeweled finger. “But I have come with warning and invitation. The skies have spoken: the Typhoon Auring approaches. And it brings… revelations. Some shall find passion. Others—ant infestations.”
“Did she just say passion or fashion?” Thiram mumbled.
“Both,” Madam Auringa confirmed, winking at him with terrifying precision.
She added ominously “May asim pa ako!”. Thiram’s looked at his translator with doubt : “You… still have a sour taste?”
She tittered, “don’t be silly”. “It means ‘I’ve still got zest’…” her sultry glance disturbing even the ants.
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
Another one! A random distant memory wafted into Amy’s mind. Uncle Jack always used to say GATZ e bo. Amy could picture his smile when he said it, and how his wife always smiled back at him and chuckled. Amy wondered if she’d even known the story behind that or if it had always been a private joke between them.
“What’s been going on with my gazebo?” Amy’s father rushed into the scene. So that’s what he looks like. Amy couldn’t take her eyes off him, until Carob elbowed her in the neck.
“Sorry, I meant to elbow you in the ribs, but I’m so tall,” Carob said pointlessly, in an attempt to stop Amy staring at her father as if she’d never seen him before.
Thiram started to explain the situation with the gazebo to Amy’s father, after first introducing him to Kit, the new arrival. “Humphrey, meet Kit, our new LBGYEQCXOJMFKHHVZ story character. Kit, this is Amy’s father who we sometimes refer to as The Padre.”
“Pleased to meet you, ” Kit said politely, quaking a little at the stern glare from the old man. What on earth is he wearing? A tweed suit and a deerstalker, in this heat! How do I know that’s what they’re called? Kit wondered, quaking a little more at the strangeness of it all.
“Never mind all that now!” Humphrey interrupted Thiram’s explanation.
Still as rude as ever! Amy thought.
“I’ve too much to think about, but I’ll tell you this: I’ve planned a character building meeting in the gazebo, and you are all invited. As a matter of fact,” Humphrey continued, “You are all obliged to attend. If you choose not to ~ well, you know what happened last time!”
“What happened last time?” asked Carob, leaning forward in anticipation of an elucidating response, but Humphrey merely glared at her.
Amy sniggered, and Humphrey shot her a lopsided smile. “YOU know what happened in Jack’s GATZ e bo, don’t you, my girl?”
Where were those random memories when you wanted them? Amy had no idea what he was talking about.
“Who else is invited, Humph? asked Chico, resisting the urge to spit.
“My good man,” Humphrey said with a withering look. “Sir Humphrey’s the name to you.”
Sir? what’s he on about now? wondered Amy. Does that make me a Lady?
“Who else is invited, Padre?” Amy echoed.
Humphrey pulled a scroll tied with a purple ribbon out of his waistcoat pocket and unfurled it. Clearing his throat importantly, he read the list to all assembled.
Juan and Dolores Valdez.
Godric, the Swedish barman
Malathion and Glyphosate, Thiram’s triplet brothers. Mal and Glyph for short.
Liz Tattler
Miss Bossy Pants
Goat Horned Draugaskald“Did I forget anyone?” Humphrey asked, peering over his spectacles as he looked at each of the characters. “You lot,” he said, “Amy, Carob, Thiram, Chico, Kit and Ricardo: you will be expected to play hosts, so you might want to start thinking about refreshments. And not,” he said with a strong authoritarian air, “Not just coffee! A good range of beverages. And snacks.”
Thiram, leaning against a tree, started whistling the theme tune to Gone With The Wind. Tossing an irritated glance in his direction, Carob roughly gathered up her mass of frizzy curls and tethered it all in a tight pony tail. I still don’t know what happened before, she fumed silently. The latest developments where making her nervous. Would they find out her secret?
“You guys,” called Chico, who had wandered over to the gazebo. “It’s full of ants.”
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
Carob was the first to find the flyer. It had been pinned to the banyan tree with a teaspoon, flapping just slightly in the wind like it knew how ridiculous it was.
FIVE HURT IN GAZEBO DRAMA
Local Brewmaster Suspected. Coffee Stains Incriminating.She tapped it twice and announced to no one in particular, “I told you gazebos were structurally hostile.”
Amy poked her head out of the linen drying shed. “No, you said they were ‘liminal spaces for domestic deceit.’ That’s not the same as a health hazard.”
“You ever been in a gazebo during a high wind with someone named Derek? Exactly.”
Ricardo ran past them at an awkward crouch, muttering into a device. “…confirming perimeter breach… one is wearing a caftan, possibly hallucinating… I repeat, gazebo situation is active.”
Chico wandered in from the side trail, his shirt unbuttoned, leaf in mouth, mumbling to Kit. “I don’t know what happened. There was a conversation about frothed chalk and cheese, and then everything… rotated.”
Kit looked solemn. “Aunt Amy, he sat on it.”
“He sat on the gazebo?” Amy blinked.
“No. On the incident.”
Kit offered no further explanation.
From the underbrush, a low groan emerged. Thiram’s voice, faint: “Someone built a gazebo over the generator hatch. There are no stairs. I fell in.”
Amy sighed. “Goddammit, Thiram.”
Carob smirked. “Gazebo’d.”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Roberto,” the vista of the waterlogged garden had given Liz an idea, “Let’s turn it into an oriental garden with pools and rills and fountains, gazebos and temples, floating pontoons bedecked with tropical flowers and exotic cocktails, holy wells, tiled nooks and whispering cloisters, and vines, lots of vines, and wine. Imagine it! Roberto, we can do it!
“We?” replied Roberto weakly.
Search Results for 'gazebo'
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Viewing 13 results - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)