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When he first witnessed how the traveling portals worked, Badul had been greatly impressed. No such magic existed on Asgurdy, and even though is was supposed to be a small portal, it was greater magic than anything his imagination could have devised.
He and his crew were so much impressed that Badul had required his small crew to settle down so that they can study further the thing. Tomkin had frowned a bit, as he was eager to continue and above all to leave this uncharted district ruled by a fierce warlord (or “governor”, as it was required to address him) in a moistly forest miles away from any living creature, but then again, Badul’s orders were not to be discussed.

The portal was constituted of a wide circle of heavy limestones, with two crossing arched vaults made of limestones too, with smaller blue stones incrustations of various shapes tucked into round holes regularly scattered along the vaults. These smaller stones could apparently be rearranged, and Tomkin and Badul quickly figured out they were used to determine the coordinates of the various places they would be traveling to. This portal, they’ve been explained had a set of other stones, ocher and dark red ones which were not part of the traditional set of the main network on the continent. Their design was not overly displayed as the others which were left on the portal at all times. They were carried on the spot by one of the generals of the local governor, and used under strict guidelines, for fear that the parallel network would be uncovered.

It took Badul a dozen of hexades to relinquish his fear of the unknown magic that made people disappear and reappear in thin air. He was a brave man, and that which he could see with his own eyes was no longer deemed irrational. It was very real, and he could use it. And there was no point in delaying the experience of it, as it was the only way for him to conquer his turmoil.

So, on that fine morning of the falling season, he decided to move. Genflik Thran, the local governor, had come to appreciate the help Badul and his men had provided him in loading and unloading the cargoes of goods which were banned on various parts of the Warring Kingdoms nonetheless traded on the black market with great benefits, and occasionally escorting them to some of the nearest villages. But the deal had been made clear from the start: he would allow Badul and his men to use the network in exchange of two hexades of service. In fact, they had repaid the debt largely already.
So he agreed to let them go on their journey and provided him and and his crew enough supply to continue their trip for quite some days. And as a token of appreciation, he allowed Badul to choose his destination, a privilege that was rarely granted, as usually people where glad to take whatever ship was about to depart.

Badul turned to Tomkin, wondering where they could go next.
“There are a few villages I heard of” Tomkin said after having pondered, “in the valleys down Mount Elok’ram. I heard this place is the tallest of the World, and is full of ancient powerful magic. Perhaps we can go to one of these villages, as I don’t think there is any portal on the top of the mountains.”
“Ahaha, yes, you’re right” had smiled Genflik Thran “I’ve been heard there is a monastery on top of this mountain, but no portal unless you go in the valleys. Not that they couldn’t have built one, but they thought it would soon become too crowded and… how did they said? Yeah, unholy… with the ease of a portal access. Now, perhaps that with the new Abbott, it will change… who knows. We already have approached him, and he seems a man with a nice sense of compromise, for the good of all, ahahaha!”
“What’s this village called?”, asked Badul
“ Chard Dut Jep “ answered Genflik Thran “I have a local contact there, a witchy woman, with some sense for business too, when you’re there, ask for her, people call her Madame Chesterhope. Just don’t forget to mention you are coming on my advise, or else the bitch might reserve you a trick or two of her own, ahahaha!”.
“To Chard Dut Jep then!” cheered Badul, and his crew echoed with him.

mean Sean
Sky felt fry
Lady dance
Yurick meant
Start Earth remembering
Thinking door
Dream timeline
… began
pink help indeed body

Dr Bronklehampton just put the finishing touch on his last work of art.

It had required him more patience than he usually had for such things, but his guinea pig has been behaving quite docilely, well, docilely enough to make his task easier.
The most painful part for the Doctor had been to beautify the visible scars which had appeared upon careful examination of his subject, but he was greatly helped in his task. In fact, he never ceased to be amazed by the accuracy of the information delivered by the costly computer that the Confregation had granted him to pursue his work.
But now,… now, she was perfect. Lovely as like a Chinese porcelain doll.

Now that things finally were coming back into focus, the distant voices around made him frown. He was even starting to become suspicious of that Veranassessee girl that had supposedly come to assist him, as she was becoming dangerously close to the experience subjects, not to mention the visits of that Gabriel.
This island was becoming more and more a crowded resort rather than the secret facility it was supposed to be. Not that he really cared, now that his ultimate deadly bodyguard was finished…

Quite frankly, Midora didn’t know how and where to look for Badul. She had spent lots of time delving into the labyrinth of chapters that composed the book, at first to no avail.
Only after some familiarization with the narrative had she come to roughly understand that the two books where rewriting the pages —or even, rewiring them— so that each time she started over, it was like a similar yet different story. Most of the alternate versions did occur within the same kind of environment, or the same dimensions as the previous ones, but there were always all kinds of small hints that made her get a small hunch that it was not quite the same story she had read before that was taking place now.
She had even become quite good at tracking down these flimsy moments where she found herself wondering what felt “different”, at odds, or simply not quite at the same place. Like in her dreams, these were precious cues telling her to pay attention. More than simple cues, of course some of them where howling at her face that something required her attention. The additions made by her distant relative Dory, or later on by her step-daughter Becky were compelling cases of such occurrences. Asynchronous apparitions of mummies sometimes reminded her of stories told by one of her father and where more generally speaking of symbolic death and regeneration, but when all of these cues where as many portals the details of which she could lose herself in…

Naasir had told her to find Badul. She knew Badul… Like Midora herself, Badul was a facet of the dreaming dragon who was exploring the many facets of itself in an intricate play, and it felt to her that Badul was stuck somewhere in the process and required some attention. In fact, she remembered that in all the versions of the stories that she had read about, Badul’s history was never ended. Each time, he was on his way to explore the new land he had discovered, and somehow, he just never get there.
When she was trying to get to the rest of the story, as much as she would search for it, there were only blank pages.
Perhaps it was for her to write them, like Indy did after she encountered that mummy decades ago, not necessarily to exorcise the experience, but rather to learn more about her connections.

What were her own connections? She wondered.
What did happen to Badul on his way to the clandestine traveling portal of Gralm Tur? And why did it matter? Did he found something about the network, and some link to the skulls which have been an obsession for quite some time for some of the major and most intriguing characters of this inter-dimensional sopoohpera?

Truth was, Badul felt a bit like an oddball to her. She didn’t know how to get close to him. Apparently, when she had read the early articles from her great-uncle Cuthbert, she had found out that he had connected quite well to the daunting character. As a matter of fact, most of his comments had helped flesh out the character, while most of the other participants in the books had been only remotely observing his deeds. However priceless these clues were, Midora knew by now that they were not absolute, and would rewrite differently if the story was asking for it. And in fact, perhaps her own addition would change whatever his fate would have been.

Midora could feel Badul differently now… a young boy, whom she is babysitting, in another life.
Bastian is baby Badul’s name and he’s a toddler, a toddler exploring an unknown world made of colourful toys.
Midora (her name’s Ada in that focus) likes to work for little Bastian’s family. The woman, his mother, looks a bit odd like Morticia Addams, or like a Cher just out of her bed, but Ada likes her. She’s busy traveling alot, and doesn’t have much time to care for the baby.

Midora thinks she has read about his woman somewhere in the books…
Could it be that? Yes,… there is little doubt about it.
It seems like she’s just run into young Carla…

“I lay on a couch in my normal clothes and a nurse put some anaesthetic drops in my eyes. Dr Allamby then put a retainer on one eye to hold the lids wide open. He used a microscope while he asked me to look into a blue light. First, he made marks with ink on my cornea. Then he used a hand-held device to send radio waves into my cornea, making eight tiny dots in a ring around the edge, near the white of my eye. This changes the shape of the cornea, making it more curved, which increases the focus power of the eye and so helps to improve vision.
It didn’t hurt at all. It took about five minutes to do one eye. Then he did the same thing with my other eye, though this time he put two circles of eight dots around my cornea. This was to sharpen my reading vision”

I googled Circle of Eights

Give pairs seven post-its and ask the children to write down the main scenes. Take feedback and allow children to adjust/add to their post-its. Pairs then work on listing the scenes and sticking them in order. They should disregard any scenes that are not crucial, and just keep the key events.

Agree with the class the basic key scenes. Demonstrate how to make a few notes about each scene to help with a retelling.

In pairs, children make notes about each scene to help with retelling the tale. These should be kept to the barebones. In pairs, practice retelling the story, taking it in turns. Then put pairs together to retell their versions to another pair.

If time allows, build this up to circles of eight.

End the session by hearing several retellings. Encourage the children to evaluate between tellings, refining and improving their version.

Explore ways of altering the retellings. Children decide to alter one aspect. They then retell the tale, with the alteration. Pairs should then move into fours
and retell their new versions.

Build up to circles of eight if time allows.

The children recommend a version they have heard that is really effective. Listen to these, and as a class evaluate what makes an effective retelling. This enables more in-depth evaluation, especially by the storytellers themselves.

My God, what the fuck is that?

Veranassessee sighed, seeing the two plump lady on top of one another, lying sprawled all fours on the ground, with the door blown out in shards.

Untie me Gabriele, so that I can ask for the nurse’s help. she said reluctantly to her partner, seeing with a bit of dolefulness, the effect of their strange erotic games already waning off.

— Are you alright ladies?
— Oh, I guess so, Vessie, sorry to have interrupted, we thought…
— Yes, yes… Veranassessee was feeling oddly detached from the women’s babbled and muddled excuses, and even more detached from her own sloppy appearance.
All she could think at the moment was that she seemed fated to marry Mahiliki, and get loads of children on Fukitupi, a doom that hovered on her head like a rapacious magpie over a precious gemstone…
Good thing she was so gorgeous she would look great even wearing a potatoes sack. Sure Gabriele had noticed that already…

Arch-Agent Gabriele came back, telling her he had called nurse Bellamy on the intercom, and she would be here in a minute.
I’ll go to my room dear, we’ll talk later about Barbella. he said casually, a convenient code for “plan B” between them two.
Professional as he was, he had also, V’ass noticed, as the women were untangling themselves, made the box and the silky rope very stealthily disappear.

Sure, they would have more time in the evening. But now, she noticed she’d been a bit too lax on the security around the new guests. Fine that Dr Bronkelhampton’s recommendations were to have the patients free for the first months of their treatments (after all, the more drastic transformations never occurred before the thirteenth week), but she had to be more careful about them.
She could not have them compromise “plan B”.

B as Barbella… or rather…
B as Bee-hive.

— Did you hear like me, Glo?
— I think so, Sha…
— What’s that Barbiella, Glo?
— Barbella, Sha, barbella, like barbell… Could be a woman’s name…
— Poor Vessie seemed so annoyed by the incident…
— Yes Sha, we have to help her somewhat, if we want her to forgive us
— Sure, we’ll find something to do, Glo.
— Yes… I don’t like that Barbella. Perhaps it’s the man’s…
— Gabriele
— Yes, Sha, Gabriele —does sound Italian, doesn’t it?
— I was about to tell you Glo…
— Perhaps that’s Gabriele’s wife…
— Or some kinky sadomasochistic practice we never heard of…
— Rhooo, Sha, chuckled Gloria, who was thinking of Veranassessee’s dress and wrists tying games…

— Arona, my dear?

The silky voice of Malvina resounded in Arona’s ear, while she was meditating on the implications of the story Vincentius had told her.

— Yes?
— May I borrow you Buckberry and your sabulmantium for a few moments?
— Oh sure, no need to ask… Though I don’t think you require my permission for Buckberry, isn’t he free as I am?
— Oh yes he is, exactly as you said, free as you are

Arona could have sworn she felt a winking energy rippling through her flesh, making some unfamiliar electrical currents crawl underneath her skin. She would have said she was thoroughly disliking it, though she wasn’t really sure if she was.

— Oh, Malvina added as if an innocent afterthought, we are moving by the way, perhaps you may find interesting to join us for the homationing ceremony. You may learn some more about your sabulmantium.
— Well, why not, answered Arona having no idea of what a homationing ceremony could be…
— Very well, please join us in the main entrance, where I am playing the harp. We will be waiting for you.
— I’ll be there in a second.

So, they were moving? Speak about implications… Arona muttered, stroking dozing Mandrake, who had feasted on too many of the moorats crawling inside the moisteous cave tunnels.
I guess I’ll take this astounding elan as a hint that I’ll be going alone she said. A yawn for all answer.
Considering it was Mandrake, that was almost a mark of distinctive affection… or was it rather of affectionate distinction?

Moving? She didn’t want to move, not yet, not like that… And to be honest, with all the stuff in that cave, she sure didn’t want to help pack all of this, be it by magic. What an impossible task.

Vincentius the nanny was taking care of Yikes, so she was confident should anything happen, he would be alright.

On the outside of the cave, the dragons were all lined up, as if waiting for some unknown signal. Leormn first in shades of teal, and his spawns, Buckberry, with the most florid and baroque hues of purple that one could imagine, and the two facetious Heckle and Jeckle in shades of emerald, looking unusually calm.

Malvina, with Leo the little marmoset on her left shoulder, was playing her harp, while Irtak was accompanying her playing a mouth harp.
Some drums had been disposed around, and quite naturally, Arona felt like beating the measure on these, getting slowly and slowly relaxed by the music and guttural sounds produced by the throat singing dragons.
She almost laughed and broke the meditating pattern when she let the memory of Sanso come into her awareness. What a shame he’d missed that, that would have fitted him better than her.

Slowly the sounds stopped, and Malvina very gracefully rose from her stool, and greeted Arona with a loving hug. Her flowing robe was a tender orchid hue with laces of thistle pink, and her silvery peach long flowing hair were giving her the aura of a princess.

— Wait, where are Georges and Salome? She said, are they already gone?
— No, they are waiting for us at the new location, she said with a smile… Now, Leormn will start the ceremony.

Arona almost said Wait again, in anticipation of what was to come, and finally decided to let it flow. The serene look of Malvina and her motherly smile was of a nurturing reassurance.

Outside, in the grassy lands, the dragons had all grown wings and were apparently ready to take off. A pile of conic shaped dirty sand was standing in front of the entrance, that Arona had never seen before.

She could feel Buckberry answer her unspoken question without even a word being uttered. It is soil from the cave, and we will use it now.

Arona watched the dragons rise in the sky full of damp gray clouds, and wondered what they were doing.
They are doing two things, Arona answered Malvina (again that disagreeable habit of reading thoughts, couldn’t help but think Arona, wishing there would be some World around where such thing wouldn’t be so easy), first they are checking what kind of creature are staying with us and following the movement, continued Malvina, ignoring the remark, and second, they are drawing with that sand from the cave a circle to enclose the area we want to move

Arona didn’t dare say the explanations were making her even fuzzier, so she nodded as if abreast of what was going on.

Popping sounds of the dragons blinking in and out to get some more dirt almost made her dizzy, and she forgot the strangest feeling she had when she thought she heard “the area we want to move”.

— Now, continued Mavina, the sabulmantium.

The dragons were now all back, and the pile of sand had disappeared.
Arona’s attention snapped back to herself, and she handed the fine object to the lady. She couldn’t help but notice the glowing eyes of Irtak, who apparently was very eager to see what would happen.
So he will move too, she thought, hope his father won’t be too sad… Why did she felt it was a separation from this place she had found she was liking…

— If you look closely, said Malvina to no one in particular, but Arona took it for herself, you will see how easy it is to come back if you feel so inclined.

At her touch, the coloured sands in the sabulmantium’s transparent dragon shell globe started to move. And all could see the cave being formed, with all the little people, dragons, glukenitches and even Leo and Mandrake… They were all here, enclosed into a circle of sand.

— Now, if you will follow me… said Malvina who traced on the ground a curvy symbol.

And very slowly, as the whole sand scenery inside the sabulmantium was turning in a round, they all felt as though they were dissolving into the air. Yet, they were all solid, and the interior of the cave was still too.
The only thing that was moving was the exterior, twirling and changing, getting out of focus, and moving erratically at the beginning, and then getting close to a focal point. Some fine tuning was occurring.

And in a snap,
The landscape
Was
In all its splendor…

— Greetings! a smiling couple at the entrance of the cave said to the people inside.

Al woke up from a series of lucid dreams, interspersed with false awakening in which he was in the same space arrangement, but visibly another time space or even dimension… He was quite familiar now with these stuff, and could remember them well, but still had doubt about the implications of the strange imageries he was getting glimpses of.
It was like his tatami (because at this time, Al was finding more comfortable to sleep on the rice-straw mattress) was a flying carpet with its own volition, and Albert, like some modern-time Aladdin, was finding himself plunged right into new horizons.

Last vision had almost made him blush of the deranged aspects of his mind. Sure he was finding Becky rather attractive (who wouldn’t, he was wondering), but imaging her scantily clad in that skimpy dress in the middle of the bushes was surely some trick of his luscious mind rather than some bona fide connection of his magic tatami.

Good thing too that the joggers (or thought-forms, whatever they might have been) in the park in which the magic tatami had landed couldn’t see the projected form of Al, because he was unable to move right now, except for some embarrassing lower part of his body. Now the tatami was looking like a circus tent. Oh dear… the wedding had been really hard on his nerves, he reckoned.

When he finally woke up, he noticed some voice messages on his telephone from Becky and thought he would probably skip mentioning his last synchronicity of his
What was she wanting that necessitated a dozen messages on his phone? Couldn’t she just call Sean, or was he still incapacitated by the gallons of vodka he had “injested”?
Well, surely the matter would wait for him to shave, for he was starting to look like Mr Cavern, with the huge hunger too —he smiled at the idea that dear Becky would surely fear he might eat a clue by mistake…

Moments later, after a good shower, fresh clothes and some slices of buttered nuts bread with pumpkin jam, he telepathically connected to Becky, wondering why she had not thought of that method in the first place… What was the point of all these group meditations together with Sam and Tina if they couldn’t make good profit of the enhanced neurological pathways they had built together. Granted Becky had always been a bit reluctant to use it, or perhaps just forgetful of that possibility… Anyway…

— CAN’T YOU JUST KNOCK BEFORE YOU CONNECT! a shriek suddenly filled his skull

Al immediately shut the visual, blushing of the renewed deranged vision…

— Sorry, I just…
— Oh, no need to trail forever on that… I’ve found someone to help me, and yes, I do remember how to connect telepathically!

With that, all was left in Al’s skull was a big whooshing wind.