Search Results for 'island'

Home, at last… Bernie Eleonara Mynd, Viscountess of Shropshire sighed, dropping her hairy salmon coloured hermine fur coat to the butler.
— Now, leave me alone Vigor, I don’t want to be disturbed.
— Madam, Vigor bowed deferentially

A smoking teapot of fine herb tea was prepared on the glass coffee table just near a black silk pouch. With a greedy look on her face, she untied voraciously the pouch to reveal the crystal skull she had just acquired.
After a few seconds of beholding the priceless possession, she lifted the teapot lid with a stiff face which eventually smiled blissfully at the smell of the fine Earl Fuchsia crop which was infusing.

Good Lord, that trip was exhausting!… she growled in a very deep voiced that suddenly sounded more male than before.
Didn’t know I had to go as far as Spain to get that darn skull!

Bernie suddenly ripped her fine chignon from her head, revealing a bald head with a few short black hair on the top. She spitted her false teeth, peeled off some wrinkled patches of latex skin, smeared the mascara around her globular eyes and scratched her crotch…

A ruffled sound and a “mmm mmm” suddenly caught her attention off the itchy body parts.

She went to the cupboard, drew a key dangling from a necklace deeply buried inside her ample bosom, then stopped for a moment, and muttered a “bugger” before unbuttoning her tight blouse and removing the corset that was constraining her breath.
Smiling wickedly, she proceeded to open the cupboard, but recoiled at a pale tied and muzzled figure who looked much similar to whoever she was impersonating.

Oh, Lordy, what a stench! There’s no point in making such a fuss Viscountess, this will soon be over… I just needed a few things, and will soon be off, tonight to be precise…

The pale figure whined with pleading eyes.

Oh, just don’t make these eyes at me…

Bugger! I can’t bother with her now, she said to herself, closing the cupboard’s door oblivious to the plaintiff whines. Now, got to move on real quick, before they realize something was wrong with the transaction.

Juan had insisted that they all spent Christmas together before Paqui and Joselito went for their trip. He felt that there was more to this trip that he could grasp, and wanted to share these precious moments now, not wanting to live on regrets.
Now, the new year was here, and he was alone. At least, he’d been more than glad to see Claudio move out. It had all been a lot easier than he’d thought at first. Obviously, when Paquita had said to that maggot that she was going to accompany Joselito to his trip on the whachaname-Kikkoo Island, Claudio had been outraged, probably thinking a good playing victim act would soon make things right for him.
But he’d been wrong altogether. It was not about love for him or the other. It was all about freedom and being what she wanted. And emotional blackmail very quickly proved besides the point.
His father had been proud at Paquita. Her decision obviously was made, and it had been the first time he had seen the frail girl unwavering at the arguments.

The situation had soon proved unbearable for Claudio, who had no longer any reason for hanging around Juan and Paqui’s house, and one day he’d moved out, rather discreetly, not to be heard again. Somehow, Juan was aware of the town’s gossips, that he had acquired some unexpected sum of money, not sure if all very legally, but the thing was that he had decided to take his chances by going some said to Nicaragua, others to Brazil or even to the US…
But who really cared?

On his plane for Valparaiso, Claudio was looking at the letter he’d found in the family trunk. It was a brief correspondence between his grand-father and a certain Cillian Mc Gaughran, and it was linked to the skull he had sold such a handsome price. Perhaps he could get more information about them, if the recluse old man was still alive, that is…

She had felt it.
When the old man had left his body behind, she had felt it.

Oorlaith had foreseen that he would decide to leave this World, and thus was not affected too much. However, she was not sure that Leonard, who she had sent to the highs of Mount Elok’ram had had time to retrieve the cup of Margilonia.

Oorlaith had already collected the wand of Selvaniel, which Leonard had brought back to her, thanks to her indications, from the Forest bordering the Marshes. Now, she hoped he had time enough to get to the old Abbot.
Otherwise, it might be more delicate…
Much more delicate…

Hopefully, she had made contact with Roselyn, who had been settling in another part of Asgurdy, on one of the numerous rocky islands bordering the South-western coasts, where life was scarce and the soil barren, but where it was safe enough to do magic in this superstitious land, as not much people ventured to these places.
Her spiked dragon had helped her carve out her new residency and she was quite well installed now.
Before moving from the deserts of Asgurdy, she had managed to get the sunstone of Agnima.

When Veranassessee entered the secret facility with Gloria and Sharon, her blood congealed in her veins.
Patient 4 had escaped the safety straitjacket and was holding the doctor at paper-clip point.
Patient 4, was one of the first six patients they’d treated on the island, an awful miscarriage… Of the six, all had developed strong reactions to the medication especially as they had not yet found the appropriate dosage for the blue spider venom. Some had developed extra appendices, most had been hideously disfigured, and all of them had gone bonkers.
“Four” was the last alive of them all, by an inexplicable combination of luck and genetics, and by far the most dangerous one. Apparently, apart from madness, the venom had gifted “Four” with supra-human velocity and strength. It was what had kept that mad doctor from “erasing” that mistake, so sure he could find some interesting way of making profit out of that prodigious lucky find.
But now that was compromising everything…

V’ass pushed the two chatty old ladies in a broom-closet behind with a wink Be right back ladies!

Sharon and Gloria giggled in the small room, wondering about the unexpected sense of hospitality of the people of that resort. All was so funny and exciting since they’d decided to come to that place.

— Four! Release the doc’!
— Don’t move an inch closer or I’ll kill him!
— You have nowhere to go Four, backups will be here any minute now…
— One second is all I need to snap his neck!
— No! Dr. Chris Bronklehampton was moaning
— You, stay still, the mummified Four snapped to the panting doctor.

Quicker than light, V’ass shot a powerful sedative into the arm of the mummy. Four winced, drawing the dart out of the arm, crushing the fluffy fletchings between the fingers. Quickly assessing chances to escape, Four sent the doctor flying at the other side of the room, in a powerful swing of the arm, and jumped through the window in a formidable sound of smashed glass, disappearing into the jungle.

— Chris! Are you alright? Nurse Bellamy was already caring for the fainted doctor.

All he remembered was the name “Akita”… He was not sure that it was his name, perhaps it was not, but he had taken it as his own.
He’d been stranded on that island for so long he barely remembered whether he’d had a past before. In the beginning, he had taken an inventory of the passing time, but soon had discovered that days were irregularly long, and nights would sometimes last for more than one day, so that it was all pointless…
The toughest part had been to live in good intelligence —he couldn’t really say harmony— with the predatory hairy nest of the daughters of Narani. But at least he’d made clear that he was able to defend himself and retaliate if needed…

— Thanks to me, grunted a big dog half-focused, his head on his lap.
— Yeah, mostly thanks to you, Kay

Kay had appeared a few days after Akita discovered himself on that strange land. He was no common dog… In fact, Akita was wondering that it may only exist in his mind. Kay had been approaching him, more than he had tamed it, and soon Akita found out that he was no dog at all.
He was, as Kay had said, an inugami or dog spirit, able to shape-shift, and willing to bond with Akita. He’s said Akita his previous owner had died, and that he would have to die with him unless being adopted by another…
Akita had been reluctant at first, finding that there was something unclear, but he had agreed anyway… Better be with a faithful and powerful dog-spirit than die in the webs of the giant spiders…
All he had to do was to name it. And so he named it Kay.
Kay couldn’t be seen by most of the creatures in the forest, though the most sensitive could feel his presence. However, he could decide to take a more corporeal form, but that exhausted both Akira and Kay, and was rarely done. So most of the times, he was roaming the island in spirit form, which didn’t mean that he was powerless, far from it.

— I can sense something’s coming, growled Kay who took the shape of a big two-legged werewolf…

Linda and Peregrine’s portrait had taken a little longer than expected to realize. Quite abruptly after India’s encounter with the old wrinkled mummy, Bill Jobsworth had fallen ill. An abrupt cold he said he’d caught, that had left him stuck in his bed for a few weeks.
He’d thought that after the stone heads and the mummy, that was good he didn’t believe in maledictions, because he would have been dead by now. India Louise had been taking care of him, to the surprise of the old Lord who, however, barely expressed more than a raised eyebrow at her incongruous request.

That little retardation was in fact the perfect pretext for the young couple of globe-trotters to settle down in the castle, and prepare a little photographic exposition on their last trip in Eastern Africa. Though in 2057, photographic cameras were by far outdated, Linda was very fond of these old contraptions that she could use to render some of their trips with a certain kind of focus.
She’d a custom set of specially adapted cameras that she’d enhanced with devices to free her of the burdens of storage mostly. However, they could function most like the ancient ones. Capturing light through a single lens, in a very focused time and space framework.

She was very proud of the pictures she had taken of the Dragon’s Blood Trees in Socotra Island and the natural lighting of the scene gave a surreal feeling to it as though an actual iridescent dragon had been hovering on clouds above them.
When she saw them, India Louise had been gaping, telling they looked exactly like what delirious Bill had depicted of his visions …
Linda was moved beyond words at how amazingly complex and delicately beautiful this reality was…

Georges and Salome’s journal

From Salome’s account of her journey to the Murtuane

There is a purple beach that I have seen briefly in my third eye, with a stranded people of the Murtuane. It seems like a possible focus of Georges, named… “Jarvis” I would translate.
Georges having moved to the mountainous and icy lands of the Duane, I thought it would be entertaining to discover more about this focus before telling him about it. Though it was not what I initially in mind as per an exploration, it surely has its purpose.
This island has in fact the size of a continent, but being in an isolated part of the Murtuane, few are those knowing of it. It fosters some interesting creatures not found in other places of the Murtuane. Jarvis is not yet aware, but he is observed by some of them. Zentauras (these black-and-white striped centaur-like creatures) are guardians of this Island, and thus do not see the arrival of one of Jarvis’ kind as a particularly good omen. What puzzle them is that he has been rescued by one of the Daughters of the Sea.

When I connect with Jarvis, he tells that he knows this land as “Kandulim”, a fabled island from which people could easily go into another world and bring back whatever is most precious to you. It always had been a legend for him until he had opened his eyes and seen the purple beach.

Veranassessee (V’ass) Eloha, swimming like a naiad in the waves of the sapphire sea bordering the island of Tikfijikoo, was back in a few powerful strokes on the wooden planks of the pier from which she had just fallen.

Trained in many martial arts and in the art of concealing her emotions, she effortlessly managed to maintain a perfect composure despite the fact that this unexpected moment of inattention may have cost the loss of the precious box of rare Blue Bonnet spiders —the venom of which was needed for the good success of the “treatments”.

Sharon and Gloria, still cackling unceasingly, thanked Armando, the pilot of the seaplane, who had entertained them no end with his stories of mysterious wreckages and lost aircrafts.
Now they’d just landed on this paradisaic island, and a gorgeous woman dripping in water was extending them a firm hand, greeting them.

Al was wondering who had jinxed his last entry in the play, that he had to write twice, since some invisible mischievous hand had just made him lose the first in the /dev/null dimension.
Good thing the Sumafairies bent over his crib had been gifting him with a good memory…

— Welcome at Tikfijikoo, where your kewlest dreams come troo.

V’ass was satisfied. Though, most of the box had been lost, she had managed to save two couples of spiders, which would be enough for the two turkeys.
As for the remaining ones, let’s just hope they’re all dead and drowned.

Yurick found a very nice surprise in his mailbox. A parcel from his red bearded friend Gustav with whom he had not spoken much till Vienna .
Funnily it was for Yurick’s birthday, and his birthday was almost two months ago. And yet, it was perfectly synchronous with his many friends popping birthdays. Malika first, soon followed by Aina, and others.

In the parcel, there was a big stuffed panda, and an old video game Yurick was very fond of when he was a kid. It was called Monkey Island… A funny pirate’s game. He liked the island and monkey imageries. Like being in an island recently, yet not being cut off from the rest of the world…

Oh, and there was another game, one he didn’t know about, Grim Fandango, with skeletons on the cover, like playing some strange cluedo game…

And a novel from Proust, with Yurick’s name on it! A parody from the style of Proust’s contemporary, Balzac included…

Wow… so many syncs. He would call his friend in the afternoon.

Oörlaith was picking star-thistles buds that were growing on the ruins in the Marshes. She had always felt attracted by the putrid Marshes, for many reasons.
There was something in her own demeanour that made creatures and people comfortable around her, and she had always felt in herself that natural balancing and accepting qualities that makes a good Healer.
But it was a complex matter, and her choices of explorations had always stirred much incomprehension in the various people she had met over her life. And she had met lots.

Of course, the first ones where her own parents. They were opulent burgomasters of one of the major towns of Cromash Tur, and from the date of her birth, Oörlaith was destined to marry one of the Warlords of these regions. Something that was sound and portent of good fortune, as her parents kept saying. Warlords were always in need of fundings for their expeditions, and in exchange would be providing a modicum of security for the commerce and other activities. It was thus all good for everybody. Good exchange of practices.

But very early in life she had known her path was not that one.
Nothing as plain and simple… and boring! one must admit. Her parents would have not, though.

As far as she remembered, she first had a living proof of her potentials when she healed a small bird back to life. A miracle, for the poor thing had been maimed by an rabid chipmog pillaging birds nests for eggs, and throwing the little hatched bird off the branches. Chipmogs were no more evil than the bird she knew that, and their show-offy nature was even a blessing in disguise, as she had been quickly alerted of the incident.
She was four year-old.

Only later did she became aware of how she could best learn to develop her magical potentials. Her parents wouldn’t have let her know about such things as how to become a Grand Sorceress, for they did not really know much about it, and also for it was considered unfitting to her rank. “Simpletons”, she couldn’t help but think.
But the day she became aware of the legendary Island of Mörk, she instantly set her goal to be counted among the best of their Learned Ones, whatever the price for her.

And notwithstanding her relatively young age, she got by her own to the Island, and was trained there too… But then again, it was not as easy, as she rebelled against some of the Laws of Magic passed down by the Teachers, Laws that were thick and dry as a century old grimorium full of abstruse formulæ.
Hopefully, she ended up with misfits as much she was, her dear sisters Roselÿn and Malvina.

When it was time for them to part on their own adventures, she again surprised many (but not her dear sisters) by stating that she would settle near the Marshes. The legends surrounding this place, as well as the huge potential for practicing healing in one of the most difficult environments were immense incentives for her.
The Teachers had warned her of the immense energy that filtered in these lands, as it was a coordinate point where things had already gone awry in the past. She had almost laughed at them. Of course she was aware, that was all about that. Definitely not for the faint of hearts.

Her companion Andarión, who was in his/her preferred shape a majestic water dragon, as wise as it was a crackpot at times, had been aware of her intentions as soon as they had first met. They had chosen each other quite purposefully, though she was not entirely aware of her role in these discoveries. But undoubtedly he was an asset.

And as she was picking her mauve star-thistles, humming like a raving madwoman, her sharp eye was on the look for the legendary golden one which would mean the dawn of a new Era…