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Unknown to the family, Bert is Abcynthia’s father. Her mother, now dead, had an affair with Bert, so when Abcynthias left the town to go to university, she thought that both her parents were dead. Some of the remaining old codgers had their suspicions, but it was a well kept secret ~ not least, because of Horace Hogg’s (Abby’s father) violent and unpredictable nature. Fred’s family, Idle and his mother, are new to the town, coming only because Fred married Abcynthia (from now on known for short as Abby because it’s a fucker to spell)
Abby’s mother, Hannah Hogg, died in somewhat suspicious circumstances shortly before the mines closed.Of the original inhabitants of the town, few remained. There were a dozen or so old codgers, too old for change, whiling away their dry days on the state pension. A handful of young families had attempted to set up an alternative self sustainable cooperative, forming a little enclave on the outskirts of town, raising chickens, rabbits and sheep, and lots of naked unruly brats with ankle bracelets. The solar panels looked incongruously shiny and sharp against the backdrop of dust and dilapidation.
Fred poses as a teenager on Flitter social network and makes friends with his daughter Clove. Fred’s motivation was to keep abreast of the family news without eliciting any questions about his own whereabouts, and his intention was to remain a casual acquaintance merely, but Clove has developed a strong attachment to this “girl” and shares all her troubles and secrets with “her”. Fred struggles to remain neutral, and respond in the character of a teenage girl, but is emotionally unable to break the connection. Thoughts of his real identity becoming know to her appall him.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
The P’hope could be seen everywhere: leading the Builders to work double shifts to strengthen the collapsing structures of the flying City, exhorting the Magi to contain the failing beliefs of people back to virtuous resilience by ways of special masses held throughout Karmalott, and ensuring with the Sentries that all tremors of civil unrest was properly contained and the ring leaders properly admonished into good conduct.
The situation at the secret political prison known as Gazalbion was alarming. With most of the dangerous interlopers free to roam Abalone, and no walls to contain new prisoners, it could take a while to rebuild its walls, and the P’hope didn’t have the luxury of time on his side. It meant that no civil and belief dissidents could be brought there at the moment, and any spark of disobedience could spread like wildfire.
The P’hope dreaded what could happen if, despite all the efforts, the beanstalk was beyond repair. He knew his faltering belief in it could only hasten its fate, but even so, he wanted to be ready for the worst.
Considering the limited amount of rescue storks which were available off the walls of the city, it was likely that the result would be of apocalyptic proportion. Nevertheless, he refused to consider evacuating for the moment, even knowing it would take days for those on foot to climb down the bean’s tendrils.
Especially, as he was now in the perfect position to be the hero of the day.…
He had been robbed of his share of light many, many years ago.
At the time, a young boy had arrived from the sea and from an outside world to Abalone. Jube, who was not yet the P’hope, was a striving leader of a group of survivors of the island. The bog’s dangerous and foggy emanations and its wild life were a threat of all instants, and he had soon realized there was strength in numbers. Many lost souls had gathered, but didn’t have the strength on their own to remain focused on a reality they wanted, a dream made reality.He, Jube the Brave, had such strength in himself. But even so, they were only less than a few dozens of men and women in the camp, and the reach of what they could create was only good enough to sustain them for short periods of time.
But the boy named George had arrived from afar, and things had changed gradually. Jube had found out pretty quickly that the boy had the great potential to bring people together, and hold their beliefs like a mighty rope made of the thinnest of strands of hair. So he had offered to mentor him, while at the same time working his words into suggestions, and shaping the boy’s future to fit his own dreams.
That’s how the beanstalk started. The first sprouts were so tiny and frail, but the more people came and believed in the leadership of the one who was to become their King, the more it grew, and lifted them above the clouds and the fog of their minds.
Years had passed, Prince George became King Artie as another suggestion of the P’hope which had the side-effect to cloak Artie from his memories. The P’hope grew in power, always in the shadows however.For a while, people were happy. Truly happy. But progress was inevitable, consciousness had to move and grow, otherwise their dream of a City would have been another foggy and soul-numbing projection of their feeble minds.
The first real threat happened when Abalone, in one of its inexplicable changes of time and space, drew to them a stranger. True to their principles, they had welcomed her, nursed her, and given her a place of choice in the Magi’s ranks despite her young age. But she could see clearly between the cracks and the varnish of order. Worse, she could see the P’hope’s intentions were not so pure.
So it become soon apparent to Jube that the young Gwinie had to disappear, and her followers had to be contained. For the sake of the great Karmalott, and to shield everyone from the impending chaos, the same chaos they had came from victorious many years ago.
He and his minions had struck in a very swift and coordinated movement. Gwinie was tragically lost in the bog during her rite of passage. A truce was arranged with her followers, and they were allowed a concession, with enough resources to survive. They ultimately built Gazalbion, which also became, in a mutual arrangement, a political prison for Karmalott, unknown to virtually everyone in the City. The Processor, one of Gwinie’s former followers, was glad to receive prisoners who would add to the strength and mass beliefs of his encampment. The P’hope in return, was glad to be rid of difficult problems.
That was so long ago, but it rang like a warning from no further than yesterday.
They had never found out what the old temple’s ruins were for, or by which civilization before them they were built. They were as old as the island itself, and seemed to be doomed, full of an ominous power he couldn’t and feared to harness. If anything else failed, he would go back there. Maybe that was his only solution.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
As soon as Lisa and her companions were safely beneath the manhole cover, Pseu shapeshifted back into her usual self.
“On the way to the ancient temple, I’d like to stop off at the remains of the tile factory ~ oh don’t worry, it’s on the way!” said Pseu, noticing Lisa’s expression. “We don’t even need to make a detour. And” she added, “You will be pleased to know that there are already some breaches to the walls. There has been some earth shifting due to a beanstalk infestation, fortuitously landing on the wall. As soon as we have collected the tiles, we find a breach and make our exit.”
“What about Sanso?” asked Fanella. “Shouldn’t we try to find him?”
“Oh, I heard a rumour that he was in the wrong story. Don’t worry about him, he’ll find a way back sooner or later” replied Pseu. “Come on! This will be fun!”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
At first, Sadie did not realise she was invisible.
It was only when she looked in the bathroom mirror she realised something was missing, and even then it took a moment to register. Thinking about it later, it seemed strange to her that something as monumental as being invisible could have gone unnoticed for at least 5 minutes. Yet she had risen that morning with her usual feeling of happiness that everything was right with the world—it was a feeling she had worked hard to cultivate after many hours of selective brainwashing and meditation practice at the Academy.
After the initial shock, Sadie realised what must have happened. Before bed the evening before, she had finally plucked up courage to do the set of exercises given to her by the Techromancer in 2222. He said it would assist her in her attempts to leave her body and explore other dimensions. Clearly, something had gone very askew.
”Right then”, said Sadie, trying to remain calm and rather relieved she could still hear her voice, ”I am going to have to message Linda Pol and explain the situation. I will request to be returned to 2222 so that I can have another chat with that Techno weirdo.”
………………………………………….
Linda Pol was delighted to get Sadie’s timely message on her e-zapper. But she had no intention of returning her to 2222.
Not just yet, anyway.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Jeremy was 23 years old and living in a 57 square meters apartment in Brooklyn. He had two passions in life. Dance and maps.
Max growled. Well you could consider Max as Jeremy’s third passion. Max was a ragdoll cat with a tiny little genetic defect. His fur had this faint pink tint as if it had been put into a washing machine with red clothes. Max purred, satisfied.
Jeremy’s apartment was an artwork in itself. He was painting as a hobby and had drawn a few maps on his white walls. He had the precise stroke that dance demands of a dancer’s move, he had the eye of a falcon concerning details and he loved connecting dots. For some of the maps he had used pointillism, and for others the ancient art of collage he had learned with his grand-mother Martha. Inspired by Matthew Cusnik he had made portraits of dancers with maps and other landscapes.
Jeremy has been interested for some time in a particularly beautiful picture of the Abraham Lake that he wanted to render on one of the last remaining areas of his ceiling when Max jumped on his lap, purring like a caress junkie in need of a few strokes. Jeremy obliged his cat distractedly, too engrossed in the meanders of the picture and the few maps he could already see in his mind like a puzzle.
Max jumped on the desk and tried to force his way between the keyboard and Jeremy’s hand. But he didn’t have enough time to fulfill his desire. The cat began to cough as if it had a train of thought stuck in his throat.
“Shit! You’re not going to puke on my keyboard!”
But it was too late, the cat opened its mouth and threw up a little ball of hair which bounced off the keyboard and crashed down on the floor.
“ehw!” said Jeremy who cringed when he saw the hair ball on his carpet. “I don’t know what you ate but it smells like those wheat Polish biscuits.
Jeremy had already taken some tissue to clean the cat’s mess, and the cat, certainly thinking it wasn’t enough was licking his fur again.
“Don’t make another one like that. You know I don’t like it.”He was about to take the ball when it wobbled suspiciously. Then it began to grow. Jeremy blinked several times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. When the hairball reached the size of a soccer ball, it was obvious there was something inside, it was deformed like the belly of a pregnant woman when the baby kicks in her bowels.
“What on earth have you spawned, Max!” He looked at his cat, horrified that it could be one of those Aliens.Soon it was as big as a corpse bag for two, and Jeremy could tell from the voices that there were at least two people inside.
Sanso got out of the ragdoll hair ball first, perfect hair as usual. Fanella struggled to get out of the mess of hairs, and was a bit disheveled.
“Time for a reality check”, said Sanso. “Am I dreaming ?” When he saw all the maps and the ragdoll cat, he knew he was at the right place.
“Who are you guys ? And how did you get out of Max ?” asked Jeremy.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Wait, wait!”
When Jonbert in his crab suit arrived on the spot, most of the life had deserted the place to go for a half-brain peaceful sleep, except a few remaining inebriated whales making some more ambergris gyrating around the fading crystal. At times, the hologram could still be faintly perceived.“It’s so unfair, I’ve invested so much in this quest to see it fail now and have other reap the reward! I have a question, answer me!”
The St Germain hologram seemed roused by the word question, if not by the emotional request.
“A question… Mmm, sounds tempting, I didn’t really get a good question in ages, not to be rude with the previous ones, but well…” he shrugged.
“Alright, alright, a few questions but be quick with it, I’m nearly done packing my data to transcend to Peasland.”Despite the draw to ask more about Peasland, Jonbert was steadfast in his resolve and asked the question that had been on mind rehearsed many a time, hopeful for a mind-blowing answer.
“Life everlasting is at hand; all I need is to refine enough gold to go through time…”
“Oh, or simply a bit of gugleshopping would do”
“What?”
“Nevermind, must be a data interference”
“How do I manage that? Can you teach me transmutation?”
“Well, sure I can, it probably would help, actually I just did it again right here about half an hour ago.”
“Where is the gold? Where is it?”
“It’s in the heart, that’s where true transmutation works. Maybe you should listen to some music, I hear a hit song is on its way.”Jonbert had the vague feeling he was being mocked, if not by Saint Germain, by fate or worse, his own attempts at a futile quest.
“But seriously, endings are not so bad you know” the hologram went on “sometimes some experiences are like being trapped in a crystal. I was trapped in a crystal, in a previous life, a long time ago you know… But I digress… You see, new life sparks new creativity. I suggest you make peace with your life and go on with the rest of it, otherwise you’ll find out you have missed it completely. No amount of fountain of youth is going to make you feel better, not in this state. But the reverse is true, the more you will enjoy and inhabit your present, the longer you will live, without even ageing.”
It surely wasn’t an answer he was expecting. Nobody would have dared give him such answer.
“Take it as you are not dead yet, this capacity to be surprised is a great feeling… Now I must bid you farewell my friend. You had indeed some great questions…”
“Wait!” the unexpected words had stirred him somehow and Jonbert had a sudden idea “Tell me a bit more about this Peasland place,… are they in need of a person in a place of authority? Can I come along?”
“I don’t see why not. Let me recalibrate that crystal, and we’ll be there in a minute.”
And with a flash of light, the hologram and the crab-man disappeared to the relief of Belen who was monitoring the scene with interest mixed with concern.
“That was unexpected. And bloody hell, I’m dead. Those humans know nothing.
Well, look at the Now, it’s high time I go back to Peter, he and the kids must be worried green sick…”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
How many ways to stab a pea with a syringe? Jonbert woke up from his nap with the most peculiar question on his mind.
At 153, he’d started to get those annoying narcoleptic fits. He would go down in a blink of an eye into a deep dreamless sleep, and wake up to the most embarrassing of situations.
He felt like kicking someone, and mumbled under his breath “Just bloody once, before it gets puréed”.He could have sworn he heard one of the butler robots titter silly. Those darn robots were getting smarter every day, he would have to get them a good canning.
But more pressing matter were on his mind, and he blisslessly ignored the wondrous display of flying manta rays around the eight-flippered submarine.Time-landing around Big Island was always tricky, he was glad the darned bots got this one right, tittering notwithstanding.
Why so tricky, he could hear minds wonder. Why can’t those minds just read the bloody Time Traveling Manual! he exploded. The Island is expanding, creating new land every day. One miscalculation, and your expensive submarine would be enclosed in molten lava! How many times he had to repeat it.
True enough, his temper had not improved with age, but that kept him alive well, thank you very much.That’s were they were supposed to collect the travelers, to entertain and train them a bit before leading them to the whale’s hotspot.
He would have to remain discreet for now on, and the prospect of having to refrain swearing loudly at ghosts seen by anyone but himself got him nervous all of a sudden.
They’d felt the Time Sewer get cleaned up, although it took a time to reach them. The frogs were paddling like crazy, and then the bubble reached them, propelling the jelly-bean shaped carriage like a rocket to their destination.
“Brace yourseeeeeeelves!” Sanso sung in the key of F, ending the frogs’ symphony with a perfect 5th.
“The mind has a tendency to forget unpleasant things…” Sadie was saying to the queens in a way to soothe their increasingly worried faces “It will be over in a minute”.
The last part didn’t get them any less worried.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Jonbert had developed an interesting theory while doing his morning ablutions about time travel and catching butterflies. He had a gorgeous butterfly nursery inside the submarine, and got the strange idea that trying to fiddle with time was like catching a prized butterfly among lots of others looking alike.
His thoughts were interrupted when the horn signaled they had arrived in 2222 in one of the blind spots of the ocean’s depths close to the particular spot where… some interesting butterflies would be attracted.
The submarine was mostly entirely roboted. There was little for him to take care of, so instead of pacing around in his tartan kilts, he sat back in a comfortable 1980s garish sofa from his antique collections, and revisited his memories in his memory palace.
He had taken him great patience and cunningness to hatch the plan. Through many of his Time Tourist outlets and a few shell corporations, the last of one which was named Vague, he had manipulated events to design and hire the Drag Queen time contest. Drag queens wasn’t the original plan, more of an unexpected deviation, not that it really mattered. All he needed was just one mission. Then, he only had to make sure the contestant would be diverted to a carefully selected time zone, and given a key to smuggle.
The key wasn’t really important, what it collected along the way was.For him to be able to breach the Time wall of 3333, he needed vast amounts of gold, and to his knowledge, it could only be accomplished through true transmutation.
Artificial gold, like artificial crystal wasn’t created as good as it gets in nature, and for some reason wouldn’t remain stable enough as the machines were propelled too far in time. Of course the irony of that was a conundrum in itself and wasn’t lost to him: after all, wasn’t transmutated gold just artificial too? After what centuries had managed to push as boundaries and envelopes, he wasn’t sure any longer what was artificial or natural. And it was his last ditch effort at living everlastingly.
He didn’t care if he could just chose another of these holobodies to project his thoughts into, he was old school, and stubborn to a fault. He had to see it through, even if, and especially if so many before him had failed.The key was designed to capture a complete hologram of the person who seemed to have accomplished the transmutation recipe he desired: St Germain.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Reginald gaped in amazement at the brainwave that had struck Sadie. Poor thing, he thought, she seemed to have these fits sometimes, where she would hang on a word, frozen in time for minutes, and then resuming as if nothing had happened.
He snapped his fingers in front of Sadie, but she remained motionless. Pity, he thought, there would be none of the delicious crocodile eggs poached from the Menagerie left when she would come back to her senses…In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Pseu was pleased to be able to report back to Benedict at base camp in Holland that her disguise was working well. Nobody had questioned her alias, her codes remained uncracked. Communications between them had been scrambled skillfully, no data had been poached, and to date nobody had ovadosed.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Whilst in the sewer, Sadie had time to ponder a few things which she couldn’t yet make sense of. She wondered why Linda Paul was sending them to retrieve a crocheted ferret. And she was still not sure what century they were being sent to. Despite these small glitches, she was determined to go with the flow and remain positive. All would no doubt be revealed. She looked at her 3 companions.
“Perhaps our new team motto could be Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.” she said with a bright smile.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Aaahahah…” Linda Paul ended her laugh abrutptly and looked fearsomely at the three newly dubbed Musqueerteers. “You thought the competition was over, girls ? It had only just begun.”
The girls swallowed in unison, all pouting disappeared from their young drag faces.
“Sadie Merrie will guide you through the Time Sewer Machine, and your next challenge will be to arrive clean and shiny at your destination. A broken nail… A lost eyelash”
The crowd of defeated queens and the other clients gaped as Linda Paul’s kept silent longer than necessary.
“And you’ll be out. Ahahah. Everybody here will watch you and follow your every moves for this mission. So remain dignified, you represent all the Queens of our time” When Linda Paul had talked about the Time Sewer Machine, Maurana had silently hoped it was a typo for Time Sewing Machine. But her hope faded away like a crying widow make-up when she saw where Sadie Merry had led them.
They sadly left the buzz and cheer ups to go through a small door in the backstage of the club. It opened in a dark courtyard. It was already night outside, and a breeze made the young Queens shiver. No light. There was a black hole in the middle of the yard and they could smell what was inside before they could see it.
“Phew”, said Consuela, “It’s worse than inside Maurice’s pants”. It didn’t help relax nor clear the atmosphere.They heard the noise of an engine starting and suddenly the lights went on. Maurana looked behind her back and saw Sadie Merry near an electricity board with blinking lights. Their was something shiny about her whole being. It looked like a protective extensible gloss suit fitting her sobre attire and her beehive wig perfectly. It didn’t seem to touch the clothes or the humongous wig, and yet it was moving graciously around.
Terry looked at the sewer. The content had begun to turn around and was soon turning fast enough to create a kind of vortex of garbage. “Where are our suits ..?” asked Terry with a hopeful smile, looking around. The older Queen’s gaze killed this hope in a squish.
“You have to shout your team slogan, girls”, Sadie said flatly.
“A slogan ?” asked the Musqueerteers. They looked at each others, and Consuela giggled.
“Wigs for all”, she tentatively offered.Sadie Merry rolled her eyes and pushed them in the sewer which was now glowing purple. She could hear the crowd inside the club chanting “Wigs for all! Wigs for all!” She jumped in the trashole, wishing she hadn’t eaten barbecue pork chops before coming.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
She Dreams
She dreams she is learning to fly. Over a green field with a band of trees to her left and a field of grazing cows to her right. Endless blue sky above. Nobody else in sight. She isn’t very high from the earth and she isn’t very fast. Her arms are outstretched for balance as she wobbles forward. It is exhilarating, but she is still glad there is no one but the cows to witness these first clumsy attempts.
She wakes and hugs her dream tightly. Going over the details so she will remember them later before she slips back into sleep.
Morning
It was 5:22am. Still over an hour before her antiquated alarm clock was due to go off; the clock was a relic she clung to more because she thought it looked cool on the shelf than for any practical reason. Sadie decided to get up anyway and use the extra time for meditating. She had a tough assignment ahead of her that day in Marseille and a bit of extra inner peace certainly wouldn’t go amiss.
Sadie worked as a private contractor for the HTB or Happiness Training Bureau. Their motto was Transit umbra, lux permeant. Roughly translated that meant Shadow passes, light remains. Nobody in the bureau knew who said it, although some sources attributed it to Ericis V Lemonista, the renowned scholar and educational reformer.
In reply to: Rafaela’s Random Ramblings
Well fancy that, she exclaimed almost gleefully (although not altogether surprised at the synchronicity), an empty chair! Just moments before, she had read: “What I am trying to say is that given the propensity for empty chairs it took a while to realise that a vacancy even existed.” That was in the Loosid Thread Times, but the interesting thing was that not long before that, she had been reading about the Empty Seats Party. The Empty Seats Party was a bit like musical chairs, in that there were chairs involved, and parties, but in the case of the Empty Seats Party, the chairs remained empty, and the parties and festivities were held in celebration than no political parties would be sitting on any of the chairs.
Everyone was at the parties and so nobody noticed that someone was sitting on one of the chairs.In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The pond was full of black tadpoles. The creatures were wriggling restlessly, following invisible currents, connecting dark stains packed with thousands of them. Benjamin Goat immersed a small plastic bottle into one of the biggest node, it sucked the little buggers like a fat syringe.
“Such a small container won’t reduce their population too much”, he thought. Indeed, he had always wondered why there were so many of them in the early stages and why you would see so few frogs or toads. The remaining tadpoles were beginning to gather around his hand. He repressed a shiver. A new idea for a movie just sprang up from his subconscious. Something to do with man-eater tadpoles. That would certainly hit the box office for months.
He smiled. There were enough of them in the bottle.“Yuck!” said a fat pink lady before licking her strawberry ice cream.
“It’s for my son”, said Benjamin just before realizing he was justifying again. His psychiatrist had told him there was no need for justifying, it was like apologizing, and he needn’t apologize, he was the great Benjamin Goat after all. He snorted and mimicked drinking from his bottle. This time, she was disgusted. She made the mistake to hold her ice cream too far from herself and one of those Gib’s monkey with the pink ass stole it. She was shouting now, people would pay attention to her instead of him. People always pay attention to what’s more annoying.
Paradoxically, he felt a pang of jealousy. He was not used to let go of others’ attention.His cell phone vibrated, three long vibrations and seven short ones. The code for his secret society. It was a great idea to put it in his last movie, unfortunately it hadn’t had the desired effect. People were so gullible that they would believe everything that came out in a fiction movie.
“The Jesuit is in the place”, said a vocoded voice. That was all. It could only mean one thing. It was all going according to the plan. He smiled and handed out the bottle to a kid. He wouldn’t need that after all.In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd?” a perplexed Lady Appleton turned to her husband (the fifth and last of them) Lord Appleton.
“Yes, I know, dear, it has been all so sudden…”
“What?”
“You mean, Ed’s death, don’t you?”
“Well, of course I do, but that’s not it…” She fidgeted the ornate golden disk at the center of the tall dark mysterious cabinet.
“What it is my dear? We can very well continue with the plan notwithstanding his unexpected demise…”
“Oh sure, that we can, so long as Cornella remains unaware of it… Last time was too close… But anyway, that wasn’t what I meant at all. You see, if Ed was really dead, one would expect he would take no time contacting us. I wonder if he’s stuck in transition, or if the surge’s energy had something to do with this improbable leave of absence…”In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Captain Yang Lang, or Goat as they called him, had reluctantly anchored the Aqua Luna at the Long Poon port to resupply for the next month. The Aqua Luna was his pride, an old pirate ship improved with modern tech, with sails bright vermilion, and polished deck of teck wood, smelling of the forests and brine. Years earlier, he’d vowed to stay off land as much as possible, and use her to remain away from the current lunacy that sprayed over the lands. But strange tides and surges on the ocean had warned him that it seemed to spray further than he’d expected.
To get to the bottom of it, he was having an appointment at the basement of an old derelict building, on the first floor of which artists had setup an organization named the Long Poon House of Stories; funnily, the basement was full of other kinds of stories. It had served as a training facility back when the Brits had dominion over the seas. It was now recycled into an archive facility for the Surge Team. You usually wouldn’t notice that, but if you paid attention, the bag of sponges sold at the Sinese medicine store full of dried animals, dogs legs and whatnots was unmistakable.In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
In the vast mudflats of the Guadalquivir river delta, a small group of mudlarks on a field trip from London examine strange geometric shadows of what look to be the remains of a ringed city. “L..l..l..la la la looks like that in in in ins suh suh suh insignia, d d d don’t it, mate?” stuttered Dennis.
“The one we found on that old sponge in the mud of the Thames?” asked his uncle Bob. “It does, now that you mention it. Must be a connection. Ok lads, fan out and keep your eyes peeled. We must be close to finding the portal entrance, and we need to find it before the Three Kings parade.”
