Daily Random Quote

  • Becky felt revitalized somewhat after breakfast, and decided to go for a walk. Sean was still snoring and mumbling in bed, so she pulled some clothes out of the closet quickly and climbed into them quietly, unable to see clearly in the dark. If the pile of wedding gifts on the dining room table hadn’t attracted her ... · ID #724 (continued)
    (next in 16h 24min…)

Latest Activity

Search Results for 'secret'

Forums Search Search Results for 'secret'

Viewing 20 results - 241 through 260 (of 322 total)
  • Author
    Search Results
  • #3004
    Jib
    Participant

      Aqua Luna woke up. She was in her bed. She spent a moment wondering how she got there. She had no recollection whatsoever of what happened and her last memory was about the time she left work and met Tony in the parking lot.
      She was craving. She went to the kitchen in her green frog pajamas, automatically turning on the TV on her way. The program was about the recent retirement of the Pope. The reporter was saying something about a possible blackmail by a secret society famous for their recent appearance in a Benjamin Goat’s movie.

      She winced. The fridge was almost empty except for a few chinese cabbages and century eggs.

      #2996
      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        “Blimey! The Pope, eh? Are you teasing me again?”
        Vera didn’t answer.
        “Oh come on! Don’t give me that need-to-know-basis treatment, as much as I love a good riddle, I hate secrets! Are we going to look for the reincarnation of a famous Pope à la Little Buddha? Tell me, tell me!” Bouncing with excitement on the rolling Eggsway made her almost fall head over wheels into a flangeway carved into the muddy track that went deeper into the forest.

        Regaining her balance, she looked ahead to see Vera was already a few meters ahead — and navigating the Eggsway was becoming difficult. She knew she should have opted for the 4×4 model…
        So… Vera wasn’t really paying attention, she would have to try another approach to worm answers out of her. What was so special about this place anyway? Lost continent of Mu, ancient architecture, maybe underwater tunnels… Nothing that would lead directly to the Vatican she surmised… Unless…

        They arrived at a clearing in the forest, where blue glow sticks had been placed in a round pattern. Vera was standing there, after having carefully placed a glowing green rote at the center, staring at the middle of the light circle, and without turning her head to look at her, told Lulla “Here’s your answer coming.”

        A huge buzzing throb started to fill the air, sounding to concentrate at a focal point not higher than 10 inches above the ground, at the exact center of the blue circle. It begun sparkling and * BooM *, in all its slimy tentaculeous glory, a spaceship was there.

        “Special delivery from our alien friends” Vera said, finally deigning to look at Lulla.

        The rather small spaceship started to slowly expand, becoming larger, until an opening appeared, letting a form emerge from the membranous appearance of the hull. The form which looked like some person was suddenly dropped unceremoniously with a * Plop! * while the spacecraft elastically recovered its initial shape.
        Moments later, it was gone, and with it the buzzing sound.
        The green rote payment was gone too. Greedy aliens.

        “Come on, let’s bag this guy and bring him home for phase 2. A red convertible SUV is waiting for us at the portal’s entrance.”
        So, that’s where I come in… Lulla was starting to wonder what was the use of her being here, since Vera was so bossy and secretive. But now,… Of course she was better at hatting, but she could call herself without bragging a real bagging specialist.

        #2995
        ÉricÉric
        Keymaster

          In Ed Steam’s old office, Lord Lemon was like in a mausoleum full of ghosts.
          Mostly computer illiterate, he favoured greatly goose feather and dark Chinese ink soft purr on the paper over the annoying clickety racket of the keyboards. So he wasn’t exactly feeling at home in Ed’s old shoes.

          The team’s greeting party had been cordial, but he didn’t feel an overwhelming welcome either, not that he expected it. It was Ed’s team after all, he was the Rooster of the chicks of roast, whatever they liked to call themselves. He was not found of monikers and preferred to be addressed simply as Sir.

          The call he received on the morning was perplexing him. They’d found an auditor dead with a Surge Corp. business card in his jacket in the streets of a Spanish city, he couldn’t really remember which, the accent on the phone was as dreadful as that of a Chinese civet, but… What was that about already? He’d thought his memory was improving, getting back on the field, but there were relapses again, he had to concentrate. Afternoon Scrabble games were not that bad after all.

          He’d perfected a neat technique to remember things, placing vivid images in memory palaces constructed in his mind were he could retrieve them later, but the thing was that his memory palaces sorely lacked a cleaning lady, and images sometimes blurred together or went missing, fading away. He sighed.

          His gaze on the phone brought him back to his stream of thought. This would have been stored on the Suspicious Clues Palace, in Ed’s corner. His mind raced back in the atrium of his palace where he could see the various corners, and he went back into the Alley of Dark Secrets, then turned to the Corner of Lonely Puzzle Pieces. There were actually a lot of them, but the topmost one was vivid enough. It was a red blood hearing-aid spewing out a mean Larsen and bathing in paella. For “auditor murdered in Spain” obviously. He turned down mentally the volume of the hearing-piece. This was not a very elegant image, but he was in a hurry, and crude preposterous images always were remembered better he’d found out. The lewdest even more so. Which was why his Palace of Past Precious Moments was starting to look like a brothel he was loath to admit.

          He was starting to wonder if Ed’s demise was not some sort of inside job. Circumstances were not really orthodox, but nothing was in their line of duty, so he had to look for something else. He’d already started to make an inventory of the storage room, just before the break-in, but computer handicapped as he was, between paper and memory palaces, he couldn’t figure it anymore and had to start it over with some help from Cornella.
          At least, he’d sent Hyphen and Dash to discreetly investigate on the break-in and now, he will probably send them to investigate on… he faced a blank. All he could remember now was he was having the meanest craving for mussels and prawns.

          #2992

          In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

          ÉricÉric
          Keymaster

            ship janet added buns gone godfrey
            herself sue pinterest loved silly black photos
            elves teapot give continued secret plan guy thinking

            #2988
            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              Ed Steam’s Rally Update:

              Where is your Surge Team now?

              • 1. Cornella • last seen in Long Poon, with computer troubles (#2942)
              • 2. Pearl • last seen with Mari Fe considering freezing their butts on a flying carpet in a shop at Baku (#2939)
              • 3. Mari Fe • last seen with Pearl (#2939)
              • 4. Skye • last seen missing in action, probably lost in London’s last surge of fog (#2851)
              • 5. Katarina • last seen with Pearl and Mari Fe (#2939)
              • 6. Vera Pappaloosa • last seen with Lulla set to meet in Pohnpei, in the middle of the Pacific to deal with a yet undefined surge (#2863)
              • 7. Kiki Razwa • last seen chatting with Björk about an upcoming transportation surge (#2941)
              • 8. Björk • last seen on her way to deal with a transportation surge somewhere in Europe (#2941)
              • 9. Janet Mendyourhall • last seen heading her way back to Nevada after containing a zombilic surge in Spain (#2922)
              • 10. Lulla Spinosa • last seen meeting with Vera (#2863)
              • 11. Madam Li • last seen heading back to Harbin, in Shanghai’s metro, after a snow surge successfully contained (#2940)
              • 12. Anita Charmpatti • in Mumbai (no comment yet)
              • 13. Elza • last seen in Moscow managing a taser surge (#2937)

              Other recurring characters in the same timeline:

              • Ed Steam • last seen fomenting a sinister plot in his secret hideout after faking his own demise and looting the Surge HQ artefacts warehouse (#2946)
              • Aqua Luna • last seen at an unknown location, in a mysterious ship after a probable alien abduction in Long Poon (#2945)
              • Belle (Bee) Endwhistle • last seen flushed out-of-body in the magic E-map, but didn’t yet reappear unlike Pearl and Mari Fe (#2902)

              Recurring other-dimensional characters in the same timeline:

              Other characters in the future timeline:

              • Captain YangLang • last seen at the management of the old Long Poon Surge abandoned facility, recovering Ed Steam’s lost time capsule #23 (#2864)
              #2987
              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                Back at his secret hideout, just after the successful break-in at the Surge HQ in Long Poon, Ed Steam had a brilliant idea. He bobbed his head in the Indian fashion while stroking his waxed mustache.
                He passed the armoured bears guarding the entrance of the secret door inside their cave with ease. They were asleep during this period of the year anyway. They weren’t like talking bears of course, but he liked the idea of having them protected in case some happy-trigger hillbilly in the vicinity would find the entrance of their cave.
                Well, back to his last brilliant idea. It was a bit hard to keep track of them —he had so many every day. “Too brilliant for his own good,” how often did he hear that sentence. Indeed.

                #2945
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  His razor blade in left hand (he was ambidextrous with a slight favour for the left side), Ed suddenly remembered his future struggle with the daft cumbersome vermillion man, so he quickly turned off the portal. Then, against all common sense and years of procedures, decided to put it into his pocket.
                  Everything following came back at once, interspersed with bits of smashed objects and blurs. But something he distinctly remembered was that Mari Fe was in the apartment, although he didn’t remember bringing her home from last night. It was against company policy to sleep with subordinates, so it had to mean something fishy.
                  Recalibrating the portal using the failsafe code, he directed it to the secret headquarters where he had started to stockpile dangerous artefacts collected from previous surge control operations, deciding it was the best course of action before assessing who was to be trusted or not in his Chicks team…

                  #2928
                  Jib
                  Participant

                    Aqua Luna was listening to her favorite channeler on the radio. He spoke for Glasnik, a being from another dimension where people were more like translucent snails. She had always loved the way the man came into a trance, he was snorking and sneezing while moving his head up and down, and quickly bouncing between right and left.

                    This particular channel was about new crystaline portals. She didn’t understand all that he was saying, she was not very clever her mama had told her so many times. But listening to the message was giving her the sense of being part of some huge secret and she could still quote his words. That part about crystalline portals was giving her creeps, it was hard for her to imagine what would beings from other dimensions look like. Except for a snail, of course.

                    “So this is all about mystery and watermelon seeds. (laughs from the audience) Does that help you ?”

                    Aqua Luna was even more confused. It was the end of the channel and she couldn’t listen back. She passed her frustration on Cornella’s keyboard, rubbing vigorously between the keys. Indeed, mysteries are countless in this dimension as she inadvertantly found the right password to unlock Cornella’s computer. The machine bipped and she was logged in.

                    She was so startled by the sound that she bounced back and fall on her butt. She got up as she could, she was not a sportswoman, rather the contrary. She was ranting in her mother tongue when she realized the screen was different. It looked like a kind of map, with little dots blinking on it.

                    #2926
                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      On their way to the car for more convenient tools for the job, Janet continued to counter Pearl’s objections: “Oh, let’s do it and be done with it, we’ve got other fish to fry. Now that the plan to make Ed disappear and extort all his secrets from him is nothing but a fiasco, we’ve got at least to cover our tracks. ‘No guarantee where they’ll end up?’ Fine! Works great for me if you should ask! Wonderland? All the better!” Janet vituperated.
                      “Yeah, you probably right. Better be done with it before the next surge…”
                      “Shall you elaborate?”
                      “No time for this, deary, we’ve got work to do, bring on the pocket-sized forklift before others come out of this bleeding-though portal!”

                      #2905
                      ÉricÉric
                      Keymaster

                        The package was labeled in Sinese. Goat was fluent in a few languages after many a travel, and although Sinese wasn’t his mother tongue — he was only half-Sinese from his father’s side, he could read it well enough, and make himself passably understood in most of the Colonies.
                        It was a code, or more precisely, a reference. It said 时间舱23号, which you could probably translate as “Time capsule #23”. Back in the days, the Surge Team would bag and tag any strange artefact they confiscated during their missions, and usually would archive them in such capsules.

                        Although the concept of Time-capsule in itself for the old teams was soon to become somewhat of a mind puzzle if you thought too much of it, it still held value of… archaeological, rather than historical sorts for their descendants, such as himself. Of course, if you’d like some wild flowers, you’d rather pick them directly in the dewy meadows or mossy forests where they grew instead of taking them from the interstice of an old moldy book between the pages of which it had been laid down to dry, wouldn’t you. Now, anybody could easily become an historian with complete immediate sensory experience of past times at their perception tips —much like how it started, back in the twenty hundreds, with everyone able to become an amateur geographer in minutes with instant access to the satellites maps of Earth.
                        But being a map reader would never suffice to make you a sailor.

                        So, of course, Time capsules somewhat felt like such old dry plants if you were an historian. But if you were looking for ancient treasures or secret powerful artifacts, you knew you couldn’t just bring them from the past lest you disrupt the chain of events leading you to it. Many had gone madder than Lord Elmed trying to figure out safer ways. Time capsules were such a way.

                        “Now, I guess that fishy stench was there for a reason after all,” he sighed: to keep intruders and medlers off of its content, surely.

                        #2888
                        Jib
                        Participant

                          Aqua Luna was was mopping the floor of the Surge Team’s HQ. She was not strictly speaking a member of the Team, and the only sponge insigna she had was her mop and the few sponges she used to clean the keyboards and the screens of “the deck” as they called their room full of computers and screens and blinking red and blue lights.

                          She’s been here for ages, since Lord Ed Steam had founded the organisation actually. People didn’t usually pay attention to her and she could go everywhere. Almost. There was a room where she couldn’t go and she didn’t know what was in there. Only the higher ranked members could penetrate this secret room. She tried several times to cast a glance just before they closed the door, but there always was some bloody smoke coming out of the room.

                          Her mama had told her many times, ‘Aqua Luna, there is no smoke without fire’. There must be a huge fire inside that room for it’s always smokey.

                          The door opened again, but she was too far and she only could see the fumes again. ‘Could that be a dragon ?’, she thought. But what use could the surge team have of a dragon. Aqua Luna knew for sure that dragons were real. Her Mama had told her so when she was a kid, and she trusted her Mama, even when she was shouting at her. ‘It’s for your own good Aqua Luna”.

                          This time it was that young woman, Cornella who went out. She seemed concerned and she was talking in her unicomp.

                          #2873

                          In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                          Jib
                          Participant

                            Tina was working in a very unknown departement at the online payment company. Part of her job was to make sure the information provided by the customers were genuine and she only had to validate the payments in a mouse click.

                            That day however, she was feeling a bit mischievous and when she realized her mouse wasn’t functionning correctly, instead of asking for a new mouse, she continued with it a bit. At first it had been random transactions and she found it quite boring. But when one person was persistant enough to go again through the pain-in-the-ash process of paying online, she felt a tingly feeling in her chest. She clicked with her dysfunctionning mouse and invalidated the transaction again.

                            Several minutes later, she realized it was the same person again. Apparently a French guy. God, she hated France ! They eat frogs, frogod sake!
                            He was using another website to make his transaction. Obviously not knowing that all the payments were coming through the scrutiny of that secret service departement. She exulted and clicked again. She was so excited that her colleagues looked at her suspiciously when she made that hysterical laugh of hers.

                            Click! Click! Click!

                            She had even been hesitating to have a break lest he would present his transaction again and would pass through her vigilance.

                            “Tina ?”

                            Her boss! A moment of inattention and it was over! She felt a surge of disappointment flooding her when she realize the transaction had been taken by another of her colleagues… and validated.

                            #2868

                            In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                            Jib
                            Participant

                              The end of Being Veronica’s season four coincided strangely with the end of time day. She had eventually become a channeler. Still full of images and sounds of time travels, space projections and probabilities, Yann decided it was time for him to go fetch some Shanghainese food for the evening. They were going to Taipei for the week end with Yurick, meeting with an artist friend who’d promised to show them around.

                              Outside the air was chilly, it almost had that peculiar smell Yann associated with frost. When he first decided to come to Shanghai, it was with the secret hope it would be warmer than Paris, but currently it seemed to be as cold and chilly a city. At least, Taipei would feel a bit warmer, he thought with a misty sigh, the weather forecast announced at least 23°C. What better occasion for the beginning of the new timeline.

                              The store was not very far from the house, you just had to turn left at the corner and it was right here after the laundry service. It was a small shop, with only tangerins, oranges, a few apples and bananas. The shopekeeper and his wife greeted him. Yann was still feeling shy with the Chinese, mostly because he couldn’t speak their language yet. He’d begun taking lessons, but there was so much to learn. He smiled and quickly resumed his focus on the fruits. Some bananas were calling him, quite ripe actually. He hesitated, took them and almost put them in a plastic bag, but he noticed they were maybe too ripe, the skin was cracked in some areas and he could see the white flesh of the fruit turning brown. He nonchalently put them back on the stall as the shopekeeper was showing him the strawberries.

                              Yann smiled and he couldn’t remember how to say no, so instead he laughed and waved his hand in protest. The man didn’t insist and went back to the counter. He didn’t seem to be concerned by the end of time.

                              #2846

                              In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                              After his epic escape, Loard Koala had found refuge, unbeknownst to even the shrewd and some said foxy Ted Marshall, in the depths of the Great Green Wall of Afraka. There, under swarms of migrating magpies cackling like a horde of harridans lamenting about the miseries of their existences, he was planning his return… secretly hoping for a celestial pardon from the Elvens.
                              From the top of a towering eucalyptree, smoking a large makeshift cigarillo from its leaves, he could see Canaria and its bountiful promise of a new world, and sighed contentedly.

                              #2746

                              In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                              “There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
                              Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
                              Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
                              Then once by man and angels to be seen,
                              In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die…..”

                              After Petronella’s resounding success with the remote view and the head spinning afterwards as she pondered the possibilities, she spent a couple of hours randomly roaming around the internet, noticing how many synchronicities kept popping up.

                              “Come be part of the adventure, and help mold the destiny of the Multiverse in the greatest story that is being lived and not told. Come participate in Chapter One, the Revealing and discover the secrets that have been only guessed at till now.

                              The Isle has a plan for all…
                              Wounds Heal, Scars Fade and Paradigms Shift,
                              but GLORY is FOREVER!”

                              Even the Rosehaven team were starting a new chapter.

                              “The Unbound, Cadamus the Artificer, entered Rosehaven. “

                              Cadamus? The name sounded familiar. Could it be Toobidoo, in disguise?

                              #2834

                              In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves

                              A rustic, bent-bladed sword lies lazily upon my lap, its strap dancing with it, enticing it to be sheathed. I am gingerly distracted from my thoughts by this interesting tussle between master and holder, and it reminds me of a poem I once read, of a book and a pen sharing secrets, keeping secrets from their own wielder; how two objects that synchronise with each other to serve a bloody, yet noble purpose is a very… quaint concept to say the least.
                              Nevertheless, my thoughts return to the current scenery, of a bloody ground, the blood of twelve elves glistening in the late African afternoon sun- what are elves doing here? I rise quite slowly, and proceed to walk towards the slumped body of one of the elves. His head was slightly severed, and his white hair was blackened by dried blood that sprayed from his one wound. I kneel down, and silently recount the tale of these twelve elves, and how they came about to fall upon my assassin’s blade…

                              #2485

                              The alien bodies loved to dance. “Let’s do the time warp again!” they shouted in unison.
                              “It’s just a jump to the left…”

                              The peeping Peaslander was won over by such enthusiasm. “What is your secret?” he asked, beguiled, yet raucous a tad.
                              “Oh, well, the alien named Comice replied, are you sure you want to hear it?”
                              “Come on, I’m dying of impatience”
                              Comice gave a sideways look at her friend Williams’ Bon Chretien. Then she enunciated very deliberately: “Malkoovich”

                              #2704

                              In reply to: Strings of Nines

                              ÉricÉric
                              Keymaster

                                Messmeerah started to carve the name of all the funny bunch on a huge jamón from the fifth leg (the meatiest) of a jelly boar of the steppes, starting with her own —name, not leg— as a reminder of the good time they had all together. She was thinking as well that it would taste lovely with some of these Jiborium’s truffles.

                                She was sad to had to let them go, but frankly her old routines were starting to get too scrambled. For one, she didn’t quite remember if Minky was still a redhair rat in her hair (now she thought of it, breeding tiny shrews in her attic didn’t really work so well), or was now back in his human form with a secret revenge of his own on his mind. But that would be maybe a slight stretch. And gosh, did she abhor stretch marks, even on her lovely brains.

                                — “Oh come on, dear,” one of the motley participants, a cheery big-boned and outrageously made-up of make-up woman said in a bizarre Lizabethian accent, with a hint of bossiness that showed she had not been used to being contradicted much in her life. “Join us on that trip to Mr Jiborium’s, you shall find yourself a use or two.”

                                Taken aback by the turn of the events, Messmeerah, also known as Winky, took the jamón under her arm, and against all common sense decided to join the crew —thanking the Mighty Mungibs for the improbable feat of continuity that had appeared as a sign.

                                — “Well, if you don’t mind…” Yikesy was starting to object, but realized some things are best left unsaid, and it would be easy enough now to slip out of their sight (and off the rapacious motherly attentions of Mrs Janet, the big-boned tasteless-bags lady with an accent.)

                                #2703

                                In reply to: Strings of Nines

                                F LoveF Love
                                Participant

                                  Minky pondered for a long moment before coming to a decision.

                                  “Right then let us all go to Watermelon and cavort with Mr Jib and the Consortium! “

                                  Yikesy sighed loudly. Normally good natured, his patience was beginning to wear thin. Having counted the letters between “W” and “N” and, even making allowances for a degree of “give or take”, he didn’t believe that Watermelon could possibly be the secret destination where they would find Mr Jib. If indeed they even wanted to find this Mr Jib, whoever he may be … and was Watermelon even a destination?

                                  “Cheer up!” encouraged Minky. “Mr Jib is a delightful gentleman. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have the odd truffle in his pocket either.”

                                  #2702

                                  In reply to: Strings of Nines

                                  — Of course, the secret location is Watermelon, interjected one of the participants rather bossily, one must say.
                                  — Give or take a few letters…
                                  — Or in Welsh maybe…

                                Viewing 20 results - 241 through 260 (of 322 total)

                                Daily Random Quote

                                • Becky felt revitalized somewhat after breakfast, and decided to go for a walk. Sean was still snoring and mumbling in bed, so she pulled some clothes out of the closet quickly and climbed into them quietly, unable to see clearly in the dark. If the pile of wedding gifts on the dining room table hadn’t attracted her ... · ID #724 (continued)
                                  (next in 16h 24min…)

                                Recent Replies

                                WordCloud says