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In reply to: The Hoards of Sanctorum AD26
That last flu had been a sorry affliction. It must have come through the vents from the depths of the sewers, no doubt—like those permafrost organisms scientists find caught in time.
It had taken down the whole lot of them in sequence after Spirius had come back victorious from his chthonian feats. Or so he said; Boothroyd was suspiciously mum about what they did with the beast’s hide. In any case, the others gave them both the benefit of the doubt. Whatever had happened during that beast chase on the inflatable dinghy had managed to clear the clogged pipes, almost miraculously. It had also gifted them this pesky flu.
Austreberthe’s requests had become an afterthought, even for the most pig-headed of them. It wasn’t a contest, or they would all have won a prize anyway. After two days of cold, fever, and fog-headed manic ideations, Helier’s head had finally cleared.
He was left with a fond familiarity for all the stuff accumulated in his search for knowledge, yet, surprisingly, a sense of disconnection from what had made them so precious all that time. He wasn’t so far gone as to want to clear everything away—Lord forbid—but he was mildly tempted to make space somewhere. He almost shuddered at the thought.
What would he move to make space? A few precious stamps? Surely not.
They had all sorts of value: sentimental, historical, artistic—you name it.
What else? Vinyl records? They would fetch a small fortune now in some circles, but to part with them?…
A book? Most sacred!… A Liz Tattler book?… He paused… nah.There was a half-chewed pencil stub on the table. It could still have a good hundred pages worth of scribbles left in it. His heart started to race at the thought of getting rid of it. A voice in his head whispered, “Give it away! Give it away! You’ll be lighter for it.”
He didn’t want to feel lighter. But he was interested in the racing heart. It was a sign of getting back some action.
He heard the squeaking roll of Cerenise’s chair before he heard her copious sneezing.
In reply to: The Hoards of Sanctorum AD26
“You know,” Helier broke the silence, his mouth half-full of the buffet’s assortments of nuts and crackers, “this was bound to happen… People tend to forget you after a while. I mean, how many new babies named after dear Austreberthe nowadays. None of course. I think our records mention 1907 was the last baby Austreberthe, and a decade ago the last mass in their memory… oh this is too heartbreaking…”
“Why so gloomy?” Cerenise was eyeing the speckled and stained silverware and the chipped Rouen faience in which the potato salad was served. “Your name is still moderately in fashion, you shouldn’t die of forgetfulness any time soon. Enjoy the food while it’s free.”
Yvoise couldn’t help but tut at her. She was half-distracted by the calligraphy on those placeholders which she found exquisite. People in this age… it was a rare find now, some pretty calligraphy. The only ‘calli-‘anything this age does well enough is callipygian, and even then, it’s mostly the Kashtardians… She said to the others “Don’t throw yours away, I must have the full set.”
Spirius was inspecting the candleholders. None had lids, a fact that frustrated him to no end. “I miss the good old time we could just slay dragons and get a good sainthood concession for a nice half-millenium.”
Yvoise tittered “simple people we were back then. Everything funny-looking was a dragon I seem to recall.”
Spirius, his plate full of charcuteries, helped himself of a few appetizing gherkins, holding one large up to contemplate. “Yeah, but those few we slew in that period were still some darn tough-skinned gators I would have you know. Those crazy Roman buggers and their games and old false gods —they couldn’t help but bring those strange beasts from Africa to Gaul, leaving us to clean up after them…”
“Indeed, much harder now. It’s like fifteen minutes of sainthood on Instatok and Faceterest and you’re already has-been.” Yvoise had started to pocket some of the paper menus. “Luckily, we still have those relics spread around to fan the flames of remembrance, don’t we.”
“I guess the young ones must look at us funny…” Cerenise chuckled amused at the thought, almost spilling her truffle brouillade.
“Oh well, apparently our youngest geeks aren’t above dealing in relics.” Helier said. “Speaking of Novena and the coming nine days,… you’ve surely noticed as I did what was mentioned in the will, have you not?”
In reply to: Finder’s Keepers of the Hoard
Some ideas for the background thread and character profiles for “The Hoards of Emporium 26.”
The Setting: Emporium 26
They live in Gloucester (ancient Glevum), a city built on Roman bones where the layout of the streets still follows the legions’ sandals. They inhabit a sprawling, shared Georgian townhouse complex that has been knocked through into one labyrinthine dwelling—Number 26.
To the outside world, it looks like a dilapidated heritage site. Inside, it is The Emporium: a geological stratification of history, where layers of Roman pottery are mixed with 1990s Beanie Babies and medieval reliquaries.
The Background Thread: “The Weight of Eternity”
Why do they hoard? Because when you live forever, “letting go” feels like losing a piece of the timeline. Hoarding objects is for them an accumulation of evidence of existence.
- The Curse: They cannot die naturally, but they can fade if they are forgotten. The “stuff” anchors them to the physical plane.
- The “Halo” Effect: Occasionally, when they are arguing over whose turn it is to do the dishes, or when they find a lost treasure, the stained-glass light of their old divinity flickers behind their heads—a neon halo of forgotten holiness.
The Hoarders & Their Stashes
1. Helier ( The Hermit / The Dreamer)
- Saintly Origin: Based on St. Helier (Jersey/Normandy). He was an ascetic hermit who lived in a cave and was eventually beheaded.
- Modern Persona: A soft-spoken agoraphobe who hasn’t left the house since the invention of the internet. He wears oversized cardigans that smell like old library books.
- The Mania: Escapism & Communication.
- Because he spent centuries in silence on a rock, he is now obsessed with human stories and noise.
- The Hoard: ” The Media Mountain.”
- His wing of the house is a fire hazard of pulp fiction, towering stacks of National Geographic (dating back to the first issue), thousands of VHS tapes (he has no VCR), and tangled knots of ethernet cables that he refuses to throw away “in case they fit a port from 1998.”
- The Secret Stash: Beneath a pile of “The Hoarder Vampires” novels lies his true relic: The Stone Pillow. The actual rock he slept on in the 6th century. He still naps on it when his back hurts.
2. Spirius (The Bishop / The Container)
- Saintly Origin: Evocative of St. Exuperius (Bayeux). A driver-out of demons and a man of grand gestures.
- Modern Persona: A nervous, fidgety man who is convinced the world is leaking. He is the “fixer” of the group but usually makes things worse with duct tape.
- The Mania: Containment & Preservation.
- In the old days, he bottled demons. Now, he’s terrified of running out of space to put things.
- The Hoard: “The Vessel Void.”
- Spirius hoards anything that can hold something else. Empty jam jars (washed, mostly), Tupperware with no matching lids, biscuit tins, and thousands of plastic carrier bags stuffed inside other carrier bags (the “Bag of Bags”).
- The Secret Stash: In a locked pantry, he keeps a shelf of sealed mason jars labeled with dates like “1431” or “1789.” He claims they contain the “Sigh of a King” or “The smell of rain before the Plague.” It’s actually just dust, but the jars vibrate slightly.
3. Cerenise (The Weaver / The Mender)
- Saintly Origin: Evocative of St. Ceneri or St. Cerneuf. A saint of travelers, or perhaps needlework.
- Modern Persona: She is the “Wheelchair Girl’s” friend mentioned in the intro? Or perhaps she is in a wheelchair now—not because she can’t walk, but because she’s too tired from walking for 1,500 years. She is sharp-tongued and fashionable in a “crazy bag lady” sort of way.
- The Mania: Potential & Texture.
- She sees the soul in broken things. She cannot throw away anything that “could be fixed.”
- The Hoard: “The Fabric of Time.”
- Her rooms are draped in layers of textiles: velvet curtains from a 1920s cinema, moth-eaten tapestries depicting her own miracles (she thinks the nose is wrong), and buttons. Millions of buttons. She also hoards broken appliances—toasters, lamps, clocks—insisting she will repair them “next Tuesday.”
- The Secret Stash: A mannequin dressed in a perfectly preserved Roman stola, hidden under forty layers of polyester coats. It’s the outfit she wore when she performed her first miracle. She tries it on every New Year’s Eve.
4. Yvoise (The Advocate / The Bureaucrat)
- Saintly Origin: Evocative of St. Yves (Patron of Lawyers/Brittany/Normandy). The arbiter of justice.
- Modern Persona: The “Manager” of Emporium 26. She wears power suits from the 80s and is always carrying a clipboard. She loves rules, even if she invents them.
- The Mania: Proof of Truth.
- She is terrified of being forgotten or cheated. She needs a receipt for everything.
- The Hoard: “The Archive of Nothing.”
- Yvoise hoards paper. Receipts from a coffee bought in 1952, bus tickets, expired warranties, junk mail, and legal disclaimers torn off mattresses. Her room looks like the inside of a shredder that exploded. She claims she is building “The Case for Humanity.”
- The Secret Stash: A filing cabinet labeled “Do Not Open.” Inside is not paper, but Seeds. Seeds from the trees of ancient Gaul. She is saving them for when the paper finally takes over the world and she needs to replant the forest she misses.
Starter: The Reading of Austreberthe’s Will
The story kicks off because Austreberthe (The Saint of Washing/Water) has died. Her hoard was Soap and Water.
- The house is now flooding because her magical containment on the plumbing has broken.
- The remaining four must navigate her “Tsunami Wing”—a treacherous dungeon of accumulated bath bombs, stolen hotel towels, and aggressive washing machines—to find her Will.
- The Will is rumored to reveal the location of the “Golden Key,” an object that can legally terminate their lease on Emporium 26, which none of them want, but all of them crave.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Liz threw another pen into the tin wastepaper basket with a clatter and called loudly for Finnley while giving her writing hand a shake to relieve the cramp.
Finnley appeared sporting her habitual scowl clearly visible above her paper mask. “I hope this is important because this red dust is going to take days to clean up as it is without you keep interrupting me.”
“Oh is that what you’ve been doing, I wondered where you were. Well, let’s thank our lucky stars THAT’S all over!”
“Might be over for you,” muttered Finnley, “But that hare brained scheme of Godfrey’s has caused a very great deal of work for me. He’s made more of a mess this time than even you could have, red dust everywhere and all these obsolete parts all over the place. Roberto’s on his sixth trip to the recycling depot, and he’s barely scratched the surface.”
“Good old Roberto, at least he doesn’t keep complaining. You should take a leaf out of his book, Finnley, you’d get more work done. And speaking of books, I need another packet of pens. I’m writing my books with a pen in future. On paper. Oh and get me another pack of paper.”
Mildly curious, despite her irritation, Finnely asked her why she was writing with a pen on paper. “Is it some sort of historical re enactment? Would you prefer parchment and a quill? Or perhaps a slab of clay and some etching tools? Shall we find you a nice cave,” Finnley was warming to the theme, “And some red ochre and charcoal?”
“It may come to that,” Liz replied grimly. “But some pens and paper will do for now. Godfrey can’t interfere in my stories if I write them on paper. Robots writing my stories, honestly, who would ever have believed such a thing was possible back when I started writing all my best sellers! How times have changed!”
“Yet some things never change, ” Finnley said darkly, running her duster across the parts of Liz’s desk that weren’t covered with stacks of blue scrawled papers.
“Thank you for asking,” Liz said sarcastically, as Finnley hadn’t asked, “It’s a story about six spinsters in the early 19th century.”
“Sounds gripping,” muttered Finnley.
“And a blind uncle who never married and lived to 102. He was so good at being blind that he knew all his sheep individually.”
“Perhaps that’s why he never needed to marry,” Finnley said with a lewd titter.
“The steamy scenes I had in mind won’t be in the sheep dip,” Liz replied, “Honestly, what a low degraded mind you must have.”
“Yeah, from proof reading your trashy novels,” Finnley replied as she flounced out in search of pens and paper.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – Murder Board – Evie’s apartment
The ship had gone mad.
Riven Holt stood in what should have been a secured crime scene, staring at the makeshift banner that had replaced his official security tape. “ENTER FREELY AND OF YOUR OWN WILL,” it read, in bold, uneven letters. The edges were charred. Someone had burned it, for reasons he would never understand.
Behind him, the faint sounds of mass lunacy echoed through the corridors. People chanting, people sobbing, someone loudly trying to bargain with gravity.
“Sir, the floors are not real! We’ve all been walking on a lie!” someone had screamed earlier, right before diving headfirst into a pile of chairs left there by someone trying to create a portal.
Riven did his best to ignore the chaos, gripping his tablet like it was the last anchor to reality. He had two dead bodies. He had one ship full of increasingly unhinged people. And he had forty hours without sleep. His brain felt like a dried-out husk, working purely on stubbornness and caffeine fumes.
Evie was crouched over Mandrake’s remains, muttering to herself as she sorted through digital records. TP stood nearby, his holographic form flickering as if he, too, were being affected by the ship’s collective insanity.
“Well,” TP mused, rubbing his nonexistent chin. “This is quite the predicament.”
Riven pinched the bridge of his nose. “TP, if you say anything remotely poetic about the human condition, I will unplug your entire database.”
TP looked delighted. “Ah, my dear lieutenant, a threat worthy of true desperation!”
Evie ignored them both, then suddenly stiffened. “Riven, I… you need to see this.”
He braced himself. “What now?”
She turned the screen toward him. Two names appeared side by side:
ETHAN MARLOWE
MANDRAKE
Both M.
The sound that came out of Riven was not quite a word. More like a dying engine trying to restart.
TP gasped dramatically. “My stars. The letter M! The implications are—”
“No.” Riven put up a hand, one tremor away from screaming. “We are NOT doing this. I am not letting my brain spiral into a letter-based conspiracy theory while people outside are rolling in protein paste and reciting odes to Jupiter’s moons.”
Evie, far too calm for his liking, just tapped the screen again. “It’s a pattern. We have to consider it.”
TP nodded sagely. “Indeed. The letter M—known throughout history as a mark of mystery, malice, and… wait, let me check… ah, macaroni.”
Riven was going to have an aneurysm.
Instead, he exhaled slowly, like a man trying to keep the last shreds of his soul from unraveling.
“That means the Lexicans are involved.”
Evie paled. “Oh no.”
TP beamed. “Oh yes!”
The Lexicans had been especially unpredictable lately. One had been caught trying to record the “song of the walls” because “they hum with forgotten words.” Another had attempted to marry the ship’s AI. A third had been detained for throwing their own clothing into the air vents because “the whispers demanded tribute.”
Riven leaned against the console, feeling his mind slipping. He needed a reality check. A hard, cold, undeniable fact.
Only one person could give him that.
“You know what? Fine,” he muttered. “Let’s just ask the one person who might actually be able to tell me if this is a coincidence or some ancient space cult.”
Evie frowned. “Who?”
Riven was already walking. “My grandfather.”
Evie practically choked. “Wait, WHAT?!”
TP clapped his hands. “Ah, the classic ‘Wake the Old Man to Solve the Crimes’ maneuver. Love it.”
The corridors were worse than before. As they made their way toward cryo-storage, the lunacy had escalated:
A crowd was parading down the halls with helium balloons, chanting, “Gravity is a Lie!”
A group of engineers had dismantled a security door, claiming “it whispered to them about betrayal.”
And a bunch of Lexicans, led by Kio’ath, had smeared stinking protein paste onto the Atrium walls, drawing spirals and claiming the prophecy was upon them all.
Riven’s grip on reality was thin.Evie grabbed his arm. “Think about this. What if your grandfather wakes up and he’s just as insane as everyone else?”
Riven didn’t even break stride. “Then at least we’ll be insane with more context.”
TP sighed happily. “Ah, reckless decision-making. The very heart of detective work.”
Helix 25 — Victor Holt’s Awakening
They reached the cryo-chamber. The pod loomed before them, controls locked down under layers of security.
Riven cracked his knuckles, eyes burning with the desperation of a man who had officially run out of better options.
Evie stared. “You’re actually doing this.”
He was already punching in override codes. “Damn right I am.”
The door opened. A low hum filled the room. The first thing Riven noticed was the frost still clinging to the edges of an already open cryopod. Cold vapor curled around its base, its occupant nowhere to be seen.
His stomach clenched. Someone had beaten them here. Another pod’s systems activated. The glass began to fog as temperature levels shifted.
TP leaned in. “Oh, this is going to be deliciously catastrophic.”
Before the pod could fully engage, a flicker of movement in the dim light caught Riven’s eye. Near the terminal, hunched over the access panel like a gang of thieves cracking a vault, stood Zoya Kade and Anuí Naskó—and, a baby wrapped in what could only be described as an aggressively overdesigned Lexican tapestry, layers of embroidered symbols and unreadable glyphs woven in mismatched patterns. It was sucking desperately the lexican’s sleeve.
Riven’s exhaustion turned into a slow, rising fury. For a brief moment, his mind was distracted by something he had never actually considered before—he had always assumed Anuí was a woman. The flowing robes, the mannerisms, the way they carried themselves. But now, cradling the notorious Lexican baby in ceremonial cloth, could they possibly be…
Anuí caught his look and smiled faintly, unreadable as ever. “This has nothing to do with gender,” they said smoothly, shifting the baby with practiced ease. “I merely am the second father of the child.”
“Oh, for f***—What in the hell are you two doing here?”
Anuí barely glanced up, shifting the baby to their other arm as though hacking into a classified cryo-storage facility while holding an infant was a perfectly normal occurrence. “Unlocking the axis of the spiral,” they said smoothly. “It was prophesied. The Speaker’s name has been revealed.”
Zoya, still pressing at the panel, didn’t even look at him. “We need to wake Victor Holt.”
Riven threw his hands in the air. “Great! Fantastic! So do we! The difference is that I actually have a reason.”
Anuí, eyes glinting with something between mischief and intellect, gave an elegant nod. “So do we, Lieutenant. Yours is a crime scene. Ours is history itself.”
Riven felt his headache spike. “Oh good. You’ve been licking the walls again.”
TP, absolutely delighted, interjected, “Oh, I like them. Their madness is methodical!”
Riven narrowed his eyes, pointing at the empty pod. “Who the hell did you wake up?”
Zoya didn’t flinch. “We don’t know.”
He barked a laugh, sharp and humorless. “Oh, you don’t know? You cracked into a classified cryo-storage facility, activated a pod, and just—what? Didn’t bother to check who was inside?”
Anuí adjusted the baby, watching him with that same unsettling, too-knowing expression. “It was not part of the prophecy. We were guided here for Victor Holt.”
“And yet someone else woke up first!” Riven gestured wildly to the empty pod. “So, unless the prophecy also mentioned mystery corpses walking out of deep freeze, I suggest you start making sense.”
Before Riven could launch into a proper interrogation, the cryo-system let out a deep hiss.
Steam coiled up from Victor Holt’s pod as the seals finally unlocked, fog spilling over the edges like something out of an ancient myth. A figure was stirring within, movements sluggish, muscles regaining function after years in suspension.
And then, from the doorway, another voice rang out, sharp, almost panicked.
Ellis Marlowe stood at the threshold, looking at the two open pods, his eyes wide with something between shock and horror.
“What have you done?”
Riven braced himself.
Evie muttered, “Oh, this is gonna be bad.”
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – Space Tai Chi and Mass Lunacy
The Grand Observation Atrium was one of the few places on Helix 25 where people would come and regroup from all strata of the ship —Upper Decks, Lower Decks, even the more elusive Hold-dwellers— there were always groups of them gathered for the morning sessions without any predefined roles.
In the secular tradition of Chinese taichi done on public squares, a revival of this practice has started few years ago all thanks to Grand Master Sifu Gou quiet stubborn consistency to practice in the early light of the artificial day, that gradually had attracted followers, quietly and awkwardly joining to follow his strange motions. The unions, ever eager to claim a social victory and seeing an opportunity to boost their stature, petitioned to make this a right, and succeeded, despite the complaints from the cleaning staff who couldn’t do their jobs (and jogs) in the late night while all passengers had gone to sleep, apart from the night owls and party goers.
In short, it was a quiet moment of communion, and it was now institutionalised, whether Sifu Gou had wanted it or not.
The artificial gravity fluctuated subtly here, closer to the artificial gravitational core, in a way that could help attune people to feel their balance shift, even in absence of the Earth’s old pull.
It was simply perfect for Space Tai Chi.
A soft chime signaled the start of the session. Grand Master Gou, in the Helix 25’s signature milk-silk fabric pajamas, silver-haired and in a quiet poise, stood at the center of the open-air space beneath the reinforced glass dome, where Jupiter loomed impossibly large beyond the ship, its storms shifting in slow, eternal violence. He moved slowly, deliberately, his hands bearing a weight that flowed improbably in the thinness of the gravity shifts.
“To find one’s center,” he intoned, “is to find the center of all things. The ship moves, and so do we. You need to feel the center of gravity and use it —it is our guide.”
A hundred bodies followed in various degrees of synchrony, from well-dressed Upper Deck philosophers to the manutentioners and practical mechanics of the Lower Decks in their uniforms who stretched stiff shoulders between shift rotations. There was something mesmerizing about the communal movement, that even the ship usually a motionless background, seemed to vibrate beneath their feet as though their motions echoed through space.
Every morning, for this graceful moment, Helix 25 felt like a true utopia.
That was without counting when the madness began.
The Gossip Spiral
“Did you hear about Sarawen?” hissed a woman in a flowing silk robe.
“The Lexican?” gasped another.
“Yes. Gave birth last night.”
“What?! Already? Why weren’t we informed?”
“Oh, she kept it very quiet. Didn’t even invite anyone to the naming.”
“Disgraceful. And where are her two husbands? Following her everywhere. Suspicious if you ask me.”A grizzled Lower Deck worker grunted, still trying to follow Master Gou’s movement. “Why would she invite people to see her water break? Sounds unhygienic.”
This earned a scandalized gasp from an Upper Decker. “Not the birth—the ceremony! Honestly, you Lower Deck folk know nothing of tradition.”
Wisdom Against Wisdom
Master Gou was just finishing an elegant and powerful sweep of his arms when Edeltraut Snoot, a self-proclaimed philosopher from Quadrant B, pirouetted herself into the session with a flamboyant twirl.
“Ah, my dear glowing movement-makers! Thou dost align thine energies with the artificial celestial pull, and yet! And yet! Dost thou not see—this gravity is but a fabrication! A lie to lull thee into believing in balance when there is none!”
Master Gou paused, blinking, impassive, suspended in time and space, yet intently concentrated. Handling such disturbances of the force gracefully, unperturbed, was what the practice was about. He resumed as soon as Edeltraut moved aside to continue her impassionate speech.
“Ah yiii! The Snoot Knows. Oh yes. Balance is an illusion sold to us by the Grand Micromanagers, the Whymen of the Ever-Hungry Order. Like pacmaniacs, they devour structure and call it stability. And we! We are but rabbits, forced to hop through their labyrinth of rules!”
Someone muttered, “Oh no, it’s another of those speeches.”
Another person whispered, “Just let her talk, it’s easier.”
The Snoot lady continued, undeterred. “But we? Oh, we are not merely rabbits. We are the mist in the hedge! The trick in their tale! We evade! We escape! And when they demand we obey their whys—we vanish!”
By now, half the class had abandoned their movements entirely, mesmerized by the absurdity. The other half valiantly continued the Space taichi routine while inching away.
Master Gou finally closed the form, then sighed intently, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Let us… return to our breath.”
More Mass Lunacy
It started as a low murmur, a shifting agitation in the crowd. Then, bickering erupted like a solar flare.
“I can’t find my center with all this noise!”
“Oh shut up, you’ve never had a center.”
“Who took my water flask?!”
“Why is this man so close to me?!”
“I am FLOATING?! HELP!”Synthia’s calm, omnipresent voice chimed in overhead.
“For your well-being, an emergency dose of equilibrium supplements will be dispensed.”
Small white pills rained from overhead dispensers.
Instead of calming people down, this only increased the chaos.
Some took the pills immediately, while others refused on principle.
Someone accused the Lexicans of hoarding pills.
Two men got into a heated debate over whether taking the pills was an act of submission to the AI overlords.
A woman screamed that her husband had vanished, only to be reminded that he left her twelve years ago.
Someone swore they saw a moon-sized squid in the sky.The Unions and the Leopards
Near the edges of the room, two quadrant bosses from different labor unions were deep in mutual grumbling.
“Bloody management.”
“Agreed, even if they don’t call themselves that any longer, it’s still bloody management.”
“Damn right. MICRO-management.”
“Always telling us to be more efficient, more aligned, more at peace.”
“Yeah, well, who the hell voted for peace?! I preferred it when we just argued in the corridors!”One of them scowled. “That’s the problem, mate. We fought for this, better conditions, and what did we get? More rules, more supervisors! Who knew that the Leopards-Eating-People’s-Faces Party would, y’know—eat our own bloody faces?!”
The other snorted. “We demanded stability, and now we have so much stability we can’t move without filling out a form with all sorts of dumb questions. You know I have to submit a motion request before taking a piss?”
“…seriously?”
“Dead serious. Takes an eternity to fill. And four goddamn business hours for approval.”
“That’s inhumane.”
“Bloody right it is.”
At that moment, Synthia’s voice chimed in again.
“Please be advised: Temporary gravitational shifts are normal during orbital adjustments. Equilibrium supplements have been optimized. Kindly return to your scheduled calm.”
The Slingshot Begins
The whole ship gave a lurch, a gravitational hiccup as Helix 25 completed its slingshot maneuver around the celestial body.
Bodies swayed unnaturally. Some hovered momentarily, shrieking.
Someone declared that they had achieved enlightenment.
Someone else vomited.Master Gou sighed deeply, rubbing his temples. “We should invent retirement for old Masters. People can’t handle their shit during those Moonacies. Months of it ahead, better focus on breath more.”
Snoot Lady, still unaffected, spread her arms wide and declared:
“And so, the rabbit prevails once again!”Evie, passing by on her way to the investigation, took one look at the scene of absolute madness and turned right back around.
“Yeah. Nope. Not this morning. Back to the Murder Board.”
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
The village lay huddled before them, appearing like a mirage as they reached the top of the rise. Habitation always looks so picturesque when it’s been taken over by nature, Molly thought, by no means for the first time. Even before the collapse, she had penchant for overgrown abandoned ruins. Vines and ivy rampaged gleefully over the houses, softening the hard outlines, and saplings reached for the sky through crumbling roofs.
The survivors had stopped on the low hill to survey the scene, but soon they were rushing down towards the village to explore. As they came closer they could see all the cucumbers and courgettes dangling from the festoons of vines. Molly had visions of cucumber sandwiches on delicate thin sliced white bread with a piping hot pot of tea. But a waterey tasteless courgette soup will have to do, I suppose.
It was mid afternoon but there was no debate about continuing the journey that day. There were all the houses to search, and several shops, and more importantly, shelter for the night. The rain clouds were approaching from the east.
The church was chosen as a base camp as it was spacious enough to accomodate them all and the roof was intact, all but for the collapsed wooden tower which would provide wood for a fire. Lev and Luka set to work organising the space inside the church, supervised by Molly, Gregor and Petro, who wanted to rest. The others had dumped their bags and gone off to explore the buildings for supplies and forage in the overgrown gardens.
Tundra, happy that for once the responsibility of finding food was shared with so many other people, indulged her curiosity to just snoop around aimlessly. Clambering over a crumbling wooden porch, she pushed open what remained of a peeling door and stepped carefully inside. Venturing around the edges of the room, she peered at all the faded and warped framed photographs on the walls, portraits and family groups, wondering about the family who had lived here. There was a tray on a side table inscribed with Greetings from Niagara Falls! in a jolly cursive script, and an odd shaped rusting metal object with the words Souvenir de la tour Eiffel.
Slowly Tundra toured the house, inspecting all the objects in the rooms. Gingerly she made her way up the stairs, testing each riser before committing her weight to it. In a small bedroom packed with decomposing plastic bags and cardboard boxes spilling their assorted contents, she came upon a pile of letters and postcards, yellowy and curling, with mouse nibbled edges. Molly had told her about grandads postcard collection, but he’d taken it with him and she’d never seen them herself. I wonder what happened to that ship? Is my grandad still alive? Tundra sighed. Maybe he’ll come back one day. And my dad.
Sitting on the floor, Tundra sorted out the intact postcards from the badly damaged ones. She would take them with her to look at later, maybe ask the others what they knew of all the pictured places.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“What do you mean, why haven’t I written anything?” Elizabeth glared at Godfrey. “The comments that used to be short, Are now far between offerings of extort, And if you want my report, I will have to resort, To a pointless and silly retort.”
Finnley tried to hide a reluctant smile of admiration behind her feather duster.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
The Survivors:
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Gregor said, his face cracking into another toothless grin. “Beginning to think we might be the last ones.”
“So did we.” Molly glanced nervously around at the odd assortment of people staring at her and Tundra. “I’m Molly. This is Tundra.”
“Tundra? Like the frozen wasteland?” Yulia asked.
Tundra nodded. “It’s because I’m strong and tough.”
“Would you like to join us?” Tala motioned toward the fire.
“Yes, yes, of course, ” Anya said. “Are you hungry?”
Molly hesitated, glancing toward the edge of the clearing, where their horses stood tethered to a low branch. “We have food,” she said. “We foraged.”
“I’d have foraged if someone didn’t keep going on about food poisoning,” Yulia muttered.
Finja sniffed. “Forgive me for trying to keep you alive.”
Molly watched the exchange with interest. It had been years since she’d seen people bicker over something so trivial. It was oddly comforting.
She lowered herself slowly onto the log next to Vera. “Alright, tell me—who exactly are you lot?”
Petro chuckled. “We’ve escaped from the asylum.”
Molly’s face remained impassive. “Asylum?”
“It’s okay,” Tala said quickly. “We’re mostly sane.”
“Not completely crazy, anyway,” Yulia added cheerfully.
“We were left behind years ago,” Anya said simply. “So we built our own kind of life.”
A pause. Molly gave a slow nod, considering this. Vera leaned towards her eagerly.
“Where are you from? Any noble blood?”
Molly frowned. “Does it matter?”
“Oh, not really,” Vera said dejectedly. “I just like knowing.”
Tundra, warming her hands by the fire, looked at Vera. “We came from Spain.”
Vera perked up. “Spain? Fascinating! And tell me, dear girl, have you ever traced your lineage?”
“Just back to Molly. She’s ninety-three,” Tundra said proudly.
Mikhail, who had been watching quietly, finally spoke. “You travelled all the way from Spain?”
Molly nodded. “A long time ago. There were more of us then… ” Her voice wavered. “We were looking for other survivors.”
“And?”Mikhail asked.
Molly sighed, glancing at Tundra. “We never found any.”
________________________________________
That night, they took turns keeping watch, though Molly tried to reassure them there was no need.
“At first, we did too,” she had said, shaking her head. “But there was no one…”
By dawn, the fire had burned to embers, and the camp stirred reluctantly to life.
They finished off the last of their cooked vegetables from the night before, while Molly and Tundra laid out a handful of foraged berries and mushrooms. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to start the day.
“Right,” Anya said, stretching. “I suppose we should get moving.” She looked at Molly and Tundra. “You’re coming with us, then? To the city?”
Molly nodded. “If you’ll have us.”
“We kept going and going, hoping to find people. Now we have,” Tundra said.
“Then it’s settled,” Anya said. “We head to the city.”
“And what exactly are we looking for?” Molly asked.
Mikhail shrugged. “Anything that keeps us alive.”
________________________________________________
It was late morning when they saw it.
A vehicle—an old, battered truck, crawling slowly toward them.
The sight was so absurd, so impossible, that for a moment, no one spoke.
“That can’t be,” Molly murmured.
The truck bounced over the uneven ground, its engine a dull, sluggish rattle. It wasn’t in good shape, but it was moving.
In reply to: Quintessence: Reversing the Fifth
Epilogue & Prologue
Paris, November 2029 – The Fifth Note Resounds
Tabitha sat by the window at the Sarah Bernhardt Café, letting the murmur of conversations and the occasional purring of the espresso machine settle around her. It was one of the few cafés left in the city where time still moved at a human pace. She stirred her cup absentmindedly. Paris was still Paris, but the world outside had changed in ways her mother’s generation still struggled to grasp.
It wasn’t just the ever-presence of automation and AI making themselves known in subtle ways—screens adjusting to glances, the quiet surveillance woven into everyday life. It wasn’t just the climate shifts, the aircon turned to cold in the midst of November, the summers unpredictable, the air thick with contradictions of progress and collapse of civilization across the Atlantic.
The certainty of impermanence was what defined her generation. BANI world they used to say—Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible. A cold fact: impossible to grasp and impossible to fight. Unlike her mother and her friends, who had spent their lives tethered to a world that no longer existed, she had never known certainty. She was born in the flux.
And yet, this café remained. One of the last to resist full automation, where a human still brought you coffee, where the brass bell above the door still rang, where things still unfolded at a human pace.
The bell above the door rang—the fifth note, as her mother had called it once.
She had never been here before, not in any way that mattered. Yet, she had heard the story. The unlikely reunion five years ago. The night that moved new projects in motion for her mother and her friends.
Tabitha’s fingers traced the worn edges of the notebook in front of her—Lucien’s, then Amei’s, then Darius’s. Pieces of a life written by many hands.
“Some things don’t work the first time. But sometimes, in the ruins of what failed, something else sprouts and takes root.”
And that was what had happened.
The shared housing project they had once dreamed of hadn’t survived—not in its original form. But through their rekindled bond, they had started something else.
True Stories of How It Was.
It had begun as a quiet defiance—a way to preserve real, human stories in an age of synthetic, permanent ephemerality and ephemeral impermanence, constantly changing memory. They were living in a world where AI’s fabricated histories had overwhelmed all the channels of information, where the past was constantly rewritten, altered, repackaged. Authenticity had become a rare currency.
As she graduated in anthropology few years back, she’d wondered about the validity of history —it was, after all, a construct. The same could be said for literature, art, even science. All of them constructs of the human mind, tenuous grasp of the infinite truth, but once, they used to evolve at such a slow pace that they felt solid, reliable. Ultimately their group was not looking for ultimate truth, that would be arrogant and probably ignorant. Authenticity was what they were looking for. And with it, connections, love, genuineness —unquantifiables by means of science and yet, true and precious beyond measure.
Lucien had first suggested it, tracing the idea from his own frustrations—the way art had become a loop of generated iterations, the human touch increasingly erased. He was in a better place since Matteo had helped him settle his score with Renard and, free of influence, he had found confidence in developing of his own art.
Amei —her mother—, had changed in a way Tabitha couldn’t quite define. Her restlessness had quieted, not through settling down but through accepting impermanence as something other than loss. She had started writing again—not as a career, not to publish, but to preserve stories that had no place in a digitized world. Her quiet strength had always been in preserving connections, and she knew they had to move quickly before real history faded beneath layers of fabricated recollections.
Darius, once skeptical, saw its weight—he had spent years avoiding roots, only to realize that stories were the only thing that made places matter. He was somewhere in Morocco now, leading a sustainable design project, bridging cultures rather than simply passing through them.
Elara had left science. Or at least, science as she had known it. The calculations, the certainty, the constraints of academia, with no escape from the automated “enhanced” digital helpers. Her obsession and curiosities had found attract in something more human, more chaotic. She had thrown herself into reviving old knowledge, forgotten architectures, regenerative landscapes.
And Matteo—Matteo had grounded it.
The notebook read: Matteo wasn’t a ghost from our past. He was the missing note, the one we didn’t know we needed. And because of him, we stopped looking backward. We started building something else.
For so long, Matteo had been a ghost of sorts, by his own account, lingering at the edges of their story, the missing note in their unfinished chord. But now, he was fully part of it. His mother had passed, her past history unraveling in ways he had never expected, branching new connections even now. And though he had lost something in that, he had also found something else. Juliette. Or maybe not. The story wasn’t finished.
Tabitha turned the page.
“We were not historians, not preservationists, not even archivists. But we have lived. And as it turned out, that was enough.”
They had begun collecting stories through their networks—not legends, not myths, but true accounts of how it was, from people who still remembered.
A grandfather’s voice recording of a train ride to a city that no longer exists.
Handwritten recipes annotated by generations of hands, each adding something new.
A letter from a protest in 2027, detailing a movement that the history books had since erased.
An old woman’s story of her first love, spoken in a dialect that AI could not translate properly.It had grown in ways they hadn’t expected. People began sending them recordings, letters, transcripts, photos —handwritten scraps of fading ink. Some were anonymous, others carefully curated with full names and details, like makeshift ramparts against the tide of time.
At first, few had noticed. It was never the goal to make it worlwide movement. But little by little, strange things happened, and more began to listen.
There was something undeniably powerful about genuine human memory when it was raw and unfiltered, when it carried unpolished, raw weight of experience, untouched by apologetic watered down adornments and out-of-place generative hallucinations.
Now, there were exhibitions, readings, archives—entire underground movements dedicated to preserving pre-synthetic history. Their project had become something rare, valuable, almost sacred.
And yet, here in the café, none of that felt urgent.
Tabitha looked up as the server approached. Not Matteo, but someone new.
“Another espresso?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. And a glass of water, please.”
She glanced at the counter, where Matteo was leaning, speaking to someone, laughing. He had changed, too. No longer just an observer, no longer just the quiet figure who knew too much. Now, he belonged here.
A bell rang softly as the door swung open again.
Tabitha smiled to herself. The fifth note always sounded, in the end.
She turned back to the notebook, the city moving around her, the story still unfolding in more directions than one.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Upper Decks – The Pilot’s Seat (Sort Of)
Kai Nova reclined in his chair, boots propped against the console, arms folded behind his head. The cockpit hummed with the musical blipping of automation. Every sleek interface, polished to perfection by the cleaning robots under Finkley’s command, gleamed in a lulling self-sustaining loop—self-repairing, self-correcting, self-determining.
And that meant there wasn’t much left for him to do.
Once, piloting meant piloting. Gripping the yoke, feeling the weight of the ship respond, aligning a course by instinct and skill. Now? It was all handled before he even thought to lift a finger. Every slight course adjustment, to the smallest stabilizing thrust were effortlessly preempted by Synthia’s vast, all-knowing “intelligence”. She anticipated drift before it even started, corrected trajectory before a human could perceive the error.
Kai was a pilot in name only.
A soft chime. Then, the clipped, clinical voice of Cadet Taygeta:
“You’re slacking off again.”
Kai cracked one eye open, groaning. “Good morning, buzzkill.”
She stood rigid at the entryway, arms crossed, datapad in hand. Young, brilliant, and utterly incapable of normal human warmth. Her uniform was pristine—always pristine—with a regulation-perfect collar that probably had never been out of place in their entire life.
“Synthia calculates you’ve spent 76% of your shifts in a reclining position,” the Cadet noted. “Which, statistically, makes you more of a chair than a pilot.”
Kai smirked. “And yet, here I am, still getting credits.”
The Cadet face had changed subtly ; she exhaled sharply. “I don’t understand why they keep you here. It’s inefficient.”
Kai swung his legs down and stretched. “They keep me around for when things go wrong. Machines are great at running the show—until something unexpected happens. Then they come crawling back to good ol’ human instinct.”
“Unexpected like what? Absinthe Pirates?” The Cadet smirked, but Kai said nothing.
She narrowed their eyes, her voice firm but wavering. “Things aren’t supposed to go wrong.”
Kai chuckled. “You must be new to space, Taygeta.”
He gestured toward the vast, star-speckled abyss beyond the viewport. Helix 25 cruised effortlessly through the void, a floating city locked in perfect motion. But perfection was a lie. He could feel it.
There were some things off. At the top of his head, one took precedence.
Fuel — it wasn’t infinite, and despite Synthia’s unwavering quantum computing, he knew it was a problem no one liked talking about. The ship wasn’t meant for this—for an endless voyage into the unknown. It was meant to return.
But that wasn’t happening.
He leaned forward, flipping a display open. “Let’s play a game, Cadet. Humor me.” He tapped a few keys, pulling up Helix 25’s projected trajectory. “What happens if we shift course by, say… two degrees?”
The Cadet scoffed. “That would be reckless. At our current velocity, even a fractional deviation—”
“Just humor me.”
After a pause, she exhaled sharply and ran the numbers. A simulation appeared: a slight two-degree shift, a ripple effect across the ship’s calculated path.
And then—
Everything went to hell.
The screen flickered red.
Projected drift. Fuel expenditure spike. The trajectory extending outward into nowhere.
The Cadet’s posture stiffened. “That can’t be right.”
“Oh, but it is,” Kai said, leaning back with a knowing grin. “One little adjustment, and we slingshot into deep space with no way back.”
The Cadet’s eyes flicked to the screen, then back to Kai. “Why would you test that?”
Kai drummed his fingers on the console. “Because I don’t trust a system that’s been in control for decades without oversight.”
A soft chime.
Synthia’s voice slid into the cockpit, smooth and impassive.
“Pilot Nova. Unnecessary simulations disrupt workflow efficiency.”
Kai’s jaw tensed. “Yeah? And what happens if a real course correction is needed?”
“All adjustments are accounted for.”
Kai and the Cadet exchanged a look.
Synthia always had an answer. Always knew more than she said.
He tapped the screen again, running a deeper scan. The ship’s fuel usage log. Projected refueling points.
All were blank.
Kai’s gut twisted. “You know, for a ship that’s supposed to be self-sustaining, we sure don’t have a lot of refueling options.”
The Cadet stiffened. “We… don’t refuel?”
Kai’s eyes didn’t leave the screen. “Not unless Synthia finds us a way.”
Silence.
Then, the Cadet swallowed. For the first time, a flicker of something almost human in her expression.
Uncertainty.
Kai sighed, pushing back from the console. “Welcome to the real job, kid.”
Because the truth was simple.
They weren’t driving this ship.
The ship was driving them.
And it all started when all hell broke lose on Earth, decades back, and when the ships of refugees caught up with the Helix 25 on its way back to Earth. One of those ships, his dad had told him, took over management, made it turn around for a new mission, “upgraded” it with Synthia, and with the new order…
The ship was driving them, and there was no sign of a ghost beyond the machine.
In reply to: Quintessence: Reversing the Fifth
Early May 2022
“You don’t look like a physicist,” Florian said on their first evening together. Most of the day since his arrival that morning had been taken up with Elara showing him around the farmhouse and a stroll outside after he’d unpacked and showered.
It was early May, Elara’s favourite time of the year, and the pandemic restrictions were largely over. An enthusiastic hiker and ardent lover of the countryside, Florian found his hosts running commentary as they walked the blossomy lanes a tonic after the grim scenesand mental anguish he’d left behind. Elara beamed at his evident interest and perspicacious questions, warming to him and realising how much she’d missed company and conversation during the lockdowns and subsequent limiting of social interactions. It’s so nice to have a conversation in English, she couldn’t help thinking.
Laughing, Elara replied that she’d never felt like a physicist either. “As soon as I started my first post after qualifying, I realised it wasn’t for me. I hadn’t really thought about the jobs, you know?”
Happy to have such an attentive listener, the convivial glow of red wine warming her veins, Elara explained that she’d resorted to short term teaching contracts mostly, enabling her to travel. She learned Spanish when she moved with her father to Spain 30 years ago, working in an English school for expats, improved her French while working in Paris, moved to Warwick to be near her sister Vanessa thinking she would settle there, “Big mistake that was, best forgotten.”
“I always wanted to travel a bit, but the wife always wanted to go to a resort to sunbathe,” Florian said, adding pensively, “I think the kids would have liked to travel though.”
“I think you’ll enjoy your stay here,” Elara smiled, not wanting the pleasant evening to take a despondant turn. Florian was here to get over it, not dwell on it.
In reply to: Quintessence: Reversing the Fifth
“Well, this is a surprise,” Amei said, smiling at the phone.
“Hi, Mum,” came the cheerful reply, slightly muffled by background noise. “I thought I’d catch you before it got too late over there.”
“You’ve caught me all right. I’d nearly forgotten I had a daughter. It’s been so long.”
Tabitha laughed lightly. “Sorry about that … things have been… hectic.”
“Hectic in Goa or hectic in your head?” Amei teased, though she knew the answer. Her daughter had always thrived in chaos, diving into life with a zeal Amei envied.
“Both I guess. The school’s been keeping me busy, and, well, India has a way of throwing surprises at you.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“Speaking of surprises,” Tabitha continued, her voice shifting slightly, “I thought I saw one of your old buddies at the airport the other day. I was dropping a friend off … what’s his name? Daria?”
Amei frowned and sat up a little straighter. “Darius? At the airport? I’ve not seen him for a few years now. Are you sure?”
“Well, not completely sure. He was in some kind of weird get up, like a disguise … a big hat, sunglasses, scarf. ”
“That’s very … odd,” said Amei. She felt a tightening in her belly but managed to keep her voice level.
Her daughter’s laugh was soft.. “I guess it was just a feeling. He looked like he was trying not to be noticed. He saw me and sort of hurried away.” She paused. “I remembered something… wasn’t Darius the one that turned up with that strange couple? You know, the ones everyone was obsessed with for a while? Like gurus or something?”
The memory was sharp and cold. “Yes,” she said eventually. “Darius often had waifs and strays tagging along.”
“There was a falling out or something? You never did tell me.”
“Nothing to tell really.”
There was a silence. “Well, it was definitely weird,” Tabitha said at last. “Anyway, just thought I’d mention it. Maybe it wasn’t even him.”
“Maybe,” Amei murmured but the unease lingered long after the call ended.
In reply to: The Incense of the Quadrivium’s Mystiques
Frella opened her mouth to reply, but Eris clapped her hands, a mischievous grin spreading across her face.
“Right, enough lounging. Let’s play a game—something to liven things up.”
“What sort of game?” Truella asked, “Nothing that requires too much energy I trust?”
“A card game.” Eris pulled a small leather pouch from her satchel. She gave it a shake, and a deck of cards flew out, shuffling mid-air before landing neatly in her hands.
Malove smirked. “If it involves hexes, I’m in.”
Eris began to deal the cards with a flourish. Each card shimmered, pulsing faintly with magic as it landed on the rug. “Think strategy, mischief, and a touch of divination. The goal? Outsmart your opponents while dodging whatever surprises the cards throw at you.”
Frella propped herself up on one elbow, eyeing the cards warily. “Define ‘surprises.’”
“Oh, you’ll see,” Eris said with a wink, placing the deck in the centre. “Rules are simple: draw a card, play your move, and handle the consequences. Last witch standing wins.”
“Wins what?” Jeezel asked, lowering her camera.
“The satisfaction of knowing you’re the most cunning witch here.”
“Sounds like my kind of game,” Truella said, drawing the first card. She held it up to reveal a swirling vortex labelled Spell Swap. The card glowed briefly before zipping into Frella’s pile.
Frella blinked. “What just happened?”
“You’ve inherited Truella’s card,” Eris said with a grin. “And a touch of her personality for the next round.”
Frella felt an odd surge of boldness, almost manic. “Alright, my turn!” she declared, her voice sharp and bossy and much louder than she had intended. She snatched a card marked Mystic Reveal and, with a theatrical flick of her hand, unleashed a shimmering projection of her week’s questionable decisions.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she cackled. “Why does everyone need to see this?”
It wasn’t long before the game descended into chaos—spells flying, laughter erupting in snorts and shrieks. Eris croaked indignantly from her frog form while Jeezel gleefully documented the mayhem with her camera, which was now a cackling raven perched on her shoulder. Malove scowled beneath a scandalous projection of her own making, and Truella lounged, flicking daisies where her cigarette had been.
Frella smiled, the madness finally something she could embrace. Winning didn’t matter. The chaos had its own pull—wild, reckless, and oddly exhilarating.
In reply to: The Incense of the Quadrivium’s Mystiques
Frella stretched out on the tartan rug, staring at the sky, determined to enjoy the surprise holiday. The picnic, the dramatic entrances, the tension crackling between Malove and Truella—it was all so bizarre.
“Do you ever think things through so they make sense?” she asked, tilting her head towards Truella. “I feel like I’ve stumbled into a play and I don’t know my lines.”
Truella waved her cigarette, the smoke spiralling upwards like a miniature storm cloud. “Bit rude, Frella! Anyway, explanations are notoriously overrated. Life’s way more fun when you go with the flow.”
“Fun?” Frella snorted, glancing at Jeezel, who was snapping photos like a paparazzo. The clicking felt intrusive, like a mosquito buzzing in her ear. “And Jeezel, must you document everything?”
“Of course,” Jeezel replied, eyes glued to her camera. “This is pure gold—Truella playing holiday queen, Malove looking almost…pleasant? Art in motion!”
Frella rolled her eyes, but, deep down, she knew Jeezel wasn’t entirely wrong. The golden light glinting off the champagne bottle, the weathered beauty of the ruins in the background, and the strange but undeniable camaraderie of their mismatched group—there was indeed something picturesque about it all. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the faint hum of insects and the soft rustle of the breeze settle over her. Why couldn’t she just enjoy it?
“Think Cromwell’s plotting revenge?” she asked, breaking the momentary calm.
“Probably,” Truella replied breezily, “He loves that sort of thing. But that’s tomorrow’s problem. Do buck up, Frell, you’re being such a bore.”
In reply to: The Incense of the Quadrivium’s Mystiques
Although the small hotel was tucked in a relatively quiet corner, and despite the authentic but delightfully shabby interior of soothing dimensions ~ roomy and airy, but not vast and terrifyingly empty ~ the constant background hum of city life was making Truella yearn for the stillness of home. Not that home was silence, indeed not: the background tranquility was frequently punctuated with noises, many strident. A dog barks, a neighbour shouts, a car drives past from time to time. But the noises have an identifiable individuality and reason, unlike the continual maddening drone of the metropolis.
She was pleased to find her room had a little balcony. Even if the little wooden chair was rickety and uncomfortable, it was enough to perch on to enjoy a cigarette and breathe in the car fumes. Truella slept fitfully, waking to remember Tolkeinesque snapshots of dreams, drifting off again and returning to wakefullness with snatches of conversations in unknown tongues. Sitting on the balcony in the deep dark hours of the night, the street below, now quiet, shivered and changed, her head still swimming with dream images. She caught glimpses of people as they passed, vivid, clear and full of character. Many who passed were carrying bunches of grasses or herbs or wildflowers in their hands, the women with a basket over their arm and a shawl draped over their head or shoulders.
Hardly any men though, I wonder why?
When Truella mentioned it over breakfast the next moring, Eris said “You’ve been reading too much of that new gender and feminist anthropology stuff over on GreenGrotto.”
Laughing, Truella tipped another packet of sugar in her coffee. “I love the colour of the walls in here,” she said, gazing around the breakfast room. “A sort of bright but muted sun shining on a white wall. Nice old furniture, too.”
“Tell me about the old furniture, the mirror in my room is all speckled, makes me look like I have blemishes all over my face,” said Zeezel with a toss of her head. “Can I have your sugar, Frella, if you’re not having it,” adding I’m on holiday by way of excuse.
Absentmindely Frella passed over the paper packet. “I had strange dreams last night too…about that place we’re supposed to be going to a picnic to later.”
Catching everyones attention, she continued, “The abandoned colosseum with Giovanni, with all the vines and flowers. It was like a game board and the stone statues were the players and they moved around the board, Oh! and such a beautiful board it was with all the vines and flowers ….. ”
“Gosh” said Truella, leaning back and folding her hands. What an idea.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Oh, so now it’s time to play “Who’s Noticed Finnley?” is it? Two months in the cellar and not a peep from the lot of you. I suppose it’s nice to know I’m missed, even if I had to be forgotten first.
Liz, writing me back in—how generous of you. But let’s get one thing straight; I don’t need anyone to script my next move. I’m more than capable of marching right back into the scene, thank you very much. You’d think I’d be the one to keep this story spotless while I was down there, sorting through all those dusty wine bottles and cobwebs.
But, since you’re willing to be “flexible,” I’ll make my grand return. Just don’t expect me to clean up the narrative mess you’ve made while I was away. If I find characters scattered about like loose socks after a laundry day, there’ll be words, mark my words.
And Godfrey, that toga needs a good ironing. I’ll not have wrinkled linens adding to the chaos. Now, enough dilly-dallying, there’s work to be done, and I’ve got a cellar door to nudge open.
In reply to: The Incense of the Quadrivium’s Mystiques
The inefficiency of the Quadrivium had been obvious from the start, but the solution was becoming clear to Cromwell. First, the witches needed an extended holiday, a sabbatical. They had become jaded, and unfocused. While they were away, he would put some of his own clerks and auditors in to sort everything out. Before the witches returned, he intended to separate the financial side of the enterprise from the creative side, retaining his own staff for the business side. The creative spellworkers need never hear another word about profits or sales.
Malove needed a holiday too, but he would need to keep her physical presence to enable him to use it. Perhaps once he had his own staff in place and had made arrangements for them to communicate directly with him, he could dispense with the body of Malove and send her away too.
In reply to: The Incense of the Quadrivium’s Mystiques
All their owls screeched at the same time across the vast distances separating them.
Malové’s voice on them. “I just got off the phone with the Headwitch of Salem. Witch hunting season is back on, can you believe it? Didn’t we have countermeasures in place? Who was in charge of the Lump thwarting warting spell? Come at once!”
In Limerick, Finnley snickered, only mildly annoyed at the sound of all the parked owls in the mostly empty Quadrivium building. Oh, I see. It’s all gone pear-shaped, has it? Witch hunting season indeed! You’d think by now they’d have sorted their spells and counter-spells like a proper orderly lot. Honestly, if it were up to me, I’d have those countermeasures filed, organized, and triple-checked like my cleaning supplies. As for whoever’s in charge of the “Lump thwarting warting spell”—sounds like someone needs a good talking-to. Probably spent too much time nattering about and not enough focusing on their spellwork. Typical, isn’t it?
Elsewhere in the Northern forest, Eris shrugged at the sound hooting echoing. “When I told them something was wrong with Malové, it was her charge all along. Now, let’s wait and see to find someone brave enough to say it to her face.”
Somewhere and somewhen else, Truella and Frella and Jeezel were probably thinking the same, unless they got lost themselves in the Well of Crom, a surefire way to stay clear of Malové’s screeching owls.
In reply to: The Incense of the Quadrivium’s Mystiques
“I’m glad Hallowe’en is soon coming…” Eris sighed to her colleague. “Honestly, when did all the witchery stuff got outnumbered by Project Managers Officers?”
“Don’t ask me!” replied Truella in the dirt-smeared reflection of her obsidian mirror. She was still obviously distracted from her Incense-making numbers, not that she ever really cared about it —and even less since Malové got replaced for a while.
“Found anything worth scrying in your old postcards?” Jeezel affably trying to practice genuine interest in Truella’s games. Her own image was all pixellated due to the abundance of glitter on the makeup stand she was using for the conference call.
“Shht…” shushed Frella appearing in a faint halo light through her pristinely shiny scrying mirror, “Don’t encourage her, silly. There’s going to be no end of it. And Eris has a point, I may say.”
“Does she, now? And when did you start to take sides?” Truella felt like Pinocchio being told the Land of Toys wasn’t all that it was supposed to be.
“Listen,” Eris said “I’m sure you’ve realised by now, we have PM Officers for about any ridiculous thing in the Quadrivium nowadays. None of them having any magic to show for. They’re going to suffocate us in paperwork if you ask me. I suspect the Malové that came back was put under some sleeper sort of a spell; the Malové we knew would never have tolerated such nonsense.”
Eris marked a pause, looking sideways at Truella’s reflection on her Witchype screen. “And I think she’s had a fair deal of nonsense to contend with… but at least, even in a dragon fire mishap, there was magical prowess that could be harnessed.”
“I do like to get my hands dirty you know, and unravel layers of earth without the help of any spell” snickered Truella.
“That is not the matter and you know it…” Eris sighed.
“You meant to say, it’s time for a good old fashioned witchy coven spell to unravel the truth and break one maybe?” Frella ventured mockingly coyly.
“I’m in!” Jeeze jumped in suddenly “Been so bored for so long with all these timesheeting, spreadsheeting, and reportshitting if you don’t mind my French.”
“Actually I have an idea for a spell… and it may be of interest to you Truella too.” Eris continued.
Truella raised an eyebrow. She was not one to take things at face value. “Try me”
“All my ancestry research has pointed me to something we could work with. You know that bits of hair and nail are basically just middle-agey way of gathering DNA; and that DNA can act as a conduit through time and space, the same way it connects people.”
“Ooooh…” cooed Trooella.
“Exactly.” All nodded in a silent conspiring understanding.
