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  • #1050

    Leörmn was erring through the corridors of his draggilish mind. Some of them were nicely painted he’d found, but apart from some friendly glukenitch glowing droppings, it all seemed a bit empty.

    Of course, connections were ever there, floating around, and could be summoned as easily as a pleasant memory in the spacious eternal present. But those were not memories the dragon wanted to interact with.
    Since they all had made that move of the cave anchoring point to the past, nothing was quite as it was. A truism of course, but sometimes you can’t do much more than state the obvious first, to be able to change it.

    The remnants of the dynemotical ström (another word for wortex, or intercrossing of dimensions, or whatever you want to call this mess) was only starting to fray, and it had left them all in a kind of depressed mood. Depressed, as in less pressure, and a bit deflated.
    As soon as he imagined the words, they became reality, for dragon speech is about the very essence of things, and it can make things be what they are said to be.
    And so he was now morphed into a deflated rubber skin of a dragon, sliding inside the tunnel doing proutish sounds that he tried to put together into harmonious music notes, to entertain the schpurniatz colonies.

    The notes started to take some funny foggy shapes and, using the painted walls as a partition, arranged some pretense of a sentence.

    Words seem lamp; gives lost Malvina soon damn door, telling unexpected…

    Mmm, a door? Of course, little sweet Arona had been painting a door, but why couldn’t he use it too?

    The key was in bridging with the past now… that much he could tell, and perhaps that door may help.

    #1043
    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      Serendib Facility, Sri Lanka ~ (2036)

      Becky had been strangely shaken when she saw appearing in the last word cloud “dead becky” in huge letters.
      Surely she was not scared by death, as dead was only a different term for a different life, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to croak so young!

      Perhaps she died in childbirth; after all, it wouldn’t be so surprising because then the Serendib Facility looked very much like an eerie transitioning place. She tried to remember… When was the last time people had surprised her; done something unexpected, something she couldn’t have calculated. She thought Tina perhaps… Well, on the holographic visiophone, Becky had seen her with utmost details rolling her eyes, thrice even, at the mention of the ménage à trois… But of course,… that hardly counted as a surprise.

      She was starting to freak out. Gayesh! GAYESH! she called out running in the corridors of the facility barely managing to get a bewildered look from the nurses apparently now accustomed to her antics.

      A few moments later, she was comfortably seated in Gayesh’s office, with a warm cup of coffee in her hands. Aaaah, she loved that scent, the warmth that goes right to her heart. She felt comforted. At least if she was dead, the coffee seemed real enough.

      Gayesh had taken an undecipherable look once she had told him of her… premonition. She intuitively felt that there was something he wasn’t telling.

      She almost gurgled her last coffee sip uttering to the doctor “If I’m dead, then spit it now!”

      The laugh from Gayesh came as a surprise to her. “Ahaha,” she couldn’t help but notice, “a surprise !”

      Looking straight into her eyes, he told her “Well, perhaps your premonition has some deep meaning Becky dear, but you look quite alive to me, and with a constitution like yours, likely to live till 157 years old, if you ask me.”

      Becky was greatly relieved, even though she still had the hunch that the mysterious handsome doctor wasn’t telling her all the truth. “I think that idle life is making me insane… I need to see some real dusty rocky stuff; all those projections won’t do for the rest of my life. All the more since I’m supposed to live that long!”

      Gayesh was looking more and more preoccupied.

      “What is it, dear?” Becky asked, starting to feel the pangs of angst coming back at her. (she whispered to herself some of her favourite mantras: stand behind the short wall, breathe, breathe, yes, YES, it’s not your energy…)

      “You see Becky dear,” Gayesh answered after a minute of silence, “there is still some issue with the cloning process; until we find some advanced way of doing it, the clones need some of your cells regularly to be kept in good health, otherwise, I can’t really promise Becky Tooh (that was how the clone#2 was nicknamed) a life as good as yours. That’s why I’m a bit reluctant at letting you go on some errands…”

      Well, if she’d wanted some surprise to see that she was alive, there she got more than enough, Becky thought.

      #1040
      1da
      Participant

        7:33:59 AM 8-19-08 ∞1da Geolocation Time.

        days of sleeping slip by. the light on the peaks soft, golden in the cool dawn. a shiver. the water would be cold but thirst is a motivating factor. movement would mean warmth. birds flitting from branch to branch…

        stones to perch on. river jade at my finger tips. the babble of a quickly flowing stream. scooping with one hand to drink from a clear pool, the musky scent of cedar and low water.

        across the wide stream, a river. actually. no. the amount of water between a stream and a river. a young buck, head bent low also drinking. antlers. how are years marked again? two prongs on each side. is that two years after reaching mating age? or four. no matter. eyes latch across rapidly flowing water. we watch each other. both still, both quiet. both recognizing in each other another survival being of dreams.

        dream memory extending into long ago. no. longer than that. the rules to colonizing a planet. simple universal rules. one band of survival beings with a limited number of nuclear families from any survival being group that wishes to expand into livable planets. set down in one place – with nothing. no food. no implements. not even clothes. if they survive they colonize. if not. well. the universe is full of tried and failed experimentation. The pulse of all that is drawn into a black hole. drawn in and back out through tunnels of light that are trapped within the black hole…

        the fact that more than one form of survival being can attempt to colonize one planet at any given time is both an advantage and a disadvantage. they become resource for each other as well as competition – resource and competition, as is all that is within and upon the planet.

        still that cave, that First Cave. on the tip of the continent in the southern hemisphere… blue ocean view… a beginning that is long ago. how long ago? 160,000 planet years? 200,000 thousand planet years? late arrivals as we are, this is where our colonization is now. Digging to find those memories and what is left of that initial arrival…

        walking up this valley on the other side of a continent, an ocean away from First Cave… funny how time advances forward and backward in both directions – in all directions – and remains the same. This now is the same now as that now and remains the same in both directions as it passes around each of us.

        the sun trickling across the tips of trees lower and lower into the valley. another half an hour and it will be in my face.

        might as well eat breakfast while I walk. thimble berries, currents, oh! yarrow. i could make tea. – if I made fire. If I had fire… or i could make yarrow tea because i have sun. . .

        at peace within because i know i am returning to the High Portal Cave on the mountain, near the timberline. the central entrance, near the ancient pine. The safe harbor of the High Portal Cave, the entrance to a multitude of passageways, interconnecting chambers and stunning connecting points that open beyond this time and beyond this continent – before and after this continent. probably, through the right passage way opening beyond this planet. I don’t know that, it makes sense that it does. I believe I will find out in my memory or in my future. i remember some of these things and places. not all of them. i remember entering, finding the stone trough of water with the wooden drinking bowl on the damp ledge. i remember passageways that lead to incredible places and times. why return now? without knowing i know. this is the way it is because this is the way it will become.

        warm sun on my chest. warm from walking. birds, quiet as i approach, resume their constant foraging as i pass. along the shore the constant sound of the river stream like the white noise of the universe, beautiful and ever present so that if i am not mindful i no longer hear it.

        a walking stick. ok, a broken branch caught between boulders. still green enough to be strong, almost as thick as my forearm with little taper and altho it is not straight, it is a head taller than i am – perfect. a walking stick. a walking staff. i work it loose from the rocks. strange markings… the hand of an intelligent being – a gift then.

        do images become visible on these pages or only the thoughts and sights from within my mind, i wonder. i try to remember not to believe all that i think… if i wonder… then do i attempt to find out? yes, often enough, yes. and why is short hair exciting, new, a sign of adventuring? changes. oh. perhaps. or perhaps it’s a way of changing breath. I smile. I walk on.

        #1033
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Dory was just about to set off for Rita’s house for the appointment with the hairdresser when she read the news. Rita was getting married soon and wanted to experiment with different hairstyles and make-up, and Dory had planned to join her for a bit of a make-over , out of curiosity, but the news of cyclone Ycart and its trail of devastaion caught her attention.

          Intuitively she knew that the island that she had tried to book a flight to while she was on a Heathrow stop-over had been affected by the cyclone, and right then and there Dory made up her mind to go to the island on the pretext of helping the relief aid workers. In actuality she was merely curious ~ well, more than ‘merely’ curious, she was feeling the pull of an interesting probability choice.

          #1027

          She was the first to notice.

          First there was a loud bang, that she perceived as a shock wave rippling all around.

          Then, she felt a strange flabby thing with bat arms fall into the ocean, while the other energy was coming their ways. “Wow,” she couldn’t help but think; “they’re having unusual nightly activities around for such a small isolated island.”

          The dog resting by the fire got alerted then, and tried to wake up the others. But apparently, they seemed oblivious to it.

          Then, something stranger happened. The small white rabbit started to talk, as if it had been aware all along.
          “It’ll take a while for him to see you again Kay, just don’t yap like a silly dog… Besides, you’ll disturb our guests”
          “Guests?” the dog answered back.

          The moment after, the rabbit had disappeared from the girl’s lap, and was standing between her and the dog.
          “Welcome, Balbina”, he told her.

          “How do you know my name?” she was aghast, unable to say if it was for the talking rabbit, or for the fact it knew her name.
          Unperturbed, it continued “It’s a busy night. There are lots of things happening, and we hope you’ll stick around. It may be helpful for our friends here.”
          “Er… why not… I mean, yes, sure. And you are?”
          Yuki, at your service. I’m not really a rabbit of course, but that form is convenient”
          “And cute too…” she said tentatively
          “Thank you”

          Balbina had never thought a rabbit could blush, but she would have bet it was the closest thing to a blushing rabbit she had just witnessed.

          “Sorry to interrupt you,” Kay said, but who are the other guests?

          a shrilling voice came as an answer OOOOooohh a campfire! How cuty pooh! Wait till Sha and Glo see that, we could have some roasted marshmallows and pork chops! I’m feeling soooo hungry…”

          “Great… So much for our little secret expedition,” Claude sighed as he woke up.

          #985

          The door of the garage opened with a creaking sound, and Madame Chesterhope sped up into the gritty alley.
          In that dimension where she had hidden her command base, people were a bit sloppy about roads and tarmac, so she had designed a little modification on her machines to be able to levitate in some of the less practical areas; but she had to admit,… she loved the vibrations and bumps that the motorbike created with the friction of the ground surface.
          She started to giggle, all enthusiastic about the speed and the wind in her hair, that she ignored the road sign indicating that the road was flooded some miles ahead. The rain had been pouring cabbages all past hexades, so much so that her leather suit was in all honesty the best thing she could have worn, not to mention the fact of course, that it was making her totally sexy.
          Two peasants were coming her way, looking at her with wild eyes like they had just seen something otherworldly. Ahahah she laughed, the fools would soon have forgotten everything about it (another handy and sly magical modification she nodded to herself). Looking in her rear mirror, she could still see them wiggle their hands in a frenzy… What the fl…!

          :fleuron:

          On the road, the two peasants wondered what in the name of Shaint Lejus was that rider… But worse, it was heading straight to the pool that the swollen river had made recently, outpouring on fields and little sniggly and thorny paths, like this one. Making desperate signs to be seen and warn it, they watched in horror the black podgy thing with flabby flapping schpurniatz arms sink straight to the bottom of the pool.

          :fleuron:

          The landing was a bit bumpy, but she found her balance quickly. Those transdimensional puddles were a bit rough to get accustomed to, but once you knew how to manipulate it, you couldn’t forget it.
          Now, all she needed to got to the location she was heading to was to hop through a few more transdimensional puddles.
          Actually, all sorts of puddles could do the job, water puddles, even oil puddles… or run-over poodle puddles for that matter. She preferred water ones, for the quality of water was very fluid, and allowed for easier defocusing. Lately she had tried transdimensional exhaust fumes clouddles, but that was a bit disorienting more than helping.
          As far as she could tell, this first one had been projecting her to a dimension in between Earth and the Duane. Incorporating vibrational qualities of the two, with a little more rigidity though. The machine needed a little time to stabilize and get prepared for the next transdimensional jump.
          As far as she could tell, she was in a place that was not unlike her birthplace, in the countryside of England. There were occasionally some giveaways that she still wasn’t quite there yet, like an erratic flying schpurniatz, but she was close now.
          A few meters in front of her, she could see a lovely puddle that could do for the next jump. A bit small for her… well, motorbike, what were you thinking… but that would probably do it. She took another breath, then pushed the TDPP (Trans-Dimensional Puddle Propeller) button.

          :fleuron:

          Flof-flof-flof-flof…
          Bugger, bugger…. What the bloody heck!

          Straw was flying all over her hair, and obfuscating her vision… Darn last puddle had to much mud in it, and her concentration went off for a split second, heading her towards a field of barley.
          Turning round and round for a moment in complete disorientation, she finally pushed the levitation button to take a little altitude.
          Oh, now,… at least she could tell she was in England, because she knew that place.
          How perfect! She could now just move into the dimension to the Pacific island. The GPS included in the modern expensive motorbike had been bipping as soon as it had found again the satellites, and it was now pointing the direction.
          Giggling again, she pushed a new button and disappeared into the sky in a supersonic puff of smoke.

          :fleuron:

          a few days later, Chestershire, UK

          AFP - 2008-07-21 - An new amazing design has been reported by eye-witnesses
          on a crop of barley of a local farmer along with reports of strange booming sounds
          and orbs of light. A sight to behold, the delicate intricacy of these interwoven
          patterns is believed by many to be the work of the Crop-circle Makers, some
          alien intelligence desiring to communicate with us. The theme of this crop-circle
          is thought to be a variation on planet Venus cycles, and would be highlighting
          the number of cycles lefts until the notorious end-date of Mayan calendar,
          Dec. 21st 2012. Scientists have brushed off the allegations of elderly pranksters,
          as this one seemed to have required levels of astronomical knowledge far beyond
          human intelligence.
          #940
          F LoveF Love
          Participant

            Phew, said Becky, mopping her brow with her hand, what a great work out!

            Tina was very impressed with how diligently Becky was doing her Visualisation Exercises for Pregnancy, and rather surprised to see genuine sweat pouring down her flushed and hot face. She had agreed to do the exercises with Becky, but truth to tell had dozed off after a few minutes. Still, not that I need to do exercises, Tina thought, admiring her toned and slim body. Becky kept complaining about weight gain, and Tina had tried to point out that was what happened when one had a baby. Becky was having none of it.

            By the way Tina, what’s up with Al?

            Yeah … said Tina hesitantly, torn between loyalty and honesty. Well I don’t really know. He is a bit obsessed …

            Obsessed is the word! It’s turning into a monologue. We had better write something soon or who knows what havoc he will wreak on the reality play. You know he killed the spider?

            Well, said Tina brightly, always willing to see the bright side, at least it has distracted him from his body modification experiments for a while.

            #934
            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              New Venice, March 2034

              After so many “haven’t been on my honeymoon yet!” ( ¹² ) , Becky was relieved to see that she had fast-forwarded time so nicely that, finally, in a few hours of time now, they would depart for Sri Lanka.

              Of course, the last events with her wavering in different probabilities, and manifesting more of what she had tried —almost by reflex— to avoid were still on her mind. She had felt a bit sorry for Sean, but she knew all along that the choices were hers, and worrying unduly about others, even if that was about her dear spouse, wouldn’t be efficient at all, needless to say not even slightly helpful.
              She had to concentrate more on the way she wanted to express herself. That way, she knew she would draw to her the perfectly appropriate situations —while the less than appealing stuff would recede in the background under a good dose of acceptance fairy dust.

              Though still a bit weary of her unexpected pregnancy from a future traveler who hadn’t even had the tact to propose her to elope with him, her minds were fresh and excited as ever at the thought of hopping like a daft goat on the Lion’s Rock in Sigiriya. And her good mood seemed to have an infectious effect on Sean who hadn’t even inquired of what local liquor there would be on the island. Perhaps the aura of the spiritual region had already blessed Sean with some renewed optimism.

              As she was fondly stuffing her skimpy honeymoon outfit in the already ready to burst piece of luggage, she smiled blissfully, remembering all of a sudden how she had forgotten to be gentle with herself these past few days, and how nice it was to treat herself with shiny and twinkling shards of spicy new adventures.
              She could indeed feel the excitement of doing some psychic archeology (as her step-mother used to call that) on these spots full of collective energies that she hadn’t had the taste of in many months.

              #925
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                “My yellow is fine and dandy”
                Said green hued sickly Mandy
                “You’re mad to suggest
                A yellow sick fest”
                Said sickly green hued Mandy.

                :yahoo_sick:

                That wasn’t one of your finest, dear, said Tina disparagingly.
                Becky sighed. I need to find a Limerick support group.

                Mandy felt better at once
                “I feel better than I have in months.
                You may be mad,
                And that is sad!
                But now I fancy some lunch.”

                :yahoo_pig:

                These are special Kuzhebarian Healing Limericks you know, Becky said a trifle huffily. Nobody appreciates my limericks.

                Mr X is making some rice.
                It’ll be ready in just a trice;
                All soupy and wet,
                She’ll feel better I bet
                In a trice, at a modest price.

                :yahoo_money_eyes:

                “You tried”, she said with a smirk
                “But I doubt if it will work”

                Tina interrupted: “You tried she said with a sigh”

                Becky sighed. I was hoping you’d smirk dear, she said to Tina. The word smirk is on my ’100 things challenge’ list.
                Tina rolled her eyes and Becky continued:

                “But the poppy is making me high!
                So thanks for that!
                I’ll eat my hat.”
                She said, “Now I’m starting to fly!”

                :balloon:

                Mandy flies off down the street,
                Smiling gaily at all she meets
                “I’m high, I can fly!”
                She said with a sigh
                Of joyous delight. How sweet!

                :yahoo_eyelashes:

                Mongloose had a moment of doubt
                “I fear she is still in a prout.
                But one never does know
                How these healing rhymes flow
                Before long she’ll be up and about.”

                :yahoo_idk: :heart:

                #898

                She was feeling blank. It was as if she had no memories of what had happened before. At least she had still the notion that she was a she… wasn’t she? It wasn’t really clear, as she had mixed up feelings. There weren’t any physical sensation in the place she was. Indeed, she was having difficulties finding herself. She began to wonder what was this feeling of her she was aware of. To what was it connected? And thus, she realized she was too focused on the question itself to get any answer.
                The letting go released a dam of sensations and informations. She was overwhelmed by all that she was and all that seemed to be thrust upon her senses. But the resistance was what could create pain, she knew that from another time where she was living the same thing. Resisting the communication was like wanting to resist a herd of fleeing raghlors.
                She was feeling a presence in all this mess, something familiar :-?
                Was that herself looking at herself looking at herself looking at herself looking…
                Her memory of what she was trying to do came as lightning. The sudden realization of her numerous tentatives at this exercise made her cry… would she fail again?
                She had to find these other aspects of her, put them into a common direction… but there were so many of hers! which ones should she call to follow her? Which ones would follow her, if any? She felt sudden despair coming from everywhen. Despairs that she was aware did not belong to her, but they were powerful, almost annihilating her will. Images of massacres of people she knew, of people that her other selves knew, massacre that she had perpetrated herself or that she was perpetrating… any sensation of time could fit.

                :yahoo_at_wits_end: :yahoo_doh: :yahoo_crying: :yahoo_cow: :yahoo_whew: :yahoo_skull:

                Despair was imprisoning her and she knew she already had failed because of that. It was shadowing her motivation, giving her that hollow sense of herself, shielding her from…

                :creating_magic:

                Asiir, is that you? The energy was familiar and the name was a translation in her mind. It was an anchor point in all these mess of hers.
                Asiir, help me!

                The feeling was faint, so far away. But as she was focusing more on it, she noticed her different selves were intrigued and gathering around it. And there they were together. A feeling of ecstasy filled her up… and out of her body herself was huge. The presence was gaining in intensity and it was as if it was her who was allowing Asiir’s energy to be expressed toward herself.

                HAHAHAHAHA a thunderous laugh.
                Startled for a moment she almost lost contact with Asiir. But their bond was stronger this time. She was filled with joy and self-assurance.

                At last, you are beginning to understand, Lola. We can go on and take the next step now.

                She was truly riding her dragon, :face-grin: , it was wondrous.

                Well, technically you are lying on the floor of the marshes of doooom, but…

                All of a sudden, everything was gone, she was back to her body, Asiir looking at her and nudging her left arm with her snout.
                WOW, what a crippled body! How many times did she tried? Would he kill her with that, bloody bastard… a feeling of anger was infuriating her, and filling her body up, heating it up. How could he possibly be so inhuman?

                May I recall you I’m a dead guy? and furthermore, my focus wasn’t human… I just appear human to your eyes because you want me to appear like that. You have no representation of how my species could look like, but I may show you…
                … soon.

                #893

                The day had been long. Actually, from an outside perspective he had been apparently sleeping almost all of it, so it was not appearing as if it could be a really exhausting day at all.
                But Al had been extending his body researches in the subjective. He’d started to play again with his various dream bodies he had known the existence of for quite a while now, though he hadn’t yet found the time to experiment with them fully enough. An idea he owed to Sam, who he had been pleased to hear about his unusual experiences in the Australian bush, or more accurately, in the Dreamtime.

                Playing with these various “bodies”, or qualities of attention and perception, he was aware that his thoughts on the recent events occurring in their story was still unfolding in the backstage of his attention. A rehearsal perhaps…
                Nevertheless, he was delaying the actual representation, for he felt he was not yet ready for it.
                He could feel lots of information waiting for him to download them and process them. But he wanted to do it with clarity.

                Last try had not been very convincing… He had dreamt of a midget Tina, in a flowing mauve and lemon chiffon dress. Of course, in the dream he had taken great care of not hurting her feelings, all the more since she seemed so fond of the dress. He couldn’t really tell her that the dress was giving her an enormous butt and that she was rolling her hips comically when she was walking… Impossible…
                While dream-Al was searching for words to truthfully convey his appreciation of whatever little thing that could be left to appreciate on that dress, dream-Sam had been quick to tell dream-Tina she looked like fairy Nuf. What had he said! She soon started to weep noisily. Fairy Nuf, as anyone knew, is a purple-clad plump grumpy fairy, with a pointy hat and she couldn’t possibly look that bad.
                Speak about clarity…

                Al tried again to concentrate. Taking deep breathes.

                He could feel more and more clearly the presence of the woman. Her aura was beckoning, and she seemed to want to share information with him —pieces of information he would be free to tell others or not, it didn’t matter.
                What mattered was that there was this deep desire for this information which was coming from him; and equally as deep as his, her own desire to share was palpable.

                Salome ” he whispered “ I am ready to see
                He soon started to fall into another lucid dream…

                #889

                Wow that had been bizarre! Veranassessee stood at the bathroom basin and splashed icy cold, reviving water on her face. She knew she’d had sex with Agent Gabriele … however the experience had a slightly surreal quality, not unlike a dream, details slipping elusively away from her as she tried to grasp hold of them. She giggled nervously as she dried her face with a towel. Did she really want to remember? She had just passed Agent Gabriele in the corridor and he had winked at her, saying he couldn’t wait to try the ‘reverse cleaning maid ‘ again. A sudden image came to mind and she saw her skin darken in the mirror as a hot wave of embarrassment flooded her. Good Grief! She thought guiltily of Mahiliki. She hoped the other island had not been too badly affected by cyclone Ycart, so far it seemed Tifikijoo had come off quite lightly.

                Veranassessee had already checked on the guests, Jose Maria and Paquita were still in their room, Mavis was huddled under her bedding and informed her in a muffled voice that Sha and Glor had gone looking for her.

                :fleuron:

                Well she’s not in her bloody room so where is she eh? Gloria and Sha were on the warpath, determined to get some answers from Veranassessee.

                ‘Ere, Sha! Bloody hell! Glor shook her head in disbelief.

                What’s up Glor?

                Bloody magpies … there are bloody magpies in ‘ere!

                What! Nasty little buggers those magpies. Poke yer bloody eyes out if yer aint careful.

                ‘Ere what they up to eh? Bloody hopping all over that whats-a-ma-callit-doo-dacky machine.

                They’ll be going for the shiny bits I reckon. They do that those magpies. ‘Ere we’d better stop them, might never get our bloody beauty treatments if they bugger that machine up.

                #824

                Midora was perplexed. These books were like an open-ended uncharted territory. That territory was so vast and fractal-like in nature that each attempt at following a single thread seemed daunting. There were always details growing like a reckless plant from the entry points where she started her investigations. Badul seemed lost in this jungled maze.
                Last time she’d tried to connect, she ended up with another focus of his, a child, vaguely related to the crystal skulls hunt.

                All it requires is a proper compass to navigate the thought suddenly appeared in her mind as clear as daylight, carrying with it a trail of concepts and clusters of associated ideas.
                One in particular…
                She’d had that book of designs she’d always loved to read when she was a child. It was full of colorful symbols which were called by the authors “tiles”. The authors associated some properties to them, and she remembered one which was about a compass…
                So she had found a compass… Now, she would have to learn how to use it. The introduction of the book said:

                The tiles presented in this book all have different functions; they can be primarily understood as focal points which enhance specific uses of energy. […] As far as we know, they can be discovered in many situations, either objective events (e.g. something that catches your gaze in the street) or in the subjective (dreams, visions, inspirations etc.). In both cases, the recognition is instantaneous, as each tile carries a distinctive energetic signature which is the essence of its “function”, so to speak.
                As such, it can be used theoretically in both situations (subjective and objective), though, as far as we have explored, subjective interaction with them seem to be the easiest and most quickly rewarding way of accessing them.

                Subjective interaction, yes that was child’s play, she would have said, though she could vaguely understand why people before the Shift completed had more trouble accessing it. Objective wasn’t so difficult, once you get to the idea that it’s all one, and you can easily switch from each of the attentions used to focus on them.

                The only thing that doesn’t seem to change, she thought, is the numbering. Even when the events shuffle through the pages and reorder themselves, or even when the very energy of the event subtly changes, their numbers were the same. She could start with that.

                She cleared her mind, envisioning the compass, then took a deep breath and asked herself a question, Where do I find Badul?
                Slowly, the compass started to shift and turn, while numbers started to roll in front of her mind’s eye, and like a lottery, at each draw a number appeared, slowly revealing a number: 1-2-3-8

                She eagerly leafed through the books to find the reference. Well… that was more perplexing than ever, that seemed like a totally unrelated story.
                But now, she was not so sure about that, as she read the entry and wondered about the fact that it seemed once again different from the first time she’d read it.

                And now, she marveled as a new entry started to write itself under that one. It was the first time she actually saw an entry write itself. Those she had spotted that were not here before, she just assumed they had appeared instantaneously. But not this one… and it started to link Franiel’s and Badul’s explorations…

                #823

                It had been more than a week now that Claude had broken loose from one captivity to fall into another.
                Not that this gang of strange shape-shifting magpie beings seemed to consider him a captive, rather an impromptu host that they felt obliged to take care of. But Claude wasn’t duped one moment.

                His precedent prison on Tikfijikoo had been relatively easy to break out from, thanks to that unasked for gift of preternatural strength he had gained from the experiments he had be subjected to. Actually, had he not almost been driven mad from pain, he would have been on the loose earlier. Thank the Magpies for his recovered sanity…
                Security on the island facility wasn’t the highest and most difficult he had been confronted to. They seemed to consider the relative isolation of the island and its deadly sharp coral reef encircling it their main asset in keeping their experiments clear from outside interferences.

                Claude snapped back from his thoughts and gazed fixedly at a tender green sprout at his feet while humming a nursery rhyme. An effective trick.
                He had to be more cautious… He knew they could read his surface thoughts…
                Apparently, he could come and go as pleased him, but as he had tried to find his way back to the island facility, he had discovered that the landscape was changing each time he felt close to it. And soon enough, he was finding himself back to the hidden settlement. He knew enough to suspect his affable alien hosts of playing tricks on his mind to keep him in check. Perhaps they were even bending space around their settlement, as far as he knew…
                Not intrusive, and yet not a very different treatment from the inhumane experiments. Except he had no mummy bandages this time…

                Know thy foe so went the adage, and Claude was determined to know enough about his new captors to escape and complete his mission.
                From what he was guessing, as they had not killed him, they probably would release him (if he was lucky) as soon as their mission would be completed —a mission which was most probably the same as his own. Snatching the crystal skull he knew was there somewhere. He could sense they were after it too.
                He was wondering who had hired them to retrieve the thing. Obviously they were not from the common lot of thieves, most certainly not even from this planet, and anyone who had hired them must have been in dire need of the thing.
                He had been told by the Baron that the crystals were storing ancient vast knowledge and that accessing it had been only possible since a few decades, actually since the discovery of coherent beams of light (laser). But even accessed, the information stored remained vastly incomprehensible, and deciphering it could take another millennium without appropriate knowledge of its holographic proprieties.
                The Baron had told humanity was like a child being given a box of books on relativity… And even the mad transvestite doctor was only toying with the tip of an immense iceberg.

                Those Magpies were far more advanced, Claude could see it clearly, and he wondered how he could outdo them, if that was possible. Quite frankly he didn’t know why they had not yet retrieved it. Perhaps they were having trouble locating it too…
                That would mean he still had a head start, however short.

                :fleuron2:

                A faint barking sound seemed to echo in his head… It was apparently coming from… the gnarled trunk of an old majestic tree… Whispers seemed to come from it too, like a child talking with an adult, and whispers around them…
                The tree seemed wide enough for him to enter into the biggest crack of its bark…
                Could it be one of their secret entrances and exits? There had to be coordinate points were they could get out of this warped space… What was he risking to try?

                #819
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  A man was walking on the narrow path shaded by the tall pandanus trees.

                  Mahiliki was coming back from the sawmill where he worked, smiling to the people he met on his way back home. The island of Fikitupi was a small island in the Pacific, and he knew most of the people living around this small corner here.

                  An old wizened lady with a toupee was busy weaving pandanus dried leaves into baskets and mats on the front door of her small house, while children were running to and fro among noisy chicken all around the place.
                  Mahiliki smiled, fond as he was of Nanaiis, whom all children loved deeply, for she always had new tales for them to hear, and cheering words to share. She was quite intuitive, and had said to him years ago that his new girlfriend wouldn’t stay around and have lots of children.
                  He didn’t want many children anyway… but as Nanaiis had said, Vera had left, not without saying she would come back though.
                  Mahiliki didn’t count much on it, but he had all the time to wait for her. Life was calm and sweet here, and its appeal was great.

                  At a short distance, he could spot the hut of O’panié and Twahissi. They were some funny strange hoots these two. Twahissi was the light-haired niece of O’panié and she was sharing with him her love for otherworldly matters. Twahissi’s parents had left her in his care, when they left to open a shop in the main island of the archipelago, and frankly, Twahissy was far more comfortable staying in Fukitupi where all felt magic to her.

                  Mahiliki smiled when he finally understood they were trying to bury something near the culvert on the side of their hut. For apparently no reason, a month or two ago, O’panié had become interested in old papers and had become convinced that the date line was not only passing on the island of Fukitupi, but even more, it was passing right through his hut, and thus might explain his apparent sudden feelings of time loss.
                  Some educated people had tried to reason him, but he’d stood fast in his opinion. Sightings of rainbow bubbletons by his niece Twahissi had him convinced even further that there was the possibility to improve this technique of time-travel. For as he crossed the bedroom he could step one day forward or backward! How thrilling it all was!
                  Guess only the Elders knew what he was trying to bury now…

                  Mahiliki could not but agree with him, as they were giving the whole village some pleasant laughing, and he had to admit that his enthusiasm was winning him more and more people to his quest. He wondered what sweet Vera would think of all of that, Cartesian as she was…

                  #805

                  When Franiel got to the crossroads the path turned abruptly to the left and plunged sharply down, past a crumbling and long-deserted stone cottage, to a little bridge built across a gently flowing river. Beyond the bridge there was a short ascent westwards through a thickly wooded area and then the way opened out rather suddenly. Such a pleasant and restful scene welcomed Franiel that for a moment he felt he may have entered a dream. The air was fragrant, the grass was sprinkled with daffodils and shaded by great chestnut trees. Confronting Franiel, at the south-west corner of the green, was a massive stone lych-gate. Beyond the lynch gate, and almost hidden by trees Franiel could see the roof of Chesterhope Manor.

                  :fleuron:

                  In the day of judgment God be merciful to Derwent a sinner ……hehehehe. Well good riddance to God’s judgement! Begone God’s judgement! We’ve cheated the parson, we’ll cheat him again, for why should the vicar have one in ten ? Oh what’s this now then walking through the gate? A stranger! hehehehehe…tis one of God’s angels methinks, perhaps come to strike old Derwent down for his heathen ways and blasphemous tongue. Well does old Derwent even know what an angel looks like? and he chuckled in delight at the very idea of it.

                  You there! he shouted as Franiel drew close, Are you the angel Gabriel come as a messenger of God’s wrath? Or a wandering stranger come to pass the time of day with me?

                  Well neither really, said Franiel, although of the two possibilities I favour the second. I have come to have a word with Madame Chesterhope.

                  Madame Chesterhope! Does she still live here then? He lowered his voice reverently. A real angel that one, better than those biblical ones by a long shot. So you want a word in her ear. You will have to find it first of course.

                  Should I try the house? asked Franiel politely.

                  Try the house? Derwent rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully. I tell you what! Try the magic mushrooms first, and when you’ve tried them, try the patience of Saint Derwent. He gave Franiel a kindly pat on the shoulder. Good on you for trying Lad, anyway. I’ll bid you farewell now and if you do find an ear, best keep it, a spare ear can always come in handy.

                  #803

                  The room was chilly and silent when she awoke. The transition between her dream and the reality was like a cold shower on her aching body. It was still the middle of the night, even the guards were noiseless. She managed to bring her body close to the wall with the only window far above her head. Her thin clothes weren’t sufficient to keep the warmth into her flesh and she couldn’t restrain a shiver. How painful this could be after such a vivid dream.

                  She winced when one of her right thigh muscles decided to contract on its own and wouldn’t let go of the tensions. She tried to relax and breathe as deeply as she could, which made her cough repeatedly and that was even more painful. Still she could think. She was with that girl and her dragon again, Lola she was. Though that time the dragon was sleeping rather deeply. She could not blend her mind with her. The other was well shielded and she couldn’t communicate. Even her mind was a prison that she couldn’t communicate with her dream selfs.

                  There was that woman again, the Warrior Goddess, but they didn’t fight with her pupil as they usually did. She was more like a channel to another realm. Atiara could barely feel the presence of the others. They were too far in a way that she couldn’t comprehend.

                  Oh! Now she was remembering… hope.

                  After what had seemed hours of an exhausting fight with ghosts, the vividness of that dream had faded and she had found herself speaking with a young lad. What was his name? He was showing her different symbols, telling her that she had asked him in a dream once and that his friend Ewrick had now finished them. Yann had then showed her this set of symbols.

                  She had felt a different kind of power along with the smile of a blue man. Had she asked for this? She couldn’t remember. She had said to Yann that they were beautiful though she hadn’t the slightest idea of what they were. He had laughed and just said that she’ll know soon enough. And there was that guy behind Yann, with his mischievous look and his nine-tailed fox

                  All she could hope was that she would remember the set. It seemed important. Well important enough that she had forgotten her painful body consciousness for a few moments. The coldness of the stone under her bare feet was bringing her back to her gray reality. The storm was now closer but still not ready to release its power. She was waiting for it.

                  #741
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Elvira was tucking into some reindeer stew left over from Becky and Sean’s wedding when she telepathically tuned into Becky’s distress signal. Chewing thoughtfully, Elvira tried to make sense of the visual imagery she was receiving. She seemed to be getting a mixed message; was it a nun, or was it a tart? She reminded herself to trust her impressions, and not discount them even if they seemed incongruous or unlikely, and accepted that Becky was indeed in some kind of tarty nun trouble. The question was, where was Becky.

                    Elvira pushed her empty plate away, and focused on the situation. AHA! Nutley Park, 25th bush on the left.

                    Boris, I’m going out, she said. Becky’s in a spot of tarty nun trouble in Nutley park.

                    Right Ho, dear, shall I come and help?

                    Another image of popped into Elvira’s head of the see-through black mini dress. Er, no Boris, I’ll handle this myself.

                    And with that, Elvira, sprightly old crone that she was (and fortified with mushroom laced reindeer stew) bustled off to hail a gondola cab, carrying a large carpet bag containing a selection of hastily chosen clothing.

                    #740
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Becky huddled behind a bush, shivering, and trying desperately to pull down the ridiculously short dress she was wearing.

                      I can’t believe I came out wearing my honeymoon outfit, she grumbled crossly. No wonder that Gondola man kept sniggering and pulling his sweater down to his knees. PFFFT! The only nasty habit around here is not looking in the f’kin’ mirror before I leave the house.

                      Becky tried to phone Al again, and then events took a turn for the worse. Her phone battery was dead.

                      #739

                      Vessie Darl, Sha and I are just popping down to the beach for some more of them special beauty sea waters you told us about.

                      Great idea, Gloria, responded Veranassessee vaguely. She watched absent-mindedly as Gloria’s generous body, clad only in a skimpy red bikini, disappeared down the corridor. There was something about that shade of red tugging at her memory. Vermillion red …

                      Red! PLAN B! Oh my God! how could she have forgotten!

                      It was two days since she had called him, that meant he would be here soon, that did not leave her much time to prepare.

                      :fleuron:

                      Everything has to be perfect. She wears a silk vermillion red camisole, the one he gave her, scarcely covered by lush black velvet and topped with bright red lipstick. She casts her eyes critically around the room. It is nearly three years since she has seen him, she doesn’t want to spoil this moment. The glasses of soft red merlot are ready, a plate of miniature liqueur chocolates on a plate by the bed.

                      She shakes out her long dark hair and looks in the mirror. Her chocolate skin glows, her eyes are bright. She will do. She touches the red silk camisole … it is still beyond her comprehension how she can have forgotten.

                      When he arrives he is beautiful. Too beautiful. she thinks. It is so easy for him, effortless. He appraises the room and laughs casually, he knows how hard she has tried. Agent V he says, a pleasure to see you again. He kisses her. She remembers everything.

                      He takes a sip of the wine. She watches him, unsure of herself. He has a black bag with him.

                      He looks at her, sees her looking at the bag, and smiles slowly, I have something to show you, Agent V, he says, and she can sense his pride, the barely suppressed excitement in his voice.

                      He opens the bag carefully, pulls out a small white box, handles it lovingly. Two years experimentation in the Russian lab, he says softly, delicate threads of spun blue bonnet spider silk and yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.

                      He looks at her. Come here. he says

                      She hesitates for just a moment thinking of Mahiliki, and then inwardly shrugs, bugger it, I never really wanted to live on Fukitupi island and have loads of babies anyway. She moves over to him. He takes the transparent silk and slowly starts to wind the delicate thread around her wrists. Try and break it, he whispers in her ear, kisses her neck.

                      Then stops.

                      My God, what the fuck is that?

                      Veranassessee sighs.

                      :fleuron:

                      No I swear Sha, I am telling you, I saw him go into Vessie’s room.

                      Oh my God Glor, he might be a murderer, or a bloody rapist even!

                      I tell you though, he were right bloody gorgeous.

                      Well never mind that! The door is locked Sha. I think we’d better shout out. Make sure she’s okay.

                      Right, good idea. And then if she doesn’t answer we can bash the door in and we can both pounce on him.

                      Right, on the count of three Glor, we’‘ll shout out, one… two… THREE!”

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