Search Results for 'vera'

Forums Search Search Results for 'vera'

Viewing 20 results - 181 through 200 (of 311 total)
  • Author
    Search Results
  • #3448
    Jib
    Participant

      First Journey ~ August 17th, 2014

      The drum will beat rhythmically for some time, more or less in the same way. Then when it’s time to go back it will stop do some slow drumming and accelerate the rhythm so you know it’s time to travel back from your journey.

      I propose to go to the lower realm and find your power animals.
      You can have a notebook or paper if you want to write stuffs, jot down words or make doodles, whatever works for you. You may just enjoy the meditation and do nothing in particular. Just allow the drum to carry you on this journey.

      To go to the lower realm, you first find the entrance, it may be a cave, a hole of some sort or a door in the basement, maybe an elevator going down.

      The lower realm is where you find the power animals. You can meet several of them, some will come and see you, and others won’t pay attention to you.
      You can call your power animal and see which one is coming, or ask the ones you meet if they are the one.
      Just trust yourself and don’t trust all they say, some are tricksters.
      Just ask if they are your power animal and if the answer is yes you’ll know it, even if it’s not with words.
      After that you can go with your power animal explore Abalone or whatever element of the story, just ask them to guide you and show you what you need to see.

      #3441

      Dark clouds had gathered in the sky, the temperature had dropped of several degrees, making the breeze feel colder. The group had been walking for hours in the bog toward the elusive temple. With the darkness of the clouds, its mirage had begun to fade away. Greenie had said they’d better stop when the image was gone because they could become lost.

      They had managed to make a wet campfire, and were trying to get warmth from the fleeting flames.
      “I had a strange dream last night”, said George to Arona who was sitting next to him.
      She smiled politely, not sure she wanted to hear about the winged man dreams. She considered standing up and being rude.
      “I was a teenager”, he continued, wrapping himself into his wings.
      Arona rolled her eyes inwardly, looking around for help. Mandrake was sleeping under her cape.
      “An island appeared one day on the coast, people thought it was an ancient magic island and feared to approach it. It was visible only for a couple of days. It was such a weird dream.”
      “Maybe you should write it down”, said Arona.
      “Oh! Probably not, if the P’hope gets hold of it, I have the feeling it’s not in my interest.” He grinned like a kid. “Anyway, I knew in the dream that the island was still there, it was still reachable. So one day I took my father’s boat. It was a small boat, not made to go too far from the coastline. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I went into the mist, completely trusting I would find this island that everybody feared. It was rising tide, and I had to fight the current pushing me to the shore. I think it’s a dream who brought me there, a dream of a girl calling me in a garden. George
      “Is that all?” asked Arona after a moment of silence from George.
      “Yes, it’s most certainly a silly dream, I’ve lived in Karmalott my entire life.”
      “You’ll have to work on your dream telling, pal”, said Mandrake, “the punchline is missing.”

      Nobody noticed how the flames of the fire were dancing into the green girl’s eyes.

      #3427
      Jib
      Participant

        After the push-ups, Anna Purrna returned to her office, letting the Queens panting and sweating, certainly wondering how long it would last.

        The dwarf had requisitioned the best room and decorated it with pink and blue kitten plates on the wall left of his desk. The desk was positioned so that he would see anyone entering the room. It was something he had learned from Feng Shui, the position of power was when you faced the door and had no window behind. It was important no one could sneak up on you.

        Anna Purrna loved pink and blue, and she loved kittens. They were loving you unconditionally and were not as dependent upon you as dogs. And they pooped in their own personal toilets. She put her cane near a decorated hammer and sat at her desk. She sighed.

        Dependence was exhausting. She had fought all her life not to be dependent, especially when she realized that, contrary to the other kids, she couldn’t say when I grow up. She would never grow up, and those arrogant kids in the playground would make sure she knew it morally and physically. She wasn’t all that crooked before.
        Now, she was driving a Harley.

        She took her e-zapper and wrote : “ZR nut reddy 2 face O’Thor ET yeast”.

        Writing in code was a habit she had taken when participating in RPGs. She knew it was an attempt to conceal her own expression. But it felt soothing at the time. It also helped her get better characters than dwarves and goblins. They wouldn’t even let her have an orc, saying she was too small for that. With time and perseverance she became an Adept with great powers and cunning intelligence. She was respected and feared. Which led her to work for the Management.

        Her instructions were clear. Make them stand for themselves. At least that’s how she interpreted it. She had carte blanche for the means.

        From what she had seen until now, Terry was the most promising of the three, but he was still following his mates. Maurana was too attached to the rules and seemliness, and Consuela was far too dependent on her mother. Anna could just provide the environment, they had to find their inner strength on their own and not forget the group.

        The e-zapper purred, she had reconfigured it so that it would have a cat personality. It reminded her of her Riga, her previous ginger cat. She died a few years ago and Anna couldn’t resolve herself to get another one. She couldn’t replace her Riga in her heart.

        The message read : “Begin phase two ASAP. Meow”.

        #3415
        Jib
        Participant

          Consuela has been sneaking out, hoping nobody would notice. And by nobody, she meant that fat short drag of a tyrant. Since the arrival of the dwarf queen, their life has been like hell. She’ve made them scrub the floor several times a day, butt tight and high; she’ve made them move the furniture around, and put it back into place. And with all that they also had to keep on with their usual duties, the fat dancers, the bar and St Germain’s show.

          “Kittie, kittie, kittie” The voice of the dwarf seemed ominous.
          Oh! Shit, thought Cedric, I didn’t even have time to call mum. He tried to hide behind the bins but it was too late.
          “Ah! Little kittie, I found you.” The voice was sweet as a Grannie’s voice, but the face could compete in the category of the evil clowns.

          #3414
          Jib
          Participant

            “Oh! No more phone calls during work”, said Anna Purrna without looking at anyone in particular. It was at least the 57th rule she had been enacting since her arrival. She seemed to have plenty of them.

            Maurana and Terry looked at Consuela who was gasping like a fish out of the water, desperately trying to find oxygen in a dry environment. Cedric was used to call his mother several times a day. The numbers varied. Maurana thought there could be a pattern to these phone calls, and she had tried to time the interval between them. She hadn’t found it yet, but she felt she was close.

            “You can go back to your chores”, said the scrawny little drag. She turned back to Saint Germain’s double, to whom she was sickeningly sweet, as if to make the young queens more miserable by contrast.

            #3376

            Much to everyone’s surprise, Boris called an extraordinary meeting for all the villagers. When Adeline had approached him with a proposition that was troubling her, in his infinite wisdom and practicality, he decided that absolute clarity and open discussion was the only solution. The topic of discussion was the trip to the island with Sanso ~ who wanted to go, and who was willing to stay behind to attend to the animals and the gardens and so on. After several hours of talking and the inevitable sidetracking and joking, interruptions to replenish drinks, fetch snacks or cigarettes, or visit the bathroom, it became apparent that everyone wanted to go, some more enthusiastically than others.

            “I have had a spontaneous inspiration to go,” said Lisa, “And I am a big believer is spontaneity. But I am also a big believer in responsibility, and can’t be spontaneous and responsible at the same time ~ unless I can offload the responsibility onto another responsible individual for the duration of my spontaneous holiday.”
            “So what you’re saying then is that if I don’t stay home to feed the dogs, then I am denying you your right to be spontaneous?” asked Jack.
            Lisa frowned. “If you had just offered to do it, Jack, I could have credited myself with simply trusting it to fall into place. Now you are making me complicate it!”

            “I have an idea” suggested Etienne, “That might work for everyone. Let us consider that we need allow no time for travel, as teleport travel is instantaneous, and we need not concern ourselves with money, as timetravel is without financial cost. We can all go, as long as we do it in relays. Unlike traditional holidays, where people save up their money, make arrangements regarding leaving their responsibilities, take time to reach a destination, stay at that destination for a certain time period, and then return, we do not need to concern ourselves with any of that. I suggest we split up into two smaller groups and alternate being present on the island, with our presence here in the village.”
            “Now who’s complicating it!” remarked Lisa.
            “I think it’s a good idea” Adeline piped up, to a general murmur of agreement.

            “If I may say a word” Sanso stood up and looked at each of their faces in turn. “I must be making a move tonight. And all I need to know is who will be coming with me. Fanella and Lisa?” They nodded in agreement. “And which of you intrepid fellows will join us? Ivan?” Unused to being noticed, Ivan nodded and blushed. “Good! Then Mirabelle, Igor, Boris and Adeline can be team two. Jack, Etienne and Pierre, you can be on emergency stand by to assist where needed in either location.”
            “Does everyone know how to teleport?” asked Mirabelle. “ I mean properly teleport, to the right place at the right time?”
            Sanso laughed. “Well, we are about to find out.”

            #3349
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              The Continuing Adventures of the Three Time Traveling Maids From Versailles.

              The three maids, Fanella (previously known, briefly, as Fanetta), Mirabelle, and Adeline and the three time travelling Russian stage hands, Igor Popinkin, Boris and Ivan, leave Paris in the 18th century via hot air balloon, heading for the Tower of Hercules on the Galician Coast, with Mirabelle’s parrot. Sporadically they are assisted by Pseu Dan, a cross between a sort of oversoul 8 and a future focus with cloaking abilities and other skills, who tends to be unreliable due to a fixation on building a folly of tiles in the City.
              After a series of mishaps attempting to board the ghost galleon of Belen, an Amazonian shapeshifting timetravelling pink dolphin pod comes to their rescue, and they find themselves washed up on a beach near the Pillars of Hercules (Spanish side) in the year 2020 and are found by Lisa, a middle aged Englishwoman. She takes the six timetravellers back to her village, an experimental new kind of community in the orange groves not far from the beach.
              Jack is Lisa’s partner, and other inhabitants of the village include Etienne and Pierre.

              Mirabelle and Igor continue an on/off tempestuous affair, Mirabelle often considering Igor (somewhat unfairly) a feckless whoremongering cretin. Igor considers himself to be an average adventurous funloving young man willing to explore new opportunities.
              Mirabelle, once considered to be the bossiest of the three maids, finds she has no need to control the others in the absence of the responsibilities of working long hours for others at Versaille. Initially she struggled with learning the new languages, but was easily diverted from the worry and thus learned with ease, after the unexpected trip to Portugal (looking for the stolen whale tile) with Lisa. Lisa finds herself strangely attracted to Mirabelle while under the influence of sangria.

              Adeline settled into the new timeframe by pursuing her fascination with the unfamiliar multitude of coloured plastic objects, making them into sculptures. She and Boris have an easy ongoing friendship; Boris and Ivan settle into life at the village by taking an interest in car and tractor mechanics and farming, and digital photography.

              Fanella was the most unsettled, yearning to return to the familiar hometimezone in Versaille. She found peace in solitude outside in natural surroundings, often practicing teleporting and projecting by the river or in the woods. She rediscovers her adventurous spirit after a series of teleport and time travelling mishaps. Her unexpected meeting with Sanso in the Great Fire of London in 1212 starts another chain of teleport and timetravel adventures, as she is now determined to reach the island in 2121 that she read about in an old book of Lisa’s called Circle of Eights and Other Stories.

              #3330

              With the aid of the holographic map, Irina, Mr R and little Greenie have been exploring the island.
              The next day they found a crashed plane from Aeroflot, not very far from their own landing spot. It was half burried in the mud and covered in green mossy vegetation. The doors were open as an irresistible invitation to enter.

              “A surprise, Mr R. I thought that this place was on your map. If I remember well, it didn’t show such an object.”
              “Forgive me, madam, indeed this plane wasn’t there when I triangulated the map I showed you.”
              “You mean it’s fresh ?” Irina’s voice seemed to suddenly carry some interest. “Maybe we can find some survivors”, she added, already doubting it considering all the moss on teh metallic shell.
              “I’m afraid we won’t, madam. I didn’t want to bother you with that little detail until I was sure. There are objects on this island that only appear after a certain date. Have you noticed it also happens with the vegetation and the insects ?”
              Irina pouted, “I prefer leaving that to your expertise.”
              “Of course, madam”, said the robot, affable. “The paradox is…”
              “Another paradox ? How interesting.”
              “…that it doesn’t seem to include us, or that little person.”
              “Any idea what the implications are ?” Irina began to wonder if there was any danger of being stuck permanently on this island.
              “I have several hypothesis”, he began, “The most probable is the lost room hypothesis. We arrived there through time space displacement and are not a natural part of this environment, hence we don’t change with its natural environment or inhabitants because we are not under it’s time sequence according to the Lehmon’s law.”

              Irina pouted. She looked at little greenie and thought of the implications about how their new friend arrived there. Whenre did she come from ? For her to be a bog mummy, she must have been there a long time. Or did she arrived already bogged ?
              Something caught her attention about the plane and distracted her of further thinking about the subject of their continuity risk in this place. The logo of the plane looked not so oldish.
              “Mr R. ? What do you think the date of the crash was ?”
              “The plane was lost in 2112.”

              Without further thought about safety, she entered the plane, followed first by little Greenie as she have been calling her new protegee, and by the robot who despite still talking about technicalities of accidental space time crossing theory, had turned on his speleo lights.

              Interestingly enough, Irina noted the clothes on the chairs or in the alleyways, here a pair of glasses, there a necklace, all layered as if the person wearing them had been puffed away.

              “Well, well, what have we here ? The light Mr R, please,” said Irina with as much excitement as a snail. He obliged her with his usual professionalism, revealing a teal blue scarf with pistachio green spirals. She took the cloth and stretched it to have a better look. It was one of those artistic kind of hippy abstract patterns connecting you to the cosmos.
              “I can’t think of anybody who would buy that thing, maybe she stole it from one of those duty free shops before they took off,” she said as petulantly as a pitfall trap.
              “Come here little Greenie, it’s time to make you pretty.”

              Irina did not have the chance to play with dolls when she was a kid, she didn’t know if she had some psychological lack or a bad doyle dating from that unremembered period of her life. She had compensated by toying with real people, playing with their emotions and deeper needs, or what they thought they needed. She became an expert at manipulating others, which gave her her first job in insurances, and then in the secret services. But then, she dealt with adults, showing emotions, or a certain level of brain activity. She wasn’t used to children stored in bogs.

              She tried to put the scarf on Greenie’s head, and to smile like she had seen people do in the movies. Although something unexpected happened. Greenie became suddenly distressed and agitated. Then, she punched Irina in the face and began to mumble incoherent things.
              That child is stronger than I thought. And at the same time, she noticed a name in that gibberish. Didnt she just shout : “I frigging love you, Sadie Merrie.”

              “Her brainwave is showing unusual activity”, stated Mr R. “And my sensors indicate the presence has returned, with some friends. They just appeared outside of the plane.”

              #3329

              Jeremy was 23 years old and living in a 57 square meters apartment in Brooklyn. He had two passions in life. Dance and maps.

              Max growled. Well you could consider Max as Jeremy’s third passion. Max was a ragdoll cat with a tiny little genetic defect. His fur had this faint pink tint as if it had been put into a washing machine with red clothes. Max purred, satisfied.

              Jeremy’s apartment was an artwork in itself. He was painting as a hobby and had drawn a few maps on his white walls. He had the precise stroke that dance demands of a dancer’s move, he had the eye of a falcon concerning details and he loved connecting dots. For some of the maps he had used pointillism, and for others the ancient art of collage he had learned with his grand-mother Martha. Inspired by Matthew Cusnik he had made portraits of dancers with maps and other landscapes.

              Jeremy has been interested for some time in a particularly beautiful picture of the Abraham Lake that he wanted to render on one of the last remaining areas of his ceiling when Max jumped on his lap, purring like a caress junkie in need of a few strokes. Jeremy obliged his cat distractedly, too engrossed in the meanders of the picture and the few maps he could already see in his mind like a puzzle.

              Max jumped on the desk and tried to force his way between the keyboard and Jeremy’s hand. But he didn’t have enough time to fulfill his desire. The cat began to cough as if it had a train of thought stuck in his throat.

              “Shit! You’re not going to puke on my keyboard!”

              But it was too late, the cat opened its mouth and threw up a little ball of hair which bounced off the keyboard and crashed down on the floor.

              “ehw!” said Jeremy who cringed when he saw the hair ball on his carpet. “I don’t know what you ate but it smells like those wheat Polish biscuits.

              Jeremy had already taken some tissue to clean the cat’s mess, and the cat, certainly thinking it wasn’t enough was licking his fur again.
              “Don’t make another one like that. You know I don’t like it.”

              He was about to take the ball when it wobbled suspiciously. Then it began to grow. Jeremy blinked several times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. When the hairball reached the size of a soccer ball, it was obvious there was something inside, it was deformed like the belly of a pregnant woman when the baby kicks in her bowels.
              “What on earth have you spawned, Max!” He looked at his cat, horrified that it could be one of those Aliens.

              Soon it was as big as a corpse bag for two, and Jeremy could tell from the voices that there were at least two people inside.

              Sanso got out of the ragdoll hair ball first, perfect hair as usual. Fanella struggled to get out of the mess of hairs, and was a bit disheveled.

              “Time for a reality check”, said Sanso. “Am I dreaming ?” When he saw all the maps and the ragdoll cat, he knew he was at the right place.

              “Who are you guys ? And how did you get out of Max ?” asked Jeremy.

              #3319

              The Chinese secretary who had Sanso interrogated didn’t show any emotion at the news of his escape. Showing emotion was a weakness, and at all layers of the organisation, the lower rank was kept in the dark and given information only when necessary.
              The higher the rank, the better they were at compartimentalising, and at shunning emotion altogether. Some even murmured that the topmost executives were robots posing as humans. Notwithstanding, they would have made great poker player, but the Corporations’ goals were much more important than a simple gamble.

              Despite showing any sign of it, Cheung Lok was pleased to see that Sanso had taken their bait. With a bit of luck, he would drive them straight to Irina, the socialite thief who had mysteriously disappeared with the aid of the mysterious organisation they only knew as “The Management”. The Management had accomplished the exceptional feat of eluding any of their attempts at gaining intelligence and leverage on them, and to this date, their motives were completely opaque and seemingly random to them.
              However, they always seemed to know beforehand what was to happen, so playing against them was particularly tricky.

              Cheung Lok, internally smiled to himself. The chopsticks were his idea, and purposefully planted as an aid for his escape. Rightly used, they allowed to create a temporary shield from the antiportation device. That was a loophole they’d hoped Sanso would know about, and indeed he didn’t disappoint. Or maybe he did all by luck, given the personage, that bit was expected, but all the same, the goal was accomplished.

              A robot carried a briefcase to his desk, and left the room silently.
              Cheung Lok opened the case, and on the screen, the figures and points on the worlds times maps started to flicker erratically.

              #3309
              Jib
              Participant

                The boy was giving her a tour of the grounds in a monotonous voice.

                “The hotel is actually divided in several pavilions, each representing a culture of the world and designated by a special name. The 888 pavilion was built according to the principles of Feng Shui in order to bring health and prosperity to the clients.”

                And certainly money to the hotel, thought Linda Pol.

                “The water spring represents the flow of energy. It is made in such a way that customers can hear a peaceful gurgle of water when they enter the building. It helps regulate the emotions and bring stability in life.”

                Linda Pol couldn’t help but notice that it was also skillfully made so that the water was always returning towards the building. A sudden roar startled her. She was so engrossed in her Asian prejudices that she hadn’t seen the lions.

                The boy, who had certainly planned that, recited his reassuring script to rich customers.
                “These lions, one male and one female, are held in an invisible electro-magnetic cell, they can’t escape or harm you in any way. They are from the Asian species.”

                “You mean they are real ?” At first she had thought they were carefully made robots, holograms wouldn’t have done the trick in direct sunlight. But real lions ?
                “Don’t tell me”, she continued, “they are here to shoo away the ill-intentioned.” For a moment, she had the impression that the eyes of the boy had shifted to an Asian breed.

                “Madame knows her Feng Shui”, said the boy with a fake smile.

                Could he be a robot ? What the fuck, all her vanity wasted to a robot ? Where has gone that gorgeous boy who brought her the message ?
                You’re paranoid, ma fille, said her mother’s voice.

                #3248
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  The dogs barking woke Lisa up; at first she assumed she had woken up disorientated and disgruntled because of that, but then she recalled all the screaming, no, more like bellowing, she’d been doing in her dream. Intense passionate bellowing howls, like an expulsion of pained frustrated energy, of outrage. Frustratingly, she recalled no details. There had been a similar dream the previous Easter when she was sick ~ the same kind of howls, and she had felt much better afterwards, but she wasn’t sick now ~ in fact, she had been feeling better than she had in a long time.
                  Sipping her tea and still feeling cranky at being woken up, Lisa recalled the strange phone call she’d received the night before, and had a feeling it might be an element of her dream. One of her neighbours from just outside the village phoned, Clarissa. Clarissa was a young widow; since her elderly husband had died some months ago, and she had lived alone with her eight dogs. There had been nobody to ensure she took the medication she needed for her condition, which had resulted in a series of challenging episodes, alarming the locals. A few weeks ago, one of Juan’s sheep had been talking to her and wouldn’t stop, so she killed it in the lane outside her house. The sheep kept talking to her, so she cut it’s head off (a gruesome struggle by all accounts, although thankfully Lisa hadn’t witnessed it herself). The severed sheeps head continued to talk to the troubled Clarissa, so she kept the head on her verandah. That was the last thing that Lisa had heard when she received the unexpected phone call.
                  Clarissa was polite and friendly on the phone, inviting Lisa and Jack over for drinks ~ insisting really with an edge of desperation in her voice. Lisa declined the invitition, and omitted to mention that Jack was out playing poker. If it had not been for the sheep incident, Lisa might have responded differently, but her sense of responsibility to her own animals made her cautious. Then, to her horror, Clarissa offered to come round and feed Lisa’s dogs.
                  As soon as the long and insistent phone call ended, Lisa gathered all the dogs up into the gated top patio; a little later she was gratified to hear a noisy game of football going on in the street outside. Had she over reacted? Should she have had more compassion for the distressed young woman? Lisa lit another cigarette, feeling confused. She had only met Clarissa once, many years ago, and had no idea why she had called her, or where she got her phone number from. She knew of her because of the convoluted connecting links between them ~ Clarissa’s husband had been her own friends father. And she had heard about the various incidents since he had died from other neighbours.
                  Lisa had the unsettling feeling that she had refused a call for help. On the other hand, she felt that she had responded to the call for help in merely speaking to Clarissa on the phone. Lisa had been kindly towards her, although not encouraging of any physical contact.
                  Lisa sighed. She felt a stronger connection to Clarissa now, but was unsure what it would entail.

                  #3221

                  Mirabelle and Adeline sat in the morning sun on the verandah, appreciatively nibbling the perfectly formed sliced toasted bread and marmalade.
                  Almost six months had passed since they’d been found on the beach, confused and soaked, babbling incoherently. An early morning beach walker had found them (she had wondered if she was dreaming or hallucinating), and had attempted to engage them in conversation. A rudimentary smattering of French acquired during a grape picking sojourn in France many years ago helped. Much of what the bizarrely clad group said was incomprehensible, but it was clear that they were lost and hungry, so Lisa invited them back home with her. They were reluctant to get into the car, fearing a trap, and when she started the engine, they panicked and scrambled to get back out until Boris calmed them down and suggested they had better trust this stranger because frankly, what were their options? She seemed kind and helpful, even if she was shockingly under dressed with her legs exposed for all to see, and had an invisible and very noisy horse pulling her carriage.
                  Lisa lived in a relatively new community of creative and forward thinking individuals who were in the process of renovating an abandoned village in the orange groves. They called the village the Trading Post, a name that was a loose play on words on the social media platform where they had first become acquainted and traded and shared posts. They were a diverse assortment of people from all over the world, united with the common goal of experimenting with a new type of anarchist culture, a novel creative and expansive playful approach that was becoming increasingly popular.
                  Pierre and Étienne’s knowledge of French had come to the rescue upon the first arrival of the group, as they unraveled their strange tale. After much confusing conversation and translations for the rest of the occupants of the village, it became clear that the group were time travelers, although somewhat accidental and clearly unprepared.
                  While the travelers rested after an unfamiliar but welcome meal, the villagers discussed the situation with much interest and curiosity. It was decided that they would keep the news of the travelers a secret for the time being, and gradually assist them with learning about their new timeframe, current customs and the local languages.

                  #3198

                  After almost 33 years on the road doing their their show, Geoffroy and the Théâtre du Soleil had had their share of success.

                  Of course, with an average age of the troupe being close to 66 years old on the eve of July 1789, they were not all young and restless, nor as high on hallucinogenic mushrooms like every other day.
                  Admittedly, their fate took a turn for the better after that show cancellation at Versailles the day of the attempt on the King’s life. They were stolen a balloon and a tub of lard, but what they gained in exchange was beyond wondrous. Sparks of inspiration had brought the team closer, and even the occasional quarrel between Lison and Francette was a blessing. Now, there was already a new King in Versailles, not better by far, and the wig fashion had improved only so lightly, but it gave good fodder for sarcasm and witty plays.

                  It wasn’t so much that their play-writing abilities had improved dramatically, to the contrary, but their common hallucination in the Royal Chapelle that day had unleashed their creative power. Their new plays had become famous overnight all over the Europe, liked by peasants who were enjoying its simplicity and nonsensical timing and plots, or even snotty critics all alike, who were somehow discerning artful and intricate royal satire that maybe they’d just invented to sound clever.

                  Tonight they would play a revival of their universally acclaimed chef d’œuvre, “The whales and the frogs”. With buffoonish wigs and corsets, and their share of heavy compulsory make-up. For some, the frogs were a symbol of the poor people carrying the heavy queens and kings of old, with crazy old Time as a driver, flanked with Janus the two-headed Janitor. Well, that sounded quite erudite and a tad pompous, and frankly for them, they didn’t care what symbol it was, so long as it brought the final money they needed for their retirement plan in sunny Mediterranean where they would take a boat and sail to the new world.

                  #3196

                  “Are we nearly there yet?” asked Fanella, who was easily bored. The balloon had been drifting steadily westwards for almost two days. It had been decidedly chilly at that altitude, but the occupants had kept themselves warm with lashings of champagne and cognac and hard boiled eggs (much to HuHu’s disgust), thanks to Boris’s basket of provisions, but they had drained the last drops several hours ago.
                  “We will have to land soon to replenish our supplies” said the practical Boris. “We have a long way to go yet, and we will soon be flying over the sea.”
                  Perfect! thought Pseu, I will have an opportunity to acquire a bleu and white Quimper tile for my collection for the Folly in the City.
                  “But it’s almost dark, Boris, can we land this thing in the dark?” asked Adeline.
                  “It will be a perfect time to land, under the cloak of darkness. We don’t want to be attacked by superstitious peasants brandishing pitchforks.”
                  “Oh splendid, will we be doing a spot of raping and pillaging?” asked Igor, cheering up at the thought.
                  Mirabelle glared at him. “Pillaging, yes. Just the supplies that we need, and then back to the balloon!”

                  #3191
                  Jib
                  Participant

                    The next morning, Linda Paul consulted her mailbox. Seventy three messages. She had a nervous laugh. ‘Incredible’, she thought as she sifted through the mails. More and more incompetence, that was all there was in the mails. The maintenance team had been unable to unclog the time sewers. They were writing mails after mails to show that they were working. Linda Paul felt an urge to answer back ‘Stop writing mail and work!’ But instead she remembered the Love and Shine training she went with Sadie last month. “Breath in, deeply, blink three times slowly, and exhale”, she said inwardly. Already she felt better.

                    They didn’t have much time, which was a bit of a paradox considering that they had a time sewer at their disposal, but the more it stayed clogged, the more difficult it would be to find the precise way out.

                    She put on her blue and silver work suit. It really fitted her. Doubled with artificial mouse fur, very warm and good for qi circulation. She had silvery stripes added to make it more queen-like. She chose her platform boots carefully, she didn’t want to get too muddy nor stay stuck in the time muck.

                    The time sewer central hub was not at the bar. This was merely one of the numerous available entry points. It was hidden in the calanques near Aubagne. She had to drive her Subaru SUV to go there. Which was not an easy task with platform boots. When she arrived on site, she realized the work team was not there. She squinted her eyes. That was suspicious. Who was sending the mails if nobody was doing anything ?

                    She went to the hub and almost puked before she could get close enough to see what was inside. The smell was terrible, all the scum of the ages seemed to have disgorged here. She found a gas mask, which fit perfectly once she had gotten rid of her Darco Barbane meringue wig. She saw her face in the side mirror of a truck. She looked a bit like Bobba Fet. She pushed away the irritation to have to go to such length with her pride to have the work done.

                    It was much better with the mask, she realized. So it was a small price to pay to the drag-style. When she arrived to the hub, it looked worse than she had imagined. The edge of the sewer hub was covered in white moss, which seemed to be pulsating slowly. She thanked her Love and Shine training once again, it helped her keep her smile on as she went on. What she saw next alarmed her. A few people were lying there, unconscious. Yet, some of them were wearing masks. Not a good idea to go further.

                    She’d always been proud of her quick wit. It had helped her a lot when guys were mocking her wigs at school. Now she needed it for another kind of life threatening situation. She looked around, trucks, barracks, more people on the floor, a ginger cat licking its balls… she laughed nervously. Strange that the cat didn’t seem affected. She noted that somewhere in her mind, she might need it later. Then she saw exactly what she needed. The dildo truck. She never remembered the real name, but it sure looked like a giant dildo in the front of a truck. She didn’t know what was its real use of course, but years of gauging the size of men’s attributes allowed her to see that it fitted perfectly the sewer hub.

                    “Hard on, ladies”, she thought as she climbed in the front seat, saying a silent prayer to all the Queens of all ages. She started the truck and began to move. She had the weirdest impression to understand what it mean to think with your dick. She stopped the truck, facing the sewer hole with her dildo. She noticed a small red button on the dashboard, it had a tag on it which read “lubricant”. She pushed it several times and nothing happened. Go to hell, she thought.
                    Then the queen revved up the truck. “Love and Shine, biiiitches”, she said as a mantra, and let it all go.

                    The mind has a tendency to forget unpleasant things. All she could remember was that she had to get in and out several times. And that nasty suction noise. But in the end, she could clean wash the white moss with the water jet incorporated in the truck. She turned the sewer back on and threw the gas mask in the hole to check it. As good as new, and the smell was gone too. Her incredible memory allowed her to register that the cat as well was gone.

                    #3137

                    Finding a time smuggler on such short notice was near impossible, Linda Paul soon found out when she hit the web. There were sure long lists of pages offering the services at seemingly attractive prices, but then never covering all the highly recommended options, such as the time collision waiver, and collateral time damage waiver.
                    She had a pretty good idea of what she needed to smuggle back and when, but all the time pathways simulations seemed to run into a dead-end.
                    After a stroke of genius, realizing that the one-timeway drop-off prohibitive surcharge may be the reason why she couldn’t get decent tariffs, she changed her simulation for a return.

                    “Time and item of origin/return…” she muttered as she typed “Queen Anne’s crocheted ferrets, 1625, Louvres Palace”.

                    Of course, going forward in time was easy, so she would simply need to give specific instructions to the time smuggler to pass on those bloody ferrets along the timeline.

                    A click here, accepting the long conditions with hardly a glance, “blabla, not covering extra temporal charge… blabla… ensured discretion, yes, yes, service cannot be used to leave historical artifacts protected by the amendment on the … or any incongruent item blabla… smuggling service comes with no obligation of results…”
                    The rest was piece of cake.

                    She already had the perfect time mule in mind for the delicate mission of reintroducing the crocheted ferrets where her dragqueen competition was now held.

                    :fleuron2:

                    When Nicole du Hausset, widow of a poor noble man, one of the two femmes de chambre of Madame de Pompadour, first hear Madame talk about her first encounter with the Count in 1749, she remembered immediately about her mother, and grand-mother’s secret instructions.
                    A few nights later, she wrote down in her diary “‘A man who was as amazing as a witch came often to see Madame de Pompadour. This was the Comte de Saint-Germain, who wished to make people believe that he had lived for several centuries.”

                    For some reason, she was to find a way to give him two scrawny century-old (and quite frankly smelly) crocheted ferrets, as a token for the Queen.
                    She still had seven years or so to make it happen, that was time ample enough to do the deed, if the Good Lord would grant her enough life, or else she would need to pass the burden to the next of kin.
                    She’d never known exactly why this was significant, but she’d been told that her family’s past riches were due to the success of this task, passed on to the next generation until 1757.

                    It didn’t take very long. An elaborate and convincing lie did come easier to her than she would have known, and the Count swallowed it hook and sinker. Next thing she knew, she’d glimpsed the plush beasts in the midst of the menagerie of the Queen, and felt relieved of a life and generation-long burden.
                    She could now return to a simple and uncomplicated life, although she would sometimes wake up at night in cold sweat, having had dreadful nightmares that the ferrets had disappeared before the date.

                    #3113
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      talk on the latest installments, or in the case of some, the latest uninstallments (due to residing in the black hole of Uncoverage.)

                      #3065
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        Sandy Costa had been making a note of all the sightings throughout the year, as well as noting a variety of other apparently unrelated incidents and clues, and he kept them all in imaginary basket. (breaking news: draft saved at 11: 11 again). The Case of the Missing Surge Team and Possible Connection to the Flurge was known for short as the Basket Case.
                        Sandy was an unemployed channeler, although if you asked him to define himself in one sentence, that’s not what he would have said. He might not have known what to say, but he wouldn’t have said that. Not long after people had started growing their own food, producing their own energy, and writing their own books and magazines, everyone had started channeling their own mumbo jumbo, and Sandy was no longer in demand.
                        The Basket Case had been keeping him occupied and entertained, and the clues were starting to pour in like rain into an old boot.
                        Lisbon were expecting the arrival of some potentially interesting characters in the near future, from as far afield as Bangpie, and Caketown. There had been several cases of parallelitisis in Mari Fe’s village, a condition often associated with basket cases. There were whisperings through the sweet pea vines that there was something stirring in New Tartland, too.

                        #3019
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          The Pointy Hat surge had been resurrected in Spain, a premature re-enactment of an elaborate ritual of the religious past. Premature because the ritual wasn’t quite in the past yet, but was hovering on the shoreline of past ritual and future re-enactment. The overall energy of the surge was difficult to categorize, and a challenge to divert ~ if indeed, a diversion was necessary.

                          Mari Fe was wary of creating another fiasco like the Three Kings Parade, and had not announced any detiled plans, or any details, either. She trusted that should a surge diversion team be required, a surge diversion team would appear; and sure enough, the Wordblade had answered her call. Mari Fe was aware of the false flag propaganda about the Wordblade, and the deliberate rumour that the Surge Team was looking for him, but she secretly admired his alphabet slaughtering ways and radical approach.

                          As the letters of the alphabet came straggling in from the battlefields of the south, Mari Fe welcomed them, and gave them all soup, urging them to rest. She warned them that they may be called on during the weekend, if the premature retro rituals got out of hand.

                        Viewing 20 results - 181 through 200 (of 311 total)