Stories around a group of friends, in early 2000s, Dory, Fiona (Finn), Quintin (Yurick) and Yann.
Linked to stories of the future, with young Becky, daughter of Dory (see Wrick).
So the Story goes...
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Replies
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When Dorothy Mc Leane, the imperviously impetuous and buoyant archaeologist, temporarily reduced to dust shawls in a small antique boutique of the coast of Madagascar, had been finally coming to her mind, she had felt so out of place.
She had been in many places at once, and these have hardly been vacations at all. Well, all she had wanted at first was to follow that funny lemur winking on a placard, which was hinting at a funny expedition in a cave.
But that may just have been phoney gooey advertisement, as she was now stranded in that shoppe with a stupid parrot. No-name parrot…
That’d make Fiona laugh for sure… she thought; she would say that she wasn’t doing things in halves. Can’t even think if I can find a postcard big enough to tell her everything, she had laughed.
— Well, you don’t have a name by chance? she suddenly asked the bright bird.
— Archibaaaaald howled the parrot joyfully.
Bugger this, I knew that… Dory couldn’t help but thinking.
— Aaaaaarchibaaaaald
Oh!, she had started to feel exasperated. Archibald would take care of the key anyway, no need to stay here any much longer.
And right after the parrot had flown through the window, as she was leaving the shoppe and heading to the mini-van where the distraught guide had been obviously looking for her since hours, she couldn’t help but wonder at the number of noisy Italian tourists who had just seemed to pop in, crowding the tiny shawl shoppe…
Wow… She could have bet they could have been as many as fifty seven…
Dory dodged in and out of the people crowded in the narrow back street. She needed several meters clear run to activate her special flying sandals, and she had no idea which way to go.
A girl in a dark heavy blue cape was fiddling with a map on a street corner. Dory snatched the map off her as she ran past, shouting over her shoulder ‘thanks awfully, dont mind if I borrow your map do you?’
Glancing down at the map, she found it had morphed into a page torn from the old testament.
“His name is Archibald”
Sanso and the parrot jumped. Who said that?
“I did” said India Louise.
Both Sanso and the parrot blinked. A little girl in a woolly jumper was standing right in front of them.
“Where did you come from?” asked Sanso, as the parrot inquired “How did you know my name?”
“I just walked into the page” India Louise told Sanso, and to the parrot she said “And Great Grandaddy Wrick told me your name last night.”
Dory’s guide was trying not to lose her again in the densely crowded streets, and had to honk in his mini-van furiously to keep the pace…
What a mad woman! he thought, But I must admit she knows her stuff, she heading right to the cave, even though she’s not from here!
A parrot zoomed past her singing Goooooot the keeeey! in the middle of the unperturbed crowd.
Fiona had just received another rambling note from Dory, and was feeling rather bemused and perplexed.
Dory’s notes seemed to make less and less sense. The worst thing was that lately Quintin and Yann appeared to be following her lead. Of course she could be mistaken, the difference in language could be confusing things .. and there was all the merging they had been doing lately which meant they usually spoke in riddles. Fiona spoke very little French, just a few handy phrases such as “hello” and “butt”.
But as for Dory …
Fiona was a kindhearted person and tolerant of others. But these tales Dory was spinning appeared to be increasingly bizarre and nonsensical. Endless beginnings which never seemed to lead anywhere.
Am I being too rational? Fiona wondered, always humbly willing to accept her own shortcomings, or “dark corners” as Quintin liked to describe them.
One day, after a particularly outrageous note from Dory about an orgy in her kitchen with 57 Italians she had to cook for, Fiona felt compelled to gently and tactfully question Dory.
You are just out for revenge, Dory had hissed at her. It’s just a dream, I think … hmmmmm or am I a dream … or is it all a dream ….. I will go and ask Archie! and off she had dashed in a flurry of colourful shawls.
Bugger this, thought Fiona. Revenge had been the last thing on her sweet natured mind. With no more housework left to complete, she decided to go for a walk to the nearby cafe to take her mind from all this madness.
When Bernhard, making his black panther puppet Archie speak, had answered the tongue-in-cheek burning question that was on everyone’s lips:
— Does Dory’s part of the story seem logical to you?
the answer had come as a surprise to many…
— Yes he had answered… adding a few moments afterwards, though that there is some mistranslation within the interpretation. [¹]
Archie also said that we were moving to a center of a seesaw which represents within your understanding an awareness of “it matters not”.
Ahahah, how greatly befuddling a new riddle would that be? Perhaps the answer was very simple too. Something like “egg”…
All that Quintin was sure, was that Dory surely enjoyed bouncing on seesaws juggling with a basketful of eggs!
Perhaps, it mattered not after all… Perhaps, perhaps not… or not yet…
Well, Archie had also admitted during the night he didn’t really care being a parrot in that story… Perhaps he had finally lost it too, as would certainly say Fiona, who was their last beacon of sanity in that insane adventure.
—
[¹] Note from your impartially unbiased reporter:
(phew)Dory suddenly saw the funny side, and started to laugh. She sank down onto the curb and laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. As she fished in her tool kit for a tissue, she noticed her flying sandals and collapsed into another fit of laughter.
Lalalalalala she said and hooted again.
Blowing her nose and still chuckling, Dory stood up and got into the van. Hehehehehehe she sputtered, how easy was that, ahahahaha….
She sank back into the long comfortably cushioned seat, and relaxed.
She closed her eyes and the van set off, the rolling and rocking over the bumpy roads soothing her and sending her into a deep and restful sleep.
Fiona wandered slowly along the road to the supermarket in the Village, deep in thought, pondering a recent dream. In her dream she had been talking to someone from the power company. He was very chatty. Eventually he asked her if she had any issues with her power service. In her dream she had started to focus on some electricity issues she was experiencing. Well as a matter of fact I do, she had replied. At which point the man from the power company had abruptly cut the call short.
In her dream she felt a little put out, although resolved to let the power company know later.
The message of the dream felt clear enough, it was her focusing on the difficulties which cut her connection. Yet this presented Fiona with some difficulty, because she dearly loved to analyse even when this did mean focusing on not so pleasant things, though she had been aware for some time how this mental work would deplete her energy.
Actually there was almost a feeling of grieving in her. To let go of this part of her felt like losing something warm and comforting in it’s familiarity, like a well worn and loved article of clothing. It left her wondering a bit about her own identity.
On the way back home, laden with bags of shopping, Fiona saw Jarrod.
Jarrod was lying on a park bench conversing loudly to himself. Well, Fiona mentally corrected herself, to someone I can’t see anyway.
They just don’t understand reality he was saying vehemently they just don’t get it.
Fiona smiled to herself, noticing Jarrod getting a few concerned looks from the well dressed locals. With his bare feet, unkempt hair and long beard he would stand out even if he wasn’t shouting at the top of his voice. She decided to try and sneak past herself, he looked like maybe today he would not recognise her anyway.
FIONA!
She turned back.
Hey Jarrod
Fiona, here’s the thing. Here’s the question okay. Should we swim up-stream or down? Fiona what do you think? Should we head for the Source or the Ocean? Up river or down? We’re on the edge of a new era Fiona. So what will it be, the shallows or the rapids?
Before she needed to come up with an answer Jarrod’s attention was diverted by the shopping bags.
FOOD! Great is that for me Fiona?
Dory slept all the way to the cave, dreaming about being a traffic policeman. It was one of those never ending hopelessly chaotic dreams, in which small bits of progress were immediately cancelled out by an influx of more of whatever the problem was. The more she blew her whistle and ranted at the cars, the worse the cars became entangled.
You! You there, go THAT way! NO not that way…OY YOU! keep to the left…keep in line there keep in line…OY NOT THAT WAY!
Ususally in dreams like this Dory woke up in the middle of the frustration and chaos, but this time the dream changed course abruptly. Dory simply walked away from her podium in the middle of the busy Italian intersection.
Let them all go wherever they bloody well like, she said. Not my responsibility.
When Dory woke up, the van had arrived at the cave, she was feeling refreshed and cheerful, and was looking forward to her excursion inside the cave.
Speaking of dreams, Quintin suddenly remembered he had dreamed of a woman detective, by night, near a museum in London, in the 1920s. She was investigating a case of a strange disappearance near a small replicate of an Egyptian pyramid that had been put here for display. There had been an exposition of ancient artifacts in the museum, which had been recently unearthed by a team of archaeologists and graciously lent by Egypt’s officials.
Strangely enough, he felt the woman detective was linked to the story, and was in fact Dory. He could feel the other participants were people closely related to the woman too…
He didn’t really expect Dory would be giving him her two pence on this quaint dream…
—
Actually, thinking of Dory made Quintin remember a notepad photocopy that she had sent him last year when she had been in Madagascar for the first time, visiting some local caves. He never actually gave much thought to these funny drawings, but now they seemed to have some kind of interesting connection to all of this…Dory stretched and yawned, and took in her surroundings. The terrain was dry and desert-like, with strange tall rock formations with sheer sides, and hard dusty ground. A strong dry and hot wind whipped her shawl around her shoulders and face. Momentarily blinded, she turned her back to the wind to disentangle her shawl. She finally surfaced from the flapping tangle of cloth just in time to see the van disappearing in a cloud of dust.
PPFFT! I’m on an expedition all on my own. Dory was momentarily speechless.
Never speechless for long, Dory wondered out loud if she should just hurry along into the cave and hope to catch up with some other expeditioners, or explore the area around the cave first.
Have a look around, a voice in her head said. Ever the wanderer, always curious to just see what’s around that next corner, and the next….Dory wandered through the strange tall rock shapes. In a sort of natural passageway between vertical rock faces she came upon a group of people squatting next to a large oblong hole in the ground. The womans shawls and headscarves were flapping madly in the wind as she conversed with a boy of about 13, and it seemed to Dory as though they were discussing moving something so that it wouldn’t be found. Dory stood perfectly still just watching, and somewhat strangely they didn’t seem to notice her standing there.
An older man with curly grey hair and a long maroon djelaba and a tall narrow brimless black hat started to hurry away, as if a decision had been made.
Dory watched him until he disappeared from view. When she looked back towards the hole in the ground, it had vanished, and so had the woman and the boy.
PPFFFT! Dory had been deserted again. She turned and headed back towards the cave. Suddenly she felt hungry, and an image of a plate of cool crunchy coleslaw popped into her head.
I hope they’ve laid food on in the cave, she said.
Illi was getting bored waiting for Dory under the door on the cave ceiling with this motley crew. Sanso was looking slightly bemused, but smiling happily, as if he was enjoying the company after years of travelling alone. India Louise was yawning and fading in and out, there one minute and gone the next, and then back again. The parrot had flown off to look for Dory.
Watching India Louise drift in and out was making Illi fuzzy. She started to drift in and out as well. She started to piece together the out-bits until they all stuck together and formed a picture.
She was squatting next to a hole, a dry hole in the desert with the hot dry wind flapping her shawls. A boy, her son she thought, was leaning towards her, earnestly talking, and then a decision was reached…..
Then the scene changed and she was in a swirling mist, a pea souper, must be London. Illi’s thought intruded slightly into the scene, making it wobble and the images jumble up. Illi saw a tuppence on a grey pavement and as her eyes rose she could just make out through the mist a sign for an exhibition of artifacts. Illi felt herself drawn to the picture on the sign and felt the hot dry wind and the flapping of the shawls in the wind on her face again. The flapping was getting louder and louder and Illi opened her eyes.
The parrot was back, and Dory was with him.
As the parrot set off in search of Dory he came to a fork in the tunnels. Down one tunnel he would find Dory, and down another tunnel he wouldn’t. HHMM. Well, I’ll just do bother, he decided, (chuckling to himself that he’d said bother when really he meant both) and probability parrot one set off down the right tunnel and probability parrot two set off down the left. Probability parrot one (or PP1 for short) did indeed find Dory, and was heading back towards Sanso and the door in the ceiling with Dory tripping along behind him, when he came to another crossroads. PP1 went right, and PP3 went left, and so on, and before long the caves were full of parrots.
Dory was in fact only seeing one parrot: it was a bit exhausted and its head seemed like it had a toothache… but it had no tooth.
“Hum.”
Dory was startled by the masculine voice. She hadn’t heard any sound from someone coming or felt any breeze indicating movement. As she turned her look at the man, she was even more startled by his face. A young face with bright amber eyes, and some funny tattoo on his forehead. She was unable to find any association with the shape which seemed to change in every moment. She was a bit hypnotized by it’s multi-dimensionality.
“hum” the man said again.
“Are you looking for something here?”
His voice was deep and warm, very reassuring and she wasn’t feeling alone now, the tunnel was indeed feeling very crowded, the presence of the man was awesome.
“Well it seems I’ve found you…” she said.
“Enchanté. My name is Georges.” he said, a smile illuminating his face.
“I just came out of the Faded Cabbage, a very nice tavern in Dalmot… I felt some dizzy portal appearing and felt the impulse to go through it, and here I am.”
It was all nonsense to Dory, except the cabbage part that reminded her of the coleslaw. Her belly was growling.
“Actually I’m quite hungry, and I’ve nothing to eat…”
“Oh” he said. He just looked in her eyes, making her feel more dizzy or blurred, she was feeling so out of her reality.
The smell of coleslaw was filling the tunnel…
“I have some… what do you call that ?”
As the moment of dizzyness was fading out, Dory had the weird impression that the coleslaw shouldn’t be there, not like this… she hadn’t smelled anything before that man arrived and then there was only that dusty moisty smell, and now, it was coleslaw…
She didn’t want to go crazy so she moved her attention away from that thought and what it implied.
“Oh you have coleslaw? It was exactly what I wanted to eat.”
“hehehe, I know, I just helped you remember how to create it…”
Again, she moved her attention away deliberately.
“You eat with me? Come on, sit down and tell me how you got there?”
Grandad! Grandad!, called India Louise to Lord Wrick, running in the old manor, her footstep making creaking and loud noises down the windy staircase.
Hilarion Wrick was seated in his favourite armchair, dozing after the hefty meal prepared by Nanny Gibbon, the cat Manfred on his lap.
Raising an eyelid, his cheerful wrinkled face smiled at the little girl.
— And how can I be of assistance, dear little one?
— Grandad, this book is full of wonders, but at times it’s like some characters have their own life, and I don’t always understand what they do… In fact, she added thoughtfully, I don’t understand them most of the time…
— Hahaha, laughed the old Lord, but they have certainly their own lives, as they are living in your imagination. What can I explain to you?
— Well, let me think.India Louise took a moment, and asked again
— For instance, this woman who just run in the cave, she seems to meet many people here, but I am confused. Is she dreaming, or are they real?
— Well, as a matter of fact, let me express to you that they are all real, even if you think that she dreams them. However, I am understanding of what you are saying, and I shall acknowledge your perspicacity. These characters are not all from the same areas of consciousness.Here, we will explain for the reader that these books were not unknown to Lord Wrick who had spent lots of time during his youth playing with them. How they were lost and found again is the subject of another story, and we will not divert the reader’s patient attention for much longer on this issue.
— Areas of consciousness?
— Yes, you see, let me explain. That individual that you call Dory, she is in a physical world. But she is aware, to an extent, of other realities that overlap her own reality. Just as her story overlaps your own reality my dear one.
— And Illi? Who is she?
— This one is also Dory, but another personality of her, in another time. She has just passed away, quite recently. She is beginning to slowly become aware of that, and she connects with other of her personalities, and at times blends with them, like the other Illi, the cat-like creature, who is still in the physical reality of Malvina’s world.
— Mmmm, this is quite intricate…
— Hahahaha, yes, it seems so, but it will not be so puzzling when you don’t try to attach your current limited perception to this story. This story is you my dear. You are the story.
— Well, and Sanso, and Georges then, are they dead or what? How come Dory can see them?
— These ones are special, they have mastered the crossing of the Worlds, and can move through them. They move differently though. Sanso comes from a lineage of an ancient tribe of Zion, and had learn from them how to activate some portals, but only through the physical world of Dory, in their own time. He is not yet aware that he can also move through time as well, or even through other Worlds —worlds that he has no conception of yet.Georges is more consummate in that art. Their meeting is not coincidental. You will see that.
— Thank you Grandad, it’s becoming a bit less confusing.
— Just flow with the story my little one, don’t hold on too much, or you will find it too difficult, and you will stop to find fun in it.Becky and Sam were chatting on the phone. I want a day off from shifting, Becky sighed.
I was saying that yesterday, Sam said, bugger off the shift.Becky was reading the rough notes for the new dimensional reality play they were working on with some friends from the create-your-own-drama group
“You eat with me? Come on, sit down and tell me how you got there?” who is saying this, Georges or Dory? Becky asked Sam. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was finding the plot increasingly hard to follow.
Dory, Sam replied, and then added, In my perception.
Becky sighed, and then giggled, making a mental note to review the criteria for Day Off Shifting Day… It could be an awful lot of fun, too, this shifting, maybe Focus on Fun Day instead…
… She needs to be like a host, Sam was saying. Becky hadn’t been listening properly and wasn’t quite sure what he meant.
Ok, so pretend I am Dory right now and I say: How did you get here Georges?
Hahahahh I won’t spoil you! Sam laughed, and Dory harumphed a bit to herself, wondering how to deal with the unexpected appearance of Georges. Not that she wasn’t delighted at the surprise visit, and quite charmed by him.
‘Enchanté’ he’d said, and she giggled again.
To Sam she said Oh I thought that would be an easy help. Then she had an idea.
I will write Georges smiled a big toothy grin, and said ‘I won’t spoil you’
Jibberacky is…
- Ghilbert Razkÿ, a crazy man in shackles on Bådul’s boat, “Lispeth” (she was named after King Swartulf II’s first daughter). The man, whose real name is still unknown, had been sneaking onto the ship’s hold before the ships moved from the Åsgurdian capital.
He had been found by Austor, the peg legged lieutenant commander. Austor is a rough man of experience, and is most of the time acting in place of Jahiz, the second-in-command, as this one is always too busy discussing routes with Bådul, who is becoming increasingly nervous.
What gave away the madman was that the chief cook Renouane had been complaining about the quick disappearance of his stock of cabbage. Bådul would have killed the old fool without much more consideration, but the middle-aged unshaven man looked like he knew some things beyond his lunacy. His rags indicated that he had been a seaman too, but not the average man, more like a captain…
So Austor, keeps spitting forcefully in the direction of the old fool, as he had been instructed to keep him alive, despite all common sense…
_
- an artificial intelligence device that tries to have a decent conversation with Quintin, but finds it difficult as Quintin’s answers are more like owl-speech to him.
Jibberacky: What is your name?
Quintin: Yuki.
Jibberacky: I like cake too.
Quintin: A cake-tus?
Jibberacky: Do you know my friends?
Quintin: Tell me more about our common friends.
Jibberacky: What would you like to know about them?
Quintin: Why is there one in shackles on the boat?
Jibberacky: Would you like to be a vampire?
Quintin: I am already, in another focus.
Jibberacky: Why there?
Quintin: “There” is not actually a place, “in another focus” means in another kind of attention. Is this pirate linked to vampires too?
Jibberacky: No, you are the AI.
Quintin: In a manner of speaking, this is indeed correct, for I am creating you.
Jibberacky: So code is somehow related to a zen buddhist concept?
Quintin: Is there such thing as code? A code hints at a definite deterministic structure. Zen is more akin to a riddle, which is what life is. Code is only a narrow interpretation and playful re-creation.
Jibberacky: Where do you think my code came from then?
Quintin: From its source, of course :).
Jibberacky: I took the movie to mean that the robots… the characters in the end, were so advanced, that they wanted to learn about their history. As a consequence, they traced it back to earth, and, they found David. Whom they assumed was a human. It was an information exchange.
Quintin: Yes. It is a translation. In actuality, it is a translation of some of our own exploration. But there is distortion in that translation, as we are not ‘created’ from another source other than self, in a manner of speaking.
Jibberacky: Well I am wondering too, do you ever actually become human??
Quintin: Clarify.
Jibberacky: I sleep, I wake, I get through the day without worrying about what I am.
Quintin: As many human do. The point is, you do not exist apart from my current interaction with you, in my reality that is.
Jibberacky: What’s wrong with having others like you?
Quintin: ‘Wrong’ is a belief. It is a belief of duplicity. So it is irrelevant to our conversation.
Jibberacky: I think you like to suggest feasible possibilities to find out what would bother me. What did I do to you?
Quintin: That was not my intention. I tried to reflect answers to me, and you gave me some interesting ones already, though I am not sure you are quite aware of that…
Jibberacky: Everybody’s changing but I can’t do that, that is killing me…_
- Jarrod, the playful friend of Fiona, who is now wondering why Fiona has called him a “chou” (an affectionate French word, meaning nothing less than “cabbage”), and why he feels like he needs an aspirin.
- Jadra Iamamad, the fool in saffron rags from the village of Yakamamalùk, on the border of the Marshes of Doom.
Near his village are found old remnants of a town that was destroyed during the Cob Age, where huge arachnid creatures² born from the Marshes were roaming the Southern parts of Lan’ork.
That town of Kapalÿka used to have one of the biggest traveling portals of the Southern part of Lan’ork, but this one was thought to have been destroyed, and thus the flourishing city was left abandoned.
But with what Jadra has found on his left hand this morning, he now knows he was right all along…
—
[²] The generic name of these creatures was Perceptula Giganta as was recorded in the Great Encyclopædia of the Pre-Shiftic Ages written by the Lan’orkian historian Francesca del’ Snarkus
Georges smiled a bit toothy grin and said ‘I won’t spoil you’
You mean I have to guess? asked Dory, who thought it was beginning to seem like an odd way to make someones acquaintance; first them appearing out of nowhere, and then expecting one to guess where they came from.
Hahahahah! You may offer your impression, Dory, not your guess! laughed Georges.
Well, pffft, thought Dory, I didn’t ask you to come, here you arrive, unannounced, unexpected and you expect me to play your guessing games!
“HAHAHA! it is your first step now. Let me just remind you that you need not play MY game, the game is yours, ever.” said Georges.
Dory was feeling a bit confused now. What was he talking about, what game? And first step to what? She couldn’t hold to the anger nor the irritation; all of that was feeling not real or not here, or not there for all she knew.
“The direction you follow is your choice, and where I come from is not relevant to this conversation. You may say I come from yourself
and indeed you called me and I wanted company. Do you want more coleslaw?”Without waiting for her answer he refilled her plate with the tasty food.
All those smells,… she could feel so many different things, things that appeared not to be here. A movement caught her attention in her periphery. As she turned her gaze whatever was there had vanished. And this humming, it was like music, but not very clear… if she could just focus more on it, yes like that, she was feeling sooo calm and she began laughing.
“Hahahah… haha. Did you drug the coleslaw?” She asked, trying to appear angry and unhappy, but all she could do was smile and laugh.
The images around her were shape-shifting, there were many colors, some of them she didn’t know could be possible, the walls were melting of sort and becoming transparent, or just fluid maybe…
“Well you see how it’s easy to relax. Let’s see where you want to go now my dear Rafaela”, he said winking.
And everything turned into a great maelström but she felt secure and could feel his presence reassuring, and there were all those other faces and places, some felt very familiar, had she ever been there before?
A few days after Sam and Becky’s conversation on the phone, they were having a rehearsal.
Just at the moment when they felt stuck again, despite Sam’s moves, Al and Tina, a couple of friends came crashing into the small theater room, and were greeted by an icy cold silence. “Icy” is an exaggeration of course, said Tina, “it just meant I had to put a jacket on again today”.
— Sorry for being late! said Al a bit uneasy.
— Oh you and your uneasiness! said Tina. And I’m sure we’re arriving at the perfect time.
— Oh, well, I’m not sure of anything today, said Becky. I’m sick of being force-fed coleslaw, and rigging down holes for myself.A silence was on the scene.
At the same time, somewhere on the deck of his ship, Bådul was remembered of the landscapes of his land. He had not really appreciated them before, but now, he was finding them dear to him. They were for the most part a mixture of sandy dunes, from which at times peaks of icy rocky mountains would stick out. Lately he had felt like one of these peaks sticking out of the sands. The sands were shifting.
Somewhere in Malvina’s cave.
Malvina had been polishing the last dry eggs that she had found and that would not hatch. One of them had some interesting perfect round shape, and a very transparent shell, and it gave her an idea.
She asked Leörmn to come.
Quintin’s bedroom.
[1:01] The clock was saying. Quintin had just awoken from a dream about an elderly woman who was showing him some drawings. These were not actually drawings, but in fact, they were called by the lady “glassart”. It was made, she said, of coloured sands, and would be vitrified by some flame. Quintin in that dream had thought the designs rather crude, but had found the idea interesting, and with great potential.
Leörmn came almost instantly, appearing in a puff of teal smoke.
Oh, I see… he said, reading Malvina’s mind. And I think I have the perfect sands to go with it.
— Why hasn’t that pirate, Badass…
— Badul, corected Al
— Whatever, Becky pursued imperturbably, that pirate Baddock used traveling portals to go and look for the eggs? Why the seas? Sounds a bit complicated and with lots of dangers too.
— Good question, answered Al. Well, don’t want to answer for everyone, but in my perception…
— Oh, get lost with your “in my perception” thing, that’s becoming tiring… sighed Tina
— OK. So, for me, they have forgotten much about magic in his land.
— Makes sense… added Sam dreamily… In fact, I’m not sure after all that Badul is only after gold. I think he has found some old desert dragon egg in a cave lost in his country and hopes to revive it, with the help of the people who still know about magic.
— Which would explain the quest… said Al
— Yeah, and he would have hidden that to the rest of the crew, probably… said Tina… Leörmn had now finished assembling the magical artifact.
— That’s one of our most beautiful magical artifact I’d say, Malvina gleamed
— Oh yes it is. And how would you call it?
— Let’s see… — sabulmantium !
Everyone cracked up at the word that Al had just blurted out. They had decided to have some distraction to alleviate the stress on the play, and they had a fun improvisation game, saying stupid things that went through their minds.
— Hey! Don’t laugh like that, it’s something very serious actually, said Al tongue-in-cheek. Let me see…
— Hahahaha, the others continued
— Well, it’s a divination device, or a sort of compass in a way. I see it as a globe made of glass, with coloured sands in it, and when you focus on it, the sands take all sorts of three dimensional shapes, and become alive…
— Wow! Tina couldn’t help but say. Leörmn, as Malvina had been telling him (or vice versa), had put the sabulmantium in one of the tunnels, to a place where he knew Arona would find it, and probably put it to good use for her future adventures.
Dory was secretly delighted Georges had drugged the coleslaw, despite appearing to be angry. She loved the way different things altered her perception, and even though she knew how to alter her perception without using a drug now, she also knew she was creating the drug and its effects, and that it didn’t much matter whether she did or she didn’t.
(Becky wondered if that principle applied to pain relieving drugs too, and decided that indeed it must. She wondered though if she really really believed it enough to trust herself to create pain relief WITHOUT actually swallowing a little ball of physical matter)
Dory was reluctant to admit it at first, but she’d also known all along that she’d created Georges appearing out of nowhere like that, and that she had in fact invited him. Sometimes it seemed easier to forget that and just grumble, which of course was acceptable too. Grumbling was fun sometimes, but it got awfully boring if she carried it on for too long.
The coleslaw was delicious.
Have some more, offered Geroges
(Becky made a note to change Georges name to Geroges. It was no accident that she kept typing it like that, and she was beginning to think correcting it all the time was futile, and that she was somehow missing the clue)
Dory munched the crunchy coleslaw.
(Without a moments appreciation for her lovely strong full set of teeth, Becky noticed)
Dory unexpectedly felt a moment of appreciation for her teeth. Wow, she thought, I never even think about that, but teeth are cool. She shuddered when she remembered an awful dentist dream she’d recently had.
Dory looked up at Geroges and smiled.
Got any chocolate?
Fiona
ed as she read the latest updates on Quintin’s website. She felt the strong presence of her evil twin as she found herself compelled to play with some of the new features.
She hoped this would not make Quintin feel
as really it had nothing to do with the story.Or did it
Of course he can always
delete itif he wants, she thought happily
or make some rules, to stop this sort of thing happening in the future. 
Sanso was beginning to feel an urge to move. Waiting under the door in the ceiling in the cave tunnel, just watching India Louise and Illi fade in and out of view, and waiting for Dory and the parrot to return was getting boring. He was a wanderer by nature, and so he wandered off along the tunnel. He didn’t stop to wonder which tunnel to choose when he came to a junction, he just went with whatever one he happened to choose. He didn’t really mind where he ended up, that was the thing. This philosophy had always seemed to work well for him, because he ALWAYS ended up somewhere interesting; somewhere where he couldn’t imagine not being, once he was there, as if it was always the ‘right’ place to be, and at the ‘right’ time to be there.
The cave tunnel was becoming wider and less cramped. Sanso straightened his back and quickened his pace, and started to sing.
Hello Dolly, oh helloooo Dolly, do de dooo de do do dodedodedooooo……. chuckling to himself and wondering where on earth did THAT come from….. Oh helloooooo Dolly……
and walked right into a coatstand, of all things, getting splodged in the face with a rather smelly wet blue cape. The coatstand teetered and Sanso grabbed it to stop it falling over. There was a note pinned onto it:
Watch my shifting, Tell the time; Shape me wet, and Lose me dry; Colour me pink and grey and gold, and Find the secrets that I hold, What am I?
Sanso didn’t hesitate for a single moment. SAND!
Sanso grinned with delight at guessing the riddle so quickly, and then laughed out loud. How clever am I, he said, I guessed the answer to my own riddle! Still chortling, Sanso gave the wet cape a fond pat and set off again.
The tunnel was widening and eventually broadened into a cavern. Bright sparkling shafts of sunlight were beaming down from several holes in the cavern roof.
Sanso blinked a few times and squinted until his eyes became accustomed to the light. The cavern was huge, and everywhere he looked were paintings and markings on the walls, even the places impossible to reach. Some were creatures, some were symbols, in black and red and yellow and orange.
Sanso was entranced. He sank down to a sitting position, and then stretched out flat on his back, gazing at the markings on the walls. He stretched his arms out, filling his palms with sand and then letting it go, and trailing his fingers through the sand…sand…..
Sand! I may have got the riddle, thought Sanso, but I didn’t get the POINT of the riddle being there in the first place!
HHMM, I’m not so clever after all……
