"I think that was very clever of you,
Thietris, to have that little door installed. The
workmanship is quite nice, actually. I'm sure it cost a
fortune to have it done. Oh, but I do hope we can get
the big door open later ... I'm afraid I'm too
claustrophobic to try to squeeze out through it. You
know me!" She tries to laugh it off, knowing full well
her full-figured frame would never fit through
there even if she had the will to
try.
"Are you serious? Polly? Here? I had no
idea! Why didn't someone tell me?! The last time I saw
Polly was when I went running off somewhere and I asked
Grizz to take care of her. I stayed longer than
expected, as I recall, and just assumed he'd eventually
either taken her to Eder Kemo or back to my Relto.
Hmmmm. Come to think of it, I don't think I've been back
to Relto since then."
Elkae wondered what it was
the Professor really wanted to talk
about.
"Polly! You sweet girl, come to mama!"
The keanulint crawls cautiously over to Elkae and
pauses. "It's okay, Polly, it's me." Polly doesn't seem
so sure.
Elkae laughs. "I still have a bit of the
lake smell on me, I'm afraid. Once I've cleaned up
she'll recognize me I'm sure. I hope someone's been
caring for her. She's such a good little thing. I feel a
bit guilty though, keeping her with humans. She probably
should be set free back on
Kemo."
Cordelia wanders past the professor's
office and can hear voices. She notices Boatingirl
walking away.
Looking at the little door within
the door, Cordelia wonders how long that's been there.
She presses the blue light on the big door but nothing
happens. She tries again but when the door still doesn't
open she considers trying to crawl through the little
door.
Then she hears Elkae talking to
Polly.
"I think I'll leave them to it for now and
come back later when I've caught up on some
sleep."
Cordelia Personal
Assistant to Professor Thietris Squirrel, CEO,
President and Managing Director, Institution of
Advanced Exploration of Myst Worlds
Elkae tries to get close to Polly, but
Polly is simply hesitant. Rather than frighten the poor
thing, Elkae backs off.
"Well, my dear Professor,
I'm so tired. My Relto book seems to be dry now. With
your permission, I'm going to head home, take a shower
and sleep off the aches of the Burro Cave adventure. I
brought something back you need to see. We can talk
about it tomorrow. Remind me. Thanks for the almond
mead. It really is delicious, isn't it?"
Just as
she's about to press her hand on the page she stops.
"Oh, if you see Almech, thank him for the new KI. That
really was nice of him to go get it for me. Night." And
with that, she links home.
Back at Relto, Elkae
has time to wonder who the nice man was that brought out
the submarine and saved her? He disappeared with her
bags. Hopefully someone at the Institute knows him. She
sure would hate to lose those
bags! ________________ There's no place like
home.
Meanwhile, down under, the stranger has
been lucky again (if you can call it luck, since there
was no room in the cab) and found a ride to Coober
Pedy.
_______________________________ Prop. D'ni
Internal Supply Co. "If we don't have it, you don't
need it!"
The contents of
the water soaked saddle bags, and the saddle bags
themselves, were a bit heavy and awkward to carry. So it
was while struggling with the bags, RW missed seeing the
rock protruding up through the Ferry landing cobblestone
and tripped, going down hard and spilling the contents
of one of the bags.
In the course of gathering
the items together, and placing them back into the pack,
he picked up a comb and noticed on the comb a few
strands of Elkae's hair, and this is the part RW really
cannot explain.
RW, when he first met Cordelia in Grizz's store, had
informed her that among his interests was an interest in
the biology of the caverns.
For the purpose of
taking samples, RW carried several sealable sample bags
in his pocket. Reaching down to his right shirt pocket,
he extracted one of the bags and, careful not to touch
the hairs, transfered several from the comb into the
sample bag. RW then carefully affixed a label, and put
it back into his pocket. He then finished repacking the
contents of the bag, affixed a note of apology to Elkae
for the jumbled contents, and linked back to the ExP1
base, leaving the bags by Cordelia's desk, who he hoped
would see that they were returned to
Elkae.
[This message was edited by rohnerw on
Tue April 13 2004 at 05:37 PM.]
Kestryll links in to the Institution
Hood for a few supplies and heaves a deep sigh. He's
just linked onto a wall. He stood there tapping his
foot, and staring at the ground, while waiting for
gravity to kick in. Finally it did. Quickly. He
climbs to his feet and brushes himself off, then heads
down to the D'ni Internal Supply store. He bows to
the young lady at the counter and immediately heads down
the aisles.
Don't worry about me. I know what
I want and abouts where to find it. Will be back to
settle the account later.
He heads down to the
sub levels and ponders making a note to the proprietor
about the wandering cones forming some odd cult on level
4...
TV heads down to the store, hoping to
finally find a peaceful place to sit. He passes Kestryll
on level 4, both of them staring at an odd cone
formation:
"I think they're trying to tell us something..."
Kestryll whispers.
"Yeah, they're just as
excited about XP2 as we are!" replies TV.
Tom
Melon KI# 00028864 no, im not living in a pretend
world where live still exists; im just too lazy to
change the signature
Kestryll whispers, "Maybe they're trying
to jump forward in time and grab a copy of XP2... Or
maybe they've finally gone bonkers. Can happen wandering
around down here for so long, ya
know..."
Kestryll sneaks past the cone
formation and grabs a few items from the shelves then
hurries down to level 5... Odd how the stairs go down 48
levels... Decides it'll be an aventure just seeing
what the Proprietor keeps in stock so far
down...
Veronica had returned to the store after
an ever so brief walk around the neighborhood. She kept
hearing a tap-tap-tapping noise that followed her all
around the cavern and it was making the hairs on the
back of her neck stand up, especially hearing that
strange howling noise. What was that eerie
sound?
Now, as Veronica waited for the two
customers to return from the sub-levels, she wondered if
she should have warned them about the creature she had
heard down there earlier?
*shrugs*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm no
longer a danger to
society. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Grizz, who had been down on his knees
behind the counter, stands up noislessly right behind
Veronica, who is leaning her elbows on the counter
backwards. He places one hand on the counter and begins
to slowly drum his fingers on the wooden counter top,
where they make a hollow, echoing sound that seems to
come from everywhere and
nowhere.
_______________________________ Prop.
D'ni Internal Supply Co. "If we don't have it, you
don't need it!"
Benny shuffles in and nods to Grizz
and Veronica. He holds up a card, 'Just looking for
Kestryll', then continues on his way down the aisles and
into the sub levels. He makes some chittering noises
to himself on the way.
There is only one word to describe what
happened next: Pandemonium.
First, Veronica
jumped so high when Bizzy yelled Boo that she bumped
into Benny causing Benny to bash his head. Grizz barked
with laughter as Bizzy's belly shook with mirth.
Needless to say, Benny and Veronica were quite
belligerent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm no
longer a danger to
society. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Almech wandered around the 47th floor of
Grizz's store. He had his fireflies with him to ward off
the darkness that had prevailed the floor since the
gravity disaster.
"I finally found the linking
book section! Lets see, Gahreesen... Teledahn...
Kadish..."
Experimental Program
1
Supplier of umbrellas to the D'ni for
Centuries.
Nice image! 
runs up behind both of them and
yells,
Security, 
