As Veronica and Grizz walk away from the
mushroom rock, Veronica cannot help but look back over
her shoulder repeatedly. "Grizz, are you sure about
this? Maybe we should have pried open that door on the
rock. Don't you think it is strange? Why would there be
a door on top of a rock? What do you think we
saw? Do you suppose it is dangerous? It looked rather
furry, so maybe it wasn't dangerous, but it could bite,
maybe it's hungry. I'm feeling a bit frightened."
Grizz stops suddenly and takes Veronica by the
shoulders. Looking her square in the eye he says, "Do
you have your Relto book?" She checks, "Yes." He smiled
and said, "Then you have no reason to be afraid, besides
that, I wouldn't let anything happen to you, now would
I?" She laughs and shakes her head no. "Ok then, let's
get moving."
The pair look back from
where they came, over the distance hills a black cloud appears. There seems to be
someone or something running directly below it. It
continues to move closer and closer and as it does, the
music grows louder and
louder.
Now Grizz and Veronica are not cowards.
Never believe it of either of them. But this is
an unknown age, and there is suddenly a rather spectral
figure running for dear life down the hill, with what
appears to be a flying monkey in hot pursuit, and a
whole flock of the blue tinted things just a few yards
behind them. No, Grizz and Veronica are neither of them
cowards, but they weren't born yesterday either. Without
any hesitation at all they both dive headfirst into
convenient clumps of bushes. Then two white looking
faces can be seen peering through the branches. Veronica
reaches for Grizz's arm, and her fingers grip him so
hard that if he were not otherwise occupied, he would
yell.
The white spectral figure makes a mad dash
for the mushroom rock and tries to get around behind it.
Unfortunately, the Blue Betty (yes, it is she) goes the
other way and meets Dibbler (uhhuh, Dibbler) right on
the side where Grizz and Veronica have get a good view
of the action.
Dibbler, halts, frozen with alarm,
and Betty lands right on his tray of bunned sassages.
She grabs him by the apron strings, snarls right in his
face, chimps (thanks Speedy) at him a bit, showing her
fangs. Then she turns coy. She smiles a chimpy smile and
says... "Your kinda cute!"
Dibbler, horrified,
flips the tray up, throwing Betty off, and runs back
around the rock, right into the swarm of identical Blue
Bettys waiting there. In a trice they have him on the
ground, and there is such a melee of arms legs, wings
and funny little caps, buns and sassages flying
everywhere, that you can't really see anything of
Dibbler at all. Two of the largest Bettys grab the first
Betty, one on each side, and immediately fly off with
her, back the way they came... saying.. "You come along
with us. Witchy-poo gave us orders about you." And they
disappear into the distance.
Meanwhile, back on
the ground by the mushroom rock, the crowd of Bettys
finishes pummeling Dibbler, and take off as well,
following the other three.
There is silence,
except for the sound of weeping from Dibbler. Grizz and
Veronica crawl out of the bushes, and go to see what's
left of Dibbler.
They find the poor thing halfway
burried in the ground, footprints all over him, his tray
broken, the straps broken, his apron torn, and he cries
hysterically...
"First they took my sassages, and
threw them over there!! Then they took my buns, and
threw them over there!! and he breaks down
sobbing.
Grizz helps him sit up, brushing dirt
off and trying to ease the sobbing. Veronica, who does,
after all, have a soft heart, pats him a little
awkwardly.
Then, curious, Veronica goes and
picks up one of the sassages, holds it to her nose,
makes a face and immediately holds the thing at arm's
length with a thumb and forefinger, then drops it. She
comes back and wipes her fingers on Dibbler as she helps
Grizz stand him up.
"And I wouldn't worry about
your sausages and buns," she said. "They've gone bad
anyway."
Over his head she looks questioningly at
Grizz and mouthes..."What are we going to do with
him?"
Grizz grins (yup, the grinchy one) and says
to Dibbler.
"I'm going to send you to my Relto.
You will find one book open on my shelf that will take
you to the surface. I suggest you go and get cleaned up,
and look for another tray and more buns and
sausages."
And without further delay, he places
Dibbler's hand on his Relto book, and the poor guy
vanishes.
_______________________________ Co-Owner
The DISCO in the Hood.
He turns around to see who had
sought his attention. Sure enough, his two playing
partners stood there.
Hi, I'm Annika. This will be
a treat to play St. Andrews with you.
Hi Annika, I am
Chuckles58, but today I guess you can call me Carl. This
simulation is unbelievably realistic, except I think my
avatar is a little different than I had expected. Wow,
I'm going to play golf with Annika Sorenstam and
...
Hi, I'm
Tigger. I don't know why I'm here, but it looks like
fun.
Looks
like I need to be a little more careful with my typing.
Off to the
first tee
...
---------------------------- Master of
Manipulating Stories (MOMS) Director of Redirecting
Kinesis (DORK)
Veronica looks at Grizz after Dibbler
(who the heek is this guy???) links out and says
wearily, "I'm exhausted. Can we find someplace to camp
nearby?" She looks at Grizz plaintively and he relents.
"Sure. How about you lead the way this time,
Nica."
They walk to the other side of the hill,
Veronica checking carefully over her shoulder from time
to time, making sure Grizz is following her and not a
blue flying monkey. She finds a good spot, or so she
thinks, and puts down her bedroll. Grizz looks around
warily, noticing that there are some type of drainage
pipes nearby. He starts to protest, but gets a look from
Veronica, so he puts his hands up as if to say,
whatever, and he too puts his bedroll
down.
Nearby in the drainage pipe, the local wildlife are stirring and they are
hungry.
Before Grizz feels comfortable in any
site, he has to check it for himself. He takes a turn
around the area, and finds the pipe. Very quietly he
says...
"Veronica, I need a little help here.
Don't move fast but get over here."
And in his
mind he is thinking... "Snakes. Why does it always have
to be snakes?"
Veronica comes up, mouth open
ready to talk, sees the snakes, and her mouth snaps
shut. She freezes. Grizz says quietly to her.. "Very
slowly and carefully get the biggest cone you can find
from my pack and the pump."
She
does.
"Now," he says, "hook the pump to the cone
and be ready to pump for all you're worth."
He
takes the deflated cone, slowly and cautiously
approaches the pipe, and then jambs the cone into the
open end while Veronica pumps. The cone inflates
rapidly, and blocks the end of the pipe
completely.
Grizz wipes his forehead, detaches
the pump, and they make camp.
After a cold supper
of Fig Newtons and Vienna sausages, they sit again
companionably as the sun goes
Over
the next hill, the locals are dealing with yet another
problem. As it starts to wander away
and over the hill where Grizz and Nica are falling
asleep, the foreman says, "I'm sure glad the DRC made
sure this age is deserted. Let's go get some supper."
The men link away. The cumbersome creature makes its way
slowly, but surely, over the rise of the
hill.
MrD, in his desperate attempt to rescue
the professor, failed to realize that cocoa by itself is
not capable of linking. Only living tissue can link. The
drops of cocoa had merely soaked into the pages of the
books. It's what we find in library books all the time.
We open a book and on page 23 find a circle of dried
coffee, cocoa, orange juice perhaps, or some
unidentifiable material. We return such a book to the
shelf in disgust, musing on the habits of readers, and
vowing always in future to purchase a fresh-smelling
brand new book from the bookshop.
Thietris,
meanwhile, was still desperately trapped in the rock.
His heartbeat had slowed, he was feeling dizzy, and he
became aware that he was falling ...
falling.
The huge croc comes lumbering over the
top of the hill, picking its way through the
boulder-strewn landscape. It dislodges a large rock,
which begins tumbling down the slope. Down and down
rolls the rock, until finally it bounces off a ledge and
curves through the air towards Veronica and Grizz's
camp.
Grizz turns restlessly in his sleep. He
is dreaming that he is climbing a huge oak tree, chasing
a squirrel that sits high on a branch overhead, throwing
acorns at
him.
_______________________________ Co-Owner
The DISCO in the Hood.
The boulder sails through the air,
completely unbeknownst to our sleeping adventurers. It
flies over their campsite and hits the edge of the mushroom rock, sending the creature seen the previous day,
sailing through the air and he lands with a tiny
"oomph", in the middle of Grizz's
chest.
The impact of the boulder against the
mushroom rock causes it to shatter, releasing one
Professor Thietris. He immediately begins gasping and
coughing, but apart from being covered in rock dust he
seems remarkably unharmed.
Previously {Stellaflora is not to
be confused with Ghost Stellaflora}
Journal of
Stellaflora part 3:
04/05/2004 “It took me
over 5 days to reach the surface, And as I climbed out
of the creator of the volcano in the new Mexican desert.
I looked down at the cleft at the foot and my suspicions
were confirmed, but I climbed down just to make sure.
Standing on the lip of the chasm, I saw no sign that
anyone had ever lived there before, no dwellings carved
out of the living rock, no fence, no windmill and
certainty no camper van. Looking around at the rest of
the area, I also noted that there were no remnants from
Riven. All this suggested that, for whatever reason,
Ti’ana and Ghen never came to live in the cleft after
fleeing from D’ni, therefore Ghen never met with Atrus’s
mother. Whilst I was staring out at the endless dessert,
thinking about all this, the world seamed to momentarily
sparkle with a blue light. It only lasted for a moment
or so, and I thought that I imagined it. But turning
back towards the volcano, I saw the Riven remnants as
faint blue outlines, sometimes clearer, sometimes
fainter, but definitely there all the same. Curious, I
approached them to investigate. I held out my hand an
laid it on the fallen telescope. It felt solid enough,
but my hand also was slightly transparent and had the
same faint blue outline to it. I ran back over to the
cleft and saw that a similar process had happened there
as well. Climbing down the faint ladder, I crossed the
bridge and attempted to enter the dwelling of Ti’ana. It
was like walking through some kind of rocky mist, I was
currently walking around 2 separate realities, in
neither one nor the other. Quickly, I ran back out of
the house before I was fully back in the deserted
reality, and the rock solidified again. As I climbed out
of the cleft I turned to my right and saw the ghostly
outline of Zandi’s trailer. Running around to the front,
I saw that Zandi was in his accustomed place reading. I
shouted to him and he appeared to hear me. He lowered
his book a moment and turned to face me. I think he
might have saw me, I didn’t get a chance to ask what
with him suddenly rushing into his trailer at that
speed. I had an Idea and unclipped my Relto book to
check the descriptive panel. Sure enough, there outlined
in blue, was my Relto as I remembered it. Quickly,
before the there was time for the dimensional
displacement could occur again, I linked to my
Relto.
Once back to my Relto, I approached the
bookshelf and went to take my Neighbourhood linking book
off the shelf. To my horror, my hand went straight
though it, the blue outline momentarily billowing like a
mist that has been disturbed by a sudden gust of wind.
To my relief, the next moment the hut and everything it
contained became more “there”. I was drifting back to my
own reality a little bit more. Seizing this opportunity,
I whipped the book off the shelf and linked to the
Institution, just as the book became as insubstantial as
mist again.”
Whilst in the hood,
the real Stellaflora might be seen only as an
insubstantial blue outline, occasionally fading in and
out of view, (not that there are many people there at
the moment)
Professor Thietris was feeling very
fortunate indeed, especially when he saw this lumbering away from the campsite
and his general vicinity altogether. He walks closer to
the campsite and sees this sitting on Grizz's chest. He
calls out, "Grizz, new pet?"
The creature on Grizz's chest takes one
look at Grizz, snoring with his mouth open, and scampers
off to the broken base of the mushroom rock, dives into
a hole in it, and disappears.
Grizz, who sleeps
too soundly at times, wakes up with a start, sits up and
looks
around.
_______________________________ Co-Owner
The DISCO in the Hood.
"Hello, Grizz!" said the dust-covered
Professor T. "You'd never guess where I've been!" He
collapsed on to the ground next to Grizz and rested
while he recovered his breath. He was relieved that the
crocodile had gone, but he would never know how it had
saved his life.
[This message was edited by
Thietris on Tue May 04 2004 at 07:34 AM.]
"Professor!" says Grizz. "Where did you
come from? I was just dreaming about you. Or maybe
it wasn't you exactly. You look a little ragged around
the edges this morning. Would you like a little nip of
acorn mead?"
He starts digging through his
pack.
_______________________________ Co-Owner
The DISCO in the Hood.
Experimental Program 1
Hi, I'm Annika. This will be
a treat to play St. Andrews with you.
Hi Annika, I am
Chuckles58, but today I guess you can call me Carl. This
simulation is unbelievably realistic, except I think my
avatar is a little different than I had expected. Wow,
I'm going to play golf with Annika Sorenstam and
...
Hi, I'm
Tigger. I don't know why I'm here, but it looks like
fun.
Chuckles
An umbrella isn't just
for Christmas, it's for life!
