My friend and current fellow Olde Lapara Towne resident Veyot has made a nifty short film about the thrills and perils of its transport system.
Veyot has created a number of other recent posts on her tumblr site concerning Levi Clownski’s wonderful mainland city. Check here — some will feature familiar settings and characters to my blog readers!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0214, Heterocera, Lapara^
The structure was indeed a duplicate of the jailhouse in town proper. But it was likewise empty, much to the disappointment of Buster.
His attention was then drawn to a jagged incline outside, dotted with those queer, two-dimensional orange trees. “What’s up there?” he asked Peter, who replied he didn’t know. “Wait here with Wheeler,” Buster commanded, steeling his nerves for a new challenge. “We need your conducting powers to get back.”
Buster returned to the others, saying he’d found an alternate way out of the underground beneath the SLRR and that they didn’t have to go through that God awful void again.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0213, Heterocera, Lapara^
Peter graciously offers to conduct a cable train down to the duplicate jailhouse for curious Wheeler and Buster. They begin at a raised platform on the east side of town.
Small downpours delay the train for just a minute.
Unexpected twists and turns fill the journey.
Passing through the heart of town.
Wheeler and Buster become more excited as the train then heads southward through a tunnel.
An underground station stop. Peter checks out a strange noise in the back while Buster hides his eyes in fear. No problem however: just a stuck branch from a tree dragging the tracks.
Entering an inexplicable black void. “Are we dead?” Buster utters. Wheeler pats his head for comfort.
Emerging in a different place.
Another brief rain…
… then a final turn to reach End of the Line and the duplicate jailhouse.
The gang stares on, accompanied by an indifferent reindeer.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0212, Heterocera, Lapara^
“I don’t quite get all these references to clowns, Buster. Could this be a Clare Nova influence on the town? Clown town?”
“Here it is, Wheeler,” said Buster beside her, not really listening. “The stairs I took up to my death spot. But now Peter says there are two such structures (in town).”
“Well, let’s go look around. Anyone coming in has to land there. Why did they do that? Some things here puzzle me. Puzzle me greatly.”
“My guess is that there are two forces in Olde Lapara, one for each involved sim. The town is split, in effect. Male and female. Black and white. Good and bad. Old and new. The town needs to heal itself in order to go forwards. It’s the same with every one of us.”
“Quite the philosopher you are, Buster. I guess that goes along with you being 10,000 years old or something.”
“Yes. I’ve seen a lot. Do you know how hard it is to kill a vampire?” He answers himself. “*Really* hard. If they don’t want to be killed. And I’m simply a coward. I enjoy life in death.”
“Jesus could give you that,” offers Wheeler. “So says the protesters. Where’d they go anyway?”
“So many questions, but we must start at the beginning. And the end.” They walk up the stairs.
—–
“We could just wait here long enough and meet up with everyone that regularly comes through the place,” says Wheeler, staring inside. “Manifestation spot. What does it mean?”
“Stop asking that. Meaning meaning meaning. Maybe it just is what it is. A work in progress. Continual progress.”
“Let’s go see the other one. This one’s empty to me.”
Buster took a closer look.
“You don’t understand, Wheeler Wilson. I couldn’t even look out to see who was continually shooting me. 47 times. They thought I was already a vampire. But I wasn’t. At the time.”
“Who turned you?” queried Wheeler (yet again). “I mean, to become a vampire someone has to kill you — drain you of blood, right?”
—–
Synchronicity. Just then, Bettie manifested in the south side of town using Rocky’s Unique Mushroom Portal, as she called it — RUMP, for short. That was part of the deal. Rocky would possess the small house, but Bettie and her alts like Little Tonshi Ashokan could use it as a shortcut when they wished to come down the mountain for a visit. Which was turning out to be often, much to Rocky’s irritation. He was attempting to jumpstart his second novel. Current working title: “Two to Know.”
On August 8th, 1926, cubic Arnold and Betsy Layne had just arrived in town, demanding a room in the already booked up Grand Lapara Hotel…
Rocky took the sheet out of the typewriter, wadded it up and threw it toward the wastebasket in the corner. “No, that won’t do,” he sighed.
—–
“Do you want to do it or should I?”
“I’ll go. You go get some rest for tomorrow when we explore the other end.”
—–
“I said *I’d* go.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0211, Heterocera, Lapara^
They talked Peter SoSo into staying a while longer, saying that working on the town trains would keep his mind off his problems. Tronesisia was happy. She didn’t want to be alone again. Positioned in their accustomed places at the raised park, Peter’s thoughts become more interesting to her by the day. Lily created him to be singer-composer Peter Gabriel, she thought to herself, but he turned out differently. He’s beginning to understand that Prissy is perhaps more a sister than a wife — the whole Luke Skywalker-Princess Leila-Star Wars thing again. He feels he didn’t live up to his mother’s hopes, even though the entrance into his own grave secured the sphereing of The Moon’s cube. Second Life’s *Moon* of The Moon, actually. Most curious. And these places don’t seem to exist any longer. They are refugees: Peter, Bendy, Prissy. Drawn here by All Nancy’s who doesn’t seem to be around either. Sacrifice.
Tronesisia is also curiously not that upset about Bendy’s departure with Prissy, unlike Peter. She knows more than him. Something has cleared in her mind. The Muff-Bermingham split is about over.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0210, Heterocera, Lapara^
It was simply going to be too expensive for Wheeler and Buster to live in Ratcliff. $L600 a week for a store and an apartment (!). And they weren’t even going to use the store part of the equation.
But wait… the store property directly across the street is only $L200 per week. Hmmm.
They talk at the neighboring Corner Pocket after a tension releasing game of pool. Buster sank the 8 ball to win. Wheeler proclaims she is sleepy and lays her head on the bar table. Buster ponders options.
“This doesn’t feel right Wheeler. We have no business to promote here. I’m not sure a residential status by itself qualifies for town citizenship. And you always seem drained and unhappy.”
“Something about the place, yeah,” Wheeler admits, yawning. “Thank you again for not selling me out to that Tonshi person up in Lapara. I certainly don’t want to be anyone’s wife.”
“Nor will you have to,” reassures Buster. “But we do need a place to exist. Why not Collagesity?”
“I’m not ready to go back. There’s too much else in the world to explore. Time is short.”
“I agree. VHC City?” he then offers. “Let’s go see the PCH Woods anyway. An old haunt (for me).”
“Alright. Can I change costumes first?”
—–
“We could stay in the witch house over there,” states Buster, laying in a familiar, old tree.
“No, I’m not doing that. No more dueling witches. Oz is dead.”
“Oz *is* dead,” agrees Buster. “The forest here is history. And… VHC City? Obviously I can’t go as I am now. I’d have to be in disguise.”
“It would just be too hard for you Buster.”
He sighs. “You’re right. It’s not like the old days when the Novas — Clare, Summerhill, Golden Bee-ing, even Orange — cooperated with each other. Clare was so good to hide me here in these woods when I got in trouble in Olde Lapara Towne. Then she used her sibling ring to get me set up in VHC City. But all that’s over. No… but we’re running out of options.”
They looked at each other. The obvious option remained: return to OLT.
—–
Bendy’s door stood wide open. “Bendy?” they called. No answer. “Let’s try the hotel,” suggested Buster.
“Peter! You’re still here.”
“Not… for long,” he exclaims. “Bendy… left town. With Prissy!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0209, Heterocera, Lapara^, Pond District^, VHC City^
“Where’s your wife, David Bowie? I mean, Little Tonshi.”
Little Tonshi then pitched the proposition. “Give me Wheeler (for that). And I’ll give you a whole ‘nother Second Life, Buster. A better one. Like Grand Theft Auto, except 1700 times more choice.”
“Umm… I don’t understand.”
Little Tonshi turned into just Tonshi. Bettie. “The airport on top of the hill. It’s not an airport, of course. It’s a recording studio. There I made ‘Heathen,’ my best later work. Many subterranean passages exist within. In one I’m myself and a shadow of myself.”
“Still not getting it…”
“You deserved better than this Buster. I have many friends that are aiding me. Levi Clownski said he would personally pay for your ticket outta here. He doesn’t want you around.”
“I said I’m sorry (about the killing). Many many years ago. Many times in many years.”
“This is not about that. I’ve learned to accept my fate obviously. We are not enemies. It’s just you don’t belong here.”
“Of course I do.”
“No.”
“Then where?”
—–
“*Where*??”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0208, GTA, Heterocera, Lapara^
“I’ve been living here a long time,” spoke Little Tonshi. “I have my great view, my own Table, even.”
“Are you going to change her back?” queried Buster Damm, talking about Wheeler on the couch between them.
“Not while she’s around me. David Bowie, David Bowie,” she said disgustedly. “*I’m* David Bowie. At least as much as her.”
“I must admit it’s a great view here,” he said. “What’s the movie tonight, hehe? Bowie, I assume.”
“Yes,” replied Little Tonshi. “The early years. The first 3 albums. Up to and including ‘Hunky Dory’.”
“Your masterpiece according to some.”
“‘Life on Mars’ was a surprise,” admitted the purple girl. “A shock, even. I realized I was extraterrestrial by then.”
Buster looked at one and then the other. “Someone will have to go,” he said. “There can’t be 2 David Bowies in this story.”
“Again I’ll leave it up to you. I can return Wheeler at any time. You can head to Ratcliff, then. Leave me back here up on my high mountain, the highest in Second Life.”
“Says some,” added Buster.
“Yes. Shush now. The show is starting.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0207, Heterocera, Lapara^
“What did you do to my friend?” demanded Buster to Little Tonshi Ashokan.
She laughs, but not in a good way. “I turned her into what she really is. A clown. She will always be clowned. That’s how it is.”
They watched her continuously sway back and forth for a while, then Buster said: “What do I do with her?”
“Up to you.”
Another pause. “We were going to Ratcliff.”
“I know now. Nasty place. *Your* kind of place. What do we do with *you*?” She hesitated, then added: “… murderer.”
“Long time in the past,” Buster excused himself. “Been abiding by the ‘Book of Blood’ since then.”
“You killed me. You killed *me*.”
Buster remained unrattled. “What happened to your fangs? Did you have them removed?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0206, Heterocera, Lapara^
A statue pointing two ways.
A figure pointing no ways.
Mysterious legs.
… and shadow.
Squaring the circle.
Windmills… whence she came.
Looking for a way inside.
Falling off the mountain.
Falling… falling…
“Oow.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0205, Heterocera, Lapara^
Sunklands 