At 209/168 in the woods this afternoon, Little Boris Spaskey heard its family of owls for the first time.
Billy, Jean, and kid.
“4-2-0, 4-2-0, 4-2-0,” they hooted in staccato manner.
At 192/169, he comes across Bobby’s Grave.
Briggs the Raven attempts to share another secret.
175/168: a creaky, swinging sign (“Cooper”).
And just behind the tree it seems to hang from, at 168/168…
… Boris finds a body in a sack facing the other way.
“Hello,” he calls to it. “Anybody in there?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0514, Heterocera, Rubi^
Olde Lapara Towne’s Rocky Raccoo hasn’t quite given up on the idea of moving to Collagesity, despite his cousins Racket and Sport setting him up nicely with that cabin high up in the Lapara hill country. He can work at the Grand Lapara Hotel, but doesn’t have to live in his old crawlspace area there — quite yet. Life is pretty good. Still he sometimes pops down here in the middle of the night to take a look at the apartment and ponder on the life that could have been. And there’s also the fact that winter is coming. Winter is almost here!
My name remains on the mailbox, Rocky thinks. Bookworm must not have used the town’s postal service during his stay.
There it is. The Hana Lei portal. Baker Bloch worked quite hard on all of this Grassland re-creation. Baker Blinker too.
Portal’s still warm, he says to himself after walking over and feeling the sand castle’s walls. Someone’s used it recently. He’s sees the glint of the green jewel. Hmm. Dare he?
First he decides to take a look upstairs.
I bet you this Bookworm fellow didn’t even meditate, Rocky continues. Scripted Dr. Who throw pillow and great view squandered!
But *they* can look down on him. That was a big factor in his decision not to come here, although he didn’t really express this drawback adequately to The Bakers. Kidd Tower renters could see everything that goes on. And no drapes! Although I guess I could have asked for some. Lots of things happening at once, though: loss of my market, switching jobs, switching places to stay. I didn’t have time to think all the possibilities out. The Bakers promised that I could run Collagesity’s Bodega Supermarket as well.
It’s right down there. I could see everyone that goes in and out from this perch. Advantage. I wonder if this window could be tinted black at night. Kind of a Wall of Jasper effect.
Through the opposite window, there’s a view into the 4th and last apartment in the SoSo Mall complex. The Bakers says it’s rented by a biker guy and his cybernetic lady friend. So that’s more potential spying neighbors. But at least on eye level this time. Still: pretty good view of Collagesity North and the newer part of town next to the Rubi Woods.
Rocky goes back downstairs to the table beside the dune portal and begins making a checklist. Kidd Tower neighbors can see in: negative. Winter is coming to Olde Lapara Towne: positive. 4th Apartment renters can see in at eye level and indirectly: negative, but less of one. Winter is coming: positive.
Rocky puts down the notepad, starts shaking his head. “Winter is coming,” he repeats aloud and looks over at the sand portal. “This will be the final test, then. How far it will take me; how much grass and weed I can find out there in the Great Beyond.”
He digs the owl’s head ring out of the sand in the widest castle turret and places it on the appropriate finger. One twist should do it. Right or left this time? he debates. “Let’s try counterclockwise.” He twists the ring with his body still touching the castle.
“Well this is different.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0506, Heterocera, Jeogeot, Middleton^, Rubi^
“What happened to Starbuccanneer Barista?” asked Baker Bloch/Pitch Darkly. “I wanted to show her my new look.”
“I’m Cindy,” answered the new SoSo Mall coffee shop barista. “I have a girlfriend also named Cindy. So don’t try me.”
“Alright. But to my original point.”
Cindy points up, down, all around. “You missed out on the witch.”
Possessed, Baker/Pitch realizes. Just like the old one.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0505, Heterocera, Rubi^
Understanding that Even Whiter Walt’s Mary is most likely not coming back to him, Pitch Darkly decides to visit her creator’s place over on the Gaeta continent to purchase another Mary. What’s his limit for a wife, though? 50 lindens? 100? 150 even?
“Mary?”
Turns out to be just some kind of faceless witch that has the same body type as his former lover.
Pitch rather quickly determined that Mary’s creator is kind of one crazy dude (or dudette). This would be Ponsonby Low, reminding the ancient vampire that his alt ego Baker Bloch originally served an alien named Mr. Low when first manifesting in this world (Second Life) way back in 2008. Any connection? he wondered. In checking, Pitch didn’t find much information about the current Mr. Low except that his user works in publishing in RL, and that he was also born in 2008 like the male Baker. Another older soul here.
Pitch doesn’t quite know what to make of this place. And so much more to look at! But he must remember his mission of finding another Mary.
Pitch gets tired from running around and sits a spell at a complexly designed fountain.
He found her! At least the angling version. “Mary?” he speaks. No answer. This one isn’t animated. At least yet. But the figure is not for sale and he moves on.
He can buy a pointing witch wife for 50 lindens who looks a lot like Mary, once more. But witches and vampires traditionally don’t get along.
40 lindens for this warrior who has Mary’s face. *Is* this Mary? He calls again. No answer. And he’s afraid of pointed objects.
“How ’bout you sweetie, hehe. Wanna go out with me?” Pitch pauses. “Okay, be that way.” He keeps moving.
Finally he spots the real Mary — both of them, in fact — at the end of another of those narrow, rainbow colored bridges that dot the place. He runs down.
“I’m *so* glad to see the two of you! It’s been so long.” But like all the other figures he’s met, the Marys remain silent. He checks the price. 60 lindens for the both of them. Quite reasonable. But for some reason a picture of Tronesisia forms in his mind. “Don’t do it,” she calls. “Wait for me. I’m coming.”
Pitch returns home to Collagesity and his Darkly Manor still without a Mary. He’s landmarked the place where they are. He can return at any time and make the purchase. But maybe, just maybe, he’s outgrown the desire for mere “dolls” for girlfriends and needs a real avatar lady this time. Someone like Tronesisia? But she’s with Peter SoSo, isn’t she? Robots and vampires — he hasn’t heard anything bad about that particular mixture of species.
He sits on the thought.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0504, Clemscott^, Gaeta V^^, Heterocera, Rubi^
Baker Blinker would scratch her head if she had a free hand. “The treasure map says it’s suppose to be right here Other Baker,” she calls across the property line to her male counterpart.
“Some kind of phantom prim is keeping us apart. It must be the treasure!”
“Could be just the terraforming taking time to kick in,” offers Baker Blinker. “Usually the effect is over after a minute, though.”
“Hmm, I already tried logging off and then back on.”
“Me too.”
“I’m on my side and you are on your side,” resigns Baker Bloch. “But we’re unable to join each other here. At the ‘X’.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0501, Heterocera, Jeogeot, Middleton^, Rubi^
It was the most expensive apartment in town, but Biker Mann loved it because of the clear view down Old Cannon Road into the woods. Cyberpaperdoll too!
Because demons were coming.
Caucasian Tommy Brade.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0405, Heterocera, Rubi^
They were told to stay close to Gaston’s Central Park and act like flies on the wall. Pretty Man disobeyed one morning and wandered down to a side patio beside Sugar’s House, thinking he would be concealed there behind a tall fence. But he was almost immediately spotted by BitterAlmond1995 and propositioned. “Cure for your ails,” she claimed about herself through the intervening walls. Quickly teleporting back to safety, Pretty Man wiped his brow, seeing he wasn’t followed. He was not an alien, true, but what cost for surface beauty? Sugar’s Berries (their slogan: “ripe for pick’n”) stick pretty tight to her house, just like he and his fellow escapees Gregg Oden, Chuck Cheese, and Maury “Jiff” Monroe should keep close to the park, the calm eye center of a storm which contrasts to that eyewall location of greatest sound and fury.
But Sugar herself, being of greater vision and knowing all such storms have such centers, knew why they were there. Her counterpart Jacob I. had escaped in a larger way, with accomplice and experienced jail breaker Tiny Tina trampled under foot. These dudes and dudettes had nowhere to go, like caught in paper.
I will be a fly back at them, she thought the morning of learning about Pretty Man’s intrusion into her territory. They are in my vision and will not leave. I know where they are. There’s a secret parchment, secured by sealing wax, which might allow her control of the *other* “Sugar House” in town, the one now called the Gaston-Berry Police Station. Because there was no Berry to patrol. Berry did not exist except as a concept. This was her secret weapon.
Rolling the dice, she unrolled the parchment.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0404, Gaston^^, Heterocera, Rubi^
After hitting his head against the outside wall of the Bodega Market — hat tossed aside in the action — Jacob I. managed to wander, dazed and confused, into Audrey’s Bar just around the corner. The Bakers later reckon that if the big 420 sign they’d just deleted from that very wall was still present when he exited the portal, the impact could have killed him, what with the many sharp, hard edges of its three involved numerals. Or at the very least, put out his eye, which would have been just as disastrous. Jacob I. was lucky. Fate brought him here.
A familiar face awaited him in the bar. Furry Karl had returned.
They both stared at each other for a minute, trying to gauge the situation. Karl had just “woke up” himself; it would take several days before he was back to his old, jabbering self. He couldn’t remember what beer was on tap or just in bottles. Never mind the liquor, although the license went through yesterday (thanks for the speedy work, town council!).
Finally Karl had gathered himself enough to get the obvious question out of the way. “What’s with the giant peeper, bud?”
—–
It also took several days, but the Wall of Jasper representing foggy perspective would fade away as well.
Collagesity has turned over a new leaf.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0402, Heterocera, Rubi^
Mr. Babyface direly needs to find his nephew in Hana Lei and attempt to talk some sense into him, but he can’t seem to stop studying this Big E provided with the apartment.
“Ahh, what the heck,” he says, prying himself away from the object. “Time to take the plunge…”
—–
“Me Gods, what a mess. A Messiaen Mess.”
He turns around in his tracks, staring into the heart of infantile Hana Lei. “Where *are* the stoneheads?”
He walks down to take a closer look.
The band now known as Lamb were all gathered at Chunkies playing Guess That Fish when Paul heard him grumbling to himself on Swingset Knoll beyond the door. There could be no mistaking.
“Uncle… *Babyface*??”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0401, Hana Lei^^, Heterocera, Rubi^
Third time’s the charm, as they say. He was up and running considerably quicker this go, right on the heels of Tiny Tina. He would not let her beat him to the dark wall again and send him back to the grass free Joint Joint, awake and cold sober. Jacob I. was going to the other side tonight.
He made it!
But not without losing a valuable friend and ally in the process.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0314, Gaston^^, Heterocera, Rubi^
Sunklands 