“There’s no other choice in the matter, Broken Heart,” Jacob called from his chair. “We’re going to have to go to Stonethwaite and that is that.”
“I know,” replied his bone cat friend, positioned in front of the next two collages of the series here. “I’m already packed up (compacted). We’ll have to figure out a way to erase the two beds, though.”
“I’m on it.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0007, 0203, Heterocera, Rubi
Pitch had always gotten chills when walking past this particular spot on his Grassy Avenue. Tonight he understood why. Two cardboard figures, Derek Jones and Sikul Himakt Mykall Skall, awaited him at the location. Pitch temporarily lost his sight.
“Ahh, my eyes! I can’t see.”
And soon he couldn’t hear or speak either.
—–
Jacob I. was now up on the second floor of House Greenup in Rubi. He had reached Greenup 11 in his examination. Himself.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0007, 0202, Clemscott-, Gaeta V, Heterocera, Rubi
Marion Harding thinks his world might be breaking down. He had been on Gaeta V going on 2 years now. Sent here by trickery and mistake; eventually caught in a tangled web of power and intrigue woven in Capitol City.
He didn’t like the continent’s largest and most central burg very much, although it had elements he admired. Of course there was the money, the flow being strongest here. But heiress Becky Latrobe wouldn’t even let him into her posh house now that he’d shot Dirk in the head and made him dead. And Madam Wanda Stinoble was going straight and returning to the old continents. For Gaeta V was news at the time of its birth eastward of Corsica. News and dangerous. And those darker elements naturally aggregated and congealed at the depression originally called Pittsboro. Pittsboro evolved to Pittington evolved to Darksity evolved to Capitol City. Over time the sinister aspects were smoothed away like the reformed, flat terrain. Gaeta V would have no natural sinkhole that kind history would remember. The Great Black Swamp which sucked up aboriginal settlers such as Ned Bartlett and Kindsey McTweed into an untimely doom was tiled and drained, and a shopping mall now graces its ironed over land, selling the newest threads and peddling fresh leather attache cases soon to be filled to the breach with lindens and gold and jewelry no doubt. Like his own, bought just a week and a half back. Because Marion liked to ensure that each case of treasure had its own home. He could himself probably build a small house with them even now, only 2 years in. Or, really, only 1 3/4 years in because it took him a little bit to find, then ingratiate himself into the sodded fabric of the city.
—–
“Baker, have I ever told you the story of my nephew Marion and how I mistakenly sent him over to walk the length of the Gaeta V continent 2 years back instead of having him watch the GTA V video Spongeberg actually requested at the time?”
“No. Do tell Cardboard!”
“I haven’t heard from him since. Until yesterday. A short note indeed: ‘I think my world might be breaking down.'”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0007, 0201, Capitol City-, Gaeta V, GTA, Heterocera, Rubi
Baker decides the 420 on the side of the Bodega Market has to go to make prim room for the rest of the collages in its upstairs gallery. 6 prims saved right there. Silly, stoned hippies, he thinks, but then realizes there’s exactly $2400 lindens in his account currently. 420 anagram. He reverses his former decision and allows the big green sign to stay for now. Is this black curtain across from it indeed a “Wall of Jasper”?
He meets up with an analysis hungry Hucka Doobie in Olde Lapara Towne instead and its duplicate market.
—–
Hmm. 5 days left on the rent here. Another decision looming. 420 I suppose.
Okay, maybe one more week of rent beyond that and everything will be finished over here — transference complete. And also there’s Rocky to think about. As hard as Baker Bloch has been recruiting the anthropomorphic raccoon to come join him in Collagesity these past 2 weeks, it may still not be a done deal. Bookworm now rents his projected apartment at the SoSo Mall, although that’s planned as a stop gap situation until Rocky’s arrival.
Hucka Doobie shows up. “Finish the gallery over in Collagesity. Tell Levi you’re pulling out here. I’ll deal with Rocky. See you over there in, say, about 20 minutes?”
“That will be fine Hucka Doobie.” I rarely disagree with the highly psychic bee person.
—–
20 minutes later…
“Room for growth now, eh Baker?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0215, 0301, Heterocera, Lapara, Rubi
Jacob I. wakes up in an unfamiliar place. All-time great NBA power forward and recently retired Timmy Duncan looms dead ahead, a ball in front, a ball behind.
Jacob I. does not follow professional sports. He doesn’t know who this gentle giant is. He seems to speak. “Jacob, Jacob, down here.” Jacob I. ponders why a man so large has such a small, feminine voice. Tina recognizes this after he doesn’t look down. “Not Timmy, stoopid. *Me*.” Still no proper response from Jacob I. “Down *here*. It’s Tina.”
Jacob I. finally locates the source of the voice.
“Tina,” he calls down softly, knowing her ears are sensitive to what we would consider normal volume speaking. “It’s very good to see you old friend. But where are we?”
“Behind the wall. Jasper,” her tinny voice shouted up. “It’s the same as marijuana. I’m so small I fell through the cracks. Then I was able to bring you here as well.”
“Am I dreaming?” Jacob I. logically asks.
“Yes. We need to get you through the wall, and quickly. Before you wake up. We’ll have to make a run for it. Get up. Quickly. Follow me.” Tina turns and runs. “Get up quickly and follow me!” she calls back, halfway to the blackness already.
Jacob watches her as if just behind, then wakes up.
—–
“I was left behind,” explains Jacob I. the next morning to an analyzing Broken Heart.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0214, Heterocera, Rubi
“Well. It’s finally happened, Broken Heart Jackie.”
“Don’t call me that,” Broken Heart the bone cat reprimanded for the umpteenth time about the name Jackie. “And now I really *do* have a broken heart.” She makes a clumsy motion on her chest of two things being ripped apart.
“Last of the grass… weed,” Jacob I. laments. “We’ll have to call up Leaf Erik’s son over in California, Pennsylvania for more — it will take weeks.”
“Months,” Broken Heart extends.
“Years,” Jacob I. finalizes, and then heaves a long sigh. “Darn that Jeffrie Phillips. Darn that stolen Centre.”
“Or we could go over to Leona Lei’s place in Hilltop. That will require changing into mechanoids. The last time it took us weeks to revert.”
“Years,” Jacob I. emphasizes again. “Sheer hell.” He looks down at his feet and wonders if they are really flesh and blood yet. Then, staring over at Broken Heart’s red and blue glasses, he gets an idea. “But the *sister* could work.”
“Hana? Is she still alive even after her death?”
“It was just a shish kabob skewer.”
“I though it was a ladle,” Broken Heart says. “You know, for dishing out soup and stuff.”
“I know what a lapel is. Did I say lapel? haha. That’s not even emphasized the same.”
“Label,” Broken Heart then says. But she accents the wrong syllable for humor.
“Labelle,” Jacob I. utters. “Patti Labelle!”
“The singer, actor, magician?” perks up Broken Heart, but then remembers the truth. “Man, we’re really baked.”
“Baker!” Jacob I. spouts, seeing the white opening once more. “Cook… Baker. That’s what we were trying to figure out.”
“I’m going to bed.” Broken Heart falls asleep while not even moving an inch from his spot on the couch. Jacob I. leans over and folds her bony hands over her little red broken heart.
“Night night, Jackie,” he ends while slipping into dreamland himself.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0213, Gaston+
Wheeler logs back in and finishes what she was going to do this night: lower the Bermingham portal, sans rock arch, down to Collagesity and complete the emptying of the Muff skybox. Baker logs back in. Wheeler invites him to join her in Collagesity East, where he is able to complete his own story tonight as Bookworm. Wheeler stays logged in just in case more adjustments are needed to the portal.
—–
“I wonder if that’s Richard Petty’s car?” the character asks about Jasper series collage “Wilsonia Driver.”
“Oh my dear, what is that?” exclaims the learned scholar when looking around the corner and spotting the lowered portal, which just appeared out of nowhere in his time. “Do you know sleeping lady? Mrs. Lady??”
He leaves her and wanders into the small greenspace leading to Audrey’s, a second and newer entrance.
“Two redbirds,” he notes. “One inside, one out. The tree seems to mark a boundary.” Learned scholars tend to think aloud when figuring stuff out. Bookworm is certainly no exception to the rule.
“Hmm. Curious, I was just here and didn’t notice that intrusion to the collage.”
In order, he writes down the letters on the plaque the man (me?) holds in the collage: 5×5.
JKLMN
ABCDE
STUVW
PQRST
RQPON
Bookworm goes back to his newly rented apartment and ponders on what he’s just seen.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0212, Heterocera, Rubi
“Sooo. You wanted to see me Carrcassonnee. But you can’t talk without your eye. And Spider is inanimate as well. Hmph. Why am I here, then?”
Spotting it behind a boulder to her right, she used the teleporter again. “And *here*?”
Think Rock
“What??”
“OMG. SoSo South has been destroyed!”
I, as her user, then realized what had occurred. I’d accidentally linked a teleporter to SoSo South when working on it in the Collagesity skybox the other day. The teleporter happened to be in Carrcassonee’s gazebo when I moved the whole thing back to the ground, which Wheeler Wilson teleported to when trying to reach the skybox from Blue Feather. But in using the teleporter again, everything went haywire, seemingly.
Baker Bloch, posing as Bookworm up in the heart of the SoSo Mall at the time, was called in. He moved all the pieces — which were still linked, thankfully — up to the skybox and went to work. He asked Wheeler to log out to give him room and decrease the likelihood of more wonky things happening. He lowered his graphic options and logged out and back in for the same reason. He searched for and then found the skybox landmark in his inventory. Baker himself headed upward.
In under 10 minutes he had everything about righted. He could check later with a full version of this gallery, which is a Linden build created specifically for the Zindra continent. Baker hadn’t made any significant alterations to the original design. Which was good in this case.
Crisis averted.
But Wheeler had been spooked. She became convinced that Carrcassonnee did the sabotaging, and was trying to communicate with her from “the beyond”, as she put it. “Something is happening,” she finishes.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0211, Heterocera, Rubi
Greg Ogden sits in his new apartment and enjoys the latest Sunklands post. “Upstairs guy doesn’t have any heat of his own, eh?” He makes a mental note to figure out this Mr. Babyface’s schedule and turn down the thermostat accordingly. Because Greg Ogden is here to cause avoid trouble. If he wasn’t he would have chosen to remain Gregg Oden and stuck with the seaweed hair, even kept the plot line going over in Morrison.
He spent the rest of the afternoon painstakingly arranging the furniture in the apartment to suit his symmetrical needs.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0210, Heterocera, Rubi
Mr. Babyface attempts to return to his new Collagesity apartment but realizes he set home to Audrey’s Bar instead. So he just asks Terry if he can use his phone to make the call.
“We’ve found them,” he starts for the person on the other end. Twittering; he waits, then seems to answer. “It’s fine. Commode is kind of out in the open.” More twittering from the phone. “Baker Blinker owns the property. She’s the one who set me up.” Another round from the other side. “I haven’t been in the woods yet.” A long bout of twittering, then, “Okay thanks.” After a small click, he hands the receiver back to Terry who puts it underneath the bar somewhere.
“Trouble in paradise?” Terry probes, as bartenders often do.
Mr. Babyface thinks about asking Terry if he perhaps knows the whereabouts of Caucasian Tommy Brade but then decides against it. No need to rouse suspicion so soon. That will come. So he pretends Terry is asking him about his recently rented Kidd Tower abode.
“Nah, the apartment is basically fine. Phone has some static. The bed needs a new mattress. The downstairs renter controls the heat. The stove doesn’t work.”
“But the view, eh, Mr. Babblefarce?” Terry smiles and winks cooly.
“Mr. Babyface,” he corrects. “Yeah. Good view.” He takes a series of puffs from his pipe, contemplating the next move. “When will you get your liquor license?” he then thinks to insert.
“End of October. First of November at the latest. Then Collagesity will be back in business for real. You’ll see. Baker Blinker has filled me in on all the detail-i-o’s.”
“She seems nice,” offers Mr. Babyface. Ah, yes. *Baker* would know, he realizes. But there’s the other Baker as well. Which is the real power in town? That’s what he has to find out next.
Pretty man Wilson Wheeler walks around the corner and into the bar.
“And what the f-ck are you suppose to be?” he asks the small, pipe smoking figure. Terry keeps grinning and winking.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0209, Heterocera, Rubi
Sunklands 