Gilmore the Axe Man,” utters Roger Pine Ridge after his walk from Iris. He’d reached the end of a main causeway again. “Still blocking me from leaving this cursed swamp village. No matter what direction I go, there he is.” No use talking to him directly, he realizes. The message remains the same.
“Don’t leave.” Or a variant on that: “You’re trapped.”
“At least those insufferable moths aren’t around in the middle of the day.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0008, 0403, Iris^^==
They met in the highest tower of Raven Central.
“I’m glad to see you are adjusting well to Capitol City, Musician,” Lou spoke to begin the serious part of their discussion.
“Musician?” Philip replied, taken aback. “Believe me, I’m no musician. I’m tone deaf!”
“Nevertheless,” continued the pale, tall alien in her level manner, “you are. And it’s time to repay the favor we bestowed upon you.” She then explained how Philip’s metallic stigmata suddenly vanished about 2 weeks back.
“Oh,” he then said, understanding quite a lot more. “Transference, huh?”
“Yes. You were sucked in. It really wasn’t your fault. It is the fault of the designers of telescopes, microscopes, other artificial extensions of the naked eye. We, as a planet, were never suppose to see beyond Uranus.”
“It’s a tricky planet with the naked eye,” Philip replied, unable to resist astronomical trivia in the moment. “You have to know exactly where to look.”
“Right,” Lou said, steering the conversation back to the matter at hand. “About the repayment…”
“I’ll do it,” he quickly followed. “Whatever it is — outside of signing away my soul to The Devil — I’ll be glad to comply. I’m just so happy to be free of all that metal shite after, what, *10* years. 10 years ago that demon Jimmy operated on me, or what he *calls* an operation.” He paused, shook his head, then looked up again. “Transference… just like you said. Whatever you do, don’t confuse a physician with a physicist.”
Lou emits a small, lilting laugh here. “It’s not Jimmy’s fault either, though.” She sits further back in her wicker armchair. “Here’s the deal.”
—–
Later that night, Philip returns to the home which Lou wants him to stay in after his “assignment” in Gaeta V has ended. But, good news, he can take Heidi and her shape shifting ways along for the ride.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0007, 0403, Capitol City^, Gaeta V^^, Muff-Bermingham^^
A big door has opened up the outside world to the lowest level of Olde Lapara Towne’s large underground.
Ahh, fresh air down here at last! But alas winter is coming and the cold can rush through as well, pheh.
Baker thinks there’s more stories to be found in this place…
… despite the fact that Rocky’s Bodega Market is definitely going away in 3 days.
Meanwhile, high in Lapara’s mountain country…
… Racket and Sport enjoy 3 day old croissants while fleshing out a plot to keep their wanderlust stricken cousin Rocky in his home sim.
What did Miss. Minton expect would happen when she went away on an extended vacation and left her door standing wide open, huh?
Bad Miss. Minton. Bad Minton!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0403, Heterocera, Lapara^
“I’ve got to get in there sometime Nance. I have to clean!”
“We better leave Paul.”
“Alright Mary.” He stands up and moves away from the door. His wife follows.
“You need some help getting out of there Pot Head, hehe?”
“Goodbye,” adds Mary to the struggling robot. The couple shoots down Rabbit Hole.
—–
20 seconds later…
“Caught ya you rascal!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0005, 0403, Heterocera, Lapara^
The Musician woke up Wheeler the next day to the tune of “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes, played on a gothic violin purchased in a VHC City music store several days back. He’d been saving up for months. And he’s already dubbed the steep hillock he plays upon in the above picture Fiddler’s Knoll, a natural perch for such creativity. As fine as the musician is playing, and as interesting a song as he’s covering, Wheeler still awakens upset. She had no water to bathe with the night before. All the scrounging around the various corners of their compound — nay, their *prison* — had produced basically nothing of interest. And they were unable to scale the walls to see what was outside. No flying here as well. Trapped. But today was another day and perhaps Morris would return and give them more information.
Wheeler yawns and stretches her arms as she exits the caravan. The Musician halts his playing and looks down on her. “Past 10 now,” he explained. “Waited long enough to practice.” He then begins another song, which he introduces with the title and composer. “‘My Sweet Lord’; George Harrison,” he says, and immediately leaps into it.
Wheeler walks over and sits on one of the logs at the still brightly burning fire in the compound’s center. “This place stinks,” she says.
The Musician halts his playing again. “What’s that dear?”
“I said, this place *stinks*! Did you hear that?”
Sensing the mood, he gives up trying to practice for now and rather stumbles down the knob’s slope while cradling the violin in his arms, meeting Wheeler at the fire. “I don’t think it’s too bad,” he says, sitting down on a log beside her own. “I have my knoll now, my practice perch. I’m pretty happy here.”
Wheeler simmers a second before responding. “No… I meant this place *smells*… smells bad. And what’s that beside the fire? Looks like a bit of colored shoe.”
Just then a hole opens up in the cliff wall opposite the direction of their caravan with only a slight, brief rumble. Morris emerges.
“Ahh, I actually found you here. Good you’re up. I hope you slept well, or as well as possible. I heard there was trouble locating water.” He then stood unusually close to the fire, shuffling and kicking his feet around on the ground in front of it. Again, Wheeler and The Musician missed the hints.
“No water, yeah,” Wheeler said. “Tougher for a girl.” She glared over at The Musician, who moved his violin to the opposite side.
“Well, no fear in that now. I found a portal to the outside. It was those darn foxes all along. One for each of us. I’ll go first, just to make sure it’s safe and it works again. Give me above 5 minutes before heading in yourself.” He moves around the fire and leaves just as quickly as he came, exiting through the hole again.
Wheeler only waits about 30 seconds tops and then bounded off the log and toward the opening. “Come on Musician,” she beckons with a wave. “I want to see what he’s up to if we can.”
Inside they found the cutest little things possible.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0004, 0403, Heterocera, Muff-Bermingham^^, Rubi^
“Turns out Unch and The Librarian might be one and the same. Keat Owens The Librarian is, underneath it all, what’s called a giant besalisk, a 4 handed version. It’s the involved salamander lineage that doesn’t allow him to be burned, thus the perfect nemesis for firestarter Jerome T. Newton, who we also know now is another version of Wheeler. The ash grey marble hands were a prop.”
“This just gets stranger and stranger,” returns Old Mabel. “The Woods are too peculiar. They could easily drive one mad with their continual twisty-turny ways.”
“Yes,” states Baker, also noticing that Old Mabel didn’t mention anything about moving *away* from said woods. She was engaged for certain.
“I want to know everything about The Diagonal,” she then said.
—–
“Here, let me just clear off some of these beer cans. And: voila.”
“How long did you say you’ve had this?” asked Baker Bloch.
“It came with the place,” clarified Furry Karl the bartender. “Let’s see, that would be 2005. Old Kringles.” He chuckled, thinking of the good demon he bought the bar from while it was still over in Rubi. “Quite the character. Wore a cow bell around his neck at all times.”
“This must be from the original village. But I thought it was destroyed.”
“Nope,” states Karl plainly. “There it is. You can see it with your dead peepers right in front of you.”
“Could be a copy, a duplicate,” speculated Baker.
“Well, could a copy do *this*?” Karl touches the object and produces a shower of shamrocks.
“Maybe,” says Baker.
“No, this is the sign. *The* sign. The one turned over and thrown aside during the ’68 robolution. A turning point in our history and time.”
“You said robolution there, Furry Karl. Did you mean revolution?”
“It was what it was.”
—–
Old Mabel dug deeper into the mystery of the belalisk at the town library. Journal 2 contained some information, but she was determined to find more. A particular pattern in another part of the book also caught her attention this night of playing “stay awake as long as possible to avoid dreaming”. The book just fell open at the page while she was trying to push it away from her to lay her head on the table. A yawn quickly turned into a gasp. “The portal in my dreams?”
But it was too late. Already sound asleep, the monsters arrived quickly.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0003, 0403, Heterocera, Rubi^
Sunklands 