gone 02

“So you see, PS. It was never suppose to come to this. You over there. Me here.” Baker Blinker then looks down the pier toward the center of town. “Oh Me Gods. Here comes Buurb. You’re not suppose to be seen with me. Gotta scram!” Baker Blinker disappears. Precious Snowflake is alone when Buurb walks up. He didn’t spot Baker Blinker sitting with his Heartsdale friend. Else his brains would have been even more scrambled up than what they already were.

“Thank God, Precious. Someone I know. Are you alright? Is the mission okay?” He spoke rapidly, not letting Precious get a word in edgewise. “The town! It’s changed. I’ve walked all around it now, trying to find… *someone*. And here you are. Not at the mission but here. But this place is new too. A coffee shop, eh? Mabel would be pleased. Have you seen Mabel? I’ve tried and tried to reach her on the hot phone but no go. Do you have a phone? Perhaps yours would work better in this… new environment. Are you okay?” he repeats. “God I have to take a leak, Precious. I can’t even find a bathroom I’m familiar with! You know my condition.”

Precious Snowflake took it all in. She remembered the blueness, the change. Pink to blue and blue to pink. The mixed up boy-girl. Leeman.

Or Leemon.

“You walked right past someone on the way up here,” she said nonchalantly. “Did you not see them?”

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gone

Buurb came home from a hard day of peddling his wares. Something was different. The alley leading to his home was gone!

Sealed up by brick, it appeared. Why hadn’t Mabel phoned him?? But she was probably out doing stuff on her own. The consulting, yes. Maybe down at the mission dispensing free gravy to the poor, removing unwanted lumps when needed. It’s all about Montana lately for her.

Stunned, Buurb walks around the block starting left. The Queen’s Arms still here, yes. He hadn’t totally lost his sense of direction — this *was* the correct block, the correct road. But no alley on its north side now.

But then, just beyond: the alley!

Turned at a right angle (to the block)? He cautiously starts down it.

More complicated than before… more doors.

But no sign of Mabel’s and his apartment. None of the number of doors he tries seem to lead anywhere atall, in fact.

Nervously tapping his good foot on the stone blocks, he phones his wife. “Com’on Mabel. Pick up. Pick up…”

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red blue

I distinctly remember that conifer tree right there, Robot Derak Jones thinks while reviewing the appearance of (The Monster) night before last in his mind. Appearing and then fading away, like a noisy apparition. Never could find the source. Well today, he declares, I’m going to work a little harder at it, probe a little deeper.

His friend and neighbor Eraserhead Man suggested keeping his mind focused and looking for something red. “That’s what Gus remarked about the subject when I asked him,” EM said to RDJ yesterday evening after riding down on his John Deere tractor for another visit. At the exact moment he mentioned this, RDJ was looking at a flaming red maple tree framed against the night sky across the island sands, but thought this was just chance.

Opp has been missing a month now from his side. Annie and Karl, after the former painted the latter as what was obviously some kind of representation or stand in for the blue lad, left Pencil’s place last week to assume residency on the other side of the island. That’s when (The Monster) showed up. That, in fact, is when Pencil tossed his coffee into the fire at his home to produce Gus for the first time. Gus seems bound and determined to find that (Monster). I wonder why?

RDJ decides to check out the small house beside the tree.

“Oh. Sorry neighbor! Didn’t know anyone was here.”

“T’is alright,” the large, bathing man with a red beard spoke through the opening. “I’m a nudist anyway. No shame in a person finding another person naked. Thus the open door!”

—–

Red beard, Robot Derak Jones thought later while relaxing with Eraserhead Man on the sandy beach in front of his home and staring toward the same house. “Gus said to look for something red, right?” he asked of his friend.

“Right. And to keep your mind focused. If you do both you’ll probably succeed. Seems to always work for me.”

And then he saw it again.

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Islet

After riding the Wild Whale and other attractions at Fishers Island Amusement Park, a daily routine, Blue Jay Wade realizes he was getting tired and started looking homeward again.

Toward the namesake jut of land and attached boathouse of his own creation. For the tiny island makes the house in this case, like a tail wagging a dog.

Fisher’s Isle. Name for the great explorer of Underground Second Lyfe, along with his riding companion Lord Bendington. Four trees and the truth, they always said. When will they return? It was suppose to be on that island. Or inside that isle… beneath, something.

He was falling asleep while standing. Better get back to the boathouse and his soft “crashy couch” asap.

—–

Ahhh. That’s better.

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movement of the castle

“We haven’t seen Big Red since that day, Karl.”

“Yeah, last week.” Karl kept rocking and drinking. He could tell Annie was depressed. “Aww, baby doll, it’ll come around. This whole art thing.” Annie was weeping a little bit now. Karl sets down his 24 Oz Pabst Blue Ribbon on the porch railing and stands up. “Here, here, why don’t you try *me* again. Looky here, I’m already out of this shirt, hehe. The pants are next.”

“Just stop it Karl.” He knew Annie meant it. Silently, he slips his beer stained tank top back on. He understood when Annie was like this, jokes weren’t the way to go. Nor sex. Only this *art* could fill the void somehow. And it wasn’t happening yet.

A slow, rumbling noise starts in the distance. Thudding: giant, mechanical chicken legs crashing into the sand, but Annie and Karl didn’t know this part.

—–

Inside:

“As soon as we collect Gus, we’ll be ready to begin. But one of you 4 handed Librarians has to go.”

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don’t axe him

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.”

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!

“I think we may have found our variant, Catvas II,” Bill (Wheeler) spoke to the fishtailed feline reading beneath her chair after the record had finished playing. “*The* Variant.”

“That’s nice. Anything to help you paint and take your mind off that chess match.”

“I’m trying to pick out Roger’s song on this harp,” offered a plucking Grassy from the opposite side of the small porch. “It’s more complicated than expected. The bridge is interesting.”

“I timed it,” said Bill. “(The bridge) starts at 3:33. The whole song is 6:66. Oh, I’m sorry! I meant 7:06.” But Bill wondered about that time slip more and more as time went on.

“‘Time,'” proclaimed Grassy simply while continuing to pluck and strum. “Don’t care too much for the flip side of ‘Beach,’ though.”

“No, not as powerful and catchy,” followed Bill quickly.

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The State of Collagesity

Baker Bloch stands before the vacated Collagesity apartment formerly occupied by Cyberpaperdoll and her then lover/boyfriend Roger Pine Ridge. As we have seen in the story so far, they’ve moved to Iris in the center of the Heterocera continent, not too awful far northeast of Collagesity actually — only about 4 sims away using a diagonal measurement, or about a kilometer and a half in distance. But now Cyberpaperdoll seems to have left Roger alone in that watery place for a more exciting and hipper man (Bandit Boy). Last we see of Pine Ridge, he’s debating whether to unburden his recent woes on fellow Iris resident Bill (Wheeler). We’ll see how that develops.

But Cyberpaperdoll and Roger are not the only ones to leave Collagesity recently. Rocky Racco’s duplicate dwelling place, also attached to the SoSo Mall, has essentially been cleaned out, save a picture of David Bowie and a meditation pillow. Where is the furry wordsmith, curious readers may ask? It could be that he went back to Olde Lapara Towne, perhaps staying with cousins Sport and Racket up in the mountains above that virtual burg, or maybe assuming his old job at the town’s hotel where we first picked up with his story. But at any rate, he’s gone from Collagesity, perhaps never to return.

And also the 2 apartments in the Kidd Tower, formerly occupied by Mr. Babyface and Greg Ogden, are now unfurnished and currently unavailable to rent. My guess for these two is that they simply transitioned over to Middletown on the Jeogeot continent when Billy Jean Kidd created a doppleganger tower there in “Collagesity 2017 Later”, or novel 6 of our Collagesity series. *That* became more the real Kidd Tower, since The Kidd lived inside it and not the one in Collagesity. Again: best guess. Like the rest — but especially Rocky Racco, I believe — they will be missed. Doesn’t mean that they can’t return of course, but they’ll be missed in the meantime. And this is another structure attached to the SoSo Mall.

So just utilizing these pieces of information alone, it might seem that Collagesity is in a bit of trouble, especially since this is the first time we’ve really talked about my town in any depth in the present work, which is now halfway completed. But actually I believe this isn’t the case. To explain my reasonings for this determination, let’s start with the recent land ownership changes for Our Second Lyfe premium members as copied from the company blog.

As of March 14, 2018, pricing for each mainland tier allotment has been reduced by 10%. Additionally, Premium subscribers now receive 1024m² of bonus land allotment, doubled from the previous 512m².

Baker Bloch formerly owned 8704 square meters of land in Collagesity, maxing out his 40 dollar tier allowance. But now with the bump up of bonus land allotment from 512 to 1024, coupled with the 10% price reduction on tier, he can now own 9216 square meters of land at *35* dollars a month. And that’s exactly what I’ve chosen to have him do and be responsible for. Now let’s turn to the other town owner Baker Blinker, or, I should now say, *former* owner. For just after the price changes were announced, I decided that Wheeler Wilson should take over Baker Blinker’s land, since she has assumed the lion’s share of female roles in the blog, including Mabel — that’s the most important new addition in my eyes. And Baker Blinker herself, as a core avatar, hasn’t played a major factor in Collagesity novels since “Collagesity 2016 Later”, which is *5 1/2* Collagesity novels back as of this writing. True, she does play Karl in the present novel (congrats B. Blinker again!), but that doesn’t offset Wheeler’s Annie/Mabel/Bill power trio in my estimation. It was simply time to do this. But while Baker Blinker owned 1536 square meters to Baker Bloch’s 8704, her successor Wheeler only owns 1024 meters, which means she pays *0* dollars in tier each month under the new rules (as opposed to Baker Blinker’s 8 dollars a month tier payment for the 1536). Overall, I’m saving 13 dollars a month for the exact same amount of land (combined, in each case: 10,240). Doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really is long term. And justification enough from that alone to continue Collagesity into the forseeable future. The novels are still going strong — why not?

But the recombination of lands also gave Baker Bloch a considerably larger amount of free prims to work with — 504 as of this writing. The drawback is that Wheeler has very few prims left over from her 1024, even with the empty or near empty apartments surrounding SoSo Mall we talked about earlier. Again, it may not sound like much of a change, but it actually is. Baker Bloch has more power to enact his overall vision within Collagesity now, and with a more consolidated land base. Mabel (Wheeler) will continue to argue for the movement of her prim heavy Heartsdale Victorian style house to Collagesity. But Baker, I feel, has other plans…


The 2 owners of Collagesity staring at each other across a shared property line.

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next

“A move!” Magus Ellen exclaims upon teleporting into Iris and seeing his opponent’s Knight to King’s Bishop 4. “She’s just moving to move, but that’s okay.” He takes a thick lick. “This should be another easy one for me. Time for a castle.”

—–

“Holey moley Pencil. What is *that*?”

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post-perfection

“So you see Campbell O’Pine. Here at the edge of Misacs, for instance, we also have the beginning of the end of Our Second Lyfe. That gain in elevation over there in, let’s see (Sidechick checks his inworld map), Bushchat, is more than just that. It gives us perspective upon the basically flat 8×8 of the themed house regions preceding it, The Perfection. With the essentially endless repetition of these houses beyond, the Linden peoples are drilling in the message that Our Second Life is not the be all end all of virtual reality. More is around the bend. And that’s where the Corrigan statues come into play, especially the Queen’s. Are you ready?”

“Sure.”

“Let me go find her and then I’ll teleport you over.”

“All right.”

—–

It takes a little bit for Sidechick Corea to come across the Corrigan Queen. He first stumbles upon the multicolored iris eyes originally noted by core avatar Baker Bloch over 8 years ago.

He then spots the Queen behind him. “I’ll just teleport Campbell over now so that he can walk with me toward her.”

—–

“It’s fascinating, Campbell. The body of the Queen lies in Pixy but her arm and the blueish orb she holds extends over into Corrigan. But we call her the Corrigan Queen because of all the other stuff in that sim, like the eyes you just saw.”

“And then the flat Queen. Is that the proper way to put it?”

“Good enough. But I want you to think about that blue orb almost direct above your head. In fact, let’s just fly up there to take a closer look.”

—–

“Remarkable, Campbell O’Pine. Ellen is right. I think this orb *has* to be you in some form.”

—–


The Corrigan “Flat Queen”.

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