Tag Archives: POT-D

June 30, 2019 · 8:11 am

The B.’s

Buster Damm dared to take off a tiny bit of time from studying and scouting to bring our old friend Duncan Avocado into the picture. They sat in the same VHC City diner, at the same table even where the original agreement was made. Duncan still wore the Pot-D heart-within-skeleton-hands pendant. Buster still knew where he was at any moment. “Sooo. Here we are, Duncan.”

“We are,” spoke Duncan plainly. He didn’t hesitate this time; he’d been around the cell block too many times in the meantime. “Whatever it is: yes.”

“Great!” Buster immediately spat in his hand and leaned forwards across the table. 5 minutes till sunrise…

—–

Duncan A. awoke in a captive position, but then stood up. No chains this time. Relief! He wipes his forehead of perspiration and looks around. Pipes. This must be Pipersville Buster talked about. He moves to the table on the far side of the room.

African-American nudie pic, he ruminates. Jim A.’s heartthrob, he understands, the thing that held *him* captive. What happened to her? he wonders, then turns. One way to find out. He ascends the stairs out of there and tries the door: unlocked. Still not a captive.

He opens the door. Music.

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December 20, 2018 · 7:45 am

pause 06

“I see we’re wearing matching trackers.”

Duncan looked down. “The Pot-D pendant?” Yes, it was red and hanging around his neck as well. He hadn’t thought about it before.

“Except mine’s from Pan-Z, the other, newer organization that does those kind of things. More thoroughly, if you ask me. Much more.” Jeffrie Phillips was wondering how the *heck* Duncan was going beyond the mirror book via improvisation. He stared through him to the 3 trackers he knew dwelt within, one by one by one.

Then: “I of course know you’re in there… *girls*.” But Phillips knew not who he was dealing with (Ragdoll titters here). These were battle tested *women*, fighting for the core of Pot-D which they understood to be ultimate truth.

“We know about the treasure,” they admitted (Indigo). “We know about Big Baby Jane” (Ruby). “We know about *Audrey*” (Ragdoll). “Audrey,” she repeated through Duncan’s lips. He gestured toward the black and white, zig-zag patterned chairs they sat in. He pointed out the “teapot” between them. He indicated an owl decorating a fluttering national flag he rezzed out of his inventory, bought at the Snowlands infohub just before teleporting over here.

“‘The owls are not what they seem,’ I know.” Jeffrie paused. “So you’re just *handwriting* this in. To make, I don’t know, a more satisfying ending?”

“Yes,” they admitted as a collective.

“Is it working?”

—–

“*Is* it working, Ruby?” asked Indigo to her left, sensing the fatigue. “We can’t go on much longer. The 12th (novel) awaits!”

“We *have* to continue onward,” implores young Ragdoll to Ruby’s right. “Duncan knows who Jeffrie Phillips is, and that the treasure guarded day and night by Big Baby Jane is a, um, red herring, a duplicate of the one near the Snowy Peak. Another decoy.”

“Can we compare the 2 treasures again, just to make sure?” Ruby knew they could. “Hold on,” she says. “We’re almost done!”

Yes. The same. “Well, that does it, I think,” Ruby then says, finally lifting pencil from paper. She shuts the book. “The treasure cannot be found here.” She puts it back on the shelf at the end of graphic novels journals 1 through 10.

But they weren’t quite yet finished.

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December 7, 2018 · 5:53 am

Lineside

—–

“They’ll really and truly send you up the river for this one if you don’t cooperate, Duncan. Pin the murders on you one by one. Go down the list, create justifications. Is that what you really want?”

“Of course not. I didn’t kill Ruby!”

“Keep it down, keep it down,” he implored in his cool, grunge voice. “That one we can remake through the leg. Legs are like 11, but, taken apart, 1 apiece. Cloning abilities. But the 12th? Gone.”

“Indigo. Again…!”

“I know — pipe it down. You didn’t do it. Well… that’s the price you pay for being a member of that silly Pot-D. People can use you against your will. You wake up in jail, you wake up in a mortuary, you wake up on a beach, you wake up inside a whale’s mouth. No rhyme nor reason for it. But now there’s a reason. And that’s what *we’re* here for. Pan-Z. Horizontal and vertical are the only directions that will counter diagonal. The Straight is a subsection of The Cross. This is where they meet: this tree lined lane and then the island just beyond. It’s the Mason-Dixon Line all over again. Are you ready to cross into Dixie?”

Duncan glanced over through the cracked rear window of the bus stop. “I do like tree lined roads, granted.”

“Good. Then it’s settled. When you see me again, I won’t look like this.” Then he was gone; winked out.

Duncan thought back to the terrible, horrible revelations Colonel Flagstaff just spoke about on the border of Harrietsville and Arkendale — where The Straight and The Cross supposedly link energies with each other. He could be the 13th. He could be pinned for it all. He could be in the pen forever and ever. He must sign the new contract with a blood filled pen or else: pencil him gone as well.

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October 29, 2018 · 6:10 am

tnb 02

The world seemed a little haywire tonight.

And Duncan was feeling a little stupid because the actual center of the Rhodenwald sim was *not* the pumpkin cart he thought before — and which the owner of the parcel was “hiding” behind when he first met him — but, still, this *orange pumpkin* between a playground fence and the outer wall of that hedge maze also mentioned in the last post.

And the green dot representing this person on the map definitely *was* at the center. He thought… maybe he was wrong all along.

But it also seemed a little peculiar that, night of all nights, Duncan finds anomalous plane objects in these particular Rhodenwald parcels owned by Black.

Although they disappear quickly this time.

Let’s back up a bit…

—–

“We didn’t want to tell you about the anomaly quite yet but something or someone is forcing our hand. Happened April 19th of this year. Reported in the community forums — you can read details there.”

Duncan wondered why Sid/Angus Nuffin moved to the table and away from the suave chair beside him he was sitting in to pull up the appropriate interweb pages. Had he finished with it?

“Notice also,” Sid continued, “that whoever took that inworld picture of the map was standing right on the site of the Rhode Gallery, even though the gallery wasn’t yet there at the time; only built a little later. July I believe.”

“Queer,” came Duncan’s simple response. It was all a bit overwhelming, especially adding in the Rhode synchronicities concerning the Meat City-Kamas UT overlap. Hidden mountain treasure? Was that what this was all about? Pot-D as gold seekers? The Diagonal itself as a red herring?

“One more thing for now. Look at the picture before that one on the community forum post.”

Duncan tried but failed. “I– I can’t pull it up,” he admitted, embarrassed.

That’s what we suspected, Sid thought, and had to show him a little later.

Sugar House. The reason they brought Duncan Avocado into the club in the first place.

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October 28, 2018 · 12:58 pm

the new black

For his first assignment as an official member of Pot-D, Duncan Avocado was asked to check behind Indigo in investigating the Rhodenwald sim, somehow right across the *road* from Rhode Gallery just to the west. Only sim beginning with “Rhode” besides one called Rhode Islands, which is apparently under construction. Per the usual start of a particular sim investigation, he decided to teleport into its 128/128 center (standard landing point through generic search of any SL sim), but was instead directed to a preset landing point about 16 meters southwest, at the entrance to a Halloween themed maze.

He takes a seat on the bench next to his landing position.

Duncan had no desire to try to solve a maze tonight. From his notes, he knew that Indigo, through her alternate, human self Vanille (who you may remember from the Diagonal Alley scenes in Collagesity novel 10) had already investigated it and found nothing of heightened interest. Duncan was looking for new angles, per designated Pot-D leader Angus Nuffin’s suggestions.

Spying a monorail station not far behind the bench, he decides to take a car ride — Indigo didn’t mention doing this. He whirls around and around a number of Meat City sims before passing through Rhodenwald again and then ending at another station in Baylors Haunt to the south. It was at this point Duncan looked at the inworld map to see exactly where he was, and noticed an avatar at *128/128* Rhodenwald, a place he knew visiting avatars could not directly teleport into now. Thinking back to former synchs involving center of sims, especially the black man who appeared at 128/128 Gaston in, erm, Collagesity novel 7 (prompting the end of that particular story in Sansara’s Snowlands), Duncan decides to go check out this new developement, and spots an antlered, loincloth wearing figure seemingly hiding behind a cart loaded with pumpkins. 128/128: center of sim. *Had* to be there on purpose.

Checking the profile, Duncan saw the avatar was named *Black*, and also had a second life partner named the same. Surnames each. And, in fact, owner of quite a number of parcels in the sim, including the one with the maze and the pumpkin cart. This was the owner… and later Duncan figured out he was signaling offworld to someone. Not him but his mate. But why in this particular spot?

Duncan continued to scan the figure, thinking his user AFK. But, no, the avatar moves from behind the cart and faces Duncan directly. He is aware of his presence for certain. Black man confronts black man.

Duncan had found something.

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October 27, 2018 · 7:15 am

swears

“So hard to get comfortable in these f-cking chairs,” Buster complained, wishing he would have tried one or two more before Duncan showed up. But he didn’t have time.

“Yeah, I saw your green dot over here and decided just to teleport over, to save you the trouble of sending me an invite and all. So: what’s up, Buster? You said this was of utmost importance.”

Buster squirmed a bit more before replying. “Pot-D is what’s up, Duncan Avocado.” He let the high pitched declaration hang in the air.

“Pot-D?” Duncan thought about it a second. He looked around the restaurant; checked his inworld map before leaning in closer. “Drugs?” he said in a lower tone.

“No, no, no Duncan A. Get your mind out of the slum, er, gutter. I’m talking about a secret society we want you to join. To help us with the investigation of The Diagonal. Pot-D stands for Protectors of the Diagonal. That’s all.”

“Oh.” Duncan Avocado pondered on this as well, then answered: “W-what do I have to do? Sign some papers or something? Um, be sworn in?”

The small vampire shook his head. “No, you’re basically already in. It’s all verbal in this club. Angus Nuffin suggested it, and he’s sort of the boss, the ringleader I suppose.” Buster’s pace was brisk; he wanted to get Duncan initiated and then get the hell out of here. The Chelsea so close, so close. Blue Angel. “What do the initials R.B. mean to you?”

Duncan went into thinking mode again. “Nothing,” he then answered after a spell. “I don’t know anything it’s attached to… for me… personally. Could be wrong.”

“Good. Then you’re on the right timeline — you’d know if you knew. You’re as good as a member right now.” He reached into his xxxs sized jacket and pulled out a necklace, silver in color with a red pendant. “This is yours. You have to put it on now before I leave. The necklace must touch part of your skin. That way we can always be in communication with you. Are you cool with this still?”

Duncan Avocado had been studying The Diagonal in his own way for many months now, and George with him (Duncan and George go *way* back together). He’d been waiting for a new role to show up at his doorstep. And now it had. He didn’t want to miss another opportunity.

“Sure. Why not.” He grasped the necklace from Buster’s extended hand, put it on.

“Argg, daybreak. F-cking, cursed sun. Must split, Duncan. We’ll be in touch. Get it? Touch.” He didn’t wait for Duncan to respond, but just winked out with this, right when the sun’s hateful rays were washing red over his seat.

Duncan stuck around a while and finished his croissant and cup of creamy coffee. Pretty good. Maybe George and he can eat breakfast here tomorrow. Talk about what has transpired.

But what *did* just transpire? he then considered.

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July 24, 2018 · 6:53 am

ending 01

“Don’t you guys watch anything but MTV?” complained Bill/Wheeler good-naturedly.

“I’m telling you Queen Bill.”

“Bill, please. Or The Bill. Whichever.”

“You were sitting *right* there when you told me we had to move our trailer here to Rubi. Well, not in that chair, but the chair I use to have over in Obscure.”

Bill tested the springs again a little. “Yeah, I’m really sorry about this furniture — we’ll get you a better chair. And the toilet in the living room!

Unacceptable. I’ll get Clyde the town fixit man out here as early as I can. He’s working on the pipes of the Oo’d Church this weekend. But we’ll get him out here asap.”

“The dining room set is nice,” states Angus Nuffin, attempting to paint a brighter picture of their situation than Bill.

“No, this is my responsibility. I’m early in my rulership. I’ll right the wrong.”

“Okay, that’s great Bill. We really appreciate it. Now… back to that night you visited me in Obscure…”

—–

“She just doesn’t remember it,” Angus complains to his daughter Ragdoll later on while sitting at the dining table. “And I don’t know how to jog her memory. She’s new at her job — *I’m* new at this. Indigo can *hypnotize* with the best, but unhypnotizing someone like Bill (he was going to say, “as stubborn as” but decided on “like” here) — not as easy as I, we, supposed.”

Ragdoll listened intently. “Then maybe The Diagonal itself should wake her up. Indigo could take her on a walk in the woods…” She paused, thinking of a better idea. “Or…”

“Obviously, Obscure is no good, since we moved the trailer from there because of the lowered energy.”

Ragdoll remained patient, knowing her beloved father was under a lot of pressure right now to bring back Bill’s memories. “What I was going to say,” she continued in her kind way, “is that we should take her to a particular place on The Diagonal. But not Obscure.”

“Right, right. Sorry I interrupted you there.” Distracted by a sound behind him, Angus looked at the clock. 2:01 in the morning. “We better get some sleep. Looks like Indigo is staying in the woods again tonight. Good for her! I couldn’t ask for 2 more dedicated daughters to the cause. Pot-D forever!”

“Pot-D forever!” echoed Ragdoll almost as enthusiastically.

“Before you turn in, sweetie, let’s take one more look at your brand new alternate self.”

“Okay, but only if you change in turn,” replied Ragdoll sweetly.

“Alright, Zero. On the count of 3, then. 1…2…”

“You look great, Ragdoll.”

“Shirley, please. When I’m in this form.”

“Of course.” Angus/Sid watched Ragdoll/Shirley scratch again. “But we have to give you something for those fleas, birthday girl.”

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June 16, 2018 · 7:07 am

the “i” and the “y”

“We’re going to be here a long time. Aren’t we daddy?”

Angus didn’t know how to answer the pointed question by his daughter but he knew they were. The energy was just too strong here. Much more palpable than Obscure. True source revealed!

“It was those woods all along.” his daughter Ragdoll spoke again. “Wasn’t it?”

—–

When they had returned inside, Ragdoll asked her father if Rubi was spelled with a “y”, with a negative response coming back at her. Then who’s Ruby? she wonders afterwards. Misspelling? And why the attachment to the Max deity? She could sneak out of town and ask Max directly, she supposed, but that had become illegal thanks to Sister Martha Lamb. But… middle of the night. Who would be watching?

Sister Martha Lamb, that’s who.

—–

“Ssooo…,” Martha Lamb hissed from behind, startling her. “You’ve chosen Max (over the others). Looks like we’ll have to talk to the *Town Council* about *this*.”

And she hadn’t even received a clear answer to her question tonight.

—-

“Maybe (the graffiti) was all just some kind of elaborate trap set up by Lamb herself,” she theorized to her sister later back at their shared room in the Rubi trailer. She stopped typing in her journal and turned to face Indigo directly. “You’ve never talked to him. Have you?” Indigo just shrugs from her lying position in return. She’d almost always assumed the conversation between the two was just in Ragdoll’s head but rarely said anything about it out of politeness. Let the child have something to believe in, to hang her hat on, Indigo had thought down through the years now. We’re stuck in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. But, anyway, it was all leading up to this. The woods. The town. The religious battles between the Oo’dites, the Cheeseheads, and now, most likely, the Maxers who can’t be x-ed out. Ragdoll would soon turn 13. Old enough to know the truth. She will be initiated into the fold.

This is what Pot-D was about now: The woods. The town. And, of course, The Diagonal itself. Indigo will hide in the 125/125 tree tomorrow until the sun comes up. And she must remember to take Karl’s book with her for study and entertainment. Tinbaby, hrmph!

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June 12, 2018 · 7:20 am

too soon

Mary usually talked to Ralph (horse) during her after-dark angling sessions at Rubisea, but tonight was different. Indigo, a night owl herself, made an introduction.

—–

Indigo was full of questions about her new home. “Why do you call it the Rubi Sea?” the blue woman asked in her deep, almost masculine voice. And with odd overtones to it.

“Ru-BI-se-A,” Mary pronounced correctly. “It’s just a joke name. It’s a little pool of water but we call it a sea, see? And of course Rubi is the sim it’s in — we’re in. Well, *you’re* in. Say you just moved in night before last?” She looked over at the trailer sitting on the southwest corner of the lot, perched atop the spring that feeds the pool. She was eager to go take a closer look but Indigo seemed to want to keep her distance from it, maybe so as not to wake kinfolk Angus and Ragdoll inside.

” Ru-BI-se-A,” Indigo repeated, and gazed over at the water to her left. “And this *perch*, you say, is the only fish in it. Like the Perch restaurant daddy and sis and I ate at yesterday with the big, human head mounted on the wall — another Perch. And then to add to it we had the perch at Perch.” She pointed left. “From this pool?”

Nah, these little fishes are hardly worth the bait to catch him. The restaurant’s fish are imported from the big fresh water lakes over in the Pond District, I believe. Tethia and Sesea. Maybe Pruni too.”

“Tethia and Sesea and Pruni.” Indigo found that saying names aloud helped her remember them. Or writing them down — but she forgot to bring her notepad and ink pen out tonight. She was going to start taking notes on the position of all the trees of the forest. Her daddy said that’s how she can help best right now in their efforts. Ragdoll will focus on religion, he’ll focus on The Diagonal as a whole, and Indigo will have the woods. She’s started reading Karl’s “Blood Curdling Tells of the Rubi Woods,” a Collagesity classic by now.

“But tell me more about yourself,” Mary then requested. “I know you’re from Obscure just over the hill — beyond The Wall. But were you born there?” Mary was guessing not, judging by her colorful appearance.

“Bennington.” Indigo almost spit the name out. “Don’t want to talk about it,” she added clippingly.

So Mary thought of other things for potential discussion. “How did you get involved in this — Pot-D wasn’t it?”

Indigo reflexively found herself biting her tongue again. She had slipped up near the beginning of their nighttime conversation, so glad she was to talk to another human being besides Angus and Ragdoll. So she decided to erase the faux pas from Mary’s mind. Indigo began toying with the triangular red amulet hanging round her neck, with glints from its silver skeletal hands catching Mary’s eye now and then. “Beautiful, isn’t it. My daddy gave this to me when I turned 13.” Indigo then reached around with both hands and removed the necklace, laying it on the table between them and making sure the triangle faced Mary full on. The fisherwoman was already transfixed by now.

“Pot-D is a secret between you and me Mary. Collagesity will know in time what it means, but for right now you must keep it locked away in your mind. Locket. Locket. Lock-it.”

And just like that the deed was done. Indigo gathered up the necklace and said she had to get back to bed now since the sun was about to come up. Mary picked up her fishing pole and headed back to Darkly Manor, with the last thing she recalled about their conversation being Indigo’s hatred of her home town. Farmington, wasn’t it? Something “-ing”, anyway. Pretty sure.

“Goodbye, um…,” but Mary also couldn’t quite recall the name of the horse she had been friends with going on a year now.

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June 11, 2018 · 7:11 am

The introduction of Pot-D.

“Thank you for waiting, Roger.”

“No problem… The Bill.”

“Bill, please. For now.”

“Well I’ll get straight to it. Since this is the only Fisher Island in Wisconsin (Roger indicates the map still displayed on the media feed of The Table Room), and then the only *Fishers* Island — plural — in the state is on a Hazelhurst topo map — that we’re talking about an exchange: Fisher or Fishers Island for New Island. I am such an exchange, after all, since I’m not Roger Waters but Roger Pine Ridge. And it has worked out all right for me. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are indeed,” affirms Bill. “And we’re glad to have you sitting at our Table. You are *The* Variant, as I might be *The* Bill. Interesting symmetry.”

“Is it?”

“Could be.”

Roger puts a hand to his naturally cracked lips. “Does this Ruby have to affect the change? Can you not do it yourself?”

“As you know, RPR, I am indeed queen of Collagesity, but only because Mabel is so involved in New Island that’s she’s rarely here. Once she returns — all this aberrant energy she feels is dealt with — then she’s back here and a battle shapes up. I need to know what side you’re on. I’d like you to stand with me, obviously. Not that your position at The Table is in doubt, it’s just…”

“So Mabel controls Ruby,” interrupts an engrossed Roger Pine Ridge. “Ruby, the girl of 15, of course, and not Rubi the Woods. No one can control the forest.”

“Not so fast on that, Roger PR, my aberrant friend. We have a plan.”

“We?”

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