Entry 4
Hmmm, long time, no entry. Been away for a while... been busy trying to get the hell out of here.
Gaa! I'm trapped here with the loonies! Should have left when I could. Looking back on it, seems I broke the black road. Ate it? Fixed it? D'oh! But I should still be able to get back, right? Just trump out, and there you go. Nope. Seems to be a line in the shadows, as it were, that Trumps just can't get across. Wonder just what I broke...
Well, beginnings: It was getting late and there was some talk about the invasion starting back up. Eh, paranoid. But, hey. Whatever. Mrs. Green dropped by because someone had seen things in the sky. Nice big city up there. Great illusion or something. They say it's 'real', with plenty of caveats to make it anything but. I'll probably fly up there some time to check it out. Later, full moon's gotta be out and... and... and...
Anyway, we see some ghostly demons coming down the stair, cause there's a stair that goes up from a place on the mountain. Blaze does some sorcery and puts a cloud in front of the moon and the whole thing goes away, demons included. As mildly entertaining as it is, I'm bored pretty easily by this. I've seen movies, 2D, 3D, it's all the same. The cloud goes away and the city reappears and then nothing happens for a while, so I go back to my room. Mrs. Green and Blaze say they're gonna stay up and guard, but I hear Mrs. Green come back a while later, just before I went to sleep.
Woke up to some movement on the balcony. I switch to cat to see better, then go check it out. Seems someone's out on my balcony watching the whole pie in the sky. He's got a cloak on though so I can't tell who it is. Still, it's being my balcony, and the guy looking like Blaze, and I've gotta go anyway, so I saunter up and mark him. You know, the whole "Spray first, ask questions later." thing. "You're MINE now, B!TCH!" I say before he kicks me over the rail. The guy is not Blaze, but looks startled as hell. This is so not cool. I'd marked the place up already; if he didn't want to be part of it, he should have stayed away or gotten my permission. I land no problem because that's what cats do, then switch to Dragon and hop back up to my balcony to assert my authority on my new property. I make a swipe for him but he's already trumping away. That's OK, it takes more than a little magic to loose MY mark. Blaze is in the middle of seducing Mrs. Green on her balcony but I interrupt to ask who my new property is. Then I realize I'd seen him before in one of those trump decks Muscle flashed me when I first arrived. Findo, Fernando, something like that. Another dead half brother of Muscle's. Woohoo! I own a corpse! Should have marked Blaze when I had the chance, then I'd have 2!
So Corpse still has a room in the castle that no one's supposed to go into. I enlist Blaze. Hey, if I own Corpse, I own all his stuff too :) Blaze knows of some neat hidden passages in the castle that get us in Corpse's bathroom. Through Fuzzie's mother's bathroom. Now she looks like she has fun screwing around. She also has a much better bathroom than I do. (Some of you might think I'd be all excited about hidden passages, but why bother. If I've been there, I can probably get there again by sketch or Trump.)
We give the 'suite' a good once over, and I come across a toasty fairy that had been sacrificed in Corpse's bathroom and a box of trumps attached to the bottom of his bed. Classic place for those with low intelligence. Not too stupid though, cause the box is booby trapped. Hops me down to some dungeons down-down. Yes, that's where, or near where the labyrinth is. The bars are not a problem to get through in cat, but the guards freak when I head for the stairs. I tell them to chill out and get used to it, then head back up to meet up with Blaze. He's in his room, and brought the whole bed out with him. No slouch in the sweet meats, him. He pokes the deck out with his dagger, dagger goes to the dungeon, we get the deck. Got some nice cards there, some places I recognize too.
One catches my attention, with a wolf on both sides. Turns out it's programmed special, but I don't know that right away. Anyway, both sides are identical, but that's not hard to figure out. Just concentrate on one side and, hey, it works. I gotta push though. Blaze just ain't terribly adventurous, don't want to come with. Tsk! I think he has a serious case of One-Track-Mind syndrome. Sex all the way. How... boring. Ah well, he can be entertaining, but life is more than women... or men... or both. Rutting anyway.
So I push some more, and pop out in Monotone world. Meh. Been there, done that. But I'm hungry now. Been shifting all night and I haven't had anything to eat since I went to bed the first time. And there's nothing to eat!! What kind of shadow IS this!?! I go looking. Everyplace has _something_ to eat, if you look hard enough. I come to a river in the middle of this plains I'm walking across. Water tastes funny. I go looking for fish. No fish. So I sit down and think for a bit. Oh, my trumps aren't working for some reason. Barely cool off, not enough to condense warm breath even. So I'm puzzling, when I see a tentacle head up stream. Food! I grab it, wrestle with it a little, cut it off, and eat it. Hmmm, taste of magic, taste of... ?Fuzzy? Why are there Fuzzy magic tentacles wandering around out here? Hey, maybe I can catch a ride...
Surprise, surprise, another one heads up stream. His idea of logic seems to be, "If something bites part of you off, see if it will do it again." I switch to polar bear because they can swim better and are used to the cold. The water is mountain stream cold. We wrestle for a few minutes, then he tries to electrocute me! Eat anti magic power gesture! Ack! It's gone. Oh, yeah, gesture because I can't speak here either. Wonder if that screws with magic... Certainly something to find out. I'm pouting when I get bumped by this oblong black egg like thing, floating down the river. Hey, I can do eggs.
Crack it open and there's an eviscerated demon inside. Gobble, gobble, yum! And look, another egg, and another, and another... Food! Oddly, not very filling for demon, but it's something. And they're all dead for some reason. Ah, a no guilt feeding spree! At first, they're intermittent and I have no problem getting them all and eating them, but then there starts this big group, and I gotta switch to keep up. After only a short time, I just go Kracken and filter the whole river. Then I get curious, and start swimming up river.
Takes a while, but the meal is excellent on the way. Kracken are about as hungry as Dragons, but don't get that kick from magic. Just one big garbage disposal. I'm working my way up, and there are streams splitting off but I stay with the main one. After all, demons come from around where I live, at least these ones do, so maybe I can find out where they are coming from and, I dunno, worm my way back through? Need to make sure I don't get eviscerated or turned inside out or anything, going through backwards. Or maybe they were coming through backwards and that's why they're in... odd configurations.
So I get to the source. Takes me a minute to figure out what's going on. It's a river of oddly tasting blood, coming out of the chest of this guy. The guy is just standing there, look of shock on his face, hands over the hole in his chest. I kinda wander up to him in polar bear form and ask him if he's ok. Oh yeah, can't talk. Give him a poke anyway, when he doesn't respond. Seems to be in shock, so I grab some demon intestine and bone and do my best to patch him up. And the river starts to go away. What the f*ck!!! Karma just doesn't act normally some places. Well, nothing for it. I sling the guy over my back, switch to polar bear and start paddling back down the river, making sure to keep in a deep enough spot so it's easy going. Pass and nab my stuff on the way by where I'd first found Fuzzy. A while later, we've come to the end, the proverbial drain. No lake or ocean of blood, just a hole in the ground. Well, nothing for it, down we go.
This turns out to be some f*cked up gate to another shadow, right into the middle of another of those damned labyrinths. Gaaa... no, wait. I'm supposed to be able to go anywhere from the center of one of these. They told me how it's supposed to work too. I tell the thing to take me home as I think of my Master's place. Nothing happens. I try some other places nearby. Nothing. I try my Master, and of course, nothing. Picky picky picky. So I try for my rooms in that castle on the Amber shadow which works of course. Just where I _don't_ want to go! Ah, how useless can you get. Piece of sh!t! Well, I've still got the punctured guy, figured I may as well take him up to the infirmary.
Big commotion. Yet _another_ family member. Only lost this time, just presumed dead. Make a f*cking Trump and you could maybe keep in touch you f*cking... Long day. They are overjoyed. One of the surgeons makes a wisecrack about my stitching materials, I make a wise crack about life in general. Muscle and Blaze arrive. Blaze is actually nice to Muscle. I try not to snicker. Seems muscle... and Muscle, is good for something after all. Blaze gives Muscle a !trump of me! Wonderful. Just f*cking wonderful. Time for this day to end NOW. I head off to my rooms, then change my mind and head for the kitchens. Hey, I wasn't eating on the way back down the river, and those demons were nowhere near as filling as they should have been.
I go back to the infirmary a few hours later to see how Weasel is doing, and there's that dwarf sorcerer guy who was supposed to have made those truly beautiful trumps walking out of the infirmary. I say hi, he says thanks and trumps out. Huh? For Weasel? Huh? I shrug, and find out that Fuzzy was brought in by the dwarf. Looked small, but he must be strong for his size. Fuzzy is out cold... again. *snicker* Weasel is doing well for someone who got stabbed through the heart. He sure did bleed a lot. Must be a shape shifter too. Or a mage. Don't think I could put out a river like that without a constant supply of food... Maybe that's why all the demons were dead and... unfulfilling.
Went back to bed. Bang bang bang on the door. Gotta get someone to spell it to be quiet... no then someone might break in to get me. Use a f*cking trump you f*cking... f*ck! No, no, it might be Muscle, so I get up and check. Hey you never know, he might have forgotten how... *snicker* But no, it's Fuzzy. Turns out the day's not over, or that this run is going to go on for a week, because he starts raving about how he knows it was me who tried to eat his own personal shadow and that he would be making sure I'm on Kingy's list of people to painfully kill right below him. Then walks off. What the f*ck!?! Then I get it. He's f*cking with my head, only he's insane so he's speaking in Stupid. Hey, I can speak Stupid too. I told him where he can fillet, stuff, and shove it, but he didn't react. Must not have been using the right dialect.
Next morning, I figure I need to leave. The whole loony bin thing is getting to me. I hunt up Blaze. We haggle a bit and I get the other trumps out of Corpse's deck that I wanted. So I head north for the black road on that Flame horse. There's the black road, but it's not so black, nor so road like. Just don't seem to work anymore. Now I'm pissed. I try the Trumps that look familiar, but they don't work, only get a little cool. Then I try the trump like a tree, and there we are in front of the tree. And it's a talking tree. Wonderful. Tells me it's the boarder between the courts of chaos and Amber and that the way has been closed. Oops.
No, I didn't put it together right away, cause I'm not into that magic stuff. Master told me about it. Awful lot of work for nothing in my opinion, when a little power word pops it. And you only get a dozen or so spells unless you start playing games or get some artifact to put them in. And you gotta keep renewing them. I don't think so.
Anyway, no way by. I try some things, some tricks with trumps, nothing. But if he's the barrier, and I become the barrier, I'll be able to become myself on the other side. Hey, it makes sense to me, doesn't have to make sense to anyone else. Just has to work. So I become Egg. Or Ygg, or whatever. Egg works... Woodie. There I stand, Woodie I am, and Woodie I am for a while, then Woodie I'm not. Parts of bark and leaves and stuff all around me, and... another f*cking labyrinth! I'm not in the middle, so life is still OK. Or not. No trumps and no paper or ink, and the surrounding area is all foggy, and it's that nothingness fog I hate. But I can make paper, and ink, and stuff. Takes me a week, but I've got a sketch for Mrs. Green, and I'm outta there. Tried some location ones first, both on the "Amber" side and on the "Courts" side of Woodie, but those didn't get me anywhere.
Mrs. Green was curious as to what was going on, so I introduce her to Woodie. Turns out Mrs. Green's Dad, the one she hasn't met yet, put me by that new labyrinth thing. Gee, thanks. And you too Woodie. She wants to go of course. Woodie gives her a staff (walking staff, Blaze) and tells her to plant it at that other place, on account of that nothingness fog eating the place up when I left. Said he'd make it all better. Mrs. Green is cute, so I make a sketch, then grab my trumps and we hop in. She plants the staff, which turns into a tree on the spot. Hey, Woodie! Got another tree, or head, or body, or whatever. Sure, OK, so Woodie, why is it that Mr. Green... hmmm, not green though... could walk around you? Oh, he made his own path. Of course. Silly me. Mrs. Green can't help me get around Woodie's ego though, so she helps me trump back to the Loony side. Something there about being her father's daughter making it so she can use trumps there when I can't. Keep the sketch, I'll make another, and I'm back at another Woodie on A-Side.
By this time, I'm entirely too frustrated... and hungry... to think, so I go back to my cell in the castle. No my rooms, but may as well be my cell. And guess what, that attack that was supposed to come down the black road didn't. Whole episode brings up interesting implications about my homies and these loonies. If my logic is correct, and I'm interpreting events correctly.
I need more info on this whole f*cked up place. My mastered probably know, or know how to find out, but he's not about, and I'm not about him and can't seem to get there. Stupid talking tree! Calm. Calm. Maybe Fuzzy will walk by and I can SMACK him. Maybe feel better. That dwarf guy seemed nice enough. Oddly sane. From a meeting of all of 10 seconds. Probably best to be nice to him. Magic and Trumps... could get ugly. Dwarkin. Dwarkin. Sounds like a courts name... Maybe he knows how to get back. If not him then Kingy.
Hold - on... There was that story of Kingy and Dwarkin I skipped over in that book...
Ah-hah! Libraries are wonderful things. Yes, must get into one of their good graces. Kingy's supposed to be da sh!t compared to the Dwarkin guy, but if Kingy can't make trumps, don't see how he can be all that bad ass. And Dwarkin is way more... interesting. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... Meh, f*cking Narf!
Entry 5
Well, so, I think for a while. Nothing happens. I get bored and get Blaze to entertain me for a night. Still nothing. FINE! Gotta let the juices simmer a while I guess. Them caves down-down looked interesting. Best to know the place inside and out. I grab me a backpack of food and paper and pen and head down. Don't need any torches or light or anything, just shift to something that can see here. I just _love_ shape shifting. It's the _best_.
They got some neat stuff down there! Lots and lots and lots of caves. I try to find a way out to somewhere else. Finally come out at some caves at the bottom of the mountain. But I'm not sure I remember how to get here easily, so I retrace my path... or try.
Turns out there are Logrus Ways down here. Lots of them. No, more than lots. Take fucking forever to figure them all out. But nothing else has occurred to me to keep me occupied, so I start off at it. Hey, if you had nothing better to do, and you other options were to go off to die in the forest of DOOM, bang your head against a Woodie barrier, or go insane with the other inmates in the asylum, what would _you_ do? Yeah, I know, I could have gone off to one of the places I'd visited along the BR, but hey, exploring down here might actually come in useful. If I come across another form I need, I'll take it on then.
Well, I take my time at that. Get the route out down first. The place is even more of a maze than I had thought. Some ways are so close together, it's hard to tell that they aren't just one way. Makes for an interesting phenomenon. If you don't stop and turn at just the right point, you'll be by and not even know there was a turn you could've taken. Wow. Whoever made this was better than master. And I haven't heard from master for a while. Maybe need to switch masters... Meh, I don't care about ways. I want shape shifting and trumps. That Dworkin guy made some awesome trumps though.
I get the path out down pat, then start looking around, really paying attention so that I'll remember everything. It helps that I know that there are ways. Normally I can just walk around and not pay attention and still remember everything, but ways have a... way... of screwing that up. It's from all that practice back on my shadow, searching the world. Got in the habit of remembering everywhere I've been. Come in damn useful. Need more practice with Ways I guess. Should get some with this. *sigh* Actually, this isn't half bad. Being away from the loonies is helping out a lot with my stability. My Angst level has dropped off a lot!
So there I was, wandering around down there, and I come to this door. Door? Looks like something out of the castle, kinda. I don't really want to go back into the castle, but I guess another way out besides the grand stair would be good. Open the door... hmmmm. Haven't been here before. Big room full of books and benches and notes and, wow, this guy did a better job on his parlor than I did! Talk about odd shit everywhere! Another room of to one side is a bedroom, messed up and used. He don't like servants either I guess. Another door leads to a tunnel leading up. Dead Griffin, and... Hey, it's that big other Pattern I tried using to go home from. Good to know anyway. I go back inside and poke around a little. Find some of those awesome trumps that Dwarkin guy was supposed to have made. Only these aren't of 'the family'.
Well, I don't want to intrude and I can smell Dwarkin all over the place, so I leave a note apologizing for the disturbance and head back to my exploring. Figured I'd write this up before I go to sleep. No, I don't go back to my cell, I'm comfortable here. Feels oddly like home. Secure anyway.
Philosophy sucks. There were these two loony guards debating what was worse, killing a non-loony or hurting a loony. Ok, so they are guards, so they can think about that crap, but they started getting all... I don't know... kinda like those religious nuts back home. Got that 'My way is the right way!' zealot look. Scary @ss sh!t! Glad they think I'm one of the loonies. Wait, I can't believe I just said that. Kill all the loonies and the rest of us would be better off, I say.
Narf!
Entry 6
So I wasn't thinking. Not surprising. Like I said before, gotta let the juices simmer a bit. And that exploring down-down turned interesting. Why? Trumps my friend, trumps. Maybe the ways had a 'way' past Woodie? But how would I find out? Easy. Contact Woodie, engage in conversation cause he's perpetually lonely, and walk around. Ask Woodie to let me know when I'm on his C Side.
So I do. I loose contact here and there, but I can't seem to find a jump to Chaos. Hmmmm. I back track to some of the places where I lost contact with Woodie, and try again. Most of them are normal, but one is really neat! Seems it scrambles outgoing calls. Well, not the calls themselves, but who I'm calling goes to someone else. And it's odd, because it's not random, but to the same different person every time, or seems to be. I'm going through the trumps and sketches I've got, seeing if one of them will take me across the Woodie wall, and I end up annoying that Samurai guy and have to apologize. Prissy little bugger. Then I get this really dark place with something hungry wanting to come through. Eh, whatever. I say no, because I'm not wanting to be a tape worm.
Then Goth calls, starts whining about how I'd just opened a hole to something in his living room and that I shouldn't do it again. Real @ss about it. "Whatever..." I say, and he pops a spell at me! I get off my power word, but it doesn't get it all. Then he starts concentrating on some other spell he's using on me and I can tell because he's busy doing it and making sure I don't cut contact. Very not OK! I try a technique Master taught me after that ordeal he put me through. Didn't work. But I'm curious. Seems it might work with the Pattern thingy if you twisted it around and played with it a little. If it's supposed to work with that, so I give it a go. Goth screams and cuts contact. Excellent!
Time to talk to his Regencyness. Don't want to piss him off when I go burn down goth's apartment door in dragon form and let him know that I REALLY DON'T APPRECIATE HIS SH!T! Goth is just leaving the hall. OK, so he got there first, I can get around that. So I ask real nice what the protocol for redress is for personal matters between 'family'. Cause I'm family, right? No, but I'm not bringing that up. He asks why I ask, and I let him know someone tried to spell me without my leave, and he's solemn and gets flunky to show me where the law books are so I can research it myself. OK, I can go for that.
I do a quick scan of the library, grab the books that look related, and trump to Woodie. Want to get as far from the loony I'm going to make an example of as possible. Makes it harder to contact, so I might have a chance to bounce him if he tries. Wow, Kingy is either a lawyer or has some really good ones on tap. Found me a few pages on the subject that stated in many more words than necessary that if I engage in a rivalry that in any way harms him, I'm in trouble. It's a dictatorship, doesn't exactly need to state what 'trouble' is. Usually better not to, because then kingy has more lea way to just do what he wants. Actually surprised he wrote anything down to begin with. Guess some guidelines are good, but the phrase "Don't f*ck with me." would be sufficient for me...
I'm still going over the books when I get a trump call. I get that Pattern thingy up and ready, then accept. Not Goth? Oh, hi Mrs. Green. Goth has disappeared? Rooms all messed up? Contacted you saying he'd been abducted? Gee, darn. *sarcasm* SO sorry to hear that, guess my little problem has been taken care of for me. *more sarcasm* She looks a bit taken aback. Guess Goth is reasonably high in the grand kid hierarchy. I explain that Goth had done something to me that I thought was "not OK" and that I had been planning on teaching him a lesson in manners, but that now it looked like there would be a delay. She seemed to understand, and broke contact.
I trumped back to my room and went to get something to eat, then to look into Goth's rooms, just to double check. Door broke, stuff strewn everywhere. OK, whatever. I go back to down-down and continue with my "explore and get the fuck out of here" plan. Contact Woodie and... Woodie _and_ Fuzzie? I break contact and check the trump. Looks OK... Contact Woodie again, and it's a Woodie / Fuzzie combo. I didn't know Fuzzie could shape shift... Maybe it's a magic thing. He's supposed to be good at that. Be nice if he were good at something, for his sake.
I don't feel like being anywhere near Fuzzie for a long while, so I go back to exploring and not contacting Woodie. I did get a latent... ?rage? from the Fuzzie part of Woodie, over that little box I left outside of his room. Sheesh. Chill out! It wasn't like some "I'm going to come kill you and all your family and everything you care about" calling card... That guy is very not stable. Someone drops a practical on you, it's an invitation to play, not go to war! Take it like a man and repay the favor. So it's embarrassing. Well, only if you let yourself be embarrassed. So it's annoying. Hey, that's the spice of life. How boring would it be if you weren't looking for a practical around every corner? Keeps you on your toes!
Wonder if Woodie is Woodie again? I gotta get a better way of getting food during my exploring. This whole thing of going back to the kitchen means I gotta retrace my route again. Very annoying. Maybe a trump to the kitchen with an open hand or something... Meh. Narf.
(Aaron's comments: Narf is a word, expression, grunt, whatever, much like 'f*ck' has become on shadow earth these days, only more so. It's meaning is taken from context and vocal expression. Narf has more meanings though, and is typically used to say "good bye", or "until we contact again"; though it can also be used as a greeting, as an explicative, or as a place holder for something he'd rather say but that would take too long to fully articulate. Talesin's life has been interesting lately, the kind of interesting the Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times." refers to. Thus the explicative at the end of each entry. Looking back on it, he will feel nostalgia for the kick @ss time he had, either because he will be bored out of his mind, get over his head in crap, or be appreciating the experience for the practice before the real storm.)
Entry 7
Ah, the irony. Sure I saw the reference to the power of the curse in my early research. Doesn't mean they can actually do it. Doesn't mean they can't, but I tend to like confirmation. In this place, it's gonna take a lot of confirming too. Well, got one thing squared away real good. No, there's still some uncertainty. The book, the legend, says they can only do it once in their life. Thing is, the legend was wrong, as proved, or alleged, in only the last 5 years. Gotta love life.
I'd been wandering around for a few days probably, down-down. Ran out of food. Gotta be a better way than the whole backpack thing. Not much in the way of high energy stuff down there. It's caves after all. Had another brilliant idea. Haven't really had a base of operations before, so I haven't had to come up with this stuff, and no one else seems to be too bright in the way and use of trumps who can't just yank stuff to them. All I gotta do is make a nice little trump or sketch or whatever of one of the kitchen staff, and vwa-la, never ending supply of food. Excellent! I trump back to my rooms and head to the kitchen for grub.
Been having trouble convincing the cooks to just leave the bird alone. I'll eat it whole. Yeah they got pride in their work, but with the amount I go through, you'd think they'd want a break every so often. Meh. Poor bastards. Glad I don't got that job. I bring up the trump idea with the head chef. He likes the idea, and provides me with four of his 'favorite' helpers. So I suggested it. Everyone needs some angst riddance, and I try to help out.
I'm still up there, eating, and dumb@ss comes in. I, of course, immediately grab a bowl of popcorn, and wait for the ensuing mayhem. After what happened last time, I wasn't surprised when he went streaking back out again, followed by a few knives. Never try to rearrange a cook's kitchen. They may decide you're next on the menu. One of the help is delegated to... occupy... the guy for a while, and heads out after him. I'm done eating, so I follow. I hear a yelp from the stairway, and head over to watch. There goes dumb@ss, tumbling his way down. Starts cursing out Samurai. Quite a mouth he's got. Samurai goes red, then real white as dumb@ss curses him. And this ain't no normal cursing. Sure, it started off as a bunch of insults tied together, but then he really lets it rip, and my hackles go up, real strong. The whole thing... I don't know... kinda just hangs in the air there in the central stair, reverberating, along with the clunk, bonk, scrape, of dumb@ss who can't seem to stop himself to save his life. What a... dumb@ss! Little ball of angst. Just like the rest of them. I gotta get out of here.
Muscle comes out to the stair near the end of the curse. Goes all white. Starts walking down the stairs after dumb@ss, all purposeful like. Do NOT get in his way when he's like that. dumb@ss keeps going, all the way down. No, ALL the way down. He shuts up after a while, kinda mid phrase like. Musta been knocked out. Too bad it didn't happen a little earlier. Might have fixed a lot of stuff that happened later. But then I'd still be suffering Fuzzie. And anything that weakens anyone against me, or any other idiot, is a bonus for me!
Mrs. Green and Q-Ball are talking to someone new a floor down. Turns out to be Archie Bald, yet another cousin. No, he's not bald. I have no idea why they call him that. Mrs. Green introduces us. I'm getting tired of all these people turning up and screwing around. Baldie doesn't seem to have any problems, but hey. I'm ready to leave already. I go back to my room, try to get some rest, but it's no use. I head over, grab one of the 4 that I'm supposed to get food from in the kitchen, make a quick sketch, then head out. Woodie's the first good option I come to in my diminished deck, so I drop in.
Sheesh Woodie, what happened? Broken, burnt branches strewn all over, one side of his trunk scorched nicely. We talk a bit. Seems he's not terribly... attached... to his... limbs. Yeah, I know 2 puns in one. I offer to... plant... one somewhere nice, and he agrees, so I grab one and hop off to that big pattern in the sky... er... outside Dworkin's cave. Plant it in the ground. Nothing happens. Um, I don't know much about plants besides being one. Maybe it needs some water. I look over the edge of a cliff and see a big lake. Go Stork and grab me some water. Woo Wee. Cold @ss stuff, make for great bottling. Maybe if I ever owe someone money? Takes a few trips, but the branch seems to spit out some rooty tendrils. Woodie hadn't been sure if it'd work anyway, so I let things develop as they will, and head off to see if Dworkin is home.
Answer? Definite maybe. Passed out on the floor with this huge blood splatter coming out of his nose. Exactly like the shape of the mar on that pattern thing I'd planted new Woodie near. Mar's new, so's the blood out of Dworkin's nose. Brings up some interesting possibilities. The guy is small, and has obviously lost a lot of blood. Not good. He's gonna need some serious medical treatment, soon. I call Blaze. Blaze wants medical help, so I call kitchen assistant number 1 and have him run to the infirmary. I see Blaze collecting some of Dworkin's blood when he thinks I'm not looking. Don't say anything though. Confirmation, remember. Head doctor grabs some... no, lots of stuff and drags it through after him. Things seem to be well in hand after a few minutes. I head off to my exploring.
Things are better for a while. Things generally are when I'm not around the loonies. I'm headed back from a dead end, when I come across a door I don't remember seeing before. Yeah, another door. Naturally I open it. Now, it's important to understand that I'm a cautious guy in many things. Just because I'm more curious than a cat doesn't mean I'm stupid. If there's a new door I'm going through I check it, make sure nothing funky is going to happen when I open it, then open it nice and quiet like, so I don't disturb the neighbors. Or anyone else I don't want to. Good practice to get in. Very very very good practice. And I'm naturally a quiet person unless I'm putting on a show, or a demonstration, or making a point to... whoever. So Blaze hadn't a clue that I was standing there, peering past the door at his back, Dworkin splayed out on the wall in vivisection.
I turn and see I'm in the entrance cave to Dworkin proper. Nice. Very nice. Dworkin wants help. Ok. Blaze is obviously not the guy he was trying to appear he was. And he had tried to deceive me. Very bad idea. I don't like people who lie to me. No, let me rephrase that. People who deceive me like he did, make me... wary. That's not really the word for it, but... He's tried to show me I can trust him, then I find I can't. Very bad for him. And this Dworkin guy's supposed to be, well, owned, by Kingy. Who would be on my side in this? Muscle, of course. I walk up the tunnel a few paces, and put in a call.
Yike! Remind me not to piss off Muscle! I _think_ that's dumb@ss. Or what's left of him. He's breathing, but, wow! And Muscle doesn't even look like he's trying, just poking at the poor bastard. Poke - snap. Poke - snap. Poke - crunch. Oooh, that's gotta hurt. Muscle is obviously... intoxicated. I'm really not sure if it's _possible_ to get him drunk. He'd need grain alcohol to do it anyway. Barrels worth. Doesn't seem to be aware of me though. I walk back to the door ajar, and... direct... influence... whatever, his attention over my shoulder. No, not at me you dolt! Why would I want to get into the middle of this? Anyway Muscle decides dumb@ss is a very distant second to his new target.
Yes, I let him through! Slams open the door, gets one hand around Blaze's neck, going for a second, and Blaze trumps them both out. Fast little buggers both of them. I'll remember that. Don't think either really saw me there, but for the future. Dworkin doesn't look so good, but he's not dead. Has some interesting new organs I haven't seen before, and two brains, one in his chest. But I'm no physician, and I'm not playing around. Mrs. Green seemed more on the decent side than Blaze, so I give her a call. Yeah, she doesn't trust me much, but comes through anyway.
She has her Trident, so I give her a wide berth as she rushes to Dworkin, then steps back again. Says there's some enchantment compeller something near Dworkin, that's trying to force her to continue the job. Gives me her pig sticker, tells me to kill her if she starts taking him back apart again, then walks over and starts patching him up. But parts don't want to stay in place. Seems the magic is holding him there against the wall, keeping him all spread out like a museum exhibit. It takes a while, but she gets him in a semblance of together. Then she wants to call Fuzzie, cause she can't take the guy down with the magic holding him in place.
I express my doubts. She ignores me. I express my _strong_ doubts. She over rides me. Hey, I got nothing personal tied up in this. Bring him on. She makes contact, seems to get through, then starts screaming at him. I feel my hackles rise, just like when dumb@ss let loose. I can _feel_ it. _Feel_ it. Remind me not to piss off Mrs. Green. No wait, she's dead. Remind me not to piss off her ghost. She starts concentrating, then I start feeling all weak and stupid, really weak and stupid, like I've been drugged really really hard. Next thing I know she's mumbling about how Fuzzie has just cursed me, Kingy, and all of Chaos. Oh... REEAAALLLY...
Narf! Narf! NARF!!!! I am SO f*cking outta here! I try a trump, but it doesn't even cool off. I try another, same thing. I notice Mrs. Green has walked over to Dworkin, looking at him hard. He's fallen off the wall for some reason. No more magic? And she's got her Trident back somehow. Sh!t! I expect some bloody poky fun to ensue, but she just stands there. Turns, tosses me her deck, tells me to tell her girlfriend... er... new assistant, that she loves her and to bring her home. Then she lets off a... ?blessing?... and runs herself through. I tried to stop her, but wasn't even close. The blessing? Popped the first two curses, then forbade the use of a curse on Amber or any of Kingy's decedents ever again.
Told you she was cute.
Druggy feeling starts to wear off. Fuzzie is SO done. I wait a second, thinking, then try to contact Kingy. Nope. Muscle. No go. Who's next in line? Mrs. Green. Who's next? Q-Ball. I call Q-Ball. Oh, he's there. Yeah, Fuzzie just tried to curse everyone, Mrs. Green sacrificed herself to stop it. I'm gonna kill him. You don't mind, do you? Stalling. I express myself a bit more strongly. He caves in.
Yeah. Fuzzie is SO done! But it's best to get permission first. That whole thing about do it now, ask for forgiveness later, doesn't work so good in a fascist dictatorship like this one.
I pull out a trump of Fuzzie and try to make contact. He tries to block me of course. I don't think so! I pop power words until I can force my way through. Get a little, a lot light headed, but that's life. Fuzzie's sitting on the ground, burnt to hell, Baldie standing over him with a knife. Fuzzie's tongue is hanging out through a hole in his neck, and both hands are gone. Might help me not need to screw around with his magic. I start shifting to dragon, asking Baldie if he's going to contest my killing Fuzzie. Baldie tries to argue. Don't get me wrong, he's angry, but not like me. I let him know I've got permission, grin at him like a dragon, let _all_ my teeth hang out. He wisely decides not to contest, end of conversation.
End of Fuzzie.
He's already been burned, but I add to it a bit after I've got him in my mouth, then chew him up really really really good before swallowing. Then I use those dragon stomach muscles to continue the process. I get his hands too. Every bit I can find. No point in going to all this trouble only to have someone else try to raise him or something. No, I don't know of anyone who's done it before, but I'm a thorough guy when it comes to enemies, or people who attack me for no reason. Best not to take any chances. I'm reluctant to leave his blood on the ground there, but there's thorough and there's paranoid. And I was awful tired and still had things to do before I went to sleep.
I've got Mrs. Green's trumps, so I contact her girlfriend. Tell her what happened, tell her she's going home, send her home. Seems like a nice girl. Not my type, but loyal. -Ha! See next Entry!- Anyway, grab Mrs. Green. Her Trident's melted into her, just congealed around her heart, making it look like a heart of gold. Nice touch. Wonder if she intended it that way. Anyway, I hop to the castle, then take a walk down to the ocean, then down into the ocean. Queen sees me. I give her the body, tell her what happened, let her know she can draw from the debt I owed her daughter for saving my @ss, and ask her to contact me if she needs anything. Things go well considering. And I head back up.
I trump back to Dworkin, or his place anyway. Yeah, he's still there. Cocooned himself up. Neat trick. Wonder what he'll come out as. But I need some place safe to stash him. Somewhere no one else can get to him. I call Mrs. Green's girlfriend, ask her if she's behind that other pattern thing where no one can trump to by themselves. Yup. Excellent! You, take this, don't trump anyone until he says you can. I'll check in later. Bye.
I destroy her trump. Cautious or paranoid? Think this one's caution. Trumps' been stolen once round here already.
Meh... Narf!
....
NARF!! Can't get to sleep! Keep thinking about killing Fuzzie. Not a pleasant thing to die like that. Didn't really want it to be pleasant, would have had it be much less pleasant, but you just don't prolong things like that. Bad practice. When I go...
Hmmm. When I go... Not any time soon. Not if I can help it. Someone gave me this gift of immortality, and I'm not giving it back. I suppose, when I'm old and bored with life, I might arrange to die in my sleep, but I wouldn't bet on it. There's so many worlds out there, so many possibilities, I don't see myself getting bored. And if someone tries to take me out before then, I'm going out fighting, not cowering like that little narf.
Well, I've learned one thing for sure. Some people just ain't rational, no matter what you do. Random funny is great. Random annoying is to be dealt with. Random killing is a fact of life in the wild. Random kill everything you hate for no reason... I dunno. Wonder how many more time bombs are lurking around here. Wonder how I could get out of the curse(s). There's gotta be a way. There's always a way. Better find a way. Mrs. Green's blessing only got me half way. I'm no child of Amber, so I'm still vulnerable, even if she did lift the two on me. Could be a nice tool, that, if I could figure out how to get around them. The whole thing is supposed to be based on the pattern. Take out the pattern and... maybe...
Narf!
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