"Well, Sirrus, first of all, watch out for the--" she grabs him and pulls him to the floor as a blade passes over their heads "--swords. Second, I didn't think they had horses with them, but it looks like they must have been tied up outside. We should probably see if we can herd them back out again, before they trash the place. Third, that's my knight in green. And fourth..." she looks down at where her hand is on Sirrus' shoulder. She carefully removes it.

Sirrus grins and taps her on the head. "Tag, you're it!" And off he runs...

...straight into the knight in red, who is staggering woozily. "Should have tagged him while you had the chance," says Marae, who goes over and does so herself. "You're it, Sir Knight. Funny," she says as she bolts across the room, "I never noticed the colors before. Now where's -- ah, there you are!" she cries as she spies her favorite, the Green Knight. The one next to him, who always seems somewhat forlorn, is wearing blue, and the fourth -- over by the bar, still immobilized by the Dragon, is wearing silver. How fitting. The Silver Knight, done in by a Silver Dragon.

"Oh, Reddy..." she calls, as she takes cover behind the bar. The Red Knight approaches, sees a much easier target in the stationary Silver, tags him and lopes off.

Marae comes out from behind the bar, skirts the Silver Knight and heads towards his green clad companion. "Oh, Greeny, here, over here. Quick escape. Right out the door." Green clumps through, or rather his horse does; the doorframe catches him across the helmet and peels him out of the saddle. He hangs motionless for a second or two, then drops like a stone.

The other knights look around nervously. Two of their horses are still outside, fortunately for all concerned... Red quickly dismounts and leads his steed to the exit, pats it on the rump and sends it on its way.

Over by the bar, Silver is beginning to come around...

O man!
*Sirrus runs around the bar watching out for anything low enough to take him out*

*After red got done with his horse Sirrus was climbing up the book shelf to get out of sight, but he was too late and Red came after him*

O Fie!

*Red pulls out a sword as he too begins to climb the giant book shelf, but wasn't as careful as Sirrus was. Red knocked over the complete Dark Tower series and a book of short stories by Alfred Hitchcock*

* on the very top of the shelf Red confronts
Sirrus with his sword*

* red pulls back to take a swing at Sirrus but a book hits him in the head causing him to fall to the ground*

*Sirrus spies Marae at the other end of the shelf with a stack of books in hand*

Thanks.

"No problem,"says Marae.

"Watch out for Silver when we come down," says Marae. "He's the current 'it.' "

Silver has just come out of his funk and makes a half-hearted lunge at the Blue Knight, who parries neatly, sniffles heartily and sighs heavily. Silver gets past his guard and tags him, at which point Blue bursts into tears. He pulls out a large white handkerchief and blows his nose very loudly.

"What's wrong with him?" asks Sirrus. "Does he have a cold?"

"No, he's just morose. He's the Blue Knight. Get it?"

Sirrus groans.

"He's also 'it,' which I suppose in this crowd is enough to bring anybody down. By the way, remind me never to give him a favor," says Marae, grimacing at his treatment of the hankie.

She and Sirrus carefully descend from the bookshelves. All four knights circle warily, swords at the ready. Red is a little unsteady, having recently been hit by an onslaught of both Silver Dragons and books. Blue is weeping, Silver is wary, and Green is...

"...divine," sighs Marae, watching her favorite Knight. "He saved me, you know," she says conversationally to Sirrus.

*CK's voice echos dopwn to the others*
un, huys, this is probably a bad time, but I thought I should tell you that a group of 6 pirates is also playing...
*just then, the buccanears crash in, saying "ARG!" and all that pirate cra...crud*

"Shiver me timbers, me hearties!" cries the pirate captain, pulling his eyepatch aside so he can see better. "It be a whole crew, ours fer the takin! Arrrr!"

Marae and Sirrus stare in surprise.

The knights cease chasing each other and turn to face this new challenge.

"Who's 'it' now?" whispers Marae to Sirrus.

"I don't know -- I think it's still Blue. He hasn't been having much luck."

"It would help if he'd stop crying -- he could see better," says Marae. She sighs. "I guess I'll just have to perform an intervention." She strides across the room, deftly dodging pointy objects, and taps Blue on the shoulder. He turns and looks at her through his helmet with great sad eyes.

"Chin up, friend," she says. "Stiff upper lip. Stout fellow." The knight's attention falls to his gut, which is admittedly a little pudgy... "No, no, forget I said that. Chin up, that's the spirit. Now, what do you need to say, my friend?"

"Oh, woe," says the knight.

Marae shakes her head. "What are you?"

"Um, a knight?"

"Besides that."

"A Blue Knight?"

Marae shakes her head. "Besides that."

"Um..." The knight seems stymied.

"What are you in the game?" she hisses fiercely.

"Wha...? Oh! I'm it!"

"That's right! Good show! And what is 'it' supposed to do?"

"Oh! Right! TAG! You're it!" and the knight swings his sword vaguely in her direction; she neatly ducks under it and grabs his sword-free hand, placing it firmly on her own shoulder. "Thanks, that's all I needed," she says.

She turns to face the pirates, who glare at her menacingly.

"We're playing tag," she says wickedly, "and I'm it!"

She expects them to scatter in terror.

They do not.

"Oh, aaarrrrr," says the captain, flashing a gold tooth or seven. " 'It,' aaarrrre ye? Well, we'll see how long that lasts."

Suddenly Marae finds herself being chased all over the bar by six scurvy dogs of the sea, all brandishing rather unsavory weapons of the nasty sharp and cutting kind -- with a few blunt instruments just for variety's sake. She dodges a belaying pin, in fact, just before she dives behind the bar. She rises a moment later holding two bottles of Captain Morgan's in each hand.

"Drinks, me lads? On the house? Well, on me, actually," she amends, glancing nervously at Sirrus.

Three sets of pirate hands grab her and pin her on top of the bar, as the other three grab the bottles and a couple more bottles off the shelves and line them up on top of Marae. "I had to be honest, didn't I?" she laments, as the pirates proceed to down the rum, setting the empties back on top of her. "Ouch! Careful. That's a sensitive spot."

Well, at least it's just the drinks on me, and not the pirates, she thinks in a weak attempt at self-consolation.

*Wathing the Pirates enjoy there drinks, Sirrus forgets the staggering price it will cost him just as a fist hits him in the back of the head*

*Sirrus falls to the ground, he rolls onto his back spurting out curses*

"Your it, Black." the blue knight gets out as he forces his helment onto his head.

*The knight runs off*

Errr...that hurt.

*Sirrus gets to his feet, and looks around at the others in the bar. He runs toward the nearest pirate and slamed head on into him causing a chain reaction that knocked them all down*

*Sirrus runs behind the bar to Marae*

Bad thing is their all it now

"We should run," says Marae,"before they come to"

*they run to the back of the bar hoping that they would not be found*

*all of a sudden there was an explosion*

Marae and Sirrus crouch at the back of the bar, waiting as the reverberations from the explosion fade away. "This is getting to be an expensive proposition," says Sirrus. "The alcohol, and now this..."

"I said the drinks were on me. I didn't mean that the way they thought I meant it. I'll pay for 'em. It was worth it to see them topple like a line of dominoes."

"Actually, that's the least of my worries right now."

When the dust settles, the two poke their heads out and look around.

Pirates and knights lie scattered about on the floor, on the bar, on the tables, under the tables, behind the coatrack, on top of the shelves, in the rafters, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and some more on the floor and on the tables. One of the horses pokes her head in the door and gives an alarmed snort, then backs outside again.

"Oh, dear," says Marae. "Where's CK?"

"I don't know," says Sirrus, looking around some more. "Probably up in the rafters. Hey," he calls, "CK! Where are you, man?"

"Heads up," says a voice, and they look up to see CK swinging from his knees above them. "Quite a show, wasn't it?" he says, and Marae thinks she detects a note of pride in his voice.

"CK, what did you do?" she asks.

"Do? Me? Why, nothing. Nothing at all, that either of you wouldn't have done given the opportunity, that is."

He holds up a small object which glows softly in the semi-darkness that surrounds him.

"What's that?" asks Sirrus.

"My new toy," says CK, stuffing it into a pocket. "It's a VEM -- virtual explosion maker. Good for one virtual explosion every 24 hours. Makes a nice boom, lots of smoke and dust, throws people and things around, and then when you want to clean up, you just reset it. If you don't reset it within half an hour, it resets itself. Everything's back to normal, because it was only a virtual explosion anyway. This--" and he sweeps his arm around the room indicating the dust, fallen bodies, and general destruction-- "is all an illusion."

"Then that means those pirates..." says Marae...

"...and knights," adds Sirrus...

"...aren't really unconscious..." they both conclude simultaneously -- unfortunately, just as the knights and pirates reach the same conclusion...

"AND AWAY WE GO!"

CK yanked the other two up onto his rafter, then starts going further up

"I didn't realize how big this place was up here..."
"Yeah, I did a little remoddling up here"

"Wow," says Marae as they ascend the spiral staircase after crawling up the ladder and sprinting across a very narrow catwalk, "you certainly have a daring vision for the use of this space."

She looks down through the open stairs at the crowd in the bar and immediately wishes she hadn't.

"What's the matter?" asks Sirrus, as Marae wobbles a bit and turns pale.

"Ever since I played Uru, I have this terrible problem with heights. I think it's from all that jumping and falling and jumping and falling and jumping and... can we please change the subject?"

Sirrus and CK look at each other, shrug, and the three of them continue up the stairs.

"Mind if I ask something?" asks Sirrus when they are about halfway up.

"You just did," says CK, "but go ahead. Ask me another."

"Where are we going?"

*CK doesn't answear, instead they just keep going up and up until they reached the very top of the ceiling, then they heard the others coming after them*

"Alright," says Ck,"Their time is up."

What do you mean?

"Just watch, Sirrus,"

*Sirrus and Marae look down at the pirates and the knights coming up to them. Just then all the stairs and pathways disappeared and all of them were standing on one board right below them. Now the knights and pirates were only left with one option a peice of rope going to the place where Ck, Sirrus and Marae are standing. They begin to climb to them, they are half way when Ck pulls out a knife*

"Game over," he says to they stuned knights and pirates.

*Ck cuts the rope and they fall on to a linking book and disappear.*

Well I think you over did it a little Ck.

"where does that linking book go to, CK?" asks Marae.

CK looks at her oddly, "What linking book?"

"the one they all just fell onto"
"Ummm...I didn't put that there...sirrus, you?"
"Nope, I'm clean on this one."
"Hmmm...you stay here, I'll investigate."

"Be careful, CK!" She turns worriedly to Sirrus. "Does he have a Relto book?" she asks.

"Don't worry! I'm up here all the time, the chances of me falling are slim to slime!"

"It's not the falling part I'm worried about. It's the linking part."

CK more closly inspects the book, give a look of surprise, then scrambles back up to marae and sirrus

"They stole one of my holograms! Quick, follow me!"

Opening a hatch in the ceiling, CK goes out to...more rafters!?

"Heh, false roof. This is where I stash most of my stuff that I don't want people finding. Check this out!"

CK reached into his pocket, and a giant hand came out of nowhere.

"Hehehe, first experiment in holographic imaging

"Wow, CK, quite a spread you've got here." Marae looks nervously at the giant hand. "How do we know what's real up here and what's not? I mean, are any of the rafters holograms? Because I'd hate to step on one by mistake..."

no, no fake rafters up here, though, this place is definately as dangerous as my mind

I was afraid you were going to say that. Although, of course, this Marae has never been inside your mind.

and that marae has only been to the worst part of my mind

Well, that gives us hope, then!

*marae balances delicately on a rafter and observes the giant hand*

Very impressive, CK. What does it do?