While Marae and the other patrons run for the hills, confetti continues to fill the bar. There doesn't seem to be an end to it...

A month and a half later...

The air on the street glows softly orange, magenta, and incandescent blue, with overtones of lilac and mint green. The color comes from a reflection off a mirror-windowed office building which towers a few blocks from the sidestreet that houses the Age 233 bar.

If you look carefully at the reflection on the building's face, you will see that it shows a large, colorful hill that rises above the rooftops of the lower buildings. The soft glow of the setting sun emphasizes the fluorescent hues of the terrain.

If you turn about now, you can see the hill itself, and you can move towards it for a closer look. As you approach, you will note once again the vivid coloration of the surface, which is no mere artifact of the sunset. You have never seen earth that color, or stone or grass... perhaps this is some strange alien vegetation, or genetically engineered landscaping flora?

Curious, you move closer.

Now it becomes apparent that the surface does not seem to be quite solid. In fact, the closer you get, the less it looks like an earth mound and the more it looks like... shredded paper?

Yes, indeed, once you have navigated the twisting streets away from the business district and approached the dark, comforting corner of town the Age 233 calls home, it is obvious that what you have been seeing is no mere earthwork, but a vast and sprawling mountain of confetti. It fills three city blocks and towers, as already mentioned, above the rooftops of the apartments and storefronts in this part of town... empty now of their residents, who were all forced to evacuate in the face of the encroaching pile.

The Age 233 itself is nowhere to be seen, which is not surprising, considering the fact that could you reach it, it would be dead center of the base of the mound.

Is this the end? Is the Age 233 no more, crushed beneath the devastating weight of thousands of posts' worth of celebration? And what of the bar's patrons? Are they, too, gone forever, victims of the exuberance of the posters on The Surface? Tune in for our next episode: "Whatever Happened to Baby Marae?" or "Perhaps the Ending Has Not Yet Been Written..."!

....Mrrrooowwwwwww....

Urdu suddenly links into near darkness, nearly choking on the confetti, and almost in a panic, notices a dim light throught the confetti, and starts to swim torward the light, avalanche style...

Finally breaking thru, he tumbles toward the bottom of the seemingly endlees pile, and tumbles out onto the street, nearly exhausted.

He sits up and looks around, seeing no one, the town obviously abandoned, and calls out...

"HELLO!! Is there anyone there!!" the sound being oddly muffled by the confetti pile.

After calling out a few more times and getting no reply, he decides he'd better get some rest in a nearby shop and try again in the morning.

OMG! Did we do that???

Marae yawns, stretches, and tosses the blanket aside. She stands and goes over to the coffee maker, gets herself a pot going, and then goes to the tack room door. "Sir? You up yet?"

"Of course," replies the grey charger, tossing his mane. "I've been up for hours. What took you so long?"

"Well... I need a few more hours of sleep a night than you do, I guess." Marae peers out at the rising sun and shivers slightly; the morning air is a bit chill yet, and there is a hint of dew on the grass. "I wonder if it's been long enough yet?"

"Probably not. You humans take forever to get things done. Probably because you excel at creating complications..."

"Well, it's been two weeks. I think I should go back and see. After I've had my coffee, of course."

"Of course. Well, suit yourself. I'll be here."

An hour later, Marae links into the Age 233 to find the mammoth pile of confetti is still there, but someone has conveniently managed to dig a tunnel through it.* Curious, she follows the passageway.


*The effect of Urdu's exit from the confetti was a bit more permanent than he realized.

Meanwhile in another Age ... in an run-down shack sat a retired knight remembering days filled with adventure and action. Sudden noise from just outside announced the arrival of company ... probably someone wanting advise he thought.

The noise maker was a short, rotund man in the attire of the local g'ntennu people. After giving the door a few taps 'Cho rushed inside and greeted his friend.

"Señor, señor. I know you didn't expect me but I have news!"

The once active knight, disdainful for this interruption, turned his head and replied with a short "Oh?"

"As you know, I have been absent while visiting my family and read that ground was being cleared to make room for a new housing complex."

"For this you disrupt my thoughts? I'm here to help you train young V'rdan and answer any questions you might have."

"Sí, but the ground, mi señor, is where your Age 233 sat."

"We'll see, though I am sure someone will object." Mumbling he returned to his adventures.

"They're going to WHAT?!!!"

Marae is staring in disbelief at the newspaper Urdu has just handed her.

"I know, I know! I could hardly believe it myself! Although, you know, it does kind of make sense. I mean, what else are they going to do with it?"

"Well.... FIX it!" exclaims Marae, impatiently. "I mean, bars like the Age 233 don't just grow on trees, ya know!"

"So what do we do about it? I don't know how to fix it!" Urdu shoots back.

"The man who runs Pluto doesn't know how to fix it?" Marae's tone is a bit nasty, although it is, in truth, pure angst.

"We could go to the council meeting," Urdu suggests helpfully.

"Council meeting?"

"Of course. Things like this always have a council meeting. It's probably buried back on page 37, or something."

Marae looks at him, then swiftly flips through pages until she finds page 37. "By Joe, you're right!" she cries, pointing. "Right there, bottom right hand column! Who'd a thought to look there?"

"You mean besides us two? Probably no one."

"We'd better get the word out, then," says Marae, grimly. She readies an Announcement.

Urdu mutters under his breath, "Why do I get the word 'MYSTHILLARIUM' flashing before my eyes...?"

M Y S T H I L L ARI U M

"In technicolor, no less?"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: marae,

"I hate to say it," Toz, who has finally surfaced after the confetti-shock that had him out for two days, "but all of us were for the shovelling-confetti-into-the-age idea. Now Urdu, shall we return to the post club?"

"Right! Perhaps that's best! Just let me get out my Post Club linking book...

Urdu fishes around in his pockets, more frantic with each empty pocket, a sudden dread draining the color from his face.

"You didn't bring it did you?" says Toz. "How could you possibly have fogotten it?! That's one of the first rules of linking to another age! BRING ALONG A LINKING BOOK TO THE AGE YOU JUST CAME FROM!

"Umm... I did.... It's.... It's..." Urdu just points to the confetti pile ...in there...

As Toz and Urdu contemplate the mountain before them, Marae stands behind them, tapping her foot. "Urdu."

Urdu jumps, and Toz follows suit.

"What?"

Marae shakes her head. "Man, you have a short memory. Don't worry about your linking book; we got a bigger problem. Remember the council meeting? But the good news is, I fixed the link... I think..."

Marae holds up her latest effort:

ATTENTION: LINK -->COUNCIL MEETING TONIGHT TO DISCUSS DEMOLITION OF AGE 233 BAR AND SURROUNDING ENVIRONS TO MAKE WAY FOR NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT. AREA CURRENTLY UNINHABITABLE DUE TO OCCUPATION BY LARGE MASS OF VIRULENT CONFETTI. MISSION: TO FIND LOCATION OF THE COUNCIL MEETING, ATTEND, REGISTER OPPOSITION TO PLAN, AND PROPOSE NEW PLAN, WHICH IS REMOVE OFFENDING CONFETTI AND RESTORE AND REOPEN EXISTING BUSINESSES, SPECIFICALLY THE AGE 233 BAR. CARRY OUT NEW PLAN IF NECESSARY. REPLY LINK TO ACCEPT.

Signed,
Marae, Urdu, and patrons of the Age 233 Bar.

P.S. Guys, we need your help. They're gonna take away our BAR!

"Um... that looks OK..." says Urdu, handing it back to her.

"Good. It's the second one I've had to do; a mouse stole the first one I was working on, I think it make a nest. It was chewing the corner off, and when I noticed it, it took off."

"To make a nest? With all this, it took your sign to make a nest?" Urdu

Marae, Urdu, and Toz look around at the mountain of confetti.

"Yeah... I guess it wanted something... I dunno. Different."

"Which way did it go?" asks Toz.

Wordlessly, Marae points at the remnants of the tunnel through which she emerged earlier (the same one Urdu made, and through which, coincidentally, and lest you've forgotten, lies his linking book). "I think he's -- or she's -- long gone. We'll probably never see that sign again."

The group spots a figure off in the distance carrying a large sack of... confetti? As the figure approaches, the forumites recognize it as one of the MystNovices, but this one looks decidedly worse for wear.

"What are you doing?" Marae asks.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" MN demands in a crazed tone, "I'm cleaning up the confetti! I've been at it for months, with no help from anyone else, thank you very much!"

Urdu snickers and comments, "Wow, that'll all be for nothing when they tear the place down." MN's maniacal glare sends shivers up and down the onlookers.

The mog barely articulates through a low growl, "What do you mean they're tearing the place down?"

Grimly Marae shows him the notice. "Council meeting tonight. Will you join us?"

"Sure," says MN, shifting the bag on his shoulders. "Where is it?"

"Well," says Urdu, "that's what we need to find out."

As Marae watches the mog's face, she begins to wonder if inviting him is such a good idea, after all.

"And where DO we find it?" asks MN, obviously with rapidly thinning patience.

"Um... where do we... where... that is... er...."

Marae stutters to a halt, and then a light comes on in her brain.

"OH! Of COURSE!"

Marae grabs up the sign and points at the link. "We go through there!" she cries triumphantly, and stabs her finger at the link -- perhaps just a bit too vigorously --

"Ooo...."

VWOOOOOOOOAAAAAMMMMMM

MN lets out a low growl and mumbles, "We'll just see about this..." He stabs at the link himself and disappears...

At the same time, another MN hops by, literally, and notices the mean one below linking out. "Wonder what that one's doing?" he wonders, but he doesn't have to wonder long as inertia is carrying him directly into the sign. The new MN smashes into the notice, linking out at nearly the same time as his predeccessor.

Meanwhile ....

Zarnic scans the various articles looking for something of interest and notices that someone submitted an update on a council meeting in another Age, ummm, must be the one 'Cho mentioned, catching his interest Zarnic reads. After finishing the article, he formed new questions to ponder: Council ? ... City or Town, after all a City-type uses the council chambers downtown but a Town-type can be anywhere. I wonder who will attend? ... surely marae, but how about CK (there goes his rafters) and poor Tora needs someplace to put her tent. The article mentions confetti, umm.. that's new. Maybe tomorrow's paper will have more. Tossing the Business section aside, he finally finds his favorite page. Ah, the comics!

If anyone had been standing close enough to the slowly collapsing tunnel in the confetti, they might have heard a distant and much muffled vvvrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmm from deep within the depths of the deeply-piled confetti. It seems not everyone had vacated the premises.....

With the confetti gone, the Bar was a tad dusty but otherwise cleared out. Returning from the Town Meeting, Tora looked around with a grin, then headed for her tent. She had an anti-Martian-potato shield to set up around her crates of colored paper, just in case.

Marae arrives from the Town Meeting close behind Tora, and, noticing the dust, does something highly uncharacteristic: She takes a broom and starts to clean.

Tora does a double-take and almost faints.

Marae looks at her. "If I don't do this, Speedy will when she gets here. She'll raise a huge cloud of dust *cough* -- much as I am doing -- and the parade and party will be needlessly delayed..."

"Need-*cough*-lessly delayed?" asks Tora, waving confetti dust out of her face.

"Yes, because, as dusty as it may seem, once we've finished partying, there will be even more to clean up. But this way the cleaning will be done before she gets here. And the party can start on schedule."

"And the parade?"

"And the parade, yes."

"May I make a suggestion?"

"What?"

Tora flips a switch on the vacuum so that the dust goes into a bin labeled "dirt" instead of into the workings of the paper maker, and holds out the vacuum cleaner nozzle. "Less dust this way."

"Oh. Right."

vvvrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmm

"We did a good job," Toz says, catching his breath at the door, "but now I think I'll be off. Sorry about the confetti mishap, but what can you do when you're desperate? Anyway, the confetti you got wasn't even a quarter of what we had. (Don't worry - Plutonians took the other three quarters, it being so 'C-c-c-c-c-cold' there.)

"Thanks again. Seeya!"

LINK...

Marae finishes the vacuuming and Tora flips the switch back so that the paper maker can continue to do its job. With some of the specialty papers which the machine can produce, they make paper decorations and hang them around the clubhouse, and CK nudges the juke box onto the floor. Toz's hasty departure is puzzling, since the party is just getting started, but no one seems to mind too much. Marae fixes herself a Silver Dragon and then plays bartender for a while as the others who are present begin to party, and the last stragglers arrive from the successfully completed town meeting.

Urdu finally hops and limps into the bar and sets himself down and pulls off his other shoe, emptying a couple of handfulls of confetti out onto the floor...

"HEY! I SAW THAT! I JUST VACUUMED! CLEAN THAT UP! shouts Marae from the bar, pointing at Urdu and the mess he just made on the floor, "What kind of establishment do you think this anyway? A saloon?"

"Umm... Okey-dokey." replied Urdu, who then picked up a potatoe and placed it on the pile of confetti, the potatoe happily draging the confetti underneath the nearby juke box. "That should take care of it."

"That's not what I meant," replied Marae. "And put that shoe back on! You're driving away the customers!"