The Age and Country Hotel - Part III; Evolution from the Glitch | Forums

[jahura]

"Fish in an aqueduct would be kind of unusual, wouldn't it?" Jahura asks.

"Certainly," Zander replies, "mostly considering I never Wrote fish here."

"Or mermaids?" Jahura asks with a raised brow.

"That's your department, dear."

"So how would you track them?" TOOO asks them both.

Jahura looks to Zander.

"Search the aqueducts as a start." Zander shrugs. He goes over to the vault door and presses on the corner of a metal plate which leaves a square indentation.

"Gee, where did you get that idea from?" TOOO laughs.

Zander continues to press indents into the plate until they form a Z all along the plate. The vault slides to the side and reveals a boat floating in a waterway in a tunnel.

Michael's palms fly up to his temples.
"Wait, when you say Write and Age, what does that mean?"

"Don't get him started on his heresy thing." Jahura shakes her head in warning.

"It means..." TOOO stops short, suddenly realizing what that could mean to Michael.

"A tour guide." Zander interjects, "I'm a professional tourist. I write descriptions of places seldom visited."

"Nice catch." Jahura whispers under her breath.

"Dogmatic that it is," Zander whispers back. Jahura makes a raspberry sound with her lips.
"TOOO," he continues in normal volume, "would you be so kind as to lend me one of those coins, please?"

TOOO reaches into his pouch and hands Zander a coin when he notices the coin box on the other side of the waterway by the boat.

"Coin operated?" TOOO queries.

"He is a Nyrond." Jahura chides as she climbs into the boat and takes a seat on one of the boat's benches. The boat is long enough to seat six people comfortably. Zander, TOOO, and Michael follow in suit - and since Jahura is nearest the box, Zander hands her the coin.

"By the way," Zander asks, "how are your noses? I'm afraid Jahura's and mine aren't that proficient, especially as of late."

"What for?" Michael asks.

"Give a shout when you smell fish." Jahura replies, placing the coin into its slot.

"Hang on!" Zander says. The water beneath them starts to bubble violently as the boat rises on a wheelbar. The other three each grab onto a side of the boat and grasp tightly.

FWOOOM! The boat takes off like a startled deer full force into the flume.

[T.O.O.O.]

TOOO leaned over and whispered to Jahura, "Did I just pay the Ferryman? We're not going to find a 3-headed dog at the end of this, are we?"

---

Murinna finally found her tongue. "You're a talking horse."
"And you're a mermaid stranded on land." Duke looked in the direction of the swordsmen. "We need to get out of here!"
Murinna pointed to her tail. "I'm kind of at a disadvantage, here!" She opened up one of the blankets, and rolled onto it. Sven grabbed one end, and Duke grabbed the other end in his teeth. As Sven walked backwards up the path, they managed to find the cave entrance.

But the swordsmen kept coming.

[MystNovice]

Now Here

In the process of carting Murinna away from the threatening swordsmen, Duke had just enough time to notice that Boppy and Neko had hopped on his back before the whole group tumbled into another group just inside the mouth of the cave. A great cacophony of voices rose up as the mass of beings sought to disentangle itself.

"Ouch!"
"Oow!"
"Umph"
Dorian: "Stop stepping on my tail! Oh, brother. I have a tail now."
Boppy: "How come she's wearing no clothes?"
Tasha: "Gasp!" *covers Boppy's eyes*
Murinna: "Oh, honestly! Can't you people focus on anything else?"
Sven: "Ah, sorry, what was the question?"
Tora: "Why is everbody spinning?"
Marae: "Hold on; we can cover her with a spare robe."
Sven: "Oh, no!"
Jo: "Aww... I'll never get that horseshoe print off my back."
Tully: "You people do realize this is supposed to be a covert operation, right?"
Duke: "Sorry, but there were these swordsmen chasing us."
Neko: "And besides, I think the cat's out of the bag... hehe."
Unknown: "Who are you people?"

The fully reassembled group turned to see that the two gaurd werewolves had returned. "Why don't people listen when I say 'hurry'?" Tully mumbled under his breath.

[Zander Nyrond]

Tully musters himself quickly. "Well, howdy do there, sir or ma'am as the case may be, my friends and I are just wandering around the neighbourhood offering a little promotion, some free gifts, a tiiiiny little bit of sales talk but nothing you need to worry about, after all we have to mke a living too don't we, now this may be of some interest to you and your packmates, because there's a condition going round, nothing serious or life-threatening but it can be an inconvenience to folks of your persuasion, what am I talking about you may say, well sir, I'm talking about lycan lichen." He takes a breath. "What's lycan lichen you may ask, well, if you had it you wouldn't have to ask, it is a fungal infection, yes a fungal infection very common in these rural areas, and once it gets between your toes and the pads of your paws there's no shifting it, and should it become established, well, I hate to be indelicate particularly when there may or may not be ladies present, but there is a certain odour given off by the growths which, not to put too fine a point upon it, can ruin a young wolf's chances in the old mating stakes there." Another breath. "It's not a thing your average werewolf aabout town likes to talk about so you may not have heard of it, but take my word, I have witnesses of the lupine persuasion among my friends here who can swear to the virulency and to the matrimonial mockers, and also to the sovereign efficacy of the remedy which I at great personal expense and inconvenience have taken it upon myself to supply." And, desperately fumbling in his pockets and lighting on something promising, he pulls out a squat jar.

One of the guards squints at it. "Peanut butter."

"Ah, yes," says Tully quickly, "but this is no ordinary peanut butter ma'am, or possibly sir, this is Pachinko Peanut Butter made to an age-old recipe by a secluded order ot religious folks high in the mountains of Tibet, using only the most natural and organic ingredients and with especial emphasis being placed on quality control at every step of the production process. In this peanut butter are harmonised all the essential planetary and cosmic influences, and no added salt nor sugar neither, and a simple application of this priceless remedy to the feet morning and night will ward off the dreaded lycan lichen indefinitely. Now my young friend here--" He casts about for Boppy and shepherds him forward. The young mog is too stunned to resist. "Tell 'em--I say, tell 'em son, how you suffered, and he has suffered friends, I can tell you that."

"'S true," Boppy says, picking up his cue. "I got the lycan lichen all over my feet an' I couldn't run or jump or anything. It was awful!" And he makes puppy eyes.

"Now I could offer you a jar each, because you look as if you might be in need of it any minute, and I fancy--" Tully sniffs the air and frowns. "No, maybe not yet, but it could be right soon you'll be feeling that tingle in between the toes, but you know what, I'm not going to do that, because as every smart housewife--er wolf--knows, buying in bulk is cheaper. So why don't you take my friends and me to see Akela or Den Mother or whomever's in charge here, and I can promise you a once-in-a-lifetime deal for your whole pack on this unparalleled prophylactic against the scourge of werewolfkind from the mountains to the prairies. What do you say?"

[T.O.O.O.]

Murinna was finally able to get Jo's attention. "Who is that?" she whispered.

"That's Tully," Jo replied, "Con Man Extraordinaire. Anyway, it's good to meet you at last. I'll let TOOO know you're okay."

"Thanks!"

KI to KI
Jo Tyler to TOOO

TOOO,

I don't know how she did it, but your friend Murinna found her way here! She's okay, a little worse for wear. Right now, Tully's trying to fast-talk a werewolf clan. How are you holding up?

Jo

[jahura]

As TOOO whispers in Jahura's ear, she throws her head back and laughs.
"And me without biscuits!" She responds. "I heard the center head can do the balance and flip trick."

TOOO's KI beeps and he reads the message.

"Jo says Murinna's over there." He says to the others, "how do we stop this thing?"

"We have to let it run its course." Zander replies, "not much longer, now."

The boat whizzes and turns and pitches along the aqueduct through various parts of the city until (you guessed it) the duct tilts at a sharp downward angle and lands the four soaked into a chamber where the bubbling of the waters advances to the side of a rectangular pool from which steam rises from the surface of the waters.

(Indoor Pool in Hearst Castle By Self (Own work (Own photo)) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons - click picture for link)

"Where are we now?" Michael asks the others.

"If I recall correctly - " Zander starts.

"You are in His Imperial Majesty's private bath!" A voice barks over at them, echoing off the walls. A centurion with spear pointed at them glares, followed by four others who line up beside him and adopt the same pose. "Get out of that boat and come with us immediately!"

"Pretty opulent for a bathtub." Jahura comments.

"It didn't start out that way." Zander replies with slight consternation.

"Kind of heavily armored for lifeguards, don't you think?" TOOO quips.

"What, no fluffy towels?" Jahura adds.

"They don't look like froods to me." Zander chimes in.

"I think they're serious." Michael warns.

"NOW!" The first centurion shouts.
NOW-NOW-Now-now-now-ow-ow-ow.....

"Uh, yeah. They're serious." Jahura replies nonchalantly.

"Then what do we do?" Michael asks.

---

Now Here

"Do you see them?"

"They went in a cave with some barbarians, a horse, a cat, a mog puppy, and a mermaid in a wheelbarrow."

"A cat?"

"That's what I said. A cat."

"Ohmigawds! Let me see!"

"One of them is holding up a jar of something."

"Let me see!"

"He's rubbing whatever's in the jar on their feet."

"LET ME SEE! MOVE!"

"Wow, Gemma! What big feet they have!"

"Squeeeeeeeeeee!"

---

KI 2 KI TOOO to Jo Tyler

Murinna is there? We had gone looking for her. Zander and Jahura are here, and we found our way to the Emperor's Bath. The guards don't seem very happy about it.

TOOO


KI 2 KI Jo Tyler to TOOO

TOOO, what part of GET OUT OF THERE are you failing to understand??

Jo Jo

[Zander Nyrond]

"Pachinko! Pachinko!It's made from happy peanuts,
Not trying it would be nuts,
For lycan lichen it's the cure--
It purifies your every pore--
You really ought to buy
PACHINKO!!!"


There is a short silence as the echoes die away. Marae, poised on top of a short human-boppy pyramid, tries not to drop her pompoms and wonders, not for the first time, how Tully does it.


"All right," one of the guards says. "You'd better come with us."


The diverse group reassembles itself into some kind of marching order and sets off, flanked by the two guards.


Tully glances casually down and behind them, Both guards are leaving a fine trail of peanut butter footprints.


Just in case we need to find the way back in a hurry.


He smiles and takes Marae's hand in his.

---

Novae Romae

"Follow my lead." Zander says. He stands up, pulling a baseball cap from his pocket and jamming it on his head. "All right, squire, no need to shout," he says. "We've had a *****ers at the pipework from the gravity feed and it's all kushty up there, so basically you're gonna need a man down your sump, give your ball **** a good seeing to, check your jointing all the way round, hoik up the soilpipe--now some firms would take advantage of you, but I tell you what, you let me bell my supervisor and--"

"Silence, scum!" bellows the guard, and Zander reluctantly falls silent.

[T.O.O.O.]

TOOO, on the other hand, was distracted by Jo's latest KI message. JoJo? Since when has she ever called herself that? What's going on?

KI to KI
TOOO to Jo Tyler

Jo,

I'm still getting static on my Relto book, just like

He stopped. Just like Atrus' original trap books, before he was able to clear them up into Spire and Haven! As if they were defective Prison books....

He closed both his KI and Relto book. Well, they were defective - pages were missing that the Stranger had to retrieve. So what happened to my Relto book? And how did I happen to end up on an Age which Zander just happened to write retroactively?

His thoughts were interrupted by the guard yanking on his arm.

[jahura]

Back in the cell, shackled to the wall along with the others, Jahura has her own questions. Who are these people? Where did they come from? Would Zander actually write about a society that so flagrantly violates the Saggitarian Accords he could get his Homeship in trouble? How did TOOO and Cannax get here? Why is it that try as we might absolutely no one can get the name of this Age right? She looks over at Zander, who beams a questioning gaze of his own in her direction.

The back of Michael's head taps softly against the stone wall. "I'm sorry, Wildcat." He whispers.

"Together," Zander says, "one, two, three..."
They both speak, Zander's one question drowned out by Jahura's list of concerns.

"I'm sorry, dear. What was your question?" Jahura asks.

"Not really a question, just wondering why a plasmoid would volunteer to be shackled and caged, is all." Zander replies.

Because what you're thinking would be the easy way out, wouldn't it? She bites the inside of her lip and instead gives him the most honest answer she could.
"I have no idea, I'm not volunteering, just no one told me not to."

Zander rolls his eyes upward and heaves a long sigh.
"Then if you would kindly unshackle yourself, mist between those bars, and procure the keys so that we may escape from here, I would greatly appreciate it."

Jahura smiles, and her hands drop down from the shackles. She stands up, goes and squeezes herself between the cell door's bars, and disappears from view.

TOOO shakes his head.

[Zander Nyrond]

"Now, to answer your questions, my love," Zander says, massaging his wrists, "I didn't Write the people, at least not directly, and I don't control them or dictate the way they run their world. I assume they evolved naturally in the Shadow Prehistory. It's interesting, though, that the only Age I've ever succeeded in making stable is the one that had the potential for habitation. As for TOOO and Cannax, I have no idea. As far as I know there's only the one book. You would have to ask TOOO. As for the name..." He smiles. "Good trick, isn't it?"

Jahura opens her mouth, then closes it again. "No way," she says. "You can't Write an Age with an unstable name. Not even you."

"No," Zander admits, "but it would have been a good trick if I had." He gestures toward the cell gate. "Shall we?"

"Oh, but I'd so much rather you didn't," says a slight figure standing in the shadows beyond the bars. "I was hoping you could tell me all about my--what was it?--pipework."