Feel free to indulge :p

From wikipedia on scrying : Scrying or crystal gazing is the occult practice of using a medium, most commonly a reflective surface or translucent body, to aid perceived psychic abilities such as clairvoyance. The media often used to “see” are water, polished precious stones, crystal balls, or mirrors.

It’s not a close down, it’s a close up; a new breath for inspiration, and a new breadth for ideas.

X is closer than you think, but also a promise of a fresh start :)
Feel free to dive in first :)

Cheers,
Your friendly Sumafreak

#1664 Elizabeth was beginning to realize that there WAS no road.
Whenever she found herself following another, she didn’t want it.
Perhaps it was rough and coarse, plain and functional. Some were together somehow.

It really was the most fabulously absorbing babbling,…

“How long now?”

Yann couldn’t help but laugh. She would choose… some of them are so slippery…

SPLASH! warmly as Flove was.

Note: the Janitor declines any responsibility for any loss or any Patel “pop-in” that may mess up with your reality.

Note: for the reader not familiar with all the names here is a quick reminder:

• Araili > Yann, Írtak, Sam, Jacob …
• Armelle > Fiona, Arona, Tina, Qixi …
• Rafaela > Dory, Illi, Becky, Rodney …

• Yuki > Quintin, Al, Janice …

September 12 ^th, 2007

Today, an experiment has been launched by Quintin. Time will tell if it will bear some fruit, but the idea sounds good.
Having people join in a story telling, and see what happens, what are the “lessons” one can draw from this…

Armelle, Rafaela and Araili are already on the starting-blocks, though Quintin is not quite aware yet.

I can hear some thoughts: Let’s say for the moment that there are no rules. We will see what prompts the desire for having rules…

September 13 ^th

Some of the people familiar with Janice and her friends’ adventures have already joined in with much enthusiasm.
This first comment seems very promising.

Right now, it feels easy and fun.

Quintin seems to think that everything is very straightforward.
The magical world with the cave in one part, separated from the “real” world. (Two Worlds, and he thinks that will be enough to content Rafaela, ahaha, how presumptuous)
The first he sees as a representation of what psychologists think of as “subconscious”, and the other being the conscious, physical part.

But of course, he thinks he knows better than that. He calls the first one “subjective“ rather than subconscious, because it’s a translation of subjects which unfold in many related objects in the “objective“ or physical world.
That’s a good point, though a bit distorted. It would be better to say Malvina’s World is a translation of the subjective, in the manner of a Heroic Dimension.
But the thing is, that he missed the point in thinking one World is more “real” than the other.
We’ll be having some fun soon…

First remark… The second comment of the story has been interrupted abruptly in the middle of a sentence. That is interesting. We will urge Quintin to leave it as it is, despite his feeling of it being awkward.
We will appeal to his imagination.
It seems he has heard the suggestion.

September 14 ^th

For the most part, the story starts to get much involvement. Lots of energies are being projected into it, and with every adjunct, each participant’s perception stretches to accommodate the changes and smooth out the bumps in their own sense of continuity.

But as I expected, some challenges seem to appear already.
Is it raining or not in that world?
The question seems simple, but it is very profound and Fiona seems to struggle a bit with it, as is Quintin. The question frame itself [”that World”] shows where the difficulty lies.

He seems to avoid the discrepancy and pretend that he has not seen it. Mmmm, avoiding the obstacles… that will very soon come right back in front of you dear Quintin, for Dory is quite playful.
At least Fiona has been challenging Dory for not paying attention… Armelle’s ineffable loving ruthlessness!
How will it unfold?
Rafaela seems to be delighting herself as though she’s preparing some mischief, but Dory struggles in the “back”...

September 15 ^th

Dory is indeed very playful and her imagination is unrestrained. I extend much appreciation to this focus of Rafaela, especially as Quintin has to stretch his imagination to make things “fit”.

Quintin is still avoiding the issues that appear sporadically and prefers to stay focused on his own perception of the story… Careful Quintin :face-smile:

Yann joins the fun —objectively, that is, for Araili has been present already since the very beginning.

September 16 ^th

Halcyons days…
My dear friend Archie is answering some of Quintin and Yann’s questions.
Something starts to dawn on Quintin. But his mind is on other matters.

He understands that the energies of the writers are melding in writing the story, but he still tends to think that they blend completely.

September 18 ^th

Quintin has been drawing some of the characters of the story. It’s interesting.
He had good insights, as Yann will tell him later that his clothes today were exactly the same as the colours he had drawn.

Characters drawn:

• Mavina, Leörmn the dragon and weaszchilla, Írtak, Huÿgens (and Fjutch), Arona and Illi (the gripshawk)

• Malika, Quintin, Yann, Fiona and Dory

Interestingly, Fiona resolves her issues in her cave.
Dory too, but she did not need the cave to do this.

September 21 ^st

For Quintin, the story seems to lose all common sense, as some characters move from World to World. You could have expected that Quintin!
And Dory pops in and out, in her mind, in her dream state, or in future timeline mixed with present or past one.
Quintin will soon realize that he himself is doing this constantly, though he does not register it.

But the worst thing for him is that there are bleedthroughs in between Worlds. The Reality Times newspaper was brilliant Rafaela, a perfect trigger for the beliefs that the Worlds are closed and impermeable to each other!

Archie has been answering new questions about that story and this had been quite interesting for all of the participants.
There is much for them to digest from the realization that each of them had been creating their own versions of the stories through their perceptions. And that they were each having their version of the story, drawing from each other’s input, like a conductor of an orchestra incorporating some instruments.

Of course, some things still matter, and one of the point of the story is also to discover these.

September 22 ^nd

Quintin has been drawing new characters.

Characters drawn:

• Båd Al’Guz (Bådul), BelleDora, Buckberry the dragon, the twin dragon eggs, Archibald the parrot, Sanso the Wanderer
• Illi Fergusson, another Illi that Quintin has tried to sneak in as a bait for Dory, with hints that she is disengaged (or “dead” in common vernacular) and merges with others of her focuses…

• Jacqueline Bleomelen (Nanny Gibbon), Lord Wrick, his great grand children the twins Cuthbert and India Louise, Manfred, William P. Jobsworth the painter

A new perception trick: Dory felt relieved upon seeing the moth feelers of BelleDora.
She had at first thought they were whiskers, which was not Quintin’s intent…

September 23 ^rd

Quintin seems to have connected to a map drawn by Lord Wrick, when the old Lord has started to document his great grand children travels.

Quintin had tried to put some annotations on this fragment, but he doesn’t yet completely understand that his perception of this World, though accurate, is only valid in this present moment, and may change at any time.

Up to now, here are the names he could find:

• North: the Icy Lands, and Dragon Cemeteries
• Center: Goldfindely, homeland of Arona, connected to the Warring Kingdoms of Lan’ork by the Isthmus of Ghört’s Hammer. The Isthmus of the Dragon Head seems to lead to Malvina’s cave and hideout. Mount Elok’ram is pointed as the highest place of the World yet discovered. Three main rivers are drawn: in the ancient myths of the people of this land, they represent the three Daughters of Ghört, weavers of men’s destinies: Tibreÿa, Uleÿa, and Snimeÿa. Snimeÿa cuts the thread of life, which is shown as the river leads after many meanders to the Marshes of Doom.

• Far East, North: the Land of Båd Al’Guz, Åsgurdy. A harsh mountainous land of islands and seas.

Both parts of the World seem to ignore each other till now, as they are separated by the Great Rift, which in the past has deterred many intrepid navigators.
• South: the Desert Lands. Illi’s birthplace, rarely explored by humans thus unaware of most of its marvels, gripshawks nomadic tribes included.

When he discussed Arona’s village with Fiona, Quintin had the vision of some dolphin-like creatures, but bright yellow. They are called golfindels and are mostly seen on the northern shores of Arona’s homeland, which is thus called Golfindely.

• “What a shame we didn’t get the 999th comment on the 9th of the 9th month”, Becky remarked to nobody in particular. “Still, never mind, at least I got the 1000th.” here …

999

She’d had a moment of inspiration when she started reading a book. She’d only read a few pages and had no idea how the book would turn out, but the format was interesting. Julie had had an idea, simmering on a back burner for years, to write a book. It always seemed to want to be an autobiographical book, and that’s where she always came unstuck because she couldn’t see the point of that, not that she was overly concerned about whether anyone would want to read it or not, but she often came unstuck when she wondered about how all the characters in the book might feel about it, which is why that moment of inspiration in the bathroom the other day seemed like such a good idea.

She could write a book about a probability party, perhaps called ‘Probably Real’, (maybe with the subtitle ‘Probably Not’.) There would be an occasion, the details of which she hadn’t worked out yet, in which various (not all, she soon realized!) of her probable selves met ~ such as in the Atkinson book, in some quiet desolate place with no interruptions (obviously somewhere with no internet connection, although there was always the danger of picking up a freak broadband WiFi), where they had all the time in the world to tell their tales, compare notes as it were.

Which was where the fiction idea came in ~ of course! Just call it fiction! Would just one of the probable selves be telling the truth, relating the only true version of Julie’s life? And if so, which one was the real probable self? All the characters in the book would have probable selves and probable lives; which of them was the real probable self, the official version? No-one would ever know.

Of course, anyone versed in the metaphysical mechanics of probabilities and such would realize that all probable versions are real, at the same time as all being, in a certain sense, fiction ~ made up. The only question was, would that be too unlimiting to contain within the confines of one book, but time (so to speak) would tell.

Procrastination had set in, as usual, not that that is a bad thing, and things pretty much carried on as usual for a few days. Julie noticed the puppy tugging at a particular magazine from the bottom of the magazine rack over the course of those few days, and eventually the magazine was rather pointedly poking out from the bottom of the pile, it’s title clearly showing: a booklet on How To Write FICTION, with FICTION in big letters.

Never the less, the procrastination continued, although the clue was duly noted. It hadn’t been the first time a Writing A Book incident had occured.

It was easy, in this case, to remember that date, because it was right around the time of the 1999/2000 milenium party, right around the time when that particular roller coaster had derailed. While unpacking the boxes of books and putting them on the shelves of yet another rented house ~ a particularly garish and tasteless monstrosity, a drug baron’s dream of unfunctional largeness with hideous coloured glass windows (it’s the sheer randomness of the colours that’s so awful, G had remarked) ~ a book flew off the shelf, quite literally, and landed alone in the middle of the floor some distance away from the bookshelf.

Becoming A Writer was the name of the book, and the funny thing was that she had been thinking of writing a book but didn’t know where to start, and had been toying with the idea of buying a book on writing a book. So she read the book and started writing, a little bit every day, following the books advice to just start writing, even if it’s just ‘I can’t think of what to write’. There was plenty to write about as it turned out, but circumstances changed, another sudden move of house ensued, another rollercoaster ride, and the writing stopped for awhile.

But back to the book, Becoming A Writer. For a long time, Julie had no recollection of buying that book, and wondered by what magic had it appeared at her feet. Many years later she perhaps would have simply accepted the magic, and would have known that she created the book in that moment. But at the time she didn’t, and in due course constructed a memory of buying the book some years previously at a car boot sale somewhere along the coast road.

(We did buy the book, piped up PSJ2, and I actually read it, unlike you, as soon as I bought it. My 5th book is about to be published, a lightweight comedy/detective series about the Costa del Crime)

PSJ2’s interjection reminded PSJ1 (Good grief, we’ll have to think of a solution to the probable self names, she noted) that she had in fact started writing a book about the Costa del Crime, called Peregrino’s, or perhaps that was the name she’d given to the bar, the central hub, of the book. Of course, that was in the days when bars had been her central hub; she doubted very much if she would choose a bar as the central hub of a book now. She hadn’t got very far with the book, and had burned it when PSA1 got busted, just in case. What to do first, bury the (probable, it must be remembered) pump action shotgun, or burn the book. She had buried the gun, under cover of darkness, in the back garden, wrapping it in plastic bags and blankets, making it look for all the world like the body of a dead child. It was dark, it was raining, and there weren’t many neighbours out there in the orange groves, and she could do no more than hope for the best that she hadn’t been seen.

No doubt there was a probable self who did choose to create being seen, but if so she hadn’t arrived at the probability party (yet, at any rate) with her tale.

That it had been a major probability junction was certain. Not just the gun burying incident, which had turned out to be no more than merely incidental, but the events leading up to it.

Be it the place for such an endeavoor.

A few quotes

“Sometimes it takes a single sniggly thorny path to go through to reach Elysian avenues much more efficiently” — ID850

“rainy wedding, merry marriage” — ID1183

“Better speak nonsense than be dead or sorry” — ID1644

“It’s not the writer’s job to piece the stuff life is made of together, it’s the job of the reader.” — ID1661

“A new-born book is like a little baby, except it smells only of ink, and doesn’t make spurious sounds” (said at an interview with journalist Finckle Frettle on Oo-TV)

NB please don’t use copyrighted material, unless you hold the rights or the permission to reproduce

• Glukenitch kebabs
• Borgulm tart (also known as the Snoot’s tart)
• Flynn and chips
• Langoat Crumble
• Horny Goatweed and Spam soup

• Reindeer Pee Sorbet

Races

• Dragons
• Gripshawks [ ˈgrip-ˌshȯk ]: feline-like race.
• Humans

• Uglings

Creatures

• capricorn [ ˈka-pri-ˌkȯrn ]: goat-like fish-tailed aquatic creature
• fincheon [ ˈfin-chən ]: grey ugly birds, with the particularity of being extremely discreet (almost invisible) with a great sense of orientation, and loyalty to their owner. They are mostly used as message deliverers
• glukenitch [ ˈglu̇-ˌken-nitch ] (Gripshawk dialect: [ ˈglu̇k-ˌnitch ]) : Slimy wet creatures fearing light, sharing one mind, found in Malvina’s cave. Useful recyclers of garbage, their droppings emit a glowing bluish halo, until they dry up completely and coalesce into a glassy substance.
• golfindel [ ˈgōl-ˌfin-dəl ] : golden coloured cetacean, found in Golfindely.
• grake [ ˈgrāk ]: big birds of Golfindely, with colours like mandarin ducks and shaped as geese.
• indogo [ ˈin-dō-ˌgō ]: blue type of flamingo living in the Eastern Lagunas of Lan’ork.
• langoat [ ˈlan-ˌgōt ]: daft three-eyed goat-like creature living in the Dragon Head Peninsula, the wool of which has many magical uses (enchanted cloaks, tapestries etc.). Their milk is known to have remarkable healing powers too.
• marmoth [ ˈmär-məth ]: big toothed hibernating woolliphants
• saurhse [ ˈsȯr-əs ] : bidepal saurian used as a mount in Asgurdy.
• schpurniatz [ ˈshpər-ˌniats ] : bat-like creatures, found in dark caves.
• sparfly [ ˈspär-ˌflī ] : birds usually seen in couples, loving to nest in silgreen trees, and their songs is one of the Treasure of the Worlds.

• weaszchilla [ ˈwēz-ˌchi-lə ]: little mouse-like ferret

Magical Artefacts

• buntifluën [ ˈbənti-ˌflün ] (or [ ˈbau̇nti-ˌflün ]): A magical artefact having in most of its variations the form of a knot-like object, which allows the wearer or bearer to communicate directly with the energy of sentient beings.
• glubolín [ ˈglü-bȯ-ˌlin ]: A device made from unhatched dragon eggs of the same brood, that allows people to communicate through it.

• sabulmantium [ ˈsā-bəl-ˌman(t)-shəm ] (or [ ˈsā-bu̇l-ˌman(t)-shəm ]): A device made from rare unhatched dragon egg with crystalline transparent shells, which is filled with sands. May be used as a divination device or as a compass, in any case as an intent focusing device.

Plants

• buckberry [ ˈbək-ˌbe-rē ]: fruit of wild buckberries shrubs, in the form of big electric blue-vermilion reddish berries, known to have thwarted all attempts to be grown in gardens.
• grogonut [ ˈgrō-ˌgə-nət ] tree: a tree indigenous of the warm coasts of Golfindely, known to provide grogonuts, which have a wide range of uses (food, drinks, cups etc.) depending on the maturation level of the nut.

• silgreen [ ˈsil-ˈgrēn ] tree: a big decorative shrub, blooming sparkling flowers of emerald and silver once every moon. Leafs can have medicinal use too.

More here later…

You can also make use of the “whisper” feature, which will make the comment viewable only by the name selected in the whisper box.

Test your grasp on the storys plot! Have you really remembered all the connections? Can YOU name who is whose focus? And what about the timeline, do you really know? Test yourself here, in the coming posts.

There is always a beginning… adding stuffs later :D

October, 24 ^th

Continuing.
It appears that the physical laws in this dimension are quite different from those in the dimension of Quintin and the others.
The inhabitant of this dimension do not limit their land in the same way as the inhabitants of Earth do. There is still much to discover, much that is not inhabited yet.

The 4 Warring Kingdoms are about to reconfigure their borders, outwardly and inwardly… they are 4 parts of the same people. Once they were 12, and they are in a manner of speaking reuniting. They are going through a kind of mini shift and will have to move their attention to other beliefs…

At the moment Baul is part of the changes as are the others… each playing his own role quite playfully.
Baul’s intention is not what it would appear, and he’s not aware yet of all the implications of what he’s about to ask the Assassin.

The Marshlands are inhabited by a race of small silver Armelides. With powerful innermagic… they are yet to be discovered by the Warring Kingdoms.