Wednesday, 31 July 2013
Work Blog 8 : Medical
Medical
So yesterday I went for my medical renewal at Abermed. Yes, my life really is that
exciting. I've been there a couple of times, it seems like a good place, not like
the dodgey back street surgery I once went to in Hull.
Very professional, but I do wonder why a nurse or doctor would want to work there
and not for the NHS or whatever. It surely must be the same thing each day. A GP
must get a lot of variety but these guys must perform the same tests on the same
bunch of surly offshore workers day after endless day. I suppose they are paid
more.
Anyway for those of you that have never done it here is what happens :
You fill in a small novel of paperwork for all the tests they carry out on you.
One of the questions amused me :
'Do you have memory loss, confusion, anger and irritability?'
Well yes, yes I do. But probably no more than any other person that works at Aker
so I put no :D
Then the nurse tests your eyes with a chart and some colour blindness pictures,
takes your height and weight, tells you that you are a fat git, then takes you
to the toilet where you pee in a cup. This is then tested for all sorts of nasty
things.
Assuming you survive that then you get the full hearing test of pressing a button
each time you hear a beep and trying not to fall asleep in a sound proof booth.
After all the fun of that you go see the doctor who makes sure you have arms and legs
that function and that you don't fall over when you shut your eyes.
He then gives you a good tickle and fondles you gently as you lie back and wish
there were more female doctors working for Abermed.
If he does find something wrong with you though he tells you to go see your GP,
he's really not interested in hearing about your various mystery ailments ;)
They then give you a certificate and punt you out again, the whole process taking
about an hour and a half leaving you safe in the knowledge that you are healthy
enough to fall asleep on helicopters, go up and down stairs and pig out on huge
piles of offshore food :)
More chips sir?
Saturday, 27 July 2013
(G171 20/07/2013 Sat via Roll20 - JF(GM) , AP)
[Forgive me once more for jumping around in the narrative dear reader! I really should
get my notes in order but anyway, here is the next instalment of the adventures that
Fenrir and Corum had in Darknessdeep]
DAY 211 (8 Marpenoth)(October) cont ...
It was morning at Kreenan's hideout and the were both getting bad coughs. The air
in Darknessdeep was full of ash and soot and everyone that lived there had a bad case
of 'black lung'.
Fenrir and Corum were not used to this air and their lungs were filling up with nasty
gunk. There wasn't much they could do about it though and once he'd cleared his airways
as much as he could Corum said to Fenrir :
''
I think we just need to get out of here. Whatever is on the other side of the barrier has
to be better than this. If we've really been dead for fifty years lets get out of here and go
to Baldur's Gate or something.
I don't know though. I once read a book about this man that ended up in a hellish version of
his city. It was called Unthank and when he got out of it, well, it was only then he realised
he was in hell.
The next place he went to was this sort of hospital under the city where he got healed
up. Sounds like a better place than this. Forget De Rosan I say and concentrate on getting
out.Either that or the only way to get out is kill De Rosan or defeat him somehow.
If there is no way out at all I'm just going to kill myself, because the afterlife seems
like a better option this.
''
Fenrir agreed but had no idea how to get out. Corum reminded him that Zander had mentioned
something about an exit in the City of the Dead.
Anger, their ever useful guide, took them to the northern most gate to the Necropolis.
They spotted two figures at the gate, seemingly in conversation, a normal sized man and
a much larger man.
Fenrir flew over invisibly and tried out his talisman. It had no effect and when he listened
to them talk he could not understand the language they were speaking in.
So they decided to go down to the next gate and try that one. Fenrir went in first, flying
and scouting. He saw the wizard chap and his big friend fighting zombies and skeletons
so deciding to help landed and started blasting too.
When the fight was over he introduced himself (as Bob Smith) to the other two men and
the wizard told him he was Hellion and his companion was a flesh golem called Fred.
Hellion was 68 years of age, or so he said.
During the conversation Hellion said this;
''
Ask yourself this, how could we would not have let this happen? I remember part of it,
but as if it all happened to someone else. And I try and think back to what happened
a year ago and I cannot. There is only now, and what happened a long time in the past.
And there is more. It was like I'd just woken up four days ago from a nightmare
but into another one.
Two days ago I went to the barrier and walked some of its length. There is so
much out there that is unformed. The ruins look different out there, like they
are all melded together by dragon fire.
And the people that live out there, well, you can't really call them people, they
are more like ghosts. Vague spirits that taken on more of a shape when you approach
them. They don't speak, I don't think they even breath. They must be some kind of
undead I don't know about.
I've got to get out of here! If I don't I'm going to kill myself.
''
They then went back to the gate and collected Corum. Fenrir decided to try the crypts in
the City of the Dead that held portals to small dimensions where the dead of Waterdeep
were buried. At the House of the Homeless they found one of Anacaster's portals but it
was only an empty arch.
There were undead there, lurking in the deep shadows, but they were not attacked.
Hellion told them a story about a snowglobe that he had once encountered that held a
small world in it, in a pocket dimension. He was starting to think that Darknessdeep
might be like that.
At the Merchant's Rest Crypt it was the same thing, just and empty archway where the
portal had once been.
Next the went to the Hall of Heroes which was down in the south east corner, close to
the edge of the barrier. The world seemed faded here and strange ghostly things flitted
about in the shadows.
The Hall of Heroes looked like it had been rebuilt into something larger and there
were crucified corpses outside it and bodies stretched out on wagon wheels.
Fenrir cautiously tried the entrance and saw four Vampire Spawn guarding a set of
tall closed brass doors. They did not see him since he was invisible and reported back
to the others.
After some discussion they decided to meet Hellion back at this place tomorrow once
he'd rested and got his spells all back.
They had Anger bring them back to Kreenan's and had something to eat, then rested for
the remainder of the day.
DAY 212 (9 Marpenoth)(October)
In the morning they went back to the appointed place, guided there by young Anger,
where they met Hellion and Fred.
They went in at full strength and killed three of the Vampire Spawns and making the
other flee. Fenrir opened the brass doors and saw a corridor beyond it.
From now on Fenrir would generally float ahead of the others and scout around while
invisible. They came to a junction with several doors. The first one was a kitchen
that had two zombies in it. These they quickly killed.
They continued exploring and found a dining room with a tiger skin rug by the fire.
Much to their surprise it came to life and badly mauled Corum! Once more though the
magical blasts of Fenrir and Hellion proved the enemies' doom.
The crypt or whatever this building was proving to be, was a maze of corridors and
rooms. The next door they tried had a sign on it which read 'Dr Karl Adenauer'.
Inside was a small study and a grey bearded man sat at the desk. He was prepared
to talk to them and give them information in return for gold. Among other things
he told them that the Hall of Heroes had been converted into a family crypt for
the Heydrich family about thirty years ago.
It's current master was Count Riener Heydrich who preferred to live here than in
the city because he was left alone by the devils here.
They left him and went upstairs to an upper level of this large building and Fenrir
shot down a pair of zombies. In the following corridors and rooms they fought and
slew a strange four armed skeleton and another vampire spawn.
They then found their way to a set of rooms that were used by Katrina Heydrich,
the count's sister. She did not want to fight them, in fact she said she would
like them to kill her brother so she could rule in his stead. The best way to do
this she explained was to find the Castilian, kill him and take his keys.
Fenrir didn't want much to do with this strange woman so he ushered everyone back
out again. The next room down the corridor was a trophy room. Inside one of the
statues came to life and turned out to be a wood golem. Fred traded heavy slamming
blows with it and everyone else helped.
The wood golem was eventually defeated, but Fred and Corum were badly hurt. They
decided to barricade the door and rest for a while.
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
THE MALL (3172 words)(24/08/2009)
THE MALL
(3172 words)(24/08/2009)
- WELCOME TO THE MALL -
She was new to this city and had spent the day going around the shops looking for things
to buy for the flat. They had moved here because of her husbands new job and they needed to
stock up on various household things.
She just needed some wet wipes for her infant son and then she could go home.
Noticing a large mall across a plaza she didn't know the name of she headed towards it.
She was from the far east where everyone did their shopping in malls and was drawn to it
like a moth to a heavily discounted light bulb.
The entrance was strongly guarded, unusual for a mall in Britain, but very common for where
she was from so she thought nothing of it. Perhaps there had been a bomb threat?
She was six months pregnant and her belly swelled out under her blouse making her waddle and
quick to tire so the first thing she did was sit down in the food court and order a decaffeinated
coffee. She looked for messages on her mobile phone but found that she couldn't get a signal.
Ah, what luck! Just across from where she was sitting sipping her coffee she could see
a 'Boots'. She could get the wipes in there and then make her way home again.
- BOOTS -
What a funny lot they were here. In her country, old people didn't go out of their homes much,
but in Britain they seemed to be out and about on the buses and in the shops all the time.
And the old lady in front of her in the queue had no shoes or sock on! Her feet looked like
something from a wildlife documentary. They had long toenails and were covered in sores, what a sight!
She would have to ask her husband about it when she got home, were such things normal here? The old
lady was looking away so she glanced over her face. It was a road map of deep lines.
She look as if she was a hundred years old and the old man next to her looked equally as ancient,
his face so saggy and deeply cut with lines he hardly looked human any longer.
He noticed her gaze and smiled weakly.
She bowed her head and looked away. In her country the old were treated with respect, unlike here,
were even her husband would talk to them as he would any other person.
The queue was very long, but eventually she was able to pay for her purchases and leave.
- ONE WAY ONLY -
She head back the way she had came, but a security guard stopped her and silently pointed at
the floor. She had to step back to read what was written on the tiles. 'One way only'
'Excuse me', she said 'How I get out?'
The guard, again silently, pointed up at a sign. One of the many things written on it
was 'Exit' and an arrow point back into the mall.
Meekly she turned and headed back inside. She felt angry at herself for not being more forceful,
but politeness and submission was bred into her.
Her husband, she was sure, would have just pushed past the guard, he considered such people his
social inferior. Even the police he regarded with disrespect, a concept completely alien to her.
But they didn't carry guns here, she supposed, that would make a big difference.
She followed the signs and noticed that there were more and more one way areas and more and more guards.
This was ridiculous! She was now desperate for a pee and was getting drawn further and further into this
strange place!
- THE GALLERY -
She'd found a toilet at least. The baby was pressing down on her bladder though, and she instantly felt as
if she had to go again. Instead of following the signs towards the exit she head towards what was signposted
as the 'gallery' and took a seat on a bench overlooking the city. She must have gotten quite high up now
as she could see down onto the roofs of houses that were four and five stories high. There were office blocks
in the distance.
She didn't even know the name of the city she was looking at. Her husband had explained that they now lived
in the join of two large cities and it didn't even really have a name. The two other cities had western
names she had found hard to pronounce and she'd forgotten them anyway.
The streets looked deserted.
She looked at her phone again. No signal. She sent a text message to her husband anyway.
'You have done well to get even this far.', the man next to her suddenly said.
She looked over at him, he was still looking over the city. He was in his early forties.
'Excuse me?', she replied.
'To see anything other than just the inside of the mall is rare.'
'I not understand', she said.
'Ah', he said, turning and smiling at her, 'You're new, in that case you must have got here by blind luck.
Hopefully your luck will continue then.'
She realised that there was a bad smell here, and that it was coming from this man. He was a tramp.
She got up to leave, he must be crazy. You get a lot of crazy people in this country she thought.
- MAN AT C&A -
She was back at where she had entered the mall, or at least as close as she could get to the maze of
security guards, escalators and one way signs that encased it.
She was on the verge of a complete break down now, it was so very late that her husband would be home
from work and wondering where on earth she was. The infant, not even two years old yet, would need
his dinner and his bath. She didn't really trust her husband to do all those things by himself.
He was probably driving around the city looking for her though. He would be worried sick.
This is absolutely ridiculous she thought and stepped forward to demand egress from the first of the
guards.
She steeled herself for the confrontation, but then a man's hand gently held her back,
'Don't bother.', he said, 'Just watch.'
A family consisting of a man, his intensely angry wife and two children approached the guard and
tried to force him aside. The guard whispered something into his radio and suddenly five more guards
appeared as if from nowhere. The family were surrounded and quickly defeated, ushered back into the throng.
'You see?', said the man, 'It's futile.'
She could see he was well dressed, in a dark suit, but he had unkempt hair and a short beard.
'I cannot believe it', she said, 'They can't do this!'
'I know.', he shrugged, 'But they do. I've been here three weeks.'
She was speechless.
'I think I have a plan though.' the man continued, 'We need enough people to spring all the traps.
I've been standing here all day and I think fifty would be enough. The first person goes forward and
confronts the first set of guards. While they are busy, the next person goes up and does the same at
the next security gate. Then a runner goes past them all as fast as they can. I think they would have
a chance of getting past them all if they were quick. It's like an American football game, the
blockers hold up the other team so the quarterback can get through.'
'Fifty people to make one people escape?' she asked.
'I think so.'
'I think I find exit.', she said with finality and went back into the mall.
- EXIT -
She had dozed off on a bench somewhere near the big department stores. When she awoke she
found she was leaning against another sleeping woman. She looked at her watch. It was four
in the morning.
For a while, she watched the people in the mall. A lot of them seemed to be wandering aimlessly.
Most of the shops were still open (didn't this place ever close?) but the people didn't go
into them.
Some of the people looked like tramps. She wondered if they were really tramps or just people
that had been here a long time?
She was hungry so she looked through her bags. She ate some of her son's biscuits. The ones
topped with yogurt that everyone in the family liked. She washed then down with half of her
bottle of caffeine free diet cola.
The woman beside her on the bench woke up and eyed up the remains of the biscuits. She looked
like her hair was growing wild and her eyes were very red.
'I haven't eaten in two days.'
She gave the rest of the biscuits and coke to the hungry looking woman who began to eat and
drink greedily.
'I'm looking for the exit.' she said.
The wild woman looked up and said, 'The mythical exit. You know, they say around here that
there actually is one. They say that by law there has to be one. But don't bother with the
signs, they are worse than useless.'
'But there is one?'
'So they say', shrugged the wild woman, 'I don't know though. God knows I've looked.'
She got up to go, she needed the toilet.
'Another piece of advice.', said the other woman, 'Don't be so quick to give away your food
next time. Unless you've got someone on the outside topping up your credit cards.'
She spent the rest of the day trying to find the exit. Up and down escalators that seemed to
constantly switch back on themselves or dump you in the middle of nowhere or back where you'd
started.
It was like a snakes and ladders board that only contained snakes. She wasn't the only person
riding the stairs, there seemed to be hundreds of people going up and down, but ultimately
going nowhere. Some got frustrated and jumped between the escalators, swapping from an up to
a down or visa versa. It looked dangerous though and she doubted she would have tried that even
if she hadn't been pregnant.
Occasionally she would check her phone, but she never got a signal and she tried to always remember
were the nearest toilet was incase she needed to make a dash for one.
The mall seemed to be incredibly big. Just when she thought she had reached one side of it, there
would be another passage or set of doors, or a shop with two entrances that lead off to another
area.
Suddenly needing the toilet she realised she hadn't the faintest idea where the nearest one
was. She was in a quieter section of the mall where there were a lot of empty concessions, rows
of TO LET signs ranked along the tops of the shop windows.
Desperately she dove through the nearest door and into a staff only section. Miraculously
there was a staff toilet just off to the side and she ran into it gratefully.
When she came out again she saw that there were some steps leading way down to a landing
and she decide to go down them. After what felt like an age the stairs twisted around and she
was confronted with a very strange sight.
Camped out on the beige carpet were a man on his son, lounging around in sleeping bags next to
piles of boxes and crates. There was even a tent, but they seemed to be using it for storage
rather than sleeping in.
'Hello.', said the man. The boy nodded and smiled.
'Hello.' she replied.
'We don't get many visitors down here.', he said.
'What you do here?', she asked.
'Me and the boy are just camping out.', he said, 'It's quieter down here away from the guards
and the crowds. We prefer it.'
She nodded. The did indeed seem to be well set up.
'Do you know where exit is?' she asked.
'As a matter of fact yes', he replied, 'It's right over there.'
- FCUK -
She walked along a seemingly endless corridor. The man had pointed at a door marked exit and
she had entered eagerly.
'But be careful!', he'd called as she'd left, 'They made a mistake with the plans, so it's
not as it appears to be! Or safe!'
There was definitely something wrong with this corridor, but she couldn't figure out what it was
yet.
It was a typical sort of thing, thin beige carpets, sets of locked doors on either
side, strip lights on the ceiling and a litter bin every so often along its length.
It was just that is appeared to go on for ever. Literally for ever, it must be a mile long
or more because she couldn't see the other end!
Resigned to a long walk she had set off.
After a while she was surprised that her head suddenly brushed against a strip light.
Confused she looked back to where she had set off from. It was quiet far away but perhaps not
as far as she had thought.
Setting off again she found that she had to crouch. Her head was touching the ceiling!
Suddenly it dawned on her what was wrong with this corridor. The perspective was all
wrong. It wasn't just that it receded off into the distance, it was getting smaller.
Further along, she had to get onto her knees, and then down onto her belly.
This is ridiculous! She had to push the litter bin past her body to get past it. It was the
size of a salt shaker.
Now she had to hold her breath to squeeze past the frames of the doors on either side of the
corridor. Each one she was sure she was going to get stuck on, but she managed to wriggle on to
the next straight bit before getting to the next one.
Claustrophobia was beginning to get to her though, she felt like she was in a grave. This tiny tunnel
wasn't going to get any bigger either and she couldn't even turn now to look back the way she had came.
Looking forward she could now see that it seemed to turn straight upwards. Another 'mistake'
in the plans she supposed. If she could squeeze past one more set of doorways she could
maybe get her hand up it.
She could feel the baby moving and shifting to a different position as she squeezed past
the frames. She realised she couldn't do another one, but she was at the upwards bend now.
She knew there was no way she could make her way round it, even if she hadn't been pregnant it
was just too narrow a turn.
If it had been possible in some way, if she had been prepared to skin her knees and elbows, to risk
a broken rib or two, then maybe, just maybe, she would be able to get underneath the shaft and
see where it led.
She couldn't go forward another inch though so she decided she would at least stretch out her arm
and feel up the shaft to see what was there.
As she edged forward she caught a faint whiff of something unpleasant. Something dead.
Reaching up she could feel the one of the tiny door frames on the side of the wall. A little
further and she could feel something else. If felt like wool. She tugged at it and when it fell
onto the carpet of the tunnel she could see it was a black woolen sock.
A feeling of awful dread suddenly settled in her stomach, but she forced herself to reach up
again.
She slowly reach past the doorframe once more and her fingers closed over something bony.
She gasped in horror and snatched back her hand as if she'd been scalded.
She'd just touched a skeletal foot. She crawled back as quickly as she could.
- MOTHERCARE -
Weeks passed. At least she wasn't going hungry. Her husband - somehow - was topping up her
bank account. He wouldn't know where she was, but at least he would know she was alive.
It also meant she didn't need to get a job or resort to begging or worse.
Her stomach got bigger and she found that she could hardly move from the foodcourt. The women
that worked there were stern looking but even they didn't have the heart to move on a heavenly
pregnant woman. She washed her clothes in the ladies toilets and had a sink wash each morning.
She was determined not to turn into a smelly, dirty tramp.
One day, she was sitting, drinking a decaf coffee as usual, when her water broke.
'I'm having my baby!', she cried to one of the waitresses.
She sat down again and started her breathing. In ten minutes some paramedics arrived and she was
taken to a staff elevator. The guards looked at her sullenly, but she had a free pass, she
was having a baby.
Next she was in an underground carpark, and then an ambulance. Was she finally free of this
nightmarish place?
The ambulance screeched off and up a ramp, the out. From where she lay she could see the street
outside. She was out!
'Don't worry', said the friendly medic sat beside her, 'Just you lie back. We'll be at the hospital
in no time.'
- HOSPITAL ZONE -
She was lying in her hospital bed, looking out the window at the small grass area that was fully
enclosed by hospital buildings. Her beautiful daughter was in her arms, two days old.
Her husband and their son walked into the room. She squealed in delight.
'My gosh!', she cried, I thought I'd never see you!'
'Me too!', he said, 'I looked everywhere! The police here are useless. When I tried to report you
missing they acted like I was wasting their time! The nurses wouldn't even let me see you until
now.'
'But your here now!', she said as he kissed her. He held up there son for her to hug too. He
couldn't talk yet, but appeared to be delighted to see his mummy again.
'I can't believe I missed the birth. Where have you been all this time?'
'The mall', she replied as she stroke his cheek, 'You haven't shaved in long time.'
'Yeah', he says, 'This hospital is really weird, me and the boy got here days ago. I wanted to
go home to feed the cats, but... they have these lines painted on the floor. Red for A&E, yellow
for maternity and various others. Green for exit. But if you follow the green line it just leads
you round in circles or down dead ends.'
She lay back and closed her eyes.
Trapped again. But at least they were trapped as a family.
(3172 words)(24/08/2009)
- WELCOME TO THE MALL -
She was new to this city and had spent the day going around the shops looking for things
to buy for the flat. They had moved here because of her husbands new job and they needed to
stock up on various household things.
She just needed some wet wipes for her infant son and then she could go home.
Noticing a large mall across a plaza she didn't know the name of she headed towards it.
She was from the far east where everyone did their shopping in malls and was drawn to it
like a moth to a heavily discounted light bulb.
The entrance was strongly guarded, unusual for a mall in Britain, but very common for where
she was from so she thought nothing of it. Perhaps there had been a bomb threat?
She was six months pregnant and her belly swelled out under her blouse making her waddle and
quick to tire so the first thing she did was sit down in the food court and order a decaffeinated
coffee. She looked for messages on her mobile phone but found that she couldn't get a signal.
Ah, what luck! Just across from where she was sitting sipping her coffee she could see
a 'Boots'. She could get the wipes in there and then make her way home again.
- BOOTS -
What a funny lot they were here. In her country, old people didn't go out of their homes much,
but in Britain they seemed to be out and about on the buses and in the shops all the time.
And the old lady in front of her in the queue had no shoes or sock on! Her feet looked like
something from a wildlife documentary. They had long toenails and were covered in sores, what a sight!
She would have to ask her husband about it when she got home, were such things normal here? The old
lady was looking away so she glanced over her face. It was a road map of deep lines.
She look as if she was a hundred years old and the old man next to her looked equally as ancient,
his face so saggy and deeply cut with lines he hardly looked human any longer.
He noticed her gaze and smiled weakly.
She bowed her head and looked away. In her country the old were treated with respect, unlike here,
were even her husband would talk to them as he would any other person.
The queue was very long, but eventually she was able to pay for her purchases and leave.
- ONE WAY ONLY -
She head back the way she had came, but a security guard stopped her and silently pointed at
the floor. She had to step back to read what was written on the tiles. 'One way only'
'Excuse me', she said 'How I get out?'
The guard, again silently, pointed up at a sign. One of the many things written on it
was 'Exit' and an arrow point back into the mall.
Meekly she turned and headed back inside. She felt angry at herself for not being more forceful,
but politeness and submission was bred into her.
Her husband, she was sure, would have just pushed past the guard, he considered such people his
social inferior. Even the police he regarded with disrespect, a concept completely alien to her.
But they didn't carry guns here, she supposed, that would make a big difference.
She followed the signs and noticed that there were more and more one way areas and more and more guards.
This was ridiculous! She was now desperate for a pee and was getting drawn further and further into this
strange place!
- THE GALLERY -
She'd found a toilet at least. The baby was pressing down on her bladder though, and she instantly felt as
if she had to go again. Instead of following the signs towards the exit she head towards what was signposted
as the 'gallery' and took a seat on a bench overlooking the city. She must have gotten quite high up now
as she could see down onto the roofs of houses that were four and five stories high. There were office blocks
in the distance.
She didn't even know the name of the city she was looking at. Her husband had explained that they now lived
in the join of two large cities and it didn't even really have a name. The two other cities had western
names she had found hard to pronounce and she'd forgotten them anyway.
The streets looked deserted.
She looked at her phone again. No signal. She sent a text message to her husband anyway.
'You have done well to get even this far.', the man next to her suddenly said.
She looked over at him, he was still looking over the city. He was in his early forties.
'Excuse me?', she replied.
'To see anything other than just the inside of the mall is rare.'
'I not understand', she said.
'Ah', he said, turning and smiling at her, 'You're new, in that case you must have got here by blind luck.
Hopefully your luck will continue then.'
She realised that there was a bad smell here, and that it was coming from this man. He was a tramp.
She got up to leave, he must be crazy. You get a lot of crazy people in this country she thought.
- MAN AT C&A -
She was back at where she had entered the mall, or at least as close as she could get to the maze of
security guards, escalators and one way signs that encased it.
She was on the verge of a complete break down now, it was so very late that her husband would be home
from work and wondering where on earth she was. The infant, not even two years old yet, would need
his dinner and his bath. She didn't really trust her husband to do all those things by himself.
He was probably driving around the city looking for her though. He would be worried sick.
This is absolutely ridiculous she thought and stepped forward to demand egress from the first of the
guards.
She steeled herself for the confrontation, but then a man's hand gently held her back,
'Don't bother.', he said, 'Just watch.'
A family consisting of a man, his intensely angry wife and two children approached the guard and
tried to force him aside. The guard whispered something into his radio and suddenly five more guards
appeared as if from nowhere. The family were surrounded and quickly defeated, ushered back into the throng.
'You see?', said the man, 'It's futile.'
She could see he was well dressed, in a dark suit, but he had unkempt hair and a short beard.
'I cannot believe it', she said, 'They can't do this!'
'I know.', he shrugged, 'But they do. I've been here three weeks.'
She was speechless.
'I think I have a plan though.' the man continued, 'We need enough people to spring all the traps.
I've been standing here all day and I think fifty would be enough. The first person goes forward and
confronts the first set of guards. While they are busy, the next person goes up and does the same at
the next security gate. Then a runner goes past them all as fast as they can. I think they would have
a chance of getting past them all if they were quick. It's like an American football game, the
blockers hold up the other team so the quarterback can get through.'
'Fifty people to make one people escape?' she asked.
'I think so.'
'I think I find exit.', she said with finality and went back into the mall.
- EXIT -
She had dozed off on a bench somewhere near the big department stores. When she awoke she
found she was leaning against another sleeping woman. She looked at her watch. It was four
in the morning.
For a while, she watched the people in the mall. A lot of them seemed to be wandering aimlessly.
Most of the shops were still open (didn't this place ever close?) but the people didn't go
into them.
Some of the people looked like tramps. She wondered if they were really tramps or just people
that had been here a long time?
She was hungry so she looked through her bags. She ate some of her son's biscuits. The ones
topped with yogurt that everyone in the family liked. She washed then down with half of her
bottle of caffeine free diet cola.
The woman beside her on the bench woke up and eyed up the remains of the biscuits. She looked
like her hair was growing wild and her eyes were very red.
'I haven't eaten in two days.'
She gave the rest of the biscuits and coke to the hungry looking woman who began to eat and
drink greedily.
'I'm looking for the exit.' she said.
The wild woman looked up and said, 'The mythical exit. You know, they say around here that
there actually is one. They say that by law there has to be one. But don't bother with the
signs, they are worse than useless.'
'But there is one?'
'So they say', shrugged the wild woman, 'I don't know though. God knows I've looked.'
She got up to go, she needed the toilet.
'Another piece of advice.', said the other woman, 'Don't be so quick to give away your food
next time. Unless you've got someone on the outside topping up your credit cards.'
She spent the rest of the day trying to find the exit. Up and down escalators that seemed to
constantly switch back on themselves or dump you in the middle of nowhere or back where you'd
started.
It was like a snakes and ladders board that only contained snakes. She wasn't the only person
riding the stairs, there seemed to be hundreds of people going up and down, but ultimately
going nowhere. Some got frustrated and jumped between the escalators, swapping from an up to
a down or visa versa. It looked dangerous though and she doubted she would have tried that even
if she hadn't been pregnant.
Occasionally she would check her phone, but she never got a signal and she tried to always remember
were the nearest toilet was incase she needed to make a dash for one.
The mall seemed to be incredibly big. Just when she thought she had reached one side of it, there
would be another passage or set of doors, or a shop with two entrances that lead off to another
area.
Suddenly needing the toilet she realised she hadn't the faintest idea where the nearest one
was. She was in a quieter section of the mall where there were a lot of empty concessions, rows
of TO LET signs ranked along the tops of the shop windows.
Desperately she dove through the nearest door and into a staff only section. Miraculously
there was a staff toilet just off to the side and she ran into it gratefully.
When she came out again she saw that there were some steps leading way down to a landing
and she decide to go down them. After what felt like an age the stairs twisted around and she
was confronted with a very strange sight.
Camped out on the beige carpet were a man on his son, lounging around in sleeping bags next to
piles of boxes and crates. There was even a tent, but they seemed to be using it for storage
rather than sleeping in.
'Hello.', said the man. The boy nodded and smiled.
'Hello.' she replied.
'We don't get many visitors down here.', he said.
'What you do here?', she asked.
'Me and the boy are just camping out.', he said, 'It's quieter down here away from the guards
and the crowds. We prefer it.'
She nodded. The did indeed seem to be well set up.
'Do you know where exit is?' she asked.
'As a matter of fact yes', he replied, 'It's right over there.'
- FCUK -
She walked along a seemingly endless corridor. The man had pointed at a door marked exit and
she had entered eagerly.
'But be careful!', he'd called as she'd left, 'They made a mistake with the plans, so it's
not as it appears to be! Or safe!'
There was definitely something wrong with this corridor, but she couldn't figure out what it was
yet.
It was a typical sort of thing, thin beige carpets, sets of locked doors on either
side, strip lights on the ceiling and a litter bin every so often along its length.
It was just that is appeared to go on for ever. Literally for ever, it must be a mile long
or more because she couldn't see the other end!
Resigned to a long walk she had set off.
After a while she was surprised that her head suddenly brushed against a strip light.
Confused she looked back to where she had set off from. It was quiet far away but perhaps not
as far as she had thought.
Setting off again she found that she had to crouch. Her head was touching the ceiling!
Suddenly it dawned on her what was wrong with this corridor. The perspective was all
wrong. It wasn't just that it receded off into the distance, it was getting smaller.
Further along, she had to get onto her knees, and then down onto her belly.
This is ridiculous! She had to push the litter bin past her body to get past it. It was the
size of a salt shaker.
Now she had to hold her breath to squeeze past the frames of the doors on either side of the
corridor. Each one she was sure she was going to get stuck on, but she managed to wriggle on to
the next straight bit before getting to the next one.
Claustrophobia was beginning to get to her though, she felt like she was in a grave. This tiny tunnel
wasn't going to get any bigger either and she couldn't even turn now to look back the way she had came.
Looking forward she could now see that it seemed to turn straight upwards. Another 'mistake'
in the plans she supposed. If she could squeeze past one more set of doorways she could
maybe get her hand up it.
She could feel the baby moving and shifting to a different position as she squeezed past
the frames. She realised she couldn't do another one, but she was at the upwards bend now.
She knew there was no way she could make her way round it, even if she hadn't been pregnant it
was just too narrow a turn.
If it had been possible in some way, if she had been prepared to skin her knees and elbows, to risk
a broken rib or two, then maybe, just maybe, she would be able to get underneath the shaft and
see where it led.
She couldn't go forward another inch though so she decided she would at least stretch out her arm
and feel up the shaft to see what was there.
As she edged forward she caught a faint whiff of something unpleasant. Something dead.
Reaching up she could feel the one of the tiny door frames on the side of the wall. A little
further and she could feel something else. If felt like wool. She tugged at it and when it fell
onto the carpet of the tunnel she could see it was a black woolen sock.
A feeling of awful dread suddenly settled in her stomach, but she forced herself to reach up
again.
She slowly reach past the doorframe once more and her fingers closed over something bony.
She gasped in horror and snatched back her hand as if she'd been scalded.
She'd just touched a skeletal foot. She crawled back as quickly as she could.
- MOTHERCARE -
Weeks passed. At least she wasn't going hungry. Her husband - somehow - was topping up her
bank account. He wouldn't know where she was, but at least he would know she was alive.
It also meant she didn't need to get a job or resort to begging or worse.
Her stomach got bigger and she found that she could hardly move from the foodcourt. The women
that worked there were stern looking but even they didn't have the heart to move on a heavenly
pregnant woman. She washed her clothes in the ladies toilets and had a sink wash each morning.
She was determined not to turn into a smelly, dirty tramp.
One day, she was sitting, drinking a decaf coffee as usual, when her water broke.
'I'm having my baby!', she cried to one of the waitresses.
She sat down again and started her breathing. In ten minutes some paramedics arrived and she was
taken to a staff elevator. The guards looked at her sullenly, but she had a free pass, she
was having a baby.
Next she was in an underground carpark, and then an ambulance. Was she finally free of this
nightmarish place?
The ambulance screeched off and up a ramp, the out. From where she lay she could see the street
outside. She was out!
'Don't worry', said the friendly medic sat beside her, 'Just you lie back. We'll be at the hospital
in no time.'
- HOSPITAL ZONE -
She was lying in her hospital bed, looking out the window at the small grass area that was fully
enclosed by hospital buildings. Her beautiful daughter was in her arms, two days old.
Her husband and their son walked into the room. She squealed in delight.
'My gosh!', she cried, I thought I'd never see you!'
'Me too!', he said, 'I looked everywhere! The police here are useless. When I tried to report you
missing they acted like I was wasting their time! The nurses wouldn't even let me see you until
now.'
'But your here now!', she said as he kissed her. He held up there son for her to hug too. He
couldn't talk yet, but appeared to be delighted to see his mummy again.
'I can't believe I missed the birth. Where have you been all this time?'
'The mall', she replied as she stroke his cheek, 'You haven't shaved in long time.'
'Yeah', he says, 'This hospital is really weird, me and the boy got here days ago. I wanted to
go home to feed the cats, but... they have these lines painted on the floor. Red for A&E, yellow
for maternity and various others. Green for exit. But if you follow the green line it just leads
you round in circles or down dead ends.'
She lay back and closed her eyes.
Trapped again. But at least they were trapped as a family.
Monday, 22 July 2013
PREJUDICE (02/12/2004)
PREJUDICE
(02/12/2004)
It was a forest of unearthly quiet. No birds sang, no animals called. Only the sound of the wind in the trees and the occasional stream broke the heavy silence.
Four lonely figures approached the edge of a small clearing. From their vantage point they could see a temple, rising up from the surrounding elephant grass, its ziggurat steps reaching higher than the tops of the trees.
The trees themselves were tall evergreens, but still retained a strange alien quality, something they had become used to whilst trekking through this region.
One of the figures, the tallest and heaviest of them, threw back his poncho and took a map from his belt. The others crowded round him.
'Well, this is the temple then, from here we have maybe five more miles before we reach the dungeon.'
'Five miles!', cried the woman at the tall mans left shoulder, 'My feet are killing me as it is!'
The man looked her over. She was dressed in a long black figure hugging robe and held a slim wooden staff. On her feet she wore high heel boots.
'I told you your footwear was impractical, Engloria', muttered the man.
The smaller figure beside her, a halfling, looked up and said,
'Well, I must say I like the temple a lot. I think I recognise the features as well, early Jaloria, Jasper Dynasty. Lovely. Is there anything of any value in it? But I hope there are no monsters!'
The final figure stepped forward, a tall and slender black skinned man, dressed in a suit of pale green leather armour and replied,
'Handor, I declare, your cowardice is only matched by your greed.'
'Hmff!', snorted the diminutive Handor, 'And you are just a goodie-two-shoes Kraddick.'
The first man rolled up the map and put it back under his belt,
'We have no time to explore I'm afraid, this is just a landmark - we have to get on, the sky is bruising and we may be forced to camp. I want to get to the dungeon before nightfall.'
'Well, you will be responsible for my blisters then Aggr, because I don't think I can take another step!'
Aggr muttered under his breath as he pushed his poncho back into place,
'Can't you cast a spell, or what about Kraddick? He's a cleric after all.'
'Never mind', she grumbled, 'I will just take them off.'
They turned and walked away from the temple and were soon lost from view in the deep dark forest.
Unobserved by anyone, the temple slowly faded away until it popped out of existence all together. Then the clearing itself seemed to vanish as trees gradually began to appear and soon it was if there had never been anything there at all.
The adventurers continued walking, following no path, but just weaving through the trees. The evergreens were tall and evenly spaced so there was plenty of room for them to move in.
Engloria, true to her word, had removed her boots and was walking bare foot on the pine needles.
'I love the smell of this place.', she remarked.
Kraddick sniffed,
'Hm, I detect a blend of organic compounds, chlorophyll and the usual inert gases.'
'Trust you not to get it Krad', she shot back.
'Get what?', he replied evenly.
'Well, your kind would never understand what is so nice about the smell of a pine forest.'
'My kind?'
'Huh! Stop answering everything with a question!'
Kraddick was silent for a moment but couldn't resist repeating his last remark,
'And what is my kind exactly?'
Aggr shot the woman a warning glance.
'Don't worry Aggr!', she laughed, 'I won't break the mood, as it were. Your kind then, let’s see. Black skin, pointy ears, white hair, what kind would you be? A dark elf? A drow? You have no room for compassion, no room for love, no room for life!'
'Maybe this is true', came the immediate reply ,'But then I have no room for envy, hate or anger.'
'Guys come on.', said Handor, waving his hands around ,'We came down here to get away from all this. Erm... down from the city I mean. Don't start all over again.'
Engloria folded her arms in peeved silence.
'When do we eat anyway Aggr? I'm starving!', continued the halfling.
Aggr laughed, 'You ate two hours ago!'
'That was just a snack. And I missed elevenses this morning.'
'You halflings. All the same.. always thinking with your bellies.'
As they continued walking Kraddick joined the conversation again and said,
'Hmm, another prejudice. Interesting that even here we see it all the time.'
'Whatever Kraddy, I'm hungry is all..'
Engloria sighed,
'Ye gods, much as I hate to say it, I agree with Aytee...erm I mean .. Kraddick. For the last two days we have done nothing but bicker. Aggr is your typical stupid barbarian...'
'Hey!'
'...Kraddick is a cold hearted dark elf, Handor is a greedy halfling.'
Handor laughed and said,
'Well what does that make you?'
'Don't even think it, shorty', she replied with acid dripping from every word.
Aggr sighed,
'Well listen guys, maybe this isn't as much fun as you'd all hoped. But I like it out in the forest, down here. It's beautiful. Can't you just humour me?'
'I agree with the Captain! Besides, there is a dungeon full of monsters waiting to be liberated from their treasure at the end of it!'
Aggr smiled, 'That's right, Handor. Down here the name is Aggr though, I will let it go just this once. It doesn’t speak well of us that we can’t leave our prejudices behind, but we have things to do here. The dungeon is the hidden camp of the orcish slavers and we have sworn to destroy them. Let’s have no more argument.'
Finally they arrived at the dungeon as night fell and cautiously approached the cavern entrance.
The way was barred by a walled in door, set right into the rock face.
'Hm, no surface guards, they must be confident no one would ever find this place. Anyone tired? Or shall we continue?', asked Aggr.
They all signalled a willingness to continue,
'Engloria, you do the honours then.'
The sorceress nodded and said,
'Everyone step back please!'
They all did so and she raised her arms and cried,
'SHAZAM!'
Suddenly a blaze of fire leapt from her fingers and flew towards the door. With a mighty crash it flew from its hinges to end up a dozen yards from the doorway, a smouldering wreck.
As they carefully stepped into the dungeon Aggr looked at the sorceress and said,
'Shazam?'
'Oh shut up. You love it.'
As they descended further into the dungeon they encountered more barred doors that Engloria destroyed, and simple traps that Handor used his skills to disarm.
Their first violent encounter came after a long decent into the gloomy darkness of the dungeon. They entered a large empty stone-walled room just as a troop of angry looking orcs entered it from the other side.
Spying the adventurers they rushed to attack.
They appeared to be typical dungeon guards. Green skinned, pig faced and dressed in a variety of ragged clothes and bits of armour. They carried either twisted clubs or rusty old swords and each of them had a wooden shield with the symbol of a coiled snake on it.
Aggr drew his long bastard sword from his belt and held it aloft crying,
'Handor, protect the casters!'
'Why must I always protect the skirts?', the halfling muttered to no one in particular as he took two knifes from his belt.
As Aggr charged forward and met the first orc head on a fireball seared right past his head and took out a green skinned attacker beside him and sent it flying back into two others.
'Thanks Eng!' , Aggr he shouted as he moved on to tackle another foe.
Aggr hacked at another orc, taking its arm off at the elbow, then leapt back as three more came directly at him. They traded blows for a while and the skirmish wove back and forth across the room, orcs running everywhere trying to land a blow on Aggr.
And the blows were landing, although he had felled four, he had several bleeding wounds.
'How about a heal!?', he cried desperately.
A cry came back, 'Busy here!'
Aggr sketched a glance over his shoulder. Kraddick and Engloria were holding off a mob of angry orcs. Where was that halfling?
Just then he saw a sudden movement in front of him and two orcs went down, throwing daggers protruding from their necks. With a cry of ‘Hah!’, Handor, who had suddenly appeared at his side, drew two more daggers and leapt off into the fray again. True to character anyway thought Aggr, he always wants to be in the action.
With renewed vigour, the barbarian pressed the attack. As the fighting ebbed and flowed he tried to make his way back to the sorceress and the cleric at the entrance.
'You stupid thing! Why don't you heal me?' , he heard Engloria cry.
'I am currently occupied,' came the dispassionate reply from the cleric.
'I'm dying here! I'm bleeding!', pleaded the woman.
Aggr tried to look over his shoulder to see what sort of trouble they were in but his opponents were keeping him too busy.
'Right that's it, this isn't fun anymore, that stupid android isn’t healing me deliberately. Captain, can we have a time out?'
Aggr growled, 'For gods sake Carol, try and stay in character.'
'It’s him! That dumb robot isn't healing me!'
'I am an autonomous self-repairing fully sentient android. I have rights under the 303 charter and it is considered racist to refer to me as a robot.'
‘How can it be racist? You’re a hunk of metal!’
‘Actually I am made up of a complex structure of polymerised plastics and..’
Aggr shouted, 'Right that’s it!'
He waved his arms around, saying, ‘Cancel code omega, Betty.’
The orcs vanished. Then the room vanished. Then they were suddenly back in the forest. It was still night and a glorious display of stars hung across the sky. Aggr looked up. Although he couldn’t see it, his ship, a needle-configured Valkeryie class corvette was up there, keeping a watchful eye on them.
Handor came trotting over.
'Awww, I was enjoying that. What happened?'
'What do you think?', grunted Aggr, 'These two started arguing again!'
'I would like to point out captain that I was not the first to break character.'
'You liar!', came the bitter reply, 'He was deliberately not healing me!'
'I was engaged against an enemy.'
Aggr raised his hands to silence them.
They all stayed silent as the illusions on them, beamed down from Betty above faded away. It always felt slightly embarrassing to them, as if caught undressing.
Aggr’s poncho remained but his other clothes faded away to reveal a loose fitting tunic and combat trousers. Kraddicks armour faded into a tight fitting set of overalls, his skin changing colour from black to a pasty white.
Engloria and her revealing black robes faded to reveal a slightly chubbier woman underneath, dressed in a T-shirt and black jeans. She was still bare foot though, her boots slung over her back.
Handor faded away to reveal a small hairy creature of some alien origin. With long horns, gingerish hair and a somewhat bovine expression he looked like a tiny humanoid highland cow.
'Carol, AT-22, Enough with this endless feud already. I suppose it was too much to ask that we might get a whole adventure done without the usual fights starting. When we found this planet I had hoped .. well these forests are just perfect for the Orc Slavers Campaign Module.'
'Yeah', grunted the hairy alien that had once been Handor, 'Less Ex-Pee for them I think Cap'n, as punishment. I was just eighty-five points away from levelling as well!'
'Well, Xrgot, we can start another game next week I guess. But not here, we need to be out of this system by tomorrow to make our next warp window.'
The Captain gave his medic and systems officer one last silent look then said to the air,
'Betty, we're done, take us back in would you old girl.'
All four of them then glowed blue for a brief second and vanished with a sharp pop of inrushing air.
One last voice which might have been saying,
‘..I liked the temple particularly Captain, I think I even know the database Betty got it from…’,
wafted on the air, then the forest resumed its eternal silent once more.
It was a forest of unearthly quiet. No birds sang, no animals called. Only the sound of the wind in the trees and the occasional stream broke the heavy silence.
Four lonely figures approached the edge of a small clearing. From their vantage point they could see a temple, rising up from the surrounding elephant grass, its ziggurat steps reaching higher than the tops of the trees.
The trees themselves were tall evergreens, but still retained a strange alien quality, something they had become used to whilst trekking through this region.
One of the figures, the tallest and heaviest of them, threw back his poncho and took a map from his belt. The others crowded round him.
'Well, this is the temple then, from here we have maybe five more miles before we reach the dungeon.'
'Five miles!', cried the woman at the tall mans left shoulder, 'My feet are killing me as it is!'
The man looked her over. She was dressed in a long black figure hugging robe and held a slim wooden staff. On her feet she wore high heel boots.
'I told you your footwear was impractical, Engloria', muttered the man.
The smaller figure beside her, a halfling, looked up and said,
'Well, I must say I like the temple a lot. I think I recognise the features as well, early Jaloria, Jasper Dynasty. Lovely. Is there anything of any value in it? But I hope there are no monsters!'
The final figure stepped forward, a tall and slender black skinned man, dressed in a suit of pale green leather armour and replied,
'Handor, I declare, your cowardice is only matched by your greed.'
'Hmff!', snorted the diminutive Handor, 'And you are just a goodie-two-shoes Kraddick.'
The first man rolled up the map and put it back under his belt,
'We have no time to explore I'm afraid, this is just a landmark - we have to get on, the sky is bruising and we may be forced to camp. I want to get to the dungeon before nightfall.'
'Well, you will be responsible for my blisters then Aggr, because I don't think I can take another step!'
Aggr muttered under his breath as he pushed his poncho back into place,
'Can't you cast a spell, or what about Kraddick? He's a cleric after all.'
'Never mind', she grumbled, 'I will just take them off.'
They turned and walked away from the temple and were soon lost from view in the deep dark forest.
Unobserved by anyone, the temple slowly faded away until it popped out of existence all together. Then the clearing itself seemed to vanish as trees gradually began to appear and soon it was if there had never been anything there at all.
The adventurers continued walking, following no path, but just weaving through the trees. The evergreens were tall and evenly spaced so there was plenty of room for them to move in.
Engloria, true to her word, had removed her boots and was walking bare foot on the pine needles.
'I love the smell of this place.', she remarked.
Kraddick sniffed,
'Hm, I detect a blend of organic compounds, chlorophyll and the usual inert gases.'
'Trust you not to get it Krad', she shot back.
'Get what?', he replied evenly.
'Well, your kind would never understand what is so nice about the smell of a pine forest.'
'My kind?'
'Huh! Stop answering everything with a question!'
Kraddick was silent for a moment but couldn't resist repeating his last remark,
'And what is my kind exactly?'
Aggr shot the woman a warning glance.
'Don't worry Aggr!', she laughed, 'I won't break the mood, as it were. Your kind then, let’s see. Black skin, pointy ears, white hair, what kind would you be? A dark elf? A drow? You have no room for compassion, no room for love, no room for life!'
'Maybe this is true', came the immediate reply ,'But then I have no room for envy, hate or anger.'
'Guys come on.', said Handor, waving his hands around ,'We came down here to get away from all this. Erm... down from the city I mean. Don't start all over again.'
Engloria folded her arms in peeved silence.
'When do we eat anyway Aggr? I'm starving!', continued the halfling.
Aggr laughed, 'You ate two hours ago!'
'That was just a snack. And I missed elevenses this morning.'
'You halflings. All the same.. always thinking with your bellies.'
As they continued walking Kraddick joined the conversation again and said,
'Hmm, another prejudice. Interesting that even here we see it all the time.'
'Whatever Kraddy, I'm hungry is all..'
Engloria sighed,
'Ye gods, much as I hate to say it, I agree with Aytee...erm I mean .. Kraddick. For the last two days we have done nothing but bicker. Aggr is your typical stupid barbarian...'
'Hey!'
'...Kraddick is a cold hearted dark elf, Handor is a greedy halfling.'
Handor laughed and said,
'Well what does that make you?'
'Don't even think it, shorty', she replied with acid dripping from every word.
Aggr sighed,
'Well listen guys, maybe this isn't as much fun as you'd all hoped. But I like it out in the forest, down here. It's beautiful. Can't you just humour me?'
'I agree with the Captain! Besides, there is a dungeon full of monsters waiting to be liberated from their treasure at the end of it!'
Aggr smiled, 'That's right, Handor. Down here the name is Aggr though, I will let it go just this once. It doesn’t speak well of us that we can’t leave our prejudices behind, but we have things to do here. The dungeon is the hidden camp of the orcish slavers and we have sworn to destroy them. Let’s have no more argument.'
Finally they arrived at the dungeon as night fell and cautiously approached the cavern entrance.
The way was barred by a walled in door, set right into the rock face.
'Hm, no surface guards, they must be confident no one would ever find this place. Anyone tired? Or shall we continue?', asked Aggr.
They all signalled a willingness to continue,
'Engloria, you do the honours then.'
The sorceress nodded and said,
'Everyone step back please!'
They all did so and she raised her arms and cried,
'SHAZAM!'
Suddenly a blaze of fire leapt from her fingers and flew towards the door. With a mighty crash it flew from its hinges to end up a dozen yards from the doorway, a smouldering wreck.
As they carefully stepped into the dungeon Aggr looked at the sorceress and said,
'Shazam?'
'Oh shut up. You love it.'
As they descended further into the dungeon they encountered more barred doors that Engloria destroyed, and simple traps that Handor used his skills to disarm.
Their first violent encounter came after a long decent into the gloomy darkness of the dungeon. They entered a large empty stone-walled room just as a troop of angry looking orcs entered it from the other side.
Spying the adventurers they rushed to attack.
They appeared to be typical dungeon guards. Green skinned, pig faced and dressed in a variety of ragged clothes and bits of armour. They carried either twisted clubs or rusty old swords and each of them had a wooden shield with the symbol of a coiled snake on it.
Aggr drew his long bastard sword from his belt and held it aloft crying,
'Handor, protect the casters!'
'Why must I always protect the skirts?', the halfling muttered to no one in particular as he took two knifes from his belt.
As Aggr charged forward and met the first orc head on a fireball seared right past his head and took out a green skinned attacker beside him and sent it flying back into two others.
'Thanks Eng!' , Aggr he shouted as he moved on to tackle another foe.
Aggr hacked at another orc, taking its arm off at the elbow, then leapt back as three more came directly at him. They traded blows for a while and the skirmish wove back and forth across the room, orcs running everywhere trying to land a blow on Aggr.
And the blows were landing, although he had felled four, he had several bleeding wounds.
'How about a heal!?', he cried desperately.
A cry came back, 'Busy here!'
Aggr sketched a glance over his shoulder. Kraddick and Engloria were holding off a mob of angry orcs. Where was that halfling?
Just then he saw a sudden movement in front of him and two orcs went down, throwing daggers protruding from their necks. With a cry of ‘Hah!’, Handor, who had suddenly appeared at his side, drew two more daggers and leapt off into the fray again. True to character anyway thought Aggr, he always wants to be in the action.
With renewed vigour, the barbarian pressed the attack. As the fighting ebbed and flowed he tried to make his way back to the sorceress and the cleric at the entrance.
'You stupid thing! Why don't you heal me?' , he heard Engloria cry.
'I am currently occupied,' came the dispassionate reply from the cleric.
'I'm dying here! I'm bleeding!', pleaded the woman.
Aggr tried to look over his shoulder to see what sort of trouble they were in but his opponents were keeping him too busy.
'Right that's it, this isn't fun anymore, that stupid android isn’t healing me deliberately. Captain, can we have a time out?'
Aggr growled, 'For gods sake Carol, try and stay in character.'
'It’s him! That dumb robot isn't healing me!'
'I am an autonomous self-repairing fully sentient android. I have rights under the 303 charter and it is considered racist to refer to me as a robot.'
‘How can it be racist? You’re a hunk of metal!’
‘Actually I am made up of a complex structure of polymerised plastics and..’
Aggr shouted, 'Right that’s it!'
He waved his arms around, saying, ‘Cancel code omega, Betty.’
The orcs vanished. Then the room vanished. Then they were suddenly back in the forest. It was still night and a glorious display of stars hung across the sky. Aggr looked up. Although he couldn’t see it, his ship, a needle-configured Valkeryie class corvette was up there, keeping a watchful eye on them.
Handor came trotting over.
'Awww, I was enjoying that. What happened?'
'What do you think?', grunted Aggr, 'These two started arguing again!'
'I would like to point out captain that I was not the first to break character.'
'You liar!', came the bitter reply, 'He was deliberately not healing me!'
'I was engaged against an enemy.'
Aggr raised his hands to silence them.
They all stayed silent as the illusions on them, beamed down from Betty above faded away. It always felt slightly embarrassing to them, as if caught undressing.
Aggr’s poncho remained but his other clothes faded away to reveal a loose fitting tunic and combat trousers. Kraddicks armour faded into a tight fitting set of overalls, his skin changing colour from black to a pasty white.
Engloria and her revealing black robes faded to reveal a slightly chubbier woman underneath, dressed in a T-shirt and black jeans. She was still bare foot though, her boots slung over her back.
Handor faded away to reveal a small hairy creature of some alien origin. With long horns, gingerish hair and a somewhat bovine expression he looked like a tiny humanoid highland cow.
'Carol, AT-22, Enough with this endless feud already. I suppose it was too much to ask that we might get a whole adventure done without the usual fights starting. When we found this planet I had hoped .. well these forests are just perfect for the Orc Slavers Campaign Module.'
'Yeah', grunted the hairy alien that had once been Handor, 'Less Ex-Pee for them I think Cap'n, as punishment. I was just eighty-five points away from levelling as well!'
'Well, Xrgot, we can start another game next week I guess. But not here, we need to be out of this system by tomorrow to make our next warp window.'
The Captain gave his medic and systems officer one last silent look then said to the air,
'Betty, we're done, take us back in would you old girl.'
All four of them then glowed blue for a brief second and vanished with a sharp pop of inrushing air.
One last voice which might have been saying,
‘..I liked the temple particularly Captain, I think I even know the database Betty got it from…’,
wafted on the air, then the forest resumed its eternal silent once more.
Sunday, 21 July 2013
Work Blog 5
Revolution
It was the Q2 Celebration Evening last night at Revolution. Everyone agreed it
was quite a good night. It's nice that Aker Aberdeen is getting back into the
swing of social gatherings again after a long drought of them.
The food was good, BBQ beef and chicken burgers along with kebabs and salads
and buckets of beer and wine were out on all the tables. It took quite a long
time to drink the tab dry too so we all managed a good few free beers. Thanks
Aker!
There was a little amount of fond reminiscing about the old Aker Spring and
Summer Balls which are still very much missed, but this night out was a good
effort and was greatly appreciated by the staff present.
After eight, the terrace opened up to the general public once more and by about
11 o'clock only the die-hards were left, drinking from their own money.
I was home before midnight though, since it was a school night. Some people may
have arrived in today with nasty hangovers - but I'll not name names!
Saturday, 13 July 2013
(G170 28/06/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF , AP(GM))
(G170 28/06/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF , AP(GM))
And there we must leave them for a small while! I know, I know, they are in a dire
way, and please, skip ahead if you desire to read more of their adventures, but on
these pages I have recorded some of my own adventures. Since they run more or less
concurrently with my brother's hopefully this all makes some kind of sense.
At the time I had no idea Corum was in so much danger, which explains why I was
happy to leave Kryptgarden for a while.
So, to find the beginning of my own little foray back into the world of adventure
we must go back a few days to.....
DAY 203 (Highharvestide)(October)
At lunch time my cousin Sylvia arrived at the Lavius Estate with a message from
my brother Elric. Now Elric is a Cleric of Mystra and I am led to believe that
he is quiet high up in the inquisition.
I don't know too much about it to be honest, and while I have always known that
Elric is the most political of us four brothers I have never known him to be a
bad person. From what I know from Corum, he helped keep Fenrir away from the fires
with a word or two in the right place more than once and was Corum's 'inside man'
at the Halls of Justice.
Be that as it may, he sent a letter with Sylvia saying that he had been contacted
by a fellow cleric of Mystra known as Tunaster Dranik. They had once been great
friends and had travelled a great deal together when they were younger.
They were still friends and kept in touch and I know that Tunaster once did father
a great favour and father was always anxious to repay it. Elric's letter mentioned
that Tunaster was in great distress in regards to something and could do with some
help and this was father's perfect opportunity to relieve himself of this debt.
There was one small problem though, he was a thousand miles away in Cormyr!
Father is old now and one of his legs is not as good as it used to be, but he could
call in a few old favours of his own. He asked me, if he could arrange a teleport,
if I could go and see what all the bother was and see if the family debt could
be repaid.
Well, I said yes of course, being a dutiful son, but Lavinia insisted that she should
come too, being my wife and all. Then Sylvia said that if Lavinia was going to go
then she would have to be there to look after her because (apparently) I would be
incapable of such a task!
When father heard of this he said 'You may as well get a balanced party together!'
and called in Shump (who was back in the area) and a friend of his, a little
halfling rogue known as Jiggles.
His wizard friend was sent for and it was all arranged. We packed quickly, said
our fair wells and were all teleported, one at a time, to the town square of
Wheloon in Cormyr.
Interesting, although the sun was near setting in Kryptgarden it was still mid
afternoon in Wheloon. I think we had gained two or three hours of light by
our sideways jaunt.
This new town was of great interest to me, as I love travel and new places and
I noticed that the wooden houses with their green roofs were of great pride to
the locals.
In the town square we noticed a jobs board and on it one of the notices read:
'To those of strong arm, keen mind and curiosity, salutations!
See the man in blue at the Wyvern Watch Inn before the 23rd if you wish
to hear a peculiar riddles and are willing to undertake a commission to
discover its answer - T.D.'
So, feeling like I was the one in charge whether I liked it or not, I stopped
my examination of the houses in the area and got directions to the Wyvern.
Inside there was indeed a man in blue, who sat in one corner of the main room.
He had a white beard and wore a blue cloak and skull cap.
I initially approached him alone, he appeared nervous, but when I told him we
were there to help he seemed much relieved.
I called over my wife and cousin who I introduced as my family. Shump I introduced
as our guard and Jiggles as our servant.
Dranik told us his story.
'I am a cleric of Mystra. I wander the world looking for sources of old magic, tombs
and long forgotten things such as liche's graves. I was much surprised when I arrived
in Wheloon to discover there was a brand new temple of Mystra here! It was built on the
ruins of the old citadel Why did I not know of it?
I was astonished so went to investigate and was told a woman called Lady Arthus had
built it. I had never heard of her. At the temple I was rebuffed. A man called Fembrys
came to talk to me but I felt that something was very wrong so I ran for it.
They chased me! They even fire crossbows at me! Someone needs to find out what this is
all about.'
It all seemed rather odd to me and I asked a few more questions. Apparently the captain
of the guard was a young man called Constal Tholl. The town guards were called the
'Purple Dragons' and there were about 150 of them.
When asked to investigate the temple they made a cursory search and found nothing amiss.
Strange lights and noises have been reported at night.
Lord Redbeard was the ruler of Wheloon, but since the Temple was paying large amounts
of tax he was fine with it.
He also told us that a bookseller called Amnic Basult had gone missing. His wife Mela
thought it had something to do with the temple.
T.D. also gave us five hundred gold to help out with our investigation, which was nice of
him!
I suggested he take his note down in the square lest he gave a clue to the temple of his
intentions and he said he would do so at once.
Next I arranged rooms in the inn with a jolly bar keeper. He also informed me that the
owner Baldergas Mhaeraoon had left recently, but his daughters were still here, two
girls called Asanta and Baerill.
We paid 5 gp for a suite for me and the wife, 2 gp for a room for Sylvia and another
2 gp for a room for Shump and Jiggles.
I rounded it up to 10gp to cover the costs of breakfasts etc per day.
After myself and Lavinia had .. ahem .. checked out the room we went over to talk to
Mela. I dressed as a gentleman, leaving behind my druidic garb. She seemed nervous
at first but when I said we were there to help she seemed a bit happier.
Apparently the Purple Dragons don't look for missing persons, but she said he was
definitely last seen in the shop.
I sent for Jiggles and she gave the place a good search. She saw signs of a scuffle
at the counter and noticed a pamphlet which discussed the 'New Temple of Mystra'
extolling its virtues in a very evangelical manner.
The last page read:
'Do they really hold Mystra's Secret Trust?'
It was noted that:
'Do you wish to join our temple and seek out Mystra's Secret Trust'
did not fit in with rest of pamphlet.
I heard gentle sobbing behind the internal shop door and went to comfort Mela.
She told us some more. Her husband had been working in the shop three nights ago,
studying new things she said, when she heard an argument downstairs. She came down
and he was gone. She remembered hearing raised voices and those other than her husbands
had most likely been male.
After that we went and knocked on the door of the house across the street. The gruff
man that answered had heard the noise but had not looked out the window.
Back at the Wyvern I showed the pamphlet to TD. He said it looked standard except for
the bit about the 'Sacred Trust'. He'd never heard of it before.
We then sent Jiggles to go look around the place, while I flew about in eagle form
above. It was on a bluff overlooking the river to the north of the town. There was
a cobbled path leading up to the flat ramparts of the white temple wall.
There was a statue of a woman beside the main door. A few folk were going in or
coming out. There was a low stone building to the south of the door.
Jiggles noticed two guards on the wall and gave them a wave. She then went in.
Inside it was like a court yard with two more statues of women, an altar and stars
of obsidian set into the floor. Shan Thar, a cleric, welcomed her. Jiggles also
noted a guard at the door further in.
Thar told her it cost 25gp for a three day service which would reveal the secrets,
whatever they were. He also said there was an evening service which was open to
everyone.
We met back at the Inn and had a meeting with TD. He said this was not normal
Church of Mystra behaviour. The nearest other temple was 300 miles away so it
would take a while to get more help.
At ten o'clock we sent Lavinia to the evening service while Jiggles skulked about outside.
She listened at the door of the building outside and heard men playing cards. She
knocked on the door and asked to use the toilet, which they let her do.
She noticed three guards with a forth lying on the bed. They were playing 'Blind Man's
Shuffle' but they were not interested in her joining them so she used the latrine at the
back and left.
Jiggles then came back to me where I waited with the others down the road.
Meanwhile Lavinia was with seven others listening to the cleric preach while his associate
cast illusion spells to make the stars in the sky come to life.
Afterwards Lavinia donated a few coppers and left.
Once she returned I took another flap around the top of the courtyard and observed that
the place was now shut up but two guards remained on the walls and that they were lit
by lanterns.
DAY 204 (1 Marpenoth)(October)
We gathered in the dark about two hundred feet away from the temple and discussed a plan
for what to do with this place.
And there we must leave them for a small while! I know, I know, they are in a dire
way, and please, skip ahead if you desire to read more of their adventures, but on
these pages I have recorded some of my own adventures. Since they run more or less
concurrently with my brother's hopefully this all makes some kind of sense.
At the time I had no idea Corum was in so much danger, which explains why I was
happy to leave Kryptgarden for a while.
So, to find the beginning of my own little foray back into the world of adventure
we must go back a few days to.....
DAY 203 (Highharvestide)(October)
At lunch time my cousin Sylvia arrived at the Lavius Estate with a message from
my brother Elric. Now Elric is a Cleric of Mystra and I am led to believe that
he is quiet high up in the inquisition.
I don't know too much about it to be honest, and while I have always known that
Elric is the most political of us four brothers I have never known him to be a
bad person. From what I know from Corum, he helped keep Fenrir away from the fires
with a word or two in the right place more than once and was Corum's 'inside man'
at the Halls of Justice.
Be that as it may, he sent a letter with Sylvia saying that he had been contacted
by a fellow cleric of Mystra known as Tunaster Dranik. They had once been great
friends and had travelled a great deal together when they were younger.
They were still friends and kept in touch and I know that Tunaster once did father
a great favour and father was always anxious to repay it. Elric's letter mentioned
that Tunaster was in great distress in regards to something and could do with some
help and this was father's perfect opportunity to relieve himself of this debt.
There was one small problem though, he was a thousand miles away in Cormyr!
Father is old now and one of his legs is not as good as it used to be, but he could
call in a few old favours of his own. He asked me, if he could arrange a teleport,
if I could go and see what all the bother was and see if the family debt could
be repaid.
Well, I said yes of course, being a dutiful son, but Lavinia insisted that she should
come too, being my wife and all. Then Sylvia said that if Lavinia was going to go
then she would have to be there to look after her because (apparently) I would be
incapable of such a task!
When father heard of this he said 'You may as well get a balanced party together!'
and called in Shump (who was back in the area) and a friend of his, a little
halfling rogue known as Jiggles.
His wizard friend was sent for and it was all arranged. We packed quickly, said
our fair wells and were all teleported, one at a time, to the town square of
Wheloon in Cormyr.
Interesting, although the sun was near setting in Kryptgarden it was still mid
afternoon in Wheloon. I think we had gained two or three hours of light by
our sideways jaunt.
This new town was of great interest to me, as I love travel and new places and
I noticed that the wooden houses with their green roofs were of great pride to
the locals.
In the town square we noticed a jobs board and on it one of the notices read:
'To those of strong arm, keen mind and curiosity, salutations!
See the man in blue at the Wyvern Watch Inn before the 23rd if you wish
to hear a peculiar riddles and are willing to undertake a commission to
discover its answer - T.D.'
So, feeling like I was the one in charge whether I liked it or not, I stopped
my examination of the houses in the area and got directions to the Wyvern.
Inside there was indeed a man in blue, who sat in one corner of the main room.
He had a white beard and wore a blue cloak and skull cap.
I initially approached him alone, he appeared nervous, but when I told him we
were there to help he seemed much relieved.
I called over my wife and cousin who I introduced as my family. Shump I introduced
as our guard and Jiggles as our servant.
Dranik told us his story.
'I am a cleric of Mystra. I wander the world looking for sources of old magic, tombs
and long forgotten things such as liche's graves. I was much surprised when I arrived
in Wheloon to discover there was a brand new temple of Mystra here! It was built on the
ruins of the old citadel Why did I not know of it?
I was astonished so went to investigate and was told a woman called Lady Arthus had
built it. I had never heard of her. At the temple I was rebuffed. A man called Fembrys
came to talk to me but I felt that something was very wrong so I ran for it.
They chased me! They even fire crossbows at me! Someone needs to find out what this is
all about.'
It all seemed rather odd to me and I asked a few more questions. Apparently the captain
of the guard was a young man called Constal Tholl. The town guards were called the
'Purple Dragons' and there were about 150 of them.
When asked to investigate the temple they made a cursory search and found nothing amiss.
Strange lights and noises have been reported at night.
Lord Redbeard was the ruler of Wheloon, but since the Temple was paying large amounts
of tax he was fine with it.
He also told us that a bookseller called Amnic Basult had gone missing. His wife Mela
thought it had something to do with the temple.
T.D. also gave us five hundred gold to help out with our investigation, which was nice of
him!
I suggested he take his note down in the square lest he gave a clue to the temple of his
intentions and he said he would do so at once.
Next I arranged rooms in the inn with a jolly bar keeper. He also informed me that the
owner Baldergas Mhaeraoon had left recently, but his daughters were still here, two
girls called Asanta and Baerill.
We paid 5 gp for a suite for me and the wife, 2 gp for a room for Sylvia and another
2 gp for a room for Shump and Jiggles.
I rounded it up to 10gp to cover the costs of breakfasts etc per day.
After myself and Lavinia had .. ahem .. checked out the room we went over to talk to
Mela. I dressed as a gentleman, leaving behind my druidic garb. She seemed nervous
at first but when I said we were there to help she seemed a bit happier.
Apparently the Purple Dragons don't look for missing persons, but she said he was
definitely last seen in the shop.
I sent for Jiggles and she gave the place a good search. She saw signs of a scuffle
at the counter and noticed a pamphlet which discussed the 'New Temple of Mystra'
extolling its virtues in a very evangelical manner.
The last page read:
'Do they really hold Mystra's Secret Trust?'
It was noted that:
'Do you wish to join our temple and seek out Mystra's Secret Trust'
did not fit in with rest of pamphlet.
I heard gentle sobbing behind the internal shop door and went to comfort Mela.
She told us some more. Her husband had been working in the shop three nights ago,
studying new things she said, when she heard an argument downstairs. She came down
and he was gone. She remembered hearing raised voices and those other than her husbands
had most likely been male.
After that we went and knocked on the door of the house across the street. The gruff
man that answered had heard the noise but had not looked out the window.
Back at the Wyvern I showed the pamphlet to TD. He said it looked standard except for
the bit about the 'Sacred Trust'. He'd never heard of it before.
We then sent Jiggles to go look around the place, while I flew about in eagle form
above. It was on a bluff overlooking the river to the north of the town. There was
a cobbled path leading up to the flat ramparts of the white temple wall.
There was a statue of a woman beside the main door. A few folk were going in or
coming out. There was a low stone building to the south of the door.
Jiggles noticed two guards on the wall and gave them a wave. She then went in.
Inside it was like a court yard with two more statues of women, an altar and stars
of obsidian set into the floor. Shan Thar, a cleric, welcomed her. Jiggles also
noted a guard at the door further in.
Thar told her it cost 25gp for a three day service which would reveal the secrets,
whatever they were. He also said there was an evening service which was open to
everyone.
We met back at the Inn and had a meeting with TD. He said this was not normal
Church of Mystra behaviour. The nearest other temple was 300 miles away so it
would take a while to get more help.
At ten o'clock we sent Lavinia to the evening service while Jiggles skulked about outside.
She listened at the door of the building outside and heard men playing cards. She
knocked on the door and asked to use the toilet, which they let her do.
She noticed three guards with a forth lying on the bed. They were playing 'Blind Man's
Shuffle' but they were not interested in her joining them so she used the latrine at the
back and left.
Jiggles then came back to me where I waited with the others down the road.
Meanwhile Lavinia was with seven others listening to the cleric preach while his associate
cast illusion spells to make the stars in the sky come to life.
Afterwards Lavinia donated a few coppers and left.
Once she returned I took another flap around the top of the courtyard and observed that
the place was now shut up but two guards remained on the walls and that they were lit
by lanterns.
DAY 204 (1 Marpenoth)(October)
We gathered in the dark about two hundred feet away from the temple and discussed a plan
for what to do with this place.
Monday, 8 July 2013
A GUIDE BOOK TO THE AFTERLIFE (2900 words)(some swearing) 2009
A GUIDE
BOOK TO THE AFTERLIFE (2900 words)(some swearing)
(Authors
Note - Started in May 2000! Found and finished Jan 2009)
I’ m
going to tell you about this man. Names have less meaning to me now.
You tend to play a part, usually the hero (or heroine) of the story.
Sometimes you are a player on someone else’s stage, - the barman,
the taxi driver, the woman on the dance floor, the man in the diner.
Sounds very urbane huh? You’d be amazed.
Anyway,
back when names meant anything, this guy was called Peter. Peter is
unusual in that he’s been around for a while now, and hasn’t
become a wise-ass. Everyone is a wise-ass. Everyone has a theory.
A
theory, God, don’t get me started, I hate theories. Don’t even
try.
One day
Peter woke up and
realised he was dead. No
big revelation, no big - oh wow! I just died! Just an odd blank
feeling like waking up with a hangover and not remembering what you
had done the night before. Oh right. Dead.
A short
woman in a lab coat and holding a clip board was looking at him. Did
she have glasses? She probably had glasses.
‘Peter
Degarre?’
‘Uh ..
yes?’, Peter realised
he was lying on a park bench. It was a cool day, and no one else was
around.
‘Sit
up please’, instructed the woman, and shone a medical light in his
eyes.
‘I
remember a road…’
‘Try
not to think about things’, replied the woman, as she continued her
examination.
‘I was
hit by something…’
‘I
know, very tragic, the prime of your life.’
‘Who
are you?’, asked Peter
‘I’m
Jessie, your greetings officer. You will experience some
disorientation at first, but you have passed on with hardly any
Redmond Feedback, and your shadow is nine on one hundred percent.
Here is your greetings pack.’
Jessie
motioned to some papers and things bound up in a plastic folder. If
you’ve ever been a college fresher, then you’d know what it
looked like.
‘Right.’
‘As
you were quite young when it … happened, there are no members of
your immediate family to great you, so I was assigned the task. I
expect there are a lot of questions you’d like to ask, but right
now I need you to fill in these…’
Jessie
took some papers from the clipboard.
Peter
started to fill them in. It looked like the forms he’d filled in
last time he’d got car insurance.
As he
ticked the last box, Jessie said,
‘OK,
excellent, as a white British male, who has committed no major sins…’
‘Oh,
good’
‘… no
major sins’, continued Jessie, ‘You have been assigned an
accommodation in sector G73982. Your room mate and mentor will be a
Mr. Taylor.’
‘Wait.’
‘In
the pack are seven tokens, there usage is explained in the pack, ah,
you have…’
Something
in Jessie’s pocket started bleeping.
It was a
bleeper.
‘Fiddlesticks.’,
she said, looking at its small LCD.
‘A
plane crash, I do hate them.’ she sighed.
‘Sorry..
ah.. Peter, I must dash. Read the pack, that will tell you how to get
to your flat.’
Jessie
jogged off, and was soon lost to view behind some bushes.
In
bemusement, Peter broke the plastic seal of his greetings pack.
‘Commiserations
on your recent bereavement…’
Peter
looked up. He slung the pack under his arm and walked off.
There
were no cars on the streets, everyone was walking on narrow lanes
between endless rows of small stone white washed houses. Finding his
apartment was so easy it was strange. In a haze his feet seemed to be
drawn to the door.
He
knocked.
The door
opened. A tall middle-aged man greeted him.
‘Hi,
you must be Peter?’
‘Ah..yes’
‘Come
in, I’m Warren Taylor.’
A few
hours later, they were sat drinking tea, all cozy like, and had been
talking by the bay windows.
‘Most
folk like to have a wander around at first. Take in the sites,
explore some of the other levels. I spent my first few months
traveling, staying in hostels. I went down as far as sector N. Pretty
nasty down there. Not many people with brownie points. I’ve heard
tell, that the further down you go, the darker the sky gets, and it’s
a lot noisier.’
Warren
shrugged.
‘I
guess folks just sort of gravitate towards the sector that most suits
them. God knows why anyone would choose sector N to live in. The
buildings are so beak and pokey. They’re packed in so tight, like
rabbit hutches.’
‘Can’t
they leave?’
‘I
guess so. I don’t know. They wouldn’t fit in here anyway.’
Peter
considered this spiritual form of snobbery.
‘And
upwards?’
‘I
went as far as Sector D12…D something or other.’
‘What
was it like?’
‘More
rural.’
‘What
about angels and demons?’
Warren
laughed and shrugged.’ It’s just us.’
Peter
was in a bar somewhere in the lower sections of sector P. He’d hit
a ghetto of peoples from America, who had died round about 1930 to
1970. The sounds and smells were incredible. The sewers were not
open, but if you picked up a manhole cover, and looked down into it,
you would see a fast flowing river of raw sewage. Down here, it
sounded like an industrial complex built beside a half constructed
airport.
‘Fucking
tourists’, snarled the man in uniform next to him.
‘Excuse
me?’
‘I
said.’ repeated the man, ’Fucking tourists.’
‘Guilty
as charged.’ smiled Peter.
The man
barked in laughter.
‘English
right?’ Peter’s comment seemed to have disarmed the man slightly.
‘Yep’
‘Upper
levels FNG I bet, and I bet you decided to see the lower sectors
first right? Haven’t been up yet, I’m right? Right?’
‘Your
right, how did you know?’
‘They
all do.’
‘Where’d
you start?’
‘Round
here, that’s a kinda personal question. But I’ll answer it
anyway. Sector fucking S man, fucked up my shit, too much jungle
work.’
‘Vietnam?’
‘Fucking
Guadalcanal. I went as low as V, when I arrived. Shit, that place was
a drag. And the guys there all told stories…’
Peter
looked across at his talkative companion, ‘What?’
‘You
don’t even want to know man. Below V, you’re getting into genuine
hell. Pitchforks, fire and brimstone, the works.’
‘Really?’
‘You
just call it a day right here my man, there’s nothing below us but
shit. Take it from someone who seen hell on earth and hell on .. er
.. hell.’
‘World
War 2 I take it?’
‘Uh-huh.
You sector G’s and sector H’s are all so squeaky clean coz you
never did anything. Shit, I dropped 5 levels for just picking up a
fucking rifle.’
‘But
who decides?’
‘That
my friend I don’t know. Karma, maybe.’
After a
pause Peter pointed out the window into the murky street, at a group
of shaven headed individuals dressed in robes.
‘Who
are those guys?’
‘Dunno,
a cult probably. Lots of them down here.’
‘Religious
cults? But surely in the afterlife…’
‘Uh-huh?
It may have escaped you, but did any of your questions get answered?
When you die, you expect to get the answer to the meaning of your
existence. Why was I here? Why was I born? Then you’re here. And
this is it. It’s as meaningless as being alive was. Religions
flourish here. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, the whole fucking ball
game.’
‘But
how do they explain…jeez.. how do they…’
Peter
waved his arms around in an all encompassing gesture.
‘Same
way they always did. They make it up!’
Peter
put his head in his hands.
‘Wanna
know my theory FNG?’
‘OK’,
replied Peter.
‘Aliens.’,
the man stated as if that explained it all. Peter shrugged and waited
for more.
‘This
guy told me, a wanderer, he reckon this whole set up is benevolent
time traveling super aliens. The thing is, we ain’t dead, we just
think we are. This is a parallel dimension or a human zoo in some
other galaxy or some shit.’
‘I
don’t understand. There are people from every period of history
here.’
‘The
aliens fixed it so that we all come here. They take our bodies at
point of death and replace them with simulacrums. Then they put us
here to live out eternity.’
‘I
don’t know…’
‘Does
this look like how you imagined the afterlife? Like anyone did back
in the world? This is the reality. This is the nearest thing the
aliens could give us that would make any sense.’
Peter
didn’t know what to say to that, but who would. This guy was nuts
right?
And then
there was upwards. And no questions got answered there either. There
was more sheep though. And other animals, why not?
Sheep
lead relatively blameless lives, the lazy bums.
Peter
was sat on a grassy ridge overlooking a flock of them. A material
existence of munching on grass followed by an eternity of munching on
grass.
Suddenly
one looked up, grass hanging from its limp mouth, with a profound
look of amazement on its sheepy face. Then it disappeared in a
flashing Star Trek special effect. Sometimes they did that. Peter
didn’t know what it meant.
The
people in Sector E Peter found slightly tiresome. Like they had
figured it all out, but weren’t about to divulge all their secrets
to the lowly sector G purgatory dwellers. He found himself feeling
inadequate around them, like he wasn’t good enough company.
And they
all seemed obsessed with getting into the next sector up. Spiritual
social climbers.
‘Ah,
lovely view, yes?’ said a woman who had sat down beside him. There
were a lot more women around as well.
‘Yes’,
replied Peter,’ It’s very pretty, the mountains look very far
away.’
He
examined her. She had dark skin, and wore her jet hair in long
ringlets framing her noble face. A word came into his head. Ancient.
She
smiled, ‘I’m Rel, Babylonian if that’s what your wondering. I
died in 650 BC.’
‘I
thought people from different time periods stuck to their own areas?’
‘There
is a little bit of mixing. And besides, I’m allowed a bit of
lee-way. I’m an administrator.’
‘Oh
really? I didn’t realize people had to .. uh…administrate.’
‘Hmm..
oh yes, there’s plenty of work to be done. New arrivals, sector
disputes, that sort of thing.’
‘Wow.
I haven’t seen any violence yet.’
‘It
happens. It’s harder to do, seeing as everyone is dead. But it
happens.’
‘I
have a question, while your here.. What is this all about?’
‘That
I can’t answer.’ replied Rel, ‘What did you believe when you
were mortal?’
‘I
dunno, I was christened, but I never really …I died young, I guess
I thought I’d put off thinking about it until later.’
‘Then
you may find it harder to deal with. Or easier.’
‘But I
can’t…’
‘I’m
sorry, I’m not allowed to give out clues’, said Rel and laughed.
‘I
just can’t see that this is it. Eternity.’
‘Who
said it was eternity?’
Peter
opened his mouth and stuttered, ‘Not … eternity?’
‘Hah!
I must be slipping, that was a definite clue!’
Peter
looked like he was about to grab her.
‘I’m
sorry, I’m only joking, I’ve no more idea than you. I just like
teasing new guys. I think everyone has to find there own way.’
‘Maybe
I should be getting back to Taylor. He’ll be wondering where I got
to.’
‘Listen,
Peter.’ Rel said in a placating tone, ‘My theory is this, for
what it’s worth. There is no life, no afterlife, just an endless
journey. We were born to a place and when we died we came here. And
when we are ready to leave this place, like the sheep, we will move
on to another place. And who knows after that? On and on, until we
achieve spiritual oneness and are content.’
Peter
mused on this and thought that she made a lot of sense. But what did
she know, she was just a broad right?
Then he
met me. Who am I? That doesn’t matter. Unlike everyone else in this
little drama I didn’t have a theory, I’ve had enough of that. I
met him in sector G when he’d got home from his travels. What can I
say? I was slumming it.
Time had
passed and he’d moved out of his flat and into a house with some
gal that had died young as well. Like is attracted to like I guess,
they were so narrow minded they didn’t even change their time
frame.
I’m a
drifter, I drift from sector to sector, era ghetto to era ghetto.
I met
him outside his house, I was lying down on his lawn, soaking up the
sun. Usually when I do this in sector G I get shouted at but Peter
surprised me by bringing out two bottles of beer and sitting down
beside me.
‘Thanks
stranger’, I said, blowing the froth off.
‘It’s
local though, non alcoholic.’
‘Pff,
yeah, you need to go to hell to get a decent beer. I prefer wine
though…’ I mumbled and scratched my beard.
‘I’m
Peter, been here about a year.’ he said.
‘Yeah,
how come’s you didn’t kick me off your lawn?’ I asked,
squinting at him.
‘No
one has ever done it before. And besides, I think I recognize you.’
‘Heh’,
I said, ‘Maybe you do.’
‘You must have been one of the first then?’
‘You must have been one of the first then?’
‘One
of them? I was the first.’
He
seemed confused, ‘But people, I mean humans, were around before
you.’
‘Yeah,
I was the first to arrive here, in this place. The rest came later,
no matter how long they had been dead. There are ancient homo sapiens
living in a Sector E ghetto that are older historically
than me, but I was the first here.’
‘Why?’
‘If I
was to guess at that I would be theorizing, and I hate theories.’
‘Right.’
I opened
my robe a little to feel the sun on my chest. After a while he said,
‘You’re
different than I would have thought. Talk differently.’
‘Yeah?
You try wandering around here for two thousand years bub and see how
you talk.’ I replied curtly.
‘Sorry.’
I took a
big tug on the bottle.
‘I’m
just resting, thanks for the drink, but I was done with these sorts
of conversations a thousand years ago. Years? What does that even
mean in eternity?’
Peter
smiled and said nothing. I could see that he wanted to but didn’t
want to offend me. Eventually I smiled and gave in,
‘Go on
then kid, ask me one question. Just one though.’
He
seemed to think for a long time.
‘I
like it here, and over the last year I have learned a lot about how
it all works. I’ve got everything I need and everything I want, but
I guess my question would be, where is the spirituality? I mean, I
don’t think I was expecting it to be all harps and clouds, but I
had to fill out forms when I got here, and the paper work I had to go
through to get this house made my mortgage back in the world look
like a post-it. There is religion here, and churches and mosques, but
no one has any more of an answer than they did when they were alive.
In short, I don’t want to know the answer, but if there is
an answer?’
I had to
smile at that one.
‘Ah,
but what is the question? You’re looking at it from your limited
human perspective kid. Time. Space. That all goes on in your head.
When I first got here I was angry. It wasn’t what I had been
promised. Then when the others came they wanted answers and I
couldn’t give any to them. Whoever, whatever set this up, set it up
on a human level, not a spiritual one. There is nothing to strive
for, just be content with simply being.’
He
didn’t seem very happy with that, ‘There has to be more than
that. You sound like an atheist!’
I drank
from the beer bottle and then handed it back to him half full,
‘Now
your just insulting me. Look beyond labels Peter. If you want to be
something more than human then stop thinking like one.’
He
shrugged desperately, ‘That doesn’t even mean anything!’
‘There
you go again, using words like “meaning”, you’ll have a
“theory” next.’
I got up
to go,
‘Mark
my words kiddo. Don’t become a wise-ass like the rest of them.’
‘Wait!’
‘Don’t
worry, I’ll pass this way again sometime. Maybe I might let you ask
me another question!’
He
watched me go, then turned and walked back to his white-washed house.
His young wife came to the door and said,
‘Who
was that?’
Peter
shook his head, ‘Someone who’s done with names.’
She
looked at him quizzically.
‘At
first I thought he was a low sector traveler, but then it occurred to
me who it was. Beard, sandals, robe.’
She was
less than impressed, ‘There’s probably thousands of people here
that claim they are him.’
Peter
passed the bottle I had been drinking from to her,
‘Try
it.’
‘I’m
not drinking from the same bottle as a tramp!’ she said pushing it
away.
Peter
sighed and picked up a glass and poured the contents of the bottle
into it.
‘It’s
red!’ she exclaimed.
You
better believe it toots. Pure Galilean wine baby, yeah!
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
Work Blog 02-07-2013
That video got me thinking...
If someone tells you to hold the hand rail, your first thought is that
you want to punch them in the neck.
If someone tells you to put a lid on your coffee you may be tempted
to throw it in their crotch.
But be calm, and tell yourself that this sort of pedantry is a small
price to pay for some very real and life saving changes made to the
way we work in just one generation.
I travel in Indonesia a lot and it is very much a country that has yet
to embrace the HSE culture.
That's one way of putting it. Another way would be to say they are a
bunch of fecking maniacs.
Over there one simply has to bribe someone a few quid to get a driving
license and you are off. The fact that no one gets any formal training
on the roads there is very evident.
On a drive from Jakarta to Bandung, which is about four hours, my nerves
were worn away to bloody stumps by people constantly undertaking me,
covering two lanes, rampaging up the hard shoulder and a hundred other
things that would get you arrested in the UK.
Every few seconds some maniac on a moped would squeeze past me, using
the tiny gaps between me and the cars to either side or in front of
me. If it was just one wee guy then I wouldn't feel that bad about
spilling him into the street but most of the time he has a toddler
between his legs and his wife on the back holding a baby!
Driving through Jakarta is a constant game of 'Lets Not Kill Any
Babies (TM)'. That's not a nice game.
I hate that game.
Anyway, I am a neck punching, coffee-in-the-crotch kind of guy in
normal circumstances but by the time
I'd got to Bandung I was as clip-board carrying as your best HSE Nazi.
How stupid could they be? Risking not only their own lives, but
those of their loved ones with such gay abandon? Risking the life of a baby,
for Allah's sake just to jump ahead of the queue at some traffic lights?
Maybe that's how we all look to people who never let go of the hand rail?
Well, I know where I would draw the line, but I also know I would rather
have too much HSE than too little!
I've seen what it's like to have none at all and it's terrifying.
If someone tells you to hold the hand rail, your first thought is that
you want to punch them in the neck.
If someone tells you to put a lid on your coffee you may be tempted
to throw it in their crotch.
But be calm, and tell yourself that this sort of pedantry is a small
price to pay for some very real and life saving changes made to the
way we work in just one generation.
I travel in Indonesia a lot and it is very much a country that has yet
to embrace the HSE culture.
That's one way of putting it. Another way would be to say they are a
bunch of fecking maniacs.
Over there one simply has to bribe someone a few quid to get a driving
license and you are off. The fact that no one gets any formal training
on the roads there is very evident.
On a drive from Jakarta to Bandung, which is about four hours, my nerves
were worn away to bloody stumps by people constantly undertaking me,
covering two lanes, rampaging up the hard shoulder and a hundred other
things that would get you arrested in the UK.
Every few seconds some maniac on a moped would squeeze past me, using
the tiny gaps between me and the cars to either side or in front of
me. If it was just one wee guy then I wouldn't feel that bad about
spilling him into the street but most of the time he has a toddler
between his legs and his wife on the back holding a baby!
Driving through Jakarta is a constant game of 'Lets Not Kill Any
Babies (TM)'. That's not a nice game.
I hate that game.
Anyway, I am a neck punching, coffee-in-the-crotch kind of guy in
normal circumstances but by the time
I'd got to Bandung I was as clip-board carrying as your best HSE Nazi.
How stupid could they be? Risking not only their own lives, but
those of their loved ones with such gay abandon? Risking the life of a baby,
for Allah's sake just to jump ahead of the queue at some traffic lights?
Maybe that's how we all look to people who never let go of the hand rail?
Well, I know where I would draw the line, but I also know I would rather
have too much HSE than too little!
I've seen what it's like to have none at all and it's terrifying.
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