Quincunx

The doorknob shook, the doorjamb reverberated, and whoever was on the other side of the door questioned it, then spoke through the keyhole, "The door's being temperamental again. Tzimfemme here, who's in there?" "I could unstick that door right away with an Almost Dragonic Temperamental Door Unsticker, but the Almost Dragonic laboratories are a little short on research funding--" "Who's in there other than Wyvern?" "Me. Dauna. George." The voice behind the keyhole didn't interject as it had before. "One moment. . ." it replied, and went unintelligible. By Wyvern's desk, the air shimmered silver and coalesced, leaving the naked mage herself with one hand resting on Dauna's application form. Tzimfemme brushed away her goosebumps with her free hand while her body materialized. "Apologies for that. It's not name magic, I assure you, but if I just point at this office and say 'to the paperwork', I'll set off an avalanche," she half-explained, and perched on the edge of the desk to read. Soon enough she jerked her head away from the story and studied George. "You've come straight out of the dynamo. . ." the naked mage wondered aloud. "Been awhile since we had one of those. . .This is my duty here--don't worry, no chaos will cross this threshold unless it's invited. Same as vampires." That made her laugh.

yay yayay yayayay yayayayay yayayayayay yayayayayayay yayayayayayaYAY! (Minta stops zooming around the perimeter but the room, dizzy, keeps drifting in the opposite direction from the initial spin.) hihi! where's the skellie? (Room's center of gravity, and floor, tips north-east. Bone dust spills from Minta's pockets and puffs out, down the slight incline.)

A self-addressed postmark DOES establish common-law copyright*, and provides a useful printed backup of computer files. Attaching a small "copyright 2006" to the bottom of each post should head off any claims that person X did not know the work was under copyright. However, this does not stop people from taking your work, and it would still take legal action to get a Cease and Desist order, which few struggling authors can afford. If you absolutely mistrust the readers on the Internet, get this moved to a private forum A.S.A.P. *within the U.S. of A., information valid in 2004.

The cup dropped back into its saucer, sloshing tea. Tzimfemme sucked her mouthful into one cheek and stated, "Not yet, I'd hope." "Oh, no, we're just planning!" The naked mage swallowed, then; Rydia's ears twisted backwards at the implied insult. "Unkink, Rydia. I didn't ask you out of revulsion. . .well, only revulsion," amended Tzimfemme. "Orlan's the only Man of Terra who got his title solely based on good looks. Now I don't mind black holes, they're forces of nature same as sunshine and rainbows, but the fact remains that your Starlight has all the power of one, with his will keeping it in check. Say that you do breed him, and he you--what's to stop an undisciplined fetus from devouring you from the inside out?" "Our children aren't going to be evil, that's why!" Rydia flared, her ears now pointing up and towards Tzimfemme. "So your children aren't going to turn out like your students did," Tzimfemme said, with heavy stresses. "I see. . ." She trailed off, noticing Rydia's new dress in Rosemary's style: longer, looser, layered, concealing. The naked mage's eyebrows lowered. The elf followed Tzimfemme's gaze and continued, "I didn't just decide to change! My old dresses were getting worn. . .well, not mine actually. . ." Rydia pointed an ear at Minta, who had found slimy crayons somewhere in her pockets and was now lying on her tummy on the floor, doodling on a parchment. "Look at her robe! It's torn into ribbons at the hemline and the cuffs--" "I noticed that." "--Well, that's a surprise. Those robes were custom-fitted to her, now tell me why they've suddenly gotten so much bigger that she's wearing them out against everything she touches!" Rydia put down her tea cake, then brusquely swept crumbs off of the tablecloth and into a spare saucer. The naked mage flicked her eyes over Minta: zombie-meat crayons, parchment of a wight wing, zombie-leather robes resistant to almost all magical damage. "Minta," she called, "if you had a zombie, could you make it grow larger?" "Nono but I could make it smaller an' not just zombies!" she replied, not looking up from whatever she was drawing. "But I'd hafta charm it first so it obeyed me an' it'd stay small after I let it go an' I can't just make corpsies smaller 'cause there's no animatin' force for the spell to latch onto. Can only animate corpsies first." Tzimfemme watched the gnome for a few seconds more, until Minta shoved back one of her sleeves that had flopped down onto the parchment, then looked back at Rydia and raised one questioning eyebrow. "If the robe isn't growing, then is Minta shrinking? The mage guilds' experiments aren't keeping her in stasis any more. . ." Rydia paused and struggled with the concept. ". . .and you felt the need to move out from under my dominion. . .which all happened soon after Rosemary died," Tzimfemme supplied. The elf's ears stopped wavering, and one curled to imitate a question mark. "Rosemary used to say that evil was imprisoned within her, and it was true, damn her! Minta's aging, your urges, and my--never mind that, spiritual sister--were all unleashed when she died." "See!" Rydia interjected. "That's all in the past. Our children won't be affected by that evil." Tzimfemme thumped her index finger against the table. "Maybe the right conclusion, definitely the wrong reason. . .Rydia, I suspect I'm straining your hospitality," she continued. Rydia's ears agreed. "We should talk more about this, but outside the house. Minta! Come," added the naked mage as she rose. Minta dropped her crayons on the floor, then sprinted ahead of the other two up the stairs, pushed the thin and convex stone door open, and stepped out onto a smaller stone. When Rydia closed the door, it looked once more like an intact boulder, covered with lichen as was the rest of the ridge. Tzimfemme surveyed the thicket of slender tree trunks while Minta squelched around in the peat, giggling at the noises her feet made. Once the gnome had moved away, Tzimfemme squatted on a rock outcropping, crooked her finger, and motioned Rydia closer. "I spoke wrongly before, while Minta might have been listening," she whispered. "It wasn't Minta's age that Rosemary held in check--it was her punishment." "I don't understand--" "White mage! You do understand. When the writer of the contract of the soul dies, the devil takes its due, doesn't it?" Rydia barely nodded, and Tzimfemme pressed onwards. "I'll admit it, I lied, I'm oblivious, but you're not. You saw that Minta was growing younger and your intuition did the rest. You've been kinder to her recently, haven't you? Less stern? More tolerant of her casual evil acts? That's because you know now that some day, she's going to be held accountable for it all." Rydia turned her back on Tzimfemme. The rock on which she stood acquired small, darker spots, and she brought a corner of the shawl up to her face. Tzimfemme broke her abstracted stare off of Minta and turned towards Rydia, faint curiosity in her eyes. "Did you cry when Rosemary died?"

Note: reverie listed the original in ascending order, but I speak about a descending order. I see a pyramid of accessibility: the more widespread an activity is, the lower it is on the list. Push scriptwriting up a few notches, past vignettes certainly and possibly short stories as well: dialogue can be difficult, and consequential dialogue is beyond many people's skills in real life, let alone on the printed page. Break personal essays away from journalism, pair it with blogs, and drop it to the very bottom of the accessibility list; move journalism above memoirs, for the research it implies. Swap poetry and novels, for although they're of equal difficulty, novels will consume more time. Lower opera below dramatic plays, both have the same function, but opera has music to assist it. (Less objectively, drop opera to the level of popular lyrics.) Insert scientific reporting at the level of the novel, for that is a difficult and precise form of writing.

You could sneak around changing the syntax of that line by dropping "nevermore" into single quotation marks. Why singles? I'm not certain that I can explain it, except that double quotation marks are spoken words, and this was not spoken aloud. I will, however, agree that "vowing 'nevermore'" will still flow better. The second line is a subordinate clause of the first, and without a verb of its own, does not also need to have its verb form* in past tense. The rephrasing does soften the impact of "vow", but half of that impact came from the broken grammar behind it. *gerundive, if we're getting technical

I thought of (and subsequently had to look up) Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, since many of the poems were written in the dual-column format. Also I remember a dual poem of this type about the American Civil War, although I can't remember where. Very rare sightings.

Noooooooo more Cuckoo Puffs for Ozymandias. . .

A nearby tree's branch bends downwards as the naked mage crawls out onto its thinner end, dangling from the branch by her legs and lowering her towards the keyboard with a rustling flurry of beeps--Wyvern's machine's sound card still isn't working. "Wyvern," she tells the almost dragon as she reaches down, "you might want to grab hold of something solid. I've been thinking deeply." She types in 'Pain in the Astrals' and hits the 'enter' key. Everything vanishes, except for Wyvern, Tzimfemme, and beeping sounds. ". . .The aural illusions are still busted, huh. We should've been surrounded by heavy metal." Tzimfemme wraps both arms around the invisible tree branch and hangs in the void like a sloth, considering. After a few minutes, she begins to hum. Pinpricks of color appear around her, swelling into scaly-sided cubes, glowing and emitting heat and red light. "Bass line!" she shouts, and lets go of the support as the cubes float away severally. With the first violent strum against the air guitar, the stippled egg-crate surface of the wave cuts through the void, shimmering and green. Wyvern climbs onto the invisible tree stump to avoid putting his claws through it, and it accelerates into the distance with the cubes. He looks up at her. She looks down at him. "Feels stupid to do it in dead silence, but. . ." She throws devil horns and headbangs. Both of them are released from their perches and float through the darkness, turned and twisted until they sit level on an unseen plane. Above them, the night sky populates itself with stars of silent music, the aurora shimmering air-guitar green. ". . .only half the show is better than no show."

Agreed! I'll ask you for a team name though, as the name-generating portion of my mind turned up Team Catnip Confidential and that's just not suitable.

"faster faster faster whee!" Most human ears were too insensitive to hear the words, and just heard a shrill voice from the nearest hilltop, then a soft drumbeat that tumbled over itself like an avalanche. Everyone saw the small purple mass launch itself from the top of the hill, vectoring straight towards the Pen grounds, and rapidly descending through the air. Minta hit the ground some distance away from the booth, but didn't stop running until she hit the end of the vector. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled back at the hill, "RYDIA! It didn't work!"

Tzimfemme tacks up a sign: Teammate needed, preferably with good knowledge post-2003 and/or guilds familiarity.

Do not enter while wearing a kilt. Pants ONLY! (block-lettered notice on the door of #thepen) WARNING to all the scantily-clad of the Pen: Cover your bottoms and backsides! Little Morgane's darts seem to have an inexhaustible supply! I confiscated all I could see to no effect! --Rydia (posted underneath the first announcement with, yes, another dart)

With the Carnival restarted, we need to be able to see gold totals again!

Trying to get money out of Wyvern?! Excuse me for a moment. . . (Tzimfemme looks around for cover, and doesn't find much of it, instead dashing for the nearest bleeping rock.) *bleep*hahahah*bleep*ahahahah*bleep*ahaha! (She returns.) We've found it's easier to update the running gold totals (points at the sidebar to this post) at the end of each carnival, to prevent gold from being double-awarded or not at all, and also to accomodate the events with longer participation. [EDIT: Aha. The running gold total doesn't display in this skin yet.]

Thanks all for this bizarre little romp. I'm still very sorry about the loss of momentum half-way through. In a quirk of fate, during that extra time, the original Generica campaign has re-opened recruitment (Team Abstract Vitamin keeps losing people). I'm going to design a new character for him and invite anyone who wants to continue using these characters to come with me via a flight on Corsair Air, the airline that puts the Arrrrrrr in Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!: Generica OOC Generica: Team Potato Tree As promised, the link back to the campaign that started it all.

For Falcon: 3d6 (12) + Wisdom (-1) + Abjuration (3) = 14 Stanley lunges through the bakery, intent on intercepting pie. However DM fiat, in the form of Betty sticking her foot in Stanley's path (nobody tackles her kid brother!), sends him on a slightly different path. . .straight towards the glassed-in display case. CRASH Glass shards and pie fly Gurgle-wards. He cowers, and looks surprised when the frosting and glass seems to freeze in midair. Outside, the people in line see the barrier of force drop down like a curtain, shielding Senna's faithful from having to continue looking at the orc. Shanai stares for a moment at this new cleaning technology, then goes into the back and gently shakes the bakery clerk awake. Gurgle's hand pokes out from the barrier of force, holding the pie. "Uh. . .Gurgle Garble thinks that pie is not worth chasing any more. Take Gurgle's pie," he says. Congratulations! You have finished Orc and Pie. Thanks for getting into the spirit of this, and have a nice week! See the OOC thread for the follow-up.

Tzimfemme not only woke up, she sat bolt upright in her nest, leaving an indent in the heap of stolen underwear. Somewhere in her living quarters, an alarm thrummed bass notes and the naked mage could not, at first, identify which of hers it was. After several seconds, she remembered the ward she'd cut from the Conservatory corkboard and glued onto her chocolate pantry, pivoted at the waist, and launched herself out of the nest like a sprinter, none too soon. Minta zoomed from behind her towards the laboratory, but Tzimfemme slammed her palm against a sensor on the counter, and the gnome entangled herself in a net of mana which strung itself across the lab's doorway. The upside-down gnome bobbed back and forth in the webbing, releasing kinetic energy. "Um. . .hihi?" she announced to Tzimfemme's knees. The naked mage drummed her fingers on the sole of Minta's shoe, eliciting squeals of glee and a shower of freshly pilfered truffles. "No, Minta. You can't squirm your way out of discipline from me," she replied as she snatched falling chocolates from the air. "I know your ways." "Can too!" the gnome giggled. As Minta hung in the mana webbing, the strands nearest her changed color to silvery-gray. "Didya know that Rydia's gone?" "Did you stick a dagger in her back also?" was the sardonic reply. "Is not dead, is gone! You know how the Pen gets all funny with doors an' rooms an' stuff?" Minta kicked from the knees and tangled her shoes up in a frayed loop from her robe's hemline. "Well, I was gonna go up to her room an' get some chocolate kisses an' I--" "Wait!" Tzimfemme interjected, staring at the mana webbing, then tapping on a pressure-sensitive plate set into the counter. More mana flowed into the net, and the silvery color faded away as Minta curled up her head to look at it. "Misdirection. . ." The naked mage shook out her braids, then pressed the heels of both hands to her temples. "Something that you have made me forget--what were we speaking about? The dead, the gone. . .Rosemary," concluded Tzimfemme, as she turned back to the doorway and dropped to one knee. "Minta, you never did tell me what happened to you when Rosemary died. The two of you ruled together for so long--you must have felt something." Minta rolled her eyes up (towards the floor) as she thought. "Was when it got really really bright at the end of the party, an' the air got full of swirly colors an' stuff but it was hard to see 'cause it was still really bright, an' I heard a chimera laughin' and Lucifer too but he was goin' down an' the chimera was goin' up, an' an' an'. . ." Minta stopped then and her eyes got round and frightened. The naked mage looked to the strands of Minta's quincunx power and found them waving, unguided, in the air. "And what?" she insisted, laying her fingertips on either side of Minta's head and holding her still. "An' I felt old," whispered Minta. She giggled then but the sound was powerless and yes, old. The strands curled inwards and hugged the gnome, melting away the moment. Tzimfemme stood and turned partly away from the doorway, digesting that information, as Minta wriggled her shoulders loose from the webbing. "No. . .regret?" the naked mage hinted. Minta pulled her knees up to her chest as her heavy robes flapped away from the net. "Nuh-uh." Tzimfemme's eyes went cold, and she snapped, "We're going to speak with Rydia. I can't cope with this." Minta grabbed hold of some mana webbing and flipped herself right-side-up just before Tzimfemme disabled the net, and dropped down a few centimeters to the floor. The naked mage grabbed Minta by a wrist and marched out of the lab, heading towards the nearest elevator updraft. "But I was gonna tell you," Minta protested, while poking her free hand into her pocket and checking on the undetected chocolates.

OOC: Cussing out the ISP customer service is a good way to get your internet cut off entirely. . .just f-y-i. I'm writing this from an internet cafe. For Sweetcherrie: 3d6 (15) + Charisma (1) + Shoo Birds Away (or People or Orcs) (3) = 19 Shanai's nose twitches. Peppermint? The orc roars, propelling the scent of artificial peppermint all over the bakery. Jack's coiffure melts a bit from the sheer force behind the breath freshener. Shanai freezes with her hand on the broom as the lovely smell of cinnamon rolls is absolutely spoiled by the peppermint smell-- --and then shoos with a vengeance. Gurgle growls as the broom's bristles scratch his delicate skin, but backs away from the doorway behind a cloud of swept-up breadcrumbs and powdered sugar. "Shoo! Shoo!" "Thankyamuch, Jimmie, have a nice day," Jimmy says, shuffling the complete form to the back of a clipboard, as Gurgle comes up against the side wall of the bakery with a THUMP! The pie wobbles, and he loses his grip on it. . .

Betty Garble Betty sees something out of the corner of her eye that is not her brother in the back of the bakery in clerk's clothing--a form!--a constant, unchangeable, nontransvestite form. She picks a pen out of her pocket and signs here, there, and initials somewhere else.

Betty Garble Betty screams. "GURGLE! No!" She gawks at his outfit--the cheeky short skirt, the "Try My Buns!" apron. "What would Dad say if he found out??!?!?!"

For Wyvern: 3d6 (13) + Wisdom (2) + Prayer to Senna (3) = 18 just as Jimmy finishes his speech to Shanai. . . The crack between the doors glows with deep blue light, and the doors swing slowly open, framing Jack in a flattering nimbus and revealing the scene once more: the pool of blood has vanished and the bakery clerk's uniform is mended although she is still not moving, and the orc now wears a copy of the uniform tailored to fit his un-clerkish figure. He looks down at himself, then snarls and keeps one door from shutting with an outstretched, clawed hand.

This was a word I didn't know, so I wanted to find a reference from someone who knew what it meant: Count Prococurante was a character in Voltaire's Candide, the book's satire on aristocratic ennui, and most likely Voltaire just made up the name to suit the temperament (as he did with Pangloss and some other characters). Little wonder that it looks out of place in test sentences! Insouicance is saucy, contrived, best suited to the experienced flirt pretending not to notice the effect she has upon others.

Jack could have just opened one of the swinging doors, but oh no, he had to fling both of them wide on their hinges, giving you a clear view into the back room. It is a 20' x 20' room, without another visible exit. On three walls, there are shelves of baked goods, and countertops where bagging, slicing and decorating stations are set up. In the center of the room, the bakery clerk lies in a pool of her own blood, motionless. Standing over her is a massive orc in ratty hide armour, still holding a bloody spear. In its other hand, it holds a massive, creamy pie with a huge, mouthwatering cherry on top. It looks at you and bares its fangs. Please post one round (about ten seconds' worth) of actions. Talk is free, although a really long speech might take up all of your alloted time.

OOC: My internet connection is more finicky than a cat on camera. If I disappear for a few more days, don't be alarmed. Betty Garble Betty looks at the bell on the counter for a moment, then turns around and announces to the rest of the line, "It's Four Oh Nine Pee Em and that clerk hasn't come back out yet! Have any of you seen a DaVinci's employee since you arrived?"