Noitacilppa

[Rune]

OOC: My Application essay is based on fact, and therefore may not appeal to some. As a result I jotted down a quick overview of what happens when a demon decides to apply to the pen. Feel free to read one, or the other.. or both if your that bored. The essay itself is not complete, but I’ve sat on it long enough. I will finish it up at a later date.

 

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Rune pats her tummy.

 

“Down bugglies (butterflies), down I say.” She scowls at her own stomach and sits down on her bed. Looking out into the empty room she attempts to reassure herself that everything will be ok. Fumbling with the pieces of paper in her hand she rips one slightly.

 

 

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.” The demon child stammers to herself and quickly jumps up to work to confine the tear so that it does not ruin the paper. Treating it as though it were more valuable than gold she lays the three sheets on top of one another and them separates them out to recount them once again.

 

“Ok, good. All three of them are here.” She says to herself before stacking them up again.

 

Turning her back on the paper she stomps her foot and gets a determined look on her face. She begins her pep talk by first point out how childish she is for fearing the process, and then continues by smacking herself around for not having done it sooner, and ends by congratulating herself on how nicely she had written the words and how straight her W’s were. With a nod of her head she leaves the room and heads toward the Recruiter’s office.

 

She reaches the massive wooden door that is the final protective barrier between what will make her simple piece of paper become an application. She reaches for the handle, and realizes that its slightly too high. Grunting to herself she stands on her tiptoes and manages to get her tiny hands around the door handle. Pulling with all her might she tries to pry open the heavy door, but alas its sturdy (and heavy) craftsmanship is just too much for her to handle. She pouts and sits down on the ground, Her elbows resting on her knees.

 

“No one mentioned anything about there being ‘bigger than me’ doors in the way.” She mumbles. A gold plate in the bottom left hand corner of the door catches her eye. Peering at it closely she runs her fingers over the words as she reads them aloud. “Almost Dragonic Productions. Hmm, Sounds like a nice company, maybe I can call them and ask them to open the door for me.”

 

“Would you like to come in?” A grainy voice booms out of nowhere.

 

“who? What?” Rune jumps up from the ground, spinning on her heels in an attempt to find whoever just addressed her.

 

“Up here” the voice continues, matter-of-factly. “Would you like to come inside?” Peering up towards the handle, Rune realizes that the door is speaking to her. She giggles in delight at the concept, having never met a door in the past. “Yes, I would very much like to come inside. But before I go, could you introduce yourself? I’ve never met a door, and I bet it would be something I’d very much like to remember.”

 

“Well of course.” The door responds. “I used to be the door to a very influential wizard’s main chamber. But after the wizard zapped himself a few too many times he sold me rather cheaply to some dragon fellow. Actually, I am not sure if he was a dragon or not, but he brought me here. I was a bit insulted at being bought so cheaply, after all I am a very intelligent and sharp door, not at all dull in the slightest.” The door shook in its frame, obviously upset at the thought of being considered cheap. The clock rang out from the main courtyard, signaling lunchtime within the pen keep.

 

“Oh my goodness, its already lunchtime. I really must go Master door, could you let me inside?” Rune urged.

 

“Why of course, do have fun and come back and visit sometime!” The door swung open allowing her passage. “Thank you” she curtsied and then passed through the entrance. The distraction of the door having calmed her nerves, she placed her application on the massive desk inside and turned to leave. Several hours later Wyvern returns to his office. Pushing on the door he finds that it will not budge.

 

“Not this again” He mumbles. All that can be heard from the door is a muffled “humph” as it remains sturdy in its frame.

 

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OOC: And this is the actual essay part.

 

Untitled at the moment.

 

The track appeared to slice the countryside in half. On one side there was a field full of flowers for as far as the eye could see. The other side appeared vast and limitless as the ocean framed the picture perfect setting, casting a backdrop of intertwined blues and golds as the sun reflected off of the water's surface. The locomotive’s whistle could be heard in the distance. The soft sound was carried on the sun soaked wind. As the sound reached the shore of the beach it vanished, leaving only a ghostly symphony of waves and seagulls in it's wake.

 

This tranquil setting appeared to be untouched as the sun started to set after it's journey from one sea to another. The train's whistle appeared to fit in perfectly, causing little harm to the native creatures and setting. Even the tracks were camouflaged by overgrown vegetation. The strength of the steel that could support all the weight of the train appeared frail when covered by the green foliage. Smaller avian citizens picked through the roots and grass of the track searching for dinner for their young. As the day wore on, the sun's rays turned amber as it sank into the quenching sea.

 

The train grew closer. A solitary figure could be seen standing by the track. The posture and stance made it obvious this was not a man, but a child. His lanky arms supported hands that showed days of labor even though his face earned him little more than 15 years. His black hair framed his listless expression as he peered towards the direction of the whistle. The train loomed closer, it’s sound amplified as it rushed towards him. Birds of every variety turned towards the direction of the train. Motionless they watched for the beast to approach. The boy became fixated on the black shadow that had come into view. The whistle grew louder as the train approached. It's wheels furiously chewed up the vegetation that once covered the track as it roared through the peaceful setting. The boy remained motionless, unaffected by the approaching rage. The ground shook violently as the locomotive stormed into full view. The birds that had been motionless fled from the scene in a fury of angry squawks. The train ripped past, Its fury causing the wind to whip the boy's hair against his face. He mumbled to himself but the words were unheard. As quick and violently as it has approached it departed. The sun set as though it too fled the impending doom of the train. The boy turned his back on the beach and headed home. His arms hung lethargically by his side as though he was carrying more weight than his lanky frame could handle.

 

As he passed through the outskirts of town and onto the main street, memories of the past flooded his senses. Focusing on the ground he trudged forward. He was exhausted after having worked all day and knew he would be in for a lecture for getting home so late. He passed a couple on the street corner who greeted him with snarls of disgust and comments of no particular fact. He brushed them off and continued forward, too tired to even turn and glance in their direction. The street lamps overhead brought a particular memory to mind. As he passed underneath their concentrated light and then back into darkness the internal images took on a moving picture feel. The light penetrated his heavy eyelids and caused him to feel slightly dizzy as he awkwardly made his way down the sidewalk.

 

The movie playing in his head was of his family. It reminded him of an old black and white movie his grandfather had showed him once when he was younger. The light from the street lamps provided the strobe effect that was often common with that particular style of old movies. He saw his mother sitting on a rock with flowers in her hair. The same beach he had just visited provided the backdrop as the wind stroked the light layers of fabric that made up her spring dress. His youngest brother ran around her, picking flowers and bringing them to her one by one. His father was tossing a baseball to another boy, the middle child of the three, and laughing as the child scrambled to catch the ball but always seemed to miss. Then he saw himself, standing by the train tracks. He realized that he was alone even then, perhaps because his father had respected his need to be a man and had given him the truth when he asked for it, even though he had not been ready for the responsibility. A car zipped past, tearing him from his dream world with a loud horn blast. He stopped at the gate to his home, surveying the scene before going further. The yard was a mess, toys were scattered everywhere. The house needed to be painted, the fence mended, and the shrubs had overgrown the windows. He sighed to himself and pushed on the gate.

 

He entered the small two bedroom house through the kitchen door. His father was sitting at the table, drinking coffee that had long since cooled and looking worried. He glanced at the boy as he entered the kitchen.

 

“I’m sorry, Father.” The child apologized. He looked as if he were trying his best to report to an Army General.

 

He allowed his gaze to drop to the floor. The silence grew to be unbearable under his father's stony stare. He stammered on, “They needed the final load done by this evening, sir. I had to stay to help.. but they are going to pay me for the overtime.” He looked up hopefully with his last words. Maybe the concept of monetary reimbursement would smooth over the fact he was so late.

 

Hope faded into fear as his father's gaze remained fixed on his face. Emotionless, he rose and moved slowly towards his son. The boy flinched in anticipation of an attack, only to discover himself being taken into the older man's arms in an embrace. His unbelieving body held stiff for a moment then relaxed as his father stroked his hair gently, his powerful arms hugging the teenager as though the boy had been missing for days instead of hours. Moments later he released him and stepped back into his habitual rigid posture. The boy stumbled slightly on release, trying to regain his composure and balance after the unexpected affection. The two men locked on one another's faces.

 

“Are you ok?” His Father inquired.

 

“Of course, Father. Why wouldn’t I be?” The boy looked completely confused by the entire conversation.

 

“You have school tomorrow. I agreed to let you have a job only if you promised not to over work yourself. I am concerned that you are trying to do too much.” The man turned on his heels. His back now faced his oldest son. His face reflected the horror of his own past and it is obvious that the man had this same situation filed away in his own reservoir of memories.

 

“But we need the money, ” the boy began to protest. His father cut his outburst short as he turned to face him. “Robert. I will not have this argument with you. I want you to get cleaned up and I want you to go to bed. If you come home this late again, then you will not be allowed to go back.” The boy scowled at his father, all composure lost, before storming out of the kitchen and retreating to the small dark room where his brothers lay sleeping.

 

He pried his shoes off his feet and sat down hard on the bed, shaking his younger brother out of his slumber as the mattress reacted to his weight.

 

“W-w-what’s going on?” his brother asked sleepily.

 

“Nothing! Go back to sleep” Robert snapped.

 

“What time is it?” His brother responded.

 

“Listen John, Go to sleep!” Robert threw a pillow towards his brother angrily and then got up to go to the washroom. John mumbled something before turning over and quickly falling back to sleep. He was unaware when the older brother finally crawled into the small bed an hour later.

 

The following day at school went by in a blur as Robert barely paid attention to his courses. When the final bell rang he rushed to meet John outside his classroom.

 

“Let’s go” the teenager urged his brother to hurry. “We are running late and Ms. Omerkov is going to charge Dad extra again.”

 

He grabbed John’s backpack strap and pulled to try and get him to quicken the pace. The added strain on the old backpack caused it to rip and his books tumbled to the floor. The other children started to laugh and point at his misfortune as he tried to gather his papers and books. His face seemed to mimic his stance among the children, symbolic of his separation as an equal among them, since the crimson tone of his cheeks was a complete contrast to his light blue shirt. A drawing he had completed in class fell into view and a schoolmate picked it up.

 

“Who is this?” the bully teased, “Your girlfriend?”

 

John snatched the paper and shouted at him to assure him that his conclusion was negative. The bully snickered and started chanting a rhyme to spur the other children into a unified chorus of teasing. John was flustered as they laughed at his embarrassment. Robert, fueled by exhaustion and anger, lost his temper. Since he was several years older Robert’s attack appeared unfair and vicious to the other children. They reacted in a panic as the bully heroically became the victim in the situation he had created just moments before. The children erupted, their cries creating an artificial intensity that hovered over the situation. By the time a teacher arrived to investigate most of the children were convinced that Robert was trying to murder the boy. The brothers were labeled the instigators and quickly taken to the principal’s office to await the school system’s judgment.

 

Robert sighed as the door was closed behind them. He was certain that his irresponsibility would cause his father more grief. A sudden realization that every attempt to prove himself in his father’s eyes had inevitably turned negative flooded his senses. They sat facing forward in the cold and stale office.

 

“Why did you have to go and pull on my backpack” John complained. “I was trying to hurry.” Robert rolled his eyes at the comment. John shot him a vicious scowl and folded up the wrinkled and torn paper the bully earlier had spotted.

 

“Give me that” Robert said as he snatched the paper from his hands. “Who is this suppose to be anyways?” His eyes scanned the drawing of a young woman. Her hair was pinned up, in as elegant a style as a 7 year old child could muster, with a red crayon. Her stick arms and legs were outlined with a dress which was also covered in large crayon flowers.

 

“No one” John snapped back before grabbing the paper from his brother. He gingerly folded the drawing into a square and slipped it into his history book. Robert shook his head and mumbled something about how childish he was acting. The stick figure was John's attempt to bring the memories of his mother back to life in the only way he knew how. “A real man moved on. Only babies clung to the past like that.” Robert thought to himself.

 

The principal opened the door and rushed inside, panting slightly. His dress shirt was pulled tight around his stomach area, which swelled suspiciously like a beer belly. The crème-colored shirt was stained slightly from sweat in certain places and although it was clean the color resembled something that had not been washed in days. His breath was in short raspy strokes as he attempted to settle into his chair. His hands trembled as he reached for a lesson book from the desk drawer. With the book in place as an emergency distraction if needed, he addressed the two boys directly.

 

“Alright, I want to let you know that there will be no fighting in my school…” he began before locking eyes on Robert. He stood up and moved closer to the boy before grabbing him by the arm and twisting it slightly.

 

“Ouch, sir that hurts.” Robert responded as his arm was turned outward causing him to wretch forward.

 

“Where did this bruise come from?” the principle asked, referring to a large injury he had obtained yesterday while loading a box at the factory.

 

“What.. what bruise?” Robert stammered. He was faced with a loaded question. Telling the man the truth would cost him his job since he was too young to be working for the factory in the first place.

 

“You mean to tell me you don’t know how you got this bruise?” the teacher eyed him suspiciously.

 

“Has he been fighting?” The man turned his gaze on John who panicked slightly and stammered

 

“No.. no.. no sir! He doesn’t ever fight anyone.” A gleam entered the man’s eye as he let go and left the room without saying another word. You could barely make out his voice in the other room. It sounded as though he was talking on the telephone.

[Peredhil]

As Wyvern backs up to rush and force the door (again. It'd sounded like such a BARGAIN), Peredhil strode by, lightly touched the door with a murmured thanks, and passed inside with Melba's lunch.

 

Wyvern quickly rushed the door!

 

Only to have it slam in his snout.

 

speech deleted - family site

[jonathan_wolfe]

Jonathan comes out from the ubiquitous shadows (every room has them, except for Bhurin's, damn his shiney burnished armor of insufficient darkness. )

 

Ooooooh. He pokes Wyvern and whispers in his ear Memmmmmber! Meeemmmmmmber!

[reverie]

dang... you wrote a book... go you

[Degenero Angelus]

Wow Rune. I knew you could write, but I never expected a small novel. Anyways, good stuff. And, as little as you need it, good luck.

[Vlad]

*scowls*

 

Finish it...

Wyv-don't accept her until she does...

This is really good!

 

I.C.C.

W.O.W.

 

(figure it out)

[Gwaihir]

No need to heckle her!

 

I'm sure she'll finish it eventually.

 

Awesome stuff, Rune . I heartily enjoyed it.

[Blondemoon]

And I mean as in wow! :woot:

 

Smilies aside (I love those things), that was great. Now I wanna know how it ends.

Edited February 5, 2003 by Blondemoon

[Tasslehoff]

wandering through Wyverns office's like a normal kender usually does, in secret and well, just being a kender, after JUST looking at some maps, which kenders do like to, he knowtices a piece of paper with quite funny writing on it

 

" WoW. What funny writing that is " and with that said the Kender, whos name is Tasslehoff by the way. Further intrigued the writer continues to read, but has quite difficult problems do to the funny letters..

 

" ... eb dlouc eltsihw s'evitomocol ehT . ecafrus s'retaw eht fo ffo detcelfer nus eht sa sdlog dna seulb deniwtretni fo pordkcab a gnitsac , gnittes tcefrep erutcip eht demarf naeco eht sa sseltimil dna tsav deraeppa edos rehto ehT . ees dluoc eye eht sa fas sa rof srewolf fo lluf dleif a saw ereht edis eno nO . flah ni edisyrtuoc eht ecils ot deraeppa ckart ehT "

 

OCC: Holy Crap.. That took a long time..

 

" Wait a minute " mumbles the kender after a few seconds..." No wonder this silly document is in a different language, even though its not, the writer wrote it upside down.. Silly them. I will just fix it for em, and be on my way " Once again, Tasslehoff strikes geniousness and turns the paper around 180 degrees. " There. PERFECT! "

 

Off Wanders the happy kender, some how, meeting new people and picking up more and more knick-knacks. About 15 minutes later Wyvern enters into his office after struggling with the door for what had to been hours..

 

Wyvern slowly sits at his desk while mumbling words of returns and reciets and glancing at the door occaisonally..

[Gyrfalcon]

*Excellent* work, Rune. You have a true gift as a writer.

[Rune]

*scowls*

 

Finish it...

Wyv-don't accept her until she does...

This is really good!

 

I.C.C.

W.O.W.

 

(figure it out)

I.C.C.

W.O.W.

 

Rune chews on her fingers. "Umm.. I can't count? Hmm, no that can't be it, Im pretty sure I've heard him count before..although he could be talking about me, in which I'm not very good at counting so that is kinda true." The child rambles on attempting to decode the mystery letters.

 

She thanks Tassle for helping her fix the tremedous mistake with the upside down writing! "Whew, that could have been a major disaster."

 

OOC: Thanks for the nice comments everyone! You guys are uber wicked.

[Peredhil]

I Count Cows?

Intelligent Conversation Complete?

International Criminal Court?

W00t Or Weird?

Willie Or Won'te?

Wombats Oogling Women!

[Cyril Darkcloud]

Rune, it’s about time you applied!

And since it seems that someone who has offered so much to the community here should receive a fuller response than that ......

 

ic: There is a new movement here among the breezes of recently posted words, a gust that has been gathering for some time and has burst now into movement. There is a nervousness about it that reminds him of the day some months ago when he stood here in this high and lonely place where the exhalation of thoughts into words begins, the day he came to seek out the the words of his own first post. He smiles for this is the breeze for whose coming he had waited wondering how long it would be before the small one would gather her expressiveness into the breath and words of an application.

 

Another burst of breath reaches him then in the wake of the well-written syllables of role playing followed by essay, the frustrated grumbling of an almost-draconic tongue directed at a strangely proud and stubborn door. A sturdy door it is and secure in its place and selective it would seem in whom it allows to pass. But doors are barriers for bodies and few are the doors that are proof against the movement of breath upon the wind. He speaks in a whisper, sending gathered words outward along the moving currents of air until they drift toward the office and move easily through the keyhole into the room where they speak within the air around the small one:

 

Confidence and comfort

are curiously coupled things,

each in turn giving rise to the other

out of the intertwining

of welcome, acceptance

and the finding of place.

 

Welcome is yours.

as well as acceptance

I do not doubt

and ample room

within which

to find your place

in the speaking

and hearing

and reading of words

from which comfort

and confidence

in time will emerge.

 

ooc: Needless to say I really enjoyed your application.

[Rune]

Thank you Cyril, for posting! ^__^

[Wyvern]

Rubbing his scaly snout gently as it throbs in pain from his previous collision with the Office door, Wyvern turns to Rune and grins brightly, signalling to the other Pen members that had gathered in the Office to please leave so that he could concentrate on the application in peace and quiet. Upon hearing this, the many Pen members that had crowded into the Office in the hopes of seeing Rune's acceptance let out a collective sigh of disappointment, slowly departing from the room one at a time... After everyone except Rune has departed, Wyvern turns to the nervous applicant once again and lets out another large grin, this one displaying a mouth full of razor sharp, almost-dragonic teeth. Though this grin is shown with the intention of calming Rune, it's affect is almost the opposite... The worthy applicant cannot help but shudder in a mixture of disgust and horror at the overgrown lizard's fangs, noticing several small fish bones and pieces of animal flesh still stuck between them...

 

After having gone over Rune's application twice, Wyvern gives her a "two thumbs up" signal, which greatly assuages her nervousness. The overgrown lizard is about to go over her application a third and final time when suddenly, he catches a glint out of the corner of his left eye. Immediatly turning towards the source of shininess, Wyvern notices a single geld which is lying on the ground directly outside the Office door. Quickly raising himself from his seat and wondering how he could have possibly misplaced the geld piece, Wyvern requests that Rune be patient for just a moment as he goes to reclaim his lost currency... In doing so, the foolish lizard falls for the trap of the wily door, who was far more clever than either Wyvern or Rune could have possibly imagined...

 

No sooner has Wyvern exited the Office to claim his prize than the devious door immediatly slams itself shut, becoming firmly locked and making sure that it's hinges are fastened on tightly. Letting out a discouraged cry, Wyvern immediatly tries to barge the door down, but once again only manages to crush his poor snout in the process. From within the Office, Rune notices that the door laughs quietly to itself... it had waited eons for such an opportunity to arise, and now, finally, after exchanging the hands of several hundred arch-magician masters, it had achieved it's secret goal.

 

"Oh Rune!!!" bursts the grainy voice of the door as Wyvern continues to attempt to barge it down from the other side "If only you knew how long I have waited for this day, my child! Finally, a person whom I can communicate intelligently with! A companion to accompany me in my long sufferings, you are undeniably my bride to be!"

 

A blank expression comes over Rune's face and she raises an eyebrow at the door. "Ummmm... Excuse me? Master Door..."

 

"Please..." sobs the grainy voice of the door, overcome with emotions of happiness "... call me Woody."

 

Rune's jaw drops as the door procedes to cry, splinters rolling down it's wooden frame cheeks...

 

 

Meanwhile...

 

Exhausted by his attempts to barge the Office door down and deciding that he would get nowhere trying to do so, Wyvern chooses to resort to other methods to get the door open. Quickly rushing to the nearest public crystal ball and picking up the incantation number of the closest locksmith, the overgrown lizard calls upon "New Kids on the Lock, Locksmith Service - Minimum Rust or Your Money Back! ™", who arrive at the Pen 10 minutes later. The locksmiths are all dressed in gimmicky stereotypical locksmith outfits that will appeal to the common perception of the average locksmith, and dangle their excessive key chains proudly below their wastes. Wyvern procedes to direct the New Kids on the Lock to the source of his problems, and the locksmiths carefully examine the lock of the door, pretending that they are actually very proficient in their jobs. Having examined the door, the leader of the locksmiths takes out a skeleton key and attempts using it on the lock, only to have it rejected as the door furiously spits it out back at him. This deeply scares the New Kids on the Lock, who run off like the cowardly locksmiths that they are, never to be seen in the profession of locksmithing again...

 

Discouraged by his failed plan and worried that Rune might think that he simply abandoned her in his room, Wyvern rapidly schemes a second plan to get into his Office. Quickly rushing to the gardens located directly outside of the Pen and "borrowing" the large catapult commonly used by Melba as a trampoline, Wyv sets up the huge projectile device directly outside the rear window of his Office. Wyvern then procedes to aim the catapult straight at the window, loads himself into the firing arm of the catapult, and bravely projects himself towards the Office window. Unfortunatly, Woody the door percieves Wyvern's intentions, and calls upon the almighty God of furnature "Maahogeni Closset" to come to his aid. The end of Wyvern's course of trajectory is suddenly blocked as a broom closet appears out of nowhere... Rune flinches as the overgrown lizard is hit with a face full of mop before collapsing back down from whence he came...

 

Beginning to despair at the thought of Rune becoming discouraged while waiting for him to return, Wyvern decides to resort to yet another plan. Rushing back into the Pen and swiftly making his way through its many halls, Wyvern arrives at the portrait of Zool and is suddenly struck with a brilliant idea. Removing Zool's picture frame from it's original position, Wyvern takes it under his arm and begins heading towards the Recruiter's Office as fast as his scaly legs can carry him. Noticing that he's being carried away from his original position on the wall, the portrait of Zool frowns... Percieving the unmistakeably almost-dragonic arm that holds his frame, the frown on the portrait of Zool suddenly turns to an expression of alarm and dismay.

 

"Hey Wyvern!" exclaims Zool in a half-demanding, half-frightened tone "I thought we agreed fair and square that you wouldn't be using my portrait in any more of your schemes?"

 

Arriving at his Office door and placing the portrait of Zool on the ground, Wyvern looks Zool in the eyes and quietly hisses:

 

"Listen... I know I agreed that I wouldn't use your portrait in any more of my evil schemes, but this isn't an evil scheme... this is an emergency! Rune is locked inside my Office by this damned door and someone needs to get in there to accept her application. I can easily slip your portrait through the small crack on the bottom of the door and get you into the Office... I'm counting on you to declare her application accepted and get her out of the Office by any means necessary! Good luck!!!"

 

"B-but, wait a second..." starts Zool before Wyvern swiftly shoves the portrait through the crack on the bottom of the door and Zool goes sliding into the Office...

 

Adjusting to his surroundings and not immediatly percieved by Woody or Rune, the portrait of Zool examines his position in the Office and notices that the applicant he is looking for is not far off. Rune was currently trying to comfort the sobbing Woody as best as she could, as he seemed to be awkwardly gushing splinters and thoughts about a relationship he had previously had with a bedpost... Of course, only Rune saw this, as she was the only one capable of communicating with the door.

 

Carefully approaching Rune and the Office door, Zool spells out the word "ACCEPTED" in the air in front of Rune's face using his fancifull magic. While the sight of this word delights Rune, it greatly enfuriates the extremely jealous Woody, who turns his wrath towards the poor portrait of Zool...

 

Over to you, Zool... ;p

 

OOC: Excellent application, Rune... ACCEPTED, ACCEPTED, ACCEPTED! And again ACCEPTED! ;p I'm glad you finally decided to apply, and happily welcome you to our boards, though I've actually already considered you a member on our boards for some time now. Keep up the excellent work with writing and responses, and thank you once again for your time and devotion in the creation and upkeep of the new site. I'll e-mail you the password stuff ASAP... Note: this RPing story shall be continued by the other Elders through free form RPing, since one response simply isn't enough...

[The Portrait of Zool]

OOC: Thanks Wyv! Great App Rune!

 

1.

 

"What are you doing with my bride!?" howled the ancient door angrily, so that even Zool could hear. "Her and I are gonna make many beautiful cupboards together. They will all grow into famous doors one day."

 

Zool looked up from where his portrait lay on the floor and saw the door to Wyvern's office glowering down at him. He was also quickly becoming covered in wood splinters the raving Woody appeared to be gushing from his knotty eyes.

 

"Uuuh, maybe I slipped in at a bad time..." started Zool

 

"Don't worry dear," the door continued sweetly, turning it's gaze to Rune, "I'll tell you all the proper trees to eat in order to bear strong children."

 

That was enough for Rune. With a single sharp yelp she dove behind Wyvern's massive desk, peeking out just enough to be sure the warped door stayed in it's jam.

 

"Hey, plank head! Don't you talk to Rune that way!" shouted Zool, showing some of his eradication roots. "Have you come completely unhinged!? You're a door, she's a demoness - that's unnatural!"

 

"If there's one thing I can't stand it's a nature freak! screamed Woody. Once again the magical door called upon the almighty God of furniture "Maahogeni Closset" to come to his aid.

 

Rune yelped as Wyvern's desk seemed to come alive. It bucked, leaped and rolled. The lower large file droor opened in front of Rune, then one of the smaller side droors opened behind her, kicking her into the gaping maw of the larger droor. Both then snapped shut.

 

Muffled screaming and a knocking sounds told Zool that Rune was now a prisoner. As he was opening his mouth to protest he heard the huge desk with Rune inside spin around and start to close distance at a rapid pace. The tiny iron wheels on the bottom of each leg of the desk would certainly tear his canvas to ribbons.

 

The door began to laugh evilly at Zool's predicament.

 

Zool resolved to speak to Wyvern about this the next time they met - if there was to be a next time... He suddenly realized he had seconds to think of something productive to do. He threw his mind into hyper speed, quickly looking at all his options, picking the most heroically correct move with precise and inexorable logic as the speeding desk bore down on him like a locomotive and the door above him shook with it's maniacle laughter.

 

Zool clapped his hands over his eyes and screamed in panic. "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"

 

He heard a mighty wham, then he felt the wind of something flying over his painting at high speed, smashing into and through the door. The laughing abruptly ceased...

 

Rune, caught in the cramped darkness of the desk droor, had quickly become ashamed of the way she had reacted to the nasty old door. How dare it get such wacky ideas in it's head! How dare it throw her into a droor! She felt simply awful about her acting so childish at it's ravings. Was she a demonness or not!? Then the desk began to maneuver around at high speed, and she immediately sensed trouble. She knew she just had to do something! She guessed where the desk was going - poor Zool! - and she had to do something to get out of the desk too - and fast! It was going to be tricky...

 

Gathering all of her determination she began chanting and writing her glowing runes in the air. Both hands delicately flew in fillagree patterns, each tracing the ancient symbols of power. There was just barely enough room...

 

She felt a mighty wham as the front legs of the desk slammed into the low magical barrier she had materialized, nearly snapping the leggs off, but such was the kinetic energy of the the desk that it flew up and over the low wall of force, vaulting over Zool and through the door. At the same time her droor popped open, dumping her unexpectedly on Zool. She braced herself for the fall, knowing the hard floor was just behind the thin canvas, but then she hit something soft...

 

Blue magical energy still crackled around her fingertips as she fell, contacting the painting first as she tried to break her fall. "OPEN" was the focused magical intent...

 

She hit Zool right in the midriff, who never saw her coming because he had his hands bravely over his eyes. He folded neatly in half and landed in a rumpled heap in the grass, Rune sitting on top.

 

2.

 

She looked at her surroundings in dazed curiousity. She was sitting in a grassy meadow. The sun was bright and cheery, a light wind stirring the grass. They were close to the ruins of an old fortress. Everything looked... painted. The ground, the air, the distance, the butterfly floating by... everything bore the light but distinctive brush stroke texturing of an oil painting. She looked up. Even the fleecy clouds looked rather Michealangelo-ish. Startled, she looked at her hands, and her clothes. They, at least, looked different - she appeared as more of a strong line drawing. Very strange.

 

Turning around she saw the outline of the portrait standing like a portal into another world, glowing slightly at the sharply defined edges. It now showed the ceiling of Wyvern's office, and at the bottom an empty shattered doorframe.

 

Beyond and behind the painting portal was... she turned away and rubbed her eyes before looking back again, or trying to. The best her eyes could tell her of anything in that direction was a sort of vast grayness...

 

Something coughed weakly under her. "Zool!" she cried, jumping up. He was momentarily stunned by Rune's sudden arrival, and now seemed to be having trouble laying down. Also, he was bald as a billiard ball.

 

"Rune!" rasped Zool as he creaked to a sitting position. "I saved you!"

 

"Oh, of course you did Zool," she Replied earnestly.

 

"We really told that old door what for! *cough* "

 

"We sure did," agreed Rune with a smile.

 

A puckered little rubber head poked up out of the grass, with a small but floppy little orange beak and the suggestion of a red cock's comb across the top of it's bare head. It turned first one way, then the other, so it could look at Zool and Rune with it's little black dotted eye on either side. Having aparently heard and understood their conversation, it then proceeded to cluck derisively, and roll it's little black eyes, if you could imagine how little black eyes which were nothing but painted dots could roll.

 

Rune observed a thick shining hairy snake crawl out of the grass, undulate up Zool's arm and arrange itself on his head, seemingly of it's own accord. Only after it resumed the familiar swooping curl did she realize it must be Matt, Zool's toupee.

 

"Ooh, can I pet it?" asked Rune, reaching out with her eyes shining.

 

Matt made a cooing noise and leaned closer to Rune, but Zool retreated, his eyes round. "Whoa! Not the hair, not the hair!"

 

Rune giggled at Zool's vanity, and waved a small wave at Matt. The hair waved back.

 

The rubber chicken walked out of the grass and began pecking at Zool's shoulder. Zool wondered what he was forgetting. "Uuh, lucky thing that desk stopped like that, though not so lucky for the door, ey?" said Zool hopefully.

 

"It was lucky there was just enough room in the droor for me to work a 'stop' spell, though I guess I forgot to stop the top of it..." replied Rune thoughtfully.

 

Rubber chicken clucked, and peck Zool's arm harder.

 

"Ah. Well, lucky the droor popped open when it did, or you would have been in a pretty serious collision!"

 

"I had enough room to write an 'open' spell too, though I didn't mean to fall on you," Rune replied apologetically.

 

The rubber chicken was nearly dancing now, flapping his stubby featherless wings and clucking like mad. Zool gave rubber chicken a frustrated look and spread his hands in bewilderment.

 

"It must have been the 'open' spell that let me into your portrait," continued Rune brightly.

 

Zool's eyes went wide, his head snapping around to take in the scene. "Hey!" he exclaimed, "You're in my portrait!"

 

The rubber chicken let out a big sigh of exasperation, then lay over Zool's arm.

 

3.

 

"Yess!!" exclaimed Rune exhuberantly, jumping up and rolling cartwheels and summersaults across the meadow. "Wheee!"

 

In the portrait Wyvern and Melba simultaneously bent over the painting on opposite sides, knocking their heads together. Shooting each other a look and rubbing their respective heads, they looked back down into the painting, managing to keep a wary eye on each other at the same time. "Rune! said Wyvern. "My desk! My door! My office! Gah! I should have known better than to get Zool. Are you all right Rune? What are you doing in there?"

 

Even though they were looking 'down' at Rune, to her they both seemed to be standing around the corner of the portrait portal on the wall. There was something very Escher-esque about it. "I'm fine - I'm a picture! I'm a picture," she said, still a bit dazed, plus a little dizzy from her romping. "It's FUN being a picture!" She tried a little flight spell experiementally and unexpectedly took off like a rocket, looping, rolling and shouting with glee. Zool laughed with her as she squealed and whooped through the air.

 

"Being a picture is FUN!" she repeated as she came in for a walking landing next to Zool. They were over by the ruins of the Keep. "I could never fly like that before!"

 

"Here in the portrait all depth and movement is an illusion Rune - see?" Zool indicated toward the portrait portal, and Rune caught her breath. Whereas before it had seemed regular size, as they 'moved' into the background of the painting the opening appeared to swell monstrously in size, so that now it rose like a great cliff far above them, through which Wyvern's office and Wyvern and Melba appeared as giants. "We think we are moving toward something in the background, when actually the enchantment is maintaining the illusion of depth simply by making us smaller according to the rule of perspective."

 

Wyvern and Melba chose that moment to lift the painting back up so they could put it against the wall. Rune swooned dizzily as the walls and floor outside the portrait canted crazily. "Whoa... It still must be fun to be a picture."

 

"Well, it's not like life on that bor-hor-hor-oring Terra, that's for sure. Every day it was the same old thing - summon more red dragons, then fork over two thirds of everything you got. More mana, more geld, more geld, more geld, another village of peasants. And all the peasants could do was bitch and moan - 'We're dying by the thousands, this sucks...' - Yeesh, buncha whiners. Same thing, day in and day out."

 

"Really?" said Rune, somewhat taken aback at these revelations. "That's terrible! I've never seen this side of you Zool."

 

"Oh, yeah, well, save your sympathy, ya haven't seen my bad side," said Zool, blushing.

 

4.

 

They had arrived at a battered wooden door on the front wall of the crumbling old fortress. Opening it he gentlemanly let himself in first. Rune followed wide eyed.

 

They were in a large domed chamber. It was rather dark and cluttered, crammed with all the paraphenalia of a disorderly, impetuous life. Circling the periphery were row after row of high bookshelves, complete with rolling ladders, interrupted only by a massive fireplace, which was dark. It never got cold in Zool's portrait.

 

"All the comforts of home!" declared Zool, waving his arms expansively. "Of course, no one ever visits..."

 

"Ooh! Whassat!?" said Rune, running over to a brilliantly glowing red gem encased in glass on top of a fluted stone column.

 

"Ah. Many years ago, when I gave up being a mage, I transferred all my magely Eradication powers into that gem, so that should I ever return to Terra I would be able to reclaim my powers. That is what that is."

 

"Ooooh, neato! What is that?" Rune next ran over to a huge machine which dominated the floor of the room. Gears, pressure vessels, levers, ropes and chains, and over it all were the massive spheres, hung on their stilled gimballs where they had lain for centuries. Dust covered everything.

 

"This, my dear, is the grandest, most wonderful, most fantastic machine ever made!"

 

"What does it do?" asked Rune excitedly.

 

"I haven't a clue, but man, you oughta see it running!"

 

Rune didn't quite know what to say to that, but was saved the trouble as Zool continued. "When it's running, there are blue sparks everywhere, there is a huge throbbing hum, and those great big spheres up there spin like crazy, dancing... dancing... The spheres... in commotion..." Zool's eyes faded to somewhere else.

 

"That's, err, great Zool..."

 

"One time, I wasn't watching careful enough, the steam pressure went way over, forceing the gravometric regulator to over-vector and the friction beam to pummelate. next thing I knew the ground strap snapped, giveing me a wicked ankle wound!" Zool grabbed his ankle and hopped around a few hops to dramatize.

 

"I bet you learned a few things then," said Rune hopefully.

 

"You bet! From then on I wore high-tops!" Zool raised a pant leg to show he was, indeed, wearing high top tennis shoes.

 

Something else then caught Rune's eye. "What's that!?" She ran over to a picture hung precariously on the back of a sturdy throne with wires all over and a strange metal cap hung over it. The picture was of a feather, lying next to a great open book on a stout writing desk. It seemed the only light source was the feather itself, which glowed with a pure white light and irridesced with rainbow hues as Rune moved from one side to the other. "It's like a window!" she said, moving to peer into the painting from various angles, then looking at the back of the painting itself to reassure herself it was indeed just a picture. "Is it a real room? What a pretty feather! I sense a very strong magic here."

 

"Indeed you should, Rune, for that, is the Quill." Said Zool dramatically.

 

"The Quill?"

 

"Yes, the Quill. Surely you realize that the traditions of the Pen have come down through the ages to us with a reason. I mean, they are not simply arbitrary traditions, let me assure you."

 

"So that then... is... THE Quill? The Quill Quest Quill? The Quill Bearer Quill? THE QUILL quill?"

 

"Exactly."

 

"You mean, it is a REAL LIVE Quill?" Rune looked somewhat confused. "All this time I thought it was a metaphorical quill - How can every initiate be looking for the same quill? That just doesn't make sense."

 

"Yes, that is THE Quill, and yes that picture is looking somewhere deep in the heart of the Pen Keep at this very instant, in a secret and forgotten room where it all originally started so very long ago. Just where it is exactly even I am not sure. It is probably one of the most valuable Pen treasures, if not THE most valuable Pen treasure, and closely guarded secret."

 

"What is it that makes it so valuable, err, exactly, and secret - other than it being THE Quill...?"

 

Zool sat down on a stool made from the stump of a dragons foot. The dragon didn't mind at this point - you should've seen the knight. "Legend has it, that whoever can take up the Quill and write in the great book, whatever that person writes actually will happen - THAT is the power of the Quill, TO MAKE A REALITY. That is why the Quill holds such a high place in our culture, and why it's location is so secret that not even any of us know where it's resting place is exactly - only that it does indeed exist."

 

"Well, why keep it around if none of you ever can use it?" asked Rune penetratingly.

 

"Ah, good question. The fact is, that here at the Pen the Quill's enchantment carries throughout the Keep, so that whoever will pick up a quill, or any means of writing, and hold the intent of creating a reality, can tap the power of the Quill in weaving together their stories, poems, or other writings - thus that is the mission of the quill quest. Whoever shows they have the will and the resolve will be granted a mission of proving they hold the power of directing the Quill - the power of creation. When writing lives and breathes, transcending mere words and jumping into life, then and only then is that writer recognized as a true Quill Bearer, one who commands our smiles and our tears through the power of words."

 

"Wow!" said Rune quietly.

 

"And that is why we don't need to know where it is. When we at the Pen go to write, we know it is always there, ready to grant life to the moments we commit to the page."

 

"Geez! So that's what it's all about."

 

"That, and ensuring everyone is granted an open place with which to find the Quill Bearer within. That's what the Pen is all about."

 

"That's quite a secret! Too bad you can't get into other pictures."

 

Zool winked. "There are many secrets at the Pen..."

 

5.

 

"RUNE!" The voice called loudly from outside. It sounded like Peredhil. Hurriedly they both exited Zool's crumbling fortress and hurried to the portrait portal. Rune marveled as the closer they got, the smaller it shrunk, until the opening looked to be the right portrait size. Peredhil looked only somewhat relieved to see her. "Melba came calling for me, I came as soon as I could. How in the world did you get in Zool's portrait? Are you okay?"

 

"Sure! Zool was just showing me some sec..." she glanced up to Zool, quickly self admonishing. "...tions of his portrait. There's really a lot going on in the portrait of Zool."

 

"Indeed. Are you able to get out?"

 

Zool and Rune exchanged glances, Zool indicating that she should do as Peredhil directed.

 

"Well, I don't know..." She started to come closer to the portrait opening. Disconcertingly, the closer she came to it, the smaller it became, so that finally it was merely an inch square, hung in the grayness at eye level in front of her.

 

Peredhil called out to her. "You were not originally part of the enchantment, so if you can touch the interface in all probability you will..."

 

Rune had reached out to touch the tiny opening, her heart sinking as she saw it collapse into a pinpoint as her finger drew near. She put her finger where she thought it was...

 

*WHaaaamm!!* ...and was forcefully spit into the unsuspecting Peredhil's arms.

 

 

OOC: Over to you Master P

[Peredhil]

Peredhil automatically curled his body around the small girlish form in an attempt to protect it as they fly through the air.

 

Woody automatically opened in Polite habitual response as he saw Peredhil flying at him. Peredhil and Rune flew through the doorway as Woody realizing his mistake attempted to slam shut on them. The door wept splinters, its expression wooden in dispair as it watched it True Love fly from him in Peredhil's arms. Even the trailing "Thank youuuuuuuu" Peredhil had automatically uttered as he absconded with Rune didn't allay Woody's feelings. He remained stiffly formal with everyone for days afterward, until, realizing in his deciduous way that all the best things in his life leave, he passed out of THIS adventure.

 

The Half-Elf in Armani attire attempted to reassure the demoness as they continued to blow through passageway and doorway without noticably slowing. Rune reassured Peredhil she feared not (although she was secretly impressed at how everything automatically moved out of the way Politely), for it wasn't the flight of the explosion that worried her as much as the sudden stop at the end.

But this part, thus far, was really somewhat fun!

 

Peredhil, finally having searched the millennial labyrinths of his memory, was about to decided between the invulnerability spell or the flight spell when he noticed in horror the dampening of his suit.

 

Rune was transmorphing into paint!

 

The distraction proved untimely, as Peredhil finally stopped his flight by the clever tactic of transferring the momentum of his projectile motion into a wall.

 

Peredhil splatted. Ancient protective spells bound into his Ring began immediate repair.

 

But the sudden shock tipped Rune's precarious purchase on solidity and she popped from her Peredhillian perch to plop wetly against the wall.

 

The interested but unhurt Rune fresco hung wide-eyed on the massive stones, until under the gravity of the situation, she was draw irresistibly downward. As she TRIED to gain some form of control of her painted body, she found herself running away from the scene.

 

Slipping wetly through the floor, she dripped into a suddenly Rune body again.

Carefully she poked herself with one finger. yuppers, solid. But for how long? At least she'd hung around long enough to know that Peredhil would be okay.

 

But what about her?

 

She looked around the possibly very secret chamber.

[Quincunx]

Rune looked around quickly for people, squinting through the dark as only a demoness could. . .nobody! A secret room meant a secret wall meant a PERFECT place to draw on! Only after digging out the crayon did she find someone else had gotten there first. All of the walls were inlaid with silver swirls and eyes and polished reflective patches (those hurt her sight) and at the very end, someone (how'd Rune miss her before? she was all glittery with jewelry) was still working!

 

Rosemary laid down the stylus and sheet of silver leaf, then fluttered one hand near Rune's face in the gloom. "Pale but not as I am. . ." she murmured, "as blue as I," and traced along the silver with her other hand. She pointed at a counter-clockwise triskelion on the unfinished wall. "You," explained Rosemary.

 

"What?"

 

"You're why what was once that became this."

 

"I don't get it," Rune said, looking at the wall. Well, it kinda looked like a spell. . . .She traced along the pattern too, but it seemed to suck away power as soon as she wrote it down.

 

Fearfully the vampire snatched at Rune's hand and tugged her away. "Run," she whispered, backing away from the wall and dragging Rune with her. The little demoness dodged a spike of terror from Rosemary and stumbled along unhappily, shutting her eyes as the patterns glowed too brightly for words, faster and faster and faster. . .

 

and faster. . .and something was funny about the other girl's hand. . .

 

Rune got curious. "How come we're running?" she asked, opening her eyes again.

 

"Dunno," Minta replied, and stopped. The Pen Keep kept moving under their feet for about half a minute, tapestries flashing by like a flipbook, then jarred to a halt. Minta scrambled up a tapestry of Cerulean's Masquerade (a picture of the Impostor cards being shuffled by GyrWyvern, with a border of smiling Pekkle heads) and peeked out the window. "Cool!" she reported, "We went backwards! I thought we were gonna move again an' I was kinda sad 'cause not everybody got here from the last time an' Rydia didn't wanna move the tower either 'cause she's got a boyfriend ewwwwwwww!"

 

Rune climbed up the matching tapestry (this one showed Scarlett O'Tzimfemme as the sixty foot tall woman, the border a series of Decanters of Endless Booze all labeled "Drink Me") and peered out the window too. "It looks the same to me."

 

Minta's eyes got really really wide and silverglinty. Awed, she said, "You don't know?"

 

"What?" Rune repeated.

 

The glints went out. "I dunno either, but it's important," sighed Minta, then changed her mood in an instant, "You wanna sneak into Rydia's room? Her boyfriend leaves candy sometimes, but Rydia doesn't know that yet." She beamed and put her hands in her pockets, pulling out fistfuls of slightly squashed chocolate kisses--and suddenly toppled forward in a burst of white light.

 

Rydia stood behind Minta, blocking the hallway with her hands on her hips. "I keep track of EVERYTHING shiny that's in my room, ever! I've noticed those going missing for WEEKS! And to think I blamed the Waterlily," she sobbed quietly. Unobtrustively, Minta climbed up the tapestry and disappeared onto the lintel. Rune watched dust filter down from atop the next window, and the next, and so on down the hall, not noticing Rydia's pointed ears also tracking the motion.

 

"As for you," Rydia continued, "I need to take you to Tzimfemme, she's bugging all of us about it. . .somehow. . .well I never understood it," she giggled nervously. "She's out on the Pen borders, so follow me, I'll let you ride on a pegasus. You'll love it, they like to dive and spin while they fly."

 

Hand in hand, they skipped down the corridors and stairways (Rune sometimes taking a handrail down, zooooooooooom!). . .

 

(part one of two)

[Quincunx]

(part two of two)

 

"Should we take Mogmallow?" asked Rydia, scratching under the mane of a plump pegasus. The bobblie-stalk on the pegasus's bridle waved as it flicked its ear happily. Rydia smiled and flicked her own ears in friendship.

 

Rune wandered in and out of the stalls, swooshing her feet through piles of shed pegasi feathers and fur. One pegasus nosed its way into her pockets and snuffed at the chocolate kisses, while another one leaned down and whispered, "You can ride me bareback," and showed her its golden eyes.

 

Decisively she announced, "I pick THAT one!" and bounced up onto its back.

 

The pegasus bolted out of the stables with Rune clinging desperately to its mane, gaining altitude without spreading its wings and outpacing the other pegasi. Rydia's screams faded as she and the other pegasi were left under the clouds. Rune looked down, unafraid, but unhappy. The clouds looked different from up here, more solid, and the pegasus's hooves struck flint-gray sparks as it cantered up and down the cloudbank.

 

"You said I could ride bareback!" she pouted.

 

With a toss of its nose, the pooka was back in natural form. "I did not say the ride was safe."

 

Rune wailed, "Are you gonna DROP me?"

 

"It's not the journey you should fear. Here we are safe, but we are traveling away from safety."

 

The pooka was shifting once more; Rune could feel muscles sliding and growing, throwing her off balance. She bounced along on its right side with her leg over its back, but the pooka rippled silver and slippery--Rune lost her grip! She dropped onto the clouds, bounced, and rolled with the new creature in pursuit.

 

Tzimfemme caught Rune by an ankle. "Watch it, you're close to the edge!" the naked mage snapped, then looked back, then down at herself. "Strange things happen out here. For sure and certain that wasn't part of my personae before," she amended, swinging the demoness up for a piggyback ride. They loped along, sinking between glassy clouds that started to lick upwards in waves, then spouts, then fires. . .

 

Rune gasped. This was a wasteland! Flat gray pans of volcanic glass stretched as far as she could see (craning her neck), no sun, no sound, no wind. . .brilliant white cracks hanging in midair between the frozen spouts, ringed by silver fire. A nearby crack bulged and widened momentarily before the fire consumed it; Rune's eyes rounded and she hid behind Tzimfemme's shoulder.

 

"This is the border between fantasy and reality. This is the hearth of what you call the soul."

 

She spoke, but no sound came out! Rune scribbled spells and they crumbled as soon as they left her fingertips. The dust hung in midair.

 

"Nothing works properly here," continued Tzimfemme, "spells fall apart and physics fails. Nothing but words. If you don't have your words out here. . .Reality shines through, grinds you down to a featureless spirit. It's horrible, but you needed to see what you--pardon, what your other personae are fighting. They say it's not so bad, they say it's inevitable--pah!" In a fury she twitched her fingers like typing, building up a silver aura, and sent the fire through a crack with a jab of the right little finger. On the other side, Rune watched text flicker on a vertical panel, and the reader sigh thoughtfully; beside them in the Fantasy, a woman in white dress and boots and wide-brimmed hat materialized.

 

Tzimfemme nodded to Sossity. "Sometimes I think we're related," she confided to Rune. "Be that as it is, she was born out here, she's one of the ones who keeps things to their proper places--"

 

All of them swiveled, hearing the faint rasp from one widening crack: "--ws sources tel--imminent war--"

 

Sossity plucked Rune safely away as Tzimfemme leaped at the crack, mind ablaze, shouting, "Out out OUT! This is sanctuary! SANCTUARY I said! We could outcreate your destruction in our SLEEP!" Currents raced along the ground from all directions, and Rune scrambled down to put her palms on the ground; these words were magic, this one felt like reverie, and that one was traces of lumpenproletariat, and this one was Yui-chan for sure! The poems and journals and essays clustered around the fissure, knitting the crack in the Pen psyche, smoothing out the stress. Tzimfemme dropped her hands and smiled grimly as the crack faded to near nonexistence.

 

"It's not me, and it's not you, that closed that," she finished. "It's all of us. My role here is to do battle with the bringers of drab reality," and with that she bent and kissed Rune's forehead, "and yours is to maintain the fortress, else we all are swept away in its undertow. Sossity and I are going to stay out here awhile, we'll make the Pen call you home--and be sure to thank all those people whose thoughts you were splashing in, they can feel it."

 

"Sorry," Rune mumbled to the ground. The volcanic glass rippled as Rune found her voice again, picking her up in a gentle hollow and floating her away. . .

[Gwaihir]

At first as the pegasus put her down outside the pen fortress Rune was quiet, thinking about having stepped in all those people's thoughts, but then she turned and saw the pegasus again. She was reminded once again that it was beautiful. Before she could get even close to bored of watching the gorgeous creature organizing it's pelt Gwaihir appeared.

 

His hair was even messier than usual, and the dirt stains that were all over his face in addition to the usual ink stains suggested more preoccupation than usual. He ran pel mel, and as he called to her, Rune noticed that his hands and knees were caked with black dirt. He seemed in a hurry though, so she looked regretfully at the pegasi, and walked over.

 

"Come see! One of them's ready to talk." Gwaihir said all in one breath, and then turned and sprinted down one side of the fortress, and around the corner. Rune followed after, and just hoped that he didn't get too far ahead and lose her--it had seemed urgent.

 

As she finally rounded the edge, trailing her hand along on the bricks as she went she saw the creatures that Gwaihir spoke of constantly. Rune had never seen them, but it was clear that they were the Wiggly Cabbages. She stopped in her tracks! They sat in even rows on the ground, and each one gyrated or moved it’s leaves about in a random looking way. They were iridescent, and beautiful, but they were cabbages!

 

Gwaihir turned, and beckoned and she ran forwards excitedly only to be stopped for a moment as one who has ran into a mattress that’s stood up on it’s side. Rune blinked, but before she could protest though, she heard words in her mind.

 

“Well, you seem quite all right, Welcome! I’m the first cabbage on the left, and I’m glad to see you. Today’s been quite drab, the raccoon must have got over his hurt foot, becuase he didn’t come to see us, and the owl has done nothing but whine all day...says it’s not her fault we can hear her...well it’s true, but it’s giving me a headache I”m telling you. Anyhow, I’m hoping the unicorn stops by.” Rune grabbed her head, confused by this sudden flow of information, and the cabbage seemed to sense this and paused.

 

Gwaihir looked up, beaming. “These are my friends!” Rune nodded, and then laughed as the spacey elf’s stomach rumbled loudly. Come to think of it, she was hungry too.

 

“Well, sweetie pie, there’s some nice fresh blueberries for you to eat if you walk twenty paces to the left...well, no dear make that forty of your paces. Gwaihir, go with her, you haven’t eaten since you came out here, ten hours ago! I’ll even make Brightie stay quiet for the whole time you eat. Go along dear. Yes, Brightie is the one who spoke first.”

 

Before Rune could do more than look at her hands and remember which way left was, however she heard the motherly cabbage again. "Oh no, I think they’re calling for you inside, so I guess you’d better head that way, but come see us again sometime! You really you know!" If a Wiggly Cabbage could seem to beam on her, that one certainly seemed to as Rune trotted off obediently.

[Gyrfalcon]

Before Rune could get farther then a hundred feet down the path (and before she could lose interest with her assigned task and wander off to find something fun to do in the forest), she ran into Gyrfalcon, literally.

 

The half-elf’s hand shot out (and down) and he gently helped Rune keep her feet. “Where were you rushing along to, little one?” the half-elf asked, surprised to see Rune outside the Pen- she found enough interesting things to occupy her inside it that she rarely went anywhere outside, except for the courtyards.

 

“Well, first I went and applied at the Recruiter’s Office, like everyone kept saying I should do, but the door locked Wyvern out and started saying some weird things like I should be his bridge or something...” Rune said, managing to stay mostly on topic and mostly coherent about what she experienced, which was a major victory, considering what she’s gone through recently.

 

Gyrfalcon shook his head and grinned at Rune. “I see you mastered one of the first aspects of being a member of the Pen- getting yourself into strange adventures.”

 

Rune beamed at being included as a member of the Pen. Then she frowned and looked up at the clouds that had been forming steadily over Gyrfalcon.

 

“Why are there clouds?” she wondered, for the day had been bright and cloudless. The half-elf looked up and started to say something, then just sighed. “I suggest you move away from me, over by that tree.” he said as he extracted a long piece of metal with a knob on the end from his Bag of Holding.

 

“What’s that?” Rune asked, pointing at the metal and ignoring his suggestion.

 

“A lightning rod.” the half-elf grunted as he jammed it into the ground and stepped away from it slightly. “Now go stand by that tree, this should only take a moment.”

 

Rune looked up at the pitch-black clouds and decided to do as the half-elf said. Before she was more then twenty feet away, she smelled a bitter, acrid odor as light flashed around her, stinging her eyes. Closing them tightly, Rune stumbled on, unprepared for the thunder that crashed and boomed all around her as the cloud opened up over the half-elf. Between lighting strikes, Rune heard Gyrfalcon shout through the ringing in her ears.

 

“Yeah, hello to you too, you hyperactive vegetables!”

 

Rain began to pelt the half-elf, going from a drizzle to a driving, blinding cloudburst.

 

“What, you think that rain is going to dampen my spirits? Fat chance!”

 

The rain changed to hail.

 

“Ow! Hey! Ow! Watch it with those -ow- chunks of ice!”

 

Finally, the cloud subsided and drifted away, almost seeming to sulk. Rune looked up from where she was huddling when a damp hand touched her shoulder.

 

“What was that?” she asked fearfully. The half-elf grinned, despite a large bruise forming along his jaw.

 

“Just a difference of opinion between myself and those dam- er...the Wiggly Cabbages.” He shrugged. “It’s pretty much standard. What about you? Where are you off to?”

 

Rune rubbed her ears, trying to see if she could get the tiny fairies with the bells to come out and go away. “Me? Oh, I’m supposed to go back to the Pen.”

 

Gyrfalcon smiled. “I’ll walk you back, alright?” He said, holding out his hand. Rune extended hers, and he gently enfolded it in his hand.

 

To keep Rune happy, the half-elf wove tales of the various sights they saw along the walk, setting Rune into fits of giggling with some of the stories, and into endless questions with others.

 

Finally, the two reached the front entrance of the Pen and Rune looked around. “Could you tell me more stories later, Mr. Gyrfalcon?” she asked hopefully, “Because I have to go and I should make sure Mr. Wyvern is alright and-“ Gyrfalcon’s soft laughter stopped her.

 

“I’ll be happy to tell you stories later, Rune, and I know you have to go in. I should get back to my work as well- it’s been good meeting you though.” the half-elf said quickly, before Rune’s embarrassed expression could grow.

 

Rune smiled at the half-elf and then raced inside. Skidding through a door, she built up speed in a straight hallway, never looking to see where she was going until...

[Ozymandias]

...she plowed the legs right out from under the Founder himself, his flowing robes blending unfortunately well with this hallway for Rune to see him before she'd already gone nose to shin with the old man. The demoness finds herself preoccupied again, but this time with a rather unpleasant throbbing pain in her nose. She pokes an experimental finger at it and yelps. "Oww-w!"

 

So Ozymandias is left to his own devices to right himself, which he does with such alacrity that Rune breifly wonders if he is about to strike her. Her fears quickly melt away in the rain of concern he showers on her.

 

"Are you alright, my dear?," the craggy Eygptian asks her quietly, after helping her off of her rump. He smiles gently. "I know millenia-old shinbones aren't the softest landing you could ask, and for that I am sorry." He stops, stares ahead at nothing, and snaps his fingers, as though he had just remembered something. The Founder begins to rummage through his robes, muttering to himself. "I know I've got something verdant left over." But before she can ask, he triumphantly produces an unremarkable metal can. The old man stares at it quizzically along with her for an instant, then with a shake of his gray head, deftly slices its top open with a knife, releasing a very bemused polar bear, who takes one look at the blue-clad man and chubby demonness before him, and wanders away quietly.

 

"No, that wasn't it," Ozymandias mutters. He rummages further, until, smiling widely, he produces a small gem, no bigger than a pearl. Even in the light shade offered underneath the hallway's many arrow-slit windows, it glows a bright firefly green.

 

"Nullus", Rune's erstwhile benefactor intones, and her nose immediately feels much better. "Better?"

 

Remembering manners (especially among unquantifiably magic people), Rune replies, "Yes, thank you," in her politest voice.

 

"Good." He looks ready to speak further, but is interrupted by a sound she could not hear, so much as feel. A high, hollow, SQUEAK.

[The Death of Rats]

Rune looks down on the newcomer (marveling breifly at being able to do such a thing) and sees it to be a little rat skeleton, dressed in a black, hooded robe, holding a tiny scythe with eye sockets glowing weirdly and bony whiskers twitching as it looked back at her.

 

They hold that pose for a long time, Ozymandias watching all and saying nothing, until finally, the little thing beckons her forward, and starts to walk away (giving Ozymandias' sandals a respectful berth).

 

Rune looks up at Ozymandias gain, looking for guidance, or confirmation.

He tells her only," That way lies deeper down the rabbit hole," as his eyes twinkle mysteriously.

 

SQUEAK, she hears again, and realizes that the tiny form had already reached the bend in the corridor. It taps out a clicking stacatto as it taps its foot in impatience.

Shrugging to herself, Rune thinks, He makes them sound dangerous. How dangerous could bunny rabbits be? She looks at Ozymandias one last time, but he is an old, old hand at these staring contests. Rune is the one who finally relents (along with further urging by an insistent tugging at her her shoe, followed by SQUEAK?). By way of goodbye, she thoughtfully sizes up the old man.

 

"You're a very strange man, Mister Ozymandias."

 

"Tell no one." is the last reply she receives before he winks at her mischieviously, quickly wraps himself deeper into his robes, and vanishes from sight.

 

SQUEAK, her guide says, nodding its head. Marching forward, scythe at the ready, it steps right through the stonework of the wall.

 

Remembering well her last magically-induced encounter with a keep wall, Rune cautiously steps forward, and into...

 

A dark place that is not so much dark as simply lit without light. Quickly, Rune realizes it is a room, with a mirror all decked out in skull and bones trim off to one side. It is obviously made for someone much taller than they two, and emanates an aura that is almost as deliciously foreboding as the unlight-lit room itself.

 

Her guide continues its brisk, businesslike pace straight past it, and into another wall. Just before they leave, she hears a voice like and unlike her guide's.

ALBERT? IS THAT YOU? And they are elsewhere.

 

They walk past scores of little men, scarcely taller than she, pouring chocolate into candy moulds and seeming blissfully happy. One team of them, in an adjacent room seen through a window, seem to be working with a gigantic...oh, what was the name? Oh yeah! TV camera! But her guide has already slipped away, and she feels herself following.

 

 

Then, it is truly dark, save for a roaring bonfire licking up at them from the base of the rock on which the panther who has just peeled himself from the rest of the darkness is perched. Rune opens her mouth to ask her guide where a kitty that big came from and could she keep it, but it shushes her to silence with an emphatic wave of the scythe, as he continues forward, to a smaller rock just ahead. As they creep quietly along, wonder of wonders, the panther speaks!

 

"I have called this council of the wolves to address the matter of the man-cub," says he, regally. Rune can't resist a peek over the edge, and goggles at the sight of so many wovles sitting there in a semicircle around the fire.

 

One grumbles (none too quietly), "Who is this panther to call us to council? He is not pack! He is not even a wolf!" Rune longs to hear what it is that animals really talk about, but the duo are already passing into their next path...

 

Sand. Miles and miles, as far as Rune's sharp eyes can see. Her stalwart guide continues on, pace unbroken attitude of ultimate unconcern. Before them stand two massive, gleaming stone sphinxes, hundreds of feet high, one on either side of a stretch of sand that passes right between two cliff faces. Rune scarcely has time to wonder, though, at the two bodies she sees lying unmoving in the sand or the acrid smell of ozone in the air, before her guide has led her through the cliff and into...

 

A familiar hallway. And there's Mr. Wyvern's office door! Well, doorway only, now, but still! She hurries forward, almost forgetting her small friend. But he is nowhere to be seen.

[Orlan]

Orlan walks in to the Pen, passing by the Assembly Room, the Conservatory and even the Cabaret Room. His pace is constant as always. He losens the tie of his black suit. It had been a long day in court today. Then again, it was always a long day in court. Sometimes Orlan wondered why the Sexy Sexy Elder he was, was always the one getting sued when he held the patent on Sexyness©®™. People today just sue over anything.

 

Orlan did stop when he reached Wyvern's office, to notice that the door was shut tight. While this was not unusual what was unusal was the paint that was strewn around on the ground, and the fact that there were splinters of wood in piles at the bottom of the door.

 

"I need to stop going away for periods of time longer then a blink..." Orlan said to himself as he reached for he door handle to open it up. In an instant before he grabbed the handle the door burst into life.

 

"STOLEN!!!" it wailed, crying tears of splinters that added to the already large piles. That answered that question for Orlan. He peered at the door.

 

"What was stolen?" he asked. The door gave no response other then it's continued wailing. Orlan tried knocking on the door but it did not stop. He tried the handle only to find it locked. He even bashed himself against the door, only to find out that hurt....alot. "WYVERN!" Orlan yelled out, trying to find out if the Almost-Dragon was in his office....or alive for that matter. He got no response. He let the urge to torch the door pass. The last thing he needed was another bill for another magical door in the pen. He still thought that the magical door he busted down when Tzimfemme had put on her "Eau du Chocolate" scent was not his fault. It was a crime of passion....and chocolate. Orlan glanced around at the paint that was all over the hallway.

 

"I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say Zool," Orlan said to noone in particular. The Elder of Bards started off towards Zool's picture. He arrived to find the picture empty. Well, as empty as it could be. Zool was nowhere to be seen, but in his place was the rubber chicken in a studding armani suit that look suspiciously as if it was stolen from Peredhil and then shrunk down to rubber chicken size. Orlan put his face on the picture and looked both ways into the picture to see if he could find anything but he saw nothing.

 

"Zool," Orlan called into the picture. He waited a moment but heard nothing. "ZOOL!" Orlan yelled louder into the painting. Again nothing happened. Orlan pursed his lips for a moment and then reached out his hand. A moment later a bullhorn appeared in it. He put it too his lips and shouted.

 

"ZOOL!" Orlan quickly turned down the settings a bit. "Crap on a crud..." He put the bullhorn back to his lips and his voice magnified itself into the painting. "Zool you good for nothing toupee wearing, chicken suiting old man....get yer butt out here and lemme know what happened over at Wyvern's office." Orlan put his ear against the painting again. This time he heard a soft click and some background noise.

 

"I'm sorry....the Zool you reached is busy. If you would like to paint your name, number and purpose of exsistance and a 900 word essay on the disestablishment of modern social constructs of the fall of the banana from the rule of oranges, I'll get back to you as soon as possible....have a nice day!"

 

"Crud," Orlan said. He sighed and turned around, looking for anything to tell him what was going on here. He looked around and saw an elf size body imprint in the side of a wall. He walked over to the imprint and squinted at it, trying to remember if that had always been there. He noticed some scribblings in chalk under where the left foot was imprinted. It read: "My apologies about this, I'm really very sorry. I will make sure to clean it up. Thank you and have a good day." For Orlan, this was as good as a "Peredhil wuz h3r3" glowing neon sign with sparklers and party poppers.

 

Orlan glanced down and saw a little trace of paint that went down the wall and into some cracks at the bottom on the wall. Orlan sighed. He knew exactly where those cracks went, but if he wanted to find out what was going on here he'd have to brave it. So, taking a deep breath he phased himself down through the ground to Rosemary's "happy place."

 

"Welcome, Orlan," Orlan stopped suddenly. To his recollection, this was the first time that Rosemary called him by his name. After further thinking, he wondered if this was the first time she called anyone by thier name. He was not going to let that scare him though (but it was kinda freaky).

 

"Heya, Rose. Say, do you know what's going on around here?" Orlan asked.

 

"The same thing that always is," Rosemary responded. "Those that should not be, but are like me wander where they should not be." Orlan felt relieved, somehow, that Rosemary was still the same Rosemary she always was (I think).

 

"Uh...yeah....uhm....so you see anything lately?" Rosemary was in a trance when Orlan asked that question. He sighed and turned his thoughts back to what he could do. Looking at Rosemary he figured he could try something else. He reched into the breast pocket of his suit and pulled out a green pixy stick. Taking a deep breath he tore a little bit into one end of the pixy stick.

 

A giant ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOM came from nowhere and smashed into Orlan, knocking him into the wall behind him. He suddenly thought he understood what might have hapened to Peredhil as he left a nice imprint into the wall. Minta grabbed the pixy stick and swallowed it whole, take a second to inhale some more air before she began jumping around the room.

 

"Minta..." Orlan coughed out as he found his windpipe again. "Have you seen anything strange today?" Orlan soon realized that was the wrong question to ask.

 

"Ya huh!" Minta said proundly as she bounced around, destroying most she touched. "I saw some skellies that where dancing around and then they ran around me and we did a little dance and then they went like 'Weee!' and I went back and said 'Yay!' and then all of a sudden some cooties came around so I had to take the things and WHAM WHAM them so I could make sure that they stayed away and then I said NO NO! And then..."

 

"Minta!" Orlan said exasperated as he fell back to the ground. "You want another pixy stick?" Orlan pulled another out of his pocket and held it up. Minta instantly snatched this one up and took off from Rosemary's room. Orlan was quick enouh to grab a foot of hers and was dragged along with her. Orlan had enough experiance with Minta to know where she was headed. An instant later they where in Rydia's room (after a longerthenaninstant detour around most of the pen) and Orlan was barreled into Rydia, landing in a position that somehow made Orlan take all the brunt of impact while Rydia was left unscathed.

 

"ugh.....'lo Rydia.." Orlan mumbled out in serious pain.

 

"Oh, 'lo Orlan," Rydia called cheerfully back. "OOH! Shiny!" and instantly Rydia was enraptured by Orlan's power tie. She was rubbung her hand over it to see if she could up the shinyness of it. She then dragged him by his tie and brought it over to her other shelf of shinies and started comparing it to the others, seeing if it matched.

 

"uh....Rydia....*URK* would you mind....*URK* telling me what's been going on here? *EEP* I've been sort of missing things lately *HWAUGH*" Orlan managed to get out.

 

"Oh that.....Rune's not shiny enough....I sent her to Tzimfemme up in....OOH!" Rydia had apparently found a match. Orlan, ever the friggin genius, was prepared for meeting Rydia (and most others who are all enraptured with shinies) and took a little glowing shiny stone from his pocket and flicked it the other way.

 

"LOOK! A SHINY!" Orlan yelled. Rydia dropped his tie and immediately leapt for the window, getting out before Rydia knew what happened. The one main problem was the sharp....sharp.....SHARP drop straight down. Orlan was fast enough to get his suit jacket off and his black wings erupted from his back. A few flaps later he was soaring though the air using his Tzim-dar ©®™ he found his obsession easily, louging around in the clouds. He touched down on solid cloud, brought his wings back in and readjusted his tie and jacket. He took a breath and then took a step.

 

WHAM! Tzimfemme barrelled into him and knocked him down, rolling for a while. Orlan wondered if the theme today was assualt Orlan. But Tzimfemme was the last person he would chide about that. Tzimfemme was rubbing her cheek against his and purring like a kitten.

 

"Uh...sweetie....uhm....what's going on with Rune?" To Orlan's surprise....( I mean total and utter surprise) Sossity answered that.

 

"She 'pli'd for memb'sh'p" Sossity said. Orlan thought that made sense with that he's seen so far. If Minta was any gauge, little girls need ritlin like a fish needs water.

 

"Ahh....that explains alot. Where did she run *URK*" Tzimfemme got up and strarted dragging Orlan over to a large fluffy patch of clouds. they quickly disappeared behind the clouds. (Somewhere Tyrion closed the curtains)

 

 

 

Time Passes....

 

 

 

 

Time Passes s'more....

 

 

 

 

Sweet Jeebus, more time passes....

 

 

 

"Ya know I do have to get some things done," came Orlan's voice from the cloud.

 

"Aww c'mon....thirty more times...." Tzimfemme offered.

 

"Bleh....fine let's rock paper scissors it, alright?"

 

"Fine," Tzimfemme said.

 

"1, 2, 3!" They said in unison. A moment later Orlan walked from the cloud, fixing his tie and putting his suit back on. He turned to Sossity who was still milling about.

 

"Where'd she go?" Sossity pointed down. "Thanks," Orlan said. He leapt off the edge of the clouds to hear Tzimfemme say to herself "Wait! There's no Electric Pickle in Rock Paper Scissors!"

 

Orlan plummeted to the ground at full speeds aiming for the one place where he could land and not be injured.

 

SPLAT! Orlan landed easily in the wiggly cabbage patch. He rolled off of the one that he landed on.

 

"Thanks," Orlan said to the cabbage.

 

"No problem," the cabbage said back. In that instant Orlan was almost barreled over by Gwaihir as he stormed by Orlan. Gwaihir looked far from happy.

 

"Gwai what's wrong?" Orlan asked.

 

"Look!" Gwai exclaimed, pointing to a part of his wiggly cabbage patch that was burned and charred and all together looking bad. Orlan made a face and turned back to Gwai. "Someone fried up some of my wiggly cabbage!"

 

"That's not good," Orlan said, not really sure if that was a good thing or not. Gwai nodded vehemently and looked around. Sitting under a tree eating a bowl of soup was Gyrfalcon.

 

"Gyr! Watch the patch, I'm going to go see if I can find out who fried my cabbages!" Gwai yelled.

 

"Uh....sure..." Gyrfalcon replied. Gwaihir stormed off and then Orlan turned to Gyrfalcon who stared guiltily after him.

 

"What'cha eating, Gyr?" Orlan asked. Gyrfalcon looked back up at him.

 

"Wiggly Cabbage Soup," Gyrfalcon replied. Orlan sighed and put his head in his hands. He reminded himself he did not get paid enough for this job. Once he realized he did NOT get paid for this job he turned back to Gyrfalcon.

 

"Rune come by here?" Orlan asked. Gyrfalcon pointed towards the Pen since his mouth was full of what Orlan hoped was cabbage leaves. Orlan gave a wave and trotted back to the Pen, nearly running square into the founder himself, Ozymandias.

 

"Whaa!" Ozy yelled flailing his arms when Orlan came around the corner. Orlan stumbled and fell to the ground right on his butt. It smarted.

 

"Ozy, Ozy, it's me," Orlan said. Ozy stopped flailing long enough to realize it was Orlan.

 

"Oh, sorry...I thought you where the tax collector. They seem to avoid me when I play the insane old man," Ozy said.

 

"Too true," Orlan said. "Say, you see Rune come by here today?" Ozy nodded.

 

"Just a bit ago she came by," Ozy said.

 

"Where'd she go then?" Orlan's response was a SQUEAK! that came from Ozy's shoulder. On the King of King's shoulders stood the Grim Squeaker shaking his scythe in the air as an attention getter. "Grim!" Orlan said.

 

Orlan brought his hand around in front of Ozy and in the hand was a frosting and frothing mug of ale. The Grim Squeaker let out another squeak and leapt into the mug, making a perfect 10 dive. The Grim Squeaker then settled in and leaned against the side of the mug, floating in the beer. Orlan set down the mug

 

"Where'd she go?" The Grim Squeaker pulled out a surprisingly dry post-it note from his tiny cloak and handed it over to Orlan. Orlan looked over the post-it note. "Jump coordinates?" a squeak came in reply. "Meh, It works. If I'm not back then send out the national guard to find Zaza Gabor." Orlan looked at the coordinates and then snapped his fingers. An instant later Orlan was being battered by a sandstorm in a desert.

 

Orlan managed to get out his wallet and then felt his way through it, trying to find the ID he wanted. When he got it he held it up for the sandstorm to see and the wind stopped and the sand fell right where it was. Everything became calm again. Orlan looked at his "Priest to the Left Side of the Great God and Pharaoh Nanotoknonnen" ID.

 

"This thing's paid for itself from the plague stopping and the free beer," Orlan said to himself. With the sandstorm done Orlan was able to see a corridor that lead down to a familiar door. Standing in front of this door was Rune, her hands on her little hips thinking hard. Orlan walked up beside her and looked at the door she was looking at.

 

"Problems?" Orlan asked her. The little demoness squinted her eyes at the door.

 

"The door to Mr. Wyvern's office dosen't want to open up, no matter what I try," she said, seemingly not surprised to see Orlan appear beside her. Orlan looked at the door and leaned his head to one side peering at it. He knew why she couldn't open it.

 

"Rune, I'm sure, from the destruction I've seen today, that you've probably learned a great deal today, correct?" Rune nodded her head at Orlan. "Then what do you think you should do in this situation. The door you stand before is broken and it won't open for you no matter what you try to do." Rune pondered for a moment and then she looked like she got it. She turned to Orlan and grinned big.

 

"Then I take the door I make!" Rune said, pointing right next to the door where another door suddenly appeared. This door was black and had child-like scribbles all over the place.

 

"Why don't we both take the door that you made?" Orlan said with a smile. He offered his hand to Rune and the little demoness took it. They walked over to the door and Rune went to her tippy toes to open it up. The two stepped through the door. On the other side stood an eerily frightening sight. Each Elder and Ancient, the founder included, stood (er in Zool's case...portrait-ed) around a small table in the center of the room.

 

Rune immediately felt embarassed. Everyone's eyes were on her and then all had such stern expressions on their faces. She looked up to Orlan who still held her hand. He was the only one with a smile on his face. He nodded his head at the table and started leading Rune there with his hand. Rune walked up to the table and on top of it was a small box. She looked back to Orlan who nodded again, his smile still apparent. Rune got up on her tippy toes and opened up the box, looking inside.

 

Inside was a cupcake with pink frosting. In red lettering across the cupcake was the following:

 

"ACCEPTED! And Happy Birthday! And Thanks for th¿ºÑå"

 

The last couple letters were messed up. Rune looked suspiciously at Zool's portrait at saw that the rubber chicken had frosting on it's beak. Rune then noticed that all the elders were no longer staring down on her with stern looks. They were quite the opposite. Rune felt the love in the room. Love for her. Rune started sniffling when Peredhil stepped down to her and gave her a hug.

 

"Consider this a thank you for the wonderful new Pen," Peredhil said to her. He gave her a wink. Rune started crying lightly in happiness.

 

"Aww, someone's going to sleep well tonight," Ozy said.

 

"And if not, Orlan can always tell her a bedtime story....he tells great bedtime stories," Gwaihir said. Rune looked from Gwai to Orlan.

 

"Really?" she asked.

 

Orlan was gone. All that was left was a note that read:

 

"Gone to Cuba....read a book to get some sleep...One little sugar girl is all I can take... - Big O"

 

[OOC: Welcome to the Pen, and Have a good Bday]