Patchwork Universe

Jones · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 4:34 pm Post subject: The Public House: Bucket Brigade

The members of the jones family were now hauling their buckets of water from the upstairs bathroom to soak the walls and the roof burning above them. The fire smouldered on through the thatch and it looked as if the job would take some time.

Jones · Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 11:18 am Post subject:

Fortunately for the bucket luggers, Jones' return to the pub speeded up their ask. Upon his return from the cellar he had doled out wands to the group: mangrove wands for producing jets of water.

Now the fire was on the way to being put out, although the bedrooms were as damaged by the water as the fire and smoke. From the look of them, Jones' would not be taking paying guests for some time.

Jones · Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2004 11:37 am Post subject:

As the bucket brigade slowed down their fight against the fire Juniper and Jessica compared notes.

"The priest is dead," Juniper said, watching as her children turned their water wands away from the fire and on each other. "Jack said the dragon killed him."
"So is the young man called John Angelis," Jessica told her. "He was burnt to death by firedrakes while trying to save us." She rocked her young son in her arms and added: "He did save us."
"And from the look of this Karl Groever left for the map room," Juniper said, showing the note Odom had found on the door.
"And I found this in Jane's attic while we were fighting the fire," Jessica continued, brandishing a folded letter. "It says here that she was going away with Larkin, the one-eyed thief, dad won't be pleased about that."
"So is everyone accounted for?" Juniper asked. "What about the woman who stayed last night?"
"Arnora?" Jessica asked. "I saw her in the kitchen a while ago, she seemed to be alright. And the doctor was helping tend to the young lady who's obsessed with her horse."

She paused, frowned.
"You know," she said slowly. "I asked Jane to stable that horse, just before everything went black. You don't think she would have..."
Juniper shrugged fluidly.
"She's your sister," she said. "I never know what she's likely to do."

Jones · Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 2:23 pm Post subject:

Jessamin and Jonathan Jones continued their water fight down the stairs and through the public bar. Chasing each other out of the main doors and then around the side of the building into the sunshine of the kitchen garden, they came to a halt as they saw Lady Violetta standing stock still, her attention focused on the jet of water uncoiling with ponderous slowness from her wand.

Their arrival broke her concentration and with a splash the water cascaded over both children, soaking them from head to foot. However, since they were already fairly sodden neither took this as much of a hardship, and shook themselves like dogs, showering Violetta with drips.

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 3:51 pm Post subject:

Lady Violetta shook her head dreamily and smiled briefly at the children before returning her attention to the fracas involving the dragon. A thought struck her and she turned back to the Jessamin and Jonathan.

"I think you'd better wait here for now. Things would appear to be a little dangerous over there still. There's some kind of fight going on. I'm waiting here unless the dragon comes back and tries to burn the pub down again, but I'm a bit worried that, well, never mind. I'm Lady Violetta. Are you Mr. Jones' children?"

Addressing Jonathan specifically she asked "would you mind watching out in case the dragon comes back for a minute?" Then to Jessamin she whispered "would you mind helping me with my corset? It's terribly embarrasing wandering around in a state of undress like this. I honestly don't know what people must think of me."

Jones · Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 4:33 pm Post subject:

"Our Dad's Jack," Jonathan said in a distracted way as he turned to look in the direction of the dragon. "Wow... there's a big fight over there... I bet that's where grandad went. He'll deal with that dragon right as rain."
He squinted in the sunlight, trying to make out the details of the conflict.

Jessamin looked at Lady Violetta's clothing with fascination. She'd never seen anything quite so elaborate but she appreciated being appealed to and came closer to investigate the task at hand.
"So it laces up the back, does it?" she asked. Fumbling up the back of Violetta's jumper she took hold of the trailing ends of laces with a determined grip. "Right," she said, and pulled. Hard.

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 5:00 pm Post subject:

Lady Violetta was rather flustered at Jessamin's public inspection of her undergarments as she'd rather been hoping that they would be able to go somewhere a little less public. Thus she was caught completely unprepared when Jessamin pulled hard on the ties of her corset. Lacking a suitable anchorage point, she cannoned backwards into Jessamin, and they both ended up on the floor, much to the amusement of Jonathan. With Lady Violetta grasping the bench, they tried again, with somewhat more success, Violetta wincing at the indelicacy with which Jessamin tightened the garment about her already abused body.

Slipping behind a nearby bush, Violetta, assisted by the flabberghasted Jessamin, who couldn't quite bring herself to believe that anyone would actually wear clothes as impractical as these, reclothed herself and finally emerged dressed once more. Her hair was looking rather unruly under her somewhat lopsided hat, but in the absence of a ladies maid it appeared that some sort of compromise was necessary. Lady Violetta held her injured arm somewhat gingerly but for all the pain associated with the experience nonetheless still felt better for not having to face a cruel and uncaring universe without at least being properly dressed.

"Thank you children. I am Lady Violetta Kingsley, or did I tell you that already. What are your names? I am currently having a Very Bad Day, although it would appear that it is not as bad as that being had by certain other people. However, in times of adversity it is always wise to have a Plan. I have therefore formulated one while this young lady was in the process of assisting me with my, erm, toilet." She looked embarrased again.

"The plan is both simple and elegant. There seem to be no particularly useful sources of information in this, erm, patchwork, as I believe it is called. Most of the inhabitants seem to know very little about what is going on. Most of the cows that run the place seem to be under some sort of diabolical bovine constraint that prevents them revealing anything useful about what's going on. Something, however, is most definitely going on. This should be completely obvious from the fact that conventional wisdom no longer holds true here, and in particular the fact that quilting is not normally nearly so dangerous as this. Therefore I shall write a travelogue. "

The children were staring open-mouthed at this somewhat surprising outburst when Lady Violetta came to an abrupt halt. "Would you like to come to tea at Aldersley? You could meet my father, the Earl. He's terribly nice, and would probably even allow you to ride in the goldflyer. We also have a maze and a library."

Jones · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 1:27 pm Post subject:

Tea at least was something the children understood.
"Yes," said Jonathan definiteively. "We would. What's a goldflyer?"

Jessamin nodded along with her brother but she was a sensitive soul at heart and felt that Violetta was in need of more reassurance.
"My dad always says that too," she told her, "that you should always have a plan. Maybe if you write a travel guide you could put the pub in it," she added.

"Or she could write about other places and we could sell copies at the pub," Jonathan said in a contradictory way.

Jessamin shrugged. "Whichever," she said. "Make sure you say that my grandma's cakes are the best."

"And that grandad's beer is really good but you can't drink it if you're under thirteen," Jonathan added.

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 2:49 pm Post subject:

"Oh yes," said Lady Violetta, quite taken away with the cleverness of her idea. "I think I have delayed my Grand Tour long enough. I'm sure daddy won't mind at all. I shall have to write about everywhere, including your grandfather's pub, naturally. And I shall definitely put what you told me in it, although I must be careful to make sure to say it is your opinion, because I have tried neither beer nor cakes, and one has an obligation to one's public to report the unvarnished truth.

"A goldflyer is sort of like a very big baloon with a large carriage on the bottom. It's filled with helium which is lighter than air, because it is made from the wings of faeries. (Only faeries who have died a natural death. If you kill them for their wings, all the helium escapes. So that means helium is quite expensive.) So you go up and you can go to London or Brighton or pretty much anywhere really. I've never really wanted to go myself. I'm always frightened one of the dragons will eat it, but they never do, so I suppose I'm just being a bit silly, really.

"Anyway, I have a feeling that there's something I ought to have been doing, but, well, never mind. I'm sure it will come back to me if it's important. Shall we head off for tea then? I believe Mr. Sheng said it was east then north?"

Jones · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 3:06 pm Post subject:

Jonathan nodded eagerly but Jessamin shoook her head.

"We can't come now," she emphasised. We haven't told mummy or daddy where we're going. Jon, you know we have to get permission. And they wouldn't let us go anyway when there's monsters about."

She regarded Violetta seriously as she continued:
"We have to make an arrangement," she said. "For later. But we can have tea now, and we'll be the hosts." She smiled cheerfully at a new thought. "There's still cake in the kitchen and you can try the beer too if you want but we're not allowed to get it. We're allowed to have lemonade though, whenever we want some."

"Anyway, that way you can know about the cakes and write them in your guide."

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 3:30 pm Post subject:

"Oh, um, right. That was probably what I was forgetting," said an abashed Lady Violetta. "Please lead on, and we can at least remove any uncertainty I might have as to the nature of the cake. I don't think I'd like beer much though, which is probably just as well, since I oughtn't to have beer without paying, and I think everyone's a bit busy at the moment. Oh yes, the dragon! That was what I was supposed to be doing."

Violetta looked in the direction of the dragon, but it was apparent that no-one was in immediate danger of getting crispy fried. "Perhaps we'd better have tea out here? It wouldn't do to go inside and then have more of Mr. Jones' house burn down because we weren't watching. As to the arrangement, you may consider it made, although you might have to remind me about it later. I sometimes get a little distracted and forget about important things. Mama tells me it is most vexing of me, but I'm sure I don't do it on purpose. You'd get distracted too if you kept being stared at by cats."

Jones · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 3:32 pm Post subject:

"Captain Magpie has a cat," Jonathan said importantly. "He keeps it under his hat."
Struck by the poetry of this comment he repeated it severl times, giggling to himself.

Jessmqain looked at him disdainfully and disappeared into the kitchen. In just a couple of minutes she had returned carrying a large tray which she rested on the seat of the bench.

As well as a plate of different kinds of cake there were three tall glasses and two frosted bottles. The first bore a lable reading 'Lemonade', the second one that said 'Elderflower Wine (sparkling)'.
"That's like lemonade for grown-ups," Jessamin explained. "Mum likes it especially because she's a dryad."

She was feeling quite friendly with Violetta now, something about her style of conversation had struck a chord.
"Don't worry about the dragon," she said. "Daddy and Grandad go down the cellars and biff monsters about all the time. Then they come back with sacks of treasure. It's what monsters are for - being biffed about."

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 4:53 pm Post subject:

Lady Violetta smiled at the children as they ate, feeling that afternoon tea was much more within her sphere of competence than fighting dragons. In fact, she must have been getting more aclimatised to the Patchwork, since she only briefly wondered whether it was in fact afternoon before rejecting the question as irrelevant under the current circumstances.

The cakes were, as advertised, delicious, although Lady Violetta restrained herself to nibbling on one - it wouldn't do to become fat, after all. As for the elderflower wine, it was deliciously sharp, and clearly couldn't be all that alcoholic, since it didn't taste of alcohol at all. Violetta therefore felt no need to restrain her thirst and have several glasses, since it was distinctly moreish.

Now that she was resting, her body seemed to restore itself quite quickly, and the chill quickly left her bones. The ache in her arm receded to a dull throb and all in all, Plan in hand, she was feeling much more relaxed about things.

"As to the monsters," she responded to Jessamin, "I'm afraid they rather biffed me about, but I must have a strong constitution as I seem to be recovering quite nicely. Your father and grandfather must be quite talented to be able to deal with them.

"So your mother's a dryad is she? All the dryads at Aldersley are frightfully silly things. I suppose your mother must be a lot more sensible than they are. Is she a local dryad or did she come from elsewhere?

"Anyway, you must help me with my travelogue by providing 'local colour' - I think that's what it's called. What I mean by that is you must tell me about what it is like to live here. Do you like it? Do you have to take special precautions because of the monsters? Are there any other children for you to play with? What do you think of the rest of the patchwork quilt?"

Peri · God Joined: 29 May 2004 Posts: 48 Location: Terminus

(OOC: from "A Good Service is Currently Running" thread)

As they enjoyed their cakes and wine, a figure appeared in the distance, striding across the scarred ground from the north. As it came closer, it turned out to be a girl with a mop of bright red hair with coins and beads in it, an almost impossibly large rucksack, and baggy trousers with many pockets out of which protruded dozens of strange but undoubtedly useful objects.

The newcomer approached the picnic table, looking shocked at the damage to the pub.

"Blimey," said Peri. "I just got here. What the heck happened?"

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:04 pm Post subject:

Lady Violetta was obviously adjusting extremely well, since Peri, who would come as quite a shock to the system to her under normal circumstances, barely even registered. Still, if women wanted to go around wearing trousers, who was she to stop them? No doubt she'd be seeing men in ballgowns any minute now - what was this to she who communed with the strange and mysterious on a daily basis.

"Hello," replied Violetta to the approaching Peri. "It's only a picnic. Oh. Possibly you come from a land where there are no such things as picnics. We're having tea outdoors. It's rather pleasant, actually. Would you like some elderflower sparkly stuff? It's very weak, so you needn't worry about getting drunk. Those are a very nice pair of trousers you have there. Are you aware that there appears to be some sort of dangerous animal attached to your back? You probably are, of course, but it's always best to mention these things. I'm Lady Violetta Constance Kingsley, of the Worcetshire Kingsleys, and these are Jessamin and Jonathan Jones. They live here, but I'm just passing through. Cake?"