Patchwork Universe

Larkin Quickgrip · Strong Joined: 21 Jan 2004 Posts: 254 Location: The Slums

Ever since the large angry wizard had stormed in and began throwing accusations around Larkin had kept quiet. It didn't need overly sensitive senses for trouble for anyone to tell that Snark was spoiling for a fight. He had also been taking a good long look at the map and thought that he had worked out which one was Yarrows and it was quite some way to the North. Not having quite the same presence of mind to make a copy, as Odom and Jewel had earlier he merely decided to try and remember as much as he could.

Then he reached over to Karls sleeve and with a gentle pull attracted the mans attention. Then very surreptitiously he leaned over and up slightly to whisper to Karl "I reckon we should get out of here. I don't care how much these people hate the Gods, I've got a payment to collect and so have you." He briefly glanced at Snark the newcomer and added "And besides if these people find out that I was workin fer the Gods there's gonna be some fireballs thrown, if yer know what I mean. We can always find em later after the jobs over ter find out bout, yer past, future or whatever." All of this was said at a very low whisper.

He then looked up to Karl to see his response.

Dr Brainstorm · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 7:56 am Post subject:

Outside...

Wires were cut. Circuits were broken. Damage was registered. Warning lights started to come on. An annoying buzzing alarm began to sound inside the Jeep, just in case anyone inside was interested in this state of affairs...

Inside...

Brainstorm's day was just getting worse.

"Of course we need to know what went wrong," he said carefully, "and if either of you, Smight, Snark, can get some answers out of this, erm, god-thing, that would be helpful. At the moment I know no more than either of you."

His watch started to beep quietly, but for the moment he ignored it.

"I have arranged to meet the Cardinal at Jones's Public House. If we can locate the other members of the Ring and go there together, perhaps we can establish what happened."

The beeping became more insistent. Making a decision, he fiddled with his watch for a moment, and then - apparently - stuck his finger in his ear.

"Go ahead," he said quietly. Then he listened for a moment.

"SOMEONE'S WHAT?"

liason · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:37 am Post subject:

Back outside, the salvage mob was having a terrible time with the Jeep.

I still can't make it go.

Eurgh ! That pipe was full of smelly liquid - I've got it all over me !

Help ! I've got my spanner stuck in this slot !

Fortunately, some kind of strange music started from the Jeep, which lifted the mood a little. Soon, all the salvagers were singing along to the regular Bzzt ! Bzzt ! Bzzt !. No lyrics, no melody to speak of, but it had a great beat.

Finally one of them had an idea.

Look, it's these things stopping the wheels moving. If we can saw these off it won't be stuck anymore.

So they set about cutting away the brake assembly from around the wheels.

Smight, the Unbeliever · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 12:48 pm Post subject:

Also outside the ten men Smight had left to wait for him were having a bit of a problem. Smight did not select his legions on the basis of their capacity for independent thought and ability to show initiative. Nonetheless they were becoming aware that something was not right with the strange conveyance that also stood outside the building.

"It is making noise and shaking," one of the soldiers said after a couple of looks had been exchanged around the group. (One confused look, one concerned.) "Is it supposed to do that?"

"Perhaps it is about to explode?" another suggested and the group all took a few paces back. Smight's men were familiar with explosions. They tended to happen when their leader was annoyed about something. Those that had recognised Snark Sinistre when he passed by were aware that quite unexpected things could cause explosions to occur.

"What should we do?" a voice asked from the back of the group. "Shall we summon Smight?"

The looks were exchanged again. Smight was not known to appreciate being disturbed for minor matters. An explosion would probably be accepted as reasonable. A strange noise would certainly not be.

"Draw swords," the man at the front of the group decided. "We will watch it. If it attempts to explode or attack we must stop it. Smight would not be pleased if we did nothing."

The ten men drew swords and watched the rocking jeep with expressions that spoke eloquently of their lack of technical know-how. A few of the brighter soldiers were wondering if swords were exactly the ool for the job here.

Karl Groever · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 2:09 pm Post subject:

Karl had been listening to the conversation as it proceeded, attentively. Smight, the Doctor and the Wizard now appeared to be deep in discussion with one another, and so, Karl felt able to talk to Larkin more easily.

'I take your point, my friend. Perhaps some kind of payment is overdue. But, then again, if the Gods are as all - powerful as many of the folk around here seem to believe, then perhaps your patron will find seek me out, regardless. I may not be able to carry on without knowing what all this is truly about, Larkin. So, against my better judgment, perhaps I, too, need to meet with this Cardinal, back in the Public House. It is simply back the way we came.'

'And then again,' Karl mused 'I promised Jane I would meet her again.'

Karl removed a small pad of notepaper and a pen from his shoulder bag, gave the slabs an appraising look, and began to sketch rapidly. His reproduction was simple, but competent. After only a short time, he had drawn a basic schematic of the tiles. 'The benefits of an archaeological training - good draughtsmanship,' he said to Larkin. He detached the piece of paper from the pad. 'Here, you can take this map in memory of me if you want to.'

He pressed the paper into Larkin's hand, and then went back to sketching, drawing another version of the slabs before him. Karl had come to the only obvious conclusion: if this was the Map Room, then the slabs were the map. And it could only be the case that the various locations upon those tiles corresponded to the layout of this universe. It made sense. He was sure that the sign decorated with a large J must refer to the Public House, and across the border was a picture of a floating island, which was precisely what they had so briefly taken note of in the location which had preceded this one. He was amused that the Map Room itself was respresented by the most self - reflexive of symbolisations: a Map of the larger Map! And he had to assume that some of the other locations were places of which he had heard mention, but whose boundaries had not yet been crossed - was that not Smight's Red Fort, for instance, and Larkin's own world, the Slums of the City of Purblind, placed off in the distance.

There were still mysteries here, of course, and Karl had not been blind to them as he had made his first quick sketching. After all, had not the first place he had come to after the sandstorm, before he reached Jones's, had that not been some kind of jungle? Nothing on the Map, however, seemed to correspond with it, which was very odd. And, naturally, he had recognised, with something of a start, the visual that represented his own homeland. And there was something there also that was not quite right. Larkin had seen the slabs representing the Fort and other such places inserted into the mapping space by the creature Doomshadow. And what should happen but very soon after the denizens of these places had begun to emerge. Yet, clearly, the slab bearing the City's identity had not been amongst those Doomshadow had stolen. And here was why: it had already been placed within the Mapping Space. Karl was uncertain, but he was beginning to think that wiping the slate clean might have been a worringly literal metaphor for Jones to use.

Keeping these notions to himself, however, he called out again to the assembled company 'Doctor, I would second the idea of travelling to Jones's in order to investigate this mystery further. He seemed, the last time I spoke to him, to have some knowledge of what may have happened in this...War Against the Gods?'

Larkin Quickgrip · Strong Joined: 21 Jan 2004 Posts: 254 Location: The Slums

Larkin had clasped the map and placed it into one of his many inner pockets but it wasn't long before he was shaking his head in astonishment. He turned to Karl and mumbled "War Against The Gods? I wouldn't get mixed up in all that if I was yer. Yer fight against Gods yer can only lose."

His thoughts had been roughly along the same lines as Karls, if just a little differant. He believed that he may already have gotten a foot in with the people who control this place themselves. He had also decided that he had a good opportunity to make himself a large pile of cash if he played his cards right.

Turning round he skulked over to the door and announced to the room "It's been good meeting yers all and I hate ter be the one tellin yers this, but yer all fools." Opening the door behind him he said "The rewards are with the Gods. What's the use of fightin em, may as well make some money offa them and Yarrow in paticular owes me one."

Stepping outside he called back in "I hope yer remember this." before turning and walking off towards the northern mist.

(ooc Larkin leaves this thread and heads towards the northern mist.)

Snark Sinistre · Good Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 59 Location: Dark Towers

Snark looked from Brainstorm, to Karl, to the departing Larkin with astonishment. His dark eyes flicked back to where the Janitor continued to stand apparently unconcerned.
"What's this?" he demanded. "You confide our most secret counsels to chance met acquaintances? Parlay with Gods and their factotums in a place of suspicious origin?"

Blue light shimmered again to form a sphere around Snark and this time did not fade way. Levitating himself a metre into the air and moving backwards, away from the other occupants of the room, the wizard shook his head.
"If I ever agree to have speech with you again, abominator, it will be at a place and time of my devising. Not yours."

The blue sphere of elemental force carried the wizard through the open doors of the map room after Larkin.

Once outside, he intended to take his departure as fast as possible, but being Snark he could not resist one final show of defiance. Levelling his staff at the black vehicle he concentrated and a blue fireball bloomed forth, flowing forward to encase the jeep in flame...

[ooc: Unless prevented, Snark will shortly leave this thread and may not be seen again for some time.]

liason · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 3:59 pm Post subject:

Terrified by the sudden blast, the salvagers fled from the Jeep and hid. At least, most of them did. A few had been exposed to the blast and had not survived the experience.

We are under attack ! Return fire !

Dr Brainstorm · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 7:03 pm Post subject:

Brainstorm seemed to relax a little as Snark departed, but only a little.

"Thank you, Karl," he said. "I'm sorry about all this, if you have lost your memory it must all be really confusing. Thank God Snark didn't seem to recognise you.

"Smight, it seems that my vehicle has come under some sort of attack, and I must investigate. I assume you left some men outside also?"

Even as he spoke, the flame of the balefire reached the fuel pipe that the salvagers had cut into, and as Smight's men had correctly anticipated, the Jeep exploded.

Smight, the Unbeliever · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 7:41 pm Post subject:

"If Karl Groever has lost his memory, perhaps that is why he thought the Larkin man was wise," Smight was saying, having taken some of the thief's departing remarks rather amiss.

But then the sound of the explosion reached the room and the giant man moved with surprising speed to the doorway. He came out in time to see the parts of the jeep raining down upon his men.

They had backed off and formed a tortoise with their shields, high in the air above them and already some distance away the figure of Snark was departing at some speed.

"Who did this?" Smight demanded, striding out boldly through the burning debris. "Was it the wizard?"

liason · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:21 am Post subject:

Meanwhile, under the inexpert direction of Mr Drills, the salvagers were preparing to wreak their revenge on Snark Sinistre.

A trebuchet is not the most accurate weapon in the world at the best of times. It hits very hard, but aiming at anything much smaller than a building is a tricky proposition. Aiming at a flying wizard, in the grand scheme of things, is really fantastically hard to get right.

As far as selection of ammunition goes, Mr Drills found his options were limited. Given a choice between a brick, several bricks or a large block of masonry... Well, what kind of choice is that ?

If anything, this made it even less likely that Snark would actually be hit. Accordingly, one simply has to chalk it up to beginners luck that a hefty chunk of random masonry smacked solidly into the flying wizard.

The fact that Snark wasn't immediately splattered across a wide section of the Map Room owed much to the sphere of blue energy surrounding him. However, Snark was not at his strongest here and whilst the sphere kept him alive, that was about all it did.

Snark and the masonry plummeted from the sky and impacted heavily on top of one of the buildings.

Nobody quite saw where he landed... which was just as well, since it stopped his unconscious body from being reprocessed.

[Snark Sinistre leaves this thread...]

Dr Brainstorm · Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 2:28 pm Post subject:

Sadly oblivious to these events, Doctor Brainstorm remained standing in the Map Room, listening to the sound of falling debris, and wondering how things might yet get worse.

"Well, I guess that sorts that out, then... Haha... ha..."

Fermion watched the door for a while to see if any more interesting things were going to happen, but nobody new came in, and most of the interesting people had left.

So he walked over in front of Karl Groever, and looked up at him expectantly.

Karl Groever · Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:14 pm Post subject:

'Amnesia, is it now, Doctor? I knew a practitioner back in the City who was an expert in the fields of memory loss, alienism and somnambulism. A man by the name of Guilemont. Employed by the same Freiherr who employed myself. But then, perhaps, you already knew this? Perhaps you have even been to my home City and met them for yourself?'

Karl sighed, almost wistfully. The adrenaline rush that had propelled him headlong from action to action since he had left the confines of the public house, seemed, of a sudden, to dissipate. For what seemed an eternity, he had careened into new, and desperate, experiences with no real time to step back and mull over what had been said to him. Saying farewell to Jane (and, damn it, he still felt a pang when he thought of her), meeting, and then fending off the atrocious Doomshadow, having to sweet - talk Smight, losing his bearings, not to mention a hold on his sense of self, as he discussed the mysterious 'Ring of Eight', parting from Larkin, who had proved a steadfast and loyal companion throughout...Karl shook his head, and felt a wave of regret and homesickness again wash over him. He missed the City and the Sands, he missed Alex, and Madame Sophia's, and the comfort of the Polytechnique armchairs, the way the Domes of Ancient Days caught and held the lucent beams of the desert Sun. He even felt dismay that the uncertainty of prior days, the invisible strings of influence held over him and manipulated by the Baron and his cronies, had been replaced by an uncertainty even more profound and mysterious. He was no longer sure that he was truly himself.

'If you can...help me in any way, Doctor, I would be grateful,' Karl said, somewhat hesistantly, and, for a moment, he blinked away tears. Catching himself, his composure returned quickly 'I believe you were saying we should travel back to the Public House? A good plan, but I warn you, Doctor, something odd may have happened to it since last I was there. Have you ever known monsters,' Karl shuddered at the memory - of chitinous armour striking against the mist shrouded barriers - 'to have been active within its precincts? We may well need Smight's bodyguard to protect us.'

Dr Brainstorm · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 6:39 pm Post subject:

Brainstorm blinked.

"Memory loss..."

An idea begin to form. Just the barest suggestion of an idea, but an idea nonetheless. He looked back to Karl.

"Yes, of course, I'll do whatever I can. I'm sorry, I just got a bit distracted for a moment there. As for Jones, well, I know that there were monsters of some sort in the underground tunnels, and he spent some years driving them back and making the surface safe. I'm not sure if they're still down there, though, he was always a bit quiet about that.

"Has something happened to him? Is he in trouble?" Suddenly the silence of the transponder in Jones's patch was making a disturbing amount of sense.

Karl Groever · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:04 pm Post subject:

'I can't really say, doctor,' Karl replied, earnestly. 'What I can tell you is that I passed through Jones's tavern a relatively short time previously, and it seemed to me a most unassuming place. I had travelled for several days already (or so it seemed to me) before I came to it, from the desert outside my home city. It now seems clear to me that, whenever I met a barrier of mist like consistency in the areas I travelled through, this demarcated the boundary of one 'world space' from another. Almost as if many disparate components had been bound together into a greater unity. Now, I have seen the Map here, the notion seems to be confirmed for me.'

Karl looked at Brainstorm and continued 'Jones's was the second such place I travelled to, after having passed by way of a... jungle of some description. Mysteriously, I can see no trace of this location upon the Map, almost as I had dreamed the journey through its confines. But Jones's is marked clearly where I would have expected it to be.
In the tavern, after I caught up with some sleep, Jones himself took me aside, and told me a story that I must confess to having failed to take in its entirety, so shocked was I by its content. But aspects of what he said seem to tally with what you also maintain. That there had been a War against the Gods, a Ring of Eight, instrumental in waging it, and another named Karl Groever, who was older than I. He mentioned you ,doctor, by name, and said that this Karl and yourself had been friends.'

Karl hesitated a moment, then ploughed on with his story 'From Jones's, I travelled to the world next door...although briefly. I had had a dream the previous night, within the inn, when I saw myself throwing stones, for some reason, through the mist veils, and so, I took the opportunity to do the same in reality. I hurled these stones across the border before I myself crossed, and, upon the other side, I traced my steps back in order to find them. Then some ghastly creature tried to lunge at me from the other side, but it could not cross the barrier. That is all I know, although now I think on it, the sky beyond the barrier seemed to have gone more dark than I remembered. In truth, I was too shocked to register much, and concerned also with the stones. For they didn't manage to make the crossing, even though others that I carried with me did so.' At this, Karl felt in his shoulder bag, and extracted some of the stones that he still carried in order to demonstrate the truth of his statement to the doctor.

'If what you say is true, doctor,' he added, anxiety rising anew in him 'then I may have discovered all these things once already, and have merely spent time revisiting my former actions.'