Print Page | Close Window Chronicles Printed from: Cycling Plus Topic URL: http://www.cyclingplus.co.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18203 Printed on: 27/04/2004 Topic: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Topic author: Ravenbait Subject: Chronicles Posted on: 11/02/2004 12:11:41 Message: Meet the Goddess.... This is the world of the Cake Stop. This world is not so dissimilar to our own, where the massed ranks of drivers ply their way regardless of the needs and desires of others, trapped by the physical walls of their vehicles and the mental walls of their prejudices and narrowness of thought. Yet this is also a world where magic is rife and the Time of Legend is but a blink of an eye away. In this world there are those who can cross the mysterious planes of A-Time, heroism is just something to do after lunch and malt loaf is one of the most precious substances in existence. In this world the union of man and cycle is loved and cherished by a deity. The human powered vehicle and its rider is supported and cossetted in the bosom of the Triple Goddess of Cycling. The perfect union of woman and machine, where the bicycle becomes a living, organic creature, the modern Sleipnir, a warrior goddess on the battlefield that is the road in this modern Car Culture..... Representing spiritual and intellectual advancement despite an unco-operative society, the Road Goddess is visualised wearing black and silver lycra, riding a black and silver road bike that appears to look at you with a mischievous gleam and which will evidently carry its mistress until the end of Time itself and still beg for more. They are joined by road shoes, for the Road Goddess spends little time with Her feet on the ground. In perfect harmony of thought and action the Road Goddess and Her steed react to hazards and baleful drivers with prescient speed, smiling with enlightened wisdom at those who hurl abuse, quoting from the sacred texts of the RoadTrafficAct and the HighwayCode. Behind the silver lenses of the Oakley M-Frames, Her eyes are black as night, bottomless orbs of obsidian that have the power to mesmerise those attempting to turn right across Her path should She choose to reveal Herself to them. Her skin is tanned where the Sun's rays meet Her; white beneath the protective mantle of her clothing. She does not fall nor falter, and shuns the roughened surfaces of off- road paths. The road is Her domain. Invoke the Road Goddess for smooth surfaces, tailwinds, light rain, traffic jams and for the power of presence to stop drivers in their tracks. The Road Goddess' stone is obsidian or jet, Her metal silver, Her animals the raven, panther and horse, Her flower the black rose or the foxglove, Her wind direction NNW, Her sacred harmony A minor and Her scent is vetiver. Representing sustainable progress in harmony with Nature, the MTB Goddess is visualised wearing a green full-face helmet and a green Muddy Fox jersey with padded, full-finger gloves and heavyweight lycra ¾ longs. Her shoes are kitted out with Time Allium cleats and She wears a Camelback MULE. Should She remove Her helmet She can be seen to have a wry smirk and green eyes, tousled brown hair in a tomboyish cut, a determined, fearless set to Her jaw. She rides a green and blue full-sus mountain bike fitted with bar ends and Hope disc brakes, which languishes by Her side with the careless readiness of an off-duty SAS soldier. The MTB Goddess has a prescient awareness of natural hazards and environmental obstacles. She has perfect balance, and it is Her own daring and willingness to push Herself to Her very limits that produce the inevitable tumbles on technical single-track. Her skin bears the signs of Her courage and She can be seen to sport sticking plasters on Her knees and elbows on occasion. Invoke the MTB Goddess for speedy descents on twisted trails, grip on uneven surfaces, fearlessness and strength for portage. The MTB Goddess's stone is emerald or malachite, Her metal titanium or aluminium, Her animals the bear, jaguar or rock hyrax, Her flower the anemone or dog rose, Her wind direction SE, Her sacred harmony F and Her scent cedarwood or pine. Representing adaptability and the ability to set to good use the obstacles placed in one's way by others, the BMX Goddess is visualised as a young woman with a dazzling smile, perfect teeth, and long blonde hair pulled back into a plait. She has piercing blue eyes the colour of a searing summer sky and a smattering of freckles from being out in the sun all day. She wears a baggy vest (tank) or hoody with cargo shorts and ankle boots and can have a West Coast US accent when she speaks. Her bike is a BMX with full pegs and gyro, and it is as possessive and forgiving of its mistress as the finest working sheepdog. She has perfect proprioception and an instinctive grasp of where She is in space at any given time. She sports elbow and knee pads, and leather-palmed mitts on her long fingers. From the handlebars of her bike dangles a potty-helmet with an acid-house smiley face upon it. Invoke the BMX Goddess for wall-ride to tailwhips, dealing with fruitbooters, nailing a landing from extreme rotation, and always making that grind. The BMX Goddess's stone is sapphire or turquoise, Her metal iron or gold, Her animals the dog, rat or monkey, Her flower the dandelion or blue rose, Her wind direction W, Her sacred harmony C major and Her scent Lily of the Valley or Ocean. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." Replies: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 11/02/2004 12:19:26 Message: I've just realised a gap in our pantheon: we have no deity for 'bent riders to invoke! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/02/2004 12:25:51 Message: http://www.cyclingplus.co.uk/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=7772 quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Road Goddess; in lycra cloth of black and silver, black of eye behind silver shades. The MTB Goddess; features shaded in full face helmet, body bearing the marks of her travels, camelback riding high. The BMX Goddess; her blonde hair scraped back into a plait, long legs clad in baggy shorts, clad for battle in the armour of her trade, a sunkissed smile and eyes of sapphire blue. Come one! Come all! Come into the temple and seek benign favours from the sisters of the wheel. Meet their brothers, the God of Recumbents and the God of Trikes. Come smell the WD40, the oil and the grease, see the glittering chainrings dance in the light of temple's holy flame as the sacred fountain gushes cold and fresh to fill your bottle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Aeroflash Replied on: 11/02/2004 12:29:57 Message: Yes, the gods of 'bents and trikes are the Green Man to the goddess's... er, goddess. In fact, it's rather like my TT bike - it dies at the end of every year and is reborn the next season with new wheels, new bar tape and a new quest for a PB. Matt 'Quoth the Raven "This sucks chunky goats vomit through a twisty straw"' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/02/2004 12:40:22 Message: That is why the sacred chainring has five arms, after all.... Gods, they'll be thinking I worked it all out in advance next. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Aeroflash Replied on: 11/02/2004 17:04:42 Message: What religion worked everything out in advance? None that I can think of. Go on then Sam, lets have some of that fictiony magic, perhaps starting with the rebirth of the TT God with the rising of the sun in early February. How the once sleek figure sloughs off his skein of grime, trims his new cables, greases his creaking pedals and launches off with a snick of Dura Ace in a quest for the PB... ...And will have to do so without his aero lid and traffic-assisted dual carriageway times... Matt 'Quoth the Raven "This sucks chunky goats vomit through a twisty straw"' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 12/02/2004 10:46:33 Message: Hang on! Hang on! This is starting to get complicated, but suggestion duly noted. You got any ideas involving pirates, pygmies, volcanoes, daddy long legs or battles in Old Norse? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 12/02/2004 13:14:43 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol IV No. 1 Thousand mile journey Starts with single turn of wheel Then pedal onwards They say they say that a century is an easy thing. They say they say that anyone can do it. They say they say: "You don't need to be Lance Armstrong you know." They say they say: "Just stick some vaseline on your arse, drink before you're thirsty and eat before you're hungry." They say they say: "Some bugger did this on a 3-speed Raleigh shopper last year!" And at the front of the pack, currently maintaining an easy pace of 18mph with a cadence of precisely 93 revolutions every 60 seconds of a standard clock, the High Priestess of the Triple Goddess of Cycling is murmuring an invocation calling on every aspect, every facet, every fundamental thread of the weave that is the magical fabric of her deity. Three Goddesses become one Goddess. Two Gods become one God. God and Goddess sit in binary equilibrium and the stars thrum between them in the great Dance just as the sacred chainrings hang from the roof of Their temple and quiver on their silver threads. This is no easy century done as part of Long Steady Distance training. This is no level 2 fat burning jaunt. This is not a pub crawl or even a determined country-crossing into the teeth of a ferocious gale to be greeted with hot towels, tea and beer. This is the time of year when the God is at the nadir of His strength, before the great Rite of Spring when traditionally gear cables are replaced with new twists in their sheaths of teflon, brake blocks renewed, rims replaced, transmission serviced and headset overhauled. There is a slight imbalance in the forces at large this day, as there is at all times of the year, for no equilibrium can be static. Yet this imbalance does not work in the High Priestess' favour and her face is a mask of concentration beneath the Rudy Projects. Aeroflash rides above them, a scintillating blue apparition, lending his presence to offset the relative weakness of the God, for without compensation the worthy warriors of Redshift, Arellcat and the other recumbent riders would be at risk of being left behind in this most treacherous of journeys. Something makes the peloton bunch up, and suddenly the A3400 is emptied of traffic. There are no cars or lorries to blare their horns at the effrontery of a collection of cyclists, two-wheeled and three, taking up the entire road. These are the border territories now, and the sacred texts of the Highway Code and the Road Traffic Act do not have the same strength and power that they do in the world at large. Ravenbait sits up, no longer steering, entrusting that task to Fingal. Her noble steed's Lumicycles burst forth in a stream of pure brilliance, illuminating a patch of space some distance ahead of them that seems somehow removed from its surroundings. The space around this unstable patch becomes darker, almost as if storm clouds have suddenly covered the sun. The air becomes very still. The edges of the patch glow, as if defined by ribbons of starlight that shimmer and oscillate like torchlight on a ripple in a fast-flowing stream. The High Priestess is forming shapes in the air in front of her with her hands. The shapes themselves are meaningless; they are nothing but mnemonics for the structure she is creating to turn the peloton into an Egregore, the set that will contain them as they traverse reaches of A-Time that very few have traversed before. They bunch up further. Chuffy is heard whispering furiously to The Cardinal, who has chosen a very poor moment to start sulking about Luther. Ahead of them the rift in space-time is growing, opening wider and wider, the ribbons of its edges becoming thicker and beginning to show the complex cilia of their structure. A steely tang of nervousness ripples through the pack. As Fingal leads the pack straight for the centre of the rift, Ravenbait extends her right hand forward, slowly, with much trembling, as if she is having to overcome a great resistance. The thumb and forefinger are outstretched; the other three fingers folded over. All movement comes from her shoulder. There is a flash of light as the rift stretches wide to allow the entire pack entrance. For the first time they can see the fine details of the edges of the rift as they pass through: the fine-grain that is almost a microscopic version of the crystalline hexagonal structure of the Giant's Causeway. But these are horizontal, packed tightly, and yet they still move in tiny patches of iridescence like the tentacles on the smallest of jellyfish. Then they are through, and this section of A-Time, although not exactly the same as it was last time they were there, in the great war against the Tour God Armstrong, for nothing in A-Time ever remains the same, is at least not completely unfamiliar in essence, and the twin ravens who carry news of the world and its history to the One-Eyed God every morning are already there waiting for them. Impatiently. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 12/02/2004 14:25:13 Message: Posotively riveting, sitting on the edge of my seat eagerly anticipating the arrivial of things that go 'arrrrrr' in the night. Is it 'cause I is black and white? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 17/02/2004 12:03:53 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol IV No. 2 Slipping between worlds Traverse imagination Time and space are one Redshift draws her recently acquired sword from the special sheath slung underneath the seat of her Windcheetah and scents the air, testing for danger with the finely honed senses of a master of the shadow arts. The rift has closed behind them, and the sudden, thick quiet of A-Time descends over them like an eiderdown of syrup. Aeroflash is no longer hovering. He has solidity here. A few of the Cake Stop take the opportunity to give him a hug, something that they have not been able to do since the fateful day on the Magic Roundabout in Swindon. It is not noiseless in A-Time. It is simply thick. Sounds have the same carrying ability and clarity as they would underwater, although there is not the vast rush of the ocean providing a backround of white noise. Songs sung here echo across universes; stories told become myth; deeds become legend. The attention of a gnat has the weight of the glance of a man; the attention of a man has the weight of the glance of a god. The glance of a god has the crushing weight of history behind it. But these few, these happy few, these few are heroes. They create history. Theirs is the stuff of legends, their stories are the myths of the throwaway age, their songs part of the great harmonies. They arrive in the vast, rolling, false-colour topography of A-Time, with its sandworms, giant clowns, snake women, harpies and centaurs, and A-Time stands up and takes notice. The High Priestess takes a moment to collect herself. Her face is impassive behind the mirrored lenses of the Rudy Projects fashioned by her old friend Wayland, but there is already a hint of strain in her features. It has not escaped her attention, nor that of the plucky young Kathy Pike, that one of the more recent incomers to the Intrepid Sorority, Bagonabike, is proving something of a distraction for the pixie-eared EvilChuffy. The mystic writing on Cadefwlch is writhing and glowing dully in a way that suggests the scurrilous scallywag has a great deal on his mind and is somewhat restless. By the way he has dropped back from his usual position near the front of the pack, where The Cardinal usually keeps them so that he can indulge in mutual whinging with Fingal, and is now acting as domestique for the lady who hides her beauty and lovely nature behind a false facade of frigidity beyond which few men have been privileged enough to glimpse, it is clear he has been captivated by her genteel femininity. As has Terry. It may yet come to fisticuffs. This is a note of discordance that they could well do without at this time. Thought and Memory glide past and then alight, one on the rackpack on Fingal's rear rack, the other on the aerobars. FatBloke is right behind Ravenbait at this time and finds himself being stared at by a raven with mad eyes and big claws. He drops back and moves a little to one side, where he finds Bardsandwarriors trying to remember the corvid identification tips Ravenbait had once told him. Flying Monkey and Nuttycyclist have taken up the rear of the pack. Nutty is carrying a severe injury, and has been told quite firmly not to try taking any turns at the front. There is also the question of a rear guard to make sure that the pack does not split, especially with all the new people who will not understand the potential seriousness of becoming lost in A-Time. At the first crossroads Ravenbait leads them straight on. This is the path to the castle of the Tour God Armstrong, however there is no risk of being ambushed by centaurs this time. They pass the tree of the Hanged God, but Old One Eye is taking a break from his self-crucifixion today. The ground ripples and the soft ridge of a sandworm cast appears in the lurid green earth, trundling slowly back in the direction they have come, parallel with the road. One of the hoopy birds, they of the incredibly long, thin legs and predatory beak capable of piercing straight through a buried worm underfoot, flaps down with a crazy flutter of stubby wings, the occasional grey feather floating away on the still air, landing near the cast and stalking forward after its creator. A movement for off to the right catches Gonzo's eye. His mouth works noiselessly as he spots his first giant clown. The enormous figure, possibly some twenty storeys high, is striding across the landscape with the blank yet somehow darkly evil expression that they all wear. "Yes," says Hasufel. "It's a clown. A very, very, very big clown. If we're lucky we won't see any more." Behind them Macleach fingers the tab on a tin of Irn Bru but knows that it is not yet time to awaken his superhero alter-ego. It is enough to know that he could, if he chose. Simplebsharris pulls out a banana from a pocket somewhere and offers it around. No one is really in the mood, so he eats it himself. They pass the turning that they would need to take to visit Castle Armstrong. The old hands from the League and the Sorority glance down the smooth track, shuddering a little and wondering if there is any sign remaining of their battle with the ABD and the Humungous. Are the ancient wrecks of cars still there: the dismembered shell of the mutant humvee, the rusting hulks of abandoned white vans, the hubcaps and broken exhaust pipes? Are there still the skeletal claws of hands so used to grasping steering wheels that they were never able to straighten their fingers, and the bones of skeletons weakened by a lifetime spent imprisoned in mobile metal cages, or have these fragile and brittle things turned to dust under the tiny feet of passing animals and the soft winds of the plain? The High Priestess leads them onwards. They see Rolling Rock, the last of its kind, sole survivor of a once great race of sentient boulders, now forlornly searching for another, unable to understand that he is the last, that the rest of his species was captured and crushed to be used as hardcore for the roads built by the ABD before they were vanquished by the combined might of the Gods of Cycling. A high-pitched, mournful singing, drifting from an immeasurable distance and making the hairs on the backs of their necks stand on end, is identified with a horrified shudder by Jonathan Ellis as the Singing Ringing Tree. Shen advises him that here in A-Time the Land can pull things from deep inside, the most hidden fears, and make them seem real. FatBloke starts looking nervous and muttering about Sarah and Hoppity. Macleach grabs him by the shoulder. "Pull yourself together man!" he urges through gritted teeth. "A clown Archetype has just gone past. Do you want to make things really bad?" "What's that noise?" asks Rigid Raider. "Sounds like the theme from 'The Exorcist'." "Oh crap," says Arellcat. "Somebody get Kitzy calmed down and get word forward that we have a problem before this gets out of control. We'll have the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Waters and the Mysterons turning up next." Sleepless in the Saddle balks as he sees the face of Justin Timberlake suddenly appear in a cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky. There is a cracking, rumbling sound and what looks like an enormous sandworm breaks through the ground at the side of the road. Only it isn't a sandworm. As a gurgling sounds comes from deep within its metallic depths Rafletcher recognises it as the pipe from Bognor Regis swimming pool. The pack starts to split to avoid the horrific sense of pulling and sucking dragging them towards it. "Don't split the pack!" Flying Monkey cries desperately. Someone in the middle wobbles dangerously. The entire set could come flying apart at any moment and he knows that the Priestess is struggling to maintain the Egregore as it is. To one side of the road is a hunched figure in a drab overcoat, lank hair falling forwards and hiding his face. His feet are bare and dirty, his fingernails ragged and black with filth. Ndamauk shrieks and swerves reflexively as a mass of fleshy green leaves splits open the road surface with a crack and begins to grow vigorously at a horrifying rate. His back wheel clips the front of the Archaeologist's. Si manages to remain in control, however Ndamauk is thrown off balance by the contact. He gets his bars at an awkward angle and starts to fall sideways. Elite 5th Cat pushes him back up from the relative solidity of her windcheetah. Yenrod grabs him and stabilises him, but the sudden loss of cohesion has fatally damaged the pack. Cuddy Duck swerves to avoid FatBloke, who has come almost to a stop to avoid running into the back of Bardsandwarriors. Shane suddenly sprints forwards, yelling "Fire in the hole!!" A grenade has suddenly appeared. Powerless to stop the sudden disintegration, Ravenbait looks back in hopeless, strained despair, and sees the lank and dirty man at the side of the road suddenly draw himself to his full height and let his coat hang open. The grenade is a dud, but it doesn't matter. A pile up has occurred and the pack has split. Already there is a shimmering indicating that the information matrix is reconfiguring to adapt to the separate groups. Four separate knots of cyclists, and one or two isolated stragglers, suddenly vanish their separate ways into the vast, uncharted wilderness of A-Time. The High Priestess sees the cold, smug smile on the face of the unkempt man with the flat, white eyes and steps forward in icy fury. The man flaps his arms upwards, as if doing an impression of a bird, and suddenly explodes into a crowd of crows that disperses in all directions like a storm. Ravenbait, Redshift, FatBloke, Cuddy, Hairyhippy, Kathy Pike, Tim Pike and Hasufel are left alone with a pair of unconcerned ravens and no sign of their friends. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 17/02/2004 12:12:58 Message: *phew* That could have been scary. At least there wasn't a telephone anywhere. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 17/02/2004 12:18:19 Message: Oooo, gets better by the chapter. Are you going to manange to top it for the next instalment? Would Kitzy get transported to the savana where only a zebra could slip past the watchful gaze of lions? Wanted - Zebra specialized Allez; 56cm. Go here for more info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is it 'cause I is black and white? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 17/02/2004 12:39:38 Message: I don't know, Gonzo, would she? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 17/02/2004 13:55:29 Message: Looking exciting there Sam, looking forward to the results of the next bit of penpersonship... "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: fluffymonster Replied on: 17/02/2004 14:14:46 Message: Riveting indeed! I'm here with my confession, got nothing to hide no more... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 17/02/2004 14:23:37 Message: For any person suffering from sufficient boredom to wish to chart the history of the Chronicles, links to all previous installments can be found under the fiction heading at http://ravenfamily.org/sam/bike -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: sherlock65 Replied on: 17/02/2004 16:51:10 Message: Epic stuff Sam - when do you find the time to write like that? Keep on pedalling, Steve "The dog did nothing in the night-time: that was the curious incident" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 17/02/2004 17:20:58 Message: Hurray. You will notice, that I was concentrating very hard and the sky, has remained, exactly where it should. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 18/02/2004 10:05:59 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol IV No. 3 Lost in wilderness Dreaming of finding way home Wrong way to get there "Pretzels? But it's not Thursday." "Bek, take that chain mail bikini off RIGHT NOW!" "It's my lardy cake and I'll fight the lot of you." "Search your pants chaps, we've lost Waffles." "Aaaaaargh! It's in the cat!" "Well, I've never seen Hitler eating a vole's arse." With a frustrated sweep of one Body Geometry Comp clad foot, the Priestess scatters the complicated pattern of twigs, bark, dead leaves and pebbles with its sprinkling of Finish Line Cross Country that she had arranged on the ground in roughly the centre of distribution of the Cake Stop massive before it had gone AWOL. The whispers of voices that the device had channelled from the disparate corners of the information matrix that is A-Time fade away into nothing. "It's gibberish," she says. Kathy is concerned by the taught note of despair she can hear inflecting Ravenbait's voice. "I can't trace them like this. There are too many of them in too many different places and most of them don't know how to give a focused signal. The locator spell is picking up all sorts of crap." "It wasn't your fault," Kathy tells her, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly. "They have Gunner and Flying Monkey, the Sheriff, Aeroflash and Nutty. They'll be okay until we find a way to track them down." "No, it wasn't my fault," Ravenbait agrees and her voice this time contains an angry edge, a piano-wire garrotte of the fury that they have seen before in the battle with the ABD. "This is the doing of the Hollow Man, and he had no damn right. We have an agreement. We have a mutual avoidance treaty, and I want to know what has provoked him into breaking it." The others have absolutely no idea what the Priestess is talking about, but it doesn't matter. It is better for her to be angry than despairing. Angry gets things done. They have seen that the pipe from Bognor Regis and the strange, fleshy plants have all vanished, and it is at least of some relief that she seems to know what happened because none of the rest of them does. "Have some malt loaf," suggests Hairyhippy. Ravenbait shakes her head, looking pensive. Chuffy, meanwhile, is hunched in a little ball at the side of the road, rocking backwards and forwards. FatBloke squats down next to him and asks him what is wrong. All he can hear is a mournful meeping sound and the word "Bags". The domestique has lost his lady. She vanished along with everyone else. He does not even know whether she is with anyone who can look after her properly, or whether she has been whisked away to some remote corner of this despicable, unpredictable place with none but Terry and Gonzo for company. It is utterly unbearable. "I don't think we can expect much help from him right now," observes Cuddy Duck. "No," says Ravenbait, "But that's okay. It's not his help I want anyway." With a stern glance she calls the two ravens to her and gives them some instructions that no one else understands. * * * Gunner Rogers finds himself on a strangely coloured moorland underneath a shifting purple sky, with a voice whispering "no chain, no chain" over and over in his head and a dozen identical beautiful blonde women matching pace with him, taking it in turns to brush up against his elbows. Aeroflash and Flying Monkey find themselves back at West Kennet Longbarrow, but there is no welcoming Colin this time. Only a howling gale and a lighthouse made of the shells of Landrover Discoveries beaming a cold, black light out from the top of Silbury Hill through a shifting purple sky while predatory pigeons stare at them menacingly from stunted, bent trees. Nutty finds himself leading perhaps a dozen of the others, all numb with shock, along a cycle path painted bright green. It is covered in broken glass and potholes, with lamp posts set in the middle and dog faeces everywhere. He can see a broad, quiet, smoothly surfaced road to his left but they cannot get there for there is no turning to lead them off the path and there is a chicken wire fence in the way that reaches further than he can see up into the shifting purple sky. The Sheriff finds himself in some sort of amphitheatre set out like a courtroom under a shifting purple sky, and he does not know if he is the prosecution or the defence. In the jury box are some of the rest of the Cake Stop, including Microphonie, Simplebsharris, Bardsandwarriors and Muckspreader. But there is another jury box, with some people from Campaign, who never set out on this journey and yet are still here, and their faces are set. Gonzo finds himself with his stripes now part of his skin, absorbed into his flesh. He is standing on the edge of a vast herd of zebra on the scorching African savannah under a shifting purple sky, and there are lions. One of the lions is Kitzy. She has huge teeth and looks very fast and very hungry. Bagonabike finds herself sitting on top of an enormous fridge in a field under a shifting purple sky, surrounded by enormous packages from which burst strange men waving lobsters. Steelman finds himself in an immense yard under a shifting purple sky, with neat lines of skips filled with A4 envelopes and wrapped magazines stretching away on all sides. His copy of Cycling Plus is in there. He knows it is, for Withers is there looking for it. All he has to do is find it and then he can take it back to bed where Helga is waiting. Terry finds himself on his turbo trainer, feet somehow fused with the pedals, stuck in front of a television showing nothing but snooker in black and white. He is in the middle of an emptied outdoor swimming pool under a shifting purple sky. It is raining. All across A-Time the lost members of Cake Stop are left in surreal places where they can do nothing but think about what is in front of them, what faces them, their immediate prospects. Not about the Priestess who hunts for them in the complex patterns of this world. * * * Thought and Memory flapped off some time previously. Now the few League and Sorority members left behind are sitting around twiddling their thumbs, or checking wheel alignments or playing with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, waiting to see what the Priestess is going to do next. Ravenbait herself has taken Fingal to the crest of the next rise, where she stands astride him, leaning forward on the aerobars and scanning the horizon. The ravens return, tumbling out of the sky like a pair of Autumn leaves, correcting the fall at the last moment to land gracefully at her feet. There is some quiet hooting and croaking that the other members of the Cake Stop cannot understand. Then they become aware of a thumping from deep underneath them, in the Earth. It is like something out of Jurassic Park, with the water in their bottle shaking against the sides of the plastic containers. The thumping is getting closer. Nervously they get to their feet and prepare to mount their steeds. Redshift and Chuffy draw their swords. Kathy gathers up the ferrets. As the thumping gets close enough for the sound to reach them through the air as well as through the ground, they hurry to catch up with the Priestess, who has not moved. When they reach her they suddenly realise that the crest is, in fact, the top of a steep descent to a vast plain, part of the same formation as the plain on which they had battled the ABD. Across the plain is approaching something that appears totally unbelievable. It is a giant elephant walking on his two back legs. He is almost the shape of a man, yet he has an unmistakable elephant's head and four arms. His trunk is slightly withered and he emanates a soft blue glow not unlike that given off by Aeroflash. He is accompanied by a convoy of followers, some of whom carry great fans made of peacock feathers with which to waft his face, some of whom carry a great chair. When they have come as far as he wishes, they set the chair down and the Elephant God Ganesha takes his seat. Ravenbait turns to the others. "Do any of you have any sweets?" "I might," Hasufel says, rummaging. The Priestess pulls a couple of crumpled paper bags out of her rackpack. "It's better if you have your own, but if you want to come with me you need to have sweets. You can take a few of mine." "Are you coming back?" Kathy asks in a small voice, not sure she wants to get any closer to the strange being on the plain below. "Probably," says Ravenbait. Kathy takes a couple of squares of turkish delight from the paper bag. Tim and the others do the same. Together, they point their bicycles downwards and freewheel all the way to the feet of the Dancing God. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: groucho Replied on: 18/02/2004 10:15:59 Message: Wow epic stuff! groucho finds himself under a shifting purple sky which slowly becomes a haze followed by the eery strands of a sixties guitar hero. He's watching TOTP2. He's watching TOTP2.He's watching TOTP2.He's watching TOTP2.He's watching TOTP2.He's watching TOTP2. ..and the tumbleweeds just tumble. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: cuddy duck Replied on: 18/02/2004 11:18:05 Message: This is breathtaking stuff. Not only has cuddy managed to get in the break this time but we may be about to learn straight from the elephant's mouth what he and Stipe were up to! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 18/02/2004 11:24:36 Message: Ha! Wait til Chuffy gets back! He'll never believe that I worked out how to include that section of dialogue he suggested! He thought I'd chicken out! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 18/02/2004 11:28:23 Message: That explains a lot! Wanted - Zebra specialized Allez; 56cm. Go here for more info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is it 'cause I is black and white? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Terry Replied on: 18/02/2004 11:40:50 Message: Noooooooooooooo, not only am i watching bloody snooker, it's in black and white, aaaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh. ------------------------------- www.jdcycles.com Probably the finest bike shop in deepest darkest Essex -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 18/02/2004 11:48:39 Message: For those of you watching in black and white, the pink is behind the green - Ted Lowe BBC Commentary circa 1980 I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: bardsandwarriors Replied on: 18/02/2004 11:54:01 Message: Those purple skies do get everywhere! Awesome, Sam. I'm a bit worried about Kathy though: how is the elephant god going to like commercialised turkish delight full of refined sugars? He might smite her with his trunk for bringing inferior copies of the real thing. if everyone owned a car, what a smelly, dangerous, noisy, stressful, unhealthy, expensive society this would be... oh, wait... it is! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 18/02/2004 12:03:41 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol IV No. 4 All hail Ganesha The Destroyer of Demons Elephant headed One tusk, four arms, carrying noose and goad, with His hands dispelling fear and granting boons, with a mouse as His banner. Red, with a big belly, with ears like winnowing baskets, wearing red, with limbs smeared with red scent, truly worshipped with red flowers. And the Priestess, Rudy Projects stowed away, one hand steadying the now humble Fingal, raises her obsidian gaze to the fond smile of the Destroyer of Obstacles. "Om Ganapathi Namah. "Om Lam I bow to Ganesha. "I bow to you, Lord of Categories. You alone are the visible form of the principle. You alone are the creator, you alone are the sustainer, you alone are the destroyer, you alone are unmistakably the Brahma. "Vighneshvara or Vighnaharta, the Lord of and Destroyer of Obstacles "You clearly are the tattva. "Hail to the Lord of Vows, hail to Ganapati, hail to the First Lord, hail unto you, to the Big-bellied, One-Tusked, Obstacle-Destroyer, the Son of Shiva, to the Boon-Giver, hail, hail! " Ravenbait then steps forward and places a handful of sweetmeats on the plate by his feet. Quickly, the others do the same, and then retreat once more to what they feel is a safe distance. Delicately, Ganesha picks up one of the sweets and chews thoughtfully. "My mother is not best pleased with you," he says at last. "Oh?" Ravenbait replies. The others notice that, formalities now over, the Priestess and the Elephant- headed God are speaking with one another quite amiably, like old friends. "What disrespect have I inadvertently committed against the Lady Parvati?" "There would be the small matter of a large battle with many deaths and much bloodshed and not once did you think to ask Kali-Ma." "That was remiss of me," Ravenbait admits. "My sincere and humble apologies to Parvati." "That is very good, yes, I will pass your respects to mother and father." He takes a pen fashioned from his own broken tusk and writes something down on a piece of parchment with great care. "And so. Why did you send your birds to me? They said it was a very grave matter and so it pleased me to come at once." Ravenbait, deciding that now probably isn't the best time to explain that the birds belong to Oðin and He only lets her have them because they won't do as they're told and leave her alone, quickly and concisely explains to the Destroyer of Obstacles what has happened. He sits in silent repose for a while. Kathy finds herself overwhelmed by the urge to run up to him, wrap her arms around his big, fat belly and give him an enormous hug. The scent of sandalwood and cedarwood is strong and warming. There is something unutterably soothing about this son of Shiva. "I am surprised that you are coming to me with this matter," Ganesha says eventually. "This is well within your capabilities, and you have your own Goddess to help you." Ravenbait makes as if to speak but he holds up one hand to silence her. "But no matter. I know you have been suffering with demons so I will forgive you. You should have come to me then, you know, instead of waiting around for someone to come and rescue you. Also, I know that Armstrong is not at home and so that changes matters, does it not?" "It certainly does," says Ravenbait, the magic of Ganesha working on her. The tension has gone from her voice, and she is smiling. The Lord of Categories, Destroyer of Obstacles, stands up from his ceremonial settee. He begins to dance, stamping out a beat and pattern in the dust with his enormous yet delicate feet, bangles jangling. Across A-Time every cyclist under a purple shifting sky feels the tug and pull, reminding them of who they are, what they are, the principles for which they stand. Every Gentleman from the League, every Member of the Intrepid Sorority remembers the feel of the wind in his or her hair and the love of the bicycle, the noble steed that carries him or her long distances or short, in all weathers. Every one remembers their companions of the Cake Stop, that inestimable institution that brought them all together and launched them into their lives as heroes. Each one suddenly remembers the Triple Goddess, and as She appears to each and every one in the aspect that each knows the best, reaching out a hand and bestowing Her blessing, they see the confident smile of the Priestess and suddenly know where they must be. And there, indeed, they are. Gathered together again on the vast plain under a pale, cerulean sky, the dust settling and Ganapati smiling down at them all. There is no room for shock or dismay at what has happened. The aura of the Lord of Categories fills them all with a sense of peace and calm. Ravenbait turns and bows, and chants, quietly this time, with feeling. "Om Ganapathi Namah. "Om Lam I bow to Ganesha. "I bow to you, Lord of Categories. You alone are the visible form of the principle. You alone are the creator, you alone are the sustainer, you alone are the destroyer, you alone are unmistakably the Brahma. "Vighneshvara or Vighnaharta, the Lord of and Destroyer of Obstacles "You clearly are the tattva. "Hail to the Lord of Vows, hail to Ganapati, hail to the First Lord, hail unto you, to the Big-bellied, One-Tusked, Obstacle-Destroyer, the Son of Shiva, to the Boon-Giver. "My thanks for your boon and blessing. "Om Lam I bow to Ganesha. "Om Ganapathi Namah." The Elephant God places one of his hands on her head and smiles. "I will be seeing you on the fourth day of Bhadrapada, yes? I hope you make a nicer cardamom fudge this year." Cuddy steps forward. "I must ask," he says. The God flaps one ear. "Why was Michael Stipes pushing an elephant up the stairs?" The Gods looks at him for a long, silent pause. "Have you ever seen an elephant go up stairs by himself?" At that the convoy picks up its goods and chattels, turns itself around, and walks back across the plain to the strains of beautiful, haunting music, singing and dancing. They are gone from sight long before they have travelled far enough to be out of view. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 18/02/2004 12:36:19 Message: Maybe those two episodes should have been one episode. Two in one day is being a bit generous, maybe. You'll get expectations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: cuddy duck Replied on: 18/02/2004 12:42:15 Message: Is that a Kula Shaker lyric? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 18/02/2004 12:49:13 Message: No. Well. Maybe. But it's not taken from a Kula Shaker song. I don't think that they were singing the Gamapathi Purja, but I wasn't really paying attention. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 18/02/2004 12:55:55 Message: Red, with a big belly, with ears like winnowing baskets, wearing red, with limbs smeared with red scent, truly worshipped with red flowers. Hey FatBloke, you got a bonus mention :-) "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 18/02/2004 13:04:38 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Macleach Red, with a big belly, with ears like winnowing baskets, wearing red, with limbs smeared with red scent, truly worshipped with red flowers. Hey FatBloke, you got a bonus mention :-) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oi! MacFisheries!! No!!!! My ears are not like bloody winnowing bloody baskets!!!!! I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 18/02/2004 13:44:31 Message: I bet they are turning red now though !!!!! "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 18/02/2004 13:47:50 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SamSam-->Ha! Wait til Chuffy gets back! He'll never believe that I worked out how to include that section of dialogue he suggested! He thought I'd chicken out! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You cunning bugger! Just for that, I'll dedicate the forty miles I just did to the Triple Goddess. Just this once mind I don't want to get into any bad habits -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 18/02/2004 14:49:50 Message: You didn't think I'd ever manage that one, did you? Ha! It'll take more than that to stump me! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 18/02/2004 17:25:35 Message: Have the lobsters gone yet?*aaaagh!* -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 18/02/2004 18:42:18 Message: No more nasty lobstermen Baggers. Everyone's been rescued by the nice dancing elephant. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 18/02/2004 20:15:54 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by hairyhippy No more nasty lobstermen Baggers. Everyone's been rescued by the nice dancing elephant. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- oooh, so they have. Missed that earlier. Hoorah! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 23/02/2004 14:30:26 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol IV No. 5 A parting of ways Cake Stop peloton moves on Someone left behind Out on the plain, the dust now settled back onto the hard-packed dirt, the cyclists gather their wits about them and prepare to set off once more. The take the boon of the Elephant God with them, and each is more at peace with himself, feels a closer bond of camaraderie with his fellow pedallers. There is no longer any fear of the pack splitting, because each and every one now understands deep inside his very heart and soul that the pack is not an artefact of physical proximity. Belonging to the Cake Stop is a characteristic that is true no matter where a person is, and the pack will stay together even over vast distances. This was always true, but it was necessary for each to know it for it to bind them together in the face of all that they would find in the complex machinations of A-Time. They spin slowly and easily back to the top of the ridge, to the crest where some had watched the approach of Ganesha. Then they turn towards the distant horizon in the area that represents the south east. In the distance there is the silver glitter of sun on sea, and for the first time they can almost smell the scent of sun-drenched palms, coconuts and pristine sandy beaches. In no time at all the familiar part of A-Time has fallen away behind them and they are on a long, undulating road that winds across valley and dale, crossing silver rivers that wind like shining serpents across the land. They can even see birds in the sky now, and not the bizarre hoopy birds these. They seem to be seagulls. "Left my soul there, down by the sea," sings Chuffy gaily. "Lost control, yeah, living free...." "I have something to do," says Ravenbait. "You will have to go on without me." She is smiling but appears a little sad, and there is a steely look of grim determination behind her expression that suggests that the something she has to do is not something she is looking forward to doing. "But how will we find our destination?" Kathy asks, shocked and a little scared. "Well, I need the ravens, but they should be back any moment with a guide for you. Don't worry, Kathy." Ravenbait hugs her friend and kisses her on the cheek, winking at Tim. "Close your eyes." The plucky Ms Pike does so. The priestess holds her by the shoulders. "Breathe deep." Kathy takes a long, deep lunful of air. "What can you smell?" the priestess asks her. "I can smell the sea," Kathy says in wonder. The other cyclists also close their eyes and take deep lungfuls of the air that has travelled across A-Time from the distant ocean. "And something else. What is that?" "It's bloody rum," squawks one of the ravens as it falls out of the sky to land at their feet. "Wotcher boss," he says to Ravenbait. "He's just coming." A few seconds later a graceful, pointed shape appears in the sky and glides down towards them in a series of ever decreasing circles. "This is Kehaar," says Ravenbait, introducing the gull. "He will lead you. He knows where he's going." "Kyaaa! Kyaaaa!" the gull says. "You are vantings ze Black Pearl, yes yes yes? I will be taking you, yes, if you are not doing ze running away like ze stupid bunnies. You follow good, ya!" One bright orange, furious, defiant eye peers up at the cyclists looking back down in slack-jawed astonishment. The head is tilting to one side; he struts backwards and forwards like a general. Ravenbait draws Kathy to one side while the others continue to stare. "He has a bit of a Napoleon complex, " she explains quietly. "But he's a good sort. He'll get you there. Just don't tease him. He gets very agitated." "What is it that you have to do?" Kathy asks. "Visit an old friend," says Ravenbait with a wry smile. Kathy returns to the others. Ravenbait adjusts a few things in her rackpack and munches a Go bar; appropriately tropical flavour, not the apple and blackcurrant tested in C+. She is just mounting her steed when Chuffy stops her with a hand on the bars, which he quickly removes when Fingal threatens to bite. "You're going?" he asks. "Yes," she says, making sure her minidisc earphones are comfortably in position. "You look after Bags, now. She's new to all this. She needs a friendly face. I'll be fine." "You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?" he asks, worriedly. "Are you sure you shouldn't take someone with you? Someone with a mighty sword and a line in Old Norse berserking?" "Save it. I'll be fine. Now go on, Kehaar's getting impatient." Chuffy turns and sees the seagull hopping up and down, seemingly quite irate. "Well what's got into him?" he says and turns back to hear Ravenbait's answer. But the priestess, and the ravens, have gone. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 23/02/2004 14:42:08 Message: Keehar! Will we see General Woundwort and Hazel and Fiver? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 23/02/2004 14:50:16 Message: Is John Hurt going to be in it? I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 23/02/2004 15:08:17 Message: I wasn't criticising your spelling, Sam. I thought the phonetic spelling was a subtle nod to Watership Down - a reference only for the initiated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 23/02/2004 15:18:07 Message: Well, it still is, but it is the same gull (I'm sure this is going to turn out to be important, but don't ask me how) so we might as well have his name spelled correctly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: kitzy Replied on: 23/02/2004 18:01:09 Message: brilliant stuff! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kev67 Replied on: 23/02/2004 18:37:25 Message: I once cycled out to Watership Down. I was disappointed not to see any rabbits. Then on the way back down the hill, a huge rabbit ran out in front of me. General Woundwort lives! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 23/02/2004 18:42:45 Message: I want a seagull with a Napolean complex. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 24/02/2004 11:12:29 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KP-->Keehar! Will we see General Woundwort and Hazel and Fiver? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bit late in the day to add my penn'orth (I've only just read the latest instalment) but seeing Kehaar made me jump up and down in glee as well Vill ve be haffing Meester Pigvig, yah? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 24/02/2004 12:29:06 Message: Sounds like Captain Heinekenquaffer-Fatarse's pet gull to me ! "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 24/02/2004 12:37:08 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol IV No. 6 Oceans before them Piratical adventures The Black Pearl awaits It is a long, exhilarating, near effortless descent. A-Time is no longer interested in hindering their onwards journey. With Kehaar soaring above them on motionless wings and cat-calling as if concerned they might lose sight of him, the Cake Stop steams down the perfectly smooth road at speeds that would not be amiss for a Tour de France pack. The nearer they get to the glittering sea, the warmer the sun feels upon their faces, as if they were riding into a dawn. But the sun is not moving in the sky; the sky is changing colour. It grows bolder, from the faint wash of watercolour found in the depths of A- Time to a striking sapphire that almost hurts the eyes. Other colours, too, grow stronger, and this makes them seem garish and equally out of place as the strange lurid shades of the extra-planar landscape from which they have recently come, even though they are worldly colours. Shouting and giggling in the excitement of an approaching destination, the cyclists pedal faster as they approach the end of their journey. The only indication that they are leaving A-Time is in the brief tug of resistance as they speed through the borders in the shadow of the circling gull. The first thing they notice is the heat. It makes the air thick and heavy. The sun bakes down, reflecting from a thousand shimmering wavelet crests out in the bay where a great galleon sits at anchor, bobbing gently in an unseen swell rolling in from the nurseries where waves are whipped into a frenzy by the wind, far offshore. On the beach there is a fire burning, and there is a smell of chicken stew and spit- roast pig. Several longboats have been hauled up on the beach and the sand is strewn with a number of unkempt sailors in varying states of disrepute. Some of them even appear to working. A heat haze wavers across the dazzling white sand. Captain Jack is the first to see them. "Greetin's," he says, getting to his feet in a rather unbalanced fashion. He looks drunk, but then he always does. "And a very good day to you, my darlin's. Ahhhh. The glorious Mrs Pike. It is a pleasure to be seein' your fair face again." Kathy leaves Tim with the tandem and runs over to give the pirate captain a hug. "I brought your madeira cake," she says shyly. Jack Sparrow's face lights up. "Well so you did," he says, sniffing the cake appreciatively. "And your just in time for one of Jack Shandy's famous stews," he waves a hand in the general direction of the great steaming cauldron now roiling over some hot embers, then takes a swig of rum from the bottle in his hand. As he does so, he spots Gonzo, who has stepped forward to survey the scene in wide-eyed astonishment. Captain Sparrow immediately seems much less drunk than he had a moment before. He wanders purposefully over to the zebra-striped lad and peers at him closely. "Interesting," he says. "Very interesting." He turns back to Kathy. "Our Shandy's no relation to me, of course. Great cook. You can trust what he cooks. Not like some of the scallywags round here." He sniffs meaningfully and stares at them, as if expecting someone to say something. "Right then!" he says suddenly, apparently having forgotten that he was speaking a moment before. "There are a few more of you than I was expectin', and one less, but no matter. Plenty of room aboard the Black Pearl. Why don't you go and get somethin' to eat from the lads down there." He sits back down with his bottle in one hand and his madeira cake in the other, and stares out to sea, apparently deeply lost in thought. The Cake Stop, being a bunch of cyclists, doesn't need to be told twice. They descend upon the stew pot like a pack of ravenous hyenas, and the cook with the slight French accent and the preternaturally worldly-wise eyes stands back and watches them, doing no more than indicating where to find the vegetarian alternative if required. "All local produce," he informs them. "Chemical free. That is not really what you have to watch our for round here, though." He winks. "No no no," pronounces Kehaar, who has found a piece of dried fish and is pulling at it with some relish. "It is ze chick chicks wiz ze markings on their beaks, yes yes. No good. No good for bunnies. You stick to ze chick chicks from Meester Shandy, yes yes." Groucho frowns. "I didn't think he'd be able to talk back in the real world," he says. "You think this is the real world?" Cuddy Duck asks him with a quizzically raised eyebrow. "Good point," Groucho accedes. Most of the Cake Stop have sprawled on the beach and are finding the chance to relax and reflect in the sun heavenly after their recent adventures. Hairyhippy has found some interesting plants and is busy finding little pots to put them in with some of his extra special magic manure. A couple of the pirates are talking to him about growing techniques, and whether they could exchange something with him for some of his manure. Fatbloke is finding it rather strange to be standing here in the bright, hot sun while back home he knows it is snowing. Rigby is watching a donkey in a straw hat at the far end of the beach and thinking about how long it has been since he donned his pony boy outfit for anyone. MingMong is telling Miiineee, Chewa and Pingu how much better chicken stew is than breakfast cereal, and Bagonabike is wondering whether to take off some of her baggy outer layers because it is very hot, but is still feeling a bit too shy. "I wonder what Ravenbait is doing," Tim Pike ponders out loud in the presence of Macleach, the Archaeologist and Bardsandwarriors. Macleach shrugs, partially just enjoying the loosening effect of the sun's heat on his manly shoulders. "I'm sure it's important," he says. Kev67 sits next to Kehaar. "So what happened to you after you helped Hazel, Five and Bigwig escape General Woundwort?" "I flies away and make lots of chicks, yes. Flies away to the biiiiiig water and eat and fly and make leetle chicks. Then a big wind comes and I am getting lost and tired. So hungry." Kehaar's face becomes wistful. "I was very high." "Like the moon!" calls a voice from somewhere. "Go on, Kehaar," Kev67 says. "I get so tired and so I fall, yes yes. Just like before, but zis time ze wing he is not broken, is just is very tired. So she finds me, your friend, who is coming here for somesing, yes. It is too far for me to get back and it nice here. It warm. People friendly. Plenty fish. Plenty ladies." He swallows the last of the fish and starts cackling. "Plenty ladies! Plenty ladies!" "Better than a bloody parrot, anyway," says Jack Sparrow moodily. "Right then. Let's get things ship shape and Bristol fashion! Avast ye! There be piratin' to be done!" The time to relax and reflect is over. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 24/02/2004 12:45:56 Message: Sun eh? I remember that. Hope we are going to find out what you are doing in the next episode. "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 24/02/2004 17:33:05 Message: Compost anyone? What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 24/02/2004 18:50:13 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait "Better than a bloody parrot, anyway," says Jack Sparrow moodily. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Captain! Captain Jack Sparrow." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 01/03/2004 10:43:55 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 1 Good morning boys and girls! Welcome to the first in the special extended edition of our gripping and educational adventure periodical for gentlefolk of all ages endowed with a youthful disposition! When last we left our intrepid heroes and heroines they had finally met up with Captain Jack Sparrow, that most infamous of pirates, and had joined with his crew upon the pirate ship The Black Pearl, the finest galleon ever to sail the seven seas. Now they sail ever closer to the boundaries of what is righteous and decent, and yet we know that, while stained and dirtied by a life of roguishness and lawlessness, any gentleman or lady would recognise that this buccaneer has honour. Just as well, for it does seem that the lovely and courageous Mrs Pike would otherwise be at risk of impropriety and of losing her modesty! And what of the Priestess, last seen leaving the rest of the League and the Sorority to go on without her? Has she finally been unmasked for a coward? Has she finally lost her mind to the world of strange and pagan gods and creatures that all right-thinking boys and girls know should never become more important than hockey, rugger, tuck and other good things of that nature? Or is something more sinister afoot, and, like a true heroine of the League, she is sparing her most fine and noble friends from horrific risk and danger? There is only one way to find out, noble reader. The adventure awaits.... Ship's biscuit and wrinkled apples do not make a good meal for hungry cyclist or pirate alike. Fortunately Captain Jack Sparrow has some very firm ideas about what to feed his crew. He also has Jack Shandy, who once was a puppeteer and had a much more French-sounding name, although that was before he crossed paths with the notorious Edward Teach, by then known as Blackbeard, and discovered just why the venomous old sea-dog wore smouldering gun cotton in his beard. Much water has passed under the bows since then, and he is a quiet mainstay of the Black Pearl's crew. He is useful to Captain Jack for more than just his unique touch with a chicken stew. His time as one of Blackbeard's unwilling minions gave him opportunity to learn some things that most folk of the sea would not learn willingly. Magic things. Now he sits on the bowsprit dropping crumbs of old, stale biscuit into the water that surges past, and when the dolphins come he watches the way they slip and slide through the clear blue water, and the way the sun dapples on their thick hides, and he counts the number of times that they surface against the number of times the ship rears her prow in the long swell. He scans the sea ahead for any flotsam and squints up into the sky to look for sign. "I hope you know a good houngan or mambo, feathered one. That is one mighty baka you mess with," he murmurs. He could be talking to the dolphins who still surge and soar in the bow-wave. "Or maybe you should be seeking a bokor. I hope you know what you are doing." He scatters the rest of the biscuit into the sea, brushes the remaining crumbs from his hands and then wanders back down to the galley with a distant, faraway look on his face, to prepare gumbo for the evening meal. * * * Back in the torturous, twisting folds that comprise A-Time, Fingal and Ravenbait are hunting. Like a loyal hound, Fingal knows just where his mistress wants to go and is doing his very best to get her there. The only problem is that the where isn't a where. It is a who. The location of the who keeps changing. The Hollow Man knows that the Priestess is on his trail and for some reason, despite more than a decade of uneasy truce, he does not want to be found. This is not going to stop either woman or bike, however, and while the rest of the League and the Sorority are sunning themselves on the warm wooden planking of The Black Pearl, Ravenbait is being led ever further down into the dank, grey and dingey corners of A-Time, where shades go to hide from the harsh light of self-awareness and where others go to hide amongst the shades. Thought and Memory sit vanguard, one on the bars, one on the rack. When it gets overgrown, as it is here, in this lost, forgotten corner that once was beautiful and well-tended, then they must. Briars grow now where once was a rose garden, and there is heavy worm sign. This part of A-Time is already being recycled into new memories. One of the Gardens of the Lost, then, those whose spirits die before their lives are truly over. A fine place for a shade. But Ravenbait knows that her quarry is not here. She scents the air and consults the ravens. He was never here, except that he was not unconnected with the sad demise of the woman whose spirit garden this had once been. "People have the right to choose, boss," says Thought. "Even when that choice is a sorry one." "I know," says the priestess grimly, as they force their way out of the garden and onto a stony path with a stagnant stream flowing in a ditch alongside it. Fingal, being slightly twitchy in the steering department, does not like this surface and is struggling to maintain his course. The priestess sends the ravens high overhead to look for a better route, and offers up a prayer to her Goddess to help her on her way; and to the One Eyed God, the Oathbreaker, Backstabber, to help her find her quarry.. The birds return with news that there is a better track only a little way distant. "Come on, sweetheart," she murmurs to her bike. "It gets better soon and when we get home I'll strip and clean the whole transmission." They make it to the cleaner surface, and in the far distance the priestess sees a flock of crows. "A murder of crows," she mutters with a grim smile. "Well now. Let's just see what you've got to say for yourself." Fingal's lumicycles pierce the gloom and the two ravens flank her, soaring with hardly a flap of wings, as they follow the gritted clay track designed for use by an unaccompanied 12 year old, finally to reach the end of their hunt. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 01/03/2004 12:48:10 Message: Does anyone want to be a zombie? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Dickie Replied on: 01/03/2004 12:52:53 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait Does anyone want to be a zombie? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That will be me in the morning then. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: jokeyjon Replied on: 01/03/2004 12:57:18 Message: I think I already am Ich heisse superfantastich -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 01/03/2004 13:25:41 Message: Great stuff as usual Sam. Wanted - Zebra specialized Allez; 56cm. Go here for more info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 01/03/2004 13:31:23 Message: I wouldn't mind a brief foray into zombiedom but not permanent. I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 01/03/2004 14:03:23 Message: I'll only turn into zombies those who want to be turned into zombies, and of course it won't be permanent. I could be fibbing, of course. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 01/03/2004 14:08:29 Message: Ok, sign me up. As long as I don't have to dance with Michael Jackson! I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Flying_Monkey Replied on: 01/03/2004 14:11:07 Message: Sorry Sam, only just had time to catch up the latest ripping yarn... nice to see I hadn't been forgotten. I lived in the woods not far from West Kennett for a while... lovely. Ah, all we need now is a visit from the ArchDrude Julian himself and his Autogedden avengers to save us from the evil car culture or at least give us a very information lecture on the mythic history of longbarrows... (I was listening to Julian Cope again last week, a very bad habit, I know)... ----- The nature of Monkey was... outta here ----- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 01/03/2004 14:17:21 Message: Sorry, I can't even be in the same building as the ArchDrude. He fills me with urges with which the Meatsafe Murderer would be familiar. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Flying_Monkey Replied on: 01/03/2004 17:50:39 Message: Doesn't surprise me, but apparently he is a very nice man in reality - or so says my archeologist friend who worked with him on the projected Irish part of his book which wasn't included in the end... ----- The nature of Monkey was... outta here ----- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: bardsandwarriors Replied on: 01/03/2004 18:53:57 Message: If I haven't had my beauty sleep, I could be someone who looks like a zombie but who isn't one really if everyone owned a car, what a smelly, dangerous, noisy, stressful, unhealthy, expensive society this would be... oh, wait... it is! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: zombie Replied on: 01/03/2004 20:49:42 Message: might I be of assistance? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Richie1964 Replied on: 01/03/2004 21:01:01 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by zombie might I be of assistance? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, now get back in your crypt you smelly article. Damn undead get right on my wick "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 01/03/2004 21:09:43 Message: Thats speciesist that is. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 05/03/2004 15:35:59 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 2 On the deck of the pirate ship The Black Pearl, Zipperhead, Jokeyjon, FatBat, Nuttycyclist, TooMuchCake and PH are lying in the bright, hot, equatorial sun and discussing whether or not the crewmen scampering around in the rigging like so many monkeys should be wearing helmets. It would, Jokeyjon observed, possibly provide some protection should one of them lose his grip and plunge to the hard wooden planking below. FatBat points out that it might make swimming more difficult should one of them fall overboard, and Nutty notes that they might be at more of a risk from overheating. Then it occurs to them that it is really far too hot to argue about that sort of thing, and they agree that it should be up to the individual pirate whether or not to utilise head protection more robust than the commonplace headkerchief. On the poop deck the Archaeologist is trying on a suit of armour that he found in the hold, and seeing if it is possible to ride in it. There isn't really enough space on the deck to ride safely, and the pirates gawp at him in astonishment as he careens around the narrow perimeter, swinging past stanchions and ducking under stays. Some of the crew can be heard to mutter irascible, uncomplimentary comments about how he has caught 'sun-fever'. A good-natured argument has broken out about whether Guiness is nice or not. Gonzo is evidently becoming more and more smitten with the fair maiden Kitzy: her past dalliances with the would-be Kwisatz Haderach Thaumatrope are of no consequence to him and seemingly of little consequence to her. 'Tis not that Kitzy is a dishonourable wench, fit for the life of a serving maid or scullion. No! Youth is naturally fickle and flighty, and cares not for the more esoteric and difficult pleasures of the longer view. Jalapeno is conducting a taste test of milk of varying fat content. It is not going very successfully. The brave sir Chuffy has resolutely refused to take part, insisting that the only proper milk is full fat. This is probably quite wise, as Jalapeno has not taken into account the scorching heat of the tropical sun. It is quite unlikely that any of the three varieties on offer is fit for consumption. Each is slightly odiferous, as of a badly made cheese. Bagonabike managed to get lost somewhere for a while and even now is waving frantically through a small hatchway that is just too tiny for her to squeeze through. Chuffy is promising to find her a way out. LamBO has turned maudlin for some reason, and is trying to get people to tell him what their last ride ever would have to be. Someone implies that he might have drunk a little too much of Captain Jack's rum to get into this sort of mood, but LamBO insists he's just bored. Derall suggests he doesn't repeat that too loudly, in case he gets press-ganged into doing some work up above in the rigging. Cuddy Duck, Pingu and Seagul, however, have convened a meeting of the Aquatic Fowl On Bikes Society, and are up in the Crow's Nest, enjoying the view over a quiet beer and some carrot cake. A pelican swings past, giving them the bent eye before soaring off away over the starboard quarter towards the horizon. Far away, seemingly at the edge of the world, where the sea and the sky merge into a safety net that stops people falling off, there is a faint hint of grey and a swathe of fluffy white cloud piled up like a Mr Whippy, sans flake. "Excuse me, Mr Pirate?" Cuddy smiles politely at one of the swarthy, dirty, rigging-monkeys doing something inscrutable with a wooden peg and a piece of rope while sitting astride a rough-looking spar. "Yars. Worrizzit?" He coughs, hawks, sniffs and spits a large gobbet of green phlegm carefully to leeward. It flies away on the wind to land unseen in the aquamarine blue of the Pacific. "Sorry to disturb you in your pursuit of utilitarian satisfaction in this apparently bourgeois and capitalist enterprise, but is that meant to be there?" The pirate looks at him blankly, the half-open mouth of the vacuous expression revealing several missing teeth and several more blackened ones. "Whart?" he asks. "That," repeats the Duck, this time pointing with outstretched finger at the cotton-wool mass on the distant horizon. The pirate swivels round to look in the indicated direction, and starts, as if taken surprise by a sudden hiccup. "Well bugger me," he says. He cups his grime-ingrained hands to his mouth and shouts down to the deck below. "Laaaaand ahooooooy!!!" Down below, the door to the main cabin is thrust open and Captain Jack Sparrow swaggers out, blinking owlishly and squinting in the bright sunshine. He glances up at the Crow's Nest and sees the pirate pointing and gesticulating. Moving swiftly, if a little erratically, towards the rail he leans over, shielding his eyes from the blistering sun, and looks in that general direction. "Telescope!" he calls. His first mate scrambles over and hands him an antique brass instrument. Captain Jack extends it, puts it to his eye and scans the horizon. "Ahhh," he says. "About time." He shuts the telescope and slaps it unceremoniously into the hand of his mate without even sparing him a glance. Jack Shandy emerges from the galley, wiping his hands on a rag. Captain Jack strides across the deck and shoos the helmsman away from the wheel, alters course and checks it against a compass that he takes from his pocket. "You be keeping her pointing over there, my lad," he says to the helmsman. The 'lad' is indeed little more than a boy, whippet thin and wiry, brown as a nut from exposure to sun and sea. "Shandy! Break out a portion of rum for the men." "Aye Captain," he says. He pronounces it 'capitan'. "And you might as well break out Mate Care-For's pennant while you're at it, Shandy lad. It can't hurt. "You want I make a veve?" Captain Jack gives him a sudden smile, brief and fleeting. "Not yet, Shandy, not yet." He scans the horizon once more, gaze lingering over the mountain of cloud that is undeniably closer, as if he can somehow see further, see inside the cloud, see what is there despite the intervening distance and wreaths of vapour. Shandy breaks out the rum barrel, calls two of the crew and has them distribute some of the liquor, one cup to each man. He keeps finding himself drawn to stare at that slowly-growing lump of cloud, and it is not until the dolphins return, leaping high out of the water off the side of the boat right next to him, dazzling him with reflections of the sun on their water-bright skins, that he can set his mind to the task at hand. The flag. Oui. It would not do to arrive without the protection of their loa. Not at all. In a few minutes the pennant has been run up, and is fluttering on the stiff breeze that just appeared, as if to make sure the flag displayed properly. Mate Care-For. Maitre Carrefour. Legba, Guardian of the Crossroads. The breeze plumps out the sails with the whump of tightening canvas, and The Black Pearl leaps across the sea. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 05/03/2004 16:10:31 Message: I do hope that's a proper flag and not a pair of Rigby's old pants... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 05/03/2004 16:19:48 Message: That depends on whether or not Rigby is un serviteur. He was a pony boy, after all. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: LamBO Replied on: 05/03/2004 16:26:14 Message: That's some pretty quick weaving in of recent events. Is this rum the source of "Best ever/worst ever" fever? - a muddled fool, full of lucid intervals - «Coffee has to be hot like hell, black as the devil, pure like an angel and sweet as love.» -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 05/03/2004 16:40:03 Message: Jolly good Sam, plenty of swashing of buckles, keep it up. Well, I've got nothing else to read, since Amazon have lost my order. Again. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 05/03/2004 19:35:11 Message: Just popping this one back to the top for those who might have missed it earlier :) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 05/03/2004 21:31:36 Message: Ohhh, cheers Chuffers. I missed this instalment due to finishing off reading gpf (the entire bleedin' archive in 3 days!). Keep up the good work sam. Wanted - Zebra specialized Allez; 56cm. Go here for more info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Aeroflash Replied on: 05/03/2004 21:42:23 Message: That's got to be the best pirate story I'v ever seen. Matt 'Quoth the Raven "This sucks chunky goats vomit through a twisty straw"' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 06/03/2004 00:24:00 Message: ...aaaaand back to the top! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: TimC Replied on: 06/03/2004 09:49:02 Message: Is that bloody Australian/New Zealander in this one? You know, the one who goes round in Roman armour beating up BBC producers What day is it? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 06/03/2004 17:35:03 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Gonzo I missed this instalment due to finishing off reading gpf (the entire bleedin' archive in 3 days!). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mwahahahaha! Another one bites! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 06/03/2004 17:44:59 Message: Yes, would you please NEVER post another one of them. *ahem* thank you I'm into C&H + that now. Damn you and your online comic knowledge. Wanted - Zebra specialized Allez; 56cm. Go here for more info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 06/03/2004 17:49:43 Message: Gonzo, how did you come up with the absolute spitting image of the phrase I was about to post? Damn you KP! I just *had* to go and look didn't I? Could someone come and poke me when it's time for work? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 06/03/2004 17:53:17 Message: ...and Ki is *HOT*!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 06/03/2004 17:55:29 Message: So we won't be seeing you 'til, oooh, Tuesday then Chuffers? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 06/03/2004 18:06:19 Message: I've got all evening. Just me and Ki. Adios amigos! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 06/03/2004 19:14:53 Message: Arrghhhh! An hour and a half later and I'm only up to October 1999 And I'm in lurrrve -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: simplesbharris Replied on: 06/03/2004 19:34:20 Message: wHATS THIS COMIC THING THEN? ME - future TdF WINNER - you read it here first. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 06/03/2004 19:38:53 Message: Click here and kiss your butt goodbye... ...and hands off Ki, she's mine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: simplesbharris Replied on: 06/03/2004 19:51:43 Message: and how do you do the little link thing? ME - future TdF WINNER - you read it here first. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 06/03/2004 19:52:06 Message: Don't click hereif you want to leave your computer for the next couple of days! Really don't do it. Wanted - Zebra specialized Allez; 56cm. Go here for more info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 06/03/2004 19:56:38 Message: Simples - (url="insert your link here"]type your chosen word or phrase in here[/url) but use square brackets instead of round ones at the beginning and end of the statement. Gonzo - stop looking over my shoulder! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: simplesbharris Replied on: 06/03/2004 20:01:08 Message: cool, I may be a while! GPF> rather funny! ME - future TdF WINNER - you read it here first. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 06/03/2004 20:17:40 Message: Sucker... ;) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 06/03/2004 22:22:46 Message: my mouse hand went numb... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 07/03/2004 13:14:46 Message: Well I don't find GPF any funnier than I find Dilbert, which isn't much. Red Meat is the thing for me. Now this is the Chronicles, not "How long have I just spent reading a geek comic strip." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: simplesbharris Replied on: 07/03/2004 15:05:10 Message: AAAhhhhhhh Sam, a little competition never hurt anyone, keeps you on the ball as it were, keeps ya fresh, keeps ya hungry. Besides, your No.1 in my book(comic). ME - future TdF WINNER - you read it here first. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 07/03/2004 17:14:49 Message: Just keeping the Chronicles on the front page honey chile' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Aeroflash Replied on: 07/03/2004 19:47:10 Message: Ah, Red Meat... 'Don't be silly dear, nipples don't just "come off"'. ...Or '..That and the fact that I was butt nekkid and holding a gun' ...Or 'I know - it's been following me round for the last three days. At least it doesn't go with me to the bathroom.' Matt 'Quoth the Raven "This sucks chunky goats vomit through a twisty straw"' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 08/03/2004 09:45:07 Message: "If I wouldn't look when it was screamin', what makes it think I'm gonna look now?" My favourite Bug Eyed Earl. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 08/03/2004 16:02:39 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 3 Jack Shandy, once John Chandagnac, the puppeteer whose land and titles had been stolen by a murderous uncle in league with Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, stands by the helm where Captain Jack Sparrow holds court with his legs wide for balance and his eyes dancing with that playful inner light Shandy knows so well. Off the port bow a dolphin leaps. The skin is freckled and the dolphin spins gaily through the air, corkscrewing gracefully. "Merde!" Shandy exclaims softly, under his breath. "Capitain!" Captain Sparrow raises an eyebrow. "I must make a veve." "Now why would that be?" "Because she thinks she is going to face just one man, an old acquaintance, just one baka. This is not the case. She is alone!" "You leave that flour be, old friend," Captain Jack tells him, winking slyly. "I don't think she'd want or appreciate your interference, whatever she's up to." Shandy stares out across the briny blue where the spinner dolphins, scores of them now, are playing. "You may be right," he says. "I hope you are." "I'm not often wrong," says his Captain. * * * Ravenbait freewheels gently across the packed clay trail and comes to a stop at the edge of a clearing. Within the clearing waits the Hollow Man. He is tall, a good deal more than six feet. His features are gaunt, almost cadaver-like, with razor-sharp cheekbones and a scythe of a nose that has large but refined nostrils. He is pale, so pale he is almost blue, and his dark, grey-brown hair hangs in lank, greasy skeins to his shoulders. He is wearing a fedora, the shadow cast by the brim dropping his eyes into two deep pools of impenetrable shade separated by the bright white ridge of his nose. Thin lips are wet by a pointed pink tongue that regularly runs back and forth in a sensuous manner. His grey raincoat is crumpled and dirty. He is barefoot, and his toenails are encrusted with black filth, the soles of his feet long since blackened and roughened. The cuffs of his grey trousers, which are too big for him and look like they were obtained from a charity shop, are frayed and worn. His hands, although dirty, with broken nails and the blue tint of a corpse, are surprisingly elegant. They look like an artist's hands. It would be easy to imagine them dancing along the neck of a violin. There is a scent on the air. It rings faint alarm bells in the Priestess' head but she has too much on which to concentrate at this precise time. She dismounts from Fingal and the ravens take up their positions, one on either shoulder; Thought on the right, Memory on the left. She wheels the bike over to where the man waits. "Hello old friend," she says softly. She takes off her Met Stradivarius and the Rudy Project Freons crafted for her by Wayland the Smith. The ground is littered with crow feathers. "It has been a while." "It has been ten years, my lady," he replies. His voice contains sibilants and aspirants even when there are none in the words, as if there are a thousand voices whispering along with him. He raises his head slightly, just a fraction, so that a little light catches his eyes and a tiny star appears in each of the pools of shadow below his brow. As he moves the raincoat falls open slightly, revealing a thin, white, naked torso with clearly visible ribs and a hollow stomach. He has no navel above the waistband of his trousers, for he was not born of woman. He has the look of a man starved by fever, and his smile is cruel. "I can't say I have missed your company," she tells him. The smell is slightly stronger. It is acrid, weak but pungent. It registers as being out of place here. "The feeling is mutual, be assured," he replies. "And our agreement was mutually beneficial. Your master has never complained nor raised issue with my Grandfather." Her tones are even. "So why now? What brings you to interfere with me and mine?" The scent is most definitely getting stronger. The ravens fidget uneasily. Ravenbait does her best to stay focused but the smell is putting her on edge. It is as if she knows what it is, and under any other circumstance she would identify it immediately, but here, here where that scent should never be, she cannot determine it. "I was approached by someone who made my Master a better offer," he smiles, with a scarecrow shrug. The twin points of light, still all that can be seen of his eyes, dance. "And who would that be?" the Priestess asks him. "Who would make a good enough offer to interfere with two decades of peaceful co-existence?" "It hasn't always been peaceful, my lady," he reminds her, chuckling softly. "Who?" she asks him again, demanding, voice a whiplash. The Hollow Man merely smiles, unflustered by an exhibition of the Voice that would have most grown men crying for their mothers. "Come now," he says paternally. "You know who. You can smell him in the air." He turns round and simultaneously takes a step backward, to stand at Ravenbait's side. The smell is almost choking now, and the Priestess knows what it is. She turns to stare at him, looking up into those gimlet eyes, jet black orbs meeting a pair the colour of dried blood on a brutalised corpse. "But he's dead. I killed him," she whispers, shocked, struggling to maintain her composure. "Did you see the body?" The pink tongue snakes out again to wet lips pulled upwards in a predatory smile. "I do not believe you did." There is a roar, a sudden bellow of valves and exhaust. Bushes and trees creak, splinter and collapse as the enormous SUV crashes through into the clearing. The Hollow Man steps towards the edge of the grass; steps away from Ravenbait. He bows, making a sweeping gesture with his arm as if presenting the next act in a performance. Ravenbait looks up, looks up and up and fights to quell the sudden nausea wrapping bilious claws around her insides. "Dear Gods no," she whispers. "The gods have very little to do with it," her erstwhile companion tells her. Facing her across the clearing is a modified Humvee: a 12 litre, 12 cylinder monstrosity. Pinned to the bonnet is the corpse of a dead pterodactyl, still the bright orange it had been when Ravenbait last saw it flying away into the distant depths of A-Time. The engine guns, the challenge more than clear. The Humungous is back and he wants revenge. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 08/03/2004 16:07:40 Message: Another episode, AND (2 out of 3 of) my parcels have arrived from Amazon! Monday is looking up! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Brock Replied on: 08/03/2004 17:00:28 Message: I've got chills, they're mutiplying. Brrrrrr. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 08/03/2004 17:07:15 Message: Edge of your seat stuff! Wanted - Zebra specialized Allez; 56cm. Go here for more info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 08/03/2004 17:27:13 Message: We should have gone with her. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 09/03/2004 11:26:19 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 4 Soundtrack: Hawkwind - The Xenon Codex Ravenbait stands and stares. The Humvee towers over her, the monstrous machine dwarfing everything around it, including the trees. This one is even bigger than the previous machine owned by the Humungous. She can see him inside: his pasty grey flesh even flabbier than before; more of it crammed into and spilling out of the harness that attaches the naked, quivering body to the machine. She can almost hear the whine of the anti-gravity hover motors that support him when he is not inside the vehicle and smell his rank odour, which contains notes of salty cheese and engine oil. All this is dredged from her memory in an instant by a single glimpse of the man-mountain inside his armoured car. All of this is indelibly imprinted on her mind, branded there during hours of torture that she can never, ever forget. She cannot take her eyes off the Humungous. She cannot wrest her gaze from the immense radiator grill and the BOAT-shredding tyres. She cannot quite believe that he is there, in front of her, rather than dead and eaten; that the terrible noise deafening her is really coming from his vehicle. It's all too much. The High Priestess of the Triple Goddess of Cycling, that bastion of cool, calm, demeanour, one of the people the cyclists of the Cake Stop turn to when all becomes chaos around them, is suddenly very, very afraid. "Oh Rupert," she whispers. "What have you done?" The Hollow Man looks up then, his face finally fully visible, startled by the use of a name that was last used so long ago that he had forgotten that there was anyone who knew it. "His Master's Voice, my lady," he says, and there is no rancour in his tone. The Humungous guns the Humvee. The engine revs; a threatening, warning roar promising death and destruction. Still unable to take her eyes off the vehicle, Ravenbait carefully and deliberately hangs the Met helmet on Fingal's aerobars and dons the Rudy Projects once more. Inside the Humvee, the Humungous is grinning and laughing manically. He releases the clutch for an instant and the vehicle makes a heart- stopping lunge across the clearing, brought short so that the driver can savour the moment. The ravens, taking an unspoken cue, suddenly launch themselves vertically upwards, rocketing heavenwards as if shot from a catapault. "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right..." the Priestess sings softly under her breath. Her right hand is holding firmly on to Fingal's top tube. Her left hand is making a series of complicated gestures, only the fingers moving. "You're singing our song," says the Hollow Man, apparently moved enough to take a faltering, involuntary step towards her. The Humvee is winding up the revs again, the 12 cylinder, twin V6 engine leaking hot fumes and toxic stench. The Humungous is slipping the clutch, the SUV inching a little further across the grass. Ravenbait smiles at that. It is something of a desolate expression. Her head tilts slightly to one side, as if contemplating a particularly odious substance found caught in the recesses of a cleat. Her fingers are flying, a blur of movement that is not transmitted to any other muscle in her body. "Be seeing you," the Hollow Man tells her as the Humungous decides he cannot tease himself with anticipation another second and finally releases the clutch, sending the enormous vehicle careening across the clearing, throwing up a cascade of black earth from its spinning tyres. There is real fear on the Priestess' face, her expression caught in a moment of utter, paralyzing terror. The SUV leaps across the clearing, causing the dirt to tremble. Ravenbait disappears with a crump of imploding space. All that is left is a single feather that slowly floats down to land on the grass after the Humvee has torn its way past the spot where she had been standing. Both she and her bike have gone. The Hollow Man strolls languidly across the grass, frowning a little at the vast tyre marks that have been left by the passage of the Humungous. He bends down, swiftly, fluidly, and picks up that one black feather that fell from the sky, picking it out with no hesitation from the hundreds of crow feathers already lying on the ground, some now matted into the earth, torn and half-buried. The lid on the Humvee hisses open and the whine of the anti-grav devices provides an irritant counterpoint to the thrumbling of the now-idle engine. The Humungous floats out, rolls of fat on his useless legs and enormous belly wobbling, white and grey like a maggot, bald head round and swollen, now suffused with a red rage that make the flesh around his tiny eyes swell even further until he seems almost blind. "Where did she go?!" he screams in a fury, putting a strain on the hissing, clicking pumps keeping him supplied with the polluted air that he needs to stay alive. The Hollow Man looks at him with some obvious distaste, twirling the feather in his fingers as if reminiscing about secret, private things that had once brought him great pleasure. "Did you expect her just to stand there while you ran her over in your car?" he asks. He folds his arms, still twirling the feather. "She will pay for what she did to me!" "Yes, I'm sure she will," the Hollow Man replies kindly, as if reassuring a three year old that his dead goldfish really has gone to Heaven to live with the angels, and the toilet bowl is the entrance to Heaven for all small cyprinid fish. "Where did she go?" the Humungous screams again in impotent rage. "Well, why don't you go and find her friends? I'm sure she'll turn up sooner or later and maybe they'll keep you amused until you find her," the Hollow Man suggests, already bored with what he knows is a permanent case of road rage, imprinted at the cellular level. "It's all programmed into your sat-nav system, so off you go. There's a chap." Tucking the single raven feather very carefully into the pocket of his jacket, he spreads his arms out, cruciform, and then brings them sharply down. He explodes, and crows fly off in all directions. Many more feathers fall from the sky. The Humungous floats for a while, fury bubbling, incandescent. Then, mashing the controls in frustration so that the quivering man-fat of his bulk is jostled and jerked into seismic heaving, he flies back into his Humvee and starts forcing his way, roughsod, in the direction indicated by the on-board navigation system. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 09/03/2004 13:09:56 Message: Hmmm. Maybe all that quivering man-fat business is a bit graphic for a family forum such as this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: jokeyjon Replied on: 09/03/2004 13:24:32 Message: Judging by the weight loss thread, there are probably many here who can empathise... Ich heisse superfantastich -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: TooMuchCake Replied on: 09/03/2004 13:42:47 Message: Is The Humungous actually comprised of all the flab that the weight-loss group are trying to lose? The thought that I may have contributed to the creation of such a foul being leaves me racked with guilt. Perhaps if we were to all eat sh!t loads of chocolate he'll slowly shrink until he disappears completely 'cos it's no problem if you play it cool Things are different when you act the fool -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 09/03/2004 15:49:19 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 5 Soundtrack Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R The Black Pearl has anchored in a small bay off a tiny island. The mountain, just off-centre in the middle of the island, is tall and has white clouds coiling about it like ghostly serpents. The sea is a mirror, so clear that glancing over the side of the ship gives some of the Cake Stop members severe attacks of vertigo. The sands are a mix of brilliant white and volcanic black, streaked in beautiful patterns like cake decoration. A small group of unidentified birds stands on the beach and stares at the galleon floating in the bay. Their brilliant white plumage stands out in stark contrast against the trees behind, the dense foliage creating a backdrop of green so dark it is almost black. A family of small black pigs trots across the sand, the 6 piglets squealing merrily to one another. Land crabs scuttle around in the leaf litter at the edge of the trees, and shore crabs dance around the dead seaweed in the littoral zone. Beautiful, exotic shells litter the beach, some so large they can be seen clearly even from the deck of the ship. The cyclists are a tad concerned. Most of them are on road bikes, or recumbents. Only the Archaeologist is really suitably equipped for beach riding, and the vegetation is so thick that they can't see past this empty stretch of beach before them. "What are we doing here exactly, Captain Sparrow sir?" Gunner asks, his manly voice booming from his Adonis-like frame. "Well, we would be waitin'," Captain Jack Sparrow replies, slightly impatiently. His eyes drift sideways to the pennant, which is still fluttering as though whipped by a stiff breeze, although the air is still. "What are we waiting for, exactly?" Gunner asks, not to be put off. "A bevy of beautiful ladies, perhaps?" "No," Captain Jack rolls his eyes. "Not exactly." He seems to make a decision and beckons Gunner closer. They lean heads towards one another conspiratorially. Gunner is almost floored by the alcoholic vapour on Captain Jack's breath but bears up stoically. "See that lad of yours, the stripey fellow?" Gunner recognises a description of Gonzo when he hears one and nods. "He reminds me of someone, he does. He reminds me a lot of someone. Someone I used to know. It struck me as interestin', so it did, especially after the message your Priestess sent me. And I've been puttin' a few things together in me head, like. So's I know this is the right place." "For what?" asks Gunner, nonplussed himself for once, and wondering if Captain Jack Sparrow has been spending too much time with Yenrod as well as the rum. "Ahhhhh," the pirate Captain says unhelpfully, tapping the side of his nose and winking. He turns, half-staggering, at least in appearance, and surveys the beach again. "Right then lads! Let's get this rabble ashore! Break out the longboats!" The ship erupts into feverish activity. There is fresh water to be had on shore, and fresh meat in the form of game. There are fires to be built and sails to be mended. The cyclists watch, sick and nervous, as their bikes are loaded into the boats by foul-mouthed but evidently competent pirates and taken ashore. There might be a splash or two of salt water on the frames, but not one of them is dropped overboard, and they are all carried through the surf to dry land. The cyclists are next to disembark, and a few of them choose to swim. FatBloke wisely decides not to swim, thinking that it might just be pushing his luck to go into the sea where it would be just like him to run into a Japanese whaler. Greenpeace might not be so helpful this time. It does not take them long to discover that, far from the beach being no more than an empty strip of sand fronting a thick, impenetrable jungle, there is, in fact, a road. It is not possible to see it from the sea because it is hidden behind a rocky outcrop. Either side of the road are sticks sunk into the ground, and they are adorned with the skulls of various animals, their eye sockets staring vacantly as if their gazes are fixed on something that no living eyes can see. Kathy runs over and starts cooing over them, wondering out loud whether one of them might be a ferret that she could steal for showing to little children. Shandy shakes his head, muttering something under his breath that no one can quite hear. The road appears to be made of crushed volcanic rock overlaid with sand and packed dirt. It is better than some Sustrans tracks, and therefore all but the leanest of race bikes should manage it with ease, and even the race bikes ought to be able to negotiate it with a little care. The road goes up, winding upwards towards the mountain over a ridge of geology that has no trees growing upon it. It disappears quickly from view, giving no hint nor clue of where it might go, and the intense heat haze obscures it further, rather like viewing it through a glass smeared with WD40. Something strange has come over Gonzo. He is staring at the road, eyes somewhat glazed, mumbling about weetabix and shredded wheat and how his mum never fed him properly. Kitzy, her noble soul compelling her to charity, tries to soothe and comfort him but he seems not to hear her. He is lost amongst internal voices now. "One mile at 11%!" he cries suddenly, then mounts his bike and heads off up the avenue of skulls. "Shouldn't we try to stop him?" Kitzy cries, distraught. "No love," Captain Jack tells her gently. "He'll be all right. You'll see." The other cyclists are also shocked by Gonzo's sudden disappearance. It looks like he might be the guilty party after all! Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 09/03/2004 16:03:19 Message: I've got the conch! You've all got to do what I say! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 09/03/2004 20:44:46 Message: Shut up, I have the speaking stick. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: redshift Replied on: 09/03/2004 21:43:30 Message: (sigh)You know, it's a strange thing, but every time I've read the Chronicles in the last few days, the theme tune from "Captain Pugwash" has suddenly started running through my head. I can only put it down to a sudden influx of work, as I definitely don't seem to be running on quite the same voltage as everyone else. L Windcheetah 176 http://www.redshift.uklinux.net/ ...handbuilt by daleks... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 09/03/2004 21:45:07 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Electrically challenged Shifty-->I definitely don't seem to be running on quite the same voltage as everyone else. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You just need some rice pudden' girl --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: redshift Replied on: 09/03/2004 21:51:14 Message: diddly-dum diddly-dum di-dumdi-dum di-dumdi-dumdi diddly-dum diddly-dum... Now you can have it running through your head too... L Windcheetah 176 http://www.redshift.uklinux.net/ ...handbuilt by daleks... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 09/03/2004 21:54:25 Message: What's Captain Pugwash mummy? Is it what people used to listen to in the old days? --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 09/03/2004 21:56:39 Message: He,he he. Great stuff. But you know how it is, you see an 11% hill for a mile and you just have to go up it. It's like...um...it's like they call me! Wanted - Zebra specialized Allez; 56cm. Go here for more info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: redshift Replied on: 09/03/2004 21:57:58 Message: Oedipal complex Chuffy? Do you normally bat eyelashes at your mum? L Windcheetah 176 http://www.redshift.uklinux.net/ ...handbuilt by daleks... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 09/03/2004 21:59:41 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shifty-->Do you normally bat eyelashes at your mum? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nah, just at people older than me --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: redshift Replied on: 09/03/2004 22:04:06 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Evilchuffy quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shifty-->Do you normally bat eyelashes at your mum? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nah, just at people older than me -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ah, respect for the voice of experience then. Very commendable in the juvenile of the species. L Windcheetah 176 http://www.redshift.uklinux.net/ ...handbuilt by daleks... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 09/03/2004 22:05:19 Message: Touche! --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: redshift Replied on: 09/03/2004 22:09:15 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Evilchuffy Touche! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A duel sir? Euphoniums at twenty paces...* *possibly should be 'euphonia' but I'm quoting. L Windcheetah 176 http://www.redshift.uklinux.net/ ...handbuilt by daleks... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: cuddy duck Replied on: 09/03/2004 22:15:31 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "One mile at 11%!" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gasp. Shouldn't someone stay and guard the tenders and, er, rum from the black piglets? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 09/03/2004 22:27:33 Message: Don't make things more complicated! I've got to try to weave these two plots together in a seamless fashion now! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 09/03/2004 22:33:12 Message: I'll guard the rum --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 09/03/2004 22:37:38 Message: Out of intrest Sam, why do you always speak like this If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 09/03/2004 22:44:13 Message: It's meant to be Sam muttering under her breath, also functions as an inner monologue. don't they teach kids nuffin' in school these days? --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 10/03/2004 08:59:29 Message: Because, Gonzo, it's not part of the story and mustn't be mistaken to be. These are what are known as "comments aside". This is me talking, not the narrator. Part of writing a good story is deciding what character the narrator is. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 10/03/2004 09:03:45 Message: Ahhhhh, cunning. If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gunner Rodgers Replied on: 10/03/2004 09:22:17 Message: "Don't stop me now, I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball.." Gunner Rodgers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 10/03/2004 09:30:32 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Kathy Pike I've got the conch! You've all got to do what I say! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyone referring to me as "Piggy" WILL be baseball-batted! I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 10/03/2004 16:09:29 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 6 Soundtrack: Afro Celt Sound System - Sound Magic On a flat rock that he wishes was further above the high water mark than it is, Jack Shandy is laying out a complex pattern of flour and cornmeal. The veve he is creating is a symbolic representation of their loa, Mate Care-for, better known as Legba, Guardian of the Crossroads. The Crossroads are part of the central myth that is Voudon, westernised as 'voodoo': they are the place where the spirit world and the world of the physical meet, and their Guardian will be a powerful and welcome ally in what lies ahead. While the cyclists may not be aware of what lies in wait at the top of that road, the Priestess had taken a pretty good guess after talking to the Australians. It is, he reflects, a tangled web of a world. The Australians may not have been puppeteers in the manner of Shandy and Shandy's father, but puppeteers they had been nonetheless, and Shandy had been at that performance. He had seen the strange behaviour of the young lad in the zebra stripes and had reported the same to his Captain. His Captain, of course, although giving the impression of being a useless drunk most of the time, was as sharp as a Toledo steel and a walking encyclopaedia when it came to criminal activities that might affect him. When the two ravens turned up with the rather obscure and cryptic message, Captain Jack Sparrow had immediately guessed where they would be going, and once Gonzo had turned up, and the likeness had been so startlingly obvious.... well. That just settled things. With the final sacrifice of rum, candy and chicken blood made in the proper fashion, Shandy, now dripping with sweat from the exertion of maintaining focus in the face of the mighty power that is Maitre Carrefour calls across to his Captain. "It is done," he says, panting a little. There is an immediate release in tension from the other pirates. The Cake Stop massive are completely oblivious to the work that has been completed. "Right then," Captain Jack says brightly to the cyclists. "Now you can go. You have about six hours." "And then what happens?" Brock asks, puzzled. "Well, then the tide comes too far in," Captain Jack says as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. "See that rock over there where Shandy is? That'll be underwater in about six hours." He bares his teeth in a rather frightening grin. "I should think you'd want to be back here before then," he tells them. "Why?" Rigby inquires. "Is that when you serve tea and crumpet?" "No, my lad," says Captain Jack, his grin quite frightening indeed. "Because when the rock is underwater, Shandy's little picture will be all washed away," he gestures with one arm to illustrate the action of the sea on flour and cornmeal. "And when Shandy's little picture is washed away, then the safest place to be will be back on the Black Pearl. That's where we'll all be. I'd get a move on if I were you." He takes a swig of rum and then swaggers rather unsteadily back to his mean, who are already setting about lighting a cooking fire, as if Shandy has not done enough already Gunner, not entirely impressed with Captain Jack's lack of commitment to their cause, immediately takes charge and rallies everyone into something resembling a proper pack. "We are going after Gonzo, we are going to get to the bottom of this entire strange affair, and we are going to do it even if it takes longer than six hours!" he exclaims. "Who cares what happens to some abstract pattern of flour? This isn't the Tate Modern! Those are pirates, not Damien Hirst and chums!" Several of the cyclists look at each other uneasily. They think Gunner might have missed the point somehow. "We are the League of Gentlemen Cyclists!" he continues, undaunted. "What about us?" cries Kathy indignantly. "Yes yes. And the ladies. Now come along. We can't stand here idling all day!" There is the popping-bubblewrap noise of a collection of cyclists clipping into cleats not-quite simultaneously, and then they set off after the faint tread-marks Gonzo's tyres have left in the dust on the dry-baked road surface, running the gauntlet of those empty, staring eye sockets. * * * They soon find that the island is a lot bigger than they had imagined. As they ascend the slope to the side of the mountain they discover that on the other side the island stretches away from them. The volcano may look as if it is only slightly off-centre in a small island, but in fact it stands practically at one focal point of an irregular ellipse that stretches far enough that no one can make out the distant shore. The road winds on down into a jungle that is not dense enough to prevent sunlight reaching the ground. Through the trees they can see glimpses of grey stone structures that look South American, perhaps borrowing from Aztec architecture. The pack pauses for a moment at the crest of a ridge, an easy descent before them, and surveys the scenery. "I don't like this," says Kathy, shivering despite the hot sun. There are still skulls watching them from the verge, and she can't help but feel that those silent observers are somehow reporting back to someone who is marking their progress with deadly intent. "Don't worry, Little Miss Naughty," says Chuffy. He brandishes the mighty sword, still safely encased in its sheath. "I'm in the mood for smiting." "Anyway," Tim Pike says chivalrously. "I'm in front. Anything we meet will have to get through me first." "Badgers?" Redshift says, for no apparent reason. "We don' need no steenking badgers." Kitzy, although as nervous as Kathy, is getting impatient. She wants to find Gonzo and discover what has happened to him, why he is acting so strangely. "Come on," says Macleach. "There's no point just standing here." "The tracks carry on down the hill," Hairyhippy observes. They mount up and head off once more, down the long hill into the relative cool of the jungle shade. There are a lot of strange noises in the jungle. Birds, mostly, they decide. Cuddy Duck, Pingu and Seagul try a variety of the dialects they use when traversing the world's oceans, but are largely ignored and come to the conclusion that the species here must have been segregated from the rest of the world for thousands of years and thus evolved highly specialised languages. Either that or they aren't birds at all, but fish that have been genetically modified to live in trees and fly, rather than live in the sea and swim. It seems unlikely, but science is up to all sorts these days, after all. They all have the strange, undeniable sense that they are being watched, and it is making them nervous. After about half an hour of riding, the jungle opens out. There, in the middle of a vast clearing, is an enormous building in the Aztec style. Cuddy Duck finds himself glancing back at the mountain behind them, something niggling at the back of his mind, but he can't pin it down. At the top of the square- stepped pyramid is a golden statue, the details of which are impossible to make out at this distance, especially as it reflects the sun so brightly that it is painful to look upon. The skulls on the sticks at the side of the road have turned, without anyone noticing when, from animal to human. Gonzo's faint tyre tracks carry on, straight down, in the only direction possible. Straight into the yawning rectangular mouth of the pyramid. This, then, at long last, is the final destination. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 10/03/2004 16:19:49 Message: Yay! GM'd fish! Do they glow in the dark too? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: TooMuchCake Replied on: 10/03/2004 16:43:55 Message: Are they zebrafish? Or Fugu. If you could GM Fugu to REALLY inflate then you might be able to get them to float, like balloons. That would be worth seeing. 'cos it's no problem if you play it cool Things are different when you act the fool -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 10/03/2004 17:18:37 Message: I wonder if we'll meet Quetzocotal... What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 10/03/2004 22:00:56 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by RavenbaitThe skulls on the sticks at the side of the road have turned, without anyone noticing when, from animal to human. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sinister. Hopefully not a premonition as to what can happen riding up an 11% on a hot day....?? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Brock Replied on: 10/03/2004 23:40:46 Message: Wow, I'm honoured. Only been contributing to the forum for a couple of weeks and I score a speaking part in the wonderfully entertaining, brilliantly written, Chronicles. Cheered me up no end. Thanks Sam. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 00:30:05 Message: Flattery always helps. That's Quetzlcoatl, better known as Q, the Flying Serpent. And who knows? Maybe.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 11/03/2004 07:43:01 Message: , I've run out of remarks! If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 11/03/2004 08:11:48 Message: Alleluija!! "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: TooMuchCake Replied on: 11/03/2004 10:37:41 Message: It can't last... 'cos it's no problem if you play it cool Things are different when you act the fool -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 11/03/2004 11:03:58 Message: I say Sam old thing, you appear to have an Afro Celt album which I don't currently possess...Could you pop it in your saddle bag when you come visiting? Ta --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 11:09:18 Message: Chuffy, if I can work out how to act piratical on our new computer without playing Frood's swashbuckling game, I shall send something nice in the post to you -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 11/03/2004 11:13:00 Message: glee! --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 11/03/2004 11:23:45 Message: What is it with pirates at the moment? Everywhere I go on the internet, I'm finding huuuuuuge Pirate- v-Ninja threads! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 11:38:00 Message: You need to join the "My Mum Vs All-comers" community. Have you seen the "pirates v ninjas v monkeys" one? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 11/03/2004 11:40:50 Message: gasp, that is included in the story then? If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 11/03/2004 11:45:51 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait You need to join the "My Mum Vs All-comers" community. Have you seen the "pirates v ninjas v monkeys" one? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I already have done. An my mum'll 'ave yours! And yes, I've already seen the pirates v ninjas v monkeys v robots thread. I'm getting worried that Frood is me, but with fewer inhibitions. He's joined all the communities that I've been lurking in! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 12:15:56 Message: It's great! No longer the interminable hours being poked and prodded by an affectionate Frood! Now he spends all his free time on the computer! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 11/03/2004 12:20:03 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait It's great! No longer the interminable hours being poked and prodded by an affectionate Frood! Now he spends all his free time on the computer! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sounds familiar. It's either that, or the Xbox. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 11/03/2004 14:06:56 Message: Ahhh, so that's why we haven't seen tim recently! If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 14:24:03 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 7 Soundtrack: Outback - Baka The pack coasts to a stop at the base of the pyramid. Up close they can see that it is enormous. Immense, even. The open space around them could provide ample space for several football cricket pitches, all of Wimbledon twice over, and still have room left for a couple of nice velodromes or three. They feel very exposed, out in the open, and discover themselves nervously checking the sky for marauding predatory birds and killer bees. Everything is quiet. Too quiet. The sudden cessation of the near-deafening jungle birdsong and incessant whine and chirrup of the insects is somehow even more terrifying than the lines of human skulls along the side of the road. Cuddy Duck looks back over his shoulder again. There's still something about that volcano.... "Er. Chaps?" he says, swallowing on a dry throat. He repeats himself, more insistently. "Chaps?" "What is it?" Bible Basher Biker asks him. "Do correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure those skulls were facing towards the middle of the road when we passed them." "Yes," says B3. "They were." "Well, they're not now," the Duck informs him. At that the cyclists turn almost in unison to look. Sure enough, the skulls have swivelled on their sticks and are now looking towards the pyramid. Looking towards them. "Stealth cameras", whispers FatBloke, alarmed. "Could well be," Nutty agrees, "And not a school in sight." "No, just a ruddy great pyramid!" Gunner says, impatiently, flexing his manly chest. Bagonabike has to force herself to think about lobsters in an effort not to be swept under the spell of the Adonis-like form, which is even more impressive in the flesh. "Now are we going to find Gonzo or not?" "No need," Shen murmurs. "Here he comes now." From the darkness in the depths of the pyramid come two figures. One of them, obviously, is Gonzo. But with him is someone strange. Tall, thin, and apparently dressed in a catsuit. Definitely female. Looks rather like one of the Thundercats, only she has black and white stripes across her back. A gin and tonic fizzes brightly in one elegantly manicured hand, and a menthol cigarette is settled between a pair of generous, carefully painted lips. She has one hand resting maternally, protectively, but also possessively across Gonzo's shoulders. Gonzo himself still has that strange expression on his face, eyes glazed and unblinking, gait stiff and wooden. He looks like an android replica that is playing up again, and it's no joke. "Madam, I must ask that you introduce yourself," Gunner says formally, keeping his back straight and shoulders square. "Well hello, lover," she says, the West Country accent incongruous coming from someone who looks like a Hollywood film star turned cat-woman. "I'm Gonzo's Mum." "Is that Gonzo's Mum or Gonzo's Real Mum?" Jimbo asks her, for clarity. "I know what he looks like in his jim-jams," she purrs. Leaving Gonzo for a moment, she steps forwards and trails blood-red fingernails across Gunner's chest. Gunner coughs a little and flushes. "It's very hot out here," she says. "Why don't you come in and I can get you something refreshing, my loves?" Redshift nudges Kathy. "What time is it?" she whispers. "We've got ages yet," Kathy says. "A good four hours." "Well, it is very hot," says FatBloke, trying very hard not to let his tongue hang out and drop drool all over his top tube. For some reason he is finding it very difficult to raise his gaze above the level of Gonzo's Mum's chin. "And we have found Gonzo. Couldn't we stay just for a little while? Just for a nice cold drink?" "Would Stella suit you, love?" Gonzo's Mum asks him, raising one eyebrow archly. At that point it would have taken a Japanese whaler to hold FatBloke back. It was blisteringly hot. A short stop couldn't possibly hurt. Just ten minutes or so. Just to get out of the sun. It had only taken them two hours to get there, and this was Gonzo's Mum, not some evil über-villain. How could it possibly hurt? The cyclists, all now very keen on the idea of a stop and a rest, follow the nubile figure of the stripey lad's mum as she leads her son back into the cool, dark depths of the pyramid. Outside, the skulls swivel silently back to stare once more at the road. Above, high up on the temple roof, the statue of Tezcatlipoca, unidentified by the cyclists because of the way his mirror Itlachiayaque reflects the sun, seems to smile and the green and blue feathers on his intricate beryl lip plug twitch, although the air is perfectly still. There is a faint chiming from the twenty golden bells on his ankles. Unseen by those now inside the temple, the sun has taken on a red tint and is beginning the startlingly rapid descent into dusk characteristic of the tropics. Tezcatlipoca, the left-handed one, god of the smoking mirror, Lord of Here And Now, Enemy of Both Sides, The Mocker, brother and adversary of the great creator god Quetzlcoatl, is nocturnal. The fan of blue, green and yellow feathers in his left hand moves a little as the light of day bleeds from the sky. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 11/03/2004 14:25:53 Message: Sounds like a job for Mr Loverman Chuffkin... I spend all my time on the computer 'cos my affectionate prodding isn't appreciated --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 11/03/2004 14:30:48 Message: I feel somewhat insulted by the way that we have all walked so easily into an obvious trap. I'd have credited us with more sense than that, but then I suppose Sam wants to charge in and Save The Day. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 11/03/2004 14:34:00 Message: Love the bit about the stealth cameras! If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 11/03/2004 14:34:16 Message: Well, *I* think someone should save Baggers from Gunner's grubby clutches I'll do it! --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: microphonie Replied on: 11/03/2004 14:54:15 Message: Ooh, ooh...was this volcano purchased from http://www.villainsupply.com/lairs.html by any chance? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carbo-hydrat protein, A-B-C-D vitamin -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 14:59:22 Message: Kathy, honestly. Do you think I would write you all as dim enough to just walk into a trap? Think about it. Why would a bunch of intelligent, capable folks such as yourself walk into what is obviously a very dangerous place with a very strange woman? Do you really think I'm writing it like this just so that the Priestess can waltz in and save the day? Do you not think there might be more to it? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: redshift Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:13:04 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Evilchuffy I spend all my time on the computer 'cos my affectionate prodding isn't appreciated -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ha, some of us are way past that stage... L Windcheetah 176 http://www.redshift.uklinux.net/ ...handbuilt by daleks... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:28:43 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait Kathy, honestly. Do you think I would write you all as dim enough to just walk into a trap? Think about it. Why would a bunch of intelligent, capable folks such as yourself walk into what is obviously a very dangerous place with a very strange woman? Do you really think I'm writing it like this just so that the Priestess can waltz in and save the day? Do you not think there might be more to it? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I thought perhaps we'd been drugged or something. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:30:58 Message: we're high on life Kathy --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:36:16 Message: Not drugged, not quite. You haven't eaten anything except for Shandy's chicken! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:37:09 Message: Why are WE ALL talking like this? I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:40:51 Message: I don't know, FB. I didn't ask anyone to talk like this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: GonzoMum Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:52:03 Message: Gonzo, sweetest, fetch mumsy another splash of Plymouth Dry while Mr. Gunner here shows me his curly 'etchins.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:53:38 Message: I thought Gunner had a Giant, not a Hetchins!!! And a curly lugged Hetchins at that!! Respect!! The man has class after all!!! I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: GonzoMum Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:54:34 Message: OH! Talk about oversize tubing! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:55:14 Message: Slapper --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: GonzoMum Replied on: 11/03/2004 15:57:43 Message: Pimply arse.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 16:10:21 Message: I think you'll find that this particular pyramid is supplied with Tanqueray. Let's see them work that one out! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 11/03/2004 16:45:51 Message: I take it no one got the Hawkwind reference then? Too clever for your own good, you are. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 11/03/2004 16:58:47 Message: Can't work it out, but I don't like the stuff . Could there be a giant lamellicorn inside the pyramid? . I could be rescued from that. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 11/03/2004 22:47:34 Message: That reminds me, I got an exuberant e-mail from GonzoRealMum (me real mum), who was happy to have been included in all the fun and games! I have never done an 18min 10mile, thank you. If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here for the forum relay go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Pingu Replied on: 11/03/2004 23:16:05 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- westernised as 'voodoo' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I got my Mojo working Sorry, I'm catching up Brussels weekend Pingu in Val d'Isère "You may ask yourself, 'Where does that highway go to?'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 11/03/2004 23:21:24 Message: Oooooh, super furry animal! I feel all wuffley now! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 11/03/2004 23:25:05 Message: It's stuffed! 'snot as cute as my 'edge 'og --------------- Wanna seagull! --------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 11/03/2004 23:33:47 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Evilchuffy It's stuffed!/quote] [quote][i]'snot as cute as my 'edge 'og -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Me n my Mummy rescued a teeny baby hoglet, murdered slithery things for him to eat, let him kip all winter, released him - and he grew into stinking great big hog and came back to visit with Mrs Hedgehog and babies -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 11/03/2004 23:40:15 Message: Wow! The last one I successfully rescued (Franco) grew into a 'uge great thing and lumbered off into the night, never to be seen again. Ungrateful wretch Little Fran is far better mannered ----------------- Wanna seagull! ----------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 12/03/2004 11:57:02 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 8 Soundtrack: Portishead - Dummy On the beach, almost the entire ship's complement of crew from the Black Pearl is settled contentedly, having fed and drunk and reached that comfortable state of inebriated stupor. Well. Nearly the entire complement. Jack Shandy is looking at the sea inexorably creeping higher up the beach and the sun settling down underneath the blanket of the horizon. The water has reached his votive rock, and tiny wavelets are even now sending seeking tendrils through shallow channels created by irregularities in the surface. Some of the flour is damp; some has already turned the consistency of wallpaper paste. They are almost out of time and there has been no sign of the Cake Stop crew. Soon the veve will be washed away, and at that point Legba's prime influence will return to the Black Pearl, where the pennant that is his banner still flies strongly. This is not a good place to be after dark with no protection. Not a good place at all. The forces here are imported, far from home, and almost drunk on the feeling of having conquered new lands in the way their people were once conquered, a defeat that consigned the gods to dusty tomes of ancient history and a few revivalists who tried to work their influences into the vague, soft, almost entirely symbolic religions of the New Age. These are not gods of symbol and metaphor. These are gods of blood, sacrifice. These are gods whose priests wore the flayed skin of prisoners, inside out, and who shed blood in quantities so vast they had turned the streets a glossy red. "We have to go, Jack," Shandy tells his Captain. "It is getting dark." "A pity," Jack says. "I did have a liking for that Mrs Pike. A sweet little thing." Without further ado, the crew gathers together everything of value that they had brought, from mugs and spoons to sailcloth, and pushes the longboats back into the water from where they lay above the high tide mark, stumbling and slipping drunkenly in the soft sand. The last bare pirate foot leaves the shore and makes it into the boat just as the very edge of the sun finally disappears below the horizon. Silently, solemnly, they watch the beach recede into darkness, only the red embers of the fire still visible, as they return to the ship. Not a good place to be after dark. They have just settled down into further drinking when there is a small pop, as of a bubble bursting, and a pair of ravens, bedraggled and panting, fall onto the deck as if from a great height. "Bugger," says Captain Jack, standing up and making some vague sort of effort to look the part of the world's greatest pirate. The ship's rigging begins to glow with the eerie light of St Elmo's fire. Thankfully most of the pirates are too stupefied to notice, and those that do notice blame it on an excess of rum or the protective influence of Legba preventing nastiness from the island getting them. A figure appears. She is walking, bicycle wheeling along beside her. She walks towards them, on the same level as the deck, but somehow behind it. Slowly, deliberately, she reaches them and steps onto the deck from whatever surface supported her. Shandy bows, a gesture of respect from one sorcerer to another. The High Priestess' face is grim. She seems, well, furious. She is also absolutely exhausted, shattered, legs trembling just with the effort of standing still. Captain Jack grabs hold of her before she falls. Shandy rests Fingal safely up against the cabin wall and fetches a cup of rum, which she refuses. She never liked rum. He manages to find a bottle of claret that has escaped his Captain's attention and pours some of that instead. "What happened?" Captain Jack asks her. When she responds, she looks at Shandy. "The Hierophant," she says. Her voice is weak, breathless. Shandy and Captain Jack exchange glances. "The ABD made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Rupert got the Humungous back." She isn't making sense to them. Shandy knows of the Hierophant, of course. He does not care for A- Time - he doesn't have the head for it - but he knows. Captain Jack knows who the Humungous is, having been there at the end, last time. Neither of them knows 'Rupert'. "What do you mean 'back'?" Captain Sparrow asks her, a tad urgently, not entirely keen on the thought of that mound of blubber loose in the world again. "He's not dead. He's back. He'll be coming here. He nearly had me. I had to take a gamble, didn't have time for the proper location cantrip. I just left. Had to find a short cut. Get here before him. Been walking for..." she trails off, looks up at them with bewildered eyes. "I don't know. Years?" Shandy presses the cup of wine to her lips, forces her to take a sip, hoping she will not notice the bitter taste of the soporific herb with which he doctored it. She will want to know where her friends are, and when she finds out, she will want to go after them, and if she goes after them in this condition, at night, Tezcatlipoca will flay her alive and use her skin as a shirt, and then it will not matter whether the Humungous is alive or dead. Not to her, anyway. Her friends will have to take care of themselves this night. The ravens have huddled together, bundled themselves into a scraggy ball of feathers and gone to sleep. Ravenbait looks round for them, sees that they are there, then realises that there are no other cyclists in sight. Here it comes Shandy thinks, catching his captain's eye. Jack nods, understanding. "Get that drink down you girl," he says, "then we can get you fed and back on your feet. Just wet your whistle." She takes a couple of mouthfuls, distracted. "Where are they?" she asks, fear back in her voice. "Well, love, they went after your stripey lad, didn't they? It's all right, they just haven't come back yet." Captain Jack says easily. "Drink up, girl, I want me mug back." She frowns at him, puzzled, but drains the mug and hands it back to him, wiping her mouth with the terry cloth strip on her Specialized BG mitts. "Thanks, but I don't have time for food," she says. "I have to catch up with them. The Humungous is coming and I need to warn them." She pushes herself to her feet, but the herbs have started to take effect. Unsteady on her feet, the Look cleats slip on the deck and she falls down again. This time she can't get up. Captain Jack and Shandy pick her up, surprised by how heavy she seems to be, and drag her into Jack's cabin where they dump her on the bed. She is already sound asleep. "It's not going to be a pretty sight when she wakes up," Jack says. "Non. She will not be happy. But there is nothing we can do for her friends tonight. They are strong, yes? They can take care of themselves, and if this Humungous were close enough that we should worry, Mate Care-for would have told us. He has not." He sighs. "Better a strong and angry Priestess than a weak, friendly one." As an afterthought they put the bundled ball of ravens into the cabin with her. They don't wake up. Closing the door, Captain Jack instructs Roger the cabin boy that no one is to go in without his permission, and anyone who does will be keelhauled and then left on the island come sunset the next day, as will Roger for permitting it. The boy's face turns ashen at that, and he sits himself down on the deck by the door. "Better not let the rest of that claret go to waste, Shandy lad," Captain Jack Sparrow says, and the two men retreat to finish the bottle in silence. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: zombie Replied on: 12/03/2004 13:14:24 Message: Do I get my scene soon? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 12/03/2004 13:19:18 Message: Me too, I've been gearing up for an Irn-Bru fuelled warp spasm for days now. The sacred chainrings of Tullio of the Quikreleasars thirst for enemy blood. "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 12/03/2004 13:37:06 Message: Zombie: next episode Macleach: oh have I got something special planned for you! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 12/03/2004 13:43:14 Message: Hee hee, good oh !! "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 12/03/2004 14:40:38 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait Zombie: next episode -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll start getting ready!! I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 12/03/2004 14:47:32 Message: You get your birthday present next episode as well, FB. Who was the woman you wanted? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 12/03/2004 14:50:55 Message: Alicia Keys. She's a singer you know. I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 16/03/2004 12:31:53 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 9 Soundtrack: Afro Celt Sound System - Sound Magic Vol II Deep in the Temple of Tezcatlipoca, the Cake Stop party is dreamily making itself at home in what appears to be a set out of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Or possibly Battlestar Galactica. Soft, beige sofas in trendy curved designs abound, and there are plush, fluffy carpets and matching furnishings. Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen would be appalled at the 70s sci-fi feel, but the cyclists are in no state to notice, never mind question the juxtaposition of prehistoric South American architecture with kitsch interior décor. They are being served drinks by a countless number of nubile women with coffee-coloured skin, almond eyes like pools of golden honey, and diaphanous robes in pastel shades that simultaneously conceal and suggest at delightful curves and smooth softness beneath. FatBloke finds himself in a deep armchair, so welcoming he feels he may never get out, and a slender woman with long, black hair, skin like velvet, and chocolate brown eyes shaded in smoky eyeshadow kneels gracefully before him. She begins to massage his bare feet with elegant fingers, gazing at him with those dark, come-to-bed eyes and moist, parted lips. The subtle glow provided by the wall- mounted uplighters glints off her large, gold hoop earrings. Bardsandwarriors finds himself deep in conversation with Angelina Jolie, who is waxing lyrical about equality of the sexes in all forms of dress. Kathy slowly becomes aware that she is sitting snuggled next to someone who looks suspiciously like Tim Curry, dressed only in a basque and negligble, and the look on his face suggests that he has enjoyable thoughts in mind. Tim her husband is sitting snuggled on the other side, and seems equally content. TimC is half-dozing, face down on a massage table, while one of the beautiful young women expertly works at the knots and tensions in his back and shoulders. Fixed Wheelnut is next to him, having the muscles in his well-developed calves pummelled into a state of utter relaxation. Somersetbiker is sinking back into another one of the gloriously comfortable armchairs, a pint of Butcombe at one elbow and another of the young woman demonstrating the relaxing properties of a scalp massage. Not one has noticed the tiny, yellow-skinned man running around placing what appear to be small oil lamps around the room; oil lamps that give off a subtle, dusky, musky, resinous aroma. Chuffy is engaged in a deep and meaningful discussion with Winona that can only lead to one thing. Redshift is also deep in discussion: her partners in conversation are Chang-sha and Morihei Ueshiba. All across the room the cyclists are diverted, wrapped up in experiences that take over their senses. They do not realise that they have been there for more than ten minutes. Deep in the temple, unable to see the sky, separated from the outside world that is their natural home, they are unaware of the time passing, oblivious to the sinking of the sun. Even if they had known, they would not have realised what it meant. Tezcatlipoca has left the temple roof, mirror in hand, and is descending the stairs into the heart of the building. "Let me fit these mud guards for you," the blessed Winona is saying. "Okay," Chuffy replies dreamily, as they wander across soft carpets to The Cardinal. She has the mudguards in her hand. "If you put that sword down you can hold these for me while I undo the nuts," she says, eyes boring into him with the power of a laser. Chuffy frowns. The sword is safely strapped to his back. That can't be right, can it? Why would he need to put the sword down to hold a mudguard? "Anyway," she purrs, "it's only going to get in the way later." "How can we teach you true skills if you will not set aside that which you think you have learned already?" Chang-shan is asking Redshift, as she reacts dubiously to his request to relinquish her own weapon. Angelina is holding up a long ballgown, beautifully stitched. It reaches to the floor, with full, many- layered skirts. "I think this would look just great on you," she tells Bardsandwarriors. Alicia has been singing a lullaby. FatBloke finds himself drifting, carefree as a baby, sleepy as a the solo winner of the Race Across America. On the stairs the tall, hard lines of the Left-Handed God seem to collapse inwards. Where he had been walking is now the powerful, muscular form of a jaguar, padding onwards down the steps. "You could take the shirt all the way from Bath to John O'Groats yourself," GonzoMum is saying in encouraging tones, prideful. Gonzo is frowning, a glimmer of awareness flickering onto his face. Not too far away Kitzy is smiling bashfully at a young man who could have been Theophylline, but is infinitely more attractive and can spell properly. The young girl leans closer: it appears to the spellbound lad that she is about to kiss this interloper. He jumps to his feet and lets out a strangled cry. "No! You're not my real Mum!" he exclaims. A shockwave of startled waking rolls across the room. Redshift realises she is talking to a couple of chattering monkeys. Tim Curry is not Tim Curry at all, but a large monitor lizard, and the gin and tonic is made not with Bombay Sapphire but Tanqueray. Kathy and Tim Pike both leap off the sofa with equally lady-like shrieks of dismay. The ballgown proferred to Bardsandwarriors is still a ballgown, although he now sees that it is in fact shoddily made, and will only tangle his legs and aggravate his skin with poor quality materials. Angelina Jolie is not Angelina Jolie at all, but some sort of large snake. "Of course I'm not your real Mum!" cackles the imposter around her menthol cigarette. "I don't even look like your real Mum! We've kept your real Mum nice and handy for filling in all those little personal details that keep you coming back!" Chuffy suddenly realises that not only is this not Winona in front of him, but some horrible hag with a wrinkly face and breath that smells like cat food; there are no mudguards and she is trying to pull his sword from its sheath. He pulls away from her, shocked, disgusted and nauseated, wondering how far things would have gone. He has only one response. Caledfwlch leaps into his hand from its sheath. Across the room Redshift unsheaths her own sword and twin glints of fiendish metal break through the magic spell for the few cyclists not yet roused by Gonzo's revelatory cry. From the door comes a loud growling. They see the powerful, muscular form of the jaguar, and the glowing green of its eyes tell them this is no ordinary big cat. Still shaking themselves free from the enchantment, the cyclists mass together, with Chuffy, Redshift, Macleach and Gunner at the front, facing the emerald-eyed feline. Seeing that this is not going to be quite the easy meal that he had anticipated, the god resumes his humanoid form. "Who in name of all that is right and just are you?" Gunner demands, voice completely uncowed and peremptory. "I am He of the smoke-filled mirror. I come to destroy you," the god replies, showing sharp, white teeth. "Why?" asks Redshift, reasonably. "For the Goddess of the Wheel has something I want. Power. Power that was once taken from me by the white man and has been offered to me again." His eyes glitter with a cold light. "Without you your Goddess will wither and die and there will be space to be filled." "No more competition," Nutty breathes. Smoke-filled mirror. There is a glimmer of understanding forming on the edge of his mind, and he can sense, through that ineffable bond that cyclists share, that at least some of the others are beginning to see as well. "We are not the only ones," Flying Monkey tells him. "To be fair, I think you are over-reaching yourself with this whole 'destroying us' business, but, let's say, for the sake of argument, that you manage it. You haven't even got the High Priestess here." He shrugs, then adds in his most reasonable tones. "So it's not really going to solve anything anyway, is it?" The god starts laughing, an evil chilling sound. He holds up the mirror Itlachiayaque and the smoke it contains spills out into a cloud that hovers before them. A picture forms, and they see the Black Pearl. There on the deck is Fingal, and there is a great deal of commotion. Pirates are scrambling everywhere, cutlasses shining red and orange in the light of torches that have been set ablaze. The pirates are not the only ones on deck. They are fighting with what appear to be skeletons wearing the costume of the ninja. And if Fingal is there, then Ravenbait must also be there. But they can't see her. From the back of the room FatBloke comes shuffling forward. His face is ghastly pale, and he moves with the disjointed lack of co-ordination of an animated corpse. The woman he had seen as Alicia Keys is in fact a bokor, a priest of the dark voudon. There are still faint traces of white zombi powder around FatBloke's mouth and nose where she had blown it into his face. "Caaaaaaaake," he moans. His eyes are rolled so far back in their sockets that only the whites are visible. "I want my Mum," Gonzo says in a tiny voice, close to tears. The Lord of the Here and Now is laughing loudly now, head thrown back, the sound filling the room like the roar of a land slide. "Bugger this," says Chuffy. "Never had much time for this religion business." He holds the sword before him, seeing the name gleaming strong and pure on the blade. "Fe er frænda rog ok flæðar viti ok grafseiðs gata. aurum. fylkir. Hagall er kaldakorn ok krapadrifa ok snaka sott. grando. hildingr." The power surges through him, the sword coming alive, dancing towards the enemy. "It's time for smiting!" Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 16/03/2004 12:35:35 Message: GLEE!! ------------------------ Still want a seagull... ------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 16/03/2004 12:48:25 Message: Look at that! I've hit 4000! That's 4000 quality posts . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 16/03/2004 12:57:21 Message: Another for Hector !!!! To the last cyclist men, sorry and women !! "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:16:14 Message: Best episode ever! Superbly, brilliantly, astoundingly good! If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here for the forum relay go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: oldnewbiker Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:35:58 Message: Cor Chuffy has got a sword ,the lucky sod ,Thundercats Hooooo ,hope he is better with it than a tyre lever Here we come this is our destiny calling us freaks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:38:38 Message: ...so cruel but so true ------------------------ Still want a seagull... ------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:45:12 Message: Ninja Zombies! Or should that be Zombie Ninjas? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contrary to popular belief, the apostrophe does not mean "look out, here comes an "s"". -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: TimC Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:50:13 Message: Coo, I'm in the Chronicles! Cool! Didja see me, Mum, didja? I'd just like to point out that I and Tim Curry are not one and the same. Even if I am a ROcky Horror Show fan, and have been known to drees up in basque and stockings on occasion in my youth. Thank you. What day is it? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Arellcat Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:52:00 Message: Cracking episode Sam, you ought to make it into a film. -- Windcheetah 202 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: redshift Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:52:11 Message: Yay! Slice 'n' dice time! However, why is there a bit of me that's just tugged my sleeve (metaphorically, you understand) and whispered "It's an undead. You can't actually kill it, can you...?" L Windcheetah 176 http://www.redshift.uklinux.net/ ...handbuilt by daleks... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:54:29 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shifty the Pedant-->"It's an undead. You can't actually kill it, can you...?" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But you can chop it into very small bits (even if you are only armed with a pencil) ------------------------ Still want a seagull... ------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:58:35 Message: Or drown it with Irn Bru. Only a true Irn Bru Warrior can benefit from its power for revitalisation. "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 16/03/2004 13:59:02 Message: Has anyone worked it out yet? It should be obvious by now. I'm not very good at judging how obvious to make things. Redshift: nothing you've got is undead. It's all killable. Except possibly for the god. Cos he's a god and that's just how it works. TimC: you see, all you have to do is ask. Kathy: they're skeletons. I'm not sure if they count as zombies. ONB: he's had a sword for ages. It's part of the Plot. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 16/03/2004 16:10:09 Message: It's not obvious then. Oh well. All will become clear soon enough. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 16/03/2004 16:14:32 Message: Zombies are recently dead people whereas skeletons are older, hence no flesh. I'm guessing that there will be cursed gold dubloons somewhere... If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here for the forum relay go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 16/03/2004 16:17:18 Message: No. There won't. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 16/03/2004 17:09:19 Message: Marvelicious Sam. No I haven't got any of it yet. But I shall look forward to it all becoming clearer. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: redshift Replied on: 16/03/2004 17:11:05 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait It's not obvious then. Oh well. All will become clear soon enough. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's a bit like re-reading the Sherlock Holmes stories really. One suspends one's desire to skip to the end and get the joke in order to enjoy the journey. L Windcheetah 176 http://www.redshift.uklinux.net/ ...handbuilt by daleks... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: cuddy duck Replied on: 17/03/2004 12:04:39 Message: Hmmm. Discernible absence of Aquatic Fowl On Bikes in recent instalments. One can only assume they're hatching some audacious rescue plan from the wings.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 17/03/2004 12:09:53 Message: Flying in, in attack formation right now I expect Cuddy. "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 17/03/2004 12:20:58 Message: I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the next but one episode for that, Cuddy. I need to deal with the ninja skeletons right now. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: cuddy duck Replied on: 17/03/2004 12:46:44 Message: might they have brokered an alliance with an oppressed community of T'ai Chi flamingos or Judo hoopoes.. ? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 17/03/2004 13:02:59 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 10 Soundtrack: The Pixies - Doolittle They tried to wake her. They did. They tried really hard. As soon as the black-clad skeletons started dropping onto the deck from whichever dungeon dimension that damned Aztec deity had summoned them, they had sent Roger the cabin boy into the cabin and told him to wake the Priestess up or he wouldn't live long enough to be keelhauled. Shandy had drugged her too heavily and she would not stir. Even as the first, heart-rending screams of pain and anguish tore through the night air with all the subtlety of a buzz-saw, there had been no sign of her waking. Shandy and Captain Jack Sparrow are fighting back to back on the aft-deck, only a couple of steps from the fallen bottle of claret still rolling in little circles where they dropped it. Captain Sparrow ducks a slice from something like a sabre aimed directly at his head, and sways back and to the side. Reacting instinctively to his fighting partner's motion, Shandy allows the movement to expand and extend, and the ninja skeleton, balance upset by the toe Captain Jack extends into his path, falls past them, tumbling. There is a clatter of metal and Shandy suddenly realised that something awful has happened. "Merde!" he exlaims, and then grins. "That creature has just scratched the Priestess' bicyclette!" Captain Jack chuckles. Shandy cannot see him, for they are still back-to-back, but he can hear, and feel him shaking. "Not a pretty sight, Shandy lad. I can tell you that for nothing." Cheered by this turn of events, they fight on with greater panache. * * * Ravenbait is dreaming. Weighted down into slumber, unable to rouse herself, she is dreaming of an endless walk in a realm of infinite grey, where nothing has substance and there is no direction. There is no up, no down, no left or right. There is only the sense that somewhere there is a place she must be; only the desperate clinging on to that knowledge of the place her kind call 'the Crossroads'. In this eternal land of unending grey blankness, there are no features. The only way to find one's way is to cling to the knowledge of one's destination, keeping tight grasp of its very essence inside like a detailed memory of home. Every nuance of atmosphere and feeling is vital in the most basic sense of the word. Without the cantrips that direct the traveller from one realm to the next, this is the only way. The long, slow, timeless trudge through the blank vastness of Limbo. The grim focus on the mental hold of one's destination. One has to let go of Time, one cannot think about how long it is taking, how long one has travelled, how far one has gone: there is no time here, no distance. And so, having spent so long in the timeless nothingness, she is there once again, in her dreams, fighting to concentrate past the painful awareness of the Humungous' return from the dead and think solely of that place currently marked in her awareness by the pinpoint flutter of a loa's pennant. A presence suddenly blocks her movement. The Priestess, aware that this is a dream, frowns. It didn't happen like this. She looks up into the alabaster face of the Road Goddess, who looks upon her kindly and with the merest hint of a smile. "I think you had best be getting back, my daughter," She says. "Fingal has taken some damage." Ravenbait looks and sees the shocking, long, ragged glint of freshly damaged paint. Righteous fury boils up within her. "Oh you are so going to pay for that," she says, opening her eyes and getting off Captain Sparrow's bunk, one thing and one thing only on her mind. "Nobody, nobody scratches my baby and gets away with it." Eyes blazing, glowing with movement within as if they were windows into the blackest pits of Hell, she stalks out of the cabin. On the deck there is a riot. Every pirate is armed to the teeth with whatever came to hand, from full- size cutlasses to boat hooks and marlin spikes. She speaks a few low, comforting words to Fingal, and takes off her Specialized BG Comp road shoes, tucking them under his bottom bracket for safe keeping. Fingal is meeping a little, but more angry than hurt. "That's a respray for you, sweetheart," she tells him. A ninja skeleton lunges at her. With utter contempt, she sways a little to one side and grabs its head as it goes past in a move that is somewhere between 'Grasp the Tiger's Head' and 'Single Whip' moving into 'Cobra Unwinds'. The skeleton is brought up short by the combination of its own momentum and her rotational movement. Its head comes away from its body and it's all over. "Ahhh. Nice of you to join us, darlin'," Captain Sparrow grins as he smashes the skull on another skeleton into several large pieces with the pommel of his sword as if it were an empty wine jug. The rest of it collapses onto the deck in a clatter of long bones and rib fragments. "What happened to Mate Care-For?" Ravenbait asks Shandy, carelessly dispatching another skeleton using 'Grasp the Bird's Tail' to smash it against a heavy stanchion. "Bertram drank all the rum," Shandy calls back, parrying a blow from a sabre and hacking back with more enthusiasm than skill. "And what happened to Bertram?" Ravenbait inquires, finding a convenient spare boat hook and moving into the faster and far more destructive, at least where skeletons are concerned, stick form. "He's over there, love," Jack nods cheerfully towards the mizzen mast, where there is a fat pirate skewered to the wood a couple of feet off the deck. "That's one way to solve a drink problem," the Priestess muses, catching a skeleton between the legs in an upwards blow that has sufficient force behind it to crack the bones apart. She drives down with the end of the stick to smash the skull. The three of them soon manage to establish the aft deck as friendly territory, and when the rest of the pirates see that the skeletons aren't invincible, morale goes up tenfold and they launch into their attackers with renewed vigour. Captain Jack, Shandy and Ravenbait then begin to press towards the bow of the ship, sweeping up skeletons as they go, calling to the other pirates to be sure to smash the skulls. Only smashing the skulls would stop them. If they went over the side intact they would just climb back up the anchor chain. Dead bodies and scattered bones are fouling the deck, providing a major trip hazard for the remaining combatants. More skeletons are dropping onto the deck, and the pirate numbers are severely depleting as the KSIs start to accumulate. The pennant flying from the stay is limp now, despite the breeze that sprang up with the fall of night. "We need to get the peristyle working again," Ravenbait cries across the sounds of carnage. The peristyle, the pole that serves as the central pillar of the voudon ceremony, was the main mast of the ship on board the Black Pearl. It seemed the most appropriate. "We need more rum! I don't have the power to keep them off myself." "Bertram drank all of it!" Shandy calls back, starting to sound a little stressed as more skeletons arrive on the deck as if Ray Harryhausen himself were dropping them there from an unseen box overhead. "Could I possibly be of assistance?" A cultured voice speaks from the port rail. The owner of the voice is dressed all in black, carries an epee at his side and in one gloved hand he has a bottle of Lamb's Navy Rum that is large enough to be fitted with an optic. "Westley, me old chum!" Captain Jack exclaims. "I thought you'd retired to Panama! How's Buttercup?" He ducks a swipe by a passing skeleton and kicks it hard in the back so that its head smashes against the bottom of the main mast. "I did," replies the ex Dread Pirate Roberts, drawing his sword with a smile and neatly chopping the head of an attacking skeleton into two pieces. "But I decided I didn't like the climate. Buttercup is fine, as far as I know." Another skeleton meets its end. "She started fretting about getting wrinkles and met John Travolta in the clinic where she was having bo-tox injections." He shrugs at the surprised look he gets from his old friend. "Well, I had the money and she said it would make her happy." He swings down onto the deck and dispatches another skeletal ninja with swift aplomb and without breaking his conversational tone. "Anyway, he persuaded her to go along to one of those Scientologist meetings and she was hooked. I haven't seen in her in about three years now. So much for true love, eh?" Finally he makes it across the deck to Shandy and hands him the bottle of rum. "There you go, old boy. You carry on. Don't worry about these chaps." "Let me guess," Ravenbait says. "Buttercup's evident beauty brought her to the attention of some of the more senior personnel in the movement and she has been given a place on the Sea Org, so you have returned to piracy with a view to getting her back." "She's on the Royal Scotsman as it happens," Westley replies, sufficiently surprised to take a slight scratch to his right arm from a skeleton. He recovers, and skeleton meets sword with predictable results. "And you are....?" He raises his eyebrows in query. "Ravenbait. High Priestess of the Temple of the Triple Goddess of Cycling," Ravenbait replies. "And, before you ask," she destroys another skeleton with a move she can only ever remember as 'Rogering the Camel', although she knows that's not what it's really called, "I'm the genetically engineered progeny of the Divine and Sapphic union of Tank Girl and Ellen Ripley from Alien Resurrection." "Really?" Westley replies, without batting an eyelid. "That must be nice for you. Pleased to make your acquaintance, I'm sure." They suddenly realise that the endless stream of skeletons has stopped coming. The ship is littered with their remains, and the crumpled and fallen bodies of dead and injured pirates. Legba's pennant is snapping stiffly once more, the Guardian of the Crossroads protecting them against the violent intentions of the island's Aztec patron. "You know, I'm really quite cross now," Ravenbait says, hands on hips, staring at the island across the dark water with its motes of reflected starlight. "Well," Shandy tells her, walking tiredly across the deck. "It will be sunrise soon, oui? Just time for breakfast. Then maybe you can go tell Tezcatlipoca that you are a little angry, n'est-çe-pas?" He claps her companionably on the shoulder, then descends into the galley to fry some bacon and make tea. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: redshift Replied on: 17/03/2004 13:39:33 Message: Cor! Stunning stuff. 'Rogering the Camel' LOL, I'll have to remember that one. Nice one Sam! L Windcheetah 176 http://www.redshift.uklinux.net/ ...handbuilt by daleks... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 17/03/2004 13:57:00 Message: That would be move 50 of the Lee Family Style short form . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 17/03/2004 16:40:28 Message: If you can manage 'Buggering the Hedgehog' I'll be truly impressed ------------------------ Still want a seagull... ------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 17/03/2004 17:08:02 Message: A prickly position no doubt. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Fixed Wheelnut Replied on: 17/03/2004 20:45:49 Message: "well developed thigh's" eh? thats a bit of poetic license I can live with, especialwhile being massaged even if it is an old hag great stuff Don't stop pedalling http://westkentctc.org.uk/index.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 18/03/2004 10:57:12 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 11 Soundtrack: Cream - Wheels of Fire Macleach, the mighty Irn Bru Warrior, taps into the very essence of the orange liquid flowing through his heart and soul and his muscles swell, veins popping, a show of the true Berserker spirit of which the ancestral lineage, tracing all the way back to the Celtic Demi-god and hero Slainé, would be proud. Chuffy launches himself forwards in a ferocious attack apparently unheeding of any personal risk. Redshift, cool and collected, appraises the situation with no sign of fear and sets about making her presence count in the most efficient way possible. The dusky maidens had turned fierce, transforming into feral, humanoid beasts with long teeth and heavy claws. "Right men!" Gunner cries in true Doc Savage spirit, apparently unaware that battle has been engaged. "We have to rescue Gonzo's mother and we need to make a strategic withdrawal from the structure...." He is interrupted as one of the former nubile maidens barrels into him, and he is forced to set aside his gentlemanly ideas about the correct manner to behave when there are ladies present. Tezcatlipoca himself left the room almost immediately. As a god there was absolutely no risk to him from a pack of cyclists, even if they did have swords. He strides out, back onto the long staircase, feathered cloak flying behind him, sweeps up the stairs and out into the night. There he stands on the vast stone plinth at the bottom of the pyramid, where the channels that are cut into the stone work of the temple would feed blood pouring from the throats of sacrificial victims slaughtered on the altar high above, and holds his smoke-filled mirror high. He speaks some words in the tongue of the ancient peoples of Meso-America and, far in the distance, there is the sound of an engine revving. Cuddy Duck has realised, in the sudden clarity of thought that comes in situations of grave danger, what it was about the volcano that had caught his notice. "Aquatic Fowl On Bicycles Club to me!" he calls, heading for the door. "Don't worry," he says to Hairyhippy, who is fighting off one of the wench-beasts with a shovel in one hand and a wellington boot in the other and who looks at the Duck with an expression of utter betrayal. "I have a cunning plan. Try to hold the fort." The birds of the bike fly out and up, fast as they can. They see the smog-like haze emanating from the mirror of the Enemy of Both Sides, and Cuddy knows he has to be quick. For the volcano is no volcano at all. It is another temple, more ancient by far than the Aztec pyramid. It is an Olmec temple built, like the one at La Venta, to look like a volcano. The Olmec gods are older and thus likely to be more powerful than the Aztec, and the essence of Quetzlcoatl, Tezcatlipoca's greatest adversary, is that of an ancient Olmec god. The birds fly faster, on to summon help from the God of Rain and Wind. On the plinth below the Temple to the Left-Handed God, the haze thickens. It brings with it the acrid stench of burnt hydrocarbons and heavy metals, and the dread sound of the internal combustion engine is getting closer. The cyclists are fighting hard, and have managed to provide an opportunity for Kathy and Kitzy to slip out in an attempt to find Gonzo's Real Mum. The two young women creep deeper into the temple, bravely overcoming the fear that around the next corner they might run into a predatory cat of supernatural size and intelligence. In fact there was very little else to the temple. Down at the end of the long, dark corridor lit only by guttering torches, the air bone dry and dusty, there were several cells, each not much bigger than a large wardrobe. Kathy knocks nervously on each one with a small "Hello?" The last one they try bears fruit, as the kindly face of a smallish woman with no zebra stripes at all appears behind the grille and peers out at them. The resemblance is striking. "Hello love," she says. "Is it tea time already?" "We've come to get you out, Mrs Gonzo," Kitzy tells her breathlessly. "Hold on." She takes her Alien DX multitool from her pocket and sets about demolishing the rather primitive lock that is keeping the door closed. The door is heavy, and it takes Kathy and Kitzy both to pull it open. Each takes one of Gonzo's Real Mum's hands and they lead her back up the corridor. "Oooh, this is exciting, isn't it?" she says brightly as Kitzy dodges a small stone head thrown out of the room where the battle is still raging. The statue smacks into the wall and bounces off. It is hardly even chipped. "They don't make them like that any more, do they dear?" Kathy puts her head into the room and yells "Time to go!" "Someone grab FatBloke!" Hasufel says. Rigby dashes into the corner where the zombified FatBloke has become trapped trying to walk through the wall in search of cake. He takes firm hold of his arm and pulls him towards the door. Nutty, Terry, Chewa Miiinee and Oldnewbiker fall in around them to protect them while they beat a hasty retreat. Macleach, Gunner, Chuffy and Redshift clear a path out of the room, smiting and cleaving left, right and centre. Slowly but surely the entire Cake Stop pack makes it out of that oubliette of illusory pleasure and outside to the fresh air and open sky. The sight that greets them strikes a chill into their hearts. The sun is beginning to come up, rosy fingers of early dawn already painting the sky in pinks and yellows, a scene normally associated with the second leg of the Dun Run. Tezcatlipoca is already retreating up the steps of his pyramid to resume his place on the top in his diurnal form of a statue. The mirror is still releasing a haze of smoke, but the engine sounds are very loud now, coming from all directions at once. The cyclists form a tight pack, coughing in the cloud of pollutant fumes. The smell is only too familiar to some of them, but none of those can quite believe it. After all, they saw him swallowed by a giant pterodactyl, and a bright orange one at that. "What is that smell?" Gonzo asks, pulling a face while he stands protective guard over his Real Mum. Kitzy looks up at him with features blanched white with the horror of the words she finds herself about to speak. "It's the ABD," she says. "That's the sound of a monster engine," Nutty says. "And there's only one creature I know would have an engine like that and be coming here. Besides, it all fits. All that ranting about power and making space. The ABD enlisted that butcher to help them in their quest for total domination of the road." Macleach hefts his trusty chainset, dripping with the gore of supernatural creatures, and his face is grim. "That is the sound of the Humungous." Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 18/03/2004 10:58:43 Message: Hmmm. I don't think I'm going to fit it into 12 issues, you know. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 18/03/2004 11:01:39 Message: Sam, you can't post that now!! I have a meeting at 11:00!!!!! I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 18/03/2004 11:17:27 Message: Huzzah and hurrah, thanks Sam, great mention and thoroughly exciting episode. Noo ontae yon Humungous heidbanger !!!! "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 18/03/2004 11:19:32 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait Hmmm. I don't think I'm going to fit it into 12 issues, you know. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15 is a nice number..... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 18/03/2004 11:24:03 Message: More issues means that the fun can go on for longer! If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here for the forum relay go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 18/03/2004 11:49:02 Message: Ah! "Rosie fingered dawn", my sort of chronicle!!!! I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: chewa Replied on: 18/03/2004 12:59:33 Message: Fame at last plus je vois les hommes, plus j'admire les chiens -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: rigby Replied on: 18/03/2004 13:05:08 Message: Well done Samuel, keep it up! I think you are online for an 'A' star with this. Mr. Pither Head Teacher Look where you're going … not where you've been! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 18/03/2004 14:40:40 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Rosie fingered dawn" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ah so we have Homer references too then? If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here for the forum relay go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: somersetbiker Replied on: 18/03/2004 15:13:11 Message: Fame at Last! I'm in! I remember mentioning my weakness for Butcombe here; but scalp massage - Ho Yuss! Who told you that, Sam? How did you find out? It's witchcraft I tell you! More! More! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 18/03/2004 17:24:54 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 12 Soundtrack: Fat Les - Vindaloo Having crammed a bacon buttie down as fast as she could, and practically inhaled two mugs of tea, Ravenbait is now shaking the cobwebs out of the two ravens and making sure they are fully awake. Westley had offered to give her a lift to shore in his little sailing vessel, which had a dagger keel set into a slot in the hull, from which it could be removed for shallow water. He seemed quite keen to find out more about what had been going on, and is perhaps a little intrigued by the mysterious Priestess who could guess the fate of his true love with such ease. Buttercup is a delightful creature, with one of the few perfect breasts in the world, not to mention an unsurpassed beauty that is globally recognised, but she is a little, well, wet. He certainly isn't used to the sort of woman who can keep up with the male body count in a battle and who is built for strength and endurance rather than wearing pretty dresses. Captain Jack had taken to keeping a Brompton shoved in a locker in his cabin. It didn't take up much space, and he had discovered it came in quite handy for those late night sorties to shore in which speed of escape was quite important but so was keeping quiet. Many a cuckolded husband had discovered himself too slow to catch the Brompton. On the advice of the Archaeologist he had also had an Airnimal shipped in a month or so back, but with all that had been going he hadn't had a chance to test ride it. With the day dawning bright and beautiful, it seems like a perfect opportunity to do so. Shandy decides to stay behind with the ship and keep the veve strong and the mast well doused with rum. Captain Jack, Westley, and Ravenbait make use of the stiff morning breeze to get themselves and their bikes across to the shore. Thought and Memory, still in their usual morning bad mood, flap lazily across under the own steam. All three are singularly unimpressed by the animal skulls staring vacantly from atop their salt- and sun- bleached sticks, and ignore them completely as Ravenbait sets a fast pace along the road. They can see the tyre tracks of the Cake Stop pack in the dust, and know that all they can do is hope that everything is, if not okay, then at least salvageable. Unable to keep up with Fingal, Westley and Captain Jack fall behind, and the Priestess heads after her friends alone. * * * The Cake Stop has formed a tight bunch. Tezcatlipoca is back atop his pyramid, and has become a golden statue once more, the mirror no longer giving off stinking fumes but shining with the blinding brightness of light reflected from all corners of the world. However, in the fumes, the monstrous sight of the twin V12-engined Humvee is striking fear into the hearts of the Cake Stop. It is massive, very much more massive than his previous vehicle, and seems even more massive because even the enormous pyramid fails to make its scale any less stupendous. "Take heart, my fine friends," Gunner says manfully. "We are many: he is but one. We have beaten him before and we shall do so again. Do not be cowed by this monstrosity. It is merely a sign of his weakness." The fumes are thinning out now that they have done their work and allowed the Humungous to cross the border between A-Time and the Physical world, to find and use the Crossroads. It is getting easier to see, and it soon becomes apparent that the Humungous has stopped to pick up friends along the way. Although the Cake Stop pedalled to glorious victory over the forces of the ABD in the Battle of the Malt Loaf, the attitude of the national press, particularly the tabloids, to the issues of speed cameras and congestion charging in recent months has created a new army of white-man-vans, stressed-out company executives in BMWs, un-apologetic middle-class mothers from Orpington in SUVs; and an entire fleet of sociopathic Vauxhall Nova drivers in baseball caps. Now this army is assembled on the plain surrounding the temple of the Enemy On Both Sides, and suddenly an awful lot of things make sense. Even the smoke-filled mirror. "I don't feel so good," says Macleach, holding his stomach. He looks very pale. "I think I must have eaten something...." he groans, spasms of pain stabbing through his body in white hot needles. "What have you eaten?" Steelman asks him, concerned. "In there, I had...ohgod. Oh no...a doughnut. Oh please. Not him. Not now. It was just one!" The mighty Irn Bru Warrior has fallen to his knees. For the blessing of the Irn Bru carries with it a darker side. As Macleach, an ordinary family man currently residing in Essex, can use the power of his ancestors and the mighty potion that is Irn Bru to transform into a fierce warrior, noble and true, he is also obliged to live with the other aspect of this power, an aspect that thrives on junk food and cheap lager. Captain Heinekenquaffer-fatarse. "Haaaaaa! I am back! I am he! I Captain Heinekenquaffer-fatarse of ze NotveryMobile team vill crush ze ScottisherEnglander Irn Bru Warrior mit meinen biggengearcrunchenundzehnspeedchainsnappen pedal puschink style. I haff been feeding myself on ze staple Winter foods of Sachertorte, Pilsner und Schwarzwalderkirschtorte zu develop ze necessary power/weight ratio! You cannot schtop me!" Macleach's face has taken on a manic glee, his entire body quivering, the sure sign of hyperglycaemia, one of the triggers for the awful transformation. "Aha! Was ist dis? I am seeing that you must be dealing wiz ze Fattendickenhummerfahrer. Wo ist meine kleine Italionstallionreitenfraulein?" For all his disgusting habits, Macleach's dreadful alter-ego had remembered something that no one else had, faced as they were by the massed ranks of the ABD. Ravenbait. "Ahhhhh!" Captain Heinekenquaffer-fatarse points one slightly podgy finger over the heads of the rest of the Cake Stop, up towards the last descent from off the shoulder of the volcano. " Ze krushing hugs sind waiting fur dich, Italienischedreammaschinereitenfraulein!" Head down, bent low over the bars, Ravenbait is hurtling down the slope with Fingal leaving a streaming cloud of dust behind his rear wheel. At that speed she will be there in less then a minute, even if she does refuse to do time trialling. They have crossed the complex topography of A-Time, met with the great elephant God Ganesha, spent several days as pirates, faced down the feral nubile wenches of Tezcatlipoca, proven Gonzo's innocence of anything except being enchanted by an ancient Aztec deity, and rescued Gonzo's Real Mum. Their Priestess will soon be with them, and it is time for the final show-down. One by one, the Cake Stop cyclists start smiling. This is exactly the sort of adventuring they live for. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 18/03/2004 17:37:48 Message: Hurray - come on then you cagers - we'll show you what we're made of. (Ok - not the best battle cry - I know) What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 18/03/2004 22:02:52 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait ...and an entire fleet of sociopathic Vauxhall Nova drivers in baseball caps. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lemmee attem! Tatties up their exhausts! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Pingu Replied on: 18/03/2004 22:19:47 Message: The soundtracks to these episodes have been pretty cool Cream, QOTSA & Portishead - excellent stuff Who's next (Shame about Fat Les though ) quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The birds of the bike fly out and up, fast as they can. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Penguins can't fly Brussels weekend Pingu in Val d'Isère "You may ask yourself, 'Where does that highway go to?'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Fixed Wheelnut Replied on: 18/03/2004 23:26:20 Message: Did I get out ok ? or am I still on the massage table under a pile of bones, just put me back on my bike Don't stop pedalling http://westkentctc.org.uk/index.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 19/03/2004 08:59:17 Message: (Typed in between big belly laughs from which I am trying to recover). Like the surprise Sam , you really have made my Friday. Have a great weekend. Mac. Und not forgetting mich !!!! "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 19/03/2004 09:00:57 Message: Pingu: Fat Les is just perfect for that episode. "Can I introduce you please, to a lump of Cheddar Cheese?" Penguins can't ride bicycles either, but that doesn't seem to be stopping you. Anyway. I'll bet penguins can fly just nicely when fired from a trebuchet. FW: No, you'll be with the rest. If FatBloke got out while zombified then you got out too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 19/03/2004 09:32:31 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait If FatBloke got out while zombified then you got out too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm still a zombie though. I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Pingu Replied on: 19/03/2004 09:37:27 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Ravenbait Anyway. I'll bet penguins can fly just nicely when fired from a trebuchet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brussels weekend Pingu in Val d'Isère "You may ask yourself, 'Where does that highway go to?'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 19/03/2004 09:46:30 Message: FB: You're not actually. Or won't be. I just forgot to explain why you're not a zombie any more . I'll rectify that next episode. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 19/03/2004 10:54:53 Message: Coffee: check. Minidisc: Check. Soundtrack: Check. Work to do: Lots, but it's Friday....Check Can I get the last episode done in the next hour? We shall see..... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 19/03/2004 12:14:50 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 13 Part 1 Soundtrack: Alien Breed - Antidote Note: Enthusiastic readers may listen to some of this exciting installment's soundtrack while reading by visiting http://www.alienbreed.com where Ben and his chums, those excellent chaps of this popular beat combo, have made MP3s of some of their charming ditties available. Battle is quickly enjoined. This time the forces of the Tour God Armstrong are not on the side of the enemy, but then the Cake Stop cyclists do not have the benefit of the Temple Maidens and Temple Guards with their mighty weapons. The ABD bimbos are nowhere in evidence this time, either, and their simpering, skeletal forms are not missed from the field. Weapons are limited, at least until Ravenbait catches up. Strapped to Fingal's rear rack are all the spare swords and cutlasses from The Black Pearl that she, Captain Jack, Shandy and Westley could find. She quickly passes amongst her friends, no time for catching up on all that has happened just yet, handing out weapons to those who need and want them. Chuffy, of course, has his own, and is standing protectively by Bagonabike; Redshift is more than adequately armed. Rigby's concern for the still-zombified FatBloke is evident. He gives the Priestess a mute but pleading look for her to help, for it is becoming difficult for him to keep the attacking hordes of the ABD away and still prevent FatBloke wandering off into danger. She finds a piece of rag in her pack that she keeps for cleaning her hands if Fingal gets stroppy and throws his chain, and wipes the traces of zombie powder from FatBloke's face. After peering in his eyes, she rummages in Fingal's rackpack again and produces a small bag of goobers - chocolate coated raisins. "Get a few of those down him," she tells Rigby. "It's the chocolate coating that does it. He's only mostly dead." The plain surrounding the Temple of the Left Handed God is filling with grey smog from the belching exhausts of the combustion-engined vehicles tearing up the ground. Just as before, in the Battle of the Malt Loaf, although the cars, vans and other vehicles have the weight, speed and therefore the momentum to do far more damage, their drivers are trapped within by their need to breathe their own air, the ABD long since having genetically modified its members to survive only in polluted conditions. The cyclists have greater manoeuvrability, even at lower speeds when there can't possibly be any gyroscopic effect to help them stay upright, and all it takes is a well-placed kick or blow to one of the windows to let in clean air. But it is a race against time. Although the Aztec god of the temple is nocturnal, the smog from the vehicles is becoming thick enough to block out the sun, and Ravenbait is concerned that it might be possible for him to regain animation should that happen. There is also the worry that, should the polluting vapours become thick enough, breaking the windows of the vehicles will not expose the drivers to low enough levels of the pollutants to cause them harm. Plus, the thicker the smog gets, the harder it is for the cyclists to breathe. This is a race, between cars and bikes, although somewhat more serious and deadly than the average commuter challenge. The Archaeologist and Yenrod are concentrating on the unrepentant Stagecoach drivers, nerves of steel guiding them as they whip round close enough to hit the 'Engine Stop' button before tackling the emergency door release. Redshift, Kathy, Kitzy, Arellcat and MrsDolicetto are facing down the Vauxhall Nova drivers, who are so enveloped in male chauvinist mindsets of 'powah' and 'RESPECT' they cannot fathom that there might be women capable of taking them on. The others, including Gordon, Gordy, Groucho and Benlawrence are taking opponents as they come. Most of the Cake Stop are not seasoned fighters, not in the literal sense. All are warriors of the wheel, road warriors in every sense that Mad Max was not; this is traffic jamming with swords. They hold their own. Somewhere in the middle of a fight with a mobile-phone using sales executive in a Renault Megane, Captain Heinekenquaffer-fatarse ran out of extraneous calories and was subdued by the Irn Bru Warrior, who is now wreaking merry hell in all directions with his trusty chain ring. Gunner is taking on the squadron made up largely of Volvo drivers who abuse Advanced Stop Lanes, aided and abetted by Chewa, Bardsandwarriors, Nutty, and the revived FatBloke with Rigby by his side. Chuffy, keen to keep Bagonabike out of harm's way but failing to overcome her own enthusiasm for ramming potatoes up exhaust pipes, is sneaking with her round the back of the reserve troops: the poisonous old biddies in the battered Morris Minors and the Smart car drivers who bought attitude problems along with their cars. Hairhippy is with them, providing an endless stream of ammunition from the potato plants in his magic compost. It seems they might even be winning when they realise that the day has indeed become dark enough for Tezcatlipoca to begin to stir. Ravenbait tries not to let on that she is worried: she has little dealing with the South American pantheon as the distribution of corvus corax does not cover that geographical area, and the one deity she could go to for assistance is a very little known god who goes by the unappealing name of "Eater of Filth" and probably would not be terribly helpful. The Aztecs did not even have the wheel: she has no idea what she could do to stop Tezcatlipoca should he awaken. Pedaldog skids to a stop near where Derall and Grimpeur were taking a short break to drink some water and wash some of the dust and grime out of their mouths. "Where is she going?" he asks them, panting. "Who?" Derall asks. "Ravenbait." He points. The High Priestess is cutting through the melee, fighting only to keep her path clear and stop interference. "I believe, gentlemen," says the voice of the former Dread Pirate Roberts, who has an admiring twinkle in his eye, "that she's attempting to kill the Humungous before this ghastly stench gets out of hand." "The rest of 'em are just a distraction, 'ad you not worked that out yet?" Captain Jack Sparrow adds as he flies past, freewheeling. "What say we go and give her a hand, eh gentlemen?" Westley smiles brightly and then heads off after his piratical friend. High up on the temple roof Tezcatlipoca has been roused from his daylight slumber. He turns and surveys the carnage below with satisfaction and anticipation. When the Humungous has defeated the cyclists, as he surely must with his superior weaponry and power, then will come the great sacrifice. The temple walls shall run with blood once more, the Triple Goddess will wither and die and He, the Enemy of Both Sides, will take Her place in the deity continuum, becoming supreme deity of the ABD so to aid them and revel in their conquest of the all places where vehicles may travel. A suitable position for one such as he, for they already accept the sacrifice of adults and children alike to the cult of the car. There is no symbolism there. There is blood and death and all upon which he thrives. Yes. He smiles, tasting the acrid fumes and smelling the sweet smell of freshly spilled blood from casualties of the battle. The beginning of a new age. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 19/03/2004 14:04:25 Message: Part 2 to follow shortly. When I can find another hour and a half -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 19/03/2004 17:50:12 Message: Well done little spuds. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 19/03/2004 22:21:29 Message: Your compost done us proud guvnor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Aeroflash Replied on: 19/03/2004 22:41:59 Message: I think Connex South Eastern must be a follower of Tezcatlipoca... If it's not an entropywagen, you're not getting on. Tope stuff Sam, keep it coming. When do we get the illustrated version? Matt 'The Problem with being a druid is, you've got to be prepared to make sacrifices' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Pingu Replied on: 19/03/2004 22:49:27 Message: The scene is set for a stranger dressed in seventies clothing astride Mr Hoppy to bounce in to save the day shouting his battle cry, "Hello, I'm Ivan Dobsky the meat safe murderer, only I never done it!" Then again, maybe not Brussels weekend Pingu in Val d'Isère "You may ask yourself, 'Where does that highway go to?'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 19/03/2004 23:10:58 Message: You're Harry Lime and I claim my prize! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 23/03/2004 11:06:04 Message: Just making a note that I will be starting on Vol V No 13 Part 2 shortly, in case Claire decides to lock the topic -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 26/03/2004 13:14:10 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V No. 13 Part 2 Soundtrack: The Crystal Method - Legion of Boom There seemed to be no way they could get at the Humungous. He was staying inside his mutant Humvee, charging across the plain and all that stood in his path. It was a matter of staying observant and nimble enough to keep out of his way, making use of the manoeuvrability and much smaller size of the bicycle to dodge the vast, hulking, roaring, fuming mass with bull bars that were probably capable of taking down a rhino. A small knot of people had formed a little distance from the corner of the temple, where there was still enough room to dodge and the building limited the lines of attack the Humungous could use. Among them were Westley, once the Dread Pirate Roberts and now a rare books dealer in Panama who had briefly returned to piracy to win his true love back from the Scientologists; Captain Jack Sparrow of The Black Pearl, the greatest pirate to sail the seas; Gonzo, who had misplaced his Mum and was looking for her somewhat frantically; Kitzy, who had left Kathy to deal with the Vauxhall Nova drivers in her own inimitable style after realising that Kathy's bodice was a most effective Weapon of Mass Distraction; Macleach, in full Irn Bru Warrior guise; Bible Basher Biker, who had been having trouble coping until he realised that it was no more bonkers than the seven lampstands of God; and Microphonie, Muckspreader, the Sheriff, the Archaeologist, Robgul, Dan Cave, Jimbo, Miiinee, MingMong and Shen, who could tell that something was going on and wanted in on it. Ravenbait shakes her head, glancing up to the roof of the temple where Tezcatlipoca is beginning to stir, life returning to the golden statue in a wash of colour. "We can't take him," she says. "What do you mean?" Kitzy asks, worried. "Has anyone seen my Mum?" Gonzo is panicking. "Look at the size of that thing," Ravenbait says, pointing towards the Humvee. It is bearing down on a small group of Cake Stoppers with all the ferocity and twenty times the momentum of a raging bull elephant. "We haven't got the weapons to take it out. We can't get at him." She shakes her head again, adjusting the controls on the custom-made Rudy Project Freons to zoom in on the vehicle and scan it for weak spots. There don't seem to be any. The small group of Cake Stoppers scatters like a shoal of fish and the Hummer plunges through the space where they had been. "We can't keep this up indefinitely," says MingMong. "The fumes are making it difficult to breathe. I suppose we could try some Respros." Shen snorts derisively. "I can more readily believe that the leader of the ABD is a cross between Jeremy Clarkson and the Baron Harkonnen than I can that Respro filters would do any good." "Even Gunner is beginning to tire," Macleach adds. It is true. The mighty Gunner Rogers looks as though he is barely managing to avoid the death-dealing lunges of the Volvos still remaining. The atmosphere is thick with the stench of internal combustion, so much so that, as they had feared, merely breaking windows to let clean air into the vehicles is no longer enough to cause harm. The air outside is no longer clean enough. It is becoming difficult to see how they could win, short of just holding on until the vehicles run out of fuel. The problem there is that there are heavily armoured ABD refuelling vehicles, each nearly as big as the Humungous' Hummer, waiting to service any vehicle that needs it, and so far they have been unable to find any way to do damage to the tankers. "Watch my back," Ravenbait says, expression unreadable. "I need you to keep me from being interrupted. Let's just hope that the phase of the moon isn't as critical as it probably ought to be." She rummages in her rackpack and pulls out a bag of what turns out to be red rice, with which she draws a triangle on the ground, setting three dried red flowers at each corner. Inside the triangle she places some tobacco and chocolate and an apple. "Om adhara saktaye namah Om kurmmaya namah Om anantaya namah Om krim kalyai namah "Om Creation, Dissolution, Transformation. The names of the Great Goddess, we are with the Ultimate, for you are the life of all Life. "Om Great Goddess Kali, the One, She who resides in the Ocean of Life and in the Cremation Grounds that dissolve the world, we concentrate our energies on you, may you grant us boons and blessings "Mahavidya Kali. Oh primordial Devi! You who are the root of all the Great Knowledges! Your outer forms are fearful. You who destroy time, who is time, and is the night of eternity! "It is Thou who art the Supreme Primordial Kalika. Resuming after dissolution Thine own form, dark and formless. Thou alone remainest as One ineffable and inconceivable though Thy self without beginning, multiform by the power of Maya. Thou art the Beginning of all. Creatrix, Protectress, and Destructress. "Om asato ma sad gamaya Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya Mrityor ma amritam gamaya" Ravenbait removes the Rudy Projects. Her eyes are black as the depths of space, writhing with the souls of the damned. "She's not as bad as Sekhmet. That's real light the blue touch paper and stand back territory," she murmurs. "But I'd take a few steps back if I were you." In Her guise as the black Destroyer She comes. Sixty feet tall, striding across the battlefield. She has four arms, a necklace of fifty human skulls and a girdle of human arms. She is holding an axe, a trident, a severed human head and a bowl of blood. Around her rages the battle - she herself is the colour of a thundercloud. Her protruding tongue drips with the fresh blood of her enemies. Ravenbait steps forward and cries in a piercing voice "Devi Kalika!" The goddess sees her, and smiles. The smile is horrific, awesome, terrible. Underneath her feet even the Volvos are as mere insects. She stamps, crushing, mashing, and the cyclists, all bar Ravenbait, are forced to turn away as they realise that not all the fluids seeping from the crushed and flattened vehicles is oil or brake fluid. Some of it is red. And up on the temple roof, Tezcatlipoca has come fully to life and now he is striding down the steps of the pyramid, growing in stature as he comes. "Guys, we need Kali to take out the Humungous," Ravenbait says, turning them so they can see the Aztec god's entrance to the field of battle. "Once Tezcatlipoca's followers are gone, we stand a better chance of defeating him. But if he takes on Kali Maa, we'll still be left with the Humungous." "Can't you ask her to stop squishing the Stagecoach buses and just go for the Humungous?" TLDNMCL asks? "MacMc, that's Maa Kali. She's sixty feet tall, wears a necklace of human skulls, is the essence of Death, Destruction and Timelessness, and, to be honest, I'm well pleased that She turned up when I asked Her to; and that's presumably only because Parvati was miffed because I didn't ask Her last time," Ravenbait explains patiently. Slowly, the small group is expanding, as other cyclists realise there is a Hindu deity doing the dirty work, and retreat from the battlefield, panting. "That's some car-nage," Chuffy says. Bags cuffs him round the ear for making such a dreadful pun. "Where's my Mum?!" Gonzo asks plaintively. "There you are, dear." Says Gonzo's Real Mum. "I went back for the young man in the other room. He seemed like such a nice young man." "Hello, I'm Ivan Dobsky the meat safe murderer, only I never done it!" says the nice young man, bouncing up on a bright orange space hopper. "What...How....Why....Oh never mind." Ravenbait decides it's just too complicated and right now they have a bigger problem. Maa Kali is turning away from the mashing of ABD members. Her blood lust is high, raging, and Tezcatlipoca looks like a better bet for a fight. The Humungous is still alive, and, although now almost completely alone, his compatriots and fellow drivers compacted into the ground like so much scrap, he has spotted the Cake Stop posse and is now gunning for them. All together as they are, they make a good target, and with two giant deities slugging it out on the field of battle, there isn't much room for manoeuvre. Then there comes a "Helllooooo! Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! How is the proletariat battle against capitalism, greed and the cult of the car coming along?" It was the Aquatic Fowl on Bikes Society. They come to a stop, grinning from ear to ear. Seagul looked a little out of breath, as penguins can't fly and Pingu had vetoed the use of the trebuchet to get him back, thus meaning he needed a lift. "We were doing okay," says Hairyhippy. "Ravenbait called Kali, who is pretty awesome, but now that Aztec bloke is getting in the mix and the Humungous is ...um...." "Move!" Gunner bellowed. They scatter in all directions. The Hummer ploughs through, narrowly missing hitting anyone. A shadow falls. The sun is hidden behind the thick streams of curling smog and dense fumes, but a chill falls across the plain and every cyclist feels the goosepimples flush across their arms and the hairs on the backs of their necks prickle. High above them they can hear a massive whump-whump as of wings the size of Belgium flapping sedately. Ravenbait had managed to stick with Cuddy Duck. "What did you do?" she asks him, seeing the look on Tezcatlipoca's face turn from one of relish to one of shocked trepidation. "Have you ever heard of La Venta, madam?" he asks her. She frowns, riffling through her vast memory of the various pagan and heathen pantheons with which she does business. Enlightenment dawns. "Good gods!" "Well, quite literally, I think you'll find." Blowing away the grey curtain of smoke and fumes with his mighty wings, Quetzlcoatl, the winged serpent, God of rain, crops, Spring and the stuff of Life, arch-nemesis of Tezcatlipoca, settles to the ground. He exchanges looks with Maa Kali, and, even in the full blood lust of battle, the Devi understands that some things should be left as family matters. She retreats, and fixes her gaze upon the Humungous once more. Breathing clean air again, the Cake Stop move en masse for a space at the side of the temple, out of the way of the stamping feet. Tezcatlipoca and Quetzlcoatl grapple as Maa Kali picks up the mutant Hummer, wrings it into a twist of scrap as if it were a dischcloth and then drops it on the ground and stamps on it. The screams of the Humungous rise to a shrill, piercing note of pure pain and terror, and then abruptly cease. There are a few winces and sharp intakes of breath amongst the cyclists. "That has to hurt," says TooMuchCake. The battlefield is now empty of any human life. The dreadful remains of the battle are all that is left. Kali, tongue still dripping, feet smeared with blood all the way up to the bangles on Her ankles, glows bright white, briefly smiling upon them with the face of Parvati, and is gone. The last of the darkness clears with Her. "What do we do about those two?" FatBloke asks. "That battle was ongoing long before there were roads, before they had even heard of the wheel," Ravenbait tells him. "It is none of our concern." Even as she says this the two warring deities are fading from view, taking their fight with them into the Time of Legends. Thought and Memory suddenly appear. They seem to be eyeing up the painted eyeballs on the front of Ivan's spacehopper. "That's Mr Hoppy!" he is telling them cheerily. "Hungry boss," Thought says. "That Kali bird is a right stunner, but she hasn't left us much." "I remember when it were all mud, raw tripe and ocular fluids," says Memory, dreamily. "She knew how to throw a good buffet, did that Kali." "I suggest we repair to the beach," says Westley. "Aye, I reckon Shandy could rustle up a bit or two," Captain Jack adds. "And I could really use a drink." "Amen to that," says FatBloke. And with that, the Cake Stop party leaves the blasted plain with its Aztec temple, and return on weary legs to the sun baked beach to rest in the sun to the combined aroma of rum, beer, wine and Shandy's famous cooking. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 26/03/2004 13:18:53 Message: Ooh! I got slapped ------------------------ Still want a seagull... ------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 26/03/2004 13:39:23 Message: A climactic ending, full of battles and excitement, and all you can think about is getting slapped? . I don't know why I bother sometimes, I really don't..... Anyway. That's pretty much the last episode, apart from the epilogue (traditionally used for clearing up loose ends). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 26/03/2004 13:41:38 Message: Contact wiv a woman of the feminie persuasion, that was, Chuffy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contrary to popular belief, the apostrophe does not mean "look out, here comes an "s"". -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 26/03/2004 13:45:49 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KP-->Contact wiv a woman of the feminie persuasion, that was, Chuffy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cor! I'd almost forgotten wot that woz like I woz getting rusty... ------------------------ Still want a seagull... ------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 26/03/2004 13:49:43 Message: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Evilchuffy I woz getting rusty... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So that's what you call it. I'd still see a doctor if I were you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contrary to popular belief, the apostrophe does not mean "look out, here comes an "s"". -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Evilchuffy Replied on: 26/03/2004 13:50:47 Message: Anyone got some WD40 and a jeyes cloth? ------------------------ Still want a seagull... ------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Macleach Replied on: 26/03/2004 13:51:34 Message: Great story Sam. Leaves the way clear for another Cake Stoppers adventure in due course although this one will take some beating. Ja, like your calorie deficit bevor das weekend Diat boy. Time um zum Pub zu fahren denk Ich. "If Heineken were a sports drink I would hold the world hour record" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: kitzy Replied on: 26/03/2004 14:30:23 Message: that was great -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Gonzo Replied on: 26/03/2004 16:08:07 Message: I loved it, it really was good. I am still amazed how you managed to cast me as an evil person to start with and then flow as I mellowed out to the forum scapegoat! If you are thinking of getting team kit then go here for the forum relay go here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: TooMuchCake Replied on: 26/03/2004 17:15:50 Message: Brilliant! Cheers Sam For god's sake, someone get Chuffy a seagull! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: hairyhippy Replied on: 26/03/2004 18:52:25 Message: Thanks Sam. What do you mean, its not the menhir you ordered? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: FatBloke Replied on: 26/03/2004 19:23:06 Message: Excellent!!!!! There was beer!!! I'm hungry!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Pingu Replied on: 26/03/2004 20:03:23 Message: Mr Hoppy! Beer! (I hope it wasn't Stella Tortoise ) Not getting flung out of a trebuchet! What more could a body ask for Brussels weekend Pingu in Val d'Isère "You may ask yourself, 'Where does that highway go to?'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Bagonabike Replied on: 27/03/2004 14:17:17 Message: Bloomin' marvellous! I actually felt a bit cluastraphobic when it was getting all fumey in there.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: microphonie Replied on: 28/03/2004 13:06:24 Message: That was dead brill... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Klaatu Birada Nikto -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 29/03/2004 14:52:50 Message: Chronicles of the Cake Stop Vol V Epilogue Soundtrack: Bach - Cello Sonata in G Minor: Adagio Vivaldi - Nisi Dominus: Cum dederit delectis A leisurely pace had taken them back through A-Time with no interference. Even the Giant Clowns had stayed away, and there was a sense that the denizens of A-Time were keeping their distance. At least for the time being. The quiet was rather like the sudden peace that comes after a flock of pigeons has been scared away and before they start drifting back again. Ravenbait had vanished once more to "tie up a few loose ends" and so she is not present here at the Cake Stop Bar and Grill where Claire, clucking like a mother hen in her pleasure at having everyone back safe and sound, is plying the Cake Stoppers with bready comestibles and liquid refreshments of their pleasing. "Do you think he's really dead this time?" Withers asks. Caught up in the chaos of deadlines and organising himself for the move to some speculative fiction oriented sister publication -- best not discussed in the hallowed environs of this periodical lest we find ourselves distracted onto the unsavoury and totally inappropriate topic of nymphomaniac alien space tottie with six breasts, blue skin and hair like a medusa, which is an entirely unsuitable matter for an educational journal aimed at boys and girls of an adventurous disposition -- he had not managed to make it along on this outing. "The Humungous?" Chuffy asks. "I don't know. It's difficult to believe that he isn't. He was very squished. He said 'Eeek'. He screamed like a girl." "Mind you," says Flying Monkey. "I did hear Ravenbait and Aeroflash muttering about some discontinuity in the Space-Time Continuum resulting from the death of Pantani. I don't know what that was all about." "Hello, I'm Ivan Dobsky the meat safe murderer, only I never done it!" says the nice young man, beaming brightly at Claire and bouncing on his orange space hopper. "Does that count as human powered, do we think?" Claire ponders. "Strictly speaking," says Roger the Hilldoger, also known informally as Conan the 'Have you never heard of the Duey-Decimal System?!' Librarian, "I think it's raving psychotic loony powered. But we could argue that it's a fixed gear." Claire sizes up the nice young man with her connoisseur's eye. She has an uncanny ability to judge a person's preferred snack. "I'll just make you a luncheon meat sandwich then, shall I Ivan?" "Oooh! Yes! Can Mr Hoppy have one too?" FatBloke is telling Chris Land all about becoming a zombie. Chris is looking dubious about the part where Alica Keys gave the man mountain a foot massage. Gonzo isn't there; he has already gone on the long 180 mile trip to return his Real Mum home. In the corner the Aquatic Fowl on Bikes Society has noticed a herniatic intrusion from Campaign in the form of a certain persona from the Isle of Man (no relation to Ravenbait, however, which is probably just as well) and they are setting up a small barricade so that he can be monitored carefully. It's entirely possible that he will start a fight with Yenrod, and Claire was most upset by the broken furniture last time Yenrod got into a fight. Spinacilight is leaning over the jukebox with Richie1964, both of whom seem to be completely oblivious to all the goings-on of late. They are looking for an album on the vast collection that doesn't have a bad track on it, and the various suggestions being yelled at them from the floor, from Bach's Goldberg Variations to The Pixies, don't seem to meet with their approval as they are fixated upon the Beach Boys. Terry announces that he no longer has time to discuss ladyboys with Dan Cave: he has to be off, as he's looking after a friend's bike shop. That results in the usual hoots of derision and requests for freebies. Macleach takes his leave also, explaining that there is a steering tube needing some attention with a hacksaw at home. Kathy and Tim are busy discussing the bottom bracket on Kathy's new bike. TooMuchCake is bewailing the limitations of the PCR technique. All in all, the Cake Stop seems to be back to normal. "I suppose I'd better take this sword back then," Chuffy says a little sorrowfully. "I have a hedgehog that needs my attention and I'll probably scare the living daylights out of her if I turn up with this thing." He hefts Caledfwlch in his hand, seeing the etchings disintegrate into random patterns, as if the sword knows too that the adventures are over now until the next time. "I was contemplating joining Westley's crew," Redshift says, having no intention of giving her sword back to the Temple, especially as it had been intimated that Elektra wanted her to keep it. "He still has to get Buttercup back from John Travolta, you know. Shandy gave me this." She holds up a small conch. "If I blow it, Kehaar will come and lead me back to The Black Pearl. I think Captain Jack quite fancied the idea of pirating the Sea Org." "Where is Ravenbait anyway?" Claire asks them. Chuffy shrugs. "I don't know. Something about 'loose ends'." "I reckon she's gone off to play some sneaky BMX XXX so she doesn't keep falling flat on her arse getting the rotations wrong, and can show you up when she comes to visit," Redshift says. "There might be something in that," Chuffy agrees. "Hey, Bags! You want a tour of the Temple?" * * * Ravenbait does indeed have some sneaky plans for BMX XXX, but not until later. She has swapped Fingal for Peregrine and is steaming through the cleaner roads of A-Time chasing a man who does not wish to be caught. But nor does he want to escape. An old game this, the game of chase and be caught: appearances must be maintained after all. No one would wish the Hierophant to think that his aide de camp was anything other than completely devoted. "Was it Pantani?" Ravenbait asks her old friend as they lie side by side in prussian blue grass, feeling the movement of worms recycling the past under their bare feet, both still covered in a slight sheen of sweat from their exertions. Above them the sun races across the sky, drawn in a golden chariot by fiery white horses with sharp white teeth. The Hollow Man has taken a single black feather from his jacket pocket and he is twirling it between his surprisingly clean fingers. Its iridescence reflects shades of green and purple, like a thin film of oil on water. "Yes," he replies. "But it won't happen like that again. It was a fortuitous concatenation of events." "Glad to hear it," the Priestess replies. "Are you going to give me back my feather?" She reaches out to take it. He moves it out of her reach. He rolls onto one elbow, turning to face her. The flat grey eyes shift to blood red, blue upon luminous blue, white translucent jade, hard amethyst, and finally to a black almost as deep as the Priestess'. "No," he says softly. "I think I'll keep it." He reaches out with one albino-pale hand and touches the tiny pink mark on her arm that no one else would ever have noticed. She meets his gaze, feelings hidden behind an unreadable expression. "It is a nice reminder," he tells her. * * * And so, gentle and noble reader, we have reached the end of the utterly gripping Volume V of our educational adventure periodical for all gentlefolk of youthful disposition. Who is to say where the next adventure will take our brave heroes and heroines? Will there be a ban on the smoking of cigars in the League of Gentlemen Cyclists' Club, with concomitant removal of the humidor? Will the Sorority demand more access than just for bridge night on Thursdays? Will Terry manage to run his friend's bicycle business without any crises causing mishap and mayhem? Will Chuffy be able to resist the intangible charms of the lovely Bagonabike and concentrate on his orphaned hedgehog? Will Kathy be pleased with her new bicycle? Has TimPike managed to choose the correctly threaded bottom bracket? So many questions and so little time! Tune in next time, dear reader, to find out the answers to all these and more. Sam http://www.ravenfamily.org "GlovePuppets: people who wouldn't know a clue if it jumped up and hit them over the head with a rotted herring while playing 'Flower of Scotland' on the balalaika and pulling back their eyelids with the sticky end of a peeled slug." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: TooMuchCake Replied on: 29/03/2004 15:00:01 Message: Thanks Sam. Cracking as always. Tune in next time I most certainly shall. For god's sake, someone get Chuffy a seagull! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Kathy Pike Replied on: 29/03/2004 15:06:59 Message: Nooooo! It can't be finished. We wants more, more, my precioussssss... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contrary to popular belief, the apostrophe does not mean "look out, here comes an "s"". -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: groucho Replied on: 29/03/2004 15:37:21 Message: Sam, I was gripped as always! ..and the tumbleweeds just tumble. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Ravenbait Replied on: 29/03/2004 16:18:10 Message: That's your lot, I'm afraid, until someone provides the right spark to get me going on another one. Nothing has gripped me so far. That's not to say they won't get in: but nothing has sparked off any idea for the main thread of the plot. It's all incidental scenery so far. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: TimC Replied on: 30/03/2004 00:08:58 Message: Wonderful, Sam. Thank you! Um, what happened to the 'inspiration for future chronicles' thread?? OK, found it! What day is it? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply author: Brock Replied on: 30/03/2004 00:18:26 Message: Some bits flew way over my head, but it's still fantastically entertaining. I hope Sam finds some inspiration for further exploits soon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cycling Plus : http://www.cyclingplus.co.uk/forum/ © 2004 cyclingplus.co.uk Close Window