Dream: Our Patented Serrations [Weekend Edition]
Saturday, Dec 4th:
Ed and Alyssa got married again. The ceremony took place over three days.
I walked with ten or fifteen other people, the bride among them, guiding them through the Mall of America to the pizzeria where the first of many informal receptions and rehearsal dinners would take place. I gave them the wrong directions, but we got to the right place by mid-afternoon.
That evening, everyone attending the weddingseveral hundred people, some of them strangersgathered in the dining hall of the great, rambling manor house for a ceremonial dinner. I sat at a round table with five other people near my age and watched the proceedings politely. Three bored eight-year-old boys sat at the table behind me.
My eyes left the ceremony when I heard snickering from their table, and I noticed my dinner roll was missing. I didn't begrudge them their entertainment, so long as they weren't disruptive. A few minutes later I heard stifled laughter and saw my chocolate-chip cookie has also disappeared. I scowled back at their table, then tried to ignore them.
The same kid crept up behind me with a glass of water; when I saw him coming, I pinned him under my right arm, and we flicked water at each other for a couple minutes. Then I told him to sit down and behave for a while. I'd hardly turned around when he came back with a tumbler of McDonald's orange drink poised to hurl at me. I spun around, grabbed his elbow, and dumped it over his head.
I heard his approach over his sniggering fellows a few minutes later. I stood up and spun around, my knee-length coat flaring open to reveal the scabbard of the cavalry saber at my left hip. I grabbed the boy around the waist, carried him upside down, and dropped him head-first on the middle of his table. He fell over awkwardly, and the three kids were briefly too shocked to say anything.
"Now cut it out," I told them.
During the mingling part of the ceremony later that evening, I noticed one of the strangers in attendance making an nuisance of himself. A short man in his mid-20's, his complexion and dark curls made me think he was Italian. His shiny, double-breasted maroon coat had an unusually-wide v-neck, exposing a double-breasted vest of amaranthine velure.
He stood near the wall, haranguing the ceremonial procession that wound through the milling crowd. I think I told him to quiet down or get lost, and he got belligerent. I drew my 24-inch saber by its orange rubber gusto grip and struck his head from his body in a single stroke. Kneeling, I used his jacket to clean the serrated blade, a sibling to our Rachael Ray Füri kitchen knives. This outcome seemed to satisfying everyone present, or at least everyone paying attention, and I stuffed his head into a sack on my belt, just behind the scabbard, in case it proved useful.
All the guests had rooms in the manor for the week of the celebration. When the official activities were done for the day, numerous small parties and games sprang up around the estate. At night, some of the guests explored the house in secret; the event used less than half the house, and while it was implied that courteous guests would not stray from those areas, there were few locked doors.
Many sought the fabulous science or magic which the owner collected, at least according to rumor, in hopes of distinction, transcendence, or just illicit excitement. Those that found it were changed, and most felt themselves apart from "lesser humans." Groups of similarly-altered folk began roaming the halls at night, looking for more power, or for normals to tease, to target with their new faculties, and to eat. They still moved quietly, their fear of discovery by the residents or the staff not yet gone, but eroding steadily. There seemed to be more of these altered guests every day, and I worried that anyone who hung around after the end of the official ceremony could be in danger.
The night after the reception, I went down to an auxiliary kitchen to watch the moonlight in the courtyard. I'd stood there almost an hour when several people entered the room from different doors. The shadows in my corner kept me hidden until everyone had packed into the kitchen, and by then they all seemed to assume I was with someone else.
The creeping guests assessed one another. Three of them had changed the [Blue] way and four of them the [Sharp] way, though it was hard for anyone to tell unless they looked closely. Seven of them had found the White Light; now their skin was pale and they had stone in their gazes; their hands clenched and flexed without their knowledge, eager to manipulate the [Green Shadows], and they feared the sun. They had been hunting a group of exploring normals, and nearly caught up to them when the six normals had found the Chamber of the White Light. (It was just down the hall from the kitchen, opposite the China closet.) As they talked, the door opened, briefly admitting a wan glare to the dim room. The six explorers emerged from the Chamber and joined their new siblings in the kitchen. Their pale faces smiled at one another, and their eyes seemed to make each other hungrier.
I noticed a nervous man in the pantry, and realized I was the only one in the room that had an angle to see him. The pantry had two open doorways on adjacent walls; he'd pressed himself into the corner between them, but it was likely someone would notice him as the groups split up to leave.
A couple of the [Sharp] ones realized I was alone and stepped closer.
"What about you?" one asked. Some of the pale folk pressed in behind them, sensing an imminent opportunity for violence.
Their arrogance disgusted me too much to be afraid, but I couldn't tell them I was just a human. I made a quick mental tally of my options. Leatherman multitool? No help; not even my saber is enough to fight off a mob like this. Marbles cut from precious stones? No. Spare parts from a chartreuse Airsoft rifle? No use. Oh, of course....
"I see things," I started lamely. The changed ones inched closer.
Marshaling my moxie, I gestured imperiously at the window to the empty moonlit courtyard and the shadowed gardens beyond, as if to explain my statement.
"I am the one that Sees where others only look," I declared, walking to the pantry. I drew their eyes with me so they'd see the human cowering in the corner, hidden practically among them. I stepped in front of him and turned to face the monsters, trying to mark him with my posture as my prey.
"I am the one that found the Ring," I claimed. I saw myself returning the little twist of sparkles from Chuck vs. The Marlin to Alyssa Sommer, and it felt true.
"And when I see something I dislike," I said, reaching my left hand into the pouch on my belt, "I am incisive." I held out my hand and stared them down with the severed head.
Everyone gathered the next day in the hall outside the temple for the final third of the ceremony. We sat in folding chairs arrayed in front of the temple stage. Beyond the proscenium lay a few oddly-decorated rooms that opened onto other rooms in an improbably endless maze of architecture. My wife and I decided it was time to return to the real world, so, at the time appointed for such things near the end of the ceremony, we walked up the aisle.
The guests we passed fiddled with pieces of unknown toys, trying to assemble something useful. Anyone that built something during the ceremony got to participate in some sort of communion. I gave one of my Airsoft fragments to a brunette. Smiling with unexpected pleasure, she quickly attached several of her bits to the one I'd given her. A moment later, she'd completed a rocket-launcher the size of a water pistol. She gave me the weapon in gratitude.
Alyssa and I hurried up the aisle and entered the temple.
The first room, a small parlor, had a trick floor; the entire thing was a seesaw. When either side dipped below the floor of the next room, it revealed a hundred-foot plunge into an orange-glowing morass. Hot, humid gusts carried up the scent of soup from the concealed pit. It caught us by surprise, but by luck we both managed to reach the fulcrum without sliding into the trap.
We clung to the wainscot for balance while we debated how we could both cross the room. Temple acolytes began hurling ritual stones at us, carved into careful discs, trying to knock us off the balance point and into the pit. We dodged the stones for a few minutes, but we got a few bruises in the process; we couldn't move much without tipping the seesaw. The audience watched us tensely; some gasped or cheered. Once we'd collected enough of the ritual stones around us, we counter-weighted the floor and dashed to the far side.
We passed through many other rooms, and they got safer the farther we went. As we drew closer to the membrane of the real world, we found small groups of people camped on the floor, explorers that had come through the exit we sought. Unlike the changed guests, they knew nothing of the manor house proper and its strange science. They came only for the mundane objects of this world, which they valued for their unusual physical properties. we passed one couple testing a resinous brick with a flame.
"Just imagine the fire clay we could make with this stuff," one said.
A little farther, we found a family disassembling wardrobes and dressers into their constituent lumber.
Ed and Alyssa got married again. The ceremony took place over three days.
I walked with ten or fifteen other people, the bride among them, guiding them through the Mall of America to the pizzeria where the first of many informal receptions and rehearsal dinners would take place. I gave them the wrong directions, but we got to the right place by mid-afternoon.
That evening, everyone attending the weddingseveral hundred people, some of them strangersgathered in the dining hall of the great, rambling manor house for a ceremonial dinner. I sat at a round table with five other people near my age and watched the proceedings politely. Three bored eight-year-old boys sat at the table behind me.
My eyes left the ceremony when I heard snickering from their table, and I noticed my dinner roll was missing. I didn't begrudge them their entertainment, so long as they weren't disruptive. A few minutes later I heard stifled laughter and saw my chocolate-chip cookie has also disappeared. I scowled back at their table, then tried to ignore them.
The same kid crept up behind me with a glass of water; when I saw him coming, I pinned him under my right arm, and we flicked water at each other for a couple minutes. Then I told him to sit down and behave for a while. I'd hardly turned around when he came back with a tumbler of McDonald's orange drink poised to hurl at me. I spun around, grabbed his elbow, and dumped it over his head.
I heard his approach over his sniggering fellows a few minutes later. I stood up and spun around, my knee-length coat flaring open to reveal the scabbard of the cavalry saber at my left hip. I grabbed the boy around the waist, carried him upside down, and dropped him head-first on the middle of his table. He fell over awkwardly, and the three kids were briefly too shocked to say anything.
"Now cut it out," I told them.
During the mingling part of the ceremony later that evening, I noticed one of the strangers in attendance making an nuisance of himself. A short man in his mid-20's, his complexion and dark curls made me think he was Italian. His shiny, double-breasted maroon coat had an unusually-wide v-neck, exposing a double-breasted vest of amaranthine velure.
He stood near the wall, haranguing the ceremonial procession that wound through the milling crowd. I think I told him to quiet down or get lost, and he got belligerent. I drew my 24-inch saber by its orange rubber gusto grip and struck his head from his body in a single stroke. Kneeling, I used his jacket to clean the serrated blade, a sibling to our Rachael Ray Füri kitchen knives. This outcome seemed to satisfying everyone present, or at least everyone paying attention, and I stuffed his head into a sack on my belt, just behind the scabbard, in case it proved useful.
All the guests had rooms in the manor for the week of the celebration. When the official activities were done for the day, numerous small parties and games sprang up around the estate. At night, some of the guests explored the house in secret; the event used less than half the house, and while it was implied that courteous guests would not stray from those areas, there were few locked doors.
Many sought the fabulous science or magic which the owner collected, at least according to rumor, in hopes of distinction, transcendence, or just illicit excitement. Those that found it were changed, and most felt themselves apart from "lesser humans." Groups of similarly-altered folk began roaming the halls at night, looking for more power, or for normals to tease, to target with their new faculties, and to eat. They still moved quietly, their fear of discovery by the residents or the staff not yet gone, but eroding steadily. There seemed to be more of these altered guests every day, and I worried that anyone who hung around after the end of the official ceremony could be in danger.
The night after the reception, I went down to an auxiliary kitchen to watch the moonlight in the courtyard. I'd stood there almost an hour when several people entered the room from different doors. The shadows in my corner kept me hidden until everyone had packed into the kitchen, and by then they all seemed to assume I was with someone else.
The creeping guests assessed one another. Three of them had changed the [Blue] way and four of them the [Sharp] way, though it was hard for anyone to tell unless they looked closely. Seven of them had found the White Light; now their skin was pale and they had stone in their gazes; their hands clenched and flexed without their knowledge, eager to manipulate the [Green Shadows], and they feared the sun. They had been hunting a group of exploring normals, and nearly caught up to them when the six normals had found the Chamber of the White Light. (It was just down the hall from the kitchen, opposite the China closet.) As they talked, the door opened, briefly admitting a wan glare to the dim room. The six explorers emerged from the Chamber and joined their new siblings in the kitchen. Their pale faces smiled at one another, and their eyes seemed to make each other hungrier.
I noticed a nervous man in the pantry, and realized I was the only one in the room that had an angle to see him. The pantry had two open doorways on adjacent walls; he'd pressed himself into the corner between them, but it was likely someone would notice him as the groups split up to leave.
A couple of the [Sharp] ones realized I was alone and stepped closer.
"What about you?" one asked. Some of the pale folk pressed in behind them, sensing an imminent opportunity for violence.
Their arrogance disgusted me too much to be afraid, but I couldn't tell them I was just a human. I made a quick mental tally of my options. Leatherman multitool? No help; not even my saber is enough to fight off a mob like this. Marbles cut from precious stones? No. Spare parts from a chartreuse Airsoft rifle? No use. Oh, of course....
"I see things," I started lamely. The changed ones inched closer.
Marshaling my moxie, I gestured imperiously at the window to the empty moonlit courtyard and the shadowed gardens beyond, as if to explain my statement.
"I am the one that Sees where others only look," I declared, walking to the pantry. I drew their eyes with me so they'd see the human cowering in the corner, hidden practically among them. I stepped in front of him and turned to face the monsters, trying to mark him with my posture as my prey.
"I am the one that found the Ring," I claimed. I saw myself returning the little twist of sparkles from Chuck vs. The Marlin to Alyssa Sommer, and it felt true.
"And when I see something I dislike," I said, reaching my left hand into the pouch on my belt, "I am incisive." I held out my hand and stared them down with the severed head.
Everyone gathered the next day in the hall outside the temple for the final third of the ceremony. We sat in folding chairs arrayed in front of the temple stage. Beyond the proscenium lay a few oddly-decorated rooms that opened onto other rooms in an improbably endless maze of architecture. My wife and I decided it was time to return to the real world, so, at the time appointed for such things near the end of the ceremony, we walked up the aisle.
The guests we passed fiddled with pieces of unknown toys, trying to assemble something useful. Anyone that built something during the ceremony got to participate in some sort of communion. I gave one of my Airsoft fragments to a brunette. Smiling with unexpected pleasure, she quickly attached several of her bits to the one I'd given her. A moment later, she'd completed a rocket-launcher the size of a water pistol. She gave me the weapon in gratitude.
Alyssa and I hurried up the aisle and entered the temple.
The first room, a small parlor, had a trick floor; the entire thing was a seesaw. When either side dipped below the floor of the next room, it revealed a hundred-foot plunge into an orange-glowing morass. Hot, humid gusts carried up the scent of soup from the concealed pit. It caught us by surprise, but by luck we both managed to reach the fulcrum without sliding into the trap.
We clung to the wainscot for balance while we debated how we could both cross the room. Temple acolytes began hurling ritual stones at us, carved into careful discs, trying to knock us off the balance point and into the pit. We dodged the stones for a few minutes, but we got a few bruises in the process; we couldn't move much without tipping the seesaw. The audience watched us tensely; some gasped or cheered. Once we'd collected enough of the ritual stones around us, we counter-weighted the floor and dashed to the far side.
We passed through many other rooms, and they got safer the farther we went. As we drew closer to the membrane of the real world, we found small groups of people camped on the floor, explorers that had come through the exit we sought. Unlike the changed guests, they knew nothing of the manor house proper and its strange science. They came only for the mundane objects of this world, which they valued for their unusual physical properties. we passed one couple testing a resinous brick with a flame.
"Just imagine the fire clay we could make with this stuff," one said.
A little farther, we found a family disassembling wardrobes and dressers into their constituent lumber.