|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- PECULIAR LATHER--CUP 1--"THE PLAYFUL HUNT" --------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Peculiar Lather  ||  -------> (Cup SRpl001, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Tanner Loblolly considered the stark and depressing ending of the song "Defy the Lord", by his new favorite band, Melter Pluto. It was a torrential downpour outside, and Tanner had just come in, drenched. He had been down at Connects Hall playing the new confounder, Expatriate. Now he was here in his small Spoin Hall dorm room at Thatterine College, listening to the minitempest outside. His roommate, Doug Brine, had gone home for the weekend. A very calm and lonely feeling permeated the room. Until a month earlier, Tanner had been Payjaych, a pantheonic god. He was exiled to Earth as a human college student, for his "unpopular" political views. He'd been the god of Cats and Attributes Feline--such as stealth, mystery, aloofness, etc. But more recently he had ridiculed the greater gods, who were evermore assimilating aspects of lower gods, by declaring himself Payjaych, Lord of Neckties and Vinegar. This was in response to a goddess stealing his attribute of The Playful Hunt. His declaration in effect said "Here, have the rest of my attributes! Hopefully I'll be safe from theft now, with Neckties and Vinegar as my attributes!" And it openly berated the greater gods, who normally enjoyed a constant shower of false praise. They were usually above criticism, because they kept a healthy paranoia afoot. Payjaych didn't know why, but he felt pretty immune from the other gods. But finally, they had managed to put him out of commission and into college, which was where he now was. It was a sinister trap. Engaging and refreshing college life, with its mysteries, hedonism, youth, relaxation, hope--it sapped his will to escape. And being a student was somehow reminiscent of something from deep in his past--something he could not identify. But the feeling of deep memory, though abstract, was pleasing. So, listening to this Melter Pluto album and hearing the splatt'rin' rain outside, a peculiar memory came to Tanner. Now, this was not something from the deep past--but from maybe a year earlier. It was a normal memory, just like any other memory, only that the events in this memory never happened. Just then, in the song playing, were the lyrics "the memory of the dream drains away, and the loss is vague, and I want you to stay away". Tanner looked at the clock and felt a little weird. Something about memory. A deep ancient memory, an incongruous recent memory, lyrics on memory. Tanner was worried. So the odd memory came to him. It was... where the gods and goddesses lived, the Supbam Hotel, located in the city of Agoopish. But it was all wrong. These gods weren't gods like Payjaych and his kin. These gods were unfamiliar. But it was in the lobby, near the entrance and the elevators, where two old guys worked. The one guy was named Drake, and was short and thin, a huge shock of white hair on his head, and a hotel guy uniform on, making him look like a military leader. He was talking on the phone, and appeared to be concerned with something happening outside. The other guy, Cudworth, was taller, rotund, balding, and had a pleasant personality--but always seemed a little confused. He was reading from a book on his desk, and wore a uniform similar to the one Drake had on. Both had a desk with a light and a bulletin board. As the two sat at their desks, the god Well Doctarca walked by and went into the elevator bay. Well was a god of Darkness and Intrigue, working as a politician these days. His black and gray and red attire looked like a combination between a business suit and armor. His hair was long, straight, and black, and he had a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. His face was broad and he looked wise, but also practical and rage-prone. Soon an elevator door opened and he entered, going up. The lobby was not palatial, but was pretty big. It had a nice marble floor, and the whole place was currently lit by the mid-afternoon sun, streaming in from the tall windows that looked out onto the street. Then, Tanner came into the lobby through the front doors and walked up to Cudworth. Tanner had just gotten to Agoopish a few hours earlier, and was frazzled, excited, and deluded--since he was a mortal and never before believed that a place such as Agoopish could exist--let alone that he might travel to such a location. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----