|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- PILN OF SCREW RIDGE--CUP 3--"HARVEY" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Piln of Screw Ridge  ||  -------> (Cup SRsr003, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Dave found the trail, with some difficulty, and began following it. "Uh... Rattt... what's 'TV'?" Dave asked. "What?" Rattt shrieked. Before Dave could answer, metal walls slid down in front of and in back of him, trapping him in the corridor. "Where did you hear about TV?" Rattt demanded suspiciously. "A g... g... gargoyle told me!" Dave said, surprised. "Well Dave, just what exactly did it say?" "Um... he said 'Guess what's on TV tonight?'" "Oh I see... This could be more serious than thought." "More... more serious than Guggon?" "I don't know." said Rattt as the walls slid upwards. Dave then continued to follow the blue slime trial until it led him to an almost impossibly dirty room. At one end of the room there something barely discernible as a door. "Wait." Rattt's voice then said impassively. "Okay." Dave didn't particularly want to stay in this room. The dirt hung in the air and seemed to stain his clothes even as he stood there. Then there was a sudden movement in one corner of the room, which ceased as Dave looked over. What he saw amazed him--there was a small patch of cleanliness on the wall. He started to walk towards it to examine it, but Rattt's voice then boomed out. "Okay dammit--come in, willya?" Rattt said. Dave walked over to the door and hesitated. "Uh... where's the doorknob?" he asked Rattt. After a few moments of silence, Rattt said "What the ruzgo d'ya mean where's the doorknob? Are ya some sorta idiot or something? Wait a second..." Then came sounds of heavy machinery falling and breaking, and then the door opened. There stood Harvey Rattt. It was hard to tell just what Harvey was. At first glance, he seemed to be a sort of short human/rodent/scum combination, but Dave knew that much more than that, as well as a whole lot less. "Come in." Rattt said. As Dave entered through the doorway, he was surprised by what he saw, even though he'd been in this place before. It was just so incomprehensively... incomprehensible. Basically, it was like a huge cavern, and there was a mountain of trash and broken machinery in the middle of it. Bridges extended from the innards of this mountain to the cavern walls, and misshapen creatures limped about everywhere. At the very top of the trash heap, Dave could just barely discern Harvey Rattt's office. "Come on. We've got things to talk about." said Rattt. Rattt then snapped his fingers and there was what appeared to be a landslide on the mountain, revealing a stairway. They began to climb up. "Mind if I fly?" Dave asked. Before Rattt could answer, a huge glass something crashed and shattered onto the cavern floor, causing an immense racket. As soon as the echoes subsided, Rattt said "Sure, go ahead! Just leave me here walking all the way up..." Dave looked up the dizzying staircase and said "Oh, it's not that far. I guess I can walk it." But Rattt had apparently disappeared. "Rattt?" called Dave, but his only answer was the tortured groan of a gigantic elephantine creature dragging a building through the debris of the vast floor below. So Dave took off and flew up towards the top of the heap, landing a few seconds later outside Rattt's office, only to find Harvey right there, with a weird smile on his sinister little face. "Time to go!" Harvey said as he pulled a lever extending from a crumpled metal form to his left. All was suddenly dark. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----