The Mansion of E by Robert M Cook :: chapter summaries
Robert M Cook's own synopsis page, which ties events in to individual strips rather than chapters, can be viewed here.
Note that under the actual strips, Rob's own notes are shown centred, while any comments by me are left-justified and enclosed in [square brackets].
Part One: The Pots Room [16/07/2003 - 13/06/2004] 01: The New Arrival [16/07/2003 - 13/08/2003] Sylvester Eman, 23rd Earl of E, is seen performing rituals to keep the family home, the Mansion of E, healthy - one of the results of which is that many disembodied eyes appear, looking out of a picture frame, which is a new thing Sylvester finds alarming. His brother Mortimer brings home a professional bodyguard named Rosemary Ripley to the Mansion: while they are getting introduced, a slavering monster called a Dornbeast appears, half T. rex and half squid, which leads Sylvester to assume Mortimer has left the door to the basement open. Rosemary kills the Dornbeast with a vase, and the brothers cook and eat part of it. The rest is rendered down for parts in a machine made by Ludwig, the 18th Earl, and those organs which can't be used will be sold to Old Man Larssen in the village (later a major character). Rosemary is astonished by the luxury of being given a guest room with its own bath and writing desk and an actual flush toilet (and, for no obvious reason, a picture of a skunk in a tutu), but puts off writing to her Aunt Eva because she finds it difficult to admit to what she's done. We will later learn that she has gone AWOL from a respected security firm called Hack 'n' Slash, but for the moment we just see that she is a thief and fugitive who has travelled a long way by some mysterious means which have resulted in her not knowing where on the continent she is. We see that events are being monitored on a bank of screens by a white-haired figure in a chair. The screens show events we have already seen from Rosemary's arrival, and also what we will later learn is a female Gnoll (possibly Mimsy); the Great Chasm; the Elevator; the Scary Lady (Sylvester's great-great-aunt) with a stack of crockery balanced on one hand; and Arthur the Weirdo operating a sinister-looking bird puppet while being watched by a Smyt. The next morning, Rosemary starts a clear-out and tidy of the Mansion. She tells the brothers to remove an amphibious beaver shark from the Mansion's wading pool. Sylvester (who claims to hate animals, his only unlikeable characteristic) tells Mortimer to do it: Mortimer tries, and it chases him. Rosemary measures the windows for heavy shutters. Sylvester takes her to a high tower and shows her the view: they discuss the fact that the Earls of E used to own all the countryside around, until the 20th Earl, Philbert, spent all their money on philanthropic projects. 02: In Storage [14/08/2003 - 12/09/2003] Mortimer is still being chased by the shark. Rosemary decides to set up a system for pouring boiling oil on intruders, and persuades Sylvester to go along with this on the grounds that it will repel bill collectors and salesmen. She and Sylvester go in search of a suitable large pot, but the Pots Room is down in the basement where the Dornbeast came from, so they will require special equipment. While they are assembling the equipment they will need, we see various other storage areas (some of them very odd), and meet Sylvester's great-great-uncle Frederick and his partner (a.k.a. The Scary Lady) and their neighbour Amos Grubb. Frederick and the Grubbs do not get on. He and the Scary Lady are incredulous at the idea of Sylvester with a girl. We see an ancient device which is ticking down towards zero - Sylvester plans to be out of the area when it hits zero. Rosemary tries to meddle with it, and it shocks her. We also see an enormous pot which was a relic sacred to the Mansion of S, captured and brought home by Angus, 16th Earl of E - there is a suggestion that E may have destroyed S conclusively. The pot is so large that the room had to be built around it. The pots they want are in the basement, so they have to collect mining helmets and other equipment such as a backpack for Sylvester and a sword and shield for Rosemary. Sylvester points out that they are going into great danger and that they could just buy a pot at a chain-store called World o' Pots in the local village - but neither of them has any money. Still being chased by the shark, Mortimer flees to the forest, where his flight is watched by two male Nomes sitting on a branch. The Gnoll community leader Comshaw tracks the Dornbeast to the mansion, learns of its fate from Rosemary and Sylvester and is disturbed and frightened: using a kind of organic telephone called an aurilnode he reports the fact that these dangerous, monster-devouring creatures may be the infamous creatures called "Human" to the basement Council, who claim to already know. Rosemary is surprised to learn that Gnolls in this area can talk. Meanwhile, believing Humans to be monsters about to invade the basement, Comshaw and his male partner Niddle set out for the forest to see Comshaw's cousin Louch, looking for a refuge, while their female partner Camora goes looking for assistance from a powerful ally. Niddle, we will later learn, is Comshaw and Camora's Finagler, and Comshaw is a "Poker" - a kind of investigator-cum-knight errant who carries a sort of singlestick cum crook. 03: Going Down [15/09/2003 - 31/10/2003] We learn that there are dangeorus creatures called Sneeches in the basement, and two ways down there from the mansion - one which leads through Sneech territory and across the Great Chasm, and one which involves an equally dangerous lift/elevator. The entrance to Sneech territory is via an arch with a devil-mask over it: through the arch can be seen flames and spikes and the shadowy figure of an Ichyoid. The elevator looks like a normal machine. Comshaw and Niddle head for the forest along an underground passage, accompanied by a small yet heavy creature of unknown species called Digger Odel. The passage was dug on the Council's orders to allow for population expansion, with one branch leading up to the Mansion (which is how Comshaw got there) and the other out to the forest. The forest tunnel is guarded by a new guard who previously wouldn't let Digger by. Camora meanwhile seeks aid from the Wyrm mob-leader Nevus but an Eyebolt receptionist called Faldstool and two adult Trog guards say he is unavailable, so she declares she will stop the Humans herself. Meanwhile Rosemary and Sylvester take the lift down to the basement, but the lift operator is a devil/Demon who is confined to the lift by a curse, and who tries to hypnotize Rosemary, saying she's just what he's been looking for. Sylvester feigns terror and being controlled in order to throw the Operator off the scent and then knocks him out with a cold-iron frying-pan, and Rosemary then kills an adult male Trog with dementia, who tries to eat them as they leave the lift. We learn about The Weirdo Who Lives in the Attic (a kind of court jester, with a proper Weirdo Guild), who is visiting the Basement, and Rosemary and Sylvester go round a time twistpoint which causes them to see their own recently-past selves. Mortimer avoids a killer tree loaded with weapons and then climbs another tree to get away from the shark, meets a Nome called Nitfol there, and then is grabbed by a giant tree-squid. 04: The Hall of Achievement [01/11/2003 - 22/01/2004] Rosemary and Sylvester come to the Hall of Achievement where they see evidence of the historic successes of the Earls of E - which have become less impressive of late. We learn that the helmet Rosemary is wearing belonged to the self-aggrandising female Earl Audra, and that Sylvester's mother (currently on another continent) is psychic. Due to a misunderstanding Rosemary injures Fern, an intelligent giant carnivorous plant (who we will later learn is sustained by the Tree), but Sylvester is able to heal Fern. They experiment with a Djinnoscope, a coin-operated device which gives the user whatever they currently most need, so long as the user is Human - if not, it kills them (we will later learn that the non-Human inhabitants of the Basement call this place the Death Hall). Initially the Djinnoscope is covered by an unexplained poster of a giant cogwheel. It gives Rosemary nothing tangible, but when Sylvester tries it it covers them with white paste which makes them look like Ghasts and protects them when they encounter a party of Ghast soldiers, sent by the Council to apprehend the Humans. Rosemary and Sylvester walk through a tunnel which used to be part of a particle accelerator, and see a giant bottle of wine in which are trapped two Demons called Chauncy and Edgar. Rosemary thumps Sylvester when she learns that his family founded Moe Wines, producer of appallingly bad plonk, although they no longer own it. The Ghasts, commanded by an officer called Hpthbvtw (Hepthbav), go to the elevator and find the unconscious Operator and the dead Trog. Two Gobules called Gorp and Phiga try to persuade Hpthbvtw to let them eat the Operator. The beaver shark chops down the tree which Mortimer, Nitfol and the tree-squid are in, and the tree-squid's elastic tentacles first nearly drop Nitfol and Mortimer into a mixed group of three Pales and two Forest Gnolls who we will later learn are Comshaw's cousin Louch and his friend Scrof, then catapult them into the air where they meet Protus the Willigig, a time-traveller, who angrily gives Mortimer a small gadget called the HJ42 while shouting about a witch and her slimy little friend. They then fall and land in a giant Spyder's web. Comshaw, Niddle and Odel encounter a battle taking place in the forest passage (which winds through the territories of several different groups), and Niddle is unwise enough to tell them that if they've run out of arrows they can chuck rocks. He is badly injured in the crossfire and has to be taken to the Helipath doctor Telic: there is a long queue for Telic's services, including an Ecadem with a damaged tail and a male Nome called Rezrov with his arm in a sling. Camora meets Hax, a hat-shaped creature called s Fixit, riding on a Pale: Hax, who works for "God", buys rabid fleebs (little pyramid-shaped creatures used as currency, a.k.a. triblots) from a Gnoll called Ratch, and Camora asks for help in dealing with the Humans, whom she regards as a great threat. We learn that Gnolls have brief lives of about ten years, that Digger Odel is thirty, that Comshaw's grandfather Compline was a famous military commander in a war between Gnolls and Nomes, and that the Mansion of E protects the Earl's family, that most of the basement dwellers think Humans are a myth and that the Council have been monitoring and testing the inhabitants of the Mansion above ground to see what they are, and Comshaw has been working on this. Again we see the white-haired watcher observing the action on multiple screens. 05: Le Tree [23/01/2004 - 13/06/2004] Rosemary and Sylvester discover that Nevus has laid claim to the giant Tree which provides life-support to the basement, and has opened a restaurant called Le Tree, selling Treefruit, which is generally available free throughout the basement although the quality varies. Here they meet Protus, who recognises Rosemary. Sylvester argues with the maître d'hôtel, a male Motihaul named Snoot, over whether he or Nevus owns the tree. When the maître d' sends for a Boogieman called Percy to beat Sylvester up, Rosemary intervenes. A serious fight is broken up when Protus pays for lunch, as friends of Protus's are sacrosanct: lunch turns out to be fruit of the Tree, much more delicious than Treefruit usually is and as such potentially addictive. We learn that an army is chasing Rosemary, although they are at least six months' journey away (so she jumped a long distance to get to E). Gorp and Phiga and several other Gobules (including Mingent, Ningle, Nugent and Chuw), some of whom work for a Gobule mob-leader called Guttle, fight for the right to lick the Operator, and Ningle does so. This causes an explosion in which Hpthbvtw is killed, and dies regretting that he never told the Ghast officer Hpobfvfr how he felt about her. Frederick's partner views the explosion in a sort of electronic crystal ball. Another of the Ghasts, Sepferb, reports to the Council that Humans are really here, and they learn by aurilnode about the explosion, which leads to a fire which threatens to free Chauncy and Edgar. A bucket chain is (dis)organised. The Council's Ghast soldiers go to Le Tree to arrest the Humans but Snoot, the maître d', resists them. Another Ghast, Hopobefever/Hpobfvfr, works for the Council but distrusts them and she leads her own mixed-species party to Le Tree. Her Wyrm sidekick (who we learn much later is called Tabo) tries to detain Rosemary and Sylvester, but Snoot drugs him with a psychotropic powder. Telic fixes Niddle up, with a warning that he will crash out later, and Comshaw learns that his mother is working as Telic's assistant. We learn that Comshaw's father was killed and dismembered in the forest, and that Comshaw's mother hates the father's memory. Comshaw, Niddle and Odel pass through some magically-twisted tunnels and Niddle acquires a long crystal (which glows, but which is not the usual star-shape of a glowgem) which is only there some of the time. They meet a Boogieman called Bertrum, and a scruffy Gnoll called Furphy who claims to be not there, and then the tunnel guard, an arrogant Gnoll called Skoil, whom Comshaw defeats in a "poking" (single-stick) contest. A Trog or Saur monk called Fratch reacts badly to the sight of the group of Camora, Hax and the Pale, declaring that the Evil One has returned. Hax agrees to help Camora "deal with" the Humans on condition he gets to ride on her head: they take up residence in an alcove near Le Tree to spy on Rosemary and Sylvester. Meanwhile the freed Pale runs away and is attacked by rabid fleebs. He falls down onto a ledge by the Great Chasm where a Helipath and a Gnoll (Flange and Sprocket) are working on a machine called Project Y. They have a use for the rabid fleebs and pick them off; we aren't told whether the Pale survives. The Spyder rejects Mortimer as being less tasty than Nitfol, and throws him out of the web: he lands in the forest and meets a Saur called Snerk. Snerk (who is acting for an employer) and the mob bosses Agita (female Motihaul), Nevus (small male Wyrm) and Guttle (male Gobule) have gathered for an auction for which they have all received mysterious invitations, without knowing what is to be auctioned. It seems to be the HJ42 (making Mortimer the auctioneer, although all he wants to do is find and rescue Nitfol) but when Mortimer presses a button on it it causes a vast flare which makes the sound "ZORP" and dumps him into a timeslip where he meets future!Rosemary, future!Mortimer and a dead enemy. Future!Mortimer is dressed as a wizard, carrying an umbrella and accompanied by a femal Motihaul and a black-haired human girl; future!Rosemary is dressed like a gladiator. We meet a toadstool-bedecked Gobule called Bung and his friend Faddle, a Gnoll; another Gobule/Gnoll pair called Tuft and Dap; another Gnoll called Clochard, his Helipath friend Nitid who wants to be a comic artist, and a Motihaul called Izchak, who sells weapons. Later we will learn that Faddle has the Finagler talent, but chose not to be one. Bung accidentally eats one of Faddle's possessions so he gives him a toadstool from his back, which Faddle soon learns is in demand, and puts up for auction. A Gnoll called Sina is organising a party for somebody called Catmorlo, complete with birthday cakeshroom, but she gets roped in to organise the bucket chain instead. To get from the well to the fire the chain has to run through the Gnoll mad-scientist Crazy Rhid's cave laboratory. Meanwhile the Gobules Gorp and Phiga steal Sina's cakeshroom from a Ghast who is guarding it, Frederick's partner the Scary Lady goes out and her neighbours Amos and Nellie Grubb discuss it. Part Two: Time and Space and Fleebs [14/06/2004 - 11/10/2005] 01: An Intermission [14/06/2004 - 06/09/2004] The Weirdo reports on the mansion's creatures and cultures to a shadowy female figure in pointed shoulder-pads and a hood with two floppy little points (possibly a humab in female Motihaul clothes), who comes from the capitol. His report includes Protus the Willigig, who seems to know the Weirdo from the future. He is unable to discuss the Operator, for reasons he cannot tell. Comments are made on the fact that fleebs just sit around and stare. We hear that things "Out West" are going badly, that fleebs are involved somehow and that someone called Tulip, a friend of the Weirdo's, has been killed: also that events at the Mansion are of great importance. They discuss the fact that fleebs from the east turned up in the west at the same time that a woman obviously from the west (Rosemary) turned up in the east, but are interrupted by evidence of surveillance. In the forest tunnel, Comshaw's party encounter the remains of a "Metalmin", a man-shaped robot. After they've gone their presence partly activates it but its head falls off and provokes a small war among some tiny sentient creatures called Smyts and Fuzzes, until the Fuzzes are eaten by a slime grub. A Gnoll called Blit and an Ooze called Noet discuss signs and portents indicating that this may be the day that changes the world, and try to persuade a Ghast called Vipthiboo, who is searching for a Dornbeast pup. Blit and Noet accidentally activate an electronic idol to the god Kaylu which they understand to be an ancient Human artefact, and find the Dornbeast. We learn that Furphy reports to Nevus. Gorp and Phiga report to a battered Gobule elder called Maw, but are pursued by the Ghast Sepferb from whom they stole the cakeshroom. Maw and his squabbling assistants Twiz and Devura return the cakeshroom to Sepferb (who more or less works for the Council but also may be involved in a secret project). We learn that a long time ago Maw ate a Ghast who was some kind of charismatic political troublemaker, and the Ghasts are more grateful than offended. Maw lectures his cohorts about cooperation, but as we cut away to the viewpoint of the unknown watcher, we see them attacked by an unidentified assailant (later named as Nash). The watcher, now identified as male and moustachioed and referred to as the Overseer (or at least an Overseer - we will later learn that he is called Mr Hand), has a sarcastic Metalmin butler called Hector who is in a poor state of repair. The Overseer seems to live on alcohol, especially the low-grade products of the Mansion's former Moe vineyard. A strange octopussy creature with a stalk on its head, called a Scalpsucker, is clinging to the Overseer's face: he peels it off and Hector later deposits it down a chute into a tank where more are being bred. On his way to the chute, Hector passes alcoves containing strange things - a mummified king on a throne, sitting next to a dial saying Yes, No, Cheese (Yes is selected); a strange mechanism plugged into the Tree; and a chained Trog running on a treadmill, trying to grab a lure in the form of a Gnoll doll. As the Scalpsucker crashes down the chute we glimpse a hatted Smyt who seems to have multiple arms like a Hindu deity, or perhaps who is juggling and whirring its two arms so they seem like many, accomapanied by a spider. There is a reference to the Overseer hiring two mechanics to fix a scanner - the same two who were working on Project Y. Inside a hatch on Hector's back is a repair manual in the Overseer's handwriting but which he doesn't remember writing: this may have been forged by Hector who then wiped the memory. The Overseer sends his agents Sprocket (Gnoll) and Flange (Helipath) to get a spare part for Hector from the wrecked Metalmin in the tunnel. Meanwhile we meet some little Sciencebug religious fanatics in tiny space-suits who are trying to cross the Overseer's office to reach the shrine of a beetle-deity called Roshambo (who we will later learn is a character in a comic, along with Frowgler the Horned Frog) without being zapped by a bug-zapper. One is killed in a religious dispute, and some philosophical Smyt monks eat the remains. We learn that long ago the Overseer was friends with a Gnoll called Drax, and that it was the Overseer who was spying on the Weirdo, and wants to find out who his contact from the capitol is. Watching the screens we see that the drugged Wyrm (Tabo) at Le Tree is an old friend of Percy's and they have another friend called Skibble, not present: the screens also show sinister half-seen faces in the dark, probably The Gibber. When the Scalpsucker arrives in the breeding tank and starts mating, the vibrations shake loose a literal Bad Penny, an evil coin, which is then at least partially eaten by little Biters. We see that Hector has a three-eyed robot dog called Nunsuch. Hector wakes a Boogieman whose job is to beat the Middle Gong, which tells Sylvester that the day is half over. 02: The Grand Tour [07/09/2004 - 29/11/2004] Snoot takes Sylvester and Rosemary to meet an Eyebolt called Spatchcock, and on the way he shows them a sort of small menagerie set up by Nevus, with creatures in glass cases. One of the exhibits is an energy being called an ABOL (sentient ball of light), and the others are a large "Tribbletongued" hamster and a sentient house-plant resembling an Ficus. These are cameos from other ComicGenesis comics - the ABOL from Reasoned Cognition, the hamster from Furmentation and the plant from Station V3. Sylvester tells Rosemary that the ABOL is sentient and she touches its case with a view to releasing it, and gets a severe electric shock. After they leave we see that all three exhibits are sentient and the hamster means to escape: he has a set of pirate gear hidden in his cage. Sylvester and co. also pass a strange multi-tentacled thing which looks like a plant which is imitating an insect, with "eyes" which open up like flower-buds to reveal two small sentient creatures resembling Wyrms but attached to the plant at the tail, and called Ahz and Skiv. We later hear this plant-thing called The Growth. We see a group of very regimented Eyebolt clerks, one of whom is arrested for Weirding - which seems to involve the imagination and astral manifestation of imagined objects. We see a young Flutterby (like a very tough dragonfly) fooling around, imitated by a Smyt. A young female Trog called Wrawa recruits two mature male Trogs called Leny and Kronk to assist Sina in persuading Crazy Rhid to let them run the bucket chain through his home/laboratory. The loss of mind by older Trogs is discussed, and friends or acquaintances of Kronk's called Yurd and Hamble are mentioned, who committed suicide by jumping into the Chasm when they felt their minds going. We see Leny try to eat a flutterby but it is, literally, too strong for him - it prises his jaws open and flies off. We learn that while male Trogs invariably develop progressive dementia after reaching full adulthood, 90% of female Trogs just die. The auction for Protus's gadget escalates. We are introduced to SuperSmyt and his unassuming alter-ego. A Wyrm called Yaypo ventures into the Hot Zone. A Wyrm called Gibb hunts talking rocks, not very successfully, and we see a pebble break loose and become sentient. It falls into a deep zone where there are Nome workers in space suits, who are monitoring something to see if it changes. The pebble grows legs and runs away. It gets into the airvents where it is unfazed by pest-control systems. It causes an explosion which in turn causes one of the space-suited workers, a very talkative one, to quit. Comshaw, Digger and Niddle reach the gate that keeps Spyders and tree-squids out of the tunnels. They venture out into the forest, and Niddle is overcome by the sight of the sky. They meet a Saur (who we will later learn is called Buzz and works for a mysterious Boss, probably Frowgler the "real life" horned frog, whom we will meet later) and some Pales. The Saur passes on a message that their world is ending, and about decisions Comshaw will need to make to minimize the damage. 03: The Nome War [30/11/2004 - 10/01/2005] Digger Odel undermines and brings down a killer tree (probably the same one that tried to catch Mortimer), watched by a Nome called Umboz, a squid-coaxer (we learn later that this means he persuades tree-squids to position themselves around his home village to protect it), and his daughter Vezza. Umboz is wrongly credited by other Nomes with killing the tree, and so clearing a path to a neighbouring North Gnoll village. Kayeeb, the local Nome mayor, proposes attacking the Gnoll villagers who are currently occupied with the Pales, and orders Umboz to lead the expedition. Umboz, fearing he is being set up because he is a political dissident, flees with Vezza. Umboz tells Vezza about a war between mining Nomes and Gnolls in the basement several generations ago. Overcrowding frayed everybody's tempers, and then there was an explosion in a Nome mine which was attributed to the Gnolls, although it was really set off by a "monster" or Demon (who was probably a Human - in fact, almost certainly Mortimer, as he has referred to himself as having done something in the past which annoyed a lot of Nomes). The Nomes attacked the Gnolls in retaliation and the Operator stoked the war by handing out weapons. The Nomes lost the war because they had a hereditary leader called Zabern who wasn't much good. The Gnoll leader was Compline, who had survived serious childhood injuries and had been persuaded to lead the Gnoll army by his mate Caytid. Caytid was able to use magic, as both Gnolls and Nomes had been able to do in the distant past, and she brought other female Gnolls into the war as archers. A few mining Nomes were given refuge underground with other species but most ended up fleeing the basement and living in the forest alongside the forest Gnolls. The Nomes who fled to the forest were helped by the Pales there, but then some of the very alien Sneeches emerged in between the enemy lines. Both sides disengaged and fled, blocking off that part of the basement where the Sneeches were by plugging the tunnels to the forest on one side, and pulling down all but one of the Human-made bridges across an underground chasm on the other, trapping the Sneeches in a narrow zone. [This is why the Council had to make a new tunnel from their side of the basement to the forest.] Pales sometimes sneek back down through Sneech territory and across the one remaining bridge to trade, but they don't always make it back alive. Umboz says that unlike all the other intelligent species, "Sneeches aren't people". Zabern was succeeded as Nome leader by his brother Gizgum, who was quite good at it, but rule then passed to Gizgum's son Tinsot and grandson Kaleeb, who weren't. Vezza, whose mother is dead, advises her father to marry a female Nome called Piu, who pretends to hate him but secretly likes him. At this point they are interrupted by a battered Nitfol and two Pales. Nitfol tells Umboz and Vezza to come with him, but agrees to pick up Piu on the way as well, in case the Mayor persecutes her for her connection with Umboz. 04: CROSSOVER: The Zayfaring Stranger [13/01/2005 - 15/03/2005] A Human man called Zay, who is dimension-hopping to try to find a lost friend called Phil, crashes through a dimension gate into the Mansion. Frederick's partner The Scary Lady takes Zay to a Panegate, a fixed portal, and sends him on his way: because he is rude, and sneers at her for being kind to a trundlebug, she sends him somewhere difficult and filled with tentacles. While they are walking to the Panegate we get to see some strange bits of the Mansion, including a sort of amusement arcade called Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where the Scary Lady acquires a balloon, and we meet an elderly woman called Prunella (Nellie Grubb, Amos's wife) with whom Frederick was once in love, although another man won her. We hear about the Crash, the sudden loss of magic, which occurred when Prunella was a child - later established as having taken place about fifty years previously. We also hear about an Earl called Ernest who had a sinister or otherwise extreme sense of fun, and we see that Frederick's partner can do at least some magic, enough to modify memory - she makes Prunella forget their meeting. We also see a magical lift-shaft which you levitate up after telling a musical crystal what door you want to get to, and some unspecified creatures (just the eyes in darkness) hiding behind a barred opening in the lift shaft, who call The Scary Lady "the Destroyer" and are there to watch what she does and defend their home from her. The balloon turns out to be strangely significant. Although the Scary Lady lets go of the string and allows it to float off soon after she acquires it, we see at the end that it is sentient, and is following her like a pet. 05: Business Dealings [17/03/2005 - 19/07/2005] We start by seeing the same trundlebug that The Scary Lady saved, as it flees from a predator, falls down a shaft and is swept through the bowels of the mansion to land ultimately on Rosemary's helmet - by which point it has shrunk to less than half its original size, as a result of being teleported by anti-vermin filters. It's supposed to regain its full size after a few minutes, but doesn't quite. We learn that Rosemary was an undercover hired guard for merchant caravans "Out West", pretending to be a travelling juggler while in fact working for a big security firm called Hack 'n Slash. People in the west travel in caravans for safety, owing to widespread social disintegration. Snoot, assisted by a Gnoll called Erud, takes Rosemary and Sylvester to see the Eyebolt called Spatchcock, the manager of Le Tree. Spatchcock wants to talk to them because they mentioned paper napkins, and paper is a great rarity in the basement: the restaurant was actually planning to introduce them but this is a great secret so he assumes they are industrial spies. He scans them with his antennae and decides that they are forest Nomes from somewhere near an architectural feature called The Spike, who were sent by a rival restaurant called Le Gnollhole. Sylvester plays along with this, and inadvertently describes the appearance of Comshaw, the only Gnoll he knows, as being that of the Gnoll who sent him. Spatchcock then thinks that Comshaw, and the Council, are spying on Le Tree, which can only add to the tension between the Council faction and Nevus. We learn that the Earl is considered to be a "fairytale monster". Snoot, who knows the two are Humans, spies on part of this conversation, then goes to the Growth and extracts from it a small, stroppy Wyrm called Squeeb, Nevus's brother in law, who is studying Ahz and Skiv. Snoot sets Squeeb to infiltrate Sylvester's backpack and spy on him: Ahz and Skiv are pleased to see Squeeb go. Meanwhile, the Saur Snerk, acting for his employer, wins the bidding for the HJ42. The others give him a head start before they come after him, and he runs for it. Comshaw and Niddle set out rather vaguely to follow the Pales, capturing a small Scalpsucker along the way. They meet a female Gnoll called Shona, the sister of Sina and also Nevus the Wyrm's assistant, who is waiting for the auction to finish so she can give Nevus a message from a Mr Faldstool. Shona is due to marry a mate Snerd and a Finagler Wubb, but she is concerned that Wubb may not be up to the job and her and Snerd's children will grow up delinquent or deranged. Niddle, normally quite vague and submissive, takes charge to give Shona advice about Finagling. We learn that Comshaw had a very clever friend called Boffin, and they were in an accident in which something fell on them, and Boffin died. We see three Pales corner Niddle against a tree. The Trog Wrawa and her adult friends Leny and Kronk discuss a male Trog called Villipend who jumped into the Great Chasm when he felt his mind going, and Kronk says that was a good thing, he's glad Villipend is dead. A friend of Kronk's called Yurd who also jumped is mentioned, and a friend of Leny's called Grum who has gone to visit the forest. Wrawa bullies Tuft and Dap into calling Odum, a male Trog friend of theirs, whom she then recruits to join Sina. Dap seems to have some kind of alarm-switch he can summon help with. Sprocket and Flange reach the wrecked Metalmin in the forest tunnel, and find Skoil, the young Poker whom Comshaw duelled, still lying unconscious or perhaps even dead. 06: Crazy Rhid [22/07/2005 - 23/08/2005] Sina's party encounters Crazy Rhid in the hallway outside his home, carrying an explosive plant-bomb. They discuss why he almost alone among Gnolls wears clothes, and why other species do or don't. We learn that he used to be a Candle Monk, but was kicked out for blowing things up. They are interrupted by a ghost cat (a crossover from another strip). Rid refuses to let them run the bucket chain through his home and when they try to argue he kills Leny with the bomb, and Wrawa then attacks him and causes him to flee, leaving the coast clear. 07: Le Tree Lecture Series [25/08/2005 - 11/10/2005] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Le Tree: as they do so Snoot plants Squeeb in Sylvester's backpack in order to spy on them and find out what they are, but Squeeb is zapped by something he finds in the pack. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the life-support Tree which runs throughout the basement and mansion, providing air, food and light without apparently needing to be fed: Sylvester says it's kept the system going for nine generations and people who attack it come to a bad end. Rosemary finds it rather sinister. They also talk about conditions in the west and we learn that there is a Motihaul Semi-Autonomous Region, and in or near it is a very large, sinister, smoking machine or factory called the Infernal Engine. We also learn that although Ghasts are normally peaceful, there's a colony called Ghastvale where they are murderous to other sentients, and it blocks a mountain pass and forces traders to go through the Motihaul SAR instead. They discuss Sylvester and Mortimer's money-grubbing sister Lenore, and an old flame of Rosemary's called Edwird is mentioned. It's established that Sylvester also has an old flame, not named, and that Mortimer is highly successful with the opposite sex and makes a habit of bringing home strange and dangerous women. They leave the restaurant and walk out into a pitched battle between Nevus's forces and the Council, and a Gobule, one of those who was present then the Operator flamed, warns them about the fire at the elevator. They decide to go the long way back to the mansion, through the Sneech den and past many dangers, rather than face an angry, flaming Operator, and Camora and Hax emerge from their alcove and offer to guide them. Part Three: The Widening Gyre [12/10/2005 - 14/07/2007] 01: Strangers in the Night [12/10/2005 - 19/10/2005] We see the woman to whom the Weirdo, Arthur, was reporting earlier. High up in the Mansion she runs into Protus, who addresses her as Yasmine Fotheringby - we learn she has a strong accent and comes from a place called Shibolith. She asks him the quickest way to get down to the forest so he creates a rupture in space and pushes her through it, causing her to fall out into a ruined building in the forest, close to where Comshaw and Niddle are encountering the Pales. We learn that Protus cannot walk - so the time-machine thing he sits in may be part of him - and that he is working with structures called time pylons, at leach one of which is in the Mansion. 02: Frowgler the Horned Frog [20/10/2005 - 02/11/2005] In the woods Shona meets a talking frog called Frowgler, who possesses horns and a dragonish tail, both retractable. We will learn later that "Frowgler the Horned Frog" is the name of a guru figure in a popular local action comic, along with Roshambo the Warrior-Beetle, whom the Sciencebugs worship. We learn from their conversation that Nomes are able to "tree-warp" in order to create Tardis-like bigger-on-the-inside homes in tree-trunks, and Nevus uses this technology to hide his henchTrogs. Frowgler seems to dislike Nevus, and tells Shona that there's no future in working for Nevus, and she should work for Comshaw instead. He slightly implies that he might be a Demon, which makes Shona nervous: after she has departed to give her message to Nevus, Frowgler regrets having told her his name. He knows the names of her and her sister Sina. 03: Auction Aftermath [03/11/2005 - 20/11/2005] Knowing that the other three bidders at the auction will only allow him a brief head-start, Snerk the Saur flees with the HJ42. Agita is overbearing to Mortimer so he distracts her by kissing her, causing her to recoil in horror. The three fall out: Guttle threatens to eat Agita and Nevus, and Nevus tricks Guttle into trying to eat a booby-trapped bauble created by Crazy Rhid, which ties him up in tendrils. We see a bearded Gnoll, a Gobule with four little tentacles on his head and a blindfolded Trog (we learn later that Trogs are very sensitive to sunlight) spying on the outcome of the auction - they seem to be henchbeings of the three bosses. The Gnoll we will later learn is called Agorn, and works for Agita. Mortimer tries to sneak away, carrying his sack of fleebs, and falls down a hole. Snerk collides with Shona, who is coming with her message for Nevus: the collision sets off the HJ42 again. 04: Good Rhiddence [21/11/2005 - 15/12/2005] Crazy Rhid runs away, and Snerd goes into his home hall to find Sina and get an update. Sina, who has been blinded by a blast, tells him that Leny is dead and the Ghast Sepferb, the same one who retrieved the cakeshroom from Maw's den, is badly hurt. Sina sends a reluctant Snerd to tell the Ghasts so they can bring help for Sepferb, and sends Kronk the Trog to pursue Rhid. Kronk mentions that he was present - a long time ago - when Digger and a Trog named Yurd "saved the world". Noone present knows who Digger is. Sina also sends a Wyrm called Ploot to organise other Wyrms, and a Motihaul called Hiblehoy to help Wrawa dispose of Leny's body, so the Gobules don't eat him. Clochard speaks to a female Motihaul named Nugabela, who has children by Izchak, and has bought Bung's toadstool from Faddle. They see the Candle Monks massing to confront the Evil One and Clochard follows them, hoping for a show. 05: Guidance [16/12/2005 - 03/01/2006] Outside Le Tree, Hax prompts Camora to ask Rosemary and Sylvester to pay her for guiding them: Sylvester pays her with paper, already scribbled on on one side (Rosemary's To Do list) and she is glad to get it. A fountain with toxic fluid is mentioned. Sylvester pretends they are forest Nomes but Hax assures Camora they are Humans: we see a flashback in which Sylvester and the Scary Lady were involved in some trouble in the basement. We learn that the basement dwellers call the Mansion "God's Cactus" and that "God" in this context is not a deity but a wealthy, elderly man. The Candle Monks see the party and proclaim the Evil One: meanwhile in the background we see a heavily armed Gnoll we will later learn is called Hesper. 06: Thrash [05/01/2006 - 18/02/2006] Still carrying the Scalpsucker, Comshaw sets out to track Niddle. As he does so he hears the sound "PROZ" made by the HJ42 firing. He encounters a Saur called Ig who used to know him and his late friend Boffin: Ig tells Comshaw he saw Niddle with a group of Pales, one of whom is called/has the job-title Thrash because he winnows out problems. Thrash has a double head-spike and a pale diagonal stripe across his chest, which may be innate or may be painted on. There is a mention of an Eyebolt called Preznit who is on the basement Council, and wants to save the world. Ig says that Buzz's Boss - presumably Frowgler - appeared on the scene only recently and workes with the Pale government, called the Nexus. Comshaw also learns from Ig that there had been an earlier explosion which went ZORP, so the two were symmetrically matched. Ig and Comshaw come to a mount dotted with bare tree-trunks: the top of this mound is called The Pit, and it normally performs some action which is currently quiescent. They hear a loud click and then a rainbow-striped pillar of magical Fire shoots out of the top of the mound, before switching off with another click. Comshaw guesses Niddle set it off by accident. Ig and Comshaw discuss some aspects of Pale culture, especially the carrying of flags with mysterious holes in, and we learn that in the past Comshaw, in his rôle as Poker, "brought down" a pair of rogue Trogs called the Raver brothers, and killed Crudbean - a sort of Triffid accidentally created by Crud, one of the protagonists in Sundays in SubShaft 44f. They find Niddle and the Pales, who had been knocked over by the Fire blast. Comshaw gets their attention by throwing the Scalpsucker at them, but is amazed to find how unimpressed by him Thrash is. The Scalpsucker gets flung into the forest. 07: The Hole Thing [20/02/2006 - 01/04/2006] Mortimer, still looking for Nitfol, finds himself at the bottom of a deep, crumbling pit created by the HJ42 blast. This sort of thing evidently happens to him a lot. A mongoose-like creature called a Tunnelrat and a thing like a small eyeless Saur, called a Lurker, try to attack him but end up fighting each other. He asks a friendly female Scalpsucker to go for help, but then a small landslide reveals a door and he and the Scalpsucker go through it. They find themselves in the basement storage-area of a pre-Crash branch of a Walmart-like superstore called World o' Pots, where Mortimer, still clutching his sack of fleebs, upends a crate of sphagnum dust over himself. There they encounter a scary-looking but well-meaning and slightly malfunctioning robot which Mortimer is able to semi-control by involking a "herediscan" which shows him to be an Eman, and which showers him with free samples of a fruit-flavoured dessert called Sploo and with little sweets called Yummysticks. Mortimer's brother Rufus then appears on the scene. 08: Sittin' in a Tree [02/04/2006 - 27/04/2006] We see the Nome Umboz calling on his neighbour, a female healer named Piu (the one who Vezza previously said fancied him). Umboz and Piu semi propose to each other. He tells her that Mayor Kayeeb tried to have him killed, and she decides to run away with him - but is alarmed when he tells her that they two, plus Vezza and Nitfol, have all been invited to visit the local Pale hive, sinc Pales are normally very reclusive. As they leave, in the background we see first one of a pot of ornamental carnivorous plants, and then a kind of jelly monster in a bowl, trying and failing to eat a small flutterby. We learn that Nomes live by creating Tardis-like spaces which are entered and exited through neighbouring trees but are bigger than their interiors, and apparently anchored to more than one tree. Piu and Umboz rejoin Nitfol, Vezza and the Pales, and as they set out Comshaw's Scalpsucker lands behind them. 09: Back and Forth [28/04/2006 - 20/05/2006] Propelled by the firing of the HJ42, Snerk the Saur and Shona the Gnoll find themselves fifty years in the past in the local Human city of Eetown three months prior to The Crash. They encounter a young woman called Ilsa with dyed green hair and one with long dark hair who seems to be the Scary Lady when young: they are fighting about the Eman family because the Scary Lady is loyal to the Earl Philbert's brother, Frederick, and Ilsa hates the Earl. The Scary Lady tries to use a magical 'fluence on Shona, but Gnolls are highly resistant to that sort of thing, so she grabs Shona physically and then is transported back to the future with her and Snerk. The Scary Lady tries unsuccessfully to remove her necklace/collar - this coincides with and may be the cause of the eruption of Fire from The Pit. She meets Frowgler and they discuss the collar, which is magical, tied into the power of the mansion and was put on her by Frederick. Frowgler warns her about the Crash about to happen three months ahead in her own time, and that she has to ensure that Frederick and his brother Quincy, Sylvester's future grandfather, survive it in order to preserve causality. She refers to Frowgler as being "dressed like" a horned frog, so she knows him as something else. We learn that she is some sort of dangerous nihilistic being, maybe a demon, whom the young Frederick and a friend summoned and then couldn't banish again, so Frederick used up all his own power to create the collar that controls her. She hated him, yet grew also to love him. Returned to her own time, she co-opts Ilsa to assist her, and we see that a book called The Return of Frowgler is on sale. 10: Candle Monks [28/05/2006 - 09/06/2006] Rosemary, Sylvester, Camora and Hax confront the Candle Monks and we learn that Camora is the "Evil One" - because two weeks previously she accidentally knocked over their Eternal Candle while dodging a rack of lesser candles knocked over by Niddle. Rosemary scares them off by being commanding, but we learn that their theology is fairly sensible - they light candles because they don't like being solely dependent on The Tree for so much, including light. Camora tells the Humans about various religious sects in the Basement, including the Ludwigites, who worship the great scientist Ludwig as an ally against the wicked Earl-monster, apparently without realising either that he was Human or that he was the heir of E and eventually became the 18th Earl himself. We see that the Gnoll Clochard is now tailing them - and that he reports to Digger Odel. 11: Dropping Out [10/06/2006 - 16/07/2006] Camora, Rosemary and Hax go to visit a lavatory (known as a drophole) leaving Sylvester waiting outside. Protus appears to him and says he needs to speak to him in private, and they are not alone (probably because of Squeeb hiding in Sylvester's backpack). He jumps Sylvester to some kind of hyperspace cul-de-sac where Humans can survive, and where Protus goes in order not to be overlooked by his employers (unspecified). We learn that Protus has lost a very valuable object. He needs Sylvester's help to find it because he has special abilities - a Gnoll called Froole or Frodle is mentioned who also has these powers, but not as much, and Mr Hand is mentioned as a nuisance to Protus. Sylvester is able to see images generated by machinery which Protus has set up: he sees Mortimer wearing a pink outfit including a pointy hat and an umbrella, flying hand in hand with a sort of Superwoman figure; he sees Rosemary fighting a woman who is wearing some sort of leather gear and a magic glove; he sees brief images of a male Motihaul, probably Izchak (see below), of Crazy Rhid and of a male Trog in a crown, and mentions that Humans breed Trogs - probably less intelligent ones - for leather. He sees snapshots of various villagers including the local Oracle, Threnody, of Angus's giant pot which is stored in the mansion and of what looks like some Sneech growths, then of an old car (auto). Protus says the car is the thing he's looking for. Protus then sends Sylvester back to outside the drophole, then reappears from further in the future to thank him for his help in recovering the car/auto. Rosemary, Camora and Hax then emerge and Camora can tell by scent that Protus has been there. She mentions that on a previous occasion Protus took Skibble. 12: Bad Rubbish [18/07/2006 - 04/09/2006] Sina (still blind) and her cohorts, including another female Gnoll called Skuy, Wrawa the Trog and Wyrms called Voog and Ploot, demolish Crazy Rhid's hall in case of booby-traps, while the adult male Trog Kronk pursues Rhid himself. Other than booby-traps, however, the hall appears to be empty, so they know there's a workshop elsewhere. Ploot and Voog discuss Wyrm politics - their need for Telic (the healer) and someone called Hesper (who we later find out is a Gnoll armourer) and for Coldzoners generally, a separatist Wyrm politician called Mother Byng and trouble in the Burn Zone and with the sentient Rocks, which may cause them to need Rhid's weapons. Voog is injured by a booby-trap, which causes Sina to have a crisis of nerve about her leadership skills, but Skuy appeals to her desire to impress Comshaw. She leads her troops in setting off traps by throwing rocks, but they fall foul of a pot of Trog Repellant and a mysterious web. Meanwhile, Wrawa and a Motihaul colleague take Leny's body to be rendered down, because he wanted to be useful, and Rhid is seen fleeing past Tuft and Dap. We see Hpobfvfr, accompanied by a sled-mounted flame-thrower, interrogating Gorp about Hpthbvtw's death, and Nevus's Eyebolt secretary trying to get the flame-thrower recalled. 13: After Thrash [05/09/2006 - 30/10/2006] Comshaw and Niddle meet up by The Pit: Niddle still has his coming and going crystal, and close exposure to Fire has left him with some extra clairvoyant knowledge of recent events. He mentions Mortimer, and Comshaw recognises the name as that of a supposed demon who caused an epxlosion which started the Nome-Gnoll war, and we learn that Compline and Caytid disappeared during a Sneech attack at the end of the war. We learn that Comshaw's father Comfrey tried to do something in the forest which Comshaw, his mother and the late Clerihew, Comshaw's parents' Finagler, spent their lives trying to live down. We also learn that that the forerunners of Finaglers were called Schemers, now rare in the Basement but still common in the forest, and that Comshaw and Camora are regarded as the best mated Gnoll couple, and Sina and her intended, Sprocket, are the next best, although Sina has a crush on Comshaw. There is mention of a beautiful but too quiet Gnoll named Mimsy who was Comshaw's girlfriend before Camora. Mimsy seems to be the Gnoll who now carries Nevus. Niddle warns Comshaw that Thrash is dangerous, and that Pales communicate super-sonically although a few other people, including some Schemers and Finaglers, can hear them. We learn that forest dwellers call the Mansion of E "The Stump", and that Ig is friends with a Gnoll called Splat. Nevus recounts the vision he had when the Fire brushed past him - basically he saw scenes from all the things going on around them, and now he fills Comshaw in on them. We learn that the two Pales who are accompanying the Nome group are called Fetch and Stepit. Niddle saw Nellie Grubb - Frederick's neighbour - heading to the village. He knows where Mortimer currently is, so Comshaw sets out to speak to Mortimer and find out what the Humans want. After the party sets off we see a Metalmin or some other robot (we only see part of the head - it's definitely not Hector) come into view near The Pit; a stranger in Piu's house; Shona talking to Nevus and Mimsy; Snerk finding a dead Spyder (actually, the same one which earlier attacked Nitfol and Mortimer); and the white-haired, oldish version of The Scary Lady, accompanied by what seems to be a sentient balloon. 14: Rufus [01/11/2006 - 27/12/2006] Mortimer and Rufus discuss the family - they have sisters Lenore and Lil and a daredevil brother Ace. A few weeks ago Mortimer received a postcard from their mother and Lil sent from a place called Oongawa. We learn that World o' Pots is 60% owned by Pale shareholders (Pales from a sub-country called Shibolith, not the local ones) and the Pales did well out of The Crash because Human soldiers now buy their non-magical weapons, but the Pales also suffered many losses in The Crash so it's unlikely they engineered it. They pass through a cloakring designed to prevent magical snooping, The ex shop is full of extraordinary things, including food suplies on which Rufus lives, and a demon-trap bottle which Rufus had installed, and which required an extensible ceiling to fit it in, made by the Hammerspace Company, which specialised in extra-dimensional products including "Poke-Kits" - weightless portable storage space. In the in-universe comic which featured Frowgler the demon frog and Roshambo the warrior beetle, Frowgler gave Roshambo a Poke-Kit. We also learn about a massacre at a place called Thricklefork after "an idiot at the Royal Academy of Magic" summoned demons. Rufus gets whacked by one of his own defensive booby traps, but they make it to Rufus's room. Rufus says that for a year ha has seen mysterious comings and goings from the Mansion of E (not the basement) and that the culprits are not Frederick, the Grubbs, Schmedley or Arthur the Weirdo. He believes it is down to Mr Hand, living high in the Mansion. Mr Hand is very old - believed to be the wizard who locked the Operator in the Elevator nearly eighty years ago - may or may not be Human, and has a Metalmin servant named Hector, which means he is the Overseer. While they discuss Mr Hand, a shadowy figure is watching. This proves to be a woman named Eunice, who looks like the Superwoman figure Mortimer was flying with in Sylvester's Protus-induced vision, but wears gloves like the woman he saw Rosemary fighting. Eunice stuns Mortimer and tells Rufus, who has apparently known her for years, that she and the other villagers, including Threnody the Oracle, all work for somebody more important than Mr Hand. She works for God (the old rich guy, not the deity), and if Rufus comes with her, God will give him the answers he seeks. 15: Snerk Meets the Boss [28/12/2006 - 05/01/2007] Snerk, the Saur who won the auction, is nibbling on the dead Spyder when Frowgler appears. It was Frowgler who put him up to bidding for what he calls the Zorper - the HJ42. Snerk tells Frowgler that the Zorper fired - which Frowgler isn't concerned about - and gives Frowgler both the Zorper and a Poke-Kit containing extra fleebs, which Frowgler had loaned to him. Frowgler dismisses Snerk, telling him to tell people called Lumpy and Buzz (presumably the Saur who gave Comshaw a message about the end of the world when he first emerged from the tunnel) he hopes to be back at headquarters tomorrow - but then he says goodbye to Snerk's departing back as if he expects never to see him again. Left alone, he speaks as if he has seen the Zorper before, then activates it. To do so he extends not only retractable claws but what looks like a button with a "3" on it, set into the palm of his right hand. This time the Zorper goes "OZPR". 16: Closing In [06/01/2007 - 25/01/2007] Clochard asks Bung where Digger Odel is, and Bung says Digger is returning after being hired by a mysterious personage to bring down the killer tree. Meanwhile Rosemary's party are heading for Izchak's weapons shop, and Hpobfvfr is seen fleeing, apparently because the flame-thrower is about to explode. Camora explains Basement politics - how the Ghasts encouraged the formation of the Council as a peaceful alternative to the gang bosses Agita, Nevus and Guttle, because they need a stable environment in which to maintain their breeding-pools and reproduce. Camora regards the Council as meddlers, except that they did bring down and confine the demons Chauncy and Edgar. Hpobfvfr gets mixed up with Sina's bucket chain as a result of a misunderstanding - she is looking for Hepthbav/Hpthbvtw and hears that there is an injured male Ghast near Crazy Rhid's place, but in fact it's Sepfrbfrx, one of Sina's team. 17: Conflagration [26/01/2007 - 26/03/2007] Rosemary and Sylvester come to Time Hall, where there is a poisonous fountain and a levitating Ettin-made clock. They proceed to Sidestep Hall, the Motihaul village, which is divided by gender, and have a certian amount of difficulty getting past the guards, Smatchet and Gunsel. The guards have seen a "hat" like Camora's before. Although Rosemary has a sense of unease, the party don't realise they are being overlooked by hidden seige engine controllers, including an officer we will later learn is called Upernavik. Meanwhile, the Scary Lady is still wandering around the mansion with her sentient balloon, and Sina asks Hpobfvfr how to sort out an anti-Dornbeast net which is blocking the way through Rhid's place. We learn that sphagnum grit repels most Dornbeasts, unless specially trained, and that Hpobfvfr has a cutting claw concealed in her flesh since she was a child, and this is painful. Hpobfvfr goes to the Elevator looking for Hepthbav/Hpthbvtw and the Operator, suspended in the fire, tries to hypnotise her. Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, upstairs in the mansion and still accompanied by her balloon, looking at the doorway which leads to Sneech territory and being concerned that it is silent when there should be a sound of screeching, and then coming to the top of the lift shaft. The Operator can sense her throughout. She uses her power to force the Operator back into his lift and put out the flames, but as she does so he grabs Hpobfvfr and drags her into the Elevator with him, and one final flare of energy passes all along the bucket chain and causes a tool to be flung with sufficient force to damage Chauncy and Edgar's containment bottle. 18: Chauncy & Edgar [27/03/2007 - 24/04/2007] The people in the bucket chain who were caught up in the energy flow have been knocked down by it, apart from the Gnolls such as Niff, Folla and Wittol who are all still standing. Sina wants everybody to go home, now, because she feel something worse than fire will re-emerge from the Elevator. Skuy and Voog can feel that Hpobfvfr was taken away. Meanwhile the demons Chauncy and Edgar, who are extremely polite and careful with each other, investigate the damage to their bottle. We learn that they fear the Caged King (the devil in the elevator) and something called the Burning Eye (later comments suggest this is not the sun but something near the mansion) very much, and the Scary Lady somewhat less so. Chauncy temporarily detaches one of Edgar's horns and uses it as a chisel to break their way out through the side of the bottle. Once they are free, Edgar, the more Human-looking one, tries to set off on his own, but Chauncy (who resembles a woodlouse) won't let him. They kill a Helipath (who we will later learn is called Rubrak), one of the bucket chain beings who were knocked down by the energy surge - Chauncy cuts him and then Edgar drops part of a heavy weight (which seems to be levitating, since most of it stays up after the rope is cut) on to him. But Edgar is less murderous than of old, and turns down the chance to vivisect Rubrak's working partner, a Jibjib (who we will later learn is called Snipe). We learn that Chauncy and Edgar were sucked through some kind of hole from their own dimension, where they were under such constant threat that they had no time to take names or to think, and when they arrived they kept up the same level of violence. Now as prisoners they have had time to calm down. They are aware of Rosemary, who passed by their bottle an hour or two beforehand: they can tell that she is of this dimension, not a heavyweight being like the Operator or the Scary Lady, but still she feels different and they go in search of her to dissect her and find out why. Meanwhile we see the Gobule Bung wake from deep sleep, apparently with clairvoyant knowledge of the demons' escape, and send two Jibjib henchbirds out with some kind of message or mission. 19: Remnants [25/04/2007 - 21/05/2007] Sina takes a mourning leave of the missing Hpobfvfr, and many of her surviving forces disperse to home and/or safety, and Smyts move in to devour the dead. Sina speaks to a female Trog called Maggle who has a dark coat which is associated with resistance to Trog repellant, and sends her to take the buckets back to Tunktal the bucket maker, who is regarded with revulsion. Rhid's hidden workshop was blown open and exposed when Hpobfvfr disposed of the booby-traps: Sina and Skuy go to tell the Council about it, leaving Ploot and Voog to guard the workshop and prevent Rhid from returning. There is a twistpoint there through which visions (relating to other stories) appear. Sina and Skuy head for the Council and to get help for Sepferb, still lying injured on the floor. They meet Catmorlo, who collects her cakeshroom - then a female Motihaul named Asota who warns them that Nevus and the Council are fighting, and Chauncy and Edgar are loose. 20: The Lady and the King [22/05/2007 - 09/06/2007] The Scary Lady calls the Operator to the upstairs doors of the lift: he asks if she wants to know about the Sneeches and she tells him it's because he was having too much fun with the fire etc. and she had been contractually obliged to intervene, although various distractions conspired (possibly literally) to delay her in so doing. The Operator metamorphoses into a crowned figure and tries to tempt her to break her contract and let him do as he pleases, and in return he will restore both her and Frederick's full power, maybe send them through a Panegate to a place where they can be gods, but she rejects his offer. He mentions creatures he calles "poor Shades" who refer to her as The Destroyer - presumably the ones we saw watching her from behind a grille as she escorted Zay to the Panegate. She mentions him standing on a balcony being cheered by what looks like a Human crowd, raising the possibility that he might once have been one of the local Human(ish) kings. After she leaves, the Operator/King comments to himself that she was feeling unexpectedly hopeful and he wants to find out why. He reaches through the dimensions to touch one of Protus's time pylons: it gives him a shock but he hangs on and scrolls back through the Scary Lady's recent experiences, dismissing Zay and Prunella as sources of hopefulness before coming to an unbreachable barrier. He believes she has seen whatever Protus is hiding among his time pylons, but doesn't know it. He wants to call her back some time soon to speak to her again, and we learn that he has engineered a test for Rosemary, and if she passes he will want her back too - but it depends on his gaining control over Hpobfvfr, who is still resisting his attempts to take over her mind. Meanwhile, something the Operator said has led the Scary Lady to assume there's something up with the Sneeches. She takes up her Sneechstick and prepares to go through the archway which leads to the route which runs through the Sneech den - so she will presumably be going down the route that Sylvester and Rosemary will eventually be coming up. 21: No Gnoll is an Island [11/06/2007 - 14/07/2007] We see brief snapshots of the various groups - Skuy talking urgently to Ploot and Voog; people throwing stones at Chauncy and Edgar; Agita and Nevus and their assistants leaving the auction etc., then we cut to Ig, Comshaw and Niddle in the forest. Niddle is just insisting that he saw a vision of an active, moving Metalmin when they hear the "OZPR" noise made by the HJ42 as Frowgler activates it. This is followed by a burst of purple light from behind the trees, and Comshaw says this is far more violent than and of a different quality from the previous such event. An enormous boulder is thrown through the air, narrowly missing them. Niddle wants to go investigate the source of the blast, but Ig smells something coming which makes him run, so the Gnolls join him and they climb up onto the ruins of an old Human fountain. Ig tells them that what's coming is a skunk shark - not as bad as a beaver shark, and a useful omnivore which thins out the saplings to create open woods. They operate within a big circle roughly around the mansion, and north of that circle the Deep woods grow impenetrably thick. There have been other passing remarks which suggest that the area around the mansion is circumscribed in some way. They have to hang around on top of the fountain's plinth for a couple of hours, talking, until the shark has gone. We learn that the GBOLs, the lights generated by The Tree, are dimmer at night and in winter, and that The Tree extends above ground and responds to sunlight. The basement-dwellers got the idea of a twenty-hour day from the Ettin-made clock in Time Hall which, like a lot of other Ettin artefacts, they wrongly believe to have been made by Humans. Part Four: The Road Less Travelled [16/07/2007 - 26/02/2010] 01: Izchak [16/07/2007 - 30/08/2007] Sylvester's party come to a Motihaul-owned shop called Izchak's Sharp n' Pointy. There Rosemary is attracted by a weapon like a halberd with a weighted butt. Behind her back Izchak tells Sylvester and Camora it's not for sale because it's trapped in an "airbox", an Ettin-made forcefield which the basement dwellers wrongly attribute to Humans, and which neither he nor Sprocket and Flange have been able to open. However, if he was telling the truth then something Rosemary does, or some change in conditions, causes the airbox to open and the weapon comes freely to Rosemary - Sylvester later opines that this is supicious, as if it's been set up for her to take. As Rosemary is paying for her new weapon, Chauncy and Edgar carve their way in through the wall. They want to dissect Rosemary and Sylvester to see how they differ, but Rosemary thrashes Edgar with her new weapon and then tells him that his victims felt similar pain. Edgar it transpires is not callous or brutal: rather, because the Human world is so flimsy in comparison with his own he had believed that the world and the creatures in it weren't real, but something like a video game. Now that she has shown him that these are real people he doesn't intend them harm. We learn that Rosemary did something similar in the past with a demon called Scratch. We learn some background information. Demons in this world communicate with each other long-distance by a process called "tapping the lines". Chauncy and Edgar would have left long ago but they are constrained by some kind of barrier around the local area (it does seem to be local, not the planet's magnetic field). Chauncy asks Rosemary to strike him too so he can feel it, and she does so but nearly breaks her wrists, because he is so solid. Sylvester tells the two demons to go ask the Scary Lady to help them to get away. They say she has forbidden them from ever going upstairs again, but then Chauncy senses that she is on her way down, so they go in search of her. After they have left, Rosemary starts looking for a suitably grand romantic name for her new pole weapon, and Sylvester dubs it "the Can-Opener". 02: Upernavik [31/08/2007 - 26/09/2007] As they come away from Izchak's place, Sylvester's party encounter a group of male Motihaul soldiers armed with cold-forged iron weapons, inbound to tackle Chauncy and Edgar, and are warned by their officer, Matagam, to leave the area. The head of male Motihaul security, Upernavik, is listening through bugging devices: he must have heard the confrontation between Rosemary and Edgar, because he has "Scratch" written on his notepad. He sets Whisp (a dark-pelted female Trog) to tail Rosemary, Camora and Sylvester, then orders his side-kick called Knumdrot (a play on the Patrician's secretary Drumknot) to lock down their whole Hall, but Knumdrot refuses, citing a Contract which states that a Full Hall Lockdown requires the prior consent of both Upernavik and his female counterpart, Angmagslika. Upernavik regards consulting with Angmagslika as a dire ordeal - but he doesn't need to meet her after all because he receives a message from her telling him to initiate Lockdown. A horn is honked to alert two male Motihauls called Notserplib and Nagolder, who are dozing in a very cozy flat or office full of ornaments and games. We see the sound travel down pipes past a Smyt graffiti-artist ("Fnord wuz ere") and a Trundlebug who is looking at something like a Pacman monster. The two Motihauls have a pet tunnelrat called Hackit who is sleeping on Nagolder's stomach, and has to be lifted up with defensive gloves and placed in a box to control him. His job is to protect them from slimegrubs. Once Hackit has been safely boxed, they swim down a well-shaft to an underwater capstan which they turn to close off the Hall: they seem to be able to breathe underwater. Nagolder, we learn, is a friend to Cully, the young Gnoll who was banished to SubShaft 44f. Shut outside in the corridor, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that he considers her to be only the second most frightening woman he knows - after his great-aunt the Scary Lady. 03: The Gibber [27/09/2007 - 01/11/2007] Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their upbringing - Sylvester's parents were loving but absent, his father a twit who died young, his mother always a traveller, so he was raised largely by the Scary Lady. Rosemary, whose parents we know drowned in a maritime accident, was raised by her Aunt Eva and by Eva's former bodyguard Zeke. We see a vignette of Eva teaching Rosemary how to pick locks. Heading towards the long way out, they pass a group entity called The Gibber, guarded and assisted by an elderly female Gnoll (the grandmother of Mimsy), a Poker called Anathama. Rosemary and Sylvester tell Anathama they are forest Nomes, but Anathema as a youngster saw the young Sylvester and the Scary Lady fleeing a running fight in the Basement and she knows that they are Human, although she doesn't comment. We learn that seven years previously a group centred around a male Gnoll called Altholen, inspired by stories of the magic-users Caytid the Gnoll and a male Motihaul called Othar, used "Sneech squeezings" and the underground River of Fire (= magic) in an attempt to reawaken the magic in the world. Instead, they caused a cataclysm called the Breach which extended right up into the Mansion, where it caused sparks or similar to shoot out of the Tree. In the Basement it killed a large number of Ecadems and generated many new twistpoints. Camora's sires' Finagler Twitchel helped to seal it again: her sires Buccula and Choller also claimed credit for sealing the Breach but Anathama says they just got in the way, and it was Yurd and co. who fixed it. One of the effects of the Breach was to bring The Gibber, a cloud of half-seen faces in the darkness, into being in their own pocket of reality, overlaying what had been Helinew Hall. The Gibber have great knowledge and always tell the truth, so they function as an oracle. They tell truths to Rosemary and Sylvester, which they later tell Anathama were among the greatest truths they have ever given. To Rosemary they say "What you stole is even more dangerous and precious than you know. In the end, you will fly away and live forever, and you will leave the world shattered in your wake." To Sylvester: "You will return to where you started, and you will become what you hate. And in doing so, you will restore the world to what it was." After Rosemary and co. have left, The Gibber tell Anathema that they are dying - the power source which maintains them has failed. She is quite upset by this. She tells them that her duty with them has not been onerous, especially considering some of the things she has done in the past - we see her crawling through a tunnel to collect glowgems - and she mentions somebody called Bokonan who was "Sent into the SubShafts, and then.." This was connected with some necessary but personally risky thing that a group she belonged to, along with Bokonan and Digger and unspecified others, was and are doing. She needs to find Digger and tell him that Humans are back. Digger has never been to The Gibber to hear his truth. 04: Hop Skip and Several Jumps [02/11/2007 - 08/01/2008] Bung's Jibjib messengers go to Maw - who is just wrapping up winning a battle against his assailants - and warns him that Chancy and Edgar are loose. The people at Rhid's place arm themselves with the remains of his Dornbeast-repellant globes, ready to fling them at the demons. Meanwhile, Nevus and Agita return to the Basement and Nevus is surprised to find that in his absence his forces have gone to war against the Council, in his name and claiming his authorisation. The Nome party - Vezza, Piu, Umboz and Nitfol - and their Pale escort cross a rope bridge en route to the Pale camp. The Pales have a telescope set up to watch for the returning party. The Nex him or herself, the ruler, is apprehensive and says that "she" is coming and she may or may not be "the one", and the outcome will prove "Frogmask" - presumably Frowgler - right or wrong. The action cuts to the high thin tower called The Spike, on the edge of a lake somewhere near the mansion, where a high-ranking male Fixit called Cox is using a mesmerised Pale mount to listen to Pale communications. We learn that Fixits are born in breeding pens and then brought to The Spike, and that Cox is significantly older than fifty and witnessed the Crash. Cox speaks to a Human called Dorian who has lived in The Spike for forty-two years. Dorian is being ridden by a Fixit but it seems that Dorian is the one doing the talking, and is in a position of authority. Dorian says that somebody called Kelso is "finally bringing in her pet idiot" - presumably Rufus. Later evidence suggests that Kelso is Eunice by another name, probably her surname Cox floats down through the tower, using artificial levitation devices, until he meets a female Fixit called Vix who is riding a controlled Nome girl, and pushing a gurney holding industrial supplies. During the chapter headed Thrash, in the 900th strip which in real-time appeared almost two years before this one, a light message saying "900 WOO HOO" was seen shining from the top of The Spike. In-universe, this of course was earlier the same afternoon, and Vix says that the "wooflare" has drained some resource which the supplies on the gurney will help to stabilise, but Cox calls her away to walk with him. He talks to her about the Crash and the Human cities he once saw - from one of which be brought back an Ettin airbox, perhaps the one the Can Opener was in at Izchak's shop. There is a reference to a shield around the area, and to a new Human being brought in to The Spike, presumably Rufus. Protus, he thinks, has some vast plan - he first appeared five years beforehand and since then there have been more wooflares, both in the Spike and the SubShafts, and more twistpoints. Mr Hand has been passing on reports from the Hot Zone observers which also suggest imminent events. There is a reference to a power nicknamed the Topspike - probably the same as God - and to a serious female enemy in the west (where Rosemary was somehow transported from). He suggests that if Vix gets the chance to flee, she should take it. Meanwhile Frowgler crawls out of the crater left by the OZPR event - he seems mildly disappointed that it didn't kill him. At the Mansion, the Weirdo, grieving for his dead friend Tulip, has got roaring drunk, climbed up to the roof terrace, set off a siren called the Mugwump Alarm (although there are no longer any Mugwumps in the area and they are believed to be extinct) and passed out. Amos Grubb comes to shut off the alarm - which requires complex instructions from a code book (he seems to be the Mansion's librarian) - and has a conversation with Fantod, the Weirdo's ventriloquist's puppet, in which Fantod speaks as if he is an independent entity. Fantod tells Amos about some events he and the Weirdo witnessed by the Elevator, and refers to Rosemary as a "sword bunny". They seem to be regular visitors to the Basement. The Weirdo having sobered up a little, he and Amos walk down many stairs within the Mansion, and we glimpse a Panegate which opens into a world of yellow light and many busy Helipaths. We see strange machinery and Tree branches in the walls, including Ludwig's Vent Tapper 3000, which seems to be trying to tickle a magical flame into life. We see a female Gobule called Gulch teaching three baby Gobules called Gif, Glub and Gip, and telling them about great bones within the ground. 05: Skibble's Place [09/01/2008 - 01/03/2008] We learn from Camora that Mortimer was the "demon" who caused the Nome War, and from Sylvester that his parents chose their children's names from a very pompus classic book called Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. Rosemary is alarmed by the idea of eternal life - she says she'd get really bored after the first thousand years - but comforts herself by interpreting it as eternal fame rather than eternal life. Sylvester is less alarmed by the idea of becoming what he hates, since he hates some quite harmless things, and this leads to a discussion of his siblings and family in general. They come to Skibble's place (no Skibble, just his place), guarded by a male Gnoll called Cerbis, who lends them a token with an "E" on it, to be used to activate a device to summon the Great Riddler through whose territory they must soon pass, and he says they owe Skibble a favour for it. They discuss the aurilnode on the wall outside it: it was invented by a Helipath called Auril and Sylvester is impressed and disturbed by the level of sophistication, which suggests outside help, and also by the spectacular magical even caused by Altholen, even though he failed in his purpose. He tells Camora about magic and the Crash. Sylvester wonders whether Auril used Sneech squeezings in his work. Camora says he was too sane to do so, and this leads to a discussion about genius and eccentricity - about Rufus, who takes dangerous scientific risks, and Rosemary's friend Edwird, who likes to swim in ice water, and Telic the r doctor, who operates on hirself. Camora realises that Rosemary and Sylvester just want to get home, and she wants to take them to the Council's tunnel, but Hax says this is a bad idea as it would give an invading force an easy way in. They set off for the Riddle Grotto, with Whisp trailing them. Meanwhile Shona, returning from the forest, realises her sister Sina is in trouble and goes in search of her, as does Sprocket. Nevus, Mimsy and a couple of male Gnoll soldiers one of whom is called Frag are trying to fight their way through to Nevus's office. Agita meets with her assistant Flibbergib the Eyebolt, who is riding on a Gobule and has come to warn her about the fighting, and to complain about Weirders. Guttle, still partially wrapped in tendrils, comes stamping down the tunnel, dismissing Skoil from his service as he tramples him underfoot: two Trog raiders are unwise enough to attempt to mug him, but they don't even notice Digger passing them by. We see a scarred Rhid, still trailed by Kronk and contemplating desperate measures. We see the scuttly little sentient rock still trying to climb out of the Hot Zone. We see the Scary Lady and her balloon venture into the Sneech den, thinking that something is very wrong. Clochard and Anathama meet up, both looking for Digger, and exchange dire news which is trumped by one of Bung's Jibjibs warning them that Chauncy and Edgar are loose. They discuss the fact that Anathama saw Sylvester in the Basement fifteen years before, along with the "Clawblaster" - evidently the Scary Lady - and now he's with Rosemary, and with the pole weapon which Anathama has seen before, and although he's older he's far from old which tells Anathama that Humans have much longer lifespans than Gnolls. 06: The Three Great Riddles [03/03/2008 - 04/06/2008] Camora is telling Rosemary and Sylvester about Skibble - it's not clear what species Skibble is but he's a sort of Trickster and is friends with someone called Blitz who is probably a Gobule. Heading for the Riddle Grotto they pass a sign warning of a defence system called Death Doors, which are doors which attack any non-Human trying to open them, as with the Djinnoscope. They pass a door labelled Pots Room without stopping. Sylvester mentions the Djinnoscope, Camora asks about it and he describes the Hall of Achievement to her - but she knows it as the Death Hall. Sylvester explains that the Djinnoscope is called that because it can grant boons, like a Djinn. They come to the Riddle Grotto and find themselves on a jetty at the side of a deep pool. Theoretically no one can cross without authorisation because the Riddler lives in the water and is fantastically fast, but a Jibjib called Speedy once flew across on a bet with soemone called Shilpit. Othar the magical Motihaul is mentioned again, this time as an explorer. We learn that the Three Great Riddles were named by Dorn, 10th Earl of E, who also created the Dornbeasts as battle-mounts, and ended up being eaten by them. Rosemary and Sylvester prepare to take their leave of Camora: she still wants to tell them there's an easier, safer way out, but Hax prevents her. She notices that the cabinet which holds the Summoner has changed shape (from a kind of squat bullet-shape to a straight-line oblong) since they first came into the grotto, but Rosemary and Sylvester have seen no change, which suggests that either their memory or the time-line is being tampered with. Sylvester says it's always been as it now is - and that it reminds him of something he saw with Protus. Hax invades Camora's mind and takes it over, saying that he must follow his orders and she would find it distressing to be aware of what those orders are, and her mind and her sanity are precious and must be preserved. Having been taken over, Camora now says she was foolish to suggest that the cabinet had changed, but Sylvester refers to his great-great-uncle Hindenburgh the wizard, who also witnessed things changing. Sylvester inserts a token into the Summoner and it sets off a siren which summons the Riddler himself - a giant Ichyoid about 60ft high, older than the Earldom of E and speaking a Human/Ichyoid pidgin represented as Futhark runes (occasionally upside-down Futhark runes). He starts by asking them their business, and addressing Sylvester by name, and expressing sorrow at his father Willoughby's death. Sylvester introduces Rosemary as "non-family - staying?" The Riddler replies that she is dangerous. Sylvester asks if he, Rosemary and their possessions may pass over, and the Riddler asks if "Fixit Gnoll" wants to cross too, but they don't understand what he means. He asks for information on Frowgler, but Sylvester only knows about the comic-book character and explains that he is a two-dimensional representation drawn by somebody called Linderhoff. We learn from Rosemary that Roshambo, and his talking sword Slasher, and the frog-wizard Frowgler, and other characters including Naif and Arax, are hugely popular cultural icons and the comic's been running since before the Crash, although Sylvester later comments that the quality of the comics has declined since then. Sylvester recalls Mortimer complaining that his Roshambo action figure had been damaged - this may relate to the Sciencebugs who were worshipping a Roshambo figure on Mr Hand's desk. The Riddler finds their information about Frowgler interesting, and gives them permission to cross. Sylvester warns Camora not to try to follow them as she doesn't have permission to cross, and admits to her that they are Humans and promises to try to come back and speak formally to Comshaw and the Basement authorities - but it's not Camora they are speaking too now. Rosemary and Sylvester are both aware that Camora has changed, but they don't know why. A pontoon rises and rotates into position, enabling Rosemary and Sylvester to cross the pool. Sylvester says there used to be a lot of ways in and out of the Basement but they were gradually all closed off except two - Rosemary reckons there must be at least one more to explain the various appearances and disappearances. The pontoon's action is so jerky that as they get to the far side they fall in a heap and Rosemary jokily tries to kiss Sylvester. We learn about herediscans, security devices which identify members of the E family, and that the family used to manufacture reverse-engineered Ettin-style robots and sell them under the brand name Factor E. They talk about the Crash and how close civilisation came to total collapse. Rosemary's Aunt Eva was close to starving but she later ended up as a professional card-player (hence the bodyguard): Rosemary says that in the town of Nye some card-games played right through the Crash. Hax walks Camora through a secret door in the corridor wall into some sort of control centre, and Whisp doesn't see it but does note that Camora's scent just stops. Hax seems to be planning to kill Rosemary and Sylvester. 07: Decisions Decisions [05/06/2008 - 05/07/2008] Chauncy and Edgar locate the Scary Lady in the Sneech Den and ask her to help them get through the barrier: they do not want to go home because they have become used to having names. Sprocket and Flange place a piece of equipment, probably from the old Metalmin, in a service hatch whence it is collected by an Ichyoid. Hiblehoy and Wrawa leave Leny's body in Bowel Hall to be rendered down. They are paid in glowgems: Wrawa tells Hiblehoy to take half for himself and give the other half to Telic to research why the Trogs develop dementia. She crashes out and has to be carried home to bed by Hiblehoy, through the running battle which is still raging. Thrash finds Frowgler, slightly singed. Frowgler says that his own story is so odd even he doesn't believe it, and that he means to see that the Pales get what they want, and it's not his problem whether or not they'll still want it once they've got it. Frowgler says that he is neither so clever as the Nex nor so powerful as the ruler in the Spike but still he is the most important person Thrash has ever met. Thrash decides to help Frowgler rather than finishing him off. We see two male forest Gnolls called Scrof and Louch who had been out on a foraging/raiding party and got caught in all the strange events. Louch, a cousin of Comshaw's, couldn't cross over the rope bridge because the Pales were there, and had to go north and use a minimalist bridge just called The Rope, and consisting of just three cords. Now he is tired and wants to go back to their village, the northernmost of a pair, which is just a big communal burrow. Louch is fed up with how poorly they live and wants to learn to read like his mother, and better himself: he thinks he will ask Umboz the Nome to teach his people how to cultivate crops, but we see the Nome mayor saying that Umboz is a traitor, and ordering Umboz's brother Frotz to regain the family honour by leading a raid on Louch's village. In the Basement, we see a male Gnoll, Bung's friend Faddle, heading home with a plant in a pot, and a mixed-sex couple called Niff and Folla looking for somewhere to hide from the fighting, and instead running into the newly returned Shona. They start to tell her about Chancy and Edgar and then overhear two Motihauls talking about it, and about Sina setting up a safe zone in Crazy Rhid's place (because of the weaponry there). Shona thinks that a safe zone at Rhid's place is an oxymoron, but Niff and Folla tell her that Sina has driven Rhid off. 08: The River of Fire [07/07/2008 - 26/11/2008] Deep underground, overlooking the River of Fire, is a bridge or gantry of some kind protruding from a pueblo-style earth building. Here we see a male Gnoll called Blit, with a bandaged leg, and a male Motihaul called Gongoozle discussing the fact that this is meant to be The Day That Changes Everything but it seems to be change for the worse, and the Gobule Lairs are all now at war with each other. A female Trog called Espy (who we will later learn is or used to be a primary-school teacher of young Trogs, and who is remarkably old-looking for a Trog and yet still mentally sharp) summons Blit to go downstairs to see someone called the Observer, and sends Gongoozle away because he is not on the Observer's staff and they are closing the observatory to outsiders. Blit goes downstairs by a complex route of lifts and stairs and corridors, passing other workers - a nameless Gobule and two Eyebolts called Poindext (or Poyndext) and Suscalva - doing mysterious scientific things, then two Gobule labourers called Ottus and Piterbult and a short watch-being of unknown species called Wences. He is caught by a booby-trap and catapulted through the air to land in a padded cart operated by a Helipath called Lucint and two Jibjibs. Lucint carries a stunned Blit down to an observation pod where they meet two pink female Oozes. The lower-down one of these seems to be The Observer (so it's not Mr Hand) and has become stiff due to proximity to the Fire, and is losing the ability to change shape. The higher-up one seems to be the Observer-to-Be, a trainee. The River of Fire affects different species in different ways: it is rapidly harmful to Motihauls, Helipaths have to wear goggles to keep from going dizzy, Ghasts go mad and Wyrms can't go near it at all. Eyebolts, Gobules, Jibjibs and Trogs are hardly affected, and Gnolls, especially mated trios of Gnolls, are affected in some way but also affect the Fire back, disturbing its flow. The Observer has summoned Blit to look at the fire and see what he can see. She mentions other Days That Changed Everything but says this one is especially odd, with an unexplained reference to a Nome called Rejov. Blit looks through a viewing hatch into the river and sees images of a cactus - almost certainly "God's Cactus", the Mansion of E - and of a "fancy pot", then letters telling him two Humans are about to cross the Grotto Bridge. Meanwhile, at the edge of the Riddler's Grotto Sylvester lectures Rosemary about what Humans have learned about magic from Ettin writings. In their world it seems to function like magnetism - it's generated in or by the planet's core, sprays out from the South Pole in a series of leylines resembling lines of longitude and then dives back in at the North Pole. These leylines have been much fainter since the Crash. There are also random magical upwellings called tricklepoints which are still active and useable, and there's one at the source of the River of Fire. Not far away to the south, the Forest of Burzee contains an even bigger tricklepoint. Different tricklepoints behave differently and are good for different things: the one under the Mansion is being squeezed by something down in the Hot Zone, causing the River to be sprayed out of it. The female Earl Audra, mother of Ludwig, investigated it, dug exploratory mines right down deep into the Hot Zone and in doing so triggered a cataclysm which enlarged the Great Chasm. Her father Angus threw condemned prisoners into the River of Fire, and Chauncy and Edgar probably entered the world through it. [The Operator, however, came to town by tram.] Sylvester warns Rosemary to expect to see visions as they approach the River, and they set off. Whisp, who is evidently blazingly fast and agile, watches them from the far side of the Grotto and then crosses the Pool by bounding across the sinking bridge and dodging the Riddler's lightning-fast claws, although she suspects him of not caring enough to try very hard to catch her. Sylvester tells Rosemary that witches and wizards - thaumslingers - used to wear magic-concentrators called thaumtappers inside their pointy hats, which killed most of them when the Crash came. The batteries in their helmets run on small thaumtappers and Rosemary sees visions when she switches her helmet light on while wearing it. We learn that Sylvester is not very devout, and has private reasons for not going to the Temple every week, and that the local temple of the Brush was moved from the Mansion to the local village of Eetown after an Earl called Ernest (father of Philbert) quarrelled with an Oracle called Purity. Ernest was a forger and died in a dramatic way. As they approach the River they start to see externally-manifested visions of people from their pasts. Sylvester sees Dirge, a thuggish man from the village, threatening to hit him. Rosemary sees her tutor, friend and perhaps (although he was a lot older than her) lover, Edwird, and a respected bodyguard colleague called Baldy. She apologises to Edwird for having hurt him by leaving him, and expects Baldy may be her enemy now because she went AWOL from a job they were both working on. The vision of a "Pyrite" appears, with a parrot on his shoulder - the pirate, who was someone Rosemary was once on a course with, dissipates when swiped with the Can-Opener but the parrot seems to be real. Sylvester sees Mr Ferule, the family lawyer, who administers the trust which pays for the eldest in each generation of Emans to go to university. Sylvester teaches Rosemary to conjure shapes out of the magic-saturated air and tells her that Ludwig studied them, and said that they were connected in some way with the distance between Eyebolts (something we have seen managers of Eyebolt clerks worrying about, and these shapes resemble those conjured by Eyebolt Weirders). We learn that brilliant Ludwig had an almost equally brilliant common-law wife called Penelope. As they approach the River it starts to show them what they most want to see. Rosemary sees a half-formed vision of her dead parents, and Sylvester sees a naked, busty, willing Rosemary - the real Rosemary is quite flattered (and she sees a naked Sylvester, but doesn't let on). We learn that for some reason Sylvester cannot or may not marry anyone from Eetown. We learn that the species in the Basement are native and represent all the known intelligent species in the world, except Mugwumps and Wendigoes. Rosemary wants to know why the Mansion isn't known as a tourist attraction, as the Infernal Engine is. Rosemary and Sylvester recognise and acknowledge that they are already friends, and see a vision of Nimue, Sylvester's girlfriend from university. They come to the start of a bridge across the River. A magical surge envelops them and Rosemary (only) sees a vision of the Tree personified as a sort of Ent. It tells her that she is carrying the seeds of some important thing, an egg and a claw of it: the Can-Opener is the claw, and the egg is whatever Rosemary carries with her and which she refers to as having brought her there. Presumably, this is the same thing that she stole. Rosemary is becoming connected to "the system entire", the setup that runs the world and of which the Tree is a part, and she must turn that setup upside down. It gives her another seed - this one actually looks a bit like a real seed - which she tucks inside her Poke-Kit. As Rosemary wakes from the trance she forgets who she was talking to, but just before she wakes the Tree starts to tell her she will remember when she needs to. She tries to tell Sylvester about what happened and ask whether she can trust what se saw, but it slides out of her mind. Meanwhile, Whisp is still stalking them, and Hax uses Camora to collect a blunderbuss. 09: Loose Ends (Basement Edition) [27/11/2008 - 07/01/2009] Faddle the Gnoll brings Bung the Gobule a pot-plant as a thank-you for the profit he made from selling Bung's toadstool. We learn that Bung is quite an important political or merchantile player and are reminded that he knows Digger. One of his Jibjibs returns - she has been warning "folks" about Chauncy and Edgar (and she doesn't know who Digger is). We learn that Faddle is a failed or partial Finagler - and that this entails being a good psychological observer. Anathama and Clochard are in some kind of long-standing political conspiracy with Digger. He meets up with them and takes them much deeper underground to a comfortable bedroom cum office which has artificial lights - so the Tree can't see what goes on there. There they meet their old friend the male Gnoll Bokonon, an elderly Finagler who they had believed had been lost in the SubShafts a long time ago: he had last been heard of in SubShaft 44f, compiling a report on Crud, the developer of the Crudbean, which was just after Comshaw killed the Ravers and Nevus started Le Tree. Bokonon believes the Tree is esssentially on the same side as them. Digger goes back out to see what he can do or learn about the fighting and Chancy and Edgar, leaving the three Gnolls behind to gossip in Gnoll jargon. Clochard and Anathama make the most of what time they have in this dangerous local situation, and go off together to make love. Meanwhile, we see The Scary Lady and her sentient balloon escorting Chauncy and Edgar to a Panegate. Nevus, Guttle and Agita resume command of their forces, although Agita is still scrubbing off Mortimer's kiss. Two Ghast medics collect Sepferb from outside Crazy Rhid's place and place him in a restorative porta-pool: Hiblehoy turns up, carrying an exhausted, sleeping Wrawa, and they advise him on her care and warn him she may be in an erratic mental state when she wakes up. Hiblehoy can't get home because Sidestep Hall is in lockdown, so a Trog called Mowder lets him and Wrawa into Rhid's place, where Sina is trying to organise an emergency demon-proof camp. Maggle has not succeeded in getting through all the fighting to return the buckets to Tunktal. The Wyrms Voog and Ploot have identified a source of water in one of the side-rooms of Rhid's place but there is machinery in the way. Sprocket and Flange turn up and are set to dismantle the machines. Maggle and Flange discuss the level of sexual tension between Sina and Sprocket, and whether they've chosen a Finagler yet. Meanwhile a New Year out-take shows Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party walking past some large human ruins, with the Spike in the background. 10: Loose Ends (Mansion Edition) [08/01/2009 - 02/03/2009] Amos Grubb puts Arthur the Weirdo and his hand-puppet Fantod to bed in their actic room: we see Arthur has a soft-toy Wendigo. We see a system of lifts and pulleys within the walls of the mansion: this is used to deliver to Hector a box containing the spare pieces which Sprocket and Flange earlier salvaged from the defunct Metalmin. On his way back from collecting the box Hector passes a talking machine, a Panegate, a gun (?) in a case marked "In case of Ludwig, break glass", preserved specimens of a Mugwump and a Wendigo, and a painting of one of the titanbugs which the Pales use as war mounts. Reaching his own quarters he takes the spare part out of the box and dumps the box down a chute, then goes to Mr Hand - on the way passing the Trog on the treadmill, who is now flaked out asleep. Mr Hand is eager to talk to Hax the Fixit. He swaps the spare part into Hector, who then repairs Mr Hand's scanners. Hand looks at pictures from around the Basement and comments on the non presence of The Gibber, which may connect to something the Sneeches have done (left?). He tries to track Rosemary and Sylvester but can't see them because they are close to the River, so he sends Hector to talk to the Riddler. He has a special interest in and wariness of Rosemary. As Hector leaves, Mr Hand is 'phoned by some colleague for a conference. Hector pases the dead king on his throne: the dial is now at No. Amos goes outside and observes unusual activity in the Tree. He lets himself into the Ivory Tower and lights a candle by magic, but Nellie catches him and tells him off for taking the risk, as she fears a second Crash. Amos is a former thaumslinger. Nellie has brought back from the village a large young man called Patrick, the local sheriff. Amos reports to Patrick about Rosemary. Patrick and his colleagues watch the Earl and are aware that Rosemary arrived without seeming to pass through the surorunding area. Amos reassures him she's not from another world. Patrick wants Sylvester to report to him. Amos and Nellie give him a book on wine-making for someone called Saffron in the village, and a Willy the Wendigo book for his son. 11: Loose Ends (Forest Edition) [03/03/2009 - 21/04/2009] Umboz, Vezza, Piu and Nitfol and their Pale escort arrive at the Pale hive, a kind of amorphous but high-tech. (with e.g. gas-lighting), pueblo-type castle. There they meet a Pale called Zpeaker, with two head-spikes, whose job is to project sounds that other species can hear, in order to talk to them. We learn that Nitfol had been rescued from the Spyder by Pales, who presumably killed the Spyder and who took him to Frowgler. Frowgler told him that he had sent the Pales to save him, and now he, Nitfol, had to save Umboz and Vezza. Nitfol asks to see the Nexus, the Pale leader, but the other three Nomes prefer to go and rest. Frowgler has told the Pales they will benefit by helping these Nomes: Umboz is afraid they want him to open a breach in his village's squid-based defences but Zpeaker says not. What the Pales hope for is a way to breach the barrier which they, and the Nomes, experience as keeping them bound within this local area. We learn that after the Nome/Gnoll war, the Nomes taught the Pales how to tree-warp (opening a Tardis-like space within a tree-trunk): they have used these skills to set up comfortable quarters for their Nome visitors. Umboz and Piu discuss who should replace Mayor Kayeeb: Nitfol, returning, volunteers. The others reluctantly agree, as the destruction of his home tree by the beaver shark gives him a non-conspiratorial excuse for seeking a new lifestyle. The Nexus and Nitfol have a plan of campaign worked out which will involve the collection of strange and difficult substances from the deep forest. Meanwhile, the skunk shark is still chewing its way through the bushes, and Comshaw and co. are still roosting on top of the ruined fountain. We see Yasmine Fotheringby waking up dazed and regaining her composure in the ruins where Protus dropped her - in fact, the above-ground bit of the same branch of World o' Pots where Mortimer fell into the underground storage area. She takes off a mask within the hood: we still cannot see her face or species, but she thinks of herself as Human. She belongs to the Weirdoes' Guild. She sets off to rejoin her horse but then hears a sleeping Mortimer coughing inside a building guarded by a not very effective Sneech security device, and goes to investigate. 12: Urwyn and the Elevator [22/04/2009 - 03/08/2009] Shona, Niff (the male) and Folla arrive at Rhid's ex place, where the male Trog Mowder is now the gatekeeper: the gate in question is being constructed by a Helipath called Fosic. Mowder believes that Rhid's former place, under Sina's leadership, will become a new multi-species Hall offering greater opportunities for individuality and personal advancement than the existing Halls, and maybe even start a trend for many new Halls springing up around the fringes of the old ones. Shona wants to see Sina, her sister, but Sina sends her a message telling her to go home. Mowder suggests that she come in anyway and report to Catmorlo to be assigned a job, thus becoming Sina's employee instead of Nevus's, but Shona walks away. We meet a tiny, diffident mini-Wyrm called Urwyn. He volunteers to help with the new Hall, and Mowder sends a male Gnoll called Satyrsong to carry Urwyn to Catmorlo. Satyrsong has an extreme hairdo which he cultivates for effect. People are milling about carrying out tasks assigned by Catmorlo: Urwyn notices that a new piece of unknown eqipment which has been brough in sends out a trail of energy to another piece, but no-one listens to him when he tries to tell them about it. Urwyn is assigned to stay out of sight and watch the Elevator. As Skuy carries Urwyn towards the Elevator, Voog examines him to see if he has to "eat" him, which is actually a metaphor for some sexual element of the relationship between the large Deep Wyrms and the little ones. This leads to a conversation in which Skuy says she will never use a Finagler: she was in love with Cully who was exiled to SubShaft 44f by Nevus. Skuy takes Urwyn to meet Sina, who is in Rhid's laboratory where Sprocket is clearing out the msot dangerous stuff. Wrawa has been left to sleep and a Gnoll Healer named Kottle is assigned to keep an eye on her. Two Trogs called Grik and Grak have appointed themselves as Sina's bodyguards. Sina's sight is returning, and she is kept very busy organising everybody. Hiblehoy is sent to make up beds - we learn that it is difficult, but not impossible, for male and female Motihauls to work together. There is some conversation about Rhid's obligatory stuffed crocagator: someone called Nubby keeps a pool of live ones at the far end of the Basement, but Urwyn has never been to see them because there's no [unspecified secret thing he doesn't want to name]. We learn that Rid used to be a Candle Monk but got thrown out, and that he was trained by a Gnoll wizard (? probably a wizard) called Burtgum who died in some kind of accident. Urwyn will summon help, if he needs it, by pinging a glass ball. A Gnoll called Finimbrun is to be that help. Finimbrun takes Urwyn to meet somebody called Huff and they all get caught up inside a mechanical Kraken, a Human-made advertising float which Rhid had acquired somewhere. The kraken's long tentacle is used to transport Urwyn to the Elevator. There he meets another small Wyrm, a friend of his called Zugo, who is doing some kind of foraging work for "the Circle". We learn that Urwyn is some Wyrm equivalent of a pampered aristocrat but he wants to be useful and do work, and Zugo, who is the equivalent of working-class, is unusual in that he will talk to Urwyn. Urwyn asks Zugo to warn "the innerest Ring" that Rhid has been ousted: he expects that if anybody in that Ring notices that he, Urwyn has left, they'll be glad to be rid of him. Meanwhile, Flange has created a device called a bim toggler with which he has opened a false wall to reveal a sequence of rooms beyond. He believes there may be other large rooms left sealed by the Humans. An alarmingly gungho female Motihaul called Othara, granddaughter of the famous Othar, turns up and volunteers to explore the new space, which Sina hopes will relieve overcrowding in the Halls. Sina realises she forgot to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, but at that moment the Elevator doors open and Hpobfvfr appears, red-eyed and controlled by the Operator. Urwyn tells Zugo to leave. Hpobfvfr still ahtes the Operator but he has nevertheless convinced her that he is her superior officer: they speak of different levels of passwords in a way that suggests she operates in some artificial way like a Metalmin and her mind can be hacked into. The Operator sends her to fetch Sylvester's cold iron frying pan: although it hurts the Operator to touch it, he holds it and uses it to probe the boundaries of his cage. He sends her to gather up the remains of Hpthbvtw (Hepthbav), which he thinks he can use: but when he realises that Hpobfvfr has a strong emotional link to Hpthbvtw, and that this is weakening his hold over her (her eyes get noticeably less red), he orders her back into the lift. He tells her that he too had a mate he was fond of, and offspring, and he doesn't know if he will see them again but in the very long term he will "literally move heaven and earth" for the chance to do so. Finimbrun comes to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, and Urwyn tells him she's already appeared: he goes off again to tell Sina. Meanwhile, the Operator does something to Hpobfvfr's physiology which causes a red flicker around her head, and then tells her to track and kill Rosemary and Sylvester - a task she takes to with enthusiasm. In fact, the Operator is seeking to test Rosemary against a more forceful opponent than Chancy and Edgar, because he has a use for her if she wins. Ploot, the large Deep Wyrm, comes to speak to Urwyn about what he has seen. In the foreground, a Smyt summons a trundlebug and rides it like a horse. Urwyn comments on the fact that Ploot is the first Deep Wyrm he's met who didn't examine him to see if he needed to "eat" him. Ploot says he's just not very interested in that kind of thing - it's a powerful and necessary drive but a small minority just don't have it. They see an externalised Vision, or what Ploot calls a "Glimpse" (actually celebrating the strip's sixth birthday). Ploot tells Urwyn he stays up high (for a Wyrm) in the Basement because he doesn't want to breed and also because times are changing, as the Vision suggests, and he wants to help people who are trying to smooth the transition and set up a new society etc.. Urwyn mutters that he isn't sure he'd mind if Ploot wanted to Eat him.... Another Shallow Wyrm called Kryt, who has been secretly watching this exchange, goes to some kind of communication station and starts to give a secret report about the Operator to some Wyrm authority. There seems to be a small colony of the little Shallow Wyrms living around this communication point. Meanwhile a large flutterby, dazed by crashing into light globes, flies past them and down into the depths, where it is struck by the radiator of a large lorry or armoured car, being driven deep undergound. 13: The Great Chasm [04/08/2009 - 26/02/2010] On the lorry are two very amusing, characterful Fixits, a male and a female who seem to be working partners, both riding unconscious Gnoll mounts, who mention an engineer called Tix who had been complaining that the "Sneechtaps" were all offline. They come to an underground building which looks a bit like the Mansion of E upside-down and has levitating lifts, where they report to a very bossy female Fixit called Grix. It is mentioned that there is a schedule which Nevus and the Council have pre-empted by attacking each other. They bear a message saying that Mr Hand wants to see Hax urgently. Grix reveals that Hax has a history of getting into scrapes (nearly as bad as Mortimer) and has just spent almost ten years relegated to the (breeding?) pens in the mountains. Grix summons a female Ichyoid called Igor who brings in boxes of what we later learn is delicate, increasingly-hard-to-obtain material vital for the maintenance of the underpinnings of the River of Fire. The partners are despatched to take these boxes to the Chasmside Covert Observation Station: after they have left, Igor wishes to discuss Rufus, apparently as a replacement for Mr Hand, but this is so secret a matter that Grix tells her they must know nothing about it ever. The two partners are sent on another long lorry journey to deliver the boxes. With them in the lorry are other consignments, including a cage containing a giant (hamster-sized) Fuzz which sings in notes coloured in the same rainbow colours as the River of Fire, underneath which they pass. The female Fixit expresses moral doubts about what they are doing by controlling their mounts. En route they pass the Quarentine Alcove of Forbidden Objects, which contains strange things such as a statue of an Ichyoid and a giant, broken statue of Kaylu with wires hanging out of it. When they reach the Chasmside Covert Observation Station they unload in a large, open hangar and then report to Fixits called Apix and Birux. Apix says that Nevus and Preznit (for the Council) have called a cease-fire. He is aware of Sylvester and of Rosemary, whom he calls "regrettably proactive". The male of the two partners then goes up to an observation deck where he talks to a Fixit called Peex (riding on/fused with an Eyebolt) and they discuss Project Y, the same thing Sprocket and Flange were working on earlier. Project Y will give their employers much more effective surveillance but may not be finished in their lifetime. There is a suggestion that their current surveillance system involves the Tree. The action cuts to Rosemary and Sylvester, who are discussing Rosemary's Poke-Kit, and the E family library in the Ivory Tower, and books they have read about Erewhonian anthropology and night creatures, and the availability of different foods in different areas. We learn that Amos Grubb is the Mansion's librarian and Nellie Grubb is the gardener. As Rosemary and Sylvester climb the steps leading away from the far side of the River there are no more visions, just an odd smell of marshberries. They reach a lighted area, and Rosemary becomes temporarily hypnotised after looking at a spinning light. She is amazed to discover that the Can Opener fits inside her Poke-Kit, which previously had only been able to hold small objects: Sylvester attributes this to the power of the tricklepoint. Pre-Crash folk heroes named Readman and Billsmith are mentioned, who carried a whole library and an arsenal in Poke-Kits. Sylvester talks about the Spike (and at least some bits of the Mansion, since e.g. the Panegates have the same characteristic writing on them as the Spike) having been built by Ettins, and about the ancient war between Ettins and Sneeches, which killed all the Ettins and most of the Sneeches. We learn that the Ettins sent a mission to the Moon to investigate artefacts of unknown origin there. Sylvester says that the Sneeches in the Basement usually allow travellers through their territory if they stick to the main road and don't engage with anybody. They occasionally give travellers gifts, which may be beneficial, dangerous or both: Audra's cost her a hand but she said it was worth it: latterly, Sneech gifts are usually either thrown away or stored in the Quiet Room (a magic-deadening space upstairs in the Mansion). The new Earl has to walk through the Sneech colony alone, but Sylvester saw no Sneeches. Sylvester talks about the zoo which the Ettins set up in the Basement, before Humans arrived in the area. Most of the local sentient species were exhibits - except the Sneeches, who were prisoners of war and research subjects; the Gnolls, who were free-lance "vermion" living where they chose; and the Gobules and Eyebolts, who were on the staff of the zoo. After the Ettins died the exhibits escaped and set up a mixed society in the Basement, and Humans came into the country across the sea in large numbers from Tiranog via a region called Abalone, and took over the area (there were already older Human colonies in Shiboleth who got there by a different route, but never spread, and who now speak a very different dialect from the rest; and even before them the insular, hostile Human group called Haroons were brought into Alfibay by someone or something). After the Crash the Basement Pales moved out into the vacated ruins of Eetown. This probably has something to do with the presence of a large, ultimately Pale-owned World o' Pots in Eetown. Sylvester mentions Ilsa Lundquist, who was head housekeeper at the Mansion for years, and whose mother was a Haroon. This must be the same green-haired, Earl-hating Ilsa whom Snerk and Shona met when the HJ42 went PROZ and jumped them back to Eetown shortly before the Crash. Ilsa had a distracted air - probably because the Scary Lady was controlling her in some way - and eventually retired to the village. The Mansion still has a very old, almost mummified butler called Schmedley. They used to have all sorts of servants, including an hereditary string-measurer: the last incumbent choked to death a week and a half before the Crash. Rosemary has plans for reviving the Mansion's fortunes. We learn that King Yorik III and his children died in the Crash. The current king Yancy II is a figurehead: the Bureaucracy really governs. Sylvester follows the fortunes of various factions in the Times and has plans for playing the stockmarket. There is a long discussion about the politics of the various sub-countries, including a place called Blefusco which is clearly equivalent to France. As they approach the top of the stairs, the hypnotic lights go out. They talk about the various habitats in the Basement ex-zoo, the death of the Wendigoes in the failed arctic exhibit (no loss, according to Sylvester), and the Willy the Wendigo books, and birth-control failures, and the pointlessness of Rosemary's crush on Baldy because he was "a homguy". We learn that the Helipaths and Ecadems were probably brought in by the Ettins through a Panegate. Sylvester understands the Panegates to open into alternate heres, rather than other planets, although they occasionally spawn portals to further-away places. We learn that Rosemary's parents drowned in a maritime accident, and that there were terrible Dawn Wars before the Ettins ande Sneeches came along. We aren't told who the combatants were but inimical races called Wilfs/Wifts and Gobblems/Gobble'Ems are mentioned, who are now known in this world only from bone framgments and fairy tales but who still exist beyond one of the Panegates, so it may have been them. For whatever reason, the Panegates only show worlds a long way diverged from this one. The 12th Earl, Lemuel, investigated the Panegates and was probably killed by one: the controls are difficult and dangerous to operate, but there are a few simple ones which do work and part of the rite of passage of the new Earl is to go through one to e.g. the Forest or Charlotte's Cave. Rosemary and Sylvester reach the Great Chasm. Mr Hand watches them on his monitors, but disclaims all knowledge to somebody on the 'phone. Ludwig installed railings and bridges over the Chasm: there is a gap in the rails opposite the door they emerge from, but no bridge. Walking along a ledge to get to the actual bridge, they encounter an elderly male Gobule called Theophan the Recluse. Theophan is one of a long series of Theophans who were all famous mentors. Gobule young are self-supporting and non-sentient, like baby guinea-pigs. They scatter in large numbers to grow or die. Those that live, become sentient: some of those become mere scavengers around the fringes but the luckiest are taken on by a mentor and educated. This Theophan was a student of Theophan the Rotund, along with Maw, Bung, Cram and Guttle. We learn that Gobule mentors occasionally mentor other species: Sylvester seems to be considering using one for his own future children. We hear about a Jibjib boss called Flap who runs an expensive ferry service across the Chasm, and learn that Theophan has chosen to stay beside the Chasm because it goes all the way down to the Hot Zone and he feels there's something terribly important down there. He tastes the Can Opener and thinks it is made of Sneech squeezings, or something similar. We learn that Theophan also stays by the Chasm to provide a sort of counselling service to male Trogs who come to the Chasm to kill themselves at the projecting jetty called the Plunge. After Rosemary and Sylvester have left we see Whisp still trailing them, then two baby Gobules emerge from a hole and talk to Theophan. We learn that those Nomes who still live in the Basement live in Root Hall with the Eyebolts. Rosemary is aware of Whisp following them. As they approach the Plunge point, trying to lose Whisp, they are passed by Crazy Rhid coming the other way, with Kronk still on his trail some way behind him. Nearby, we see a male Ghast waiting for somebody, and Hpobfvfr passing by behind him, presumably looking for Rosemary and Sylvester: the unknown male glimpses her and seems to realise something is odd about her. A shot is fired (by Camora, with the blunderbuss, under Hax's control, from a high vantage point), striking Rosemary on the helmet and dazing her: Kronk pushes her aside in order to pursue Rhid, and she and Sylvester fall into the Chasm. Rhid and Kronk pass Whisp, who smells Camora's presence nearby, and then a Trog juggler who we later learn is called Stonwal. Digger Odel rescues Rhid, sort-of, by pulling him in behind a concealed panel. Whisp traces Camora's scent to another concealed panel, then leaves to report back to Upernavik and Knumdrot. Meanwhile we see Hpobfvfr go to the edge of the Plunge and peer over, then turn back. Behind the second panel, Hax disengages from Camora. He believes he has contained her memory and delayed her awakening, but she wakes instantly, with full memory, and tries to grab him. He escapes down a crack in the rock. We see fissures in the rock containing odd bits of struts and tools and what looks like a Smyt-sized pink racing car, then a bat waking and flying through wider fissures towards the outside. Part Five: Mechanisms in the Dark [27/02/2010 - 16/07/2013] 01: Sitting in a Tree [27/02/2010 - 04/06/2010] Now that it is getting dark Comshaw, Niddle and Ig finally feel safe to come down from the ruined fountain. Ig is now wearing/carrying Niddle's backpack. Yasmine enters the ruined building where she heard coughing, and discovers Mortimer, still coming round from having been stunned by Eunice. He has a note from Rufus on his chest but we aren't told what it says. He correctly identifies Yasmine as a Weirdo - which she finds amazing, apparently because it suggests a degree of clairvoyance not seen since the Crash. He also identifies the building as Dorian's old hut (presumably the Dorian who now lives in the Spike), but seems confused: when Yasmine mentions Protus as the Willigig currently living in the Mansion, Mortimer recalls being somewhere near the Basement at some point and Skibble, who seems to be a friend of his, turning up and mentioning Protus to him, but he doesn't coherently connect this with the Willigig who gave him the HJ42 after the incident with the tree-squid earlier in the day - although he then refers to Protus as "really grumpy", so he must have made the connection mentally. Yasmine claims she is there to conduct an official Weirdo's Guild review of Arthur's performance. Yasmine sets off again to find her horse, and Mortimer again sets out to find Nitfol and rescue him if still alive. He is briefly distracted by a flutterby and calls it to his finger: Yasmine sees this and is again amazed by his psychic talent. A bearded Gnoll with a spear (who we later learn is Agita's henchman Agorn) overhears them talking, and we see Mortimer's scalpsucker messenger fall asleep, still only halfway up the side of the shaft. Yasmine and Mortimer get along well and he tells her about all the odd things which happen to him. They talk about Mortimer and Sylvester doing their duty and Sylvester still getting scorned by the villagers, about chaos theory and flutterbys, and she tells him to tell Frederick about the odd things which happen to him. Thinking of what Protus showed her, but not saying it, she tells Mortimer she expects to be back some day and when she returns she expects him to have made some progress with his situation. As Yasmine leaves, Mortimer gives her his sack of fleebs. The listening Gnoll wonders whether to follow one or the other, go home and report or go join the Spikefolk, who carry out strange rites. He appears to decide to follow Mortimer. Ig, Comshaw and Niddle are trying to locate Mortimer by smell but they smell something odd as well, metal and skin, wet and burnt - Niddle says this smell was all over the mound that the Fire came out of earlier ("The Pit"). The way they describe the smell, it probably relates to either Frowgler or the Meltalmin or robot which we glimped earlier near The Pit. Again there is mention of a barrier which Humans live beyond, as if there's some sort of cordon keeping the Basement folk in. Niddle is pleased that he was exposed to the Fire and saw visions, as he thinks this will prove to be important. Mortimer encounters Frowgler, Thrash and two other Pales. He recognises Frowgler as a comic-book character but Frowgler says that he is "not THE Frowgler. Just.. A Frowgler", although he claims to be in a similar position to his fictional counterpart, in that he has come to assist the Good Guys against powerful evil forces, much bigger and more powerful than mere demons. Mortimer and Thrash are both Good Guys. Frowgler comments that the local Pales call their fort "The Camp" because they expect it to be temporary, and advises Mortimer on how to find the Spyder web he is looking for. Mortimer asks if Yasmine was right to tell him to talk to Frederick, and Frowgler thinks she probably was. As Frowgler and the Pales leave, Mortimer finds an umbrella. It doesn't belong to anyone in Frowgler's party, so he keeps it. Agorn realises that Comshaw's party are behind him, and hides. He overhears Comshaw sniffing out the fact that the Human, Mortimer, went one way and the Pales and the metal-smelling thing went another. So in this case the metal-smelling thing must be Frowgler. Agorn is impressed, but in a kind of patronising way: he sees Comshaw as a young fellow with potential. The space-suited worker who earlier quit the Hot Zone observation station climbs out of a hatch in one of the ruined buildings, takes off her helmet and reveals herself to be a female Nome called Fizmo. She mentions having been taken below by someone called Fogorner, who she believes was working for the group in the Spike. She forces her way out of the locked building through a crack high in the stonework. She meets Frowgler, whom she knows - he had advised her not to take the subterranean job. Now he says going back down would be the safest thing for her, but not the best thing. Learning that she likes Nitfol, he suggests she go with Thrash to the Pale camp where Nitfol now is, and she agrees. Frowgler gives her a hat, since Nomes hate to be bareheaded, but he warns her to examine hats from other sources carefully. It is clear he is warning her about Fixits, and that Fogorner is controlled by a Fixit. He also warns her that the beaver shark - of which there is only one - is loose nearby, and that he is trying to stop Kayeeb doing something which will destroy the Nome village (presumably, attacking the Gnolls). Frowgler denies being a demon and says he was put on earth to do what he is doing. He goes down the tunnel Fizmo came out of, and she goes off with the Pales, talking at them about a Nome who built a prototype plane which crashed, and her ideas about hot air balloons. We see a flat-topped tower among the ruins, containing a giant glowgem which gives off light. Down below is a lorry in some sort of workshop. The glowgem connects to the lights which channel daylight to the Great Chasm, and we see that Rosemary and Sylvester have landed in a peculiar fluffy outgrowth of the Tree. Rosemary, probably still dazed, identifies Rhid whom they have just seen as one of the people Protus showed to Sylvester, and thinks that the woman he saw her fighting - whom she calls Tansy - is about to show up. Her helmet light is damaged, and Sylvester's helmet is missing, caught in the Tree. He manages with some difficulty to retrieve it, so that they have light and can proceed. 02: Lying in a Hole [05/06/2010 - 16/09/2010] Rosemary tears her skirt - which is stolen - to make ties to keep their helmets on. The pre-existence of Wyverns, a kind of extinct dragon, is mentioned, and the fact that Rosemary has killed people. Sylvester thinks the padded branches below the Plunge point are there to stop Trogs killing themselves, and this is born out when they find a strategically-placed pot of Trog repellant which herds any Trogs who land in the Tree towards a narrow spur bridge over the abyss (made by a very reputable construction firm). The spur ends with a tube-like chute which they are sucked in by, and which takes them to a padded landing-site in a room within the cliff, which contains a broken office cabinet which has "The Threshold" written on it, and which moves about under its own power. They meet a thing called a Lurker - a cave-creature like a blind, bald, sub-sentient Saur. Dog-like, it wants them to follow it: Rosemary thinks it's leading them into an ambush. Following it, they come to a place which looks like the Ettins' artificial Trog habitat, except sterile and dead, without the moss and fresh water etc. of the zoo exhibit. Sylvester feels that he and Rosemary are both acting rather wildly, and that this is due to exposure to vents leading to the Hot Zone. They come to an archway labelled "Serene Cavern of Blissful Relaxation", beside which is a slightly sick poem about the death of Yurd. Within are the people the Lurker, Blinky, was reporting to - two male trogs called Villipend and Hamble. Both are less flat-faced and probably mentally sharper than Kronk, but Villipend is crowned, paranoid and deranged. Hamble tries to calm him but he is sure that Rosemary and Sylvester are the "Tormentors" who keep him trapped there, and it doesn't help that he smells his enemy Kronk (who brushed past them at the Plunge point) on them. When Sylvester says he doesn't know where the exit is, Villipend throws a weapon which Rosemary fends off with the Can-Opener, which Villipend calls a Sneech claw. Rosemary and Villipend fight and Villipend manages to get in a kick which throws her against the wall. Sylvester intervenes, warns him grimly that he is the terrible Earl of E and fires a primitive taser which he has in his backpack - but Villipend dodges and it is Hamble who is struck and apparently killed. The act of firing the taser also throws Squeeb out of the backpack and onto the floor. Villipend is impressed by the taser but annoyed because he wanted to kill Hamble himself. He threatens Sylvester so Rosemary slashes him with the Can-Opener and he hides in the dark. Sylvester finds a door operated by a Herediscan which identifies him as a member of the E family and lets him through. He tells Villipend (now clinging to the ceiling) he will leave the door open. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their weapons training (and we learn that at the bodyguard training-school she went to, the fencing master was a Mr Montoya). She is concerned that she may not be able to stop Villipend if he attacks again, because he's in peak condition and she has no practice with the Can-Opener. As they move away from the Hot Zone vents, Rosemary becomes calmer. Sylvester tells her about the SubShafts, a tangle of tunnels which are greatly affected by the Hot Zone. The Eyebolts who worked for the Ettins lived there, then the mining Nomes as well. After an upheaval (presumably the Gnoll/Nome war) they all moved out, the Eyebolts to elsewhere in the Basement, the Nomes to the Forest, and now it's mainly Gnolls who live in the SubShafts. We seen an outline of Cully, Chunner and Crud, all heavily armed - Cully with a flame-thrower, Chunner with a blunderbuss and Crud with something similar to the Can-Opener. Rosemary and Sylvester come to an area of large engineering works at the start of a walkway or bridge at the edge of the long drop. Villipend jumps them, wrests the Can-Opener from Rosemary and tries to force Sylvester to go back downstairs and close the door to Villipend's domain, so he can continue to trap other Trogs there. Sylvester is willing to jump into the Chasm rather than do so. Meanwhile, Mortimer finds the remains of the dead Spyder. Comshaw's party are still tracking Mortimer, and Agorn is still trailing them. Mortimer comes to the crater caused when Frowgler set off the HJ42, and wrongly assumes Nitfol and the spyder were both blown up. He climbs down into the crater and retrieves the HJ42, then Comshaw, Niddle and Ig arrive at the edge of the crater and engage him in conversation about the goals of Humanity. They all conclude that Comshaw needs to speak to Sylvester (hearing that Sylvester is the Earl, Comshaw assumes he must be very scary). The thing Niddle is carrying, which he found in the tunnel and which is similar to but not the same as a glowgem, starts radiating energy. Niddle says he can almost hear it speak, it's waited a long time and now it's almost time for some unspecified meeting. Snerk appears, pursued by the beaver shark, as Niddle begins to count down from five. Mortimer tells the others to run, while he stands his ground and summons a flock of flutterbys to distract the shark. The two Saurs run but Comshaw and Niddle are still present when Niddle's not-a-glowgem discharges its energy in a huge dome of light. Mortimer and the shark are transported into open underground space by a twistpoint and fall down to where Rosemary and Sylvester are. The letters PZOR appear, suggesting that the not-glowgem and the HJ42 interacted to create the twistpoints, burst of light etc.. The shark bites Villipend and Rosemary retrieves the Can-Opener and pushes both of them off the edge and into the deep. Comshaw and Niddle are jumped through another twistpoint back to their own home, where Camora is brooding. Niddle crashes out, as Telic had warned that he would, burbling about the fact that Mortimer has the same haircut as him, and something about a window. Camora tells Comshaw about Hax. He decides to go back out to warn everyone, leaving her to care for Niddle, but first they have an unspecified erotic session. Ig is twistpointed to outside the home of his ex girlfriend Nerda, the mother of his as-yet unhatched children. He offers her the stuff in Niddle's backpack so she lets him in. Snerk is less lucky. As a result (or cause) of an unspecified backlash he is dumped into the middle of a high-tech. experimental facility of some kind being run by two Ghasts. He is pinned in some uncomfortable scary machinery which may be examining him or may be cleaning and immunising him - it's not clear which - and then confined to an artifical woodland habitat designed especially for Saurs, although he doesn't realise this and believes he has been twistpointed to a real forest far away. He wishes to leave a.s.a.p. in order to report to Frowgler. There are a lot of other Saurs there - he meets a dozy girl called Dizel and a much more sensible, very large female called Zil who tells him that if he can find a way out she's coming with him. We learn that the habitat also contains big, dim, agressive Saur relatives called Sawtooths, and we see that there are Gnolls - who may be there unofficially. Meanwhile, the not-glowgem falls back into the crater, and the HJ42 falls through a crack in the floor of the crater. Agorn investigates and sees that the hole which has opened up contains a ladder. He can smell Sneeches in the depths. 03: Spanner in the Works [17/09/2010 - 15/01/2011] Sylvester identifies their location as the Ettinworks investigated by Krell, Earl Griffington's assistant. Sylvester, Mortimer (smelling peculiar, with umbrella) and Rosemary set out along the walkway: lights, electric crackles and deep rumbling noises come on as they walk. Rosemary has a sense that the Can-Opener may do exciting things around electrical discharges, and puts it in the Poke-Kit. They come to an unusually passive Sneech plant-machine growth which is blocking the walkway, and edge past it. Mortimer insists on taking the lead as he is the most expendable. The other two have been ignoring Mortimer and rather treating him like a small child but they begin to realise their mistake. They are far below the level of the Sneech nest - Mortimer recounts comments by Skibble suggesting the Sneeches are expanding their territory. Having passed the Sneech growth they come in sight of an Ettin underhub - a lighthouse-like tower which stretches from the floor where they are, through the open cavern of the Ettinworks to the ceiling of the cavern, which is the floor of the shallower levels overhead, with a row of windows ringing the tower up near the ceiling. Sylvester talks of a network of underground roads and buildings which was wrecked and sealed off when Audra poked the Hot Zone and caused the Chasm to spread - it is clear this is the system now being opened up and used by the Fixits. They go into the underhub and prepare to climb a spiralling internal ramp, and have a conversation in which Rosemary is amazed to learn that a famous, ancient philosopher named Milo was the 9th Earl of E. They find a signpost written in a Human script and recently annotated in the handwriting of Nirvana Clepe, former Taskmistress of the Mansion, who retired eight years ago when her wife died, and supposedly lives three days' ride away. Mortimer is showing clairvoyance - he knows how old the writing is, and that the Sneeches have never been inside the underhub. There is a discussion about Threnody the local Oracle, whom Sylvester fancies (Dirge is her Guardian). The interior of the underhub is full of concealed twistpoints - as they climb, the interior changes illogically and it's possible to go up and end up lower down. There are a series of signposts to guide them. Talking about twistpoints leads them to realise that they each met Protus today. Mortimer talks about Yasmine, and about ending up in Dorian's old hut. He recalls Dorian as a hermit from his childhood, although Dorian has been working for the group in the Spike for forty-two years. Sylvester is sure Yasmine was lying about being there to review Arthur, unless the Guild have changed the rules without telling him. Employing a Weirdo, we learn, is a requisite part of being an aristocrat. They come to a group of elongated, slope-sided pillars labelled "do not touch". After they have passed on without touching them, we see that they are local Panegates. Windows open in them to show a room with a table set for dinner, two female Gnolls gossiping (one has a flutterby on a string) and two Dornbeasts, large and small. Frowgler, looking rough, emerges from the Dornbeast one although the Dornbeasts cannot pass. He goes back through another, smaller window and we hear a voice comment that he is damaged. Frowgler says he met one of Protus's new friends. The twistpoints in the underhub aren't mentioned in the Mansion's records. Sylvester thinks the Ettins' devices were built to shut down in the event of a Crash, and are now waking again. They discuss the Crash, and what they could do before it - still far less than the Ettins did. They had a high-level tram which took a week to cross the country: the Ettins went to the moon. They come to another pillar labelled "touch". In order to get past a twistpoint and go up again Mortimer touches it with his umbrella, and a ray from the ceiling strikes the other two. Sylvester loses nearly all his memory - although he recalls Nimue - and Rosemary loses some of her intelligence, regresses emotionally and starts acting like an eager-to-please, extremely literal-minded five-year-old with no conversational filters. Rosemary's memory is intact and she realises what has happened and warns Mortimer he will have to tell her what to do. This is a double-edged sword as she is now extremely hypnotically susceptible. Following Mortimer's instincts, they hold the umbrella together and touch the pillar again, and this time a levitating lift called a Woosher arrives. The Woosher carries them up inside the tower, and while they are on it the ramps that were there before disappear. Meanwhile, Nevus's troops are at Comshaw's door, believing he sent Sylvester and Rosemary to spy on Le Tree. Comshaw emerges and duffs them up with his poking stick. He gets one of them, a young male Trog called Skradt, to take him to Nevus. Skradt is interested in learning to be a Poker himself. The Basement is now very quiet - most people are hiding. They go to Le Tree, where Gnoll doorkeepers called Forfind and Frag let them pass. We see that the hamster, plant and ABOL have escaped. Comshaw offers to trade true information for a truce. Nevus agrees and asks him why he and the Council hired Sylvester and Rosemary to come to Le Tree and start a war. Comshaw explains that he did no such thing although he's not sure about the Council. Nevus accepts that Rosemary and Sylvester were lying. Comshaw tells him they are Humans and Sylvester is the Earl (which he learned from Mortimer at the crater), and then suddenly strikes a Fixit from the head of Neilguye, Nevus's Motihaul accountant, where Nevus can see it. A Boogieman, Malcolm, catches the Fixit and it dies - they are very fragile. Comshaw goes to tell the Council about the Humans and the Fixits, and Skradt comes with him. 04: Closing Out an Era (The Ettinworks) [18/01/2011 - 04/06/2011] As they ride the Woosher Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer discuss the fact that there must be "some rich guy with horrible mutant tastebuds" keeping Moe Wines in business (there is, of course - Mr Hand). They discuss the fact that Sylvester is the Earl (which he has forgotten) and the succession. They pass an unknown woman in brown, with blond hair with a pink bow on top - Rosemary calls her Mz Teree - who seems to be the one marking the signs. Hpobfvfr is stil trailing them. When they disembark, higher up, the tower changes again and they find more ramps. It is mentioned that they need never have gone down to look for the Pots Room, because Mortimer knows where there is a supply of seige pots in a disused barracks. Rosemary's bodyguard training is still sharp even if the rest of her isn't. They discuss twistpoints, and confirm that it is possible to walk down a ramp, then back up the same ramp, and end up somewhere different from where they started. The new signpost is decorated with a heart with "N C + A S" written in it: they think this may be Nirvana Clepe and the Mz Teree woman. With more down-and-up twists they arrive at the level of the bank of windows, up against the roof of the cavern where the Ettinworks are, and just under the floor of the upper part of the Basement. At this point they are probably back at about the level of Le Tree, or maybe a storey or two below it. As they walk Rosemary burbles, and starts to speak about Tansy - who she thinks is the woman Sylvester saw her fighting when Protus showed him visions - and a word beginning "Qu". The view from the windows looks as if it is of starry space rather than down into the Ettinworks, but they do not go to look, for fear of triggering more dangerous events. Leading up from the window room is a flight of stone steps going up into the body of the rock above them. There is also an Ettin-style door with a gap about 10" high underneath it. Mortimer peers underneath and sees a corridor of human-type doors, one with a pair of shoes outside it, but a little metal sign saying "KEEP OUT" falls down in front of him, with thye letters cut out of it as holes. Sylvester feels that there are Humans in that corridor, but when he turns his back it's a non-Human-looking hand, possibly Frowgler's, which retrieves the "KEEP OUT" sign. They set off up the stone steps towards the Sneech den. Rosemary and Sylvester are starting to improve. There is some oblique discussion about Sylvester not telling Rosemary the Scary Lady's name, then about Mortimer's friend the Scalpsucker - Mortimer remembers falling down the hole leading to the old World o' Pots storeroom but doesn't seem to recall meeting Rufus. They come to a door opened by number pad, leading to a double-doored Sneech-lock. Emerging, they pass an alcove containing an entrance to the elevator, above the one where they emerged earlier. Past that is a round room at the bottom of a shaft, with a crystal on a stand in the middle, playing a popular song. There are also double metal doors, closed, and stairs leading up and down. Mortimer hopes to use the stairs but finds the ones going up are labelled "Operation Certain Death" and the ones going down, "Slimegrub Breedpits". The down-flight shows signs of recent flooding, but Mortimer retrieves a glowgem from the first landing down, with a mysterious socket just right for fitting it onto the point of his umbrella. Rosemary seems slightly hypnotised by it. They plan to go upstairs, towards Operation Certain Death, but then they hear something big and loud crashing downstairs towards them. Rosemary draws the Can-Opener, which Sylvester calls a Paleslicer. They use the singing crystal thing to levitate them up to a higher floor, but Rosemary is grabbed and held back, floating, by what proves to be an enormous, female relative of Ahz and Skiv, called Tand. Tand can smell that Rosemary has been near Ahz and Skiv and believes, wrongly, that she knows who they are, so after some initial problems adjusting her voice to Human levels, she tells her to tell them to get a move on with their allotted task of growing a garden, a task for which they were all sent here by someone else. Tand says Rosemary is not like any other human she's met, and one of the other two (has to be Mortimer) is sparkly like a lot of humans used to be but haven't been for a while - apparently she is sensing him as a magic-user. Tand has to leave because she is literally over-stretched and her torch is going out. She is afraid to meet, in the dark, a male "horrible mask-thing" who can go anywhere - this may be Frowgler, since the Pales call him Frogmask. Released, Rosemary floats up to the boys. She feels herself to be now entirely back to normal (although later events will show that this isn't quite true). Sylvester recognises the name Tand from his records, but still hasn't wholly regained his memory. Meanwhile, Comshaw and Skradt come to the Council entrance, which is heavily defended. An Eyebolt receptionist called Witherward admits them by dropping them down a shaft. They arrive in the midst of a full meeting, including Twiz, acting for Maw; Snerd, acting for Sina; Commander Chumley (the Council's Chief of Security) for the Boogiemen and a Ghast "Stirrer", some kind of high ceremonial functionary relating to how the Ghasts reproduce (they have to use special breeding pools within their home base and are unable to set up more outside it), who is in some way not physically present. On the Council are Doyen, a female Trog; Gavzada, a female Motihaul; Wunk, a male Gnoll; Aprat, a Helipath and Chairbeing Preznit, a male Eyebolt, although he tries to hide his species behind a mask. Twiz is very interested in the new Hall Sina is setting up. The Council is concerned about Rhid and what he may do next, and whether Sina is a safe person to be a leader. Gavzada is keen on anything which keeps Othara occupied, and they are cautiously positive so long as Sina and her engineer Fosic build walls to keep epople away from the Operator. Comshaw then strikes a Fixit from the head of a femal Gnoll called Widdendreem, who seems to be the Council's record-keeper. He wants to catch it alive but Widdendreem, freed from the Fixit, pounces and kills it. Widdendrem is angry that she now owes Comshaw a debt, and concerned by the fact that she has killed a person. She tells them the name "Fixit" and that the dead one was a female called Snurfix, reporting to a male nicknamed Slinker. Snurfix had crept onto her head while she slept. We learn that young Fixits are raised in cages "beyond the Spikeshield", which must be the barrier others have spoken of. Chumley sends Widdendreem to write down all she recalls about the Fixits, while Comshaw tells the Council what he knows about them - leaving out Camora's name. Chumley decrees that no one in the Council Chamber shall wear a hat - all the Councillors drop their hoods and Preznit, whose brain is in his torso, strips to his socks. The Council agrees to tell all the key players - Maw, Agita etc. - whilst trying to prevent the knowledge of the Fixits from spreading generally for the moment, for fear of what God might do when he learns his spy network has been blown. They want all the leaders warned before God takes any action. Comshaw tells them about the Humans, and Sylvester being the Earl, but he doesn't know if he is the Earl. The Earl "tore the world in two fighting Yurp, the Demon King" - Yurp is not yet identified, unless he is the Operator, but the Earl is evidently Audra, who caused the Chasm to spread. Comshaw plans to go speak to Sylvester tomorrow. Comshaw, Skradt, Snerd and Twiz head for the exit, discussing Ghast reproduction and Trog education (here we learn that Espy is a teacher). They slide down a chute and land in a corridor by the battered-looking Gobule Mingent, who is eating the dead from the battle. Twiz has been chewing a piece of the dead Fixit - they tell Mingent if he smells anything like it, to bite it. Twiz runs off. Comshaw thinks Snerd should work for Sina but Snerd says Shona wouldn't like it, and he loves Shona. Comshaw and Skradt set off together. They encounter a Jibjib called Schrik being ridden by a Fixit, and try and fail to take the Fixit alive. The Fixit has been using Schrik to spy on Flap's ferry across the Great Chasm. An important Boogieman ruler called Crispin is mentioned. Comshaw sends Schrik to take the dead Fixit to Sina and then work for her. Skradt reveals that he joined Nevus hoping for an early death in battle, so he wouldn't have to choose to take the Plunge. But Comshaw has given him a vision of something more useful, plus he wants to learn to fight as well as him. Frowgler, watching through a crack in the wall, thinks they make a good team. 05: Closing Out an Era (The Sneech Den) [06/06/2011 - 16/12/2011] Sylvester, Mortimer and Rosemary pass another large inactive Sneech node and several smaller ones, and some graffitti relating to dragons - although we're not told whether they are a legend or, like wyverns, a real if possibly extinct animal. There is a conversation about Mortimer's history of failed relationships with scary women, in the course of which he tells Rosemary that his relationship with her will be strictly business while she is staring bug-eyed at the hypno-gem, and he reveals that he has the hots for Yasmine. Rosemary is in command over Sylvester because that's part of her job as bodyguard. There is a lot of discussion of Sneech races and technology, living walls etc. and also Rosemary's poor origins on Gnomin. Mortimer takes off his shirt so Rosemary can make them rag boots and mittens so they don't have to touch the Sneech material: he passes his umbrella to Sylvester as he does so and sees the gem glows much less brightly when Sylvester holds the umbrella. Rosemary has absorbed the hypnotic lesson that her relationship with Mortimer is strictly business. Following a trail of fresh air through the tunnels of the Sneech den, they come to a bridge over a moderate drop, guarded on either side by relatives of Fern's. The intelligent plants are wary of Rosemary but agree to disarm her and carry the Can-Opener across the bridge themselves for her to collect on the far side. As they get there the Gnoll Agorn falls while trying to climb down from the crater above, and lands at their feet. Agorn hasn't noticed, but Niddle's apearing and disapearing gem (hereafter the Hitchhiking Gem) is now attached to his spear. As the Human trio prepare to leave, one of the the plants delays them and asks - by spelling with its tongue - that they be given names. Sylvester names them after the Founding Oracles, a group of women who spread the religion of the Brush - Violet, Daisy, Joice, Jenny, Kathryne, Hettie, Evangeline, Vivian and Petunia. Sylvester promises to visit them again: as the Humans leave we see the plants talk amongst themselves by some rapid means. The Humans come to the main corridor through the Sneech den, which is studded with tall, light-bearing tree-like things. Meanwhile Comshaw and Skradt come to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, where Agita (a Motihaul) has her office. They have a complicated system of clearances in which Comshaw ranks quite high. An Eyebolt called Philodox admits them. While waiting to be seen they observe that two of the Eyebolt clerks are wearing Fixit-type hats but they seem to be just hats. An Eyebolt called Giddhom says thay are in fashion because some people claim they help you to think. Weirding is discussed, and the eccentricities of various species - we learn that Helipaths refuse to cross the Great Chasm to Sneech side even though Sneeches get on OK with them. The hatted clerks are Scrutineers, recording everything visitors say - Skradt wishes to be recorded as a would-be Poker. [Around here we have a Labor Day out-take showing local man Arlen and his daughter Juniper, digging a ditch at the back of a hedge near the village of Eetown. The hedge seems to have the rusted remains of a pre-crash vehicle incorporated into it.] Comshaw borrows Giddhom's hat so Fixits will think he's controlled. They are escorted to see Agita by an Eyebolt called Peripatet riding in a special buggy which was damaged during an eventful visit by Strode, the aggressive female Motihaul in the pumpkin-head mask who appears in Sundays in SubShaft 44f. They pass more clerks one of whom, Ogdoad, is wearing a Fixit. We learn that the Eyebolts in Root Hall distrust the GBOLs, and therefore presumably the Tree, and make their own lights. Comshaw and Skradt come to Agita and her Eyebolt clerk Flibbergib, and Agita gives them apples. She has with her her young daughter, Rishathra, and a Gnoll guard called Termagant. Agita and Comshaw catch up on the events of the day (including establishing that it was the young Mortimer who somehow started the Nome War after falling through into a mine), and Comshaw gets her to summon Ogdoad, who insists on a promise of safe conduct before he will come in. He has some involvement with another Eyebolt (?) called Tribblerig and some scheme involving Sneech squeezings. As Ogdoad enters the office Comshaw baps the Fixit, called Endix, off his head and Skradt catches him in a bowl but Endix somehow commits suicide. Ogdoad is terribly distressed, for he and Endix had become at least semi-partners. Comshaw and Skradt leave Root Hall, and are quizzed as they leave by an Eyebolt who assumes it's all to do with Sneech squeezings. As they come away from Root Hall they pass the male Nome called Rezrov, still with his arm in a sling, leading, on a string, a very flirtatious-looking female Trog named Hogminny. Both are smeared with green paint. We are told that some Nomes and some Trogs have a "thing", and learn that Skradt tentatively fancies Maggle. Comshaw 'phones the Council and tells them he has delivered their message to Agita, and he has a message for them from Root Hall saying Ogdoad is involved with a Sneech squeezings scheme but they'll handle it. Comshaw takes Skradt home with him and Camora and Niddle are quite welcoming, although if he's staying they may need to move to a bigger apartment. All sleep, exhausted. Meanwhile, Agita takes Ogdoad with her to see a female Motihaul accountant called Marritza who is wearing a Fixit named Arnix. Agita threatens Arnix with a pointed umbrella ferrule, then tells him that the gaff regarding God and the Fixits is well and truly blown, and offers him the chance to ride on Ogdoad and act as a liason officer between herself and God. Arnix and Ogdoad both agree. Meanwhile. Sprocket is upset to see that Crazy Rhid's ex place connects to large areas of still-working machinery, the only machinery that good outside the SubShafts, and Rhid didn't tell anyone. Sina now has a makeshift office, an Eyebolt receptionist called Nikhedonia and Maggle acting as gopher. Sina and Sprocket decide to marry, right now - Wittol, who will be their Finagler, has already anticipated this and started to make arrangements. We learn that Niddle has had experiences which make him a perfect Finagler - so perfect he may be a whole new thing. We learn that Gnoll marriage customs involve a receptacle called a Tweebowl, a Tool and a Blossom and, at some point before they have whelps, a visit to the Fluffy Foo-Foo Cave, and without a Finagler things go badly wrong for mated pairs. Yet, some couples such as Niff and Folla live unofficially, without a Finagler, and manage fine. Sprocket, Wittol and Sina have a hasty cermeony, with the possibility of a more formal one later. Afterwards Snerd turns up and thinks Nikhedonia's hat is a Fixit, although it's just a hat. As he is explaining, Schrik turns up with an actual dead Fixit. Maggle and Kronk are sent out to show the dead Fixit around and kill any live ones they find, and Snerd returns to his mate Shona and Finagler Wubb. Flange reminds Sprocket of their obligations to their employer Mr Hand, and tells him about Rubrak being killed by Chauncy and Edgar. Sprocket and Flange will probably cease to be partners now. Sprocket talks privately to Sina about Mr Hand and the job - he has realised that the femal Motihaul who put him in touch with Mr Hand was wearing/worn by a Fixit. Mr Hand has had them installing devices called Y-nodes which look like Sneech growths, and produce ultrasonic sound only small creatures can hear. Fleebs in the presence of a Y-node turn to face it and stare. Sprocket sees Mr Hand as ruthless and controlling but constructive rather than destructive in his intentions. They agree to tell Comshaw about it, then get on to the serious business of their wedding night. As a final wrap-up, we see Snoot bitching to Izchak about his bloody awful day; the Super Rock pausing to rest and to talk to another rock which can talk, but not walk; Digger reporting to Frowgler that things are going to plan and he has no questions to ask; and Frederick preparing to serenade the Grubbs on a Fugehorn. 06: Twilight [17/12/2011 - 09/06/2012] Agorn encounters Hpobfvfr, who is trailing the Humans. She addresses him as if he is two people - she senses the sentient Hitchiking Gem which Agorn doesn't know he is carrying. Sylvester and co. enter the main corridor, which is again unnaturally quiet - we learn there should be trilobite-thingies scuttling about trailing organic wires etc.. While discussing local politics and a performing troupe who once came to the local village, Mortimer accidentally causes Rosemary to fixate on the gem in his umbrella, and gives her three hypnotic commands - "Go to sleep, but act like you're still awake!", "Take a note! I am not going to keep making these mistakes with women!" and "Do as you're told! Stay in your place! Speak only when spoken to! The Brush wills it!". They pass a Sneech tower which is at the edge between Human and Sneech territory and is labelled "NO INTERRUPTIONS", then they come to a neon sign saying "OUR TRAJECTORYS DIVERGE PAYMENT FOR YE ASSISTANCE" (although Sylvester doesn't know what assistance is meant). This dissolves, leaving a squat obelisk which moves when it is touched, and which Rosemary names the Dohickey. The Sneeches themselves have gone. The obelisk steers them around a hole in the floor, which proves to be the hole which Chauncy and Edgar left when they exited Izchak's shop looking for the Scary Lady. Matagam the Motihaul soldier and a Boogieman called Geoff climb out of the hole, checking where Chauncy and Edgar went. Heading for the Mansion proper, Rosemary, Mortimer and Sylvester pass the entrance to a tunnel put in by the Council to monitor the Humans. They emerge from an elaborate vesitbule decorated with ornamental fake stalagmites and flaming braziers, into a plain downstairs room containing the entrance to the elevator and a small extension of the Tree, and with "BEWARE MR FLIP" written on the wall. Mr Flip is a character we meet in Sundays in SubShaft 44f, but Mortimer says the graffito has been there his whole life. To get further they need to go through a locked door, the key to which Sylvester dropped while falling into the Great Chasm. Matagam and Geoff head for the Council tunnel and are passed by Hpobfvfr, who corners the humans against the locked door. Mortimer senses that her mind has been tampered with and speaks to her sympathetically, incidentally getting between her and her intended targets. Then we see in flashback that the male Ghast she passed just before Rosemary and Sylvester fell into the Chasm realised that something was wrong and went and fetched help. Hpthva, the officer in charge of a party of Ghast soldiers who have been following behind, orders Hpobfvfr to stand down, and this breaks the Operator's hold over her. Hearing Rosemary address Mortimer by name, Hpthva quries this and he says he is "Mortimer Eman.. because we're going to be all.. formal": in doing so he inadvertently gives Rosemary another hypnotic command. Having confirmed Mortimer's name and that he might be the one who started the Nome War, and having learned that they are Human, Hpthva wants to arrest the trio, but great aunt Scary appears in the doorway (with balloon) and scares them off. Somewhere, she has acquired a flower which she is now wearing tucked into the v-neck of her dress. After the Ghasts leave, the rest go through into the house and Scary cures Sylvester's memory problems. He is very reluctant to ask her to do anything which will put him under an obligation to her. Scary tries to touch the Sneech obelisk, but it fizzes a shock at her. Meanwhile Sylvester realises something is wrong with Rosemary, and when she starts addressing Mortimer as "Mr Eman" because "We are being all formal" Sylvester realises that she is following Mortimer's commands literally. Mortimer tries to snap her out of it by giving her a ridiculous command to "be a dog" but she goes down on all fours and starts growling. Scary is detachedly impressed by his power, and thinks there is a real risk Rosemary will become permanently enthralled. Alarmed, Mortimer tries to order Rosemary to be herself. In the short term it seems to have worked, but it remains to be seen whether she has internalised any of his commands. Mortimer goes off to speak to Frederick. Restored to normal function, Rosemary is introduced to the Scary Lady (whose name we finally learn to bne Myrrh) and the two go off for a private chat in which it is revealed that Rosemary knows the Scary Lady to be not human, and that the Scary Lady loves and protects Frederick to the point of being willing to kill anybody who threatens anybody he cares about, such as his nephews. The same minituarised trundlebug who fell onto Rosemary's helmet earlier in the day is revealed to be still lurking in her broken lamp, and the Scary Lady rescues it, then goes off to see what's happened to the Sneeches. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Scary Lady, and how Frederick summoned her by accident while trying to get a Djinn. He spent his energy on a collar to control her and stop her from running wild and killing bystanders, as Demons had done in the past, but now she wears the collar voluntarily and uses it to assist her own magic in some way. She has been a good partner to Frederick and a good great-aunt to his family, and Sylvester is loyal to her and will protect her if necessary. Sylvester schedules a talk about Rosemary's recent history for the next day but he fears to be overheard, so they must go somewhere secure. They prove to each other that they are human by checking each other's ears (Sylvester's ears are apparently jaw-droppingly strange, but not pointed) and discuss the origins of Demons and Djinn and the possibility that they are, after all, just people. Sylvester realises something about Frederick and why he hid books on Demons which he feels foolish not to have realised before, which leads to a conversation about a duel which Rosemary lost in a way which made her realise her own mortality and how dangerous her job was, and they take the Sneech obelisk towards the Quiet Room. Meanwhile, the Scary Lady enters the Sneech den and speaks to Frowgler, who is crawling out of the top of the shaft created by Chauncy and Edgar. They seem not to have spoken to each other for fifty years, but are on good terms. Mortimer goes to speak to Frederick, who is playing his Fugehorn into some kind of vaguely tree-like amplifier. On the way he meets Nellie, who recognises the umbrella he is carrying and seems shocked by it. She is concerned, generally, for Mortimer's safety and well-being, and for that of her own husband Amos although he is sitting quietly doing some book-binding, and seems to be enjoying Frederick's music. Mortimer believes Rosemary and Sylvester are now an item: Nellie expects him to be jealous but he doesn't seem to be. Frederick tells Mortimer that he's a wizard and that there's a wand built into the umbrella, but he won't help Mortimer to learn magic because he thinks it brings only misery. Meanwhile Sylvester and Rosemary talk as they steer the dohickey towards the Quiet Room, and we learn that Frederick actually plays the Fugehorn very well, that what he is playing is a well-known lament for the victims of the Crash, and that Ernest, the Earl who was an art forger, was also a genuine patron of the arts and built a whole wing of the castle for theatre and other performing arts. As they approach the Quiet Room Rosemary's Poke Kit shrinks and begins to disgorge its contents, so Sylvester goes alone to deposit the Sneech dohickey. The Quiet Room contains the Dark Crystal, a Triforce symbol from the Zelda stories, a clockwork monkey playing cymbals, a statuette of Cthulhu, a flower in a pot and a crescent thing which looks like the head of another Can-Opener-type pike. After Sylvester leaves, all these objects begin to glow with magic and the crescent speaks and greets the dohickey. Sylvester and Rosemary go to find a sword for her and to change the lock on the basement door, since he has lost his key in the basement. They find a powerful taser, much stronger than the one Sylvester tried to use on Villipend: Rosemary says Hack'N'Slash have offered a big reward for a working one, but they leave it where it is because it's probably only its proximity to the Quiet Room which is keeping it from exploding. Sylvester says that the things in the Quiet Room are dangerous, that destroying them in the Great Chasm would lead to earthquakes and that left in the Quiet Room those that are Sneech gifts gradually fade away, and in any case they usually switch off when the recipient dies. The crescent thing is not known to be dangerous - just annoying. They meet up with Mortimer, and Sylvester assures him he hadn't known that he was a wizard. Mortimer is half thinking of going after Yasmine, but he hopes she will return to the Mansion. Sylvester fears this could lead to a division of loyalties, depending on what it is the Weirdos are plotting. He thinks their father may also have been an unknown wizard. Mortimer describes his encounter with Frowgler, who he has realised gave him the umbrella surreptitiously, and Sylvester believes him because the Great Riddler also mentioned Frowgler. They intend to debrief each other the next day but not now, because Rosemary feels they may be overheard. She meanwhile is planning to fetch a seige-pot from the barracks. Mortimer goes off and heads up the North Tower, and Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Weirdos, who are a combination of jester, priest and counsellor. We learn that Oracles (but not Weirdos) carry out midwifery - and euthanasia. We learn that there are seige-engines mounted on the Main Tower and also that Rosemary can't act, as they discuss the plays which used to be put on at the Mansion, and the history of Kaylu - a Hitlerian dictator who introduced a country called Tomania to a crazed, murderous empire-building cult which worshipped a two-tailed monkey god, and was destroyed by the Crash in some way connected with the Infernal Engine. Sylvester feels that he no longer knows what's going on around his home. Having collected the necessary materials they board up the door to the Basement, using a mechanical nail-planter which could be valuable if they can find somebody to replicate it for sale. They leave the door unbarred for the Scary Lady and Syklvester declares their business with the Basement is done for the day, although he will keep his promise to call on the Ferns again, and his plans for the rest of the evening require Rosemary to retain her (Audra's) helmet. We see Frederick return to the suite of rooms he shares with the Scary Lady, and gaze nostalgically at a photograph of his younger self and other youths in wizard gear. 07: Career Paths [11/06/2012 - 16/02/2013] We see Agorn emerge, with relief, from a tunnel mouth partway up a rock-face near a bridge across the Great Chasm. He edges along a narrow ledge, past Furphy who is trying to hatch some eggs, and comes to a bridge with a checkpoint at either end, although this one at the Sneech end is deserted. He crosses and speaks to a Gnoll border guard called Varuna, and an Ichyoid guard, and tells Varuna to warn his "vile employer" (presumably Nevus or Guttle) that if the nobs keep poking in the Sneech den the Sneeches will some day poke back. The entrance to Crescent Hall is right by the bridge, in the line of fire. He talks to another Gnoll guard called Scibile who fills him in on the events of the day, then he walks into a maze of dark, much-graffitoed stone passages and stairs. The Hitchhiking Gem falls from his spear with a clunk and he spots it and posts it down a metal hatch. It clangs down into a chain of pipes, and we see that the pipes pass by an odd kind of sculpture or device consisting of coloured spikes almost like giant coloured pencils, with single letters on them, mainly vowels. This may have to do with the religion of the Brush that coloured in the world. On top of these spikes sits a small red-brown Fuzz, clutching a flaming torch. Agorn, meanwhile, keeps going until he comes to an area where there are lighted windows and street signs. He goes to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, and speaks to a male receptionist called Enchiridon. He is left waiting for a long time while a female Scrutineer called Hypothimia records his every word and action. She is stressed and angry because with all that's been going on - the fire, Chancy and Edgar on the loose etc. - she wants to be with her mate Brimborion and their children but instead she is stuck here in this petty desk job. Peripatet arrives in his wheeled chair to collect Agorn but before Agorn goes he tells Hypothimia that he himself has been parted from his mate (he seems to have only one) and his child has been lost through some sort of mental transformation (he went away but left his body behind), but all you can do is pick yourself up and try to change things for the better. As Agorn and Peripatet proceed through Root Hall we learn that Peripatet has a girlfrind called Glossolalia, and Agorn sniffs out (literally) that Skradt is now with Comshaw. They pass various official messages on the walls but one seems like a religious or political statement - "Remontado decided she had had o nuff shaft folderol so off she went and uprooted us all". As they pass the door to Scritchpod 205 a female Eyebolt in a wheeled chair passes them going the other way, wearing what may be a normal hat or may be a Fixit, and a wave of "weirding" hallucinations emanates from behind the closed door. Peripatet takes Agorn to a door behind which is a dark space containing dark objects, perhaps Ettin machinery, glowing with dull red lights. Agorn refuses to enter. An unseen, probably male presence (Agorn addresses it as "Mr Muckymuck") behind a hatch dismisses Peripatet, who leaves at speed - the presence says that Peripatet does well at clandestine cart-races. It wants to discuss Agorn's boss, and says that "some of us" are aware of, and broadly approve of, what "you all" are doing. Consequently Agorn has been given Class Eight clearance, which means he can now come and go unescorted through most areas of Root Hall. The presence is somebody Agorn has had indirect contact with or knowledge of, but has never spoken to directly before: it asks him to supply any useful information he comes across in return, and Agorn tells him that humans are real. The presence starts to half tell Agorn about Fixits but Agorn appears not to be receptive to the idea of hats being significant, and leaves. Meanwhile the chit for Agorn's new clearance is dropped down a pneumatic pipe system to a clerk who reads it and then eats it and replaces it with another which he writes himself. He is monitoring something on a small screen. Agorn goes to the "Grafted Zone" of Root Hall and speaks to Flibbergib, Agita's Eyebolt receptionist, who again tries to tell him about the Fixits, not very clearly. Agita arrives and we see a flashback to the aftermath of the auction, and Agita sending Agorn to trail Mortimer. Agorn reports the basics of the toing and froing he has seen surrounding Mortimer, Rufus, Eunice and Yasmine. Agita fundamentally misunderstands what Humans are - she knows they are like big Nomes so she thinks they are a local mutation caused by the Spike, and gradually spreading through the local forest. She shows Agorn a written note warning him about the Fixits and telling him to lie low until tomorrow - which suggests she doesn't want to speak out loud in front of Flibbergib, or fears others may be listening. Meanwhile we see various characters sleeping, including the smal Wyrm Squeeb, asleep deep in the chasm, and Bung's friend Faddle the Gnoll, who is very much awake. He is trying to evade somebody, but is rounded up by a hunting party of female Gnolls. Next we see him and four females, all wearing collars with lights on the front, sleeping together in a large nest. As Agorn leaves Root Hall he notices that there are fewer Eyebolt watchers on duty than there usually are. The last one usually hides inside a free-standing stone sign outside the exit, but there is no-one there, and what looks like blood on the spy-hole. The "blood" is a trick to get him to stop and look, and he is narrowly missed by an arrow fired by one of two dark-haired female Gnolls (Fanga and 33333), who had momentarily mistaken him for somebody else. Agorn lets himself into a concealed bedsit room behind a panel out in the Fringes. In the dust on a table, someone has drawn an arrow and written "She thought you were someone else", surrounded by what look like Smyt footprints: we later learn that messages on the table are a regular thing and usually correct, and the marks on the table are referred to as flipper marks, although they look too small to be Frowgler's. Digger comes in - it's his pad - and Agorn addreses him as "Boss". We see that Agorn and Digger have known about the Fixits for some time. Agorn reports the day's activities to Digger, giving him more detail than he told Agita: he feels that something nudged him to get him to go down the hole which led him to the Ferns. We see that they have been watching the humans and giving them descriptive nicknames (e.g. Arthur the Weirdo with his ventriloquist's puppet Fantod is "Snoop two-head"). Agorn would like to bring Conshaw into their conspiracy, or whatever it is, but Digger vetoes the idea. Agorn sets out to see to some personal matters, but as he leaves Digger points out that when "Muckymuck" at Root Hall said that he and others were broadly pleased with what Agorn's boss was doing he may have meant Digger himself and their conspiracy-whatever, not Agita. Agorn is alarmed at this idea. Coming away from Digger's bedsit he meets a Gnoll called Bromir who looks a lot like him and believes himself to be the target of the assassins who were hired by Sooterkin at Root Hall. Bromir refers to Agorn having been given higher clearance by Fuglemin, who is probably Agorn's Mr Muckymuck. Agorn heads back towards the Sneech side of the Great Chasm. At the bridge he tries to chat up the Gnoll guard Termagant and invites her to come fishing with him some time: she turns him down, although the Ichyoid guard Argus thinks she should have said yes. He comes on Furphy and his eggs again and we learn that Furphy is actually Agorn's son. The mother was called Awen and she and Agorn are estranged, though not bitterly so. A Denthir is mentioned who was probably their Finagler but is now dead. Furphy has had some kind of relationship with Dandilli (who went to the SubShafts) and will take no other mate, possibly because she put him off from doing so. He is sitting on the eggs because he is guarding them for two Jibjibs called Snurge and Scumble who are or have recently been conveying a message for him. Father and son talk, and Furphy says that that morning he saw that the physical world had changed but most people can't see it. Agorn is semi-willing to consider this and means to tell Digger about it tomorrow. Two Jibjibs called Ruck (male) and Smew (female) fly overhead in the dark, and we see them enter a hole in a sort of complex, compound stalactite formation, which we will learn is called the Uppermost Spire, and settle on a nest there. Ruck is carrying Urwyn's friend, the comparatlively large small Wyrm Zugo, although the Jibjibs don't know his name. Zugo slithers off into a crack, telling the Jibjibs to wait there for him. These two Jibjibs regularly carry a secretive group of Shallow Wyrms whom they refer to as Clients, transporting them around a widespread netwerk of "rings" whose purpose the Jibjibs don't know. They get snuggly in the nest, although Smew does not wish to have eggs. We see a Shallow Wyrm named Sneckdraw who seems to be spying on a ring, or at least on a tunnel used by a ring. Sneckdraw is detected and chased through the tunnels by helmeted guards named Vim, Crot, Ang and Diet, and escapes by jumping off an underground cliff onto the back of a tame (or sentient?) bat. Ang gets Ruck to fly him in pursuit with a view to killing them: Ruck queries this but when Ang assures him that Sneckdraw is not officially a member of any ring, and therefore not a client, Ruck is OK with it. They follow the bat's scent trail, but Sneckdraw and the bat dodge into a narrow tunnel which Ruck can't fit into. We see another Wyrm behind a kind of wooden screen in this tunnel. They come to a place where there is a graffitoed sign on the wall saying "Ring of the Newborn Word": Sneckdraw, who seems to be a freelance spy, dismounts and is challenged by guards called Conspue and Fream. They pay Sneckdraw with a food item and he or she reports on Zugo's presence at the Uppermost Spire. Fream conveys this message to a female superior whom we don't see, and then goes to speak to a female tuneller or miner called Glink, on whom Fream seems to be sweet. We see Sina giving the cleaning contract for the new hall to Maw and his crew. At Kronk's suggestion, Sina names the new group Leny Hall, although Maggle and Grik seem to know something mildly disreputable about Leny. Still in the same evening, we see a female Fixit named Astex who sits on a rock in a tunnel filled with plants and fungi. She seems to be fishing in a stream which flows alongside her rock. A male called Slix, who has been sent by a female commander called Poinx, comes to speak to her and get her observations - he calls her "our resident". Astex, who seems to have a cynical attitude to her own kind, says that the shield around the Spike was breached for a second or so, causing panic. Slix runs off before she can tell him about the Sneeches leaving. We learn that Astex is acquainted with Frowgler. We see Mortimer speaking about wizardry to Amos Grubb, who is himself a wizard, but who retired pre-Crash, after the incident with the Scary Lady. He says that Sylvester has some magic, although not as much as Mortimer, and their father Willoughby could have been a wizard if he hadn't been so frivolous. He believes there are still some schools of magic in operation somewhere, but he kept the fact of Mortimer's magic from Mortimer as a favour to Frederick and Nellie. Magic tends to run in families and other members of the E family also have at least some magical talent. They discuss the fact that Mortimer got the wand from Frowgler, and the fact that Frederick and Amos were trained by great-uncle Hindenburgh. If Mortimer practises as a magician he may get hassles from the Oracles of the Brush. We learn that wands should preferably be handled only by the owner, and that Mortimer unlocks locks by telekinesis. They discuss the nature of mind-reading and mind-control, wbich is far easier for Sneeches, Demons and Djinn to perform than other races, and Rosemary's susceptibility; magic-users on the other hand are very resistent to mind-control. They set off in search of Rosemary so Amos can get to know her. The scene cuts to the Nomes at the Pale camp. They are discussing the fact that if Nitfol becomes mayor he'll need a wife. He says that the only girl he found tolerable disappeared. Then Fizmo, the Hot Zone worker, appears and she and Nitfol get talking: she may or may not be the girl whom he liked before. Then we cut to The Spike, where Eunice and Rufus are talking. Rufus has recently had a talk with "God", which left him briefly unconscious and rubber-legged. He is behaving in quite a commanding, confident way, and speculating about what "God" and his henchman Dorian plan for Eunice next. After some edgy verbal sparring Eunice more-or-less agrees to be Rufus's assistant and bodyguard. 08: The End of the Day [18/02/2013 - 16/07/2013] We see Rosemary and Sylvester coming out of gender-specific lavatories which are delineated by male and female statues carrying a real spear and shield. They discuss finding Rosemary some better clothes so she can be properly introduced to Nellie and Amos, and she is tested by an Ettin-built electronic panel on the wall which confirms she is compatible with the house and can perform its ceremonies. Sylvester offers formally to employ her. Once they are both respectably dressed they go and introduce Rosemary to Nellie, although Sylvester tells Nellie that Rosemary's surname is Dapple, not Ripley. Nellie has already worked out that Rosemary arrived without passing through the village, and is angry about Mortimer being encouraged/allowed to learn magic. She opens up and talks about the group of magic-users of which she, Amos and Frederick were a part prior to the Crash, and Sylvester warns her about some of the recent developments in the Basement. As he talks we see vignettes of Chumley the Boogieman presiding over a growing collection of dead Fixits; the blonde woman with the pink bow, whom Rosemary called Mz Teree, reporting distressing changes in the Basement to someone who addresses her as Annabelle; and Frowgler telling the Scary Lady about the conversation Rosemary and Sylvester are currently having with Nellie. Sylvester leaves Rosemary and Nellie alone to talk about contraception, and we learn that there is a "Women's Circle" at the local Temple, where such things may be discussed. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester leave together, talking about local leaders - an impromptu lady mayor named Saffron Stout who runs an inn, and Patrick Skragg, the Sheriff. The Earl has warily polite relationships with both. Sylvester formally introduces Rosemary to Frederick. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester agree to conceal her true identity and membership of Hack n' Slash. They meet up with Amos and Mortimer and Amos, as a former wizard, comfirms that Mortimer no longer has psychic influence over Rosemary. Amos and Sylvester exchange news of the day, including some things Sylvester didn't tell Nellie, like about the Sneech gift, and about Tand - Sylvester thinks he has seen Tand mentioned in the records and Amos promises to look her up. Sylvester learns about The Pit flaring. We learn that "Pit" stands for "Pulse-Ignition Thaumnode" and that it was a booster device used to power flying trams. It is like a small version of a thing called the Daynight which seems to have done something catastrophic. After Amos leaves to go home, Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer go to the basement of the barracks, fetch a siege pot and sit it up on the top of the West Tower over the main entrance. Mortimer goes off to find clothes (his shirt having been shredded to make makeshift gloves in the Sneech den) and leaves Sylvester and Rosemary discussing the definition of "mansion" and the aftermath of the Crash - which wasn't nearly as bad in the poor rural area where Rosemary comes from, because hardly anybody there used magic anyway - and the ownership of land and property left vacant after the previous owners died in the disaster. They go off to eat and we see a series of vignettes: the Scary Lady visiting the Sneeches (but so far failing to find one); Amos collecting a package of Dornbeast-liver from the processor and taking it to Nellie, and discussing Rosemary with her; and Mortimer getting cleaned up. En route to a dinner of last night's Dornbeast tendrils, Rosemary and Sylvester pause to looke at a Panegate which leads elsewhere on their own world, although Sylvester says that such local Panegates are especially hard to open. Behind them is a statue of Pratchett's Discworld. Mortimer joins them at table and says he has put the umbrella aside until such time as he may decide to take up magic. They discuss re-opening access to a nearby beach so they can gather fish and seaweed, then they sign Rosemary into the Mansion's official staff record-book, still under the false name Dapple. Sylvester goes off to write up the day's events, and Mortimer goes and tries on clothes. Rosemary gets Amos to show her the library. Coming away with a stack of books on history, anthropology and moral philosophy, she experiences a psychic tweak which calls her to go to the Quiet Room and speak to (apparently) the Sneech dohickey, although she remains outside the locked door. She says that it and she are both protecting Sylvester, and suggests it should watch the Basement door, or the Weirdo. As the new Taskmistress she threatens the devices, saying that if any of them causes trouble she'll chuck them all into the Great Chasm. As she walks away we see Frowgler sitting by the foot of the door - he speaks to the dohickey as if they are old aquaintances. Returning to the Guest Room, Rosemary rearranges the furniture so she can sit facing the door, writes to her aunt and takes a bath. She falls asleep but immediately wakes into a dream which seems to be some kind of objectively real astral projection. She passes Skuy and Spot, who are arguing: Skuy at least seems to be also asleep and also taking part in the astral projection. Rosemary goes to the elevator and whacks the Operator with a mallet, which she then hands over to Skuy: the physically real Operator is aware of and intrigued by what has just happened to his astral equivalent. We see an overview of various people sleeping: Nellie and Amos; Umbuz and Piu (in bed together, so their relationship is progressing fast!); the Gobules Gorp and Phiga; Mortimer lying awake; and Yasmine sitting by a camp fire, staring at a Fleeb. Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, with her balloon in tow, descend to the Ettinworks and go to the same doorway where Sylvester and co. were passed the "KEEP OUT" sign. She is pased a similar cut-out message, this one saying "IN HER" with an extra "E" drawn or painted on to make it "IN HERE". The extra "E" is done in the style of the emblem of the Earls of E. The door opens and she goes through into the corridor of doors we saw before. A distant door is open to receive her but all we see through it is several floating lights - possibly ABOLs. More vignettes: Eunice talking to Cox, in front of Ettin signs or graffiti saying "shake hands" and "onebig onion". Hector talking to Nunsuch (and mentioning another character called Penfold): Nunsuch indicates some Ettin text which appears on a screen beside them and which changes gradually from the old font to the new. This text, which says "remote spike extrusion", triggers Hector to engage a "revised schedule" which he says is twenty years late. Meanwhile the Scary Lady leaves the room of lights and returns to the Mansion, where she bars the Basement door and puts a ward on it telling Basement dwellers to keep out. She opens a Panegate into a lush jungle and sets the balloon floating off into that jungle carrying the rescued Trundlebug, who lands in a bush where it meets a new friend (probably of the opposite sex, if Trundlebugs have sexes). She goes and reassures Frederick that although the magic umbrella is hers she didn't directly give it to Mortimer, and they start flirting. The scene shifts to the Trog holding area where Villipend and Hamble were formerly imprisoned, and we see that Hamble has survived electrocution. The prison seems to have done something to reverse the mental decline which caused him to jump into the Great Chasm in the first place, and he is now very clever and very ambitious. He half rescues, half kidnaps Squeeb, works out how to get out of the habitat and sets off to climb back up the chute with Squeeb strapped to his arm, seeking a new dawn which will be his. We learn on the way that Squeeb belongs to no ring, and despises the idea of doing so. Finally we see two vignettes. In one, a male soldier reports on Rosemary's disappearance to a female commander, the Tansy whom Rosemary saw in a vision. Tansy is working for some outfit or political party whose emblem is a triangle within a circle. She vows to find Rosemary wherever she has gone - and clearly with hostile intent. In the other, we see Sylvester's sister Lilith and their mother, talking in the darkness at the edge of a banquet in a jungle somewhere. The mother would have liked to have stayed, but she has received a psychic impression that they need to start heading back to E. Part Six: On My Way to Town [28/07/2013 - 16/11/2018] Note that from 03/05/2015, the Saturdays in the Basement strips show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with the action above ground. 01: Rise and Shine [28/07/2013 - 26/11/2013] The sun has just risen over the Mansion. The brothers are already awake: Sylvester resumes doing his paperwork, but Mortimer stands gazing out of a window, clutching the umbrella he said he wouldn't take up again unless and until he decided to take up magic, and thinking of himself as having "set out" - and that the world itself has also changed. Rosemary emerges and rings the bell for Schmedley, the butler, attracting Mortimer's attention. He introduces her to Schmedley, who tells her how to find Sylvester. Schmedley is not surprised to hear that Mortimer is a wizard. We see Arthur the Weirdo feeling the worse for wear. Sylvester shows Rosemary her new official quarters and office, which she is quite stunned by, and explains the heirarchy of the Mansion's servants to her. As Taskmistress she stands fairly high. One of her duties is, at least potentially, to find and hire a new sign-writer. Her quarters command a view of the ocean, which leads to a discussion about Panegates and the fact that no known Panegate leads to another continent, although some lead to alternative realities for the location of the Mansion. They move on to discussing why the villagers don't all move into the much-more-comfortable Mansion, and Rosemary's dream about the Operator. Sylvester didn't share it but we see a flashback to what must be his own dream, in which he, Rosemary and Nimue are attending a university lecture given by Protus, accompanied by three frogs, two sitting with the girls in the audience and one sitting with Protus, and Sylvester is aware that his own frog is missing (or has gone to Protus). We see a rusted, land-locked boat which Philbert had been going to convert into a building, and access to which is restricted, and a wizwitch detector which detects Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss security clearances, and local legends relating to a scruffy local folk-hero called Frizzlegarb who might have been a surviving Wilf. Legends say Frizzlegarb swam through a pool and there met what sounds like a Willygig. Sylvester shows Rosemary round her apartment and gives her a mechanical pocket-watch, then they get out Mortimer's Glowgem and test it on a sort of battery-tester: Glowgems can be recharged by dipping them in the River of Fire for a few days. We see an outtake of the Tribbletongued Hamster (in pirate getup), the plant and the ABOL escaping together in a toy boat, sailing along an underground tunnel: a sign in the backgorund points towards the sea. Sylvester mentions that the Mansion used to have a "wizwitch", a magic-wielder, as a regular member of staff and he supposes it now has one again. The scene cuts to Mortimer, who is talking to a strange wall of purple electricity, telling it he is going to go and celebrate the fact that he has grown up and got a job. He goes to Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where there are various amusements and places to eat. Back with Rosemary and Sylvester, he asks her about Hack & Slash's Commandant Spangler (who Rosemary had said was the only person she had previously met who had a private office). This segues into a conversation about their respective grandparents, and Rosemary running through a fake version of her family background, using her new, false surname Dapple. She discusses the remote possibility of using Protus to go back in time and save her parents - for whom she has little feeling - at the cost of giving up her own exciting future and getting stuck as a farm-girl. Meanwhile we see Frederick and Myrrh set out to do something - unspecified but involving hand-holding - "properly". Sylvester tells Rosemary about the demand there used to be for apartments linked to this private corridor for senior administrators, and they discuss the fact that in the past, pre-Luwig, the Earls were at risk of being assasinated just for being Earls. Rosemary goes off at a tangent about a fluffy-seeming female called Miss Gritz who was a traveller on the caravan Rosemary was guarding, and whom she suspects of being her apparent boyfriend's very high-powered personal bodyguard. Sylvester shows Rosemary round the official, ceremonial offices for himself and his secretary (but not his official chambers, which are untidy). The offices are designed to be intimidating. We learn that the mansion holds a throne for use if the king should visit - this nearly happened fifty years ago, but the king ws killed en route when his flagship The Velvet Glove went down during the Crash, and the current king tends to stay in the capital. The offices are designed with security in mind. We learn that the mansion has a High Tower access to which is blocked: Rufus tried to get in there, before he wandered off. Sylvester says Rufus likes to wander but he doesn't go far: Sylvester tried to get him to go to university but Rufus felt that the area around the mansion was where he was going to be. Meanwhile we see Eunice, Rufus's new assistant, emerging into the countryside from a concealed entrance inside a hollow boulder, and Yasmine riding away and thinking that in another hour's riding she will be able to remove her hood. Sylvester shows Rosemary an escape hatch under the desk, leading to a panic-room which used to be well-equippped but is now almost empty. We learn that in the early days the Earldom was passed on by mortal combat. Milo was the last Earl of E officially to kill his predecessor and the first to pass the Earldom on by blood although his grandson, Dorn II, may have been murdered by his daughter in law Charlotte, who then ruled in her husband Lemuel's stead while he got on with his Panegate research. We also learn that in those days the Earldoms of E and S were friends. Sylvester doesn't know as much about his mother's family, the Mundivagants, who are grand and grudging industrialists. His brother Ace works for them. Roisemary's family were all farmers with a long tradition, but they have died out. Rosemary asks about a sign saying "Gargoyle pits" and Sylvester tells her that there are creatures called Gargoyles and Spindizzies which were bred or manufactured by the Ettins to service and repair the buildings in which they live. Gargoyles deal with the exsterior and Spindizzies with the interior, especially service machinery behind the walls and in the basement. The Mansion is a semi-living thing, a sort of colony organism, but it is slowly running down. Sylvester and Rosemary speculate about the possibility of finding still-surviving Ettins who could restore it. They cone to a corridor where an end-wall has moved aside, giving access to a service-space, so Sylvester takes Rosemary to meet the Spindizzies, warning her to get the Can-Opener out first and not tell anybody about the Poke Kit. 02: Fishing Around [27/11/2013 - 22/03/2014] The scene opens with an Ichyoid pootering about under water, wearing some sort of equipment on his chest. We return to Sylvester, telling Rosemary that the core of the Mansion where they are is malleable and in a state of flux. Two Spindizzies appear: they have grey, hairless humanoid upper bodies trailing away into wormy tails, and pterosaur-like wings. They speak like intelligent but literal-minded computers but are friendly and kind, very concerned when they hear that Rosemary is taking over as Taskmistress in case that means Prunella has died. Sylvester agrees to buy in supplies which they request, and ask them if they can tell what the Can Opener is made of, but they can't, although they may be able to duplicate it, or something like it. Sylvester seems to want to make more. Every human (or in Myrrh's case, humanoid) in the Mansion has a designated Spindizzy who communicates with them: Horace and Emily are matched to Sylvester and Rosemary. As taskmistress Rosemary will need to talk to Emily weekly. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the Ettins: Sylvester thinks the Mansion with its Panegates and moving walls wasn't intended as a residence but as some other sort of facility. They wonder whether there are any surviving Ettins - and if so, how they would react to find Humans living in their laboratory, or whatever it is. We learn that the Spindizzies are mortal flesh-and-blood ceatures but they reproduce in a mechanical incubator. The chamber where they are all meeting is a sort of holo-deck, in which the Spindizzies usccessfully produce a useable mock-up of the Can-Opener, a quasi-humanoid sparring-partner for Rosemary to practice with and a chair for Sylvester to sit in and watch. We learn that one of Ludwig's assistants went far enough down into the depth to visit the Spindizzy incubator, and his granddaughter visited the Far=Eastern Shore on the other side of the ocean from the Mansion. There were human colonies there which may or may not have survived the Crash, about which the Spindizzies know nothing. Meanwhile we see vignettes of other characters. Mortimer is breakfasting and the Landing o' Family Fun, and visiting the Fish Museum there. Eunice Kelso is seen leaving the woods and heading for Eetown, wearing a rucksack: a retired Guardian called Mr Flem warns her that the woods are dangerous. Nelly is feeding (non-sentient) Jibjibs while Amos sets what looks like Mortimer's glowgem onto a handle. Arthur the Weirdo is taking a bath, Myrrh is setting out from her and Frederick's flat, and Schmedley is being addressed by somebody off-screen and short (probably Frowgler). The Spindizzies store a template for the Can-Opener and make a copy which is only real in this environment, which functions as a sort of Holo-Deck. They simulater a sparring partner for Rosemary to test her weapon, and some background scenery including a bad, Escheresque reproduction of part of a monument called the Citadel of the Hugging Squirrels, one of the Sculpted Isles in Isdanila. This reproduction was commissioned by Dorn I for his mother Nettana, who came from that area. The Sculted Isles date back to a msyterious Dawn Era. Sylvester dozes in a chair, leaving Rosemary to her sparring, but in fact she talks to the Spindizzies instead of fighting. She elarns that they have patterns for Ettin tools as well as human ones, but most of the Ettin ones are encrypted. She encrypts the pattern for the Can-Opener so only she and Sylvester can see it. It seems that any "productive individual" can come in and encrypt personalized tools. She learns that the Spindizzies could in principle find out what the Can-Opener is made of but their access to data is blocked beyond a certain level. Rufus might be able to fix it. They tell her Rufus is at Semi-Autonomous Research Structure #001. Rosemary doesn't want to spar now because she hasn't the time, but she takes the time to walk up the imaginary sky. She starts to ask Emily the Spindizzy whether she knows that she, Rosemary, is currently... then changes the subject, which may or may not have been important. Then she wakes Sylvester and tells him where Rufus is, which he translates as the Spike. He isn't pleased, and says that the Spike is very dangerous, partly because the machines there have no built-in safety systems. The information about Rufus came from a high-ranking Spindizzy called Tanith who was Nirvana's contact, but they have lost contact with Nirvana. Meanwhile a Valentine's Day out-take shows Sheriff Patrick Skragg giving a flower to his wife Halcyone, while their son Stepehen read a Willy-the-Wendigo book. Sylvester informs the Spindizzies about the departure of the Sneeches, and asks them what they know about Willigigs. They have been aware of Protus's presence for around a month but haven't spoken to him. They are not aware of Frowgler. Sylvester and Rosemary take their leave of them: Sylvester promises to bring them some antimony which they have asked for, and which he has in store. After they leave we see Sprocket the Gnoll engineer, holding a glowgem in a wrench, opening conversation with a male Spindizzy. Rosemary and Sylvester set off to go fishing. They discuss the Mansion's mineral stores, including gold, and Rosemary tells Sylvester what she learned from the Spindizzies while he was asleep, about the data block which Rufus might be able to fix. Sylvester suggests that the same person deliberately planeted the Can-Opener with Izchak for Rosemary to find, and prevented the Spindizzies from investigationg it: he fears he is being too paranoid but Rosemary, being profesionally paranoid, suggests there may be two conflicting secret factions at work. For the moment, Sylvester is not telling the Spindizzies about the return of Nirvana, the previous Taskmistress: he means to return to the Ettinworks once he has researched Tand, and will allow Nirvana and "Mz Teree" (Annabelle) to explain themselves before making a decision about them. They make their way down to a sea-level room where there are storage lockers for fishing gear and for beach leisure gear, and a small boat, and a door to the E family's private - and artifiually-enhanced - fishing beach. They used to have a proper boat-house etc. but much of it has fallen into ruins. Ichyoids don't like large-scale commerical fishing and cut large fishing nets, so before going outside they look though a security spy-hole and see only gulls. Sylvester also talks about what he considers to be the remote possibility of somebody from the Basement making their way up to the beach (suggesting that part of it is below sea-level), and at that we see the hamster and his crew in their miniature pirate ship, approaching the open air. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss boats, and an explorer called Semidemila, and then go outside, where they stand side by side on the beach and agree that their feelings for each other are brother/sisterly rather than romantic (although acknowledging that this could change). They catch fish and gather seaweed and then go inside to cook them. Meanwhile we see a small boat propelled by a magic-powered outboard motor, and piloted by a skinny, elderly male villager whom we saw before when Protus caused Sylvester to have a vision of a selection of villagers (among other things). The hamster and his pirate crew in their tiny wind-up clockwork boat approach and order this man to stand to and prepare to be boarded, and he thinks that all Tribble-Tongued Hamsters are insane. 03: A Change in the Scene [24/03/2014 - 12/07/2014] The scene opens with Nitfol, Fizmo and three Pales (one of whom may be Thrash, as he has the same double head-spike, but he is wearing or carrying a shield and doesn't have the stripe on his chest) about to enter a tangled wood. Nitfol says that Fizmo's presence isn't neccessary to his plans - but she has her own agenda. Then we see Yasmine riding through a wood. She is just pulling up in order to do something, now she is "far enough" from the Mansion, when she feels a vibration in her bag of Fleebs. She opens it and the Fleebs leap out, although they do not appear rabid. Meanwhile we see the E family make breakfast. Amos and Nellie bring Jib-Jib eggs, Sylvester and Rosemary have fish and edible seaweed, and Mortimer brings a bottle of a magically-active drink called Yurple Juice. He won it by playing a game at Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, and feels he may have cheated magically. The Weirdo (seriously hungover) and Fantod arrive and are introduced to Rosemary. Then Myrrh (the Scary Lady) and Frederick arrive, dressed as if for a very fancy trip to a smart restaurant or theatre, and Myrrh announces that they are now retiring from their work to keep the family alive. Myrrh also satisfies the Weirdo's curiosity by dropping her glamour and revealing to him that she is a Demon. Mortimer is now Sylvester's Regent, his understudy - about which he is less than thrilled. Sylvester tells him just to do what Sylvester tells him when Sylvester is present, othrwise what Rosemary tells him. Since the Mansion will now be less secure, Sylvester offers Amos and Nellie the chance to retire to the village, but they refuse. Instead, Amos will teach Mortimer magic. Meanwhile Sylvester, Rpsemary andf Mortimer need to go to the village to update Saffron, the lady mayor, on what's been happening, to sell Dornbeast parts and to attend the Temple. Mortimer wants to light an candle for Nitfol, whom he believes to be dead through his fault. Because the Poke Kit won't work so well away from the Mansion's magic tricklepoint, Rosemary and Sylvester go to the Barrackstack to deposit the Can Opener in a vault and collect other equipment. Meanwhile Mortimer goes to take antimony to the Spindizzies. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Ludwig's machines still work, and why this might be. Rosemary thinks that the Weirdo is ill or hungover but competant, and has had military training. Knowing that the Weirdo is conspiring with Yamine in some way, Sylvester says they should lock their doors at night. The Barrackstack goes down as far below ground as above. Although it contains some Ettin elements it was mainly built by Angus and Audra. There are sealed-off escape tunnels from the barracks which open into places which are now inside Eetown. A sign points to the Party Palace, built by Ernest, and describes the attractions on offer there. They discuss a very complex card-game called Quincunx, and some kind of game which involves magically-powered equipment and is played in an Underwear Arena. Whatever it is long-married couples are especially good at it (which suggests it might involve listing your partner's physical or sexual quirks), and people called Shrouders - the reverse of nudists - cannot play it. All the local villagers are informally Shrouders. Motimer takes the antimony to his Spindizzy contact, Charles. Charles recognizes the umbrella as a "thaumalogical flow enhancer and regulator" and already knew Mortimer had wizard potential. The scene cuts to a female Spindizzy, Clementine, who is talking to Sina, Sprocket and a male Trog, probably either Mowder or Grak. Sina is quizzing Clementine about her claim to have met the Earl. Sylvester opens a weapons-vault to keep the Can Opener in: like military exercises the vaults have random names. This one contains a wide range of good spears and swords. They put the Can-OPener into a safe, then enter Rosemary into the herediscan system. They discuss Griffiongton - his collection of obscene limericks, his management of the Factor E and his possession of three minions, Drowpole, Krell and Strauhatt. Rosemary is now Sylvester's minion, after Nirvana, who was the first. They see a statue which purports to be of an Obsidian Sneech, but is more sinister than accurate. This area of the mansion, which is actually of great military importance, is dotted with signs which suggest that only boring things happen there. Arthur and Fantod are sitting by the counting-down machine. Fantod, who seems to be an actual creature, looks stunned. Arthur says he assumes that "she knew all along" - perhaps a reference to Yasmine - and he plans to take Amos's advice - which was to drink the magically-active Yurple Juice. Sylvester gives Rosemary an instruction manual for the Poke Kit. She reads about secured sub-pockets and has a half memory of the Tree giving her a secret seed, but it slips her mind again. She experiments with taking a Glowgem in and out. Sylvester meanwhile asks Amos for a book on "night beasties" but they don't have a copy - only Rosemary's memory of reading it. Rosemary's Glowgem seems to be attracted to a sort of spiral ornament or mirror on the wall, which she stares at and may be hypnotized by. She finds the whole sub-pocket idea creepy, because there could be anything in there, and without the assistance of an official service engineer she wouldn't know it and might accidentally say a password which would cause something dangerous to erupt. They can't empty it by taking it into the Quiet Room, as that might damage it. Rosemary has written to Aunt Edna but she has described where she is, and Sylvester is concerned that her enemies might get it out of her aunt. Sylvester advises her to send another less specific letter via his lawyer, Mr Ferule. They discuss Tansy's army which is chasing Rosemary, and which is called The Quincunx (which is also the name of a complex game). If The Quincunx finds out where Rosemary is and comes as an army it would take them six months to get to E, but it's possible they could send an assassin, or hire a local one by wire. The cause of Rosemary's quarrel with Tansy seems to have been something bad that Tansy did to a Gnoll (although she doesn't tell Sylvester that) and there's a hint that the thing which Rosemary stole from The Quincunx was whatever she used to travel instantly to the east. Being about to leave to walk to the village, they discuss a thing at the entrance called the Gatestone, believed to have been moved there by Ettric, the 2nd Earl. We see Mortimer waiting for them in an official Assembly Alcove, and being joined there by Arthur the Weirdo and his puppet Fantod, who congratulate him on becoming Regent. Mortimer still smells of sphagnum dust, and this leads to a discussion of Arthur's days at the Weirdo Academy. 04: Barriers and Gates [14/07/2014 - 27/11/2014] We see the Saurs Buzz and Ig meeting by the ruins of a museum in Eetown. Ig has a Glowgem. Buzz wants Ig to tell him about what has become of Snerk. Mortimer and Arthur discuss whether Weirdos are allowed to marry (opinions vary). They discuss a girl named Melba who lives in the village, a friend of Mortimer's sister Lilith's, and quite eccentric, but Arthur says she is too frivolous to make an official Weirdo. Sylvester joins the others at the assembly point. Trailing behind him, Rosemary surreptitiously deposits several items - what may be her original letter to her aunt, plus a lantern and a bottle - in a large urn. It is one of several artistic and archaeological artefacts which grace the hallway. The main door of the mansion is set into a giant Ettin artefact like a huge boulder which manipulates light in some way. It leads to a walled outside area, the main gates of which have been deliberately blocked with rubble to prevent mass invasion. The party discuss the fortifications erected by previous earls, and the early earls themselves, and why the village is called Eetown not Etown. The fortifications are now a bit gappy, and electronic repellers are used to keep out wild animals. These also protect the orchard and the main path to the village. Sylvester and Mortimer, Rosemary, Arthur and Fantod walk towards Eetown, discussing how the area came to be renamed Audravania instead of Northwoods, and the vast lands which Audra had ruled before her fatal decision to poke the Hot Zone. Audra had made a voluntary marriage, albeit a political one, but prior to her many future Earls had been forcibly betrothed as children. Plenty of women at university wanted to marry Sylvester for his title. We learn that while at university Sylvester attended the coronation of the king and queen, Yancy and Fluer. Amos has visited the capital with Frederick, but Nellie has never been outside Audravania, except on her honeymoon. when they went to a fashionable spot called Rowen. This leads to a discussion of an island off Eetown, called Alwin, which belongs to the Earls but which they allow honeymooning couples from the village to use. Mortimer says that this arrangement is important to the villagers, which leads to him telling Sylvester what's going on there at the moment - including a break-in at Genrick's tailor shop, where stuff was taken overnight, but money was left for it. Rufus's friend Eunice is mentioned as one of a number of people who have recently moved into the area: the village is growing and there is a debate as to whether or not to expand it beyond the boundary hedge. They meet and speak to a pig-farmer called Terin Flem, who comes from the same area (Moonin) as Rosemary and who used to be Guardian to a hardline Oracle named Omega, whom Sylvester didn't get on with. Sylvester and Mortimer have an obscure private conversation about change, while Rosemary talks to Arthur and Fantod. Sylvester wants Mortimer not to go public about being a wizard, for the moment. Arthur tries to quiz Rosmary about how she got there but she evades the question and instead asks him about what Weirdos do. They are jesters who "speak truth to power". Arthur, Fantod and Rosemary discuss the new, safer denizens' tunnel from the mansion to the basement, and the disappearance of the Sneeches. Meanwhile the party arrives at the outskirts of the village and Sylvester shows Rosemary the irrigation ditches and other features. They come to the Temple, which was made from the remains of a very grand one which was destroyed in the Crash, and which lies just outside the hedge which surrounds the village, and they discuss it, and the character of Omega, the previous Oracle. We learn that Sylvester and Mortimer's father had been partially responsible for, and died in, some kind of accident involving stampeding elifinos in a nearby town called Noodle. They meet a little girl called Juniper, who is the granddaughter of Amos and Nellie. She has a special friendship with Fantod. The group go through a sensory ritual - watch the flames, smell the blossoms, taste the water, listen to the Brush. The last is done by sitting on a bench made of rare and precious materials. To mark Hallowe'en we see a raiding party of Nomes, including Umboz's brother Frotz who is desperate to get out of it, creeping towards a Gnoll village. They are scared off by a pumpkin-headed spectre which is really Frowgler in costume, using some kind of glowing magic or technology to fly. Rosemary and Juniper discuss where various people come from, and Rosemary manages to give the girl a very strange idea of what a walrus looks like. They talk with Sylvester about Inuit-equivalents called Tunits, and the secretive, hostile Haroons, and the harsh northen shore called Skralland, to the north of Audravania. We learn that there used to be a secretive underground nation called the Polarites, but their society was destroyed in the Crash. They used to have an exit tunnel near Eetown, for trade. There are people in Eetown of Haroon (Miss Lundquist) or Polarite (Peter Nigultrum) ancestry, and they can't ever go home. Meanwhile, Arthur and Mortimer sit on the bench and ask for divine assurance that they are doing the right thing, and both receive it, more or less. Fantod and Juniper talk about her hopes for a more interesting career than agriculture. We see an out-take for Thanksgiving, in which Myrrh and Frederick are about to start on a feast. I have left this in the time-line, as well as putting it with the Christmas cards etc., because it fits with the idea that they have gone on a second honeymoon. 05: Eetown - The Temple [28/11/2014 - 25/08/2015] The party from the Mansion enter the temple, where Sylvester introduces Rosemary to the Oracle Threnody and various town worthies. Sylvester assures the townsfolk in the Temple that Rosemary is human, and fully qualified to be Taskmistress, and tells them that Frederick has retired as Regent and Mortimer will be taking over. Sheriff Patrick Skragg quizzes Rosemary as to whether she is a fugitive from the King's Law. She swears that she isn't, then sends the child Juniper off with the Weirdo and Fantod to show Fantod how she's been practising some skill he's been helping her with. Once they are out of earshot she tells the rest that she is also taking over Myrrh's duties as bodyguard and will be wearing a sword. Threnody is dubious about Rosemary's past use of violent force, but accepts that it may have been necessary. The Sheriff provisionally accepts Rosemary's offer of help with the town militia, but Waldo Weequash, head of the Eetown Guild of Fisherfolk and Octopus Wranglers, thinks Rosewmary is a vagabond who will bring a criminal element into the town, Saffron Stout, innkeeper and impromptu mayor, points out that Rosemary will mainly be at the Mansion and agrees with the sheriff that they should give her a chance, and asks Sylvester to call on her privately later. Threnody - who is emergency backup Taskmistress - quizzes Rosemary about her Temple attendance, and Rosemary promises to make sure Sylvester goes to Temple more often. Outside the Temple, the townsfolk discuss Rosemary privately. The sheriff is planning to check up on her in police records, just in case, but they agree she seems saner than Myrrh. Mortimer and the Weirdo remain at the Temple to light memorial candles to speed the passage of the dead, the Weirdo for his friend Tulip, and Mortimer for Nitfol whom he wrongly believes to be dead. They discuss the fact that there are some Nomes and Motihauls who follow the Brush and have their own Oracles, but most non-humans have their own religions. Sylvester mentions that the Nomes have a male priest, and Threnody is interested in meeting him. While Mortimer and the Weirdo are praying, Rosemary and Sylvester look at the Temple's paintings of the various founding Oracles, and discuss their favourites. Rosemary follows Hettie, who carried a light in the darkness, and Sylvester likes Joice, who stood for inspiration. Mortimer passes on a message to Dirge, the current Guardian, that Finale, the previous Guardian, would like to speak to him. Mortimer wants to ask something, but feels that the time is not yet. The group go and stand by a large boulder outside the town gates ("The Town Rock") where they won't be overheard, and discuss Yasmine and the Weirdos generally. Mortimer is able to pick them out because he can sense their mind shapes. They discuss the fact that Rosemary has not been taught any magical theory, because she was educated at the Hack & Slash Academy whose purpose was to produce effective H&S employees and they very rarely encounter magic-users these days. Also H&S is riddled with factions: they used to have a Wizwitch Brigade and Rosemary suspects it may still exist but is being kept a secret, even from other factions in H&S. We learn that the Weirdo Academy is very ancient. It's in a town called Marksburg, in Fredonia, and is where the E boys' mother came from. Nowadays Marksburg has a stodgy reputation, but it has a lively history. In the past there were several Weirdo schools and they went by several names, such as Tomfool. Milo was the first Earl of E to hire one. The Trio fall to discussing the various worthies they met at the Temple. Sylvester fills Rosemary in on the background to the various people she met at the Temple, and village issues such as the need to bring in a full-time Healer, since at the moment the Oracle, Threnody, is both healer and teacher. Sylvester's only friends in the village are Peter Nigultrum the solicitor, and a fisherman called Captain Tugwart. They discuss who is and isn't local. People who were born in the village are accepted as local even if their parents were foreign, but if Rosemary stays fifty years she'll still be "The Mooninite" because she wasn't born in Eetown. She says she'll earn a more distinctive label than that, thinking of herself as some sinister dark queen with a flaming sword. Rosemary can tell that Dirge is combat-trained and wonders why the High Temple thought Eeetown needed him. This leads to a discussion about how the Spyders and Tree-Squids got into the area, and about things called Raviners or Hill Crabs. Mortimer would like to talk about the events of the previous day but they don't have time. As they approach the entrance to Eetown proper they discuss various Oracles Rosemary has met on her travels. In a brief out-take, we see Schmedley placing a black arm-band on the flipper of a statue of a world-turtle, to commemorate the death of Terry Pratchett. Sylvester and co. discuss the defenses of Eetown, with drawbridges put in after the Crash. The defenses ar enot very good, and post-Crash the town had some trouble with raiders until Myrrh got back. She, Frederick and Quincy had been holidaying in Aruba (a place without magic) when the Crash hit. It was on their way back that Quincy met Agnes, his future wife. Meanwhile the town made a defensive wall out of crashed cars, and then grew a hedge over and through them. We see an ancient wand-tree called an Oakapple (nothing to do with real oak apples) which grows just inside the hedge. Post-Crash, the rallying point for local survivors was a big pub called the Moose and Squirrel. Because it was a cheap outfit which didn't use much magic it survived the Crash relatively intact. The innkeeper, Simon, had acquired the place by dubious means, but he became impromptu mayor and did a good job of coordinating disaster relief. Hpthbvtw's remains will have to be decontaminated in some way because he was killed by an Operator blastm but the contamination is lessened by the fact that it was caused by the Operator's involuntary revival. The two Stirrers discuss this, with reference to Myrrh. the Scary Lady, whom they call the Collared Lurker. Sylvester and co. head for the local administrative offices, but as they pass by the fountain in the main square they become aware that they have an audience. Sylvester lectures Rosemary about the layout of the town, where the bathhopuse is etc., trying to sound confident and impress the watchers. The town has a watch tower, but these days it's mainly used as a love-nest. They speak to the townsfolk who have been watching them, and Rosemary (under the false surname Dapple) is introduced to everybody. Most striking, perhaps, is a young mother called Silence Krenshaw whom Sylvester knows very well, and had considered hiring as Taskmistress. We will learn that she and Sylvester were childhood playmates. They discuss Rosemary's duties, and that Sylvester wants Rosemary to serve as a Mature and Responsible Adult, a formal title which means that she will somehow help him to find a wife. He does not fancy Rosemary herself. Silence says that there is somebody out there for Sylvester. Mortimer meanwhile talks to an adoring fanclub of young girls. They ask him about his unbrella and he says you never know when a storm might blow up. One of them is evidently psychic and she realsies both that he is speaking metaphorically, and that a metaphorical storm is indeed coming. Sylvester and co. head for Government House, followed by a gaggle of children. They discuss the pudding plant, a local cash crop which only grows well in Audravania. Rosemary has never eaten a fresh one. Rosemary wonders why so small a town has a bank. Sulvester explains that it gives them independence from the Noodle Fish-Monger's Association, and lists the conditions required in order for them to have an official bank, and its personnel. It is illegal for an agent of the King's Law, such as the sheriff, officially to work for a bank. The town government is full of bickering and back-biting. The bank manager is Peter Nigultrum, who also helps the sub-literate to write letters. He is engaged to a woman called Ida, whom they meet coming away from the bank. Ida and Rosemary discuss Rosemary's home district of Moonin and the presence there of the Beacons, three offshore monoliths believed to date back to the Dawn Wars. Ida seems unaware that the Mansion is equally interesting and historic. The first Prime Oracle, Daisy, came from Moonin, but Rosemary feels that Daisy was ashamed of her humble origins. They meet Peter the bank manager, who works out that Rosemary is the new Taskmistress from her clothes. They tell Peter that Frederick and Myrrh have retired, and that Mortimer is a wizard. The only bit that surprises Peter is that Myrrh is able to retire. We glimpse Myrrh at some sort of hotel, apparently amusing herself by wrestling robots. Peter predicts that Mortimer's newfound wizard status will lead to trouble. We see Dirge, the current Guardian, and Terin Flem, the previous one, discussing the changes in personnel at the Mansion, and saying that Dirge has a decision to make. Immediately post-Crash, magic was regarded as evil, and Flem should really have told Omega that Mortimer was a wizard, and then somebody would have come and taken the boy away, but Flem liked Mortimer and kept quiet. An officious official named Appleby also failed to report Mortimer - Flem thinks he just never noticed what was going on because he was stuck behind his desk. Dirge will tell Threnody about Mortimer, but won't call someone to collect him unless Mortimer wants him to. Flem tells Dirge about Eunice being out in the woods again. Peter tells Mortimer there may still be a magic school which Threnody could help him find if Amos turns out not to be a good teacher. They discuss Polarite technology and social structures: Peter's father was in security, relatively low-status but with access to information. Peter had thought of contacting the surviving Polarites in the captal, but Sylvester says they would scorn him for having facial hair. The Symmites, the Polarite sub-group to which Peter's father belonged, were allowed to open a trade gate in the same country as Eetown, where they to some extent went native and became more open and sociable than most Polarites. That was why Peter's father was able to be wandering around on the surface without any magical machinery when the Crash hit, and so survived. ` Sylvester and Rosemary give Peter a highly edited version of Rosemary's life story. Peter knows the Mansion and its dangers well - he even has his own Spindizzy, Alfred. [An out-take at this point celebrates the legalization of gay mariage in the US by showing Baldy with a slightly younger - and much hairier - boyfriend, looking at rainbow flutterbys.] Peter tells Sylvester they have some paperwork to go over [Ipcress files!], so Sylvester asks Mortimer to take Rosemary away and introduce her to Shadrik. Sylvester and Peter then discuss Peter's upcoming marriage to Ida. Peter says Sylvester will never marry a local girl because they aren't academically stimulating enough - not even Ida or Silence - whereas he himself was looking for somebody who was restful to be with. Sylvester will be his best man. Sylvester trusts Peter so much that he tells him at least the gist of Rosemary's true story, including that Dapple isn't her real surname (although not what is). Peter will look out for people looking out for Rosemary. Sylvester doesn't want to marry Rosemary because she's not intellectual or educated, but she's a perfect Taskmistress - so perfect he suspects somebody is interfering in his life, and sent her to him. [Out-take: to celebrate the strip's twelfth anniverary: we briefly see the pirate hamster and his crew approaching an island which has a sentient tree.] We see that Eunice works in the pub, apparently as a cook. Rosemary and Mortimer are given free sausages by the town's Sausage Stroller. Mortimer is feeling very guilty about having accidentally magically hypnotised Rosemary the day before, so she punishes and absolves him by giving him a light bonk on the head. They talk about the fact that he has only left the area a few times, and comes across as rather sheltered, but now responsibility has been thrust on him and he will meet it. Rosemary talks about the relatively safe life she left to become a bodyguard, and the fact that her home village had an ancient ruined tower built by Gobblems, and which she used to climb. She later travelled to most of the places she could see from up there, but many of the towns were a bit same-y because they were rebuilt at the same time, after Unification. Talking about education and the E-family tutor causes Mortimer to realise there's something about Rufus and Eunice which he is forgetting. They look at Shadrik, which/who is a haulage Metalmin who is fairly bright but doesn't speak, and lives in a former stable. Dorian Ingersoll the hermit used to live in it. Dorian's history is confusing: we've been told he's lived in the Spike for forty-two years, but here we're told he lived in the forest when Mortimer was a child, and we've seen the ruins of his hut when Yasmine came across them. Shadrik's battery is flat but Rufus is working on recharging it. Rosemary works out that Sylvester just wanted her and Mortimer out of the way so he could speak to Peter privately. To kill time she suggests they climb the local watchtower, so she can survey the terrain. To get to it they go through a warehouse used to store apples, which has been altered and added to till it's almost as complex as the Mansion. They are passed by some sort of functionary (beginning with a B) who wears false Nome ears and costume wings. It's possible the B stands for Batgirl, especially as she lives in the Belfry "like usual". 06: Eetown - The State [26/08/2015 - 20/11/2015] From the tower they look down on the village square, which doubles as a fuzzball court. Mortimer points out various districts of the town, and they see Old Man Larssen's place outside the town hedge, although he has a hedge of his own. Rosemary is pleased to be able to see the Specific Ocean, which was on her To-Do List. They discuss a range of wonders Rosemary hopes to see, many of which have already beebn visited by Mortimer's mother and sister, although they were unable to get into a place called Sybola where there is some kind of secret Rosemary wishes to solve. A "really creepy" region called Mechana is mentioned. Rosemary thinks the main thing on Mortimer's To-Do List right now should be to learn how to use the wand-umbrella. A Labour Day out-take shows various kinds of labour in Eetown, including the Batgirl who is writing or drawing at an easel. Rosemary and Mortimer meet Sylvester outside the bank and he refers to the Batgirl as "our Flittermouse". Sylvester takes them to meet Sherman P Gray, the new(ish) government Clerk of Eetown. He has a telegraph machine run off batteries re-charged by a hand-turned charger, and many duties, one of which is to register new arrivals like Rosemary. He is also postman and tax-collector, and has a form for Mortimer to register as the new Regent of E. [In a brief out-take, we see the pirates (hamster and co.) arrive at Piratestash Island and recruit a resident gull to the crew. A stunted tree on the island implies that the Plant is being punished by being required to stay with the crew.] We learn about the unofficial but influential Tome of Royal Succession, a kind of Debrett's Peerage. The Keepers of the Tome will want to know not only about Mortimer becoming Regent, but about Rosemary becoming Taskmistress. We are reminded of the fact that this is a post-apocalyptic setup by the fact that Rosemary is impressed that the Post Office pigeon-holes have doors - and by the fact that those doors are post-Crash architectural salvage. Sherman sees from her form that Rosemary comes from an island called Dyngusmyles, which has a reputation for having wild, backwoods people, and has strange weather because it's close to the Beacons. Sherman himself comes from a mining area in Thull. They compare weather. Sylvester warns Sherman that Rosemary is a fighter and will be wearing a sword as part of her duties. Sherman OKs this but says that while they are in his government office weapons must be deposited in a special receptable, and Mortimer promptly puts his umbrella in it. Sherman fills Sylvester in on various items of news, including the fact that a ship from a far-off region named Coradine has visited a port called Woldercan. Coradine is part of the same continent as the Mansion but it's an island as far west as it gets, quite reclusive, and many of its inhabitants are Motihauls. To get to Woldercan the Coradine ship would have had to sail round the edge of a region called Kadath, which is inhabited by Wendigoes, and past an island called Honaly (as in Puff the Magic Dragon) where there are [human?] Viking-type sea-raiders whom we see sailing a ship whose sail bears the image of the hamster pirate captain. It's possible they came for Yurple Juice, a wildly popular and expensive drink with magical properties. The party take leave of Sherman, promising to return later to set up a post-box for Rosemary and collect the newspaper. There is a mention of the previous day's magical pit-flare being a reoccurring event, and of the recent finding of a dead Ichyoid washed into the harbour. Sylvester says that Myrrh is listed in the Official Threats Compendium, but since she hasn't killed anybody it's not worth anyone's while to go to the trouble of trying to banish her. Behind them, in his office, Sherman looks up Mortimer's umbrella in the Official Threats Compendium, and finds it. We elarn that there's a series of Government departments with harmless-sounding names - Redundancy, Secondary Overlap, Tertiary Retainment - which process information and look for interesting connections. They discuss rural pubs and Rosemary tells them about Rory Vinsmith, an innkeeper in Moonin who murdered some of his customers. In the west he is famous, but now they are so far from her home that nobody's heard of him. Saffron, the local innkeeper at the Moose and Squirrel, may have heard of him, and Sylvester quietly warns Rosemary that Saffron may have heard of her Aunt Eva, the gambler. Eunice Kelso is one of her barmaids. They enter the Moose and Squirrel and meet Sharona, Saffron's neice, who is evidently an old gitrlfriend of Mortimer's. She is overcome by the smell of sphagnum dust coming off Mortimer. They meet Mavis, one of the barmaids, and then Saffron. Saffron takes a bottle of Pudding Liquor, just uncorked that day, from a shelf: something grey is glimpsed poking out from behind an adjacent bottle. They drink from it, and Sylvester immediately passes out, while Rosemary begins seeing imaginary glowing flutterbies. Mortimer seems unaffected. 07: Revelations [30/11/2015 - 27/05/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for the next chapter I decided to include them. Rosemary and Sylvester wake, very groggy, to find themselves lying on a jetty on Alwin Island, the honeymoon destination, accompanied by a grey cat who had been outside the pub. The island will prove to be littered with large stone sculptures, mostly of non-human animals. They agree that they must have been drugged, not just drunk, and discuss possible culprits. Neither of them really thinks it was Saffron, and this is confirmed by a brief view of Mavis the barmaid discovering Saffron herself collapsed behind the bar. Sylvester's main suspect is Old Man Larssen, the town vet, who is very educated but also obsessive and secretive, a bit like Crazy Rhid - even so Sylvester doesn't really think he did it. He half suspects Eunice, who comes from Noodle and could be an agent of his enemies the Noodle Fishmongers' Association. No other visitors are expected - nobody comes there except newlyweds, or about-to-be-weds preparing the venue. There is however a rowing boat concealed on the island. They manage to stagger to their feet in order to go find the boat, but Rosemary thinks they are still both too stoned to steer and suggests that since they were planning to have a private talk anyway, now is a good time and place. About here we also see seasonal Christmas 2015 and New Year 2016 scenes featuring Smyts. Originally I included these Smyt outtakes in the Saturdays in the Basement section, since most of them take place underground, but then Rob decided to make one of them a chapter header which clearly belonged in the main story-line, so I moved them here. The Christmas scene just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but the New Year one is quite information-rich, which is why I've included it here as a regular strip. It shows a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. Sylvester shows Rosemary some of the sights of the island, since as Taskmistress she will be expected to oversee the team of respectable village matrons who prepare the honeymoon cabin for weddings. They return to the dock (and the cat) to sit and talk, on the far side of the island from the village. Further out they can see Scraggy Island, which holds a lighthouse and the town graveyard. The lighthouse keeper is Dougal Izzard. His wife Selene Perkins left but their daughter Shelby stayed, married Grumby the carpenter and had a son Edson who is apprentice lighthouse-keeper. Here there is an outtake scene showing Frederick and Myrrh playing chess with two men called Jebediah and Jones, who are wearing formal dinner suits. These are based on Angus Scrimm and David Bowie, who died that week, and a poster of Grabthar's Hammer on the wall commemorates Alan Rickman, also lost. The next day we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. Sylvester talks Rosemary through the history of the area, beginning with creation by the Brush and the first civilization, the Wilfs and Gobbblems (Dreamers and Builders), who erected wonderful buildings and even had colonies on the moon before destroying each other in the Dawn War. Sylvester has glimpsed what seemed to be a Wilf and a Gobblem through a Panegate, so it may be that there are survivors on other continents. Then the Ettins and Sneeches built up another high-tech civilization and then again destroyed it in war, after which Humans and Nomes moved in, spreading from jungles in the south. Before that destruction, the Ettins built the main towers of the mansions of E and S. The Tower of S was so-called because of an S-shaped mark on the walls, but the Mansion of E is a corruption of the Tower of Ett(in)s - their names were later changed from Tower to Mansion for some beaurocratic reason. Stitched through the main story-line we see more Smyt vignettes. We see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-sized lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). We see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis, and Super Smyt rescuing two other Smyts from a prison, and a Smyt St Patrick driving out serpents, and Smyts partying in a tree for Arbor Day. We learn that nomadic humans who didn't even have agriculture reached the Towers late in the human diaspora, at a time when the country of Ackbar, in the south, already had quite an advanced human civilization along the banks of the Refutation (De Nial). The name of the first Earl isn't known but he led his tribe into the valley and died while storming the Tower. Legend says he fought and defeated living Ettins but this is unlikely given their advanced technology. A lone Ettin skull was later found in the Tower. The first Earl's descendants avoided the interior of the Tower for generations afterwards but they set up camp and built new buildings around its foot. The area was rich in resources and they had to fight off would-be invaders. Sylvester gives Rosemary a detailed run-down of the various Earls, which you can find summarised on the background page. The most salient points are that many of the early Earls were villains and slave-traders who came to power by murdering their predecessors, until they got to the brilliant philosopher and strategist Milo, the Ninth Earl, who severed the family's links to the slave trade, converted to the new religion of the Brush, moved into the Ettin-built Tower and made contact with the Spindizzies. Milo's mother, Persafone, was a slave who deliberately trained Milo up to be a successful warrior who would murder Milo's father, Frake, at her urging, knowing Milo would help her to survive her intended coup against Frake. But Milo's heart was more in intellectual learning than bloodshed and after his wife died he abdicated in favour of his son, and sailed away to explore new lands. Milo's son Dorn I was scientifically-minded and bred the Dornbeasts for use as living siege engines. After he was killed by one his wife Aimee became regent for their son Dorn II, who unfortunately was a shallow sports jock. Dorn II was mostly gay and apart from getting an heir with his wife Olivia his sexual partnership was with a guy named Heffston, who was a much better strategist and ruler than Dorn. In an aside, we see Arthur and Fantod talking to village children. They seem to believe Rosemary and Sylvester are still in the inn with Saffron. Dorn II was killed, possibly by his daughter in law Charlotte, who had a loving but quarrelsome relationship with Dorn's son Lemuel, the Panegate expert. Lemuel eventually abdicated in favour of his daughter Wilhelmina, who was aided by her step-grandfather Heffston. Wilhelmina just called herself W for most purposes and was considered ceremonailly male, to the point of wearing a false beard. She had some magic, restricted to manipulating stone, and was a prolific sculptor who turned Alwin Island into a shrine to her dead husband Alwin. One of her younger sisters became a famous and scary witch called Arianya of the Bracken. W committed suicide by allowing a large block of stone to fall on her, and was succeeded by her son Linus, the combat botanist. He went on an expefition to the jungle and married a Zanduan woman named Padma who was his intellectual equal and they explored the Basement (at a time when most of the species down there were still shut into enclosed habitats) and put in lights. Linus it was who bred The Tree which made Basement society possible. 08: Naming Names [30/05/2016 - 23/12/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for this chapter I decided to include them. The chapter opens with a group of above-ground Smyts celebrating their version of Memorial Day. Sylvester continues to talk about his ancestors, and how Linus took the Seed of the Tree deep into the Basement and never came home. He talks about Griffington, the fifteenth Earl, who was very intelligent but only interested in making money, at which he was very successful. Griffington went on an expedition to the Infernal Engine, which was smaller in those days (so it's still growing), and to Mechana to look at their technology. He and other techs of the period managed to make their own basic robots and restore some of the much better Ettin ones - one of the latter, Akillhees, works in mathematics at the university. Griffington had a lot of commercial enemies and rivals, including the Scion of S. He died in an industrial accident (or maybe not an accident). [Out-take: eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub.] Griffington was succeeded by his son Angus and Angus's loyal and more cunning brother Cyrus. Angus went on a tour, like his ancestors, but he took an army with him and conquered S and other neighbouring states although some of them, such as Rowen, gave as good as they got. [Out-takes - a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch, and the next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise.] When Angus and Cyrus were young, Cyrus married Cassandra Grayflint and they had a son Artston. Griffington sent Angus to visit the Infernal Engine to broaden his mind, and as a result he fell for a very wild, rough but playful female techie named Syn who somewhat resembled Myrrh, who refused to marry him but became his consort, and who died in childbirth giving birth to Audra. Audra grew up at loggerheads with Cyrus, who had d1strusted her mother. In later life Angus's conquests ground to a halt and he died peacefully in bed - and Cyrus promptly tried to seize the earldom for himself and his son. [Fourth of July out-take - a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake.] Audra thrashed Cyrus in combat and convinced him to become her loyal follower. Together they conquered Rowen and then consolidated their holdings and formed the Northwoods Alliance. Audra contracted a loveless political marriage with the intellectually brilliant John Harfang, with whom she had a son, Ludwig. [Out-take - two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake to mark the strip's thirteenth birthday.] The Northwoods Alliance stood against the advancing army of Yorik Yurp, later Yorick I, and lost, despite the best efforts of John Harfang who, under the alias "The Frost Fox", served as a secret agent and was killed while on a mission (and later became the subject of a series of lurid spy thrillers). Audra protected Ludwig by hiding him away as a child and then sending him to the university under an assumed name, while getting one of Cyrus's grandchildren (so Ludwig's second cousin) to pretend to be Ludwig in order to draw Yorik's fire. The Northwoods Alliance eventually lost the war, in part because Wirtwam decided that Yorik was the lesser of two evils and Hyacinth of Wirtwam married him. But the war was long and bloody and forced the pace of technological development. Audra and Cyrus were probably looking for a technological edge when they poked the Hot Zone and were killed, but their deaths really finished the Alliance. Yorik crushed their last resistance by destroying the town of Glome (and incidentally probably killing the fake Ludwig), then re-built it, and any local nobles who were willing to swear allegiance were grafted into the new Yurpsland heirarchy. The real Ludwig was one of them - the Yurpsland troops didn't know who he was, and in any case had known Audra as the head of the Northwoods Alliance, not as the Earl of E. Ludwig's politically astute partner Penelope Orrery from Gilad (a temple-administered neutral state) coached him on how to do this. [Out-take - a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell.] Sylvester isn't sure whether Yorik was really fooled over Ludwig, or knew who he was but decided to spare him. Ludwig was a super-genius who enjoyed university and made many friends there; he was very popular with the girls and could have had his pick of the local beauties, but preferred the slightly plain Penelope for her brains. Ludwig didn't graduate because he went home to help his mother with the war affort; Penelope worked out his real identity somehow, and followed him (and reached E before he did). It was because Ludwig never graduated that the fund set up to pay for his tuition was never wound up, and remained available to pay future heirs' university fees. Ludwig tried to stop his mother from poking the Hot Zone but she did it anyway, and died, and he and Penelope were left holding the reins. They actually did very well, since Ludwig was able to sell his inventions - materially assisted by Yorik's conquest of the whole area, which had resulted in a unified trading and patent system. [Out-take for Labor Day - a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks.] It is mentioned that vamphyrs don't really exisa but zombies do (but only briefly as they tend to explode), that many of Ludwig's devices were one-off prototypes and that Yorik I wrote his own memoirs. These memoirs are little known because his son wasn't that interested in promoting them, and besides they weren't very well-written. But they deal extensively with Audra, whom Yorik rather admired - it was he who re-named the province where E is situated Audravania. [Out-take for Talk Like a Pirate Day - Captain Hamster, the crew of the Pretty Lady and a gull are all getting drunk on grog.] Ludwig died of pneumonia after getting soaked while walking in the rain. His son Ernest, hedonist, (consensual) philanderer and forger, took over. His parents were disappointed because he wasn't interested in science, or all that bright, but he was very interested in plays and a reasonably good actor himself, when he could be bothered. He married Lucidia Penderghast, gold-digger and amateur actress, and they nearly deserved each other. At university Ernest discovered that he was good at maths, history and a proficient if uninspired kind of art. He did a certain amount of commercial graphics work and a lot of art forgery, although the latter was really just a hobby. He was a fairly successful playwright, although not good at dialogue, and very good at improving other people's scripts. He and Lucidia fought a lot but seemed to enjoy it, and they had three sons, Philbert, Hindenburgh the wizard, and Valentin, who was the one to whom the Djinnoscope gave a clean death. Ernest was fatally stabbed by, or over, one of his lovers. [Out-take for Columbus Day - a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt.] Philbert married the artist Hepzibah Kelly and founded a chain of "Lovelace" orphanages, using Kelly's mother's maiden name. He helped preserve the Forest of Burzee as a public park instead of letting it be carved up into private estates. He supported many smaller charities and was a faithful husband. But Sylvester believes he did these things to rebuild the family's post-Ernest reputation, not because he really cared. Philbert was killed in a motor-racing accident a month before the Crash and was succeeded by his son Quincy. Quincy was not very bright, but he was genuinely caring and scraped through university by hard work. His Hall of Achievement entry just says that he tied his own shoes, but this turns out to be fairly serious: he kept walking, kept trying, and held the Mansion area together after the Crash. He survived the Crash because he, his brother Frederick and Myrrh were in Aruba, which uses no magic. Afterwards they had to walk hundreds of miles home - hence the importance of the shoes. On their way they picked up another survivor, Agnes Bloggett, who married Quincy. Hepzibah, who had stayed home because of health problems, died in the Crash. Quincy eventually died after falling from one of the Mansion's towers. [Out-takes - a Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en. Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. A Smyt nurse gives soup to a patient in bed. Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives.] Willoughby attended university where he met his future wife, Dorothea Mundivagant. Both were very vague but possibly magically gifted. Sylvester thinks that it was wrong of Frederick not to tell Mortimer that he, Mortimer, was a wizard - but it was probably a good decision not to tell Willoughby that he was. They had six children - Sylvester, Ace, Mortimer, the twins Lilith and Lenore, and Rufus. Rufus was conceived because the local contraceptive Stiflebloom plant had failed. [Out-take for Armistice Day - two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war.] Because Willoughby was so lazy and detached it was really Frederick and Myrrh who ran the earldom. After Willoughby died in the notorious Noodle Incident, Frederick became official Regent until Sylvester finished at university. [Thanksgiving out-take - two Smyts eat until they are insensible.] Sylvester did well at university and made friends, especially Bertrum W Skinknottle (who fell for and married Honoria Clemens) and Nimue Fayling. The students were divided into Houses. Nimue was in training to take over the family business, growing oranges. She and Sylvester dated, but split up because neither would give up their family responsibility. Sylvester went home alone and took over the Earl's duties. He found a job for Ace. His mother Dorothea inherited cash from her mother, and she and Lil went travelling. Mortimer and Rufus stayed around, and Mortimer started bringing home strange women, most notably Olga Q Bonmarrow, a drifter with mental health issues who was in love with Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Basement society has come along tremendously during Sylvester's lifetime (so post-Crash), and the idea that the Sneeches might be behind this. Sylvester forgot to ask Myrrh what she saw in the Sneech den, and now they don't even know where she is. We see that she is in a cat café, talking to the cats as if they understand each other. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss whether the Dohickey thank-you gift was for Sylvester or for his whole family, and Rosemary points out that the first Earls were meant to have killed off the Ettins who were holding the Sneeches prisoner. Whether they did or not, the Sneeches may believe they did. They discuss the fact that Sneeches do have childen, and whether or not they have intelligible emotions. Finally, Rosemary says that eveything else can wait, and that she will follow Sylvester's plans. He says he can't make plans until he knows what it is that Rosemary stole. She agrees to show it to him, but tells him to cover his eyes and ears while she gets it out of the Poke-Kit, so he doesn't learn any codes which he might later be forced to reveal. 09: Wreaking Havoc [26/12/2016 - 07/07/2017] Rosemary produces from the Poke Kit an oval object which she says is called the HJ42 but she thinks it's also a mythological object called the Chaos Key. This is clearly the same item which has been being passed around among the Basement folk - not just another of the same model but this actual one, becausae HJ42 is the designation of a specific instance of this gadget which was collected by an anthropological expedition. Either it's looped through time to appear twice in the same area at the same time, or when Rosemary thinks it's safely tucked away in her Poke Kit, it isn't. As the Chaos Key it has been used to open various kinds of metaphorical and literal doors, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Rosemary studied its semi-legendary history in the libraries of Hack'n'Slash. It may have been implicated in the Thricklefork Demon Massacre. It caused strange events - including a giant man-eating flower - at a place called Bellona. It was passed around the clans of Erewhon, trailing odd happenings. It was used to rob a bank, then disappeared from view, only to reappear among the artefacts brought back by the Hendrick-Joost Expedition. At this point Rosemary puts it back in the Poke Kit and she and Sylvester agree not to mention the name "Chaos Key" again if they can avoid it, but just to refer to it as the HJ42. The Hendrick-Joost Expedition came from the High University of Azimuth and visited the Infernal Engine, among other places. Many of the items they "collected" were really looted. Eventually Azimuth returned some of them to Yurpsland, including "HJ-42". These returned items were parcelled out between various Yurpsland museums and collectors, and #42 went to an Erewhonian noble named Cuddlup, who passed it on to an Erewhonian sect called the Chromans. The Chromans were great collectors and displayers of curios which demonstrated the wonders of the world - some of which were magically active. The most dangerous were kept in an offshore fortress which went into meltdown during the Crash. The HJ42 was put on display in various places but it made people nervous, so it was moved to a medium-level facility in a place called Gowplace at the tip of the Lawnrock Peninsula. After the Crash, Gowplace was re-named Chroma and became the Chromans' capital, and the HJ42 dropped out of sight again for several decades. About ten years ago, or forty years after the Crash, it resurfaced as part of a travelling Chroman display for which H&S provided security, and eventually it caused some alarming effect, although Rosemary's security clearance wasn't high enough to find out what. It was put back into storage, but at this point rumours about it began to be passed around. It was at this point that Rosemary first heard about it and began to research it - and so, unfortunately, did Tansy Rugan, the leader of the Quincunx, a kind of sinister private army. Rosemary started to suspect the Quincunx were searching for the HJ42, and knew it would be a seriously Bad Thing if they found it. She couldn't get H&S to take her concerns seriously enough, so she went AWOL, rode all the way to Chroma and stole the HJ42 herself. Two hours later the Quincunx arrived and started hunting her. She did her best to evade them but eventually Tansy cornered her. One of the buttons on the device was glowing so in desperation Rosemary pressed it, thinking that it might cause an explosion which would take out Tansy and her 2inC Nathan Holn along with Rosemary herself. Instead, it teleported her to the forest near Eetown. At first she wasn't sure whether she'd been moved through time or space, but then she met Mortimer and realised from his accent that she had shifted a long way to the east. She was very dazed and disoriented and just followed Mortimer home. They talk for a while about how Rosemary ended up with Hack'n'Slash in the first place. Bored with farming muckroots and lobster-fishing, she became a crew-woman on a boat called the Oshinoxtra. From there she went to the mainland and worked on a large farm, and even served as a minion on a Saur hunt. Once she'd saved up enough money she went to see the nearest city, Jonetown. Everything there was far more expensive than she'd expected but as luck would have it she was in the right place to rescue Edwird Soloman, a retired bureaucrat who was being harrassed by louts. She and Edwird hit it off and became firm friends, and he gave her a place to stay. She became his bodyguard and housekeeper, read his books and reached an uneasy accommodation with his girlfriend, Mrs Rumble. Sometime later, Rosemary and some friends were scavenging in a scrapyard when they encountered the demon Scratch, and Rosemary managed to overcome him to the point where he was willing to discuss his situation and behave reasonably. This caused unpleasantness between the neighbours and Edwird, and brought Rosemary to the attention of Hack'nSlash, who recruited her. While they are tidying up conversational loose ends, Rosemary tells Sylvester about a hermit she met in the SAR (where there are many hermits, but this one is The Hermit), and who was probably a wizard (or just possibly a demon). They establish that demons can communicate over long distances via leylines, hence Edgar learned Rosemary's name from Scratch, and Myrrh could arrange visits from friends. Rosemary is reluctant to ask Myrrh to pass along messages. Sylvester assures her Myrrh can keep a secret. They discuss Ilsa, who has a very able illegitimate daughter, Druscilla, who works for the big bank in the capital. Ilsa writes to her wih local gossip, so news of Rosemary's presence will soon reach the capital. Ilsa is half Haroon, and the Haroons do not worship the Brush, much, or care what the Oracles think about having children out of wedlock. Sylvester is trying to modernise the village, with some cooperation from the current Oracle, Threnody, who is a great improvement over her predecessor Omega. It is mentioned that opposite Frederick and Myrrh's old room there is a door labelled "Gwen's stuff", but neither of them knows who Gwen is or was. Sylvesgter has never investigated it, but assumes Myrrh will have done so. They discuss the fact that when Sylvester met with Protus he saw visions of Rhid and Villipend, whom they then met, so evidently he was seeing the future. He also saw Rosemary fighting a woman with a glowing glove, and that may be a true vision too. Rosemary thinks from the description that it is Tansy Rugan, so they will have to meet and fight some time soon. At least she'll probably have the Can-Opener, but she doesn't have it with her now. Sylvester wants them to have regular conferences, but he's not going to say where the next one is, in case of eavesdroppers. They discuss Rosemary's old teachers, and whether Myrrh and Frederick are gone for good: Rosemary hopes they are, Sylvester misses them. We glimpse Frederick being given an Ides of March cake by a waitress wearing antennae - or deely-boppers. Olaf Larrsen, the village vet, turns up in a motorboat and is introduced to Rosemary, who he is glad to see is not a "demon, Bonmarrow or Flibbler". Flibblers, whatever they are, are everywhere. Olaf agrees to give them a lift in return for information and a discount on the organs of the Dornbeast Rosemary killed the night she arrived (less than two days ago). He takes the couple and the cat back to the mainland. En route they discuss the reorganisation at the manor, and the Crash - Olaf used to build thaumtools, before the Crash, and has been able to measure the fact that magic is very slowly returning. He thinks the local Ichyoids are up to something. He tells them about the hamster pirate captain, who has now ceased to be an out-take and become part of main canon, and that he has met Protus, who was talking about someone named Winnifred. Sylvester warns Olaf that Nirvana Clepe may be back in the area. Sylvester asks Olaf whether he has seen Frowgler - he hasn't - but we cut away to see Frowgler talking to the village Flittermouse in her tower. She tells him that her name is Vyon Ward Parkin, an orphan who was taken in by the Flittermice after she was shunned because her family had died in a "Spew" from the Infernal Engine, and peoople feared she might be contaminated. We see that the Flittermice have a universal presence, at least in Yurpsland, and use actual bats as messengers. The Flittermice are an Order, whose job is to "flit into the dark places and do the mucky jobs that need to be done" - which they agree is also Frowgler's job. Vyon herself was literally posted to her new position in Eetown, in a box. It's a lonely job and she appreciates Frowgler's company, but she could have left if she wanted to, and did not. He gives her a "laughter marble" and says that some day everyone will know who he is behind the mask, then he leaves via an artificial tunnel which looks as if it was made for the purpose, and which takes him to water. As Frowgler swims away, we see him pass a tank containing an octopus named Aloysius. Violet Hopkirk lures Aloysius to the surface and milks him of ink. She overhears people gossipping about Frederick's retirement. We overhear two of her employers talking about her and how she has the talent to work on a "Wrangrig", but it isn't safe for girls. Cut to Sylvester and co. in the boat, discussing Wrangling Rigs, aka octopus inkpull platforms, and the fact that it's "not safe" for girls because it's thought to be bad luck, locally, to have a woman on board. Violet, who has a reputation for not talking, overhears more gossip, quizzes a local boy and learns about Sylvester's party going into The Moose and Squirrel and not coming out. She goes to the inn to talk to Eunice Kelso about it. Eunice doesn't know where the party went, and shoos Violet away. Violet returns to her mother, Helena, and they gossip about Rosemary. Sylvester greets a trapper in another boat, name of Rod, and his young son Ash. Ash is very interested in Rosemary. Mention is made of a Mobile Confectioners' Guild, whose members include salesmen called Lollipop Perambulators. Sylvester finds Ash refreshing - too many people treat him either with scorn or fear because of his position. Olaf tells Ash to tell his friend Aloysius (not the octopus!) to stay out of his garden, because it's magic. Sylvester tells him to spread the word that there is going to be a meeting at the Temple to formally introduce Rosemary. Rod and Ash in their boat sail past an islet with a distance marker on it, then we see a gull try to land on the islet, and be scared away by a green, snakey-looking thing which says "Boo" in Ichyoid runes. This is one of the same tentacled things (perhaps the same individual) which we saw in the Basement, rescuing Shabash from a reservoir. Rob and Ash come to shore and we see Ash gossipping with Aloysius on the dockside - both boys look about ten years old. A gull - perhaps the same one that was chased off by the tentacled thing - is sitting near Aloysius. Ash passes on Olaf's message about the magic garden, and Sylvester's about the Temple meeting. As they walk past the Spewing Wall - a forum for graffiti - the Flitttermouse's laughter marble hits the ground behind them, and Aloysius picks it up, hides it and tells Ash it's just a rock. The gull flits in and out of shot near them. They pass Fantod and the Weirdo having an adult conversation with Melba Corrigan and her whimp-pig Wilbur. Ash and Aloysius tell Fantod that they are planning to go to a haunted ruin tomorrow, and he warns them it might fall down, then Fantod warns Aloysius, specifically, to be careful with"whatever it is yer doin' all of a sudden". We then see the Oracle Threnody, in a medical office listening to a man's chest with a stethoscope; Mayoress Saffron Stout sitting behind her desk - and the Flittermouse, scoring things off a list on a notice board. Written on the corner of the board (not part of the list) is a note saying "Tell truth". She has a sort of umbrella stand which has various sorts of pole in it, including a Sneech stick. 10: Into the Woods [10/07/2017 - 03/11/2017] To start with we see Myrrh, who seems not to need to breathe, strolling through an undersea forest before rising to the surface; Frederick still being served food by the waitress in deely-boppers; and a female Eyebolt named Shmelcathy working at her desk. Other women in deely-boppers (all this culture wear them) are monitoring Frederick on a screen, under the command of an older woman with fluffy white hair, and are expressing amazement at how much he has eaten without passing out. They talk about his herediscan - he is related to a previous test subject - and how he must be a thaumaturgre to stay conscious, yet he isn't setting off their magic-detectors. The waitress, Svetlana Rostova, is told to tail him, and we learn that they are in the Zamyatin Spire, a very high-tech-looking place. Zamyatin Spire residents are all women, but other spires are for men only, or mixed. They discuss Yurpsland politics, which involve a ceremonial, hereditary king and a separate political ruler who seems to be self-appointed rather than elected. Also the fact that Frederick is a demithaumaturge, and that the Spires are on a major tricklepoint, so were not much affected by the Crash and still have working pre-Crash technology, which involves some enornmous gears which were built by an unknown society from before the Ettins. Svetlana is impressed to learn that Frederick's family have their own library, in which he read about the Spires. When Myrrh is mentioned, Svetlana surmises that Myrrh is Frederick's wife, because he wouldn't have been allowed into Zamyatin Spire if he didn't have a wife. They discuss the arrangements for straight women like Svetlana who wish to find a mate when they live in an all-female Spire, and see an agent of sorts, holding a giant needle like a dagger and trying to arrest somebody for smuggling Fuzz jars. Singing Fuzzes are a big fad in the Spires and are bred for size, intelligence and voice, which suggests that this could be the past of Frizzlegarb's future world of Hollows and Fuzz communities. Special barriers prevent Fuzzes from being moved from one Spire to another, except in jars. Myrrh, meanwhile, arises from a water-filled tube into a sort of domed cockpit, in which there is a plant-covered floor dotted with flowers and one of the little mini-Trog-like creatures which we saw Rosemary chasing out of the Mansion at the start of the story. She presses a button and then climbs up some sort of stair or ladder - with the little critter riding on her head - to a room where there is a naked male musician named Jones (who is clearly based on David Bowie/Jones, and is either a fellow demon or a large nome, as he has pointed ears), who plays the flute for her. Finally we see her pressing her claws into a set of holes on a control that opens a round purple door, and then standing in a place where there are striped, rugby-ball-shaped lights, and an enormous bust of a bearded, humanoid male demon wearing a medal. It's not clear whether this last image is part of the canonical sequence or just a Hallowe'en special. Frederick and Svetlana end up on a balcony which Svetlana calls a Bubble-viweing Recreation Platform, overlooking a hall where large coloured bubbles with blurry images inside well up, but Frederick says it's a Spindizzy interface chamber. We learn that the Spire community has a low birthrate and takes in orphans from elsewhere, but Svetlana was born there and heard her parents mention legless, truthful flying beings who could have been either Spindizzies or Helipaths. She is not sure whether the Spire city belonged to the Ettins or the Sneeches, originally - only that it was contested between two species. Frederick describes ancient weaponry - the Ettins used city-smashing Doombombs and the Sneeches used Tangles, giant vines which could infitrate and wreck Ettin machinery. Frederick has worked out that something was meant to happen to him in the restaurant where Svetlana works, but she assures him he wasn't intended to die. Solzhenitsyn Spire is about death, but Zamyatin is all about collecting and hoarding information. Frederick wants to go ask the nearest archivist about Spindizzies. Svetlana is unnerved by this, as asking questions is discouraged. They discuss the fact that Frederick is still collecting information which may be useful to his family, even though he is retired, and that Myrrh may or may not decide she has retired, and we see the woman with fluffy white hair monitoring their converation. Fredrick says he is filling in time until Myrrh gets back from "whatever you all have her doing", and it is at this point that we see Myrrh opening the purple door. Cutting back to Eetown, we see Olaf's boat pulling in to his private dock, and Captain Hamster's crew sleeping off a binge-drinking session, and Mortimer, with umbrella, waking in the woods (to which he was evidently transported from the pub, in the same way that his brother and Rosemary were transported to the island) with the sense that some sort of revelation has slipped away from him, and then encountering Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party in the woods. Once on shore, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Olaf knew Mortimer was a wizard, but didn't tell him. We see that Olaf has a fenced-off telegraph pole topped with magical gadgets. Mortimer is very relieved to see that Nitfol survived the Spyder, but ashamed that he had accidentally led the beavcer-shark to destroy Nitfol's home tree. Fizmo realises that Mortimer owes Nitfol a favour and can take them beyond the "Edge of the World", but Mortimer doesn't know what she means. At this point we get some portraits of various characters - Ilsa's and Saffron's parents, characters from the Willy the Wendigo books, some past E Weirdos, and one of Sylvester's university lecturers. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, discussing Olaf's thaum measurements. Sylvester thinks he has a second agenda - perhaps an attempt to bring back magic, which even the High University of Azimuth has been unable to do. Sylvester thinks this is a good idea, because he wants humanity to explore the other planets in the system, and doesn't see much future in steam power. Mortimer, Nitfol and Fizmo establish their frames of reference. The Nomes' world can be walked across in a day or two, and is bounded by a wall of mist you can't push through, and centred on the Spike - Fizmo's father Foblub was an exlporer, but even he didn't manage to walk all the way around the edge. Mortimer remembers a Spindizzy called Charles telling him about a solid haze. Sylvester shows Rosemary a road which leads south to a place called Eisles where there is a ferry across the River E, but no city because the nearby shore is too rocky for a port, and then on to Obtown. He points out Olaf Larrsen's house and then they head back towards the woods - as they do so they pass Aloysius hiding behind a bush, with the gull next to him. 11: New Openings [06/11/2017 - 02/02/2018] Rosemary tells Sylvester there was a kid hiding behind the bush they just passed, and Sylvester identifies him as Aloysius Culpepper, an orphan who lives with his uncle and aunt. We see Aloysius and the gull sneak into Olaf Larrsen's place and poke about in the fields, before using an upturned bucket to climb through a shed window, after testing that a magic-emitting plant on a shelf inside is safe by throwing a stick at it. He winds up a clockwork figure of a running man (later referred to as the Flailer, so probably its feet are meant to pound grain), and the noise attracts Olaf, who is carrying a fishing net with a hole in the bottom. He tells Aloysius to follow him or go home, so Aloysius and the gull follow him. They go to the main house where they are greeted by Olaf's housekeeper - we see Sylvester telling Rosemary that this is Ilsa, who used to work at the Mansion. Ilsa asks Aloysius what the gull's name is, but Aloysius says gulls only have names when they are flying. We see a scene of three gulls by the seashore, including one wearing a hat, who is part of the pirate hamster's crew, and still looks hungover. We return to Mortimer, talking to the Nomes. Nitfol doesn't know what Spindizzies are but he does know about the Mansion, because his father was a scholar who owned two and a half books. We see Nitfol's father with two books, one labelled "Socks", the other "Cookiedice", which is the name of one of the Hollows where we see Fuzzes living in the future. Mortimer mentions the library at the Mansion - Fizmo doesn't believe such a thing is possible, but Nitfol has heard stories of large book collections. We see a shadowy image of a female Nome filing scrolls on big racks. Mortimer describes the library as being in the Ivory Tower, which leads to a long digression about behemoth teeth (if behemoths are really elephants, Mortimer has a very confused idea of what they look like), and he mentions that there is an apartment at the top, with a pool, but nobody lives in it now, "most of the time". He mentions that the tower was built by Ludwig, which leads to a very muddled conversation, because the Nomes know Ludwig as a cult figure worshipped by some people in the Basement. Mortimer manages to explain about the Spindizzies and how literal they are, and how he once told Charles he felt trapped and Charles told him about the mist barrier. Mortimer thinks the Spindizzies might know how to bring the barrier down: Fizmo thinks this is fantasy, but Nitfol wants to meet them. Nitfol and Fizmo go off to confer, while the Pale who may be Thrash seeks to attract Mortimer's attention to something, and Mortimer wonders aloud whether this is the same Pale (Thrash) he met yesterday with Frowgler. We return to Zamyatin Spire, where Svetlana is disturbed by Frederick's whistling, because music is discouraged except in the gym and at culture festivals. She takes him to a stern-lloking senior archivist, who wasn't expecting them - Frederick tells this woman his name, but says she doesn't need to know Svetlana's. In Eetown, Ilsa brings cocoa (which he has never had before) for Aloysius, herb tea for Olaf and tripewater for the gull. Olaf says he's an old man and he has had to keep his books locked away because Omega didn't want people to see them, but now she's gone and her influence is waning, he has been hoping for someone like Aloysius to come along. He told Ash to tell Aloysius to stay away from the magic because he knew it would lure him in. Aloysius correctly surmises that Olaf wants him as an apprentice. Olaf says his wife Mamie, after whom his boat is named, died fifty years ago(by implication, in the Crash), so if Aloysius comes every day he can, and learns magic and veterinary medicine, when Olaf dies he will leave his house and all his money to Aloysius, aside from a bit for Ilsa. Olaf tells Aloysius that no wizwitch could channel all the forms of magic, but some were generalists who could do a little of a lot, and some, known as Hedgewizwitches, could do only one thing but did it very well. Mamie was one, because all she could do was heal, but very well. Aloysius is another - an "Animal Empathist", hence his link with the gull. Mortimer is still talking to the Pale who may or may not be Thrash, and shows him his umbrella. He tells the Pale that he is a wizard and asks if that's the problem, and the Pale shakes his head. Meanwhile Nitfol tells Fizmo he isn't going to go off with Mortimer immediately, but he will at some point, because Zpeaker also thought the barrier could be brought down, and if Nitfol's political plan fails they will at least have a means of leaving. The Pale draws Mortimer's attention to the fact that Spyders are creeping up on them. Frederick speaks to Senior Archivix Anushka Zhdanov. She tells him he is allowed to access archives up to Level Three, but won't say how many levels there are above that. He asks for information on Spindizzies. She asks if he is a Yurpslander, and when he says he is, she calls for someone named Snegurka and sends her to fetch a file. Olaf tells Aloysius that neither of them is a full wizard, but that in theory if you make the right thaum machine you can mimic any power. However, there isn't enough energy around post-Crash, so animal empathy is impossible to mimic and no one will be "horning in" on Aloysius's skill. There are no other empaths in the area, but there are a few other wizwitches of other kinds - some who know what they are (we see Myrrh, Amos Grubb and Mortimer) and some who don't (we see a teenage boy in a soft baggy hat, and a short teenage girl with a lot of long, bushy hair) and who he doesn't think could handle being told. 12: The New Level [05/02/2018 - 01/05/2016] At the start of the chapter we see Melba Corrigan's blobwart-vending cart and her pet pig Wilbur sitting in front of a large bush. Her hat is lying on the bush, and two butterflies (not flutterbys) fly up from behind it. Probably they represent sex and/or kisses, and she is behind the bush with Arthur the Weirdo. Faint words on the hedge appear to spell out "Nutella weather person" - I've no idea why. Rosemary and Sylvester arrive back at Eetown's South Road Gate. Sylvester would rather go home, but Rosemary reminds him that he needs to collect the post, and says that it probably wasn't a villager in a boat that took them to Alwin. They both think it was probably Mortimer, by magic, which means he has immense innate power and the potential to be "quite something". Meanwhile, Mortimer's party start to back away from a Spyder, which begins to spew thick ropes of web at them, while another one boxes them in from behind. But Thrash (Rob's notes seem to confirm that it is Thrash, so the stripe he had on his chest before must have been painted on) slashes their web-ropes with his sickle and beats down the one in front of Mortimer. It's not clear whether he has killed it or not, but he probably has, as later they will pass a dead one in that direction. Meanwhile, Senior Archivix Anushka offers Frederick a chair and a cup of tea while he waits for his file. Svetlana is impressed and concerned, as teachairs are only offered to important guests, and she isn't authorised to associate with important guests, but doesn't wish to leave. The Archivix gives Frederick permission for Svetlana to stay and have tea too, but Svetlana says it's not Anushka's decision to make. Olaf thinks Aloysius can handle being told he has magic, but also that an empathist can't do much harm. He warns him not to tell anyone else about his magic, because there are people - the picture implies it's official, government people - looking to capture functioning wizwitches. It's possible that Aloysius may have other, minor talents as well as his main one - Mamie did - and there are tests for this, but Olaf can't administer them. Amos and Frederick both could, but Frederick won't. Rosemary suggests that if Mortimer is going to be "something" so will Sylvester, since Mortimer obeys him. As they talk, a Flutterby - a creature with which Mortimer has a strong affinity - comes to them with a scrap of cloth tied around it, bearing a message apparently written in blood. Back to Mortimer's party. The Pales are fighting off the Spyders, and kill at least one behind Mortimer, but the Spyders keep coming. Mortimer has a moment of crisis where he decides he will no longer be either a follower or a causer of problems, and he shoots magical force from his umbrella-wand, declaring that there will be no more killing or dying (and gives himself an electric shock). The surviving Spyders run off, and we see two Spyders discussing the fact that they had thought all human wizwitches had been killed in the Crash, and that this raises the possibility that there may still be humans who are able to "talk" (I'm guessing this means Aloysius's animal empathy) and they must call a conclave to discuss this. Svetlana confirms to Frederick that it is her boss (or at least, the person who told her to watch Frederick) who decides whether she may stay and drink tea or not. She has a number as well as a name. Frederick addresses the security bugs in the walls and asks for Svetlana to be made his guide, stating her name and number, and since nobody answers with an objection, Svetlana is officially promoted to that role. She isn't sure what she thinks about this, as she had enjoyed being a waitress, but she does quite like her cup of tea. Olaf tells Aloysius that Amos gave up being an active wizard before the Crash - the pictures imply this had something to do with Myrrh, but Olaf will only tell Aloysius about it if Aloysius agrees to be trained. Amos has already asked Olaf to come to the Mansion to discuss something, so he will take Aloysius with him, but Aloysius shouldn't mention his possible apprenticeship etc. to Amos's wife Nellie. They have a complex misunderstanding about what "having views" means, which leads to mention of an apparently blind woman called Gretta Weed, who in the metaphorical sense sees further than Nellie. Gretta is brighter than Nellie, and Saffron brighter than Gretta, but Olaf is more concerned with their open-mindedness to new possibilities. They discuss the fact that once he is trained, Aloysius will have the choice to stay in Eetown or to move elsewhere. Once they have found a private spot, Sylvester reads his message, which says "Open Training Gate. Urgent." This refers to one of the Panegates at the Mansion. Sylvester still has to complete buisness in town but will rush through it. We see him ask a sausage vendor named Claudia what people are talking about - which is really all the news from the Mansion. She has been selling a lot of sausages because people are anxious/excited about the changes. Fizmo and Nitfol are surprised and impressed that Mortimer is a wizard, and reveal in conversation that Fizmo works for Frowgler, and Nitfol sort-of does too. We see Frowgler underground, talking to a Shallow Wyrm named Parkin who is guarding the Circle at the World's End. Fizmo says Frowgler can see the future (which Mortimer cannot), and warned her about a job she took. We see her underground in her hazmat suit, looking at a little creature similar to a Shallow Wyrm but not one, which is growling at her. Mortimer says Frowgler gave him good advice, but he works for his brother Sylvester, not for Frowgler. He tells them Sylvester is a sort of mayor, avoiding the charged word "Earl" by chance or design. Svetlana reveals that she prefers kvass to tea, although this is against her culture. The Spire folk drink actual tea, but tea in Yurpsland is usually brewed from other plants. Frederick himself drinks - cautiously - things brewed by Myrrh. They get onto discussing Yurplejuice - neither Svetlana nor Anoshka has tasted it, because it's restricted, and even in Yurpsland it's regulated. Olaf tells Aloysius about the other half of his business - the first half is treating sick animals, the second half is making and selling thaum-powered gadgets. He has always refused to make magical weapons - Zap-Tridents - partly out of morality and partly in case someone buys one and then kills him to prevent him making any for anyone else. In any case they only work at Tricklepoints, such as the one under the Mansion. To make his own gadgets work away from a Tricklepoint he has built big, cumbersome energy collectors. Aloysius shows Olaf the laughter marble, and Olaf says it does party tricks, which he will show him in the workshop. 13: Thicket [02/05/2018 - 16/11/2018] Sylvester says Claudia will be selling a lot more sausages, because more changes are coming, because he is planning to be more pro-active. He and Rosemary discuss Mayor Saffron's temper. Mortimer says he arrived here (in the woods) by accident, but now he's here he will help the Nomes. He asks why they are there and Fizmo says they are going to "that Crystal Thicket". Nitfol is initially angry, but Fizmo says that if Mortimer (with his evident magical power) is working for Mayor Koyeeb they're all dead anyway. Nitfol discusses good and bad leaders with Mortimer, and Mortimer correctly concludes that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb. He is still willing to help, on the understanding that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb for an ethical reason (i.e. because he is very bad at his job) and that he isn't planning to kill him. He knows where the Crystal Thicket is. Frederick tells Svetlana and Anoshka about Yurplejuice, which he hasn't had since the funeral of Mariah, the Mansion's groom, when they still had horses. It's made in Wirtvale, and the stuff which Yurpsland exports is second-rate, but the best brands are wonderful. This leads to a conversation about funerals: the Spire folk file their dead on shelves in a catacomb, but they do have a ceremony. They talk about the fact that Spire folk are trained for their jobs, but Frederick had to muddle through as both wizard and regent, and didn't do a terrific job. We see Myrrh emerging from a hole in a rocky floor, into a cavern where there are many pink stalactites and stalagmites. She is preceded by a butterfly - perhaps signifying that she and Jones have had sex. In the cavern is a giant Metalmin who knows what she is - it addresses her as "zarkette" - and challenges her to a game of chess. We see a woman with puffy white hair watching Myrrh and the Metalmin on a screen: this is the same woman who was earlier seen overseeing the team who were discussing the fact that Frederick wasn't being knocked out by what they had fed him. She is probably Svetlana's boss. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, still discussing Saffron Stout, and Saffron's father, who died when Sylvester was five, and her mother, who kept small yappy dogs. Neither was at all communicative about their past. Mortimer tells the Nomes there may be a magical way of getting where they're going. He tries to compare Panegates with the treewarping the Nomes do, which requires planning and equipment. Nitfol knows about twistpoints, but Mortimer says Panegates are safer, and there's one that leads to the edge of the Thicket. He has to explain that it's Panegate, not Paingate. Mention is made of Fizmo's married sister Fweep. Meanwhile, Frederick says that Spire folk who do badly at their jobs get sacked. Yurpsland is a young, recently unified country which hasn't worked out how to do things yet, whereas the Spire regime is 400 years old. He speaks about a Yurpslander named Owen Gregiry, who wrote a study on the Spires, and about various Spire monarchs, including the famous Ivana III, who fought off the Wendigoes. Frederick is more interested in Vasily II, who wanted to introduce changes. We flash to Violet Hopkirk, telling her mother she's going out but will be back in time to help with supper. Young Ash is her brother. We see the Flittermouse in her tower, watching Violet through a telescope as she sets out. Then we see Eunice calling two lads called Ricky and Wendell to come out from a wooden structure, because Saffron needs them. Then we see the old man and former Guardian Terin Flem, sitting on a rock talking to his grandchildren Stephan and Sparrow. He is going to wait at the rock until he sees the Mansion party come by on their way out of the village. We see Rosemary and Sylvester discussing the mayor of her home town, how as an orphan she was a problem for him, and how her Aunt Eva came to take her in. Eva was also seen as a problem because she had run off to the city, picked up foreign ways and then returned rich. There are things Rosemary wonders about Eva's return, but she's not going to talk about it in town where there are potential eavesdroppers. Mortimer and the Nomes agree that it would be as tedious to trek to the Mansion to find the Panegate as it would be to go to the Thicket on foot, and as far as Mortimer knows they won't be able to locate the Panegate at the Thicket end. He assumes they are going there to find a particular flower. He tells them not to tell him their plans, so he can't inadvertently give the game away. We cut to Sylvester's brother Ace, with spear and rucksack, walking through an unknown town in the west of Yurpsland and meeting up with a blonde Nome woman wearing a long skirt and a hat with a flower in it. He shows her a similar flower - which he was reluctant to wear in his hat. As he is Ace, she takes the nom de guerre Diamond (Ace suggests Joker). As they walk through the town, in the background we see a very odd face, or maybe a mask, with slanted oval eyes, watching them from some sort of battlement, and they pass a poster with a kind of alien face on it. Other, more human faces peer round corners at them wherever they walk. Ace comments on the fact that they are being followed, and asks if they are friends of Diamond's, or at least allies. Cut to the Mansion's butler Schmedley, standing in front of a large, open book and holding a cake with candles, to celebrate fifteen years since the strip began. There are eleven candles on the cake, three Flutterbys flying inside the house, and a Fuzz peering at the lighted window from outside. Frederick and Anushka discuss rules of succession. In the Spires the rulers are of alternating sex and bear a mystic Gear. Vasily II the would-be change-maker died young (as did Yorik II), and Frederick suggests that his death was suspiciously convenient. The village fishermen are deeply interested in Rosemary's hat. Coming from where she does, she is able to discuss fishing with them. One called Tom even invites them for a drink, but she and Sylvester have too much to do, and Sylvester says late in private that having the Earl in the inn would be a buzz-kill - nearly as bad as an Oracle in the pub. Fizmo is curious about the smell of sphagnum dust which still hangs around Mortimer. She and Nitfol discuss the birth of Fizmo's niece Faft, in a way which implies that Nomes can choose the gender of their foetus - although Nitfol denies it when Mortimer asks. Fizmo remembers she needs to ask the village healer Piu for Stiflebloom. Nitfol is an onlly child. Diamond says that Ace is an object of great local interest, which is why people are spying on them. He comments on her dyed-blonde hair. for some reason, she says that here she had no other option (even though we see a male Nome with brown hair watching them). Ace says there are always options, but sometimes all of them are bad, and he learned that from "you people" - some organisation to which Diamond belongs. The boundary between "here" (later described as "Out West"), where Ace has been for a while, and "Back East" where Ace comes from is a place called Nye. Diamond came there from somewhere "much, much worse" than here, which makes Ace say he questions her Nomishness. This may be related to this Hanukkah strip, which shows Nomes onducting a cultural celebration somewhere where they are a persecuted minority living in hiding. Ace and Diamond come to a plain, unmarked door in a wall, which Ace says people must only come to if they are already welcome there. It opens before them. Frederick tells Anushka that he ended up taking over running his "Spire" and training his successor (Sylvester) because the official leader (Willoughby) was no good at it. Willoughby died in the Noodle Incident, which the Spire folk haven't heard about. Frederick says he would have thought everyone to the ends of the known world would have heard of it, and this leads to a discussion of an island called Solla Sollew, which Svetlana says is the island at the farthest edge of the Revealed World, and which Frederick says an explorer described as "alive and burning". Anushka says that Solla Sollew isn't the farthest place from the Spires, just hard to reach because of magic-storms from the Glow Confection mountain range: the farthest point is the Biloka Penninsula on the far side of the Deep Southeastern Jungles. Frederick does not know why the town of Noodle is called Noodle, but the Noodle Incident is the most interesting thing that ever happened there. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the local fishermen. Tom is unmarried but has a thing going with Gretta Weed. It's OK for Mansionites other than the Earl to hang out in the local pub. Sylvester goes to collect post from Mr Gray. Mortimer's party, discussing Stiflebloom, pass what looks like a dead Spyder. Fizmo left their village because Nome girls were being encouraged to get pregnant instead of taking Stiflebloom. She and Kulkad went down into the Hot Zone in suits. She couldn't see much through the helmet, and can't really describe what they were monitoring. Mortimer says Sylvester will want to know, and Nitfol should want to know too if he's going to be a leader, so Fizmo says the thing they were watching was a sort of stone growth. Ace and Diamond pass two guards, and climb stairs to visit a Mr Shadwell. Ace fusses about the lack of a handrail, and Diamond says he reminds her of Algernon Jones, the hero of Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. At the top of the stairs, they find Mr Shadwell seated dead at his desk, with some kind of wound on his chest. Frederick wasn't present at the Noodle Incident and didn't hear about it till days later, because they didn't have a Sparkwire - a telegraph system. Sparkwire operators seem to be all women, who wear antennae like the ones the Spire people wear, although in the Spires they signify citizenship. The Spire ones seem to be implants - at least, they're not just attached to a band like the ones worn by Sparkwire operatives. In Noodle there is a museum about the Incident. In the Spires, Solovyov Spire is all museums, but some can only be visited by people with a high security clearance. While Sylvester is talking to Mr Gray, some village children ask Rosemary how she, Sylvester and Mortimer got out of the inn without anybody seeing them go. She says they used a one-time magic door. [Cut to Cap'n Hamster, talking to a sentient sea plant about the fact that his parents told him that somewhere across the waves there would by a pirate girl for him, and he will search till he finds her.] Fizmo tells Mortimer that when she was down in the Hot Zone, she had a button to push (and then run away) if the thing she was watching started to move. Technology doesn't work well down there, which was why they needed live watchers, but the button was shielded. Fizmo says she saw a rock grow legs and walk. Nitfol asked if it talked - she says no. Nitfol is not surprised, because he has heard stories from when Nomes used to mine down close to the Hot Zone. Diamond says she will pay Ace (who seems to be some kind of bodyguard, like Rosemary) to help her get away from the town, as she was Shadwell's "little mascot" and probably won't surive him for long if she stays. Ace agrees on condition that she doesn't lie to him, and that she tells him where the thing he came to collect is. She opens a wall safe and gives Ace sort of snow globe thing with a figure in it - a long-robed figure juggling the letter 007. Frederick has never been to the Noodle museum, but has heard testimony he trusts. Svetlana is worried about something, tells him "Negative", then looks warily at the walls and says it's nothing. Frederick says Willoughby set off some kind of chain reaction which badly damaged much of Noodle, but no-one except Willoughby died. The incident happened in part because of poor maintenance in Noodle, but that part of the story was hushed up. Mr Gray is concerned that there may be things which, unofficially, Sylvester should tell him about. They have a verbal skirmish in which Sylvester avoids telling him anything. He collects his post, rejoins Rosemary and says it may have been a tactical error for Mortimer to let people see that his umbrellla could be used as a weapon - which suggests Mr Gray is a government agent. Nitfol says that one of his ancestors, Nikmo, found a talking rock in the deeps, although most of the records of what it said were lost. Nikmo brought the rock home to the surface, but it stopped talking and he was ridiculed for saying it had. Family history says Nikmo later snuck the rock back into the deeps and it came back to life. He told his daughter Margi about it. Margi became a famous adventuress and had a son, Jindak. Margi told Jindakk that she thought Nikmo went back later to visit the rock, but she herself could never find it. Mortimer asks about the surviving records of what the rock said, and Nitfol says that the rock said it had been broken off from a larger boulder during a natural upheaval. We see Violet sneaking past behind Terin Flem, who is still keeping a lookout. She walks to the Mansion's gardens, where she startles Nellie Grubb, the gardener. Ace tells Diamond to place another globe, called a Zoinkglobe, into the safe. He had arranged to give Mr Shadwell this one in return for the one with the juggler, and now Shadwell's heirs can have it. He tells Diamond not to steal stuff from the safe unless they need it to survive, so she takes a small plaque with Shadwell's sigil on it, used to show that the bearer is in his favour. Ace comments that Louis and Buddy, the security guards, had let him up there with a spear, and may be part of whatever is going on. We return to the Spires, with a detour to a Smyt version of Spiderman - Spyder Smyt - to commemorate the death of Stan Lee. Frederick is talking about the official enquiry into the Noodle Incident. The Spires have official enquiries too - Svetlana says "Except when conditioned by circumstances", Frederick replies "Like when a gal happens to be carrying a big needle?" and Anushka says they don't talk about that here. Frederick says that what he has said came from his own experience, not from Svetlana. He says that Willoughby was scapegoated (although he really was somewhat to blame) - then a woman named Snegurka arrives with a file which was requested earlier (presumably the one on Spindizzies). Part Seven: Seats of Power [19/11/2018 - present] 01: Flight [19/11/2018 - 04/02/2019] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Eetown, discussing whether or not Mortimer will do anything illegal with his umbrella, for a given value of "illegal". Some countries encourage magic, some ban it, but Yurpsland has no unified policy. Mortimer and his party come to a barrier of webbing which marks the edge of Spyder territory. They cut through but are left rather gummed up: Fizmo wants Nitfol to ban Spyders when he is mayor. They begin to pass scattered fragments of ruined stone walls. Nitfol and Fizmo have not been this way before - their parents' and previous generations sometimes journeyed to the Thicket to collect special plants, but the mortality rate was high. Nitfol has more confidence in their safety now because they have the three Pales with them - but suddenly, somebody in the trees starts to throw rocks at them. Nellie tells Violet that being there, at the Mansion, isn't safe. Violet tells her her mother wants to marry her to someone called Tim Tonbee who is above her social status, in order to advance her. Violet thinks this is foolish, both because Tim will want to marry a girl of his own class, and because the life of an aristocratic housewife is not much better than that of a working class one. She's an expert inkwrangler, but girls aren't allowed to work on the rigs because it's thought they'll bring bad luck, and they aren't allowed to work in The Barn (where she currently inkwrangles) after they marry. She doesn't want to join the Navy because she doesn't want to kill people, and she can't be an Oracle because she doesn't hear the Brush in her heart. She doesn't fancy clerking. Ace and Diamond walk out past the guards Louis and Buddy, telling them Mr Shadwell deos not wish to be disturbed. Louis and Buddy wonder why Ace (a professional guard) gave them a disappointed look as he left. On their way out Ace and Diamond are accosted by two more serious-looking men, called Mr Stirscrim and Trymund, who ask who Ace is. Trymund says he's probably the Mundiv rep. Ace (whose mother is a Mundivagant) says that Dalton Mundivagant sent him. Snegurka hands the file to Anushka, and seems disturbed by the fact that Frederick thanks her. Anushka hands the file to Frederick, but won't tell him who authorised her to give it to anyone who asked about Spindizzies. Frederick and Svetlana prepare to leave, but he pauses and asks Anushka if she is married and has children (yes to both). Mortimer's party are being bombarded with rocks by a group of Tree Squids. Mortimer and the Nomes take cover in the long grass, but Nitfol says the Pales can take care of themselves. One of the Nomes, unspecified, says they need Umboz, the Squid-Coaxer, but Nitfol says these are different from the village squids. We see a brief scene of Umboz, Vezza and Piu getting on very well with the Pales at their hive. Piu seems to be learning new techniques from a Pale doctor, and Vezza and Zpeaker are looking at a device which looks like an organic version of an Ettin tool. The rocks stop coming because Thrash has knocked the Tree Squids out of their trees. Violet tells Nellie she wants to be her apprentice gardener. Nellie is dumbstruck. She tells Violet that she isn't getting paid because she is officially retired, but Violet says the next one will be paid. She listens out for news, and knows Sylvester has been making money on stocks and will soon need new staff, as the old guard get ever older. Nellie warns Violet again that the Mansion isn't safe and her parents would never agree to her working there, but Violet says she will leave home when she comes of age. Mr Stirscrim and Trymund wonder why Shadwell sent them to Rowade if the swap was happening today (sounds like somebody got them out of the way). Ace and Diamond say they made the swap and "didn't hear any complaints". Diamond shows Stirscrim the pass with Shadwell's sigil and he lets them pass, but he is still uneasy. Diamond tells Ace privately that Shadwell's habit was to foster rivalry among his troops, but when Stirscrim and Trymund do work together they have a fair amount of clout. She doesn't know which would come out on top if they fought. Ace asks her to show him the subtlest way out. Anushka says her kids turned out OK "for the most part". Frederick regrets not having children of his own. His nephew Willoughby became his foster son but he died. He tried again with Willoughby's children and they too mostly turned out OK (we see that he is doubtful about Mortimer and Lenore) and with other kids who came around (we see a girl with long curly hair looking at his Fugehorn). He tells Anushka to tell her kids she loves them and give them the advice she wants to give them, because there might not be a next time. Svetlana looks stressed. She and Frederick leave and we see Snegurka come to make sure Anushka has heard an urgent debriefing summons. Anushka says she has, and calls Snegurka "ninnyhammer". Thrash jumps down from the trees to rejoin the other two Pales. A hail of rocks follows but it begins to die down and the Pales look puzzled. 02: Entangled [05/02/2018 - 03/05/2019] Mortimer and the two Nomes wonder nervously what will happen if the Pales don't return from squid-chasing. The scene switches to the Pale camp, where Zpeaker is telling Vezza how the Pales grow their tools. [Out-take - we see Nimue in her orchard, alive and well and growing oranges, but the scene is partly greyed out because there is so little magic in Abalone. After this Rob provided a whole sequence of four strips on Rosemary going on a blind date, and said that it was canonical, but as it is set at some indefinite time in the future I've left it in the Supplementary Art section. It does show us that the Mansion has a set Portal Point for people to teleport through.] Nellie tells Violet to go home for now, not to wander off the path, and she will discuss with Amos and "His Grace" the possibility of taking her on as an apprentice. Ace and Diamond go through a small door marked "Nome" into an underground complex (with rats) where Ace has to walk bent over. They are briefly accosted by a male Nome, a sort of steeplejack named Uffer whjo works in "The Heights", but they ignore him. Svetlana still looks stressed. She starts to tell Frederick he must do something, when another woman named Idita comes to re-dress Svetlana in clothing suited to a higher rank, if she is going to escort Frederick. Svetlana looks even less happy. She is taken to a booth, where an ironic-looking woman named Alena whom she knows from school or college is assisting. The Pales rejoin Mortimer and the Nomes, but the Tree-Squid are still throwing stones at them. Mortimer doesn't want to use magic again and Nitfol agrees, so they set off into the brambles under Nitfol's command, using the Pales' sickles to cut through. Nitfol is looking more and more like a leader. Eventually they come to a giant, pink, glowing, three-pronged crystal set in a base: Mortimer says it marks the start of the Thicket. We cut to Rosemary and Sylvester, walking away from the town at a dignified pace they have to maintain until they pass Terin. Rosemary asks why the provincial flag is the E symbol, given that Audra played down her history. It may have had something to do with taxes, and been picked because goods with the E stamp were so widespread in the area - we see that they sold self-sealing stem bolts. Ace and Diamond run into more Nomes, led by a very hostile older man called Roquat. He tells Ace to get out - Ace moves Diamond aside and says he'll get out when Roquat gets out of the way. Roquat draws a knife, so Ace knocks him and his companions down. As Ace and Diamond leave, one of the downed Nomes warns Ace that Diamond will stab him in the back. Svetlana and Idita enter the booth, while Alena, who has a weapon with a rotating blade, stands guard. She and Frederick engage in mild banter, although she says he's a disruptive influence. Fizmo asks Mortimer why humans built the Thicket, and he says the Ettins built it. Fizmo has never heard of them. Mortimer asks if the others have. Nitfol has heard stories of The Earl fighting a two-headed giant called Ettin (real Ettins had one head but two brains). Thrash indicates that this is untrue and that he knows about real Ettins. Sylvester gives them a brief history lesson and says he doesn't know why they built the Thicket, and that they are probably already too close to it - in the distance we can see a jumble of the giant glowy pink shards. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the flag of Moonin, which shows the ancient towers called the Beacons, but some people would prefer a lobster. The islands in that area have always fought, but a leader named Wirtanen who had a lobster flag briefly united the islands, but he didn't rule the deep landsiders who have their own flags. Rosemary agrees that the current, Beacon flag is boring, but doens't care otherwise. They reach Terin. Diamond is glad Ace didn't kill anyone, even though she's willing to kill if necessary. She has something she needs to do which she says will be fine so long as there isn't a Backwash. This is a wave of magical power which surges out from the Infernal Engine, which extends underground and moves at a rate of a few centimetres a year. Where they are, it used to be, and it has left part of itself in place as it moved on, so they are still to some extent inside it. The Heights are jumbles of high beams left behind by the Engine, which occasionally generate magical items, which Highscalers like Uffer collect. Frederick and Alena discuss the fact that clothes in the Spires are designed by a committee, while in Yurpsland they are mostly designed by a particular married couple. 03: No Turning Back [06/05/2018 - present] Mortimer's party progress, keeping together. Mortimer, being taller, can see a large, distant rock which he thinks is near the Panegate. Nitfol says one direction is as good as another, and Mortimer says the direction of the Thicket (the jumble of crystals) is bad. Saturdays in the Basement [03/05/2014 - present] These strips run every Saturday and show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with what's happening above ground to Rosemary and co.. I decided to split them off onto a separate page to make the action easier to follow. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nests [03/05/2014 - 08/08/2015] The scene opens with a cavern on the wall of which is a cross between a set of bunk-beds and two layers of miniature, open-fronted rooms, made from wooden beams. These are labelled with the names of a group of female Gnoll warren-mates - Hiltsa, Lanwja, Piranom, Pergola, Skuy, Islupis, Ambri and Irnissa. Islupis is not present, or at least not visible, and Ambri is off-stage except for her hand. All we can see of Piranom is her feet (wearing shoes, in odd colours) and the ends of long hair. Hiltsa, who looks very bad-tempered, is throwing stones at the board behind Lawnja's head. Irnissa reports that Skuy and Pergola didn't come home last night. We see Skuy telling Irnissa and Piranom that she is moving to Leny Hall, and that she'll never take a mate because she has a proper job as Sina's assistant. Irnissa intends to stay at home where it's safe. We then see Skuy carrying her belongings past a memorial to the Nome War, and passing the Gnoll security guards Forfind and Findfor and the Ghast soldier Dpxbfo. [Meanwhile in an outtake a female Gnoll named Carmal delivers a pie-in-the-face to Dap, ordered by Tuft to celebrate "their" anniversary - actually the strip's eleventh anniversary. Carmal evidently is some kind of courier or perhaps a Kissogram girl.] Hamble and Squeeb discuss Othara. Hamble has thought of killing her to discourage explorers, but decides she is more useful alive: he's waiting for somebody else. ` Meanwhile, we see Wrawa (female Trog) wake from her exhausted sleep. Kottle the (Gnoll) Healer tries to speak to her but she runs off and he sends Maggle (another female Trog) to follow her and keep an eye on her. Maggle is alarmed to see that Wrawa appears to be heading for the Great Chasm, but when Wrawa reaches The Plunge and stands hovering at the edge, and Maggle calls out to her not to do it, Wrawa replies "Don't do what?" and seems not to know where she is. We see that the gap in the fence at the plunge-point originally led not to a sheer fall but to an extensible bridge, which is now tucked in under the lip of the drop. Wrawa says that she can smell something on the breeze and she is the second person to do something, and then says that she is going to prepare something for the people who will follow her and then jumps off the Plunge point in a calm, abstracted way that suggests she knows there's a soft landing below. She lands in the bushes down in the Chasm. She avoids being sucked into the chute, and instead walks along the top of it to the Trog habitat on the far side of the Chasm, where she meets Hamble and Squeeb, who have evidently gone back down there to live even though they may venture elsewhere. Wrawa remembers and likes Hamble from her childhood, and tells him how she has been affected by Rhid's chemicals and by the death of Leny. We see that Rhid himself has ended up in a hospital called the Humane Zone. Hamble warns Wrawa that this place, the deep-down Trog habitat, has an effect on people, but Wrawa seems quite keen on the idea and wants to absorb the atmosphere. She is aware of Hamble's ambitions to return to the world and make his mark; she doesn't intend to oppose him, nor to assist him at this point (and secretly feels that it will make little difference if she does). She goes to sleep, hanging uipside down from the ceiling. We see Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr awake in her sleeping pool, called by a voice of unknown origin. Ploot arrives to check on Urwyn, who has nothing to report, as there has been no activity around the Elevator. Unnoticed by them, a Smyt Sherlock Holems and Watson pass by, stalked or followed by another Smyt. Ploot fills Urwyn on with what's been going on with Sina and the new hall, and two Ghast medics, Vptwbotw and Vpfbotw, arrive with a Porta-Pool to collect their dead. Ploot prepares to drag the dead Gobule, whom he recognizes as one of Guttle's servants, away to Maw. Urwyn thanks Ploot for watching out for him and we are shown that Urwyn's friend Zugo, wearing armour, is also watching from a crack in the wall. Meanwhile the Ghasts wheel their Porta-Pool past various characters in and around Leny Hall. We see the Gnoll Muscod giving a heart-shaped flower to Folla, and two Gobules from Maw's household pushing some kind of large wheel. We see Catmorlo talking to Furphy, Satyrsong peeking at Krink, a Helipath sign-writer, Voog and an unknown female Motihaul. They pass a well where an Ichyoid is drawing water, a male Trog being led on a lead by a female Nome, a JibJib, Frag guarding the entrance to Le Tree and a female Motihaul pushing her eggs in a pram. On the walls are posters warning people about Fixits. In Time Hall they pass an Ooze, a Trog whom we saw before in Bowel Hall, and Pizzle talking to a male Motihaul Candle Monk named Crumpton. Then another Ichyoid at another well, a female Gnoll water-seller named Bujold, and a Fixit information desk, manned by a Boogieman. At the desk are a Gnoll with a flower in his hair whom we have seen before, and an unknown Gobule and male Trog, the Gobule with a bump on his head which suggests that a Fixit has been struck off him, and the Trog carrying a battered hat (not a Fixit, from the look of it). The two Ghast medics take the Porta-Pool to Amorph Hall. The area is still under lockdown, so there is nobody to meet the funeral party except Stirrer Hptwfvth and Apprentice Stirrer Hpthfvx, and a chap called Septwbfn, who pushes a handcart labelled Tangible Karma, and gives the medics a free fungus to compensate them for having had to go near the Operator. The two Stirrers place the Porta-Pool on a mark on the floor and a strange, elaborate machine, acquired directly from the SubShafts (not from the SubShaft manager Egrote) and normally cloaked from any notice, descends from the ceiling to hover over the pool and probe or stir the contents and decontaminate the contents. It seems that the SubShafts themselves are sentient but nobody knows for sure: there is a Ghast team studying them. The two Ghast Stirrers Hptwfvth and Hpthfvx bring the Porta-Poll containing the remains of Hpthbvtw - a.k.a. High Pool Third of Batch Three Hundred and Fifty Two - to the pool whence he came, and prepare to stir him back into it, with a ceremonial speech about his memories and dreams being added back into the common pool and into the Official Record. We see this happening. We go back to Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr sleeping in her pool again, and being called again to wake up. It can't be Hpthbvtw who is calling her, since we saw her being called before he was added back into the pool, but it does seem like it's probably the same pool. Some essence of the pool speaks to Hpobfvfr, taking on Hpthbvtw's form, but she objects to that so it becomes her mother Hpobvo instead. The pool, the collective consciousness, approves of Hpobfvfr's willingness to go against convention, and wants the Ghasts to go out and "engage the world", especially now with humans reappearing and the Sneeches leaving. The pool consciouisness explains to Hpobfvfr that their world, the Basement, runs on machinery behind the walls which is powered by Sneech squeezings, and without the Sneeches it's already beginning to fail. It wants Hpobfvfr to go talk to the humans, who may have useful information. She is quite keen to talk to Mortimer again. Saturdays in the Basement :: Tests [15/08/2015 - 26/03/2016] We see Shabash, one of the female Gnolls who shot at Agorn by mistake for Boromir, walking nervously through a dark place, scaring away a Doom Bee and a sort of miniature, non-sentient Saur called a Lizhopper. She passes a gap in the wall through which we see Maggle the Trog running across a lighted space, then Shabash surprises Faddle in the dark. She can smell that Faddle has been in The Place No-One Talks About, which turns out to be the cave where he was taken by and to the female Gnolls in collars, whom he refers to as Placettes. Along with "the usual phizz" they told him that the world was ending in some sense, and gave him a task to perform. Following their accidental attack on Agorn, Fanga and Shabash have split up in order to go to ground: Faddle suspects the Placettes of having engineered this to leave Shabash free to be recruited. They are joined by Carmal, who has been instructed in a vision to come and meet the Placettes' Assigned One. We see the vision in black-and-white flashback, and it looks suspiciously like Frowgler wearing the pumpkin-head costume in which he scared the Nomes. The Placettes have given Faddle three glowgem shapes which have to be inserted into sockets on some important mechanism on an upper level. The three shapes have to be inserted all at the same time into slots which are too far apart for one person to reach them simultaneously, presumably as a safety measure. They are dangerous in some way - possibly radioactive - but Faddle is better able to handle them than "normal" people (perhaps because as a Finagler he's not likely to reproduce), and has been given a backpack with a protective lining to carry them in. On their way, they pass through a "Wintergate" cave which is basically a permanent Hallowe'en display. They have to wear seasonal hats while in the Wintergate cave, and this prompts Carmal to tell Faddle about Fixits. As they reach the edge of the area inhabited by organized Basement society, they meet a Queen Snake named Marsslina, who is an aquaintance of Faddle's. We learn that the Queen Snakes and the Ecadems have some sort of secretive joint society and have their own underground greenhouse for growing food (although Queen Snakes mainly eat tunnel-rats), but their garden has been raided by Biters and so Marsslina is having to forage for a pudding-gourd for their own version of Thanksgiving. After Marsslina has moved on, Faddle says that Queen Snakes prefer to be called Empress Snakes and the three Gnolls discuss the terms Queen, Empress and Emperor. We learn that some Basement dwellers have traditional folklore about an all-powerful ancient Emperor named Ett, who is a fusion/confusion of the Ettins with the three early Earls named Ettric. The Placettes seem to have some kind of government status, since Gnolls just do as they say even if it's dangerous. Faddle reckons he and Shabash and Carmal have been chosen for this particular mission to and beyond the risky Fringes because they're expendable, whereas people like Mimsy and Piranom are too valuable to the Placettes to be risked. Faddle and co. pass through outgrowths of The Tree to reach a chamber full of Ettin machines. They drop the objects they've been carrying into slots on the machines. A human male named Mr Norton (who is really in the Spike with the Fixits, and who might be Rufus under another name) speaks to them through the machines and tells them that these machines are being activated because the technology which depended on Sneech Squeezings will soon fail. Shabash leaves, but Carmal and Faddle agree to perform other tasks for Norton, in exchange for Glowgems. Saturdays in the Basement :: Shabash and Rowbynn [02/04/2016 - 01/07/2017] Shabash gets lost and falls down a shaft at the fringes of the Basement. She lands in a reservoir, whence she is fished out and dumped into a dry service area by a green creature with a lot of tentacles and a long thin neck terminating in just eyes. It appears to be intelligent, since we see it start to fill in the hole in the ceiling through which Shabash fell, and it's using sophisticated tools. It's also holding a frog - who doesn't seem to be Frowgler. A maintenance bot then trundles up behind Shabash and first bonks and then tases her in an effort to get her to leave, seeing her as an intruder. She gets up to go, sees what she has been talking to and is amazed, because she can see it's a Metalmin and she thought all the Metalmins were long dead. The bot tells her it is the property of the Eman family and she doesn't like the idea that something sentient(ish) can be property. She names it Sparky. Sparky tells her to take her queries to "Facilities Manager Elizabeth Merrill" and the sound of the name, combined with the fact that Sparky is good at maths, makes Shabash think the Emans are Eyebolts. Shabash sets off to explore, believing that she can smell Eyebolts, but what she finds is a container garden under artificial lights. Beyond that, she finds Telic the Helipath Healer's surgery, and Crazy Rhid, heavily bandaged and strapped into a hospital bed. Telic turns out to be rather sinister. S/he injects Shabash with a paralysing agent in case she is there to murder hir - a reasonable precaution given her profession - but once she is helpless s/he starts to ruminate out loud about using her as a test subject, a clinical guinea pig. Rhid however talks hir out of it (and incidentally acknowledges both that he is a murderer himself, and that he has some well-intentioned long-term goal) so Telic dumps Shabash out in a corridor and locks the door behind her. Rhid gives Telic permission to experiment on him instead, since he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but cautions hir not to damage him too much - because Digger Odel still has a use for him. Shabash is very collapsed. As she lies on her back, trying to recover from the drug Telic gave her, a male Shallow Wyrm named Rowbynn drops down from somewhere high up and lands on her snout. Rowbynn is studying the quasi-sexual Wyrm process of "Eating", which turns out to be a kind of fusion. The Shallow Wyrm attaches to "Hooks and Trenches" on the skull of a Deep Wyrm - both male, apparently, so perhaps also female to female - and becomes permanently bound in place. The two then form a mental and physical gestalt organism which returns to the Hot Zone and stays there. Rowbynn finds that Shabash too has Hooks and Trenches, of a sort - which, as he acknowledges, raises interesting biological questions - and he is able to form a temporary bond with her which enables them to speak mind to mind, rather as we saw Hax speaking to Camora mind to mind before he took her over. Rowbynn is a member of the inner circle of the Ring of Clear Air, and as such his official rôle is to lie around being pampered and building up his strength in order to compete in some official contest to do with Eating rituals. But he had a lively mind and wanted something more, so he began investigating Shallow Wyrm society and mapping the extent of it through information he could glean while remaining with his own ring, and was surprised by how many and how different the rings were. We see vignettes of Vim, captain of the guard to the hostile Ring of the Uppermost Spire, stalking Sneckdraw the spy, and also of Kryt the observer, observing. Eventually that wasn't enough to satisfy Rowbynn's need for knowledge so he escaped from his minders and went exploring. He suspects that many others have done the same, and we see a vignette of Urwyn. Rowbynn tells Shabash that she will be able to break the link with him if she wants to, but if she lets him stay he can help her with her current lifestyle, and has "advantageous secrets to share". He knows where there are caches of human artefacts and knowledge, located by himself or by other Wyrms, and in return he wants her help in learning more about Fixits. He is very interested in them because the way they take over their "mounts'" minds seems similar to the Eating process. Shabash explains that she has a problem, related to the fact that she and Fanga were retained to assassinate Bromir. Rowbynn is aware of Bromir, who is "the hero of the Tubish Vat incident". Instead they attacked the very similar-looking Agorn, who is on a list of Gnolls who mustn't be killed. The list also includes Agorn's son Furphy, Comshaw, Mimsy, Niddle, Wittol, Swodswal and Catmorlo among others. Rowbynn hadn't known about the list but says something odd is going on with the Gnolls. Shabash went into hiding because she feared Agorn would report her to "some nob" but admits she isn't sure any of them know they are protected, although she expects Agorn to know. Rowbynn says a social facade is being maintained, and we see part of a pair of giant jaws depositing an apple for Agita. He says that an unknown nob or nobs is pushing society, especially the Gnolls, in a particular direction, but he doesn't know what or why. He is investigating out of curiosity rather than a desire to expose the truth. Shabash is hungry so they end the psychic conversation. It took less time than it felt like, but even so a hopeful slime grub is about to bite her ear. Slime grubs are not edible unless fricaseed, so Rowbynn directs her to a branch of the Tree. She has had a tiring and perplexing day, so after she has eaten Rowbynn directs her to a sleeping niche. They establish silent communication and then both fall asleep, and find themselves in a shared dream. Above them they can see the famous Skibble (although we cannot), although he doesn't look as Rowbynn imagined him - Shabash says he wears disguises. The dream becomes ever more bizarre - Rowbynn says Skibble is juggling feral ABOLs. Shabash wants to challenge Skibble with a tesselator, which appears in her hand, but Rowbynn says the Grumpy Pincher ate all the tesselators, twice. Shabash charges, Rowbynn goes to her aid, and Skibble confines them to a tight space for a zillion years "or 'til we bowbing wake up". They flibble. Saturdays in the Basement :: Leny Hall [08/07/2017 - 24/02/2018] We see Pergola the Gnoll, neart Leny Hall, looking at light spilling down from a gap in the ceiling and supporting a tiny fir tree. She has never seen a single tree on its own before, not part of The Tree, and tells Maggle the Trog that a woman called Swinthin had told her about free-standing trees, after she and some others had gone outside to the forest to capture Raviners for breeding, so they could extract Raviner ichor (we see a female Motihaul named Swidnica selling it), but the Raviners got loose and became a pest. Pergola has never dared to above ground herself, even after the tunnel was put in, because of the scary stories (in her imagination Nomes seem as scary as Spyders and Tree-Squids) and because it all seemed overwhelming. She loves plants and manages to nurture a few with artificial light, but she thinks if she saw plants growing freely in the sun and rain she would stay up there and never come home. Maggle has been to the doorway and only saw clouds and rain and too much light which hurt her eyes, but she is willing to go out with Pergola and guide her back. Pergola asks Maggle to tell Sina about the tree and the gap to the outside which they could work on to make their own exit - and which forest creatures can enter through. Maggle says Sina is very busy - we see Maggle talking to a female Eyebolt secretary - and that Sina and Sprocket are busy talking to Spindizzies. Maggle hasn't been to see the Spindizzies because she has no particular questions to ask them, even though she spends a lot of time exploring. She does it for fun, and often gets into trouble - she's not driven like Pergola. Pergola grew up on a fungus farm but became more interested in the weeds. Maggle works on a farm at times, to earn money when she gets bored with eating fungi and slime grubs. Most people can't eat them, but Maggle is a darkpelter Trog and is special. Darkpelters only crop up occasionally and randomly. They are resistant to poisons, and more likely to pair up with Nomes (although Maggle has her eye on a fellow Trog). Because of her resistance to toxins she helped to eradicate a dangerous plant called a jab-bramble which has harmful uses - we see a flash of Rhid doing something sinister with a ball of something. They meet up with Finimbrun, who is carrying a large domino, maybe 10" long. Rhid had left a set scattered around, and Finimbrun doesn't know what they are or whether they are dangerous or not. Pergola is wary of devices but Finimbrun thinks she's a hypocrite, because plants are just as dangerous and she was involved with the Crudbean, or at least knew Crud. She and Crud had neigbouring plots. He was sad after the death of his wife, and had a lot of equipment which was being funded by somebody else. She was nearby when the Crudbean erupted, but so were many other people. Comshaw interviewed her and then killed the Crudbean with one of Rhid's devices, and Pergola profited because souvenir hunters bought all her plants in the hope that they had been contaminated with traces of Crudbean, although it still wasn't enough for her to get her own place. Finimbrun lives with Kashkavala, who is an animal expert and food technician. We see her talking to a tunnel-rat called Snert. Timf calls Pergola to come and sort out some blorp plants, so she goes off, leaving Maggle looking warily at a flickering light. There is an odd little scene where Tuft the Gobule and Dap the Gnoll are agreeing that some large-scale thing has gone wrong, but Dap can't be arsed to find out what. Of to the side of them we see a machine that seems to be flaring off gas. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nitid the Helipath [03/03/2018 - present] We see Nitid the artist and Flange the engineer, both Helipaths, talking. Flange, who is working on a junction box, is on his own because Sprocket the Gnoll has gone off courting with Sina, which Helipaths consider very inefficient. There are a lot of wiring problems at the moment - Nitid wonders if this is to do with the previous day, which the Observatory staff say was The Day That Changed Everything, but Flange is skeptical. S/he and Sprocket did some work at the Observatory and were not impressed by their record-keeping. [Out-take: we see an elderly male Gnoll named Skritch fishing, to commemorate the death of Patrick McManus.] Nitid asks Flange if s/he recognises a particular symbol. Flange says if it were rotated it would become a symbol important to Humans (it's a fancy capital E). Flange is inclined to believe that Humans still exist. Flange goes off to do more engineering work, and Nitid goes to the Time Hall, where s/he talks to a female Ecadem named Fyke. Fyke is sad because yesterday a male Ecadem named Smyth, who was working as a bouncer, died in the fight at Le Tree, without ever having found a mate, and there are so few Ecadems left. His friends had tried to talk him out of taking such a dangerous job, as Ecadems are fragile. Fyke has her name painted on her side, which Nitid refreshes for her for free. It has something to do with the worship of the Brush and bearing witness in some way. The sect to which Fyke, who is a bit of a fanatic, belongs believe that there are holy Emissaries living behind the sun, and that the sun turns into the moon at night, covered with mysterious runes. The moon must not be breached but the sun should be, and a Jibjib named Speedy tried to fly to the sun to do this, but fell back exhausted. Fyke thinks they should build a tower to reach the sun, using the Mansion as a base. She thinks the Council will do this sort of thing; Nitid supported the sending of a Helipath named Aprat to join the Council but believes it won't achieve much because Agita, Nevus and Guttle will thwart it. A Boogieman named Trevor summons Fyke away to help deal with a situation. Nitid enters the Hall of the Brush, monitored by a female Eyebolt named Evulgate, who reports to a male ditto named Fremescent. Evulgate is collecting credits awarded to her for sharp observation, but needs another 23 credits before she will even be told what events are credit-worthy. In the Hall of the Brush, Nitid speaks to an elderly-looking Gobule priest named Kalon. Nitid isn't really sure why s/he came: Kalon goes through a list of possibilities and they decide that Nitid feels alienated from hir community. S/he does not want to talk to Nefast, a Helipath who is an Ear of the Brush, so Kalon suggests s/he should talk to Febrifuge. Febrifuge is somebody who keeps a record of favours owed, as a kind of currency, but that's not why Kalon thinks Nitid should speak to him or her. The Hall of the Brush is full of different sects. We see a male Trog holding a flower in a pot, wearing a flower on his head and declaring that "The Bloom is Eternal" to a Gnoll Doomsayer who says that "The End if Nigh", and a male Motihaul in a hooded robe debating theology with a Gnoll Beebler. At Febrifuge's door Nitid meets Shona, who has come to deposit a favour to return the one done her by Comshaw and Niddle the day before. A male Gnoll, a Spelling Guild member, OKs Nitid's spelling of hir own name on hir own forehad. The Guildsman then goes and shouts at two Doomsayers who have spelled their placards wrong. Meanwhile Pizzle turns up and asks Nitid to exchange one seed for another, which Nitid does. Tiny flags pass by low down in the frame, and the Gnoll Irnissa appears with two plants in a pot, and says that the League of Short People are on the march. Irnissa is just there to deliver plants, and assumes Nitid is also there as a professional. They discuss Leny Hall - Irnissa thinks anyone going near Crazy Rhid's old place is crazy themselves - and a male Motihaul in a lurid superhero costume passes them, carrying a alrge grasshopper impaled on a fork. Shone is in with Febrifuge, depositing favours she owes to Comshaw and Niddle. Irnissa considers Niddle far more impressive than Comshaw and says he's changing the world through his Finagling, although she herself only "fools around" and doesn't mate (only couples with a Finagler have young). She thinks Comshaw married Camora for her money. Sundays in the SubShafts [03/09/2006 - present] The timeline of the SubShaft 44f strips is confusing. The series is used as a foil for seasonal gags about e.g. Hallowe'en but given how short-lived Gnolls are, the jokes for a given season are certainly not taking place annually within the story, and the strip for 25th March 2012 and comments by Rob confirm that these events are happening roughly parallel with events in the main strip, meaning that up until 16th July 2013 they take place during the course of a single day. This means that one has to explain how come Cully ends up in possession of a device called the Zorper which is also being passed around among the characters in the main story. Because the SubShafts series is so long that it causes loading problems if displayed on a single page, I have split it into sections, but these are mine rather than Rob's. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors. A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle. Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God. We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out). We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights. While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm. Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets. A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully. A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant. Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie. Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders. They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out. We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere). They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire. The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional. Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus. They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for. The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie. Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate. We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit. While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there. Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears. Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it. Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus. Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do. The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now. In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature. Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God. She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too. Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it. Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function. Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts. Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future. Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute. Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires. Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come. Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage. Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports. The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself. We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one. Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer. As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe. Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected. Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded. The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life. It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side. Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit. Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance. Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator. Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct. The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room. They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch. Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used. We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind. We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf. We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly. In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings. Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears. Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor. Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar. They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt. Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free. The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did. They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation. We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow. Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers. Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower. A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off. We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva. Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood. As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things. They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting. 3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question. They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up. Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it. Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride. They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station". Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive. First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it. The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls. Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches. I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva. Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong. She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake. Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches. Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does. Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list. They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come. Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight. Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure. They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger. They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about. She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately. Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying. SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based. Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed. Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth. Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend.. For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair. At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner. Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world. To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep. On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub. For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise. For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell. For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt. A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives. On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible. Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet". Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion. A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page. Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else. If you are seeing this text, your browser does not support inline frames
01: The New Arrival [16/07/2003 - 13/08/2003] Sylvester Eman, 23rd Earl of E, is seen performing rituals to keep the family home, the Mansion of E, healthy - one of the results of which is that many disembodied eyes appear, looking out of a picture frame, which is a new thing Sylvester finds alarming. His brother Mortimer brings home a professional bodyguard named Rosemary Ripley to the Mansion: while they are getting introduced, a slavering monster called a Dornbeast appears, half T. rex and half squid, which leads Sylvester to assume Mortimer has left the door to the basement open. Rosemary kills the Dornbeast with a vase, and the brothers cook and eat part of it. The rest is rendered down for parts in a machine made by Ludwig, the 18th Earl, and those organs which can't be used will be sold to Old Man Larssen in the village (later a major character).
Rosemary is astonished by the luxury of being given a guest room with its own bath and writing desk and an actual flush toilet (and, for no obvious reason, a picture of a skunk in a tutu), but puts off writing to her Aunt Eva because she finds it difficult to admit to what she's done. We will later learn that she has gone AWOL from a respected security firm called Hack 'n' Slash, but for the moment we just see that she is a thief and fugitive who has travelled a long way by some mysterious means which have resulted in her not knowing where on the continent she is.
We see that events are being monitored on a bank of screens by a white-haired figure in a chair. The screens show events we have already seen from Rosemary's arrival, and also what we will later learn is a female Gnoll (possibly Mimsy); the Great Chasm; the Elevator; the Scary Lady (Sylvester's great-great-aunt) with a stack of crockery balanced on one hand; and Arthur the Weirdo operating a sinister-looking bird puppet while being watched by a Smyt.
The next morning, Rosemary starts a clear-out and tidy of the Mansion. She tells the brothers to remove an amphibious beaver shark from the Mansion's wading pool. Sylvester (who claims to hate animals, his only unlikeable characteristic) tells Mortimer to do it: Mortimer tries, and it chases him. Rosemary measures the windows for heavy shutters. Sylvester takes her to a high tower and shows her the view: they discuss the fact that the Earls of E used to own all the countryside around, until the 20th Earl, Philbert, spent all their money on philanthropic projects.
02: In Storage [14/08/2003 - 12/09/2003] Mortimer is still being chased by the shark. Rosemary decides to set up a system for pouring boiling oil on intruders, and persuades Sylvester to go along with this on the grounds that it will repel bill collectors and salesmen. She and Sylvester go in search of a suitable large pot, but the Pots Room is down in the basement where the Dornbeast came from, so they will require special equipment. While they are assembling the equipment they will need, we see various other storage areas (some of them very odd), and meet Sylvester's great-great-uncle Frederick and his partner (a.k.a. The Scary Lady) and their neighbour Amos Grubb. Frederick and the Grubbs do not get on. He and the Scary Lady are incredulous at the idea of Sylvester with a girl.
We see an ancient device which is ticking down towards zero - Sylvester plans to be out of the area when it hits zero. Rosemary tries to meddle with it, and it shocks her. We also see an enormous pot which was a relic sacred to the Mansion of S, captured and brought home by Angus, 16th Earl of E - there is a suggestion that E may have destroyed S conclusively. The pot is so large that the room had to be built around it. The pots they want are in the basement, so they have to collect mining helmets and other equipment such as a backpack for Sylvester and a sword and shield for Rosemary. Sylvester points out that they are going into great danger and that they could just buy a pot at a chain-store called World o' Pots in the local village - but neither of them has any money.
Still being chased by the shark, Mortimer flees to the forest, where his flight is watched by two male Nomes sitting on a branch. The Gnoll community leader Comshaw tracks the Dornbeast to the mansion, learns of its fate from Rosemary and Sylvester and is disturbed and frightened: using a kind of organic telephone called an aurilnode he reports the fact that these dangerous, monster-devouring creatures may be the infamous creatures called "Human" to the basement Council, who claim to already know.
Rosemary is surprised to learn that Gnolls in this area can talk. Meanwhile, believing Humans to be monsters about to invade the basement, Comshaw and his male partner Niddle set out for the forest to see Comshaw's cousin Louch, looking for a refuge, while their female partner Camora goes looking for assistance from a powerful ally. Niddle, we will later learn, is Comshaw and Camora's Finagler, and Comshaw is a "Poker" - a kind of investigator-cum-knight errant who carries a sort of singlestick cum crook.
03: Going Down [15/09/2003 - 31/10/2003] We learn that there are dangeorus creatures called Sneeches in the basement, and two ways down there from the mansion - one which leads through Sneech territory and across the Great Chasm, and one which involves an equally dangerous lift/elevator. The entrance to Sneech territory is via an arch with a devil-mask over it: through the arch can be seen flames and spikes and the shadowy figure of an Ichyoid. The elevator looks like a normal machine.
Comshaw and Niddle head for the forest along an underground passage, accompanied by a small yet heavy creature of unknown species called Digger Odel. The passage was dug on the Council's orders to allow for population expansion, with one branch leading up to the Mansion (which is how Comshaw got there) and the other out to the forest. The forest tunnel is guarded by a new guard who previously wouldn't let Digger by. Camora meanwhile seeks aid from the Wyrm mob-leader Nevus but an Eyebolt receptionist called Faldstool and two adult Trog guards say he is unavailable, so she declares she will stop the Humans herself.
Meanwhile Rosemary and Sylvester take the lift down to the basement, but the lift operator is a devil/Demon who is confined to the lift by a curse, and who tries to hypnotize Rosemary, saying she's just what he's been looking for. Sylvester feigns terror and being controlled in order to throw the Operator off the scent and then knocks him out with a cold-iron frying-pan, and Rosemary then kills an adult male Trog with dementia, who tries to eat them as they leave the lift.
We learn about The Weirdo Who Lives in the Attic (a kind of court jester, with a proper Weirdo Guild), who is visiting the Basement, and Rosemary and Sylvester go round a time twistpoint which causes them to see their own recently-past selves. Mortimer avoids a killer tree loaded with weapons and then climbs another tree to get away from the shark, meets a Nome called Nitfol there, and then is grabbed by a giant tree-squid.
04: The Hall of Achievement [01/11/2003 - 22/01/2004] Rosemary and Sylvester come to the Hall of Achievement where they see evidence of the historic successes of the Earls of E - which have become less impressive of late. We learn that the helmet Rosemary is wearing belonged to the self-aggrandising female Earl Audra, and that Sylvester's mother (currently on another continent) is psychic. Due to a misunderstanding Rosemary injures Fern, an intelligent giant carnivorous plant (who we will later learn is sustained by the Tree), but Sylvester is able to heal Fern.
They experiment with a Djinnoscope, a coin-operated device which gives the user whatever they currently most need, so long as the user is Human - if not, it kills them (we will later learn that the non-Human inhabitants of the Basement call this place the Death Hall). Initially the Djinnoscope is covered by an unexplained poster of a giant cogwheel. It gives Rosemary nothing tangible, but when Sylvester tries it it covers them with white paste which makes them look like Ghasts and protects them when they encounter a party of Ghast soldiers, sent by the Council to apprehend the Humans.
Rosemary and Sylvester walk through a tunnel which used to be part of a particle accelerator, and see a giant bottle of wine in which are trapped two Demons called Chauncy and Edgar. Rosemary thumps Sylvester when she learns that his family founded Moe Wines, producer of appallingly bad plonk, although they no longer own it.
The Ghasts, commanded by an officer called Hpthbvtw (Hepthbav), go to the elevator and find the unconscious Operator and the dead Trog. Two Gobules called Gorp and Phiga try to persuade Hpthbvtw to let them eat the Operator.
The beaver shark chops down the tree which Mortimer, Nitfol and the tree-squid are in, and the tree-squid's elastic tentacles first nearly drop Nitfol and Mortimer into a mixed group of three Pales and two Forest Gnolls who we will later learn are Comshaw's cousin Louch and his friend Scrof, then catapult them into the air where they meet Protus the Willigig, a time-traveller, who angrily gives Mortimer a small gadget called the HJ42 while shouting about a witch and her slimy little friend. They then fall and land in a giant Spyder's web.
Comshaw, Niddle and Odel encounter a battle taking place in the forest passage (which winds through the territories of several different groups), and Niddle is unwise enough to tell them that if they've run out of arrows they can chuck rocks. He is badly injured in the crossfire and has to be taken to the Helipath doctor Telic: there is a long queue for Telic's services, including an Ecadem with a damaged tail and a male Nome called Rezrov with his arm in a sling. Camora meets Hax, a hat-shaped creature called s Fixit, riding on a Pale: Hax, who works for "God", buys rabid fleebs (little pyramid-shaped creatures used as currency, a.k.a. triblots) from a Gnoll called Ratch, and Camora asks for help in dealing with the Humans, whom she regards as a great threat.
We learn that Gnolls have brief lives of about ten years, that Digger Odel is thirty, that Comshaw's grandfather Compline was a famous military commander in a war between Gnolls and Nomes, and that the Mansion of E protects the Earl's family, that most of the basement dwellers think Humans are a myth and that the Council have been monitoring and testing the inhabitants of the Mansion above ground to see what they are, and Comshaw has been working on this. Again we see the white-haired watcher observing the action on multiple screens.
05: Le Tree [23/01/2004 - 13/06/2004] Rosemary and Sylvester discover that Nevus has laid claim to the giant Tree which provides life-support to the basement, and has opened a restaurant called Le Tree, selling Treefruit, which is generally available free throughout the basement although the quality varies. Here they meet Protus, who recognises Rosemary. Sylvester argues with the maître d'hôtel, a male Motihaul named Snoot, over whether he or Nevus owns the tree. When the maître d' sends for a Boogieman called Percy to beat Sylvester up, Rosemary intervenes. A serious fight is broken up when Protus pays for lunch, as friends of Protus's are sacrosanct: lunch turns out to be fruit of the Tree, much more delicious than Treefruit usually is and as such potentially addictive. We learn that an army is chasing Rosemary, although they are at least six months' journey away (so she jumped a long distance to get to E).
Gorp and Phiga and several other Gobules (including Mingent, Ningle, Nugent and Chuw), some of whom work for a Gobule mob-leader called Guttle, fight for the right to lick the Operator, and Ningle does so. This causes an explosion in which Hpthbvtw is killed, and dies regretting that he never told the Ghast officer Hpobfvfr how he felt about her. Frederick's partner views the explosion in a sort of electronic crystal ball. Another of the Ghasts, Sepferb, reports to the Council that Humans are really here, and they learn by aurilnode about the explosion, which leads to a fire which threatens to free Chauncy and Edgar. A bucket chain is (dis)organised.
The Council's Ghast soldiers go to Le Tree to arrest the Humans but Snoot, the maître d', resists them. Another Ghast, Hopobefever/Hpobfvfr, works for the Council but distrusts them and she leads her own mixed-species party to Le Tree. Her Wyrm sidekick (who we learn much later is called Tabo) tries to detain Rosemary and Sylvester, but Snoot drugs him with a psychotropic powder.
Telic fixes Niddle up, with a warning that he will crash out later, and Comshaw learns that his mother is working as Telic's assistant. We learn that Comshaw's father was killed and dismembered in the forest, and that Comshaw's mother hates the father's memory. Comshaw, Niddle and Odel pass through some magically-twisted tunnels and Niddle acquires a long crystal (which glows, but which is not the usual star-shape of a glowgem) which is only there some of the time. They meet a Boogieman called Bertrum, and a scruffy Gnoll called Furphy who claims to be not there, and then the tunnel guard, an arrogant Gnoll called Skoil, whom Comshaw defeats in a "poking" (single-stick) contest.
A Trog or Saur monk called Fratch reacts badly to the sight of the group of Camora, Hax and the Pale, declaring that the Evil One has returned. Hax agrees to help Camora "deal with" the Humans on condition he gets to ride on her head: they take up residence in an alcove near Le Tree to spy on Rosemary and Sylvester. Meanwhile the freed Pale runs away and is attacked by rabid fleebs. He falls down onto a ledge by the Great Chasm where a Helipath and a Gnoll (Flange and Sprocket) are working on a machine called Project Y. They have a use for the rabid fleebs and pick them off; we aren't told whether the Pale survives.
The Spyder rejects Mortimer as being less tasty than Nitfol, and throws him out of the web: he lands in the forest and meets a Saur called Snerk. Snerk (who is acting for an employer) and the mob bosses Agita (female Motihaul), Nevus (small male Wyrm) and Guttle (male Gobule) have gathered for an auction for which they have all received mysterious invitations, without knowing what is to be auctioned. It seems to be the HJ42 (making Mortimer the auctioneer, although all he wants to do is find and rescue Nitfol) but when Mortimer presses a button on it it causes a vast flare which makes the sound "ZORP" and dumps him into a timeslip where he meets future!Rosemary, future!Mortimer and a dead enemy. Future!Mortimer is dressed as a wizard, carrying an umbrella and accompanied by a femal Motihaul and a black-haired human girl; future!Rosemary is dressed like a gladiator.
We meet a toadstool-bedecked Gobule called Bung and his friend Faddle, a Gnoll; another Gobule/Gnoll pair called Tuft and Dap; another Gnoll called Clochard, his Helipath friend Nitid who wants to be a comic artist, and a Motihaul called Izchak, who sells weapons. Later we will learn that Faddle has the Finagler talent, but chose not to be one. Bung accidentally eats one of Faddle's possessions so he gives him a toadstool from his back, which Faddle soon learns is in demand, and puts up for auction. A Gnoll called Sina is organising a party for somebody called Catmorlo, complete with birthday cakeshroom, but she gets roped in to organise the bucket chain instead. To get from the well to the fire the chain has to run through the Gnoll mad-scientist Crazy Rhid's cave laboratory. Meanwhile the Gobules Gorp and Phiga steal Sina's cakeshroom from a Ghast who is guarding it, Frederick's partner the Scary Lady goes out and her neighbours Amos and Nellie Grubb discuss it.
Part Two: Time and Space and Fleebs [14/06/2004 - 11/10/2005] 01: An Intermission [14/06/2004 - 06/09/2004] The Weirdo reports on the mansion's creatures and cultures to a shadowy female figure in pointed shoulder-pads and a hood with two floppy little points (possibly a humab in female Motihaul clothes), who comes from the capitol. His report includes Protus the Willigig, who seems to know the Weirdo from the future. He is unable to discuss the Operator, for reasons he cannot tell. Comments are made on the fact that fleebs just sit around and stare. We hear that things "Out West" are going badly, that fleebs are involved somehow and that someone called Tulip, a friend of the Weirdo's, has been killed: also that events at the Mansion are of great importance. They discuss the fact that fleebs from the east turned up in the west at the same time that a woman obviously from the west (Rosemary) turned up in the east, but are interrupted by evidence of surveillance. In the forest tunnel, Comshaw's party encounter the remains of a "Metalmin", a man-shaped robot. After they've gone their presence partly activates it but its head falls off and provokes a small war among some tiny sentient creatures called Smyts and Fuzzes, until the Fuzzes are eaten by a slime grub. A Gnoll called Blit and an Ooze called Noet discuss signs and portents indicating that this may be the day that changes the world, and try to persuade a Ghast called Vipthiboo, who is searching for a Dornbeast pup. Blit and Noet accidentally activate an electronic idol to the god Kaylu which they understand to be an ancient Human artefact, and find the Dornbeast. We learn that Furphy reports to Nevus. Gorp and Phiga report to a battered Gobule elder called Maw, but are pursued by the Ghast Sepferb from whom they stole the cakeshroom. Maw and his squabbling assistants Twiz and Devura return the cakeshroom to Sepferb (who more or less works for the Council but also may be involved in a secret project). We learn that a long time ago Maw ate a Ghast who was some kind of charismatic political troublemaker, and the Ghasts are more grateful than offended. Maw lectures his cohorts about cooperation, but as we cut away to the viewpoint of the unknown watcher, we see them attacked by an unidentified assailant (later named as Nash). The watcher, now identified as male and moustachioed and referred to as the Overseer (or at least an Overseer - we will later learn that he is called Mr Hand), has a sarcastic Metalmin butler called Hector who is in a poor state of repair. The Overseer seems to live on alcohol, especially the low-grade products of the Mansion's former Moe vineyard. A strange octopussy creature with a stalk on its head, called a Scalpsucker, is clinging to the Overseer's face: he peels it off and Hector later deposits it down a chute into a tank where more are being bred. On his way to the chute, Hector passes alcoves containing strange things - a mummified king on a throne, sitting next to a dial saying Yes, No, Cheese (Yes is selected); a strange mechanism plugged into the Tree; and a chained Trog running on a treadmill, trying to grab a lure in the form of a Gnoll doll. As the Scalpsucker crashes down the chute we glimpse a hatted Smyt who seems to have multiple arms like a Hindu deity, or perhaps who is juggling and whirring its two arms so they seem like many, accomapanied by a spider. There is a reference to the Overseer hiring two mechanics to fix a scanner - the same two who were working on Project Y. Inside a hatch on Hector's back is a repair manual in the Overseer's handwriting but which he doesn't remember writing: this may have been forged by Hector who then wiped the memory. The Overseer sends his agents Sprocket (Gnoll) and Flange (Helipath) to get a spare part for Hector from the wrecked Metalmin in the tunnel. Meanwhile we meet some little Sciencebug religious fanatics in tiny space-suits who are trying to cross the Overseer's office to reach the shrine of a beetle-deity called Roshambo (who we will later learn is a character in a comic, along with Frowgler the Horned Frog) without being zapped by a bug-zapper. One is killed in a religious dispute, and some philosophical Smyt monks eat the remains. We learn that long ago the Overseer was friends with a Gnoll called Drax, and that it was the Overseer who was spying on the Weirdo, and wants to find out who his contact from the capitol is. Watching the screens we see that the drugged Wyrm (Tabo) at Le Tree is an old friend of Percy's and they have another friend called Skibble, not present: the screens also show sinister half-seen faces in the dark, probably The Gibber. When the Scalpsucker arrives in the breeding tank and starts mating, the vibrations shake loose a literal Bad Penny, an evil coin, which is then at least partially eaten by little Biters. We see that Hector has a three-eyed robot dog called Nunsuch. Hector wakes a Boogieman whose job is to beat the Middle Gong, which tells Sylvester that the day is half over. 02: The Grand Tour [07/09/2004 - 29/11/2004] Snoot takes Sylvester and Rosemary to meet an Eyebolt called Spatchcock, and on the way he shows them a sort of small menagerie set up by Nevus, with creatures in glass cases. One of the exhibits is an energy being called an ABOL (sentient ball of light), and the others are a large "Tribbletongued" hamster and a sentient house-plant resembling an Ficus. These are cameos from other ComicGenesis comics - the ABOL from Reasoned Cognition, the hamster from Furmentation and the plant from Station V3. Sylvester tells Rosemary that the ABOL is sentient and she touches its case with a view to releasing it, and gets a severe electric shock. After they leave we see that all three exhibits are sentient and the hamster means to escape: he has a set of pirate gear hidden in his cage. Sylvester and co. also pass a strange multi-tentacled thing which looks like a plant which is imitating an insect, with "eyes" which open up like flower-buds to reveal two small sentient creatures resembling Wyrms but attached to the plant at the tail, and called Ahz and Skiv. We later hear this plant-thing called The Growth. We see a group of very regimented Eyebolt clerks, one of whom is arrested for Weirding - which seems to involve the imagination and astral manifestation of imagined objects. We see a young Flutterby (like a very tough dragonfly) fooling around, imitated by a Smyt. A young female Trog called Wrawa recruits two mature male Trogs called Leny and Kronk to assist Sina in persuading Crazy Rhid to let them run the bucket chain through his home/laboratory. The loss of mind by older Trogs is discussed, and friends or acquaintances of Kronk's called Yurd and Hamble are mentioned, who committed suicide by jumping into the Chasm when they felt their minds going. We see Leny try to eat a flutterby but it is, literally, too strong for him - it prises his jaws open and flies off. We learn that while male Trogs invariably develop progressive dementia after reaching full adulthood, 90% of female Trogs just die. The auction for Protus's gadget escalates. We are introduced to SuperSmyt and his unassuming alter-ego. A Wyrm called Yaypo ventures into the Hot Zone. A Wyrm called Gibb hunts talking rocks, not very successfully, and we see a pebble break loose and become sentient. It falls into a deep zone where there are Nome workers in space suits, who are monitoring something to see if it changes. The pebble grows legs and runs away. It gets into the airvents where it is unfazed by pest-control systems. It causes an explosion which in turn causes one of the space-suited workers, a very talkative one, to quit. Comshaw, Digger and Niddle reach the gate that keeps Spyders and tree-squids out of the tunnels. They venture out into the forest, and Niddle is overcome by the sight of the sky. They meet a Saur (who we will later learn is called Buzz and works for a mysterious Boss, probably Frowgler the "real life" horned frog, whom we will meet later) and some Pales. The Saur passes on a message that their world is ending, and about decisions Comshaw will need to make to minimize the damage. 03: The Nome War [30/11/2004 - 10/01/2005] Digger Odel undermines and brings down a killer tree (probably the same one that tried to catch Mortimer), watched by a Nome called Umboz, a squid-coaxer (we learn later that this means he persuades tree-squids to position themselves around his home village to protect it), and his daughter Vezza. Umboz is wrongly credited by other Nomes with killing the tree, and so clearing a path to a neighbouring North Gnoll village. Kayeeb, the local Nome mayor, proposes attacking the Gnoll villagers who are currently occupied with the Pales, and orders Umboz to lead the expedition. Umboz, fearing he is being set up because he is a political dissident, flees with Vezza. Umboz tells Vezza about a war between mining Nomes and Gnolls in the basement several generations ago. Overcrowding frayed everybody's tempers, and then there was an explosion in a Nome mine which was attributed to the Gnolls, although it was really set off by a "monster" or Demon (who was probably a Human - in fact, almost certainly Mortimer, as he has referred to himself as having done something in the past which annoyed a lot of Nomes). The Nomes attacked the Gnolls in retaliation and the Operator stoked the war by handing out weapons. The Nomes lost the war because they had a hereditary leader called Zabern who wasn't much good. The Gnoll leader was Compline, who had survived serious childhood injuries and had been persuaded to lead the Gnoll army by his mate Caytid. Caytid was able to use magic, as both Gnolls and Nomes had been able to do in the distant past, and she brought other female Gnolls into the war as archers. A few mining Nomes were given refuge underground with other species but most ended up fleeing the basement and living in the forest alongside the forest Gnolls. The Nomes who fled to the forest were helped by the Pales there, but then some of the very alien Sneeches emerged in between the enemy lines. Both sides disengaged and fled, blocking off that part of the basement where the Sneeches were by plugging the tunnels to the forest on one side, and pulling down all but one of the Human-made bridges across an underground chasm on the other, trapping the Sneeches in a narrow zone. [This is why the Council had to make a new tunnel from their side of the basement to the forest.] Pales sometimes sneek back down through Sneech territory and across the one remaining bridge to trade, but they don't always make it back alive. Umboz says that unlike all the other intelligent species, "Sneeches aren't people". Zabern was succeeded as Nome leader by his brother Gizgum, who was quite good at it, but rule then passed to Gizgum's son Tinsot and grandson Kaleeb, who weren't. Vezza, whose mother is dead, advises her father to marry a female Nome called Piu, who pretends to hate him but secretly likes him. At this point they are interrupted by a battered Nitfol and two Pales. Nitfol tells Umboz and Vezza to come with him, but agrees to pick up Piu on the way as well, in case the Mayor persecutes her for her connection with Umboz. 04: CROSSOVER: The Zayfaring Stranger [13/01/2005 - 15/03/2005] A Human man called Zay, who is dimension-hopping to try to find a lost friend called Phil, crashes through a dimension gate into the Mansion. Frederick's partner The Scary Lady takes Zay to a Panegate, a fixed portal, and sends him on his way: because he is rude, and sneers at her for being kind to a trundlebug, she sends him somewhere difficult and filled with tentacles. While they are walking to the Panegate we get to see some strange bits of the Mansion, including a sort of amusement arcade called Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where the Scary Lady acquires a balloon, and we meet an elderly woman called Prunella (Nellie Grubb, Amos's wife) with whom Frederick was once in love, although another man won her. We hear about the Crash, the sudden loss of magic, which occurred when Prunella was a child - later established as having taken place about fifty years previously. We also hear about an Earl called Ernest who had a sinister or otherwise extreme sense of fun, and we see that Frederick's partner can do at least some magic, enough to modify memory - she makes Prunella forget their meeting. We also see a magical lift-shaft which you levitate up after telling a musical crystal what door you want to get to, and some unspecified creatures (just the eyes in darkness) hiding behind a barred opening in the lift shaft, who call The Scary Lady "the Destroyer" and are there to watch what she does and defend their home from her. The balloon turns out to be strangely significant. Although the Scary Lady lets go of the string and allows it to float off soon after she acquires it, we see at the end that it is sentient, and is following her like a pet. 05: Business Dealings [17/03/2005 - 19/07/2005] We start by seeing the same trundlebug that The Scary Lady saved, as it flees from a predator, falls down a shaft and is swept through the bowels of the mansion to land ultimately on Rosemary's helmet - by which point it has shrunk to less than half its original size, as a result of being teleported by anti-vermin filters. It's supposed to regain its full size after a few minutes, but doesn't quite. We learn that Rosemary was an undercover hired guard for merchant caravans "Out West", pretending to be a travelling juggler while in fact working for a big security firm called Hack 'n Slash. People in the west travel in caravans for safety, owing to widespread social disintegration. Snoot, assisted by a Gnoll called Erud, takes Rosemary and Sylvester to see the Eyebolt called Spatchcock, the manager of Le Tree. Spatchcock wants to talk to them because they mentioned paper napkins, and paper is a great rarity in the basement: the restaurant was actually planning to introduce them but this is a great secret so he assumes they are industrial spies. He scans them with his antennae and decides that they are forest Nomes from somewhere near an architectural feature called The Spike, who were sent by a rival restaurant called Le Gnollhole. Sylvester plays along with this, and inadvertently describes the appearance of Comshaw, the only Gnoll he knows, as being that of the Gnoll who sent him. Spatchcock then thinks that Comshaw, and the Council, are spying on Le Tree, which can only add to the tension between the Council faction and Nevus. We learn that the Earl is considered to be a "fairytale monster". Snoot, who knows the two are Humans, spies on part of this conversation, then goes to the Growth and extracts from it a small, stroppy Wyrm called Squeeb, Nevus's brother in law, who is studying Ahz and Skiv. Snoot sets Squeeb to infiltrate Sylvester's backpack and spy on him: Ahz and Skiv are pleased to see Squeeb go. Meanwhile, the Saur Snerk, acting for his employer, wins the bidding for the HJ42. The others give him a head start before they come after him, and he runs for it. Comshaw and Niddle set out rather vaguely to follow the Pales, capturing a small Scalpsucker along the way. They meet a female Gnoll called Shona, the sister of Sina and also Nevus the Wyrm's assistant, who is waiting for the auction to finish so she can give Nevus a message from a Mr Faldstool. Shona is due to marry a mate Snerd and a Finagler Wubb, but she is concerned that Wubb may not be up to the job and her and Snerd's children will grow up delinquent or deranged. Niddle, normally quite vague and submissive, takes charge to give Shona advice about Finagling. We learn that Comshaw had a very clever friend called Boffin, and they were in an accident in which something fell on them, and Boffin died. We see three Pales corner Niddle against a tree. The Trog Wrawa and her adult friends Leny and Kronk discuss a male Trog called Villipend who jumped into the Great Chasm when he felt his mind going, and Kronk says that was a good thing, he's glad Villipend is dead. A friend of Kronk's called Yurd who also jumped is mentioned, and a friend of Leny's called Grum who has gone to visit the forest. Wrawa bullies Tuft and Dap into calling Odum, a male Trog friend of theirs, whom she then recruits to join Sina. Dap seems to have some kind of alarm-switch he can summon help with. Sprocket and Flange reach the wrecked Metalmin in the forest tunnel, and find Skoil, the young Poker whom Comshaw duelled, still lying unconscious or perhaps even dead. 06: Crazy Rhid [22/07/2005 - 23/08/2005] Sina's party encounters Crazy Rhid in the hallway outside his home, carrying an explosive plant-bomb. They discuss why he almost alone among Gnolls wears clothes, and why other species do or don't. We learn that he used to be a Candle Monk, but was kicked out for blowing things up. They are interrupted by a ghost cat (a crossover from another strip). Rid refuses to let them run the bucket chain through his home and when they try to argue he kills Leny with the bomb, and Wrawa then attacks him and causes him to flee, leaving the coast clear. 07: Le Tree Lecture Series [25/08/2005 - 11/10/2005] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Le Tree: as they do so Snoot plants Squeeb in Sylvester's backpack in order to spy on them and find out what they are, but Squeeb is zapped by something he finds in the pack. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the life-support Tree which runs throughout the basement and mansion, providing air, food and light without apparently needing to be fed: Sylvester says it's kept the system going for nine generations and people who attack it come to a bad end. Rosemary finds it rather sinister. They also talk about conditions in the west and we learn that there is a Motihaul Semi-Autonomous Region, and in or near it is a very large, sinister, smoking machine or factory called the Infernal Engine. We also learn that although Ghasts are normally peaceful, there's a colony called Ghastvale where they are murderous to other sentients, and it blocks a mountain pass and forces traders to go through the Motihaul SAR instead. They discuss Sylvester and Mortimer's money-grubbing sister Lenore, and an old flame of Rosemary's called Edwird is mentioned. It's established that Sylvester also has an old flame, not named, and that Mortimer is highly successful with the opposite sex and makes a habit of bringing home strange and dangerous women. They leave the restaurant and walk out into a pitched battle between Nevus's forces and the Council, and a Gobule, one of those who was present then the Operator flamed, warns them about the fire at the elevator. They decide to go the long way back to the mansion, through the Sneech den and past many dangers, rather than face an angry, flaming Operator, and Camora and Hax emerge from their alcove and offer to guide them. Part Three: The Widening Gyre [12/10/2005 - 14/07/2007] 01: Strangers in the Night [12/10/2005 - 19/10/2005] We see the woman to whom the Weirdo, Arthur, was reporting earlier. High up in the Mansion she runs into Protus, who addresses her as Yasmine Fotheringby - we learn she has a strong accent and comes from a place called Shibolith. She asks him the quickest way to get down to the forest so he creates a rupture in space and pushes her through it, causing her to fall out into a ruined building in the forest, close to where Comshaw and Niddle are encountering the Pales. We learn that Protus cannot walk - so the time-machine thing he sits in may be part of him - and that he is working with structures called time pylons, at leach one of which is in the Mansion. 02: Frowgler the Horned Frog [20/10/2005 - 02/11/2005] In the woods Shona meets a talking frog called Frowgler, who possesses horns and a dragonish tail, both retractable. We will learn later that "Frowgler the Horned Frog" is the name of a guru figure in a popular local action comic, along with Roshambo the Warrior-Beetle, whom the Sciencebugs worship. We learn from their conversation that Nomes are able to "tree-warp" in order to create Tardis-like bigger-on-the-inside homes in tree-trunks, and Nevus uses this technology to hide his henchTrogs. Frowgler seems to dislike Nevus, and tells Shona that there's no future in working for Nevus, and she should work for Comshaw instead. He slightly implies that he might be a Demon, which makes Shona nervous: after she has departed to give her message to Nevus, Frowgler regrets having told her his name. He knows the names of her and her sister Sina. 03: Auction Aftermath [03/11/2005 - 20/11/2005] Knowing that the other three bidders at the auction will only allow him a brief head-start, Snerk the Saur flees with the HJ42. Agita is overbearing to Mortimer so he distracts her by kissing her, causing her to recoil in horror. The three fall out: Guttle threatens to eat Agita and Nevus, and Nevus tricks Guttle into trying to eat a booby-trapped bauble created by Crazy Rhid, which ties him up in tendrils. We see a bearded Gnoll, a Gobule with four little tentacles on his head and a blindfolded Trog (we learn later that Trogs are very sensitive to sunlight) spying on the outcome of the auction - they seem to be henchbeings of the three bosses. The Gnoll we will later learn is called Agorn, and works for Agita. Mortimer tries to sneak away, carrying his sack of fleebs, and falls down a hole. Snerk collides with Shona, who is coming with her message for Nevus: the collision sets off the HJ42 again. 04: Good Rhiddence [21/11/2005 - 15/12/2005] Crazy Rhid runs away, and Snerd goes into his home hall to find Sina and get an update. Sina, who has been blinded by a blast, tells him that Leny is dead and the Ghast Sepferb, the same one who retrieved the cakeshroom from Maw's den, is badly hurt. Sina sends a reluctant Snerd to tell the Ghasts so they can bring help for Sepferb, and sends Kronk the Trog to pursue Rhid. Kronk mentions that he was present - a long time ago - when Digger and a Trog named Yurd "saved the world". Noone present knows who Digger is. Sina also sends a Wyrm called Ploot to organise other Wyrms, and a Motihaul called Hiblehoy to help Wrawa dispose of Leny's body, so the Gobules don't eat him. Clochard speaks to a female Motihaul named Nugabela, who has children by Izchak, and has bought Bung's toadstool from Faddle. They see the Candle Monks massing to confront the Evil One and Clochard follows them, hoping for a show. 05: Guidance [16/12/2005 - 03/01/2006] Outside Le Tree, Hax prompts Camora to ask Rosemary and Sylvester to pay her for guiding them: Sylvester pays her with paper, already scribbled on on one side (Rosemary's To Do list) and she is glad to get it. A fountain with toxic fluid is mentioned. Sylvester pretends they are forest Nomes but Hax assures Camora they are Humans: we see a flashback in which Sylvester and the Scary Lady were involved in some trouble in the basement. We learn that the basement dwellers call the Mansion "God's Cactus" and that "God" in this context is not a deity but a wealthy, elderly man. The Candle Monks see the party and proclaim the Evil One: meanwhile in the background we see a heavily armed Gnoll we will later learn is called Hesper. 06: Thrash [05/01/2006 - 18/02/2006] Still carrying the Scalpsucker, Comshaw sets out to track Niddle. As he does so he hears the sound "PROZ" made by the HJ42 firing. He encounters a Saur called Ig who used to know him and his late friend Boffin: Ig tells Comshaw he saw Niddle with a group of Pales, one of whom is called/has the job-title Thrash because he winnows out problems. Thrash has a double head-spike and a pale diagonal stripe across his chest, which may be innate or may be painted on. There is a mention of an Eyebolt called Preznit who is on the basement Council, and wants to save the world. Ig says that Buzz's Boss - presumably Frowgler - appeared on the scene only recently and workes with the Pale government, called the Nexus. Comshaw also learns from Ig that there had been an earlier explosion which went ZORP, so the two were symmetrically matched. Ig and Comshaw come to a mount dotted with bare tree-trunks: the top of this mound is called The Pit, and it normally performs some action which is currently quiescent. They hear a loud click and then a rainbow-striped pillar of magical Fire shoots out of the top of the mound, before switching off with another click. Comshaw guesses Niddle set it off by accident. Ig and Comshaw discuss some aspects of Pale culture, especially the carrying of flags with mysterious holes in, and we learn that in the past Comshaw, in his rôle as Poker, "brought down" a pair of rogue Trogs called the Raver brothers, and killed Crudbean - a sort of Triffid accidentally created by Crud, one of the protagonists in Sundays in SubShaft 44f. They find Niddle and the Pales, who had been knocked over by the Fire blast. Comshaw gets their attention by throwing the Scalpsucker at them, but is amazed to find how unimpressed by him Thrash is. The Scalpsucker gets flung into the forest. 07: The Hole Thing [20/02/2006 - 01/04/2006] Mortimer, still looking for Nitfol, finds himself at the bottom of a deep, crumbling pit created by the HJ42 blast. This sort of thing evidently happens to him a lot. A mongoose-like creature called a Tunnelrat and a thing like a small eyeless Saur, called a Lurker, try to attack him but end up fighting each other. He asks a friendly female Scalpsucker to go for help, but then a small landslide reveals a door and he and the Scalpsucker go through it. They find themselves in the basement storage-area of a pre-Crash branch of a Walmart-like superstore called World o' Pots, where Mortimer, still clutching his sack of fleebs, upends a crate of sphagnum dust over himself. There they encounter a scary-looking but well-meaning and slightly malfunctioning robot which Mortimer is able to semi-control by involking a "herediscan" which shows him to be an Eman, and which showers him with free samples of a fruit-flavoured dessert called Sploo and with little sweets called Yummysticks. Mortimer's brother Rufus then appears on the scene. 08: Sittin' in a Tree [02/04/2006 - 27/04/2006] We see the Nome Umboz calling on his neighbour, a female healer named Piu (the one who Vezza previously said fancied him). Umboz and Piu semi propose to each other. He tells her that Mayor Kayeeb tried to have him killed, and she decides to run away with him - but is alarmed when he tells her that they two, plus Vezza and Nitfol, have all been invited to visit the local Pale hive, sinc Pales are normally very reclusive. As they leave, in the background we see first one of a pot of ornamental carnivorous plants, and then a kind of jelly monster in a bowl, trying and failing to eat a small flutterby. We learn that Nomes live by creating Tardis-like spaces which are entered and exited through neighbouring trees but are bigger than their interiors, and apparently anchored to more than one tree. Piu and Umboz rejoin Nitfol, Vezza and the Pales, and as they set out Comshaw's Scalpsucker lands behind them. 09: Back and Forth [28/04/2006 - 20/05/2006] Propelled by the firing of the HJ42, Snerk the Saur and Shona the Gnoll find themselves fifty years in the past in the local Human city of Eetown three months prior to The Crash. They encounter a young woman called Ilsa with dyed green hair and one with long dark hair who seems to be the Scary Lady when young: they are fighting about the Eman family because the Scary Lady is loyal to the Earl Philbert's brother, Frederick, and Ilsa hates the Earl. The Scary Lady tries to use a magical 'fluence on Shona, but Gnolls are highly resistant to that sort of thing, so she grabs Shona physically and then is transported back to the future with her and Snerk. The Scary Lady tries unsuccessfully to remove her necklace/collar - this coincides with and may be the cause of the eruption of Fire from The Pit. She meets Frowgler and they discuss the collar, which is magical, tied into the power of the mansion and was put on her by Frederick. Frowgler warns her about the Crash about to happen three months ahead in her own time, and that she has to ensure that Frederick and his brother Quincy, Sylvester's future grandfather, survive it in order to preserve causality. She refers to Frowgler as being "dressed like" a horned frog, so she knows him as something else. We learn that she is some sort of dangerous nihilistic being, maybe a demon, whom the young Frederick and a friend summoned and then couldn't banish again, so Frederick used up all his own power to create the collar that controls her. She hated him, yet grew also to love him. Returned to her own time, she co-opts Ilsa to assist her, and we see that a book called The Return of Frowgler is on sale. 10: Candle Monks [28/05/2006 - 09/06/2006] Rosemary, Sylvester, Camora and Hax confront the Candle Monks and we learn that Camora is the "Evil One" - because two weeks previously she accidentally knocked over their Eternal Candle while dodging a rack of lesser candles knocked over by Niddle. Rosemary scares them off by being commanding, but we learn that their theology is fairly sensible - they light candles because they don't like being solely dependent on The Tree for so much, including light. Camora tells the Humans about various religious sects in the Basement, including the Ludwigites, who worship the great scientist Ludwig as an ally against the wicked Earl-monster, apparently without realising either that he was Human or that he was the heir of E and eventually became the 18th Earl himself. We see that the Gnoll Clochard is now tailing them - and that he reports to Digger Odel. 11: Dropping Out [10/06/2006 - 16/07/2006] Camora, Rosemary and Hax go to visit a lavatory (known as a drophole) leaving Sylvester waiting outside. Protus appears to him and says he needs to speak to him in private, and they are not alone (probably because of Squeeb hiding in Sylvester's backpack). He jumps Sylvester to some kind of hyperspace cul-de-sac where Humans can survive, and where Protus goes in order not to be overlooked by his employers (unspecified). We learn that Protus has lost a very valuable object. He needs Sylvester's help to find it because he has special abilities - a Gnoll called Froole or Frodle is mentioned who also has these powers, but not as much, and Mr Hand is mentioned as a nuisance to Protus. Sylvester is able to see images generated by machinery which Protus has set up: he sees Mortimer wearing a pink outfit including a pointy hat and an umbrella, flying hand in hand with a sort of Superwoman figure; he sees Rosemary fighting a woman who is wearing some sort of leather gear and a magic glove; he sees brief images of a male Motihaul, probably Izchak (see below), of Crazy Rhid and of a male Trog in a crown, and mentions that Humans breed Trogs - probably less intelligent ones - for leather. He sees snapshots of various villagers including the local Oracle, Threnody, of Angus's giant pot which is stored in the mansion and of what looks like some Sneech growths, then of an old car (auto). Protus says the car is the thing he's looking for. Protus then sends Sylvester back to outside the drophole, then reappears from further in the future to thank him for his help in recovering the car/auto. Rosemary, Camora and Hax then emerge and Camora can tell by scent that Protus has been there. She mentions that on a previous occasion Protus took Skibble. 12: Bad Rubbish [18/07/2006 - 04/09/2006] Sina (still blind) and her cohorts, including another female Gnoll called Skuy, Wrawa the Trog and Wyrms called Voog and Ploot, demolish Crazy Rhid's hall in case of booby-traps, while the adult male Trog Kronk pursues Rhid himself. Other than booby-traps, however, the hall appears to be empty, so they know there's a workshop elsewhere. Ploot and Voog discuss Wyrm politics - their need for Telic (the healer) and someone called Hesper (who we later find out is a Gnoll armourer) and for Coldzoners generally, a separatist Wyrm politician called Mother Byng and trouble in the Burn Zone and with the sentient Rocks, which may cause them to need Rhid's weapons. Voog is injured by a booby-trap, which causes Sina to have a crisis of nerve about her leadership skills, but Skuy appeals to her desire to impress Comshaw. She leads her troops in setting off traps by throwing rocks, but they fall foul of a pot of Trog Repellant and a mysterious web. Meanwhile, Wrawa and a Motihaul colleague take Leny's body to be rendered down, because he wanted to be useful, and Rhid is seen fleeing past Tuft and Dap. We see Hpobfvfr, accompanied by a sled-mounted flame-thrower, interrogating Gorp about Hpthbvtw's death, and Nevus's Eyebolt secretary trying to get the flame-thrower recalled. 13: After Thrash [05/09/2006 - 30/10/2006] Comshaw and Niddle meet up by The Pit: Niddle still has his coming and going crystal, and close exposure to Fire has left him with some extra clairvoyant knowledge of recent events. He mentions Mortimer, and Comshaw recognises the name as that of a supposed demon who caused an epxlosion which started the Nome-Gnoll war, and we learn that Compline and Caytid disappeared during a Sneech attack at the end of the war. We learn that Comshaw's father Comfrey tried to do something in the forest which Comshaw, his mother and the late Clerihew, Comshaw's parents' Finagler, spent their lives trying to live down. We also learn that that the forerunners of Finaglers were called Schemers, now rare in the Basement but still common in the forest, and that Comshaw and Camora are regarded as the best mated Gnoll couple, and Sina and her intended, Sprocket, are the next best, although Sina has a crush on Comshaw. There is mention of a beautiful but too quiet Gnoll named Mimsy who was Comshaw's girlfriend before Camora. Mimsy seems to be the Gnoll who now carries Nevus. Niddle warns Comshaw that Thrash is dangerous, and that Pales communicate super-sonically although a few other people, including some Schemers and Finaglers, can hear them. We learn that forest dwellers call the Mansion of E "The Stump", and that Ig is friends with a Gnoll called Splat. Nevus recounts the vision he had when the Fire brushed past him - basically he saw scenes from all the things going on around them, and now he fills Comshaw in on them. We learn that the two Pales who are accompanying the Nome group are called Fetch and Stepit. Niddle saw Nellie Grubb - Frederick's neighbour - heading to the village. He knows where Mortimer currently is, so Comshaw sets out to speak to Mortimer and find out what the Humans want. After the party sets off we see a Metalmin or some other robot (we only see part of the head - it's definitely not Hector) come into view near The Pit; a stranger in Piu's house; Shona talking to Nevus and Mimsy; Snerk finding a dead Spyder (actually, the same one which earlier attacked Nitfol and Mortimer); and the white-haired, oldish version of The Scary Lady, accompanied by what seems to be a sentient balloon. 14: Rufus [01/11/2006 - 27/12/2006] Mortimer and Rufus discuss the family - they have sisters Lenore and Lil and a daredevil brother Ace. A few weeks ago Mortimer received a postcard from their mother and Lil sent from a place called Oongawa. We learn that World o' Pots is 60% owned by Pale shareholders (Pales from a sub-country called Shibolith, not the local ones) and the Pales did well out of The Crash because Human soldiers now buy their non-magical weapons, but the Pales also suffered many losses in The Crash so it's unlikely they engineered it. They pass through a cloakring designed to prevent magical snooping, The ex shop is full of extraordinary things, including food suplies on which Rufus lives, and a demon-trap bottle which Rufus had installed, and which required an extensible ceiling to fit it in, made by the Hammerspace Company, which specialised in extra-dimensional products including "Poke-Kits" - weightless portable storage space. In the in-universe comic which featured Frowgler the demon frog and Roshambo the warrior beetle, Frowgler gave Roshambo a Poke-Kit. We also learn about a massacre at a place called Thricklefork after "an idiot at the Royal Academy of Magic" summoned demons. Rufus gets whacked by one of his own defensive booby traps, but they make it to Rufus's room. Rufus says that for a year ha has seen mysterious comings and goings from the Mansion of E (not the basement) and that the culprits are not Frederick, the Grubbs, Schmedley or Arthur the Weirdo. He believes it is down to Mr Hand, living high in the Mansion. Mr Hand is very old - believed to be the wizard who locked the Operator in the Elevator nearly eighty years ago - may or may not be Human, and has a Metalmin servant named Hector, which means he is the Overseer. While they discuss Mr Hand, a shadowy figure is watching. This proves to be a woman named Eunice, who looks like the Superwoman figure Mortimer was flying with in Sylvester's Protus-induced vision, but wears gloves like the woman he saw Rosemary fighting. Eunice stuns Mortimer and tells Rufus, who has apparently known her for years, that she and the other villagers, including Threnody the Oracle, all work for somebody more important than Mr Hand. She works for God (the old rich guy, not the deity), and if Rufus comes with her, God will give him the answers he seeks. 15: Snerk Meets the Boss [28/12/2006 - 05/01/2007] Snerk, the Saur who won the auction, is nibbling on the dead Spyder when Frowgler appears. It was Frowgler who put him up to bidding for what he calls the Zorper - the HJ42. Snerk tells Frowgler that the Zorper fired - which Frowgler isn't concerned about - and gives Frowgler both the Zorper and a Poke-Kit containing extra fleebs, which Frowgler had loaned to him. Frowgler dismisses Snerk, telling him to tell people called Lumpy and Buzz (presumably the Saur who gave Comshaw a message about the end of the world when he first emerged from the tunnel) he hopes to be back at headquarters tomorrow - but then he says goodbye to Snerk's departing back as if he expects never to see him again. Left alone, he speaks as if he has seen the Zorper before, then activates it. To do so he extends not only retractable claws but what looks like a button with a "3" on it, set into the palm of his right hand. This time the Zorper goes "OZPR". 16: Closing In [06/01/2007 - 25/01/2007] Clochard asks Bung where Digger Odel is, and Bung says Digger is returning after being hired by a mysterious personage to bring down the killer tree. Meanwhile Rosemary's party are heading for Izchak's weapons shop, and Hpobfvfr is seen fleeing, apparently because the flame-thrower is about to explode. Camora explains Basement politics - how the Ghasts encouraged the formation of the Council as a peaceful alternative to the gang bosses Agita, Nevus and Guttle, because they need a stable environment in which to maintain their breeding-pools and reproduce. Camora regards the Council as meddlers, except that they did bring down and confine the demons Chauncy and Edgar. Hpobfvfr gets mixed up with Sina's bucket chain as a result of a misunderstanding - she is looking for Hepthbav/Hpthbvtw and hears that there is an injured male Ghast near Crazy Rhid's place, but in fact it's Sepfrbfrx, one of Sina's team. 17: Conflagration [26/01/2007 - 26/03/2007] Rosemary and Sylvester come to Time Hall, where there is a poisonous fountain and a levitating Ettin-made clock. They proceed to Sidestep Hall, the Motihaul village, which is divided by gender, and have a certian amount of difficulty getting past the guards, Smatchet and Gunsel. The guards have seen a "hat" like Camora's before. Although Rosemary has a sense of unease, the party don't realise they are being overlooked by hidden seige engine controllers, including an officer we will later learn is called Upernavik. Meanwhile, the Scary Lady is still wandering around the mansion with her sentient balloon, and Sina asks Hpobfvfr how to sort out an anti-Dornbeast net which is blocking the way through Rhid's place. We learn that sphagnum grit repels most Dornbeasts, unless specially trained, and that Hpobfvfr has a cutting claw concealed in her flesh since she was a child, and this is painful. Hpobfvfr goes to the Elevator looking for Hepthbav/Hpthbvtw and the Operator, suspended in the fire, tries to hypnotise her. Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, upstairs in the mansion and still accompanied by her balloon, looking at the doorway which leads to Sneech territory and being concerned that it is silent when there should be a sound of screeching, and then coming to the top of the lift shaft. The Operator can sense her throughout. She uses her power to force the Operator back into his lift and put out the flames, but as she does so he grabs Hpobfvfr and drags her into the Elevator with him, and one final flare of energy passes all along the bucket chain and causes a tool to be flung with sufficient force to damage Chauncy and Edgar's containment bottle. 18: Chauncy & Edgar [27/03/2007 - 24/04/2007] The people in the bucket chain who were caught up in the energy flow have been knocked down by it, apart from the Gnolls such as Niff, Folla and Wittol who are all still standing. Sina wants everybody to go home, now, because she feel something worse than fire will re-emerge from the Elevator. Skuy and Voog can feel that Hpobfvfr was taken away. Meanwhile the demons Chauncy and Edgar, who are extremely polite and careful with each other, investigate the damage to their bottle. We learn that they fear the Caged King (the devil in the elevator) and something called the Burning Eye (later comments suggest this is not the sun but something near the mansion) very much, and the Scary Lady somewhat less so. Chauncy temporarily detaches one of Edgar's horns and uses it as a chisel to break their way out through the side of the bottle. Once they are free, Edgar, the more Human-looking one, tries to set off on his own, but Chauncy (who resembles a woodlouse) won't let him. They kill a Helipath (who we will later learn is called Rubrak), one of the bucket chain beings who were knocked down by the energy surge - Chauncy cuts him and then Edgar drops part of a heavy weight (which seems to be levitating, since most of it stays up after the rope is cut) on to him. But Edgar is less murderous than of old, and turns down the chance to vivisect Rubrak's working partner, a Jibjib (who we will later learn is called Snipe). We learn that Chauncy and Edgar were sucked through some kind of hole from their own dimension, where they were under such constant threat that they had no time to take names or to think, and when they arrived they kept up the same level of violence. Now as prisoners they have had time to calm down. They are aware of Rosemary, who passed by their bottle an hour or two beforehand: they can tell that she is of this dimension, not a heavyweight being like the Operator or the Scary Lady, but still she feels different and they go in search of her to dissect her and find out why. Meanwhile we see the Gobule Bung wake from deep sleep, apparently with clairvoyant knowledge of the demons' escape, and send two Jibjib henchbirds out with some kind of message or mission. 19: Remnants [25/04/2007 - 21/05/2007] Sina takes a mourning leave of the missing Hpobfvfr, and many of her surviving forces disperse to home and/or safety, and Smyts move in to devour the dead. Sina speaks to a female Trog called Maggle who has a dark coat which is associated with resistance to Trog repellant, and sends her to take the buckets back to Tunktal the bucket maker, who is regarded with revulsion. Rhid's hidden workshop was blown open and exposed when Hpobfvfr disposed of the booby-traps: Sina and Skuy go to tell the Council about it, leaving Ploot and Voog to guard the workshop and prevent Rhid from returning. There is a twistpoint there through which visions (relating to other stories) appear. Sina and Skuy head for the Council and to get help for Sepferb, still lying injured on the floor. They meet Catmorlo, who collects her cakeshroom - then a female Motihaul named Asota who warns them that Nevus and the Council are fighting, and Chauncy and Edgar are loose. 20: The Lady and the King [22/05/2007 - 09/06/2007] The Scary Lady calls the Operator to the upstairs doors of the lift: he asks if she wants to know about the Sneeches and she tells him it's because he was having too much fun with the fire etc. and she had been contractually obliged to intervene, although various distractions conspired (possibly literally) to delay her in so doing. The Operator metamorphoses into a crowned figure and tries to tempt her to break her contract and let him do as he pleases, and in return he will restore both her and Frederick's full power, maybe send them through a Panegate to a place where they can be gods, but she rejects his offer. He mentions creatures he calles "poor Shades" who refer to her as The Destroyer - presumably the ones we saw watching her from behind a grille as she escorted Zay to the Panegate. She mentions him standing on a balcony being cheered by what looks like a Human crowd, raising the possibility that he might once have been one of the local Human(ish) kings. After she leaves, the Operator/King comments to himself that she was feeling unexpectedly hopeful and he wants to find out why. He reaches through the dimensions to touch one of Protus's time pylons: it gives him a shock but he hangs on and scrolls back through the Scary Lady's recent experiences, dismissing Zay and Prunella as sources of hopefulness before coming to an unbreachable barrier. He believes she has seen whatever Protus is hiding among his time pylons, but doesn't know it. He wants to call her back some time soon to speak to her again, and we learn that he has engineered a test for Rosemary, and if she passes he will want her back too - but it depends on his gaining control over Hpobfvfr, who is still resisting his attempts to take over her mind. Meanwhile, something the Operator said has led the Scary Lady to assume there's something up with the Sneeches. She takes up her Sneechstick and prepares to go through the archway which leads to the route which runs through the Sneech den - so she will presumably be going down the route that Sylvester and Rosemary will eventually be coming up. 21: No Gnoll is an Island [11/06/2007 - 14/07/2007] We see brief snapshots of the various groups - Skuy talking urgently to Ploot and Voog; people throwing stones at Chauncy and Edgar; Agita and Nevus and their assistants leaving the auction etc., then we cut to Ig, Comshaw and Niddle in the forest. Niddle is just insisting that he saw a vision of an active, moving Metalmin when they hear the "OZPR" noise made by the HJ42 as Frowgler activates it. This is followed by a burst of purple light from behind the trees, and Comshaw says this is far more violent than and of a different quality from the previous such event. An enormous boulder is thrown through the air, narrowly missing them. Niddle wants to go investigate the source of the blast, but Ig smells something coming which makes him run, so the Gnolls join him and they climb up onto the ruins of an old Human fountain. Ig tells them that what's coming is a skunk shark - not as bad as a beaver shark, and a useful omnivore which thins out the saplings to create open woods. They operate within a big circle roughly around the mansion, and north of that circle the Deep woods grow impenetrably thick. There have been other passing remarks which suggest that the area around the mansion is circumscribed in some way. They have to hang around on top of the fountain's plinth for a couple of hours, talking, until the shark has gone. We learn that the GBOLs, the lights generated by The Tree, are dimmer at night and in winter, and that The Tree extends above ground and responds to sunlight. The basement-dwellers got the idea of a twenty-hour day from the Ettin-made clock in Time Hall which, like a lot of other Ettin artefacts, they wrongly believe to have been made by Humans. Part Four: The Road Less Travelled [16/07/2007 - 26/02/2010] 01: Izchak [16/07/2007 - 30/08/2007] Sylvester's party come to a Motihaul-owned shop called Izchak's Sharp n' Pointy. There Rosemary is attracted by a weapon like a halberd with a weighted butt. Behind her back Izchak tells Sylvester and Camora it's not for sale because it's trapped in an "airbox", an Ettin-made forcefield which the basement dwellers wrongly attribute to Humans, and which neither he nor Sprocket and Flange have been able to open. However, if he was telling the truth then something Rosemary does, or some change in conditions, causes the airbox to open and the weapon comes freely to Rosemary - Sylvester later opines that this is supicious, as if it's been set up for her to take. As Rosemary is paying for her new weapon, Chauncy and Edgar carve their way in through the wall. They want to dissect Rosemary and Sylvester to see how they differ, but Rosemary thrashes Edgar with her new weapon and then tells him that his victims felt similar pain. Edgar it transpires is not callous or brutal: rather, because the Human world is so flimsy in comparison with his own he had believed that the world and the creatures in it weren't real, but something like a video game. Now that she has shown him that these are real people he doesn't intend them harm. We learn that Rosemary did something similar in the past with a demon called Scratch. We learn some background information. Demons in this world communicate with each other long-distance by a process called "tapping the lines". Chauncy and Edgar would have left long ago but they are constrained by some kind of barrier around the local area (it does seem to be local, not the planet's magnetic field). Chauncy asks Rosemary to strike him too so he can feel it, and she does so but nearly breaks her wrists, because he is so solid. Sylvester tells the two demons to go ask the Scary Lady to help them to get away. They say she has forbidden them from ever going upstairs again, but then Chauncy senses that she is on her way down, so they go in search of her. After they have left, Rosemary starts looking for a suitably grand romantic name for her new pole weapon, and Sylvester dubs it "the Can-Opener". 02: Upernavik [31/08/2007 - 26/09/2007] As they come away from Izchak's place, Sylvester's party encounter a group of male Motihaul soldiers armed with cold-forged iron weapons, inbound to tackle Chauncy and Edgar, and are warned by their officer, Matagam, to leave the area. The head of male Motihaul security, Upernavik, is listening through bugging devices: he must have heard the confrontation between Rosemary and Edgar, because he has "Scratch" written on his notepad. He sets Whisp (a dark-pelted female Trog) to tail Rosemary, Camora and Sylvester, then orders his side-kick called Knumdrot (a play on the Patrician's secretary Drumknot) to lock down their whole Hall, but Knumdrot refuses, citing a Contract which states that a Full Hall Lockdown requires the prior consent of both Upernavik and his female counterpart, Angmagslika. Upernavik regards consulting with Angmagslika as a dire ordeal - but he doesn't need to meet her after all because he receives a message from her telling him to initiate Lockdown. A horn is honked to alert two male Motihauls called Notserplib and Nagolder, who are dozing in a very cozy flat or office full of ornaments and games. We see the sound travel down pipes past a Smyt graffiti-artist ("Fnord wuz ere") and a Trundlebug who is looking at something like a Pacman monster. The two Motihauls have a pet tunnelrat called Hackit who is sleeping on Nagolder's stomach, and has to be lifted up with defensive gloves and placed in a box to control him. His job is to protect them from slimegrubs. Once Hackit has been safely boxed, they swim down a well-shaft to an underwater capstan which they turn to close off the Hall: they seem to be able to breathe underwater. Nagolder, we learn, is a friend to Cully, the young Gnoll who was banished to SubShaft 44f. Shut outside in the corridor, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that he considers her to be only the second most frightening woman he knows - after his great-aunt the Scary Lady. 03: The Gibber [27/09/2007 - 01/11/2007] Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their upbringing - Sylvester's parents were loving but absent, his father a twit who died young, his mother always a traveller, so he was raised largely by the Scary Lady. Rosemary, whose parents we know drowned in a maritime accident, was raised by her Aunt Eva and by Eva's former bodyguard Zeke. We see a vignette of Eva teaching Rosemary how to pick locks. Heading towards the long way out, they pass a group entity called The Gibber, guarded and assisted by an elderly female Gnoll (the grandmother of Mimsy), a Poker called Anathama. Rosemary and Sylvester tell Anathama they are forest Nomes, but Anathema as a youngster saw the young Sylvester and the Scary Lady fleeing a running fight in the Basement and she knows that they are Human, although she doesn't comment. We learn that seven years previously a group centred around a male Gnoll called Altholen, inspired by stories of the magic-users Caytid the Gnoll and a male Motihaul called Othar, used "Sneech squeezings" and the underground River of Fire (= magic) in an attempt to reawaken the magic in the world. Instead, they caused a cataclysm called the Breach which extended right up into the Mansion, where it caused sparks or similar to shoot out of the Tree. In the Basement it killed a large number of Ecadems and generated many new twistpoints. Camora's sires' Finagler Twitchel helped to seal it again: her sires Buccula and Choller also claimed credit for sealing the Breach but Anathama says they just got in the way, and it was Yurd and co. who fixed it. One of the effects of the Breach was to bring The Gibber, a cloud of half-seen faces in the darkness, into being in their own pocket of reality, overlaying what had been Helinew Hall. The Gibber have great knowledge and always tell the truth, so they function as an oracle. They tell truths to Rosemary and Sylvester, which they later tell Anathama were among the greatest truths they have ever given. To Rosemary they say "What you stole is even more dangerous and precious than you know. In the end, you will fly away and live forever, and you will leave the world shattered in your wake." To Sylvester: "You will return to where you started, and you will become what you hate. And in doing so, you will restore the world to what it was." After Rosemary and co. have left, The Gibber tell Anathema that they are dying - the power source which maintains them has failed. She is quite upset by this. She tells them that her duty with them has not been onerous, especially considering some of the things she has done in the past - we see her crawling through a tunnel to collect glowgems - and she mentions somebody called Bokonan who was "Sent into the SubShafts, and then.." This was connected with some necessary but personally risky thing that a group she belonged to, along with Bokonan and Digger and unspecified others, was and are doing. She needs to find Digger and tell him that Humans are back. Digger has never been to The Gibber to hear his truth. 04: Hop Skip and Several Jumps [02/11/2007 - 08/01/2008] Bung's Jibjib messengers go to Maw - who is just wrapping up winning a battle against his assailants - and warns him that Chancy and Edgar are loose. The people at Rhid's place arm themselves with the remains of his Dornbeast-repellant globes, ready to fling them at the demons. Meanwhile, Nevus and Agita return to the Basement and Nevus is surprised to find that in his absence his forces have gone to war against the Council, in his name and claiming his authorisation. The Nome party - Vezza, Piu, Umboz and Nitfol - and their Pale escort cross a rope bridge en route to the Pale camp. The Pales have a telescope set up to watch for the returning party. The Nex him or herself, the ruler, is apprehensive and says that "she" is coming and she may or may not be "the one", and the outcome will prove "Frogmask" - presumably Frowgler - right or wrong. The action cuts to the high thin tower called The Spike, on the edge of a lake somewhere near the mansion, where a high-ranking male Fixit called Cox is using a mesmerised Pale mount to listen to Pale communications. We learn that Fixits are born in breeding pens and then brought to The Spike, and that Cox is significantly older than fifty and witnessed the Crash. Cox speaks to a Human called Dorian who has lived in The Spike for forty-two years. Dorian is being ridden by a Fixit but it seems that Dorian is the one doing the talking, and is in a position of authority. Dorian says that somebody called Kelso is "finally bringing in her pet idiot" - presumably Rufus. Later evidence suggests that Kelso is Eunice by another name, probably her surname Cox floats down through the tower, using artificial levitation devices, until he meets a female Fixit called Vix who is riding a controlled Nome girl, and pushing a gurney holding industrial supplies. During the chapter headed Thrash, in the 900th strip which in real-time appeared almost two years before this one, a light message saying "900 WOO HOO" was seen shining from the top of The Spike. In-universe, this of course was earlier the same afternoon, and Vix says that the "wooflare" has drained some resource which the supplies on the gurney will help to stabilise, but Cox calls her away to walk with him. He talks to her about the Crash and the Human cities he once saw - from one of which be brought back an Ettin airbox, perhaps the one the Can Opener was in at Izchak's shop. There is a reference to a shield around the area, and to a new Human being brought in to The Spike, presumably Rufus. Protus, he thinks, has some vast plan - he first appeared five years beforehand and since then there have been more wooflares, both in the Spike and the SubShafts, and more twistpoints. Mr Hand has been passing on reports from the Hot Zone observers which also suggest imminent events. There is a reference to a power nicknamed the Topspike - probably the same as God - and to a serious female enemy in the west (where Rosemary was somehow transported from). He suggests that if Vix gets the chance to flee, she should take it. Meanwhile Frowgler crawls out of the crater left by the OZPR event - he seems mildly disappointed that it didn't kill him. At the Mansion, the Weirdo, grieving for his dead friend Tulip, has got roaring drunk, climbed up to the roof terrace, set off a siren called the Mugwump Alarm (although there are no longer any Mugwumps in the area and they are believed to be extinct) and passed out. Amos Grubb comes to shut off the alarm - which requires complex instructions from a code book (he seems to be the Mansion's librarian) - and has a conversation with Fantod, the Weirdo's ventriloquist's puppet, in which Fantod speaks as if he is an independent entity. Fantod tells Amos about some events he and the Weirdo witnessed by the Elevator, and refers to Rosemary as a "sword bunny". They seem to be regular visitors to the Basement. The Weirdo having sobered up a little, he and Amos walk down many stairs within the Mansion, and we glimpse a Panegate which opens into a world of yellow light and many busy Helipaths. We see strange machinery and Tree branches in the walls, including Ludwig's Vent Tapper 3000, which seems to be trying to tickle a magical flame into life. We see a female Gobule called Gulch teaching three baby Gobules called Gif, Glub and Gip, and telling them about great bones within the ground. 05: Skibble's Place [09/01/2008 - 01/03/2008] We learn from Camora that Mortimer was the "demon" who caused the Nome War, and from Sylvester that his parents chose their children's names from a very pompus classic book called Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. Rosemary is alarmed by the idea of eternal life - she says she'd get really bored after the first thousand years - but comforts herself by interpreting it as eternal fame rather than eternal life. Sylvester is less alarmed by the idea of becoming what he hates, since he hates some quite harmless things, and this leads to a discussion of his siblings and family in general. They come to Skibble's place (no Skibble, just his place), guarded by a male Gnoll called Cerbis, who lends them a token with an "E" on it, to be used to activate a device to summon the Great Riddler through whose territory they must soon pass, and he says they owe Skibble a favour for it. They discuss the aurilnode on the wall outside it: it was invented by a Helipath called Auril and Sylvester is impressed and disturbed by the level of sophistication, which suggests outside help, and also by the spectacular magical even caused by Altholen, even though he failed in his purpose. He tells Camora about magic and the Crash. Sylvester wonders whether Auril used Sneech squeezings in his work. Camora says he was too sane to do so, and this leads to a discussion about genius and eccentricity - about Rufus, who takes dangerous scientific risks, and Rosemary's friend Edwird, who likes to swim in ice water, and Telic the r doctor, who operates on hirself. Camora realises that Rosemary and Sylvester just want to get home, and she wants to take them to the Council's tunnel, but Hax says this is a bad idea as it would give an invading force an easy way in. They set off for the Riddle Grotto, with Whisp trailing them. Meanwhile Shona, returning from the forest, realises her sister Sina is in trouble and goes in search of her, as does Sprocket. Nevus, Mimsy and a couple of male Gnoll soldiers one of whom is called Frag are trying to fight their way through to Nevus's office. Agita meets with her assistant Flibbergib the Eyebolt, who is riding on a Gobule and has come to warn her about the fighting, and to complain about Weirders. Guttle, still partially wrapped in tendrils, comes stamping down the tunnel, dismissing Skoil from his service as he tramples him underfoot: two Trog raiders are unwise enough to attempt to mug him, but they don't even notice Digger passing them by. We see a scarred Rhid, still trailed by Kronk and contemplating desperate measures. We see the scuttly little sentient rock still trying to climb out of the Hot Zone. We see the Scary Lady and her balloon venture into the Sneech den, thinking that something is very wrong. Clochard and Anathama meet up, both looking for Digger, and exchange dire news which is trumped by one of Bung's Jibjibs warning them that Chauncy and Edgar are loose. They discuss the fact that Anathama saw Sylvester in the Basement fifteen years before, along with the "Clawblaster" - evidently the Scary Lady - and now he's with Rosemary, and with the pole weapon which Anathama has seen before, and although he's older he's far from old which tells Anathama that Humans have much longer lifespans than Gnolls. 06: The Three Great Riddles [03/03/2008 - 04/06/2008] Camora is telling Rosemary and Sylvester about Skibble - it's not clear what species Skibble is but he's a sort of Trickster and is friends with someone called Blitz who is probably a Gobule. Heading for the Riddle Grotto they pass a sign warning of a defence system called Death Doors, which are doors which attack any non-Human trying to open them, as with the Djinnoscope. They pass a door labelled Pots Room without stopping. Sylvester mentions the Djinnoscope, Camora asks about it and he describes the Hall of Achievement to her - but she knows it as the Death Hall. Sylvester explains that the Djinnoscope is called that because it can grant boons, like a Djinn. They come to the Riddle Grotto and find themselves on a jetty at the side of a deep pool. Theoretically no one can cross without authorisation because the Riddler lives in the water and is fantastically fast, but a Jibjib called Speedy once flew across on a bet with soemone called Shilpit. Othar the magical Motihaul is mentioned again, this time as an explorer. We learn that the Three Great Riddles were named by Dorn, 10th Earl of E, who also created the Dornbeasts as battle-mounts, and ended up being eaten by them. Rosemary and Sylvester prepare to take their leave of Camora: she still wants to tell them there's an easier, safer way out, but Hax prevents her. She notices that the cabinet which holds the Summoner has changed shape (from a kind of squat bullet-shape to a straight-line oblong) since they first came into the grotto, but Rosemary and Sylvester have seen no change, which suggests that either their memory or the time-line is being tampered with. Sylvester says it's always been as it now is - and that it reminds him of something he saw with Protus. Hax invades Camora's mind and takes it over, saying that he must follow his orders and she would find it distressing to be aware of what those orders are, and her mind and her sanity are precious and must be preserved. Having been taken over, Camora now says she was foolish to suggest that the cabinet had changed, but Sylvester refers to his great-great-uncle Hindenburgh the wizard, who also witnessed things changing. Sylvester inserts a token into the Summoner and it sets off a siren which summons the Riddler himself - a giant Ichyoid about 60ft high, older than the Earldom of E and speaking a Human/Ichyoid pidgin represented as Futhark runes (occasionally upside-down Futhark runes). He starts by asking them their business, and addressing Sylvester by name, and expressing sorrow at his father Willoughby's death. Sylvester introduces Rosemary as "non-family - staying?" The Riddler replies that she is dangerous. Sylvester asks if he, Rosemary and their possessions may pass over, and the Riddler asks if "Fixit Gnoll" wants to cross too, but they don't understand what he means. He asks for information on Frowgler, but Sylvester only knows about the comic-book character and explains that he is a two-dimensional representation drawn by somebody called Linderhoff. We learn from Rosemary that Roshambo, and his talking sword Slasher, and the frog-wizard Frowgler, and other characters including Naif and Arax, are hugely popular cultural icons and the comic's been running since before the Crash, although Sylvester later comments that the quality of the comics has declined since then. Sylvester recalls Mortimer complaining that his Roshambo action figure had been damaged - this may relate to the Sciencebugs who were worshipping a Roshambo figure on Mr Hand's desk. The Riddler finds their information about Frowgler interesting, and gives them permission to cross. Sylvester warns Camora not to try to follow them as she doesn't have permission to cross, and admits to her that they are Humans and promises to try to come back and speak formally to Comshaw and the Basement authorities - but it's not Camora they are speaking too now. Rosemary and Sylvester are both aware that Camora has changed, but they don't know why. A pontoon rises and rotates into position, enabling Rosemary and Sylvester to cross the pool. Sylvester says there used to be a lot of ways in and out of the Basement but they were gradually all closed off except two - Rosemary reckons there must be at least one more to explain the various appearances and disappearances. The pontoon's action is so jerky that as they get to the far side they fall in a heap and Rosemary jokily tries to kiss Sylvester. We learn about herediscans, security devices which identify members of the E family, and that the family used to manufacture reverse-engineered Ettin-style robots and sell them under the brand name Factor E. They talk about the Crash and how close civilisation came to total collapse. Rosemary's Aunt Eva was close to starving but she later ended up as a professional card-player (hence the bodyguard): Rosemary says that in the town of Nye some card-games played right through the Crash. Hax walks Camora through a secret door in the corridor wall into some sort of control centre, and Whisp doesn't see it but does note that Camora's scent just stops. Hax seems to be planning to kill Rosemary and Sylvester. 07: Decisions Decisions [05/06/2008 - 05/07/2008] Chauncy and Edgar locate the Scary Lady in the Sneech Den and ask her to help them get through the barrier: they do not want to go home because they have become used to having names. Sprocket and Flange place a piece of equipment, probably from the old Metalmin, in a service hatch whence it is collected by an Ichyoid. Hiblehoy and Wrawa leave Leny's body in Bowel Hall to be rendered down. They are paid in glowgems: Wrawa tells Hiblehoy to take half for himself and give the other half to Telic to research why the Trogs develop dementia. She crashes out and has to be carried home to bed by Hiblehoy, through the running battle which is still raging. Thrash finds Frowgler, slightly singed. Frowgler says that his own story is so odd even he doesn't believe it, and that he means to see that the Pales get what they want, and it's not his problem whether or not they'll still want it once they've got it. Frowgler says that he is neither so clever as the Nex nor so powerful as the ruler in the Spike but still he is the most important person Thrash has ever met. Thrash decides to help Frowgler rather than finishing him off. We see two male forest Gnolls called Scrof and Louch who had been out on a foraging/raiding party and got caught in all the strange events. Louch, a cousin of Comshaw's, couldn't cross over the rope bridge because the Pales were there, and had to go north and use a minimalist bridge just called The Rope, and consisting of just three cords. Now he is tired and wants to go back to their village, the northernmost of a pair, which is just a big communal burrow. Louch is fed up with how poorly they live and wants to learn to read like his mother, and better himself: he thinks he will ask Umboz the Nome to teach his people how to cultivate crops, but we see the Nome mayor saying that Umboz is a traitor, and ordering Umboz's brother Frotz to regain the family honour by leading a raid on Louch's village. In the Basement, we see a male Gnoll, Bung's friend Faddle, heading home with a plant in a pot, and a mixed-sex couple called Niff and Folla looking for somewhere to hide from the fighting, and instead running into the newly returned Shona. They start to tell her about Chancy and Edgar and then overhear two Motihauls talking about it, and about Sina setting up a safe zone in Crazy Rhid's place (because of the weaponry there). Shona thinks that a safe zone at Rhid's place is an oxymoron, but Niff and Folla tell her that Sina has driven Rhid off. 08: The River of Fire [07/07/2008 - 26/11/2008] Deep underground, overlooking the River of Fire, is a bridge or gantry of some kind protruding from a pueblo-style earth building. Here we see a male Gnoll called Blit, with a bandaged leg, and a male Motihaul called Gongoozle discussing the fact that this is meant to be The Day That Changes Everything but it seems to be change for the worse, and the Gobule Lairs are all now at war with each other. A female Trog called Espy (who we will later learn is or used to be a primary-school teacher of young Trogs, and who is remarkably old-looking for a Trog and yet still mentally sharp) summons Blit to go downstairs to see someone called the Observer, and sends Gongoozle away because he is not on the Observer's staff and they are closing the observatory to outsiders. Blit goes downstairs by a complex route of lifts and stairs and corridors, passing other workers - a nameless Gobule and two Eyebolts called Poindext (or Poyndext) and Suscalva - doing mysterious scientific things, then two Gobule labourers called Ottus and Piterbult and a short watch-being of unknown species called Wences. He is caught by a booby-trap and catapulted through the air to land in a padded cart operated by a Helipath called Lucint and two Jibjibs. Lucint carries a stunned Blit down to an observation pod where they meet two pink female Oozes. The lower-down one of these seems to be The Observer (so it's not Mr Hand) and has become stiff due to proximity to the Fire, and is losing the ability to change shape. The higher-up one seems to be the Observer-to-Be, a trainee. The River of Fire affects different species in different ways: it is rapidly harmful to Motihauls, Helipaths have to wear goggles to keep from going dizzy, Ghasts go mad and Wyrms can't go near it at all. Eyebolts, Gobules, Jibjibs and Trogs are hardly affected, and Gnolls, especially mated trios of Gnolls, are affected in some way but also affect the Fire back, disturbing its flow. The Observer has summoned Blit to look at the fire and see what he can see. She mentions other Days That Changed Everything but says this one is especially odd, with an unexplained reference to a Nome called Rejov. Blit looks through a viewing hatch into the river and sees images of a cactus - almost certainly "God's Cactus", the Mansion of E - and of a "fancy pot", then letters telling him two Humans are about to cross the Grotto Bridge. Meanwhile, at the edge of the Riddler's Grotto Sylvester lectures Rosemary about what Humans have learned about magic from Ettin writings. In their world it seems to function like magnetism - it's generated in or by the planet's core, sprays out from the South Pole in a series of leylines resembling lines of longitude and then dives back in at the North Pole. These leylines have been much fainter since the Crash. There are also random magical upwellings called tricklepoints which are still active and useable, and there's one at the source of the River of Fire. Not far away to the south, the Forest of Burzee contains an even bigger tricklepoint. Different tricklepoints behave differently and are good for different things: the one under the Mansion is being squeezed by something down in the Hot Zone, causing the River to be sprayed out of it. The female Earl Audra, mother of Ludwig, investigated it, dug exploratory mines right down deep into the Hot Zone and in doing so triggered a cataclysm which enlarged the Great Chasm. Her father Angus threw condemned prisoners into the River of Fire, and Chauncy and Edgar probably entered the world through it. [The Operator, however, came to town by tram.] Sylvester warns Rosemary to expect to see visions as they approach the River, and they set off. Whisp, who is evidently blazingly fast and agile, watches them from the far side of the Grotto and then crosses the Pool by bounding across the sinking bridge and dodging the Riddler's lightning-fast claws, although she suspects him of not caring enough to try very hard to catch her. Sylvester tells Rosemary that witches and wizards - thaumslingers - used to wear magic-concentrators called thaumtappers inside their pointy hats, which killed most of them when the Crash came. The batteries in their helmets run on small thaumtappers and Rosemary sees visions when she switches her helmet light on while wearing it. We learn that Sylvester is not very devout, and has private reasons for not going to the Temple every week, and that the local temple of the Brush was moved from the Mansion to the local village of Eetown after an Earl called Ernest (father of Philbert) quarrelled with an Oracle called Purity. Ernest was a forger and died in a dramatic way. As they approach the River they start to see externally-manifested visions of people from their pasts. Sylvester sees Dirge, a thuggish man from the village, threatening to hit him. Rosemary sees her tutor, friend and perhaps (although he was a lot older than her) lover, Edwird, and a respected bodyguard colleague called Baldy. She apologises to Edwird for having hurt him by leaving him, and expects Baldy may be her enemy now because she went AWOL from a job they were both working on. The vision of a "Pyrite" appears, with a parrot on his shoulder - the pirate, who was someone Rosemary was once on a course with, dissipates when swiped with the Can-Opener but the parrot seems to be real. Sylvester sees Mr Ferule, the family lawyer, who administers the trust which pays for the eldest in each generation of Emans to go to university. Sylvester teaches Rosemary to conjure shapes out of the magic-saturated air and tells her that Ludwig studied them, and said that they were connected in some way with the distance between Eyebolts (something we have seen managers of Eyebolt clerks worrying about, and these shapes resemble those conjured by Eyebolt Weirders). We learn that brilliant Ludwig had an almost equally brilliant common-law wife called Penelope. As they approach the River it starts to show them what they most want to see. Rosemary sees a half-formed vision of her dead parents, and Sylvester sees a naked, busty, willing Rosemary - the real Rosemary is quite flattered (and she sees a naked Sylvester, but doesn't let on). We learn that for some reason Sylvester cannot or may not marry anyone from Eetown. We learn that the species in the Basement are native and represent all the known intelligent species in the world, except Mugwumps and Wendigoes. Rosemary wants to know why the Mansion isn't known as a tourist attraction, as the Infernal Engine is. Rosemary and Sylvester recognise and acknowledge that they are already friends, and see a vision of Nimue, Sylvester's girlfriend from university. They come to the start of a bridge across the River. A magical surge envelops them and Rosemary (only) sees a vision of the Tree personified as a sort of Ent. It tells her that she is carrying the seeds of some important thing, an egg and a claw of it: the Can-Opener is the claw, and the egg is whatever Rosemary carries with her and which she refers to as having brought her there. Presumably, this is the same thing that she stole. Rosemary is becoming connected to "the system entire", the setup that runs the world and of which the Tree is a part, and she must turn that setup upside down. It gives her another seed - this one actually looks a bit like a real seed - which she tucks inside her Poke-Kit. As Rosemary wakes from the trance she forgets who she was talking to, but just before she wakes the Tree starts to tell her she will remember when she needs to. She tries to tell Sylvester about what happened and ask whether she can trust what se saw, but it slides out of her mind. Meanwhile, Whisp is still stalking them, and Hax uses Camora to collect a blunderbuss. 09: Loose Ends (Basement Edition) [27/11/2008 - 07/01/2009] Faddle the Gnoll brings Bung the Gobule a pot-plant as a thank-you for the profit he made from selling Bung's toadstool. We learn that Bung is quite an important political or merchantile player and are reminded that he knows Digger. One of his Jibjibs returns - she has been warning "folks" about Chauncy and Edgar (and she doesn't know who Digger is). We learn that Faddle is a failed or partial Finagler - and that this entails being a good psychological observer. Anathama and Clochard are in some kind of long-standing political conspiracy with Digger. He meets up with them and takes them much deeper underground to a comfortable bedroom cum office which has artificial lights - so the Tree can't see what goes on there. There they meet their old friend the male Gnoll Bokonon, an elderly Finagler who they had believed had been lost in the SubShafts a long time ago: he had last been heard of in SubShaft 44f, compiling a report on Crud, the developer of the Crudbean, which was just after Comshaw killed the Ravers and Nevus started Le Tree. Bokonon believes the Tree is esssentially on the same side as them. Digger goes back out to see what he can do or learn about the fighting and Chancy and Edgar, leaving the three Gnolls behind to gossip in Gnoll jargon. Clochard and Anathama make the most of what time they have in this dangerous local situation, and go off together to make love. Meanwhile, we see The Scary Lady and her sentient balloon escorting Chauncy and Edgar to a Panegate. Nevus, Guttle and Agita resume command of their forces, although Agita is still scrubbing off Mortimer's kiss. Two Ghast medics collect Sepferb from outside Crazy Rhid's place and place him in a restorative porta-pool: Hiblehoy turns up, carrying an exhausted, sleeping Wrawa, and they advise him on her care and warn him she may be in an erratic mental state when she wakes up. Hiblehoy can't get home because Sidestep Hall is in lockdown, so a Trog called Mowder lets him and Wrawa into Rhid's place, where Sina is trying to organise an emergency demon-proof camp. Maggle has not succeeded in getting through all the fighting to return the buckets to Tunktal. The Wyrms Voog and Ploot have identified a source of water in one of the side-rooms of Rhid's place but there is machinery in the way. Sprocket and Flange turn up and are set to dismantle the machines. Maggle and Flange discuss the level of sexual tension between Sina and Sprocket, and whether they've chosen a Finagler yet. Meanwhile a New Year out-take shows Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party walking past some large human ruins, with the Spike in the background. 10: Loose Ends (Mansion Edition) [08/01/2009 - 02/03/2009] Amos Grubb puts Arthur the Weirdo and his hand-puppet Fantod to bed in their actic room: we see Arthur has a soft-toy Wendigo. We see a system of lifts and pulleys within the walls of the mansion: this is used to deliver to Hector a box containing the spare pieces which Sprocket and Flange earlier salvaged from the defunct Metalmin. On his way back from collecting the box Hector passes a talking machine, a Panegate, a gun (?) in a case marked "In case of Ludwig, break glass", preserved specimens of a Mugwump and a Wendigo, and a painting of one of the titanbugs which the Pales use as war mounts. Reaching his own quarters he takes the spare part out of the box and dumps the box down a chute, then goes to Mr Hand - on the way passing the Trog on the treadmill, who is now flaked out asleep. Mr Hand is eager to talk to Hax the Fixit. He swaps the spare part into Hector, who then repairs Mr Hand's scanners. Hand looks at pictures from around the Basement and comments on the non presence of The Gibber, which may connect to something the Sneeches have done (left?). He tries to track Rosemary and Sylvester but can't see them because they are close to the River, so he sends Hector to talk to the Riddler. He has a special interest in and wariness of Rosemary. As Hector leaves, Mr Hand is 'phoned by some colleague for a conference. Hector pases the dead king on his throne: the dial is now at No. Amos goes outside and observes unusual activity in the Tree. He lets himself into the Ivory Tower and lights a candle by magic, but Nellie catches him and tells him off for taking the risk, as she fears a second Crash. Amos is a former thaumslinger. Nellie has brought back from the village a large young man called Patrick, the local sheriff. Amos reports to Patrick about Rosemary. Patrick and his colleagues watch the Earl and are aware that Rosemary arrived without seeming to pass through the surorunding area. Amos reassures him she's not from another world. Patrick wants Sylvester to report to him. Amos and Nellie give him a book on wine-making for someone called Saffron in the village, and a Willy the Wendigo book for his son. 11: Loose Ends (Forest Edition) [03/03/2009 - 21/04/2009] Umboz, Vezza, Piu and Nitfol and their Pale escort arrive at the Pale hive, a kind of amorphous but high-tech. (with e.g. gas-lighting), pueblo-type castle. There they meet a Pale called Zpeaker, with two head-spikes, whose job is to project sounds that other species can hear, in order to talk to them. We learn that Nitfol had been rescued from the Spyder by Pales, who presumably killed the Spyder and who took him to Frowgler. Frowgler told him that he had sent the Pales to save him, and now he, Nitfol, had to save Umboz and Vezza. Nitfol asks to see the Nexus, the Pale leader, but the other three Nomes prefer to go and rest. Frowgler has told the Pales they will benefit by helping these Nomes: Umboz is afraid they want him to open a breach in his village's squid-based defences but Zpeaker says not. What the Pales hope for is a way to breach the barrier which they, and the Nomes, experience as keeping them bound within this local area. We learn that after the Nome/Gnoll war, the Nomes taught the Pales how to tree-warp (opening a Tardis-like space within a tree-trunk): they have used these skills to set up comfortable quarters for their Nome visitors. Umboz and Piu discuss who should replace Mayor Kayeeb: Nitfol, returning, volunteers. The others reluctantly agree, as the destruction of his home tree by the beaver shark gives him a non-conspiratorial excuse for seeking a new lifestyle. The Nexus and Nitfol have a plan of campaign worked out which will involve the collection of strange and difficult substances from the deep forest. Meanwhile, the skunk shark is still chewing its way through the bushes, and Comshaw and co. are still roosting on top of the ruined fountain. We see Yasmine Fotheringby waking up dazed and regaining her composure in the ruins where Protus dropped her - in fact, the above-ground bit of the same branch of World o' Pots where Mortimer fell into the underground storage area. She takes off a mask within the hood: we still cannot see her face or species, but she thinks of herself as Human. She belongs to the Weirdoes' Guild. She sets off to rejoin her horse but then hears a sleeping Mortimer coughing inside a building guarded by a not very effective Sneech security device, and goes to investigate. 12: Urwyn and the Elevator [22/04/2009 - 03/08/2009] Shona, Niff (the male) and Folla arrive at Rhid's ex place, where the male Trog Mowder is now the gatekeeper: the gate in question is being constructed by a Helipath called Fosic. Mowder believes that Rhid's former place, under Sina's leadership, will become a new multi-species Hall offering greater opportunities for individuality and personal advancement than the existing Halls, and maybe even start a trend for many new Halls springing up around the fringes of the old ones. Shona wants to see Sina, her sister, but Sina sends her a message telling her to go home. Mowder suggests that she come in anyway and report to Catmorlo to be assigned a job, thus becoming Sina's employee instead of Nevus's, but Shona walks away. We meet a tiny, diffident mini-Wyrm called Urwyn. He volunteers to help with the new Hall, and Mowder sends a male Gnoll called Satyrsong to carry Urwyn to Catmorlo. Satyrsong has an extreme hairdo which he cultivates for effect. People are milling about carrying out tasks assigned by Catmorlo: Urwyn notices that a new piece of unknown eqipment which has been brough in sends out a trail of energy to another piece, but no-one listens to him when he tries to tell them about it. Urwyn is assigned to stay out of sight and watch the Elevator. As Skuy carries Urwyn towards the Elevator, Voog examines him to see if he has to "eat" him, which is actually a metaphor for some sexual element of the relationship between the large Deep Wyrms and the little ones. This leads to a conversation in which Skuy says she will never use a Finagler: she was in love with Cully who was exiled to SubShaft 44f by Nevus. Skuy takes Urwyn to meet Sina, who is in Rhid's laboratory where Sprocket is clearing out the msot dangerous stuff. Wrawa has been left to sleep and a Gnoll Healer named Kottle is assigned to keep an eye on her. Two Trogs called Grik and Grak have appointed themselves as Sina's bodyguards. Sina's sight is returning, and she is kept very busy organising everybody. Hiblehoy is sent to make up beds - we learn that it is difficult, but not impossible, for male and female Motihauls to work together. There is some conversation about Rhid's obligatory stuffed crocagator: someone called Nubby keeps a pool of live ones at the far end of the Basement, but Urwyn has never been to see them because there's no [unspecified secret thing he doesn't want to name]. We learn that Rid used to be a Candle Monk but got thrown out, and that he was trained by a Gnoll wizard (? probably a wizard) called Burtgum who died in some kind of accident. Urwyn will summon help, if he needs it, by pinging a glass ball. A Gnoll called Finimbrun is to be that help. Finimbrun takes Urwyn to meet somebody called Huff and they all get caught up inside a mechanical Kraken, a Human-made advertising float which Rhid had acquired somewhere. The kraken's long tentacle is used to transport Urwyn to the Elevator. There he meets another small Wyrm, a friend of his called Zugo, who is doing some kind of foraging work for "the Circle". We learn that Urwyn is some Wyrm equivalent of a pampered aristocrat but he wants to be useful and do work, and Zugo, who is the equivalent of working-class, is unusual in that he will talk to Urwyn. Urwyn asks Zugo to warn "the innerest Ring" that Rhid has been ousted: he expects that if anybody in that Ring notices that he, Urwyn has left, they'll be glad to be rid of him. Meanwhile, Flange has created a device called a bim toggler with which he has opened a false wall to reveal a sequence of rooms beyond. He believes there may be other large rooms left sealed by the Humans. An alarmingly gungho female Motihaul called Othara, granddaughter of the famous Othar, turns up and volunteers to explore the new space, which Sina hopes will relieve overcrowding in the Halls. Sina realises she forgot to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, but at that moment the Elevator doors open and Hpobfvfr appears, red-eyed and controlled by the Operator. Urwyn tells Zugo to leave. Hpobfvfr still ahtes the Operator but he has nevertheless convinced her that he is her superior officer: they speak of different levels of passwords in a way that suggests she operates in some artificial way like a Metalmin and her mind can be hacked into. The Operator sends her to fetch Sylvester's cold iron frying pan: although it hurts the Operator to touch it, he holds it and uses it to probe the boundaries of his cage. He sends her to gather up the remains of Hpthbvtw (Hepthbav), which he thinks he can use: but when he realises that Hpobfvfr has a strong emotional link to Hpthbvtw, and that this is weakening his hold over her (her eyes get noticeably less red), he orders her back into the lift. He tells her that he too had a mate he was fond of, and offspring, and he doesn't know if he will see them again but in the very long term he will "literally move heaven and earth" for the chance to do so. Finimbrun comes to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, and Urwyn tells him she's already appeared: he goes off again to tell Sina. Meanwhile, the Operator does something to Hpobfvfr's physiology which causes a red flicker around her head, and then tells her to track and kill Rosemary and Sylvester - a task she takes to with enthusiasm. In fact, the Operator is seeking to test Rosemary against a more forceful opponent than Chancy and Edgar, because he has a use for her if she wins. Ploot, the large Deep Wyrm, comes to speak to Urwyn about what he has seen. In the foreground, a Smyt summons a trundlebug and rides it like a horse. Urwyn comments on the fact that Ploot is the first Deep Wyrm he's met who didn't examine him to see if he needed to "eat" him. Ploot says he's just not very interested in that kind of thing - it's a powerful and necessary drive but a small minority just don't have it. They see an externalised Vision, or what Ploot calls a "Glimpse" (actually celebrating the strip's sixth birthday). Ploot tells Urwyn he stays up high (for a Wyrm) in the Basement because he doesn't want to breed and also because times are changing, as the Vision suggests, and he wants to help people who are trying to smooth the transition and set up a new society etc.. Urwyn mutters that he isn't sure he'd mind if Ploot wanted to Eat him.... Another Shallow Wyrm called Kryt, who has been secretly watching this exchange, goes to some kind of communication station and starts to give a secret report about the Operator to some Wyrm authority. There seems to be a small colony of the little Shallow Wyrms living around this communication point. Meanwhile a large flutterby, dazed by crashing into light globes, flies past them and down into the depths, where it is struck by the radiator of a large lorry or armoured car, being driven deep undergound. 13: The Great Chasm [04/08/2009 - 26/02/2010] On the lorry are two very amusing, characterful Fixits, a male and a female who seem to be working partners, both riding unconscious Gnoll mounts, who mention an engineer called Tix who had been complaining that the "Sneechtaps" were all offline. They come to an underground building which looks a bit like the Mansion of E upside-down and has levitating lifts, where they report to a very bossy female Fixit called Grix. It is mentioned that there is a schedule which Nevus and the Council have pre-empted by attacking each other. They bear a message saying that Mr Hand wants to see Hax urgently. Grix reveals that Hax has a history of getting into scrapes (nearly as bad as Mortimer) and has just spent almost ten years relegated to the (breeding?) pens in the mountains. Grix summons a female Ichyoid called Igor who brings in boxes of what we later learn is delicate, increasingly-hard-to-obtain material vital for the maintenance of the underpinnings of the River of Fire. The partners are despatched to take these boxes to the Chasmside Covert Observation Station: after they have left, Igor wishes to discuss Rufus, apparently as a replacement for Mr Hand, but this is so secret a matter that Grix tells her they must know nothing about it ever. The two partners are sent on another long lorry journey to deliver the boxes. With them in the lorry are other consignments, including a cage containing a giant (hamster-sized) Fuzz which sings in notes coloured in the same rainbow colours as the River of Fire, underneath which they pass. The female Fixit expresses moral doubts about what they are doing by controlling their mounts. En route they pass the Quarentine Alcove of Forbidden Objects, which contains strange things such as a statue of an Ichyoid and a giant, broken statue of Kaylu with wires hanging out of it. When they reach the Chasmside Covert Observation Station they unload in a large, open hangar and then report to Fixits called Apix and Birux. Apix says that Nevus and Preznit (for the Council) have called a cease-fire. He is aware of Sylvester and of Rosemary, whom he calls "regrettably proactive". The male of the two partners then goes up to an observation deck where he talks to a Fixit called Peex (riding on/fused with an Eyebolt) and they discuss Project Y, the same thing Sprocket and Flange were working on earlier. Project Y will give their employers much more effective surveillance but may not be finished in their lifetime. There is a suggestion that their current surveillance system involves the Tree. The action cuts to Rosemary and Sylvester, who are discussing Rosemary's Poke-Kit, and the E family library in the Ivory Tower, and books they have read about Erewhonian anthropology and night creatures, and the availability of different foods in different areas. We learn that Amos Grubb is the Mansion's librarian and Nellie Grubb is the gardener. As Rosemary and Sylvester climb the steps leading away from the far side of the River there are no more visions, just an odd smell of marshberries. They reach a lighted area, and Rosemary becomes temporarily hypnotised after looking at a spinning light. She is amazed to discover that the Can Opener fits inside her Poke-Kit, which previously had only been able to hold small objects: Sylvester attributes this to the power of the tricklepoint. Pre-Crash folk heroes named Readman and Billsmith are mentioned, who carried a whole library and an arsenal in Poke-Kits. Sylvester talks about the Spike (and at least some bits of the Mansion, since e.g. the Panegates have the same characteristic writing on them as the Spike) having been built by Ettins, and about the ancient war between Ettins and Sneeches, which killed all the Ettins and most of the Sneeches. We learn that the Ettins sent a mission to the Moon to investigate artefacts of unknown origin there. Sylvester says that the Sneeches in the Basement usually allow travellers through their territory if they stick to the main road and don't engage with anybody. They occasionally give travellers gifts, which may be beneficial, dangerous or both: Audra's cost her a hand but she said it was worth it: latterly, Sneech gifts are usually either thrown away or stored in the Quiet Room (a magic-deadening space upstairs in the Mansion). The new Earl has to walk through the Sneech colony alone, but Sylvester saw no Sneeches. Sylvester talks about the zoo which the Ettins set up in the Basement, before Humans arrived in the area. Most of the local sentient species were exhibits - except the Sneeches, who were prisoners of war and research subjects; the Gnolls, who were free-lance "vermion" living where they chose; and the Gobules and Eyebolts, who were on the staff of the zoo. After the Ettins died the exhibits escaped and set up a mixed society in the Basement, and Humans came into the country across the sea in large numbers from Tiranog via a region called Abalone, and took over the area (there were already older Human colonies in Shiboleth who got there by a different route, but never spread, and who now speak a very different dialect from the rest; and even before them the insular, hostile Human group called Haroons were brought into Alfibay by someone or something). After the Crash the Basement Pales moved out into the vacated ruins of Eetown. This probably has something to do with the presence of a large, ultimately Pale-owned World o' Pots in Eetown. Sylvester mentions Ilsa Lundquist, who was head housekeeper at the Mansion for years, and whose mother was a Haroon. This must be the same green-haired, Earl-hating Ilsa whom Snerk and Shona met when the HJ42 went PROZ and jumped them back to Eetown shortly before the Crash. Ilsa had a distracted air - probably because the Scary Lady was controlling her in some way - and eventually retired to the village. The Mansion still has a very old, almost mummified butler called Schmedley. They used to have all sorts of servants, including an hereditary string-measurer: the last incumbent choked to death a week and a half before the Crash. Rosemary has plans for reviving the Mansion's fortunes. We learn that King Yorik III and his children died in the Crash. The current king Yancy II is a figurehead: the Bureaucracy really governs. Sylvester follows the fortunes of various factions in the Times and has plans for playing the stockmarket. There is a long discussion about the politics of the various sub-countries, including a place called Blefusco which is clearly equivalent to France. As they approach the top of the stairs, the hypnotic lights go out. They talk about the various habitats in the Basement ex-zoo, the death of the Wendigoes in the failed arctic exhibit (no loss, according to Sylvester), and the Willy the Wendigo books, and birth-control failures, and the pointlessness of Rosemary's crush on Baldy because he was "a homguy". We learn that the Helipaths and Ecadems were probably brought in by the Ettins through a Panegate. Sylvester understands the Panegates to open into alternate heres, rather than other planets, although they occasionally spawn portals to further-away places. We learn that Rosemary's parents drowned in a maritime accident, and that there were terrible Dawn Wars before the Ettins ande Sneeches came along. We aren't told who the combatants were but inimical races called Wilfs/Wifts and Gobblems/Gobble'Ems are mentioned, who are now known in this world only from bone framgments and fairy tales but who still exist beyond one of the Panegates, so it may have been them. For whatever reason, the Panegates only show worlds a long way diverged from this one. The 12th Earl, Lemuel, investigated the Panegates and was probably killed by one: the controls are difficult and dangerous to operate, but there are a few simple ones which do work and part of the rite of passage of the new Earl is to go through one to e.g. the Forest or Charlotte's Cave. Rosemary and Sylvester reach the Great Chasm. Mr Hand watches them on his monitors, but disclaims all knowledge to somebody on the 'phone. Ludwig installed railings and bridges over the Chasm: there is a gap in the rails opposite the door they emerge from, but no bridge. Walking along a ledge to get to the actual bridge, they encounter an elderly male Gobule called Theophan the Recluse. Theophan is one of a long series of Theophans who were all famous mentors. Gobule young are self-supporting and non-sentient, like baby guinea-pigs. They scatter in large numbers to grow or die. Those that live, become sentient: some of those become mere scavengers around the fringes but the luckiest are taken on by a mentor and educated. This Theophan was a student of Theophan the Rotund, along with Maw, Bung, Cram and Guttle. We learn that Gobule mentors occasionally mentor other species: Sylvester seems to be considering using one for his own future children. We hear about a Jibjib boss called Flap who runs an expensive ferry service across the Chasm, and learn that Theophan has chosen to stay beside the Chasm because it goes all the way down to the Hot Zone and he feels there's something terribly important down there. He tastes the Can Opener and thinks it is made of Sneech squeezings, or something similar. We learn that Theophan also stays by the Chasm to provide a sort of counselling service to male Trogs who come to the Chasm to kill themselves at the projecting jetty called the Plunge. After Rosemary and Sylvester have left we see Whisp still trailing them, then two baby Gobules emerge from a hole and talk to Theophan. We learn that those Nomes who still live in the Basement live in Root Hall with the Eyebolts. Rosemary is aware of Whisp following them. As they approach the Plunge point, trying to lose Whisp, they are passed by Crazy Rhid coming the other way, with Kronk still on his trail some way behind him. Nearby, we see a male Ghast waiting for somebody, and Hpobfvfr passing by behind him, presumably looking for Rosemary and Sylvester: the unknown male glimpses her and seems to realise something is odd about her. A shot is fired (by Camora, with the blunderbuss, under Hax's control, from a high vantage point), striking Rosemary on the helmet and dazing her: Kronk pushes her aside in order to pursue Rhid, and she and Sylvester fall into the Chasm. Rhid and Kronk pass Whisp, who smells Camora's presence nearby, and then a Trog juggler who we later learn is called Stonwal. Digger Odel rescues Rhid, sort-of, by pulling him in behind a concealed panel. Whisp traces Camora's scent to another concealed panel, then leaves to report back to Upernavik and Knumdrot. Meanwhile we see Hpobfvfr go to the edge of the Plunge and peer over, then turn back. Behind the second panel, Hax disengages from Camora. He believes he has contained her memory and delayed her awakening, but she wakes instantly, with full memory, and tries to grab him. He escapes down a crack in the rock. We see fissures in the rock containing odd bits of struts and tools and what looks like a Smyt-sized pink racing car, then a bat waking and flying through wider fissures towards the outside. Part Five: Mechanisms in the Dark [27/02/2010 - 16/07/2013] 01: Sitting in a Tree [27/02/2010 - 04/06/2010] Now that it is getting dark Comshaw, Niddle and Ig finally feel safe to come down from the ruined fountain. Ig is now wearing/carrying Niddle's backpack. Yasmine enters the ruined building where she heard coughing, and discovers Mortimer, still coming round from having been stunned by Eunice. He has a note from Rufus on his chest but we aren't told what it says. He correctly identifies Yasmine as a Weirdo - which she finds amazing, apparently because it suggests a degree of clairvoyance not seen since the Crash. He also identifies the building as Dorian's old hut (presumably the Dorian who now lives in the Spike), but seems confused: when Yasmine mentions Protus as the Willigig currently living in the Mansion, Mortimer recalls being somewhere near the Basement at some point and Skibble, who seems to be a friend of his, turning up and mentioning Protus to him, but he doesn't coherently connect this with the Willigig who gave him the HJ42 after the incident with the tree-squid earlier in the day - although he then refers to Protus as "really grumpy", so he must have made the connection mentally. Yasmine claims she is there to conduct an official Weirdo's Guild review of Arthur's performance. Yasmine sets off again to find her horse, and Mortimer again sets out to find Nitfol and rescue him if still alive. He is briefly distracted by a flutterby and calls it to his finger: Yasmine sees this and is again amazed by his psychic talent. A bearded Gnoll with a spear (who we later learn is Agita's henchman Agorn) overhears them talking, and we see Mortimer's scalpsucker messenger fall asleep, still only halfway up the side of the shaft. Yasmine and Mortimer get along well and he tells her about all the odd things which happen to him. They talk about Mortimer and Sylvester doing their duty and Sylvester still getting scorned by the villagers, about chaos theory and flutterbys, and she tells him to tell Frederick about the odd things which happen to him. Thinking of what Protus showed her, but not saying it, she tells Mortimer she expects to be back some day and when she returns she expects him to have made some progress with his situation. As Yasmine leaves, Mortimer gives her his sack of fleebs. The listening Gnoll wonders whether to follow one or the other, go home and report or go join the Spikefolk, who carry out strange rites. He appears to decide to follow Mortimer. Ig, Comshaw and Niddle are trying to locate Mortimer by smell but they smell something odd as well, metal and skin, wet and burnt - Niddle says this smell was all over the mound that the Fire came out of earlier ("The Pit"). The way they describe the smell, it probably relates to either Frowgler or the Meltalmin or robot which we glimped earlier near The Pit. Again there is mention of a barrier which Humans live beyond, as if there's some sort of cordon keeping the Basement folk in. Niddle is pleased that he was exposed to the Fire and saw visions, as he thinks this will prove to be important. Mortimer encounters Frowgler, Thrash and two other Pales. He recognises Frowgler as a comic-book character but Frowgler says that he is "not THE Frowgler. Just.. A Frowgler", although he claims to be in a similar position to his fictional counterpart, in that he has come to assist the Good Guys against powerful evil forces, much bigger and more powerful than mere demons. Mortimer and Thrash are both Good Guys. Frowgler comments that the local Pales call their fort "The Camp" because they expect it to be temporary, and advises Mortimer on how to find the Spyder web he is looking for. Mortimer asks if Yasmine was right to tell him to talk to Frederick, and Frowgler thinks she probably was. As Frowgler and the Pales leave, Mortimer finds an umbrella. It doesn't belong to anyone in Frowgler's party, so he keeps it. Agorn realises that Comshaw's party are behind him, and hides. He overhears Comshaw sniffing out the fact that the Human, Mortimer, went one way and the Pales and the metal-smelling thing went another. So in this case the metal-smelling thing must be Frowgler. Agorn is impressed, but in a kind of patronising way: he sees Comshaw as a young fellow with potential. The space-suited worker who earlier quit the Hot Zone observation station climbs out of a hatch in one of the ruined buildings, takes off her helmet and reveals herself to be a female Nome called Fizmo. She mentions having been taken below by someone called Fogorner, who she believes was working for the group in the Spike. She forces her way out of the locked building through a crack high in the stonework. She meets Frowgler, whom she knows - he had advised her not to take the subterranean job. Now he says going back down would be the safest thing for her, but not the best thing. Learning that she likes Nitfol, he suggests she go with Thrash to the Pale camp where Nitfol now is, and she agrees. Frowgler gives her a hat, since Nomes hate to be bareheaded, but he warns her to examine hats from other sources carefully. It is clear he is warning her about Fixits, and that Fogorner is controlled by a Fixit. He also warns her that the beaver shark - of which there is only one - is loose nearby, and that he is trying to stop Kayeeb doing something which will destroy the Nome village (presumably, attacking the Gnolls). Frowgler denies being a demon and says he was put on earth to do what he is doing. He goes down the tunnel Fizmo came out of, and she goes off with the Pales, talking at them about a Nome who built a prototype plane which crashed, and her ideas about hot air balloons. We see a flat-topped tower among the ruins, containing a giant glowgem which gives off light. Down below is a lorry in some sort of workshop. The glowgem connects to the lights which channel daylight to the Great Chasm, and we see that Rosemary and Sylvester have landed in a peculiar fluffy outgrowth of the Tree. Rosemary, probably still dazed, identifies Rhid whom they have just seen as one of the people Protus showed to Sylvester, and thinks that the woman he saw her fighting - whom she calls Tansy - is about to show up. Her helmet light is damaged, and Sylvester's helmet is missing, caught in the Tree. He manages with some difficulty to retrieve it, so that they have light and can proceed. 02: Lying in a Hole [05/06/2010 - 16/09/2010] Rosemary tears her skirt - which is stolen - to make ties to keep their helmets on. The pre-existence of Wyverns, a kind of extinct dragon, is mentioned, and the fact that Rosemary has killed people. Sylvester thinks the padded branches below the Plunge point are there to stop Trogs killing themselves, and this is born out when they find a strategically-placed pot of Trog repellant which herds any Trogs who land in the Tree towards a narrow spur bridge over the abyss (made by a very reputable construction firm). The spur ends with a tube-like chute which they are sucked in by, and which takes them to a padded landing-site in a room within the cliff, which contains a broken office cabinet which has "The Threshold" written on it, and which moves about under its own power. They meet a thing called a Lurker - a cave-creature like a blind, bald, sub-sentient Saur. Dog-like, it wants them to follow it: Rosemary thinks it's leading them into an ambush. Following it, they come to a place which looks like the Ettins' artificial Trog habitat, except sterile and dead, without the moss and fresh water etc. of the zoo exhibit. Sylvester feels that he and Rosemary are both acting rather wildly, and that this is due to exposure to vents leading to the Hot Zone. They come to an archway labelled "Serene Cavern of Blissful Relaxation", beside which is a slightly sick poem about the death of Yurd. Within are the people the Lurker, Blinky, was reporting to - two male trogs called Villipend and Hamble. Both are less flat-faced and probably mentally sharper than Kronk, but Villipend is crowned, paranoid and deranged. Hamble tries to calm him but he is sure that Rosemary and Sylvester are the "Tormentors" who keep him trapped there, and it doesn't help that he smells his enemy Kronk (who brushed past them at the Plunge point) on them. When Sylvester says he doesn't know where the exit is, Villipend throws a weapon which Rosemary fends off with the Can-Opener, which Villipend calls a Sneech claw. Rosemary and Villipend fight and Villipend manages to get in a kick which throws her against the wall. Sylvester intervenes, warns him grimly that he is the terrible Earl of E and fires a primitive taser which he has in his backpack - but Villipend dodges and it is Hamble who is struck and apparently killed. The act of firing the taser also throws Squeeb out of the backpack and onto the floor. Villipend is impressed by the taser but annoyed because he wanted to kill Hamble himself. He threatens Sylvester so Rosemary slashes him with the Can-Opener and he hides in the dark. Sylvester finds a door operated by a Herediscan which identifies him as a member of the E family and lets him through. He tells Villipend (now clinging to the ceiling) he will leave the door open. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their weapons training (and we learn that at the bodyguard training-school she went to, the fencing master was a Mr Montoya). She is concerned that she may not be able to stop Villipend if he attacks again, because he's in peak condition and she has no practice with the Can-Opener. As they move away from the Hot Zone vents, Rosemary becomes calmer. Sylvester tells her about the SubShafts, a tangle of tunnels which are greatly affected by the Hot Zone. The Eyebolts who worked for the Ettins lived there, then the mining Nomes as well. After an upheaval (presumably the Gnoll/Nome war) they all moved out, the Eyebolts to elsewhere in the Basement, the Nomes to the Forest, and now it's mainly Gnolls who live in the SubShafts. We seen an outline of Cully, Chunner and Crud, all heavily armed - Cully with a flame-thrower, Chunner with a blunderbuss and Crud with something similar to the Can-Opener. Rosemary and Sylvester come to an area of large engineering works at the start of a walkway or bridge at the edge of the long drop. Villipend jumps them, wrests the Can-Opener from Rosemary and tries to force Sylvester to go back downstairs and close the door to Villipend's domain, so he can continue to trap other Trogs there. Sylvester is willing to jump into the Chasm rather than do so. Meanwhile, Mortimer finds the remains of the dead Spyder. Comshaw's party are still tracking Mortimer, and Agorn is still trailing them. Mortimer comes to the crater caused when Frowgler set off the HJ42, and wrongly assumes Nitfol and the spyder were both blown up. He climbs down into the crater and retrieves the HJ42, then Comshaw, Niddle and Ig arrive at the edge of the crater and engage him in conversation about the goals of Humanity. They all conclude that Comshaw needs to speak to Sylvester (hearing that Sylvester is the Earl, Comshaw assumes he must be very scary). The thing Niddle is carrying, which he found in the tunnel and which is similar to but not the same as a glowgem, starts radiating energy. Niddle says he can almost hear it speak, it's waited a long time and now it's almost time for some unspecified meeting. Snerk appears, pursued by the beaver shark, as Niddle begins to count down from five. Mortimer tells the others to run, while he stands his ground and summons a flock of flutterbys to distract the shark. The two Saurs run but Comshaw and Niddle are still present when Niddle's not-a-glowgem discharges its energy in a huge dome of light. Mortimer and the shark are transported into open underground space by a twistpoint and fall down to where Rosemary and Sylvester are. The letters PZOR appear, suggesting that the not-glowgem and the HJ42 interacted to create the twistpoints, burst of light etc.. The shark bites Villipend and Rosemary retrieves the Can-Opener and pushes both of them off the edge and into the deep. Comshaw and Niddle are jumped through another twistpoint back to their own home, where Camora is brooding. Niddle crashes out, as Telic had warned that he would, burbling about the fact that Mortimer has the same haircut as him, and something about a window. Camora tells Comshaw about Hax. He decides to go back out to warn everyone, leaving her to care for Niddle, but first they have an unspecified erotic session. Ig is twistpointed to outside the home of his ex girlfriend Nerda, the mother of his as-yet unhatched children. He offers her the stuff in Niddle's backpack so she lets him in. Snerk is less lucky. As a result (or cause) of an unspecified backlash he is dumped into the middle of a high-tech. experimental facility of some kind being run by two Ghasts. He is pinned in some uncomfortable scary machinery which may be examining him or may be cleaning and immunising him - it's not clear which - and then confined to an artifical woodland habitat designed especially for Saurs, although he doesn't realise this and believes he has been twistpointed to a real forest far away. He wishes to leave a.s.a.p. in order to report to Frowgler. There are a lot of other Saurs there - he meets a dozy girl called Dizel and a much more sensible, very large female called Zil who tells him that if he can find a way out she's coming with him. We learn that the habitat also contains big, dim, agressive Saur relatives called Sawtooths, and we see that there are Gnolls - who may be there unofficially. Meanwhile, the not-glowgem falls back into the crater, and the HJ42 falls through a crack in the floor of the crater. Agorn investigates and sees that the hole which has opened up contains a ladder. He can smell Sneeches in the depths. 03: Spanner in the Works [17/09/2010 - 15/01/2011] Sylvester identifies their location as the Ettinworks investigated by Krell, Earl Griffington's assistant. Sylvester, Mortimer (smelling peculiar, with umbrella) and Rosemary set out along the walkway: lights, electric crackles and deep rumbling noises come on as they walk. Rosemary has a sense that the Can-Opener may do exciting things around electrical discharges, and puts it in the Poke-Kit. They come to an unusually passive Sneech plant-machine growth which is blocking the walkway, and edge past it. Mortimer insists on taking the lead as he is the most expendable. The other two have been ignoring Mortimer and rather treating him like a small child but they begin to realise their mistake. They are far below the level of the Sneech nest - Mortimer recounts comments by Skibble suggesting the Sneeches are expanding their territory. Having passed the Sneech growth they come in sight of an Ettin underhub - a lighthouse-like tower which stretches from the floor where they are, through the open cavern of the Ettinworks to the ceiling of the cavern, which is the floor of the shallower levels overhead, with a row of windows ringing the tower up near the ceiling. Sylvester talks of a network of underground roads and buildings which was wrecked and sealed off when Audra poked the Hot Zone and caused the Chasm to spread - it is clear this is the system now being opened up and used by the Fixits. They go into the underhub and prepare to climb a spiralling internal ramp, and have a conversation in which Rosemary is amazed to learn that a famous, ancient philosopher named Milo was the 9th Earl of E. They find a signpost written in a Human script and recently annotated in the handwriting of Nirvana Clepe, former Taskmistress of the Mansion, who retired eight years ago when her wife died, and supposedly lives three days' ride away. Mortimer is showing clairvoyance - he knows how old the writing is, and that the Sneeches have never been inside the underhub. There is a discussion about Threnody the local Oracle, whom Sylvester fancies (Dirge is her Guardian). The interior of the underhub is full of concealed twistpoints - as they climb, the interior changes illogically and it's possible to go up and end up lower down. There are a series of signposts to guide them. Talking about twistpoints leads them to realise that they each met Protus today. Mortimer talks about Yasmine, and about ending up in Dorian's old hut. He recalls Dorian as a hermit from his childhood, although Dorian has been working for the group in the Spike for forty-two years. Sylvester is sure Yasmine was lying about being there to review Arthur, unless the Guild have changed the rules without telling him. Employing a Weirdo, we learn, is a requisite part of being an aristocrat. They come to a group of elongated, slope-sided pillars labelled "do not touch". After they have passed on without touching them, we see that they are local Panegates. Windows open in them to show a room with a table set for dinner, two female Gnolls gossiping (one has a flutterby on a string) and two Dornbeasts, large and small. Frowgler, looking rough, emerges from the Dornbeast one although the Dornbeasts cannot pass. He goes back through another, smaller window and we hear a voice comment that he is damaged. Frowgler says he met one of Protus's new friends. The twistpoints in the underhub aren't mentioned in the Mansion's records. Sylvester thinks the Ettins' devices were built to shut down in the event of a Crash, and are now waking again. They discuss the Crash, and what they could do before it - still far less than the Ettins did. They had a high-level tram which took a week to cross the country: the Ettins went to the moon. They come to another pillar labelled "touch". In order to get past a twistpoint and go up again Mortimer touches it with his umbrella, and a ray from the ceiling strikes the other two. Sylvester loses nearly all his memory - although he recalls Nimue - and Rosemary loses some of her intelligence, regresses emotionally and starts acting like an eager-to-please, extremely literal-minded five-year-old with no conversational filters. Rosemary's memory is intact and she realises what has happened and warns Mortimer he will have to tell her what to do. This is a double-edged sword as she is now extremely hypnotically susceptible. Following Mortimer's instincts, they hold the umbrella together and touch the pillar again, and this time a levitating lift called a Woosher arrives. The Woosher carries them up inside the tower, and while they are on it the ramps that were there before disappear. Meanwhile, Nevus's troops are at Comshaw's door, believing he sent Sylvester and Rosemary to spy on Le Tree. Comshaw emerges and duffs them up with his poking stick. He gets one of them, a young male Trog called Skradt, to take him to Nevus. Skradt is interested in learning to be a Poker himself. The Basement is now very quiet - most people are hiding. They go to Le Tree, where Gnoll doorkeepers called Forfind and Frag let them pass. We see that the hamster, plant and ABOL have escaped. Comshaw offers to trade true information for a truce. Nevus agrees and asks him why he and the Council hired Sylvester and Rosemary to come to Le Tree and start a war. Comshaw explains that he did no such thing although he's not sure about the Council. Nevus accepts that Rosemary and Sylvester were lying. Comshaw tells him they are Humans and Sylvester is the Earl (which he learned from Mortimer at the crater), and then suddenly strikes a Fixit from the head of Neilguye, Nevus's Motihaul accountant, where Nevus can see it. A Boogieman, Malcolm, catches the Fixit and it dies - they are very fragile. Comshaw goes to tell the Council about the Humans and the Fixits, and Skradt comes with him. 04: Closing Out an Era (The Ettinworks) [18/01/2011 - 04/06/2011] As they ride the Woosher Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer discuss the fact that there must be "some rich guy with horrible mutant tastebuds" keeping Moe Wines in business (there is, of course - Mr Hand). They discuss the fact that Sylvester is the Earl (which he has forgotten) and the succession. They pass an unknown woman in brown, with blond hair with a pink bow on top - Rosemary calls her Mz Teree - who seems to be the one marking the signs. Hpobfvfr is stil trailing them. When they disembark, higher up, the tower changes again and they find more ramps. It is mentioned that they need never have gone down to look for the Pots Room, because Mortimer knows where there is a supply of seige pots in a disused barracks. Rosemary's bodyguard training is still sharp even if the rest of her isn't. They discuss twistpoints, and confirm that it is possible to walk down a ramp, then back up the same ramp, and end up somewhere different from where they started. The new signpost is decorated with a heart with "N C + A S" written in it: they think this may be Nirvana Clepe and the Mz Teree woman. With more down-and-up twists they arrive at the level of the bank of windows, up against the roof of the cavern where the Ettinworks are, and just under the floor of the upper part of the Basement. At this point they are probably back at about the level of Le Tree, or maybe a storey or two below it. As they walk Rosemary burbles, and starts to speak about Tansy - who she thinks is the woman Sylvester saw her fighting when Protus showed him visions - and a word beginning "Qu". The view from the windows looks as if it is of starry space rather than down into the Ettinworks, but they do not go to look, for fear of triggering more dangerous events. Leading up from the window room is a flight of stone steps going up into the body of the rock above them. There is also an Ettin-style door with a gap about 10" high underneath it. Mortimer peers underneath and sees a corridor of human-type doors, one with a pair of shoes outside it, but a little metal sign saying "KEEP OUT" falls down in front of him, with thye letters cut out of it as holes. Sylvester feels that there are Humans in that corridor, but when he turns his back it's a non-Human-looking hand, possibly Frowgler's, which retrieves the "KEEP OUT" sign. They set off up the stone steps towards the Sneech den. Rosemary and Sylvester are starting to improve. There is some oblique discussion about Sylvester not telling Rosemary the Scary Lady's name, then about Mortimer's friend the Scalpsucker - Mortimer remembers falling down the hole leading to the old World o' Pots storeroom but doesn't seem to recall meeting Rufus. They come to a door opened by number pad, leading to a double-doored Sneech-lock. Emerging, they pass an alcove containing an entrance to the elevator, above the one where they emerged earlier. Past that is a round room at the bottom of a shaft, with a crystal on a stand in the middle, playing a popular song. There are also double metal doors, closed, and stairs leading up and down. Mortimer hopes to use the stairs but finds the ones going up are labelled "Operation Certain Death" and the ones going down, "Slimegrub Breedpits". The down-flight shows signs of recent flooding, but Mortimer retrieves a glowgem from the first landing down, with a mysterious socket just right for fitting it onto the point of his umbrella. Rosemary seems slightly hypnotised by it. They plan to go upstairs, towards Operation Certain Death, but then they hear something big and loud crashing downstairs towards them. Rosemary draws the Can-Opener, which Sylvester calls a Paleslicer. They use the singing crystal thing to levitate them up to a higher floor, but Rosemary is grabbed and held back, floating, by what proves to be an enormous, female relative of Ahz and Skiv, called Tand. Tand can smell that Rosemary has been near Ahz and Skiv and believes, wrongly, that she knows who they are, so after some initial problems adjusting her voice to Human levels, she tells her to tell them to get a move on with their allotted task of growing a garden, a task for which they were all sent here by someone else. Tand says Rosemary is not like any other human she's met, and one of the other two (has to be Mortimer) is sparkly like a lot of humans used to be but haven't been for a while - apparently she is sensing him as a magic-user. Tand has to leave because she is literally over-stretched and her torch is going out. She is afraid to meet, in the dark, a male "horrible mask-thing" who can go anywhere - this may be Frowgler, since the Pales call him Frogmask. Released, Rosemary floats up to the boys. She feels herself to be now entirely back to normal (although later events will show that this isn't quite true). Sylvester recognises the name Tand from his records, but still hasn't wholly regained his memory. Meanwhile, Comshaw and Skradt come to the Council entrance, which is heavily defended. An Eyebolt receptionist called Witherward admits them by dropping them down a shaft. They arrive in the midst of a full meeting, including Twiz, acting for Maw; Snerd, acting for Sina; Commander Chumley (the Council's Chief of Security) for the Boogiemen and a Ghast "Stirrer", some kind of high ceremonial functionary relating to how the Ghasts reproduce (they have to use special breeding pools within their home base and are unable to set up more outside it), who is in some way not physically present. On the Council are Doyen, a female Trog; Gavzada, a female Motihaul; Wunk, a male Gnoll; Aprat, a Helipath and Chairbeing Preznit, a male Eyebolt, although he tries to hide his species behind a mask. Twiz is very interested in the new Hall Sina is setting up. The Council is concerned about Rhid and what he may do next, and whether Sina is a safe person to be a leader. Gavzada is keen on anything which keeps Othara occupied, and they are cautiously positive so long as Sina and her engineer Fosic build walls to keep epople away from the Operator. Comshaw then strikes a Fixit from the head of a femal Gnoll called Widdendreem, who seems to be the Council's record-keeper. He wants to catch it alive but Widdendreem, freed from the Fixit, pounces and kills it. Widdendrem is angry that she now owes Comshaw a debt, and concerned by the fact that she has killed a person. She tells them the name "Fixit" and that the dead one was a female called Snurfix, reporting to a male nicknamed Slinker. Snurfix had crept onto her head while she slept. We learn that young Fixits are raised in cages "beyond the Spikeshield", which must be the barrier others have spoken of. Chumley sends Widdendreem to write down all she recalls about the Fixits, while Comshaw tells the Council what he knows about them - leaving out Camora's name. Chumley decrees that no one in the Council Chamber shall wear a hat - all the Councillors drop their hoods and Preznit, whose brain is in his torso, strips to his socks. The Council agrees to tell all the key players - Maw, Agita etc. - whilst trying to prevent the knowledge of the Fixits from spreading generally for the moment, for fear of what God might do when he learns his spy network has been blown. They want all the leaders warned before God takes any action. Comshaw tells them about the Humans, and Sylvester being the Earl, but he doesn't know if he is the Earl. The Earl "tore the world in two fighting Yurp, the Demon King" - Yurp is not yet identified, unless he is the Operator, but the Earl is evidently Audra, who caused the Chasm to spread. Comshaw plans to go speak to Sylvester tomorrow. Comshaw, Skradt, Snerd and Twiz head for the exit, discussing Ghast reproduction and Trog education (here we learn that Espy is a teacher). They slide down a chute and land in a corridor by the battered-looking Gobule Mingent, who is eating the dead from the battle. Twiz has been chewing a piece of the dead Fixit - they tell Mingent if he smells anything like it, to bite it. Twiz runs off. Comshaw thinks Snerd should work for Sina but Snerd says Shona wouldn't like it, and he loves Shona. Comshaw and Skradt set off together. They encounter a Jibjib called Schrik being ridden by a Fixit, and try and fail to take the Fixit alive. The Fixit has been using Schrik to spy on Flap's ferry across the Great Chasm. An important Boogieman ruler called Crispin is mentioned. Comshaw sends Schrik to take the dead Fixit to Sina and then work for her. Skradt reveals that he joined Nevus hoping for an early death in battle, so he wouldn't have to choose to take the Plunge. But Comshaw has given him a vision of something more useful, plus he wants to learn to fight as well as him. Frowgler, watching through a crack in the wall, thinks they make a good team. 05: Closing Out an Era (The Sneech Den) [06/06/2011 - 16/12/2011] Sylvester, Mortimer and Rosemary pass another large inactive Sneech node and several smaller ones, and some graffitti relating to dragons - although we're not told whether they are a legend or, like wyverns, a real if possibly extinct animal. There is a conversation about Mortimer's history of failed relationships with scary women, in the course of which he tells Rosemary that his relationship with her will be strictly business while she is staring bug-eyed at the hypno-gem, and he reveals that he has the hots for Yasmine. Rosemary is in command over Sylvester because that's part of her job as bodyguard. There is a lot of discussion of Sneech races and technology, living walls etc. and also Rosemary's poor origins on Gnomin. Mortimer takes off his shirt so Rosemary can make them rag boots and mittens so they don't have to touch the Sneech material: he passes his umbrella to Sylvester as he does so and sees the gem glows much less brightly when Sylvester holds the umbrella. Rosemary has absorbed the hypnotic lesson that her relationship with Mortimer is strictly business. Following a trail of fresh air through the tunnels of the Sneech den, they come to a bridge over a moderate drop, guarded on either side by relatives of Fern's. The intelligent plants are wary of Rosemary but agree to disarm her and carry the Can-Opener across the bridge themselves for her to collect on the far side. As they get there the Gnoll Agorn falls while trying to climb down from the crater above, and lands at their feet. Agorn hasn't noticed, but Niddle's apearing and disapearing gem (hereafter the Hitchhiking Gem) is now attached to his spear. As the Human trio prepare to leave, one of the the plants delays them and asks - by spelling with its tongue - that they be given names. Sylvester names them after the Founding Oracles, a group of women who spread the religion of the Brush - Violet, Daisy, Joice, Jenny, Kathryne, Hettie, Evangeline, Vivian and Petunia. Sylvester promises to visit them again: as the Humans leave we see the plants talk amongst themselves by some rapid means. The Humans come to the main corridor through the Sneech den, which is studded with tall, light-bearing tree-like things. Meanwhile Comshaw and Skradt come to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, where Agita (a Motihaul) has her office. They have a complicated system of clearances in which Comshaw ranks quite high. An Eyebolt called Philodox admits them. While waiting to be seen they observe that two of the Eyebolt clerks are wearing Fixit-type hats but they seem to be just hats. An Eyebolt called Giddhom says thay are in fashion because some people claim they help you to think. Weirding is discussed, and the eccentricities of various species - we learn that Helipaths refuse to cross the Great Chasm to Sneech side even though Sneeches get on OK with them. The hatted clerks are Scrutineers, recording everything visitors say - Skradt wishes to be recorded as a would-be Poker. [Around here we have a Labor Day out-take showing local man Arlen and his daughter Juniper, digging a ditch at the back of a hedge near the village of Eetown. The hedge seems to have the rusted remains of a pre-crash vehicle incorporated into it.] Comshaw borrows Giddhom's hat so Fixits will think he's controlled. They are escorted to see Agita by an Eyebolt called Peripatet riding in a special buggy which was damaged during an eventful visit by Strode, the aggressive female Motihaul in the pumpkin-head mask who appears in Sundays in SubShaft 44f. They pass more clerks one of whom, Ogdoad, is wearing a Fixit. We learn that the Eyebolts in Root Hall distrust the GBOLs, and therefore presumably the Tree, and make their own lights. Comshaw and Skradt come to Agita and her Eyebolt clerk Flibbergib, and Agita gives them apples. She has with her her young daughter, Rishathra, and a Gnoll guard called Termagant. Agita and Comshaw catch up on the events of the day (including establishing that it was the young Mortimer who somehow started the Nome War after falling through into a mine), and Comshaw gets her to summon Ogdoad, who insists on a promise of safe conduct before he will come in. He has some involvement with another Eyebolt (?) called Tribblerig and some scheme involving Sneech squeezings. As Ogdoad enters the office Comshaw baps the Fixit, called Endix, off his head and Skradt catches him in a bowl but Endix somehow commits suicide. Ogdoad is terribly distressed, for he and Endix had become at least semi-partners. Comshaw and Skradt leave Root Hall, and are quizzed as they leave by an Eyebolt who assumes it's all to do with Sneech squeezings. As they come away from Root Hall they pass the male Nome called Rezrov, still with his arm in a sling, leading, on a string, a very flirtatious-looking female Trog named Hogminny. Both are smeared with green paint. We are told that some Nomes and some Trogs have a "thing", and learn that Skradt tentatively fancies Maggle. Comshaw 'phones the Council and tells them he has delivered their message to Agita, and he has a message for them from Root Hall saying Ogdoad is involved with a Sneech squeezings scheme but they'll handle it. Comshaw takes Skradt home with him and Camora and Niddle are quite welcoming, although if he's staying they may need to move to a bigger apartment. All sleep, exhausted. Meanwhile, Agita takes Ogdoad with her to see a female Motihaul accountant called Marritza who is wearing a Fixit named Arnix. Agita threatens Arnix with a pointed umbrella ferrule, then tells him that the gaff regarding God and the Fixits is well and truly blown, and offers him the chance to ride on Ogdoad and act as a liason officer between herself and God. Arnix and Ogdoad both agree. Meanwhile. Sprocket is upset to see that Crazy Rhid's ex place connects to large areas of still-working machinery, the only machinery that good outside the SubShafts, and Rhid didn't tell anyone. Sina now has a makeshift office, an Eyebolt receptionist called Nikhedonia and Maggle acting as gopher. Sina and Sprocket decide to marry, right now - Wittol, who will be their Finagler, has already anticipated this and started to make arrangements. We learn that Niddle has had experiences which make him a perfect Finagler - so perfect he may be a whole new thing. We learn that Gnoll marriage customs involve a receptacle called a Tweebowl, a Tool and a Blossom and, at some point before they have whelps, a visit to the Fluffy Foo-Foo Cave, and without a Finagler things go badly wrong for mated pairs. Yet, some couples such as Niff and Folla live unofficially, without a Finagler, and manage fine. Sprocket, Wittol and Sina have a hasty cermeony, with the possibility of a more formal one later. Afterwards Snerd turns up and thinks Nikhedonia's hat is a Fixit, although it's just a hat. As he is explaining, Schrik turns up with an actual dead Fixit. Maggle and Kronk are sent out to show the dead Fixit around and kill any live ones they find, and Snerd returns to his mate Shona and Finagler Wubb. Flange reminds Sprocket of their obligations to their employer Mr Hand, and tells him about Rubrak being killed by Chauncy and Edgar. Sprocket and Flange will probably cease to be partners now. Sprocket talks privately to Sina about Mr Hand and the job - he has realised that the femal Motihaul who put him in touch with Mr Hand was wearing/worn by a Fixit. Mr Hand has had them installing devices called Y-nodes which look like Sneech growths, and produce ultrasonic sound only small creatures can hear. Fleebs in the presence of a Y-node turn to face it and stare. Sprocket sees Mr Hand as ruthless and controlling but constructive rather than destructive in his intentions. They agree to tell Comshaw about it, then get on to the serious business of their wedding night. As a final wrap-up, we see Snoot bitching to Izchak about his bloody awful day; the Super Rock pausing to rest and to talk to another rock which can talk, but not walk; Digger reporting to Frowgler that things are going to plan and he has no questions to ask; and Frederick preparing to serenade the Grubbs on a Fugehorn. 06: Twilight [17/12/2011 - 09/06/2012] Agorn encounters Hpobfvfr, who is trailing the Humans. She addresses him as if he is two people - she senses the sentient Hitchiking Gem which Agorn doesn't know he is carrying. Sylvester and co. enter the main corridor, which is again unnaturally quiet - we learn there should be trilobite-thingies scuttling about trailing organic wires etc.. While discussing local politics and a performing troupe who once came to the local village, Mortimer accidentally causes Rosemary to fixate on the gem in his umbrella, and gives her three hypnotic commands - "Go to sleep, but act like you're still awake!", "Take a note! I am not going to keep making these mistakes with women!" and "Do as you're told! Stay in your place! Speak only when spoken to! The Brush wills it!". They pass a Sneech tower which is at the edge between Human and Sneech territory and is labelled "NO INTERRUPTIONS", then they come to a neon sign saying "OUR TRAJECTORYS DIVERGE PAYMENT FOR YE ASSISTANCE" (although Sylvester doesn't know what assistance is meant). This dissolves, leaving a squat obelisk which moves when it is touched, and which Rosemary names the Dohickey. The Sneeches themselves have gone. The obelisk steers them around a hole in the floor, which proves to be the hole which Chauncy and Edgar left when they exited Izchak's shop looking for the Scary Lady. Matagam the Motihaul soldier and a Boogieman called Geoff climb out of the hole, checking where Chauncy and Edgar went. Heading for the Mansion proper, Rosemary, Mortimer and Sylvester pass the entrance to a tunnel put in by the Council to monitor the Humans. They emerge from an elaborate vesitbule decorated with ornamental fake stalagmites and flaming braziers, into a plain downstairs room containing the entrance to the elevator and a small extension of the Tree, and with "BEWARE MR FLIP" written on the wall. Mr Flip is a character we meet in Sundays in SubShaft 44f, but Mortimer says the graffito has been there his whole life. To get further they need to go through a locked door, the key to which Sylvester dropped while falling into the Great Chasm. Matagam and Geoff head for the Council tunnel and are passed by Hpobfvfr, who corners the humans against the locked door. Mortimer senses that her mind has been tampered with and speaks to her sympathetically, incidentally getting between her and her intended targets. Then we see in flashback that the male Ghast she passed just before Rosemary and Sylvester fell into the Chasm realised that something was wrong and went and fetched help. Hpthva, the officer in charge of a party of Ghast soldiers who have been following behind, orders Hpobfvfr to stand down, and this breaks the Operator's hold over her. Hearing Rosemary address Mortimer by name, Hpthva quries this and he says he is "Mortimer Eman.. because we're going to be all.. formal": in doing so he inadvertently gives Rosemary another hypnotic command. Having confirmed Mortimer's name and that he might be the one who started the Nome War, and having learned that they are Human, Hpthva wants to arrest the trio, but great aunt Scary appears in the doorway (with balloon) and scares them off. Somewhere, she has acquired a flower which she is now wearing tucked into the v-neck of her dress. After the Ghasts leave, the rest go through into the house and Scary cures Sylvester's memory problems. He is very reluctant to ask her to do anything which will put him under an obligation to her. Scary tries to touch the Sneech obelisk, but it fizzes a shock at her. Meanwhile Sylvester realises something is wrong with Rosemary, and when she starts addressing Mortimer as "Mr Eman" because "We are being all formal" Sylvester realises that she is following Mortimer's commands literally. Mortimer tries to snap her out of it by giving her a ridiculous command to "be a dog" but she goes down on all fours and starts growling. Scary is detachedly impressed by his power, and thinks there is a real risk Rosemary will become permanently enthralled. Alarmed, Mortimer tries to order Rosemary to be herself. In the short term it seems to have worked, but it remains to be seen whether she has internalised any of his commands. Mortimer goes off to speak to Frederick. Restored to normal function, Rosemary is introduced to the Scary Lady (whose name we finally learn to bne Myrrh) and the two go off for a private chat in which it is revealed that Rosemary knows the Scary Lady to be not human, and that the Scary Lady loves and protects Frederick to the point of being willing to kill anybody who threatens anybody he cares about, such as his nephews. The same minituarised trundlebug who fell onto Rosemary's helmet earlier in the day is revealed to be still lurking in her broken lamp, and the Scary Lady rescues it, then goes off to see what's happened to the Sneeches. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Scary Lady, and how Frederick summoned her by accident while trying to get a Djinn. He spent his energy on a collar to control her and stop her from running wild and killing bystanders, as Demons had done in the past, but now she wears the collar voluntarily and uses it to assist her own magic in some way. She has been a good partner to Frederick and a good great-aunt to his family, and Sylvester is loyal to her and will protect her if necessary. Sylvester schedules a talk about Rosemary's recent history for the next day but he fears to be overheard, so they must go somewhere secure. They prove to each other that they are human by checking each other's ears (Sylvester's ears are apparently jaw-droppingly strange, but not pointed) and discuss the origins of Demons and Djinn and the possibility that they are, after all, just people. Sylvester realises something about Frederick and why he hid books on Demons which he feels foolish not to have realised before, which leads to a conversation about a duel which Rosemary lost in a way which made her realise her own mortality and how dangerous her job was, and they take the Sneech obelisk towards the Quiet Room. Meanwhile, the Scary Lady enters the Sneech den and speaks to Frowgler, who is crawling out of the top of the shaft created by Chauncy and Edgar. They seem not to have spoken to each other for fifty years, but are on good terms. Mortimer goes to speak to Frederick, who is playing his Fugehorn into some kind of vaguely tree-like amplifier. On the way he meets Nellie, who recognises the umbrella he is carrying and seems shocked by it. She is concerned, generally, for Mortimer's safety and well-being, and for that of her own husband Amos although he is sitting quietly doing some book-binding, and seems to be enjoying Frederick's music. Mortimer believes Rosemary and Sylvester are now an item: Nellie expects him to be jealous but he doesn't seem to be. Frederick tells Mortimer that he's a wizard and that there's a wand built into the umbrella, but he won't help Mortimer to learn magic because he thinks it brings only misery. Meanwhile Sylvester and Rosemary talk as they steer the dohickey towards the Quiet Room, and we learn that Frederick actually plays the Fugehorn very well, that what he is playing is a well-known lament for the victims of the Crash, and that Ernest, the Earl who was an art forger, was also a genuine patron of the arts and built a whole wing of the castle for theatre and other performing arts. As they approach the Quiet Room Rosemary's Poke Kit shrinks and begins to disgorge its contents, so Sylvester goes alone to deposit the Sneech dohickey. The Quiet Room contains the Dark Crystal, a Triforce symbol from the Zelda stories, a clockwork monkey playing cymbals, a statuette of Cthulhu, a flower in a pot and a crescent thing which looks like the head of another Can-Opener-type pike. After Sylvester leaves, all these objects begin to glow with magic and the crescent speaks and greets the dohickey. Sylvester and Rosemary go to find a sword for her and to change the lock on the basement door, since he has lost his key in the basement. They find a powerful taser, much stronger than the one Sylvester tried to use on Villipend: Rosemary says Hack'N'Slash have offered a big reward for a working one, but they leave it where it is because it's probably only its proximity to the Quiet Room which is keeping it from exploding. Sylvester says that the things in the Quiet Room are dangerous, that destroying them in the Great Chasm would lead to earthquakes and that left in the Quiet Room those that are Sneech gifts gradually fade away, and in any case they usually switch off when the recipient dies. The crescent thing is not known to be dangerous - just annoying. They meet up with Mortimer, and Sylvester assures him he hadn't known that he was a wizard. Mortimer is half thinking of going after Yasmine, but he hopes she will return to the Mansion. Sylvester fears this could lead to a division of loyalties, depending on what it is the Weirdos are plotting. He thinks their father may also have been an unknown wizard. Mortimer describes his encounter with Frowgler, who he has realised gave him the umbrella surreptitiously, and Sylvester believes him because the Great Riddler also mentioned Frowgler. They intend to debrief each other the next day but not now, because Rosemary feels they may be overheard. She meanwhile is planning to fetch a seige-pot from the barracks. Mortimer goes off and heads up the North Tower, and Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Weirdos, who are a combination of jester, priest and counsellor. We learn that Oracles (but not Weirdos) carry out midwifery - and euthanasia. We learn that there are seige-engines mounted on the Main Tower and also that Rosemary can't act, as they discuss the plays which used to be put on at the Mansion, and the history of Kaylu - a Hitlerian dictator who introduced a country called Tomania to a crazed, murderous empire-building cult which worshipped a two-tailed monkey god, and was destroyed by the Crash in some way connected with the Infernal Engine. Sylvester feels that he no longer knows what's going on around his home. Having collected the necessary materials they board up the door to the Basement, using a mechanical nail-planter which could be valuable if they can find somebody to replicate it for sale. They leave the door unbarred for the Scary Lady and Syklvester declares their business with the Basement is done for the day, although he will keep his promise to call on the Ferns again, and his plans for the rest of the evening require Rosemary to retain her (Audra's) helmet. We see Frederick return to the suite of rooms he shares with the Scary Lady, and gaze nostalgically at a photograph of his younger self and other youths in wizard gear. 07: Career Paths [11/06/2012 - 16/02/2013] We see Agorn emerge, with relief, from a tunnel mouth partway up a rock-face near a bridge across the Great Chasm. He edges along a narrow ledge, past Furphy who is trying to hatch some eggs, and comes to a bridge with a checkpoint at either end, although this one at the Sneech end is deserted. He crosses and speaks to a Gnoll border guard called Varuna, and an Ichyoid guard, and tells Varuna to warn his "vile employer" (presumably Nevus or Guttle) that if the nobs keep poking in the Sneech den the Sneeches will some day poke back. The entrance to Crescent Hall is right by the bridge, in the line of fire. He talks to another Gnoll guard called Scibile who fills him in on the events of the day, then he walks into a maze of dark, much-graffitoed stone passages and stairs. The Hitchhiking Gem falls from his spear with a clunk and he spots it and posts it down a metal hatch. It clangs down into a chain of pipes, and we see that the pipes pass by an odd kind of sculpture or device consisting of coloured spikes almost like giant coloured pencils, with single letters on them, mainly vowels. This may have to do with the religion of the Brush that coloured in the world. On top of these spikes sits a small red-brown Fuzz, clutching a flaming torch. Agorn, meanwhile, keeps going until he comes to an area where there are lighted windows and street signs. He goes to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, and speaks to a male receptionist called Enchiridon. He is left waiting for a long time while a female Scrutineer called Hypothimia records his every word and action. She is stressed and angry because with all that's been going on - the fire, Chancy and Edgar on the loose etc. - she wants to be with her mate Brimborion and their children but instead she is stuck here in this petty desk job. Peripatet arrives in his wheeled chair to collect Agorn but before Agorn goes he tells Hypothimia that he himself has been parted from his mate (he seems to have only one) and his child has been lost through some sort of mental transformation (he went away but left his body behind), but all you can do is pick yourself up and try to change things for the better. As Agorn and Peripatet proceed through Root Hall we learn that Peripatet has a girlfrind called Glossolalia, and Agorn sniffs out (literally) that Skradt is now with Comshaw. They pass various official messages on the walls but one seems like a religious or political statement - "Remontado decided she had had o nuff shaft folderol so off she went and uprooted us all". As they pass the door to Scritchpod 205 a female Eyebolt in a wheeled chair passes them going the other way, wearing what may be a normal hat or may be a Fixit, and a wave of "weirding" hallucinations emanates from behind the closed door. Peripatet takes Agorn to a door behind which is a dark space containing dark objects, perhaps Ettin machinery, glowing with dull red lights. Agorn refuses to enter. An unseen, probably male presence (Agorn addresses it as "Mr Muckymuck") behind a hatch dismisses Peripatet, who leaves at speed - the presence says that Peripatet does well at clandestine cart-races. It wants to discuss Agorn's boss, and says that "some of us" are aware of, and broadly approve of, what "you all" are doing. Consequently Agorn has been given Class Eight clearance, which means he can now come and go unescorted through most areas of Root Hall. The presence is somebody Agorn has had indirect contact with or knowledge of, but has never spoken to directly before: it asks him to supply any useful information he comes across in return, and Agorn tells him that humans are real. The presence starts to half tell Agorn about Fixits but Agorn appears not to be receptive to the idea of hats being significant, and leaves. Meanwhile the chit for Agorn's new clearance is dropped down a pneumatic pipe system to a clerk who reads it and then eats it and replaces it with another which he writes himself. He is monitoring something on a small screen. Agorn goes to the "Grafted Zone" of Root Hall and speaks to Flibbergib, Agita's Eyebolt receptionist, who again tries to tell him about the Fixits, not very clearly. Agita arrives and we see a flashback to the aftermath of the auction, and Agita sending Agorn to trail Mortimer. Agorn reports the basics of the toing and froing he has seen surrounding Mortimer, Rufus, Eunice and Yasmine. Agita fundamentally misunderstands what Humans are - she knows they are like big Nomes so she thinks they are a local mutation caused by the Spike, and gradually spreading through the local forest. She shows Agorn a written note warning him about the Fixits and telling him to lie low until tomorrow - which suggests she doesn't want to speak out loud in front of Flibbergib, or fears others may be listening. Meanwhile we see various characters sleeping, including the smal Wyrm Squeeb, asleep deep in the chasm, and Bung's friend Faddle the Gnoll, who is very much awake. He is trying to evade somebody, but is rounded up by a hunting party of female Gnolls. Next we see him and four females, all wearing collars with lights on the front, sleeping together in a large nest. As Agorn leaves Root Hall he notices that there are fewer Eyebolt watchers on duty than there usually are. The last one usually hides inside a free-standing stone sign outside the exit, but there is no-one there, and what looks like blood on the spy-hole. The "blood" is a trick to get him to stop and look, and he is narrowly missed by an arrow fired by one of two dark-haired female Gnolls (Fanga and 33333), who had momentarily mistaken him for somebody else. Agorn lets himself into a concealed bedsit room behind a panel out in the Fringes. In the dust on a table, someone has drawn an arrow and written "She thought you were someone else", surrounded by what look like Smyt footprints: we later learn that messages on the table are a regular thing and usually correct, and the marks on the table are referred to as flipper marks, although they look too small to be Frowgler's. Digger comes in - it's his pad - and Agorn addreses him as "Boss". We see that Agorn and Digger have known about the Fixits for some time. Agorn reports the day's activities to Digger, giving him more detail than he told Agita: he feels that something nudged him to get him to go down the hole which led him to the Ferns. We see that they have been watching the humans and giving them descriptive nicknames (e.g. Arthur the Weirdo with his ventriloquist's puppet Fantod is "Snoop two-head"). Agorn would like to bring Conshaw into their conspiracy, or whatever it is, but Digger vetoes the idea. Agorn sets out to see to some personal matters, but as he leaves Digger points out that when "Muckymuck" at Root Hall said that he and others were broadly pleased with what Agorn's boss was doing he may have meant Digger himself and their conspiracy-whatever, not Agita. Agorn is alarmed at this idea. Coming away from Digger's bedsit he meets a Gnoll called Bromir who looks a lot like him and believes himself to be the target of the assassins who were hired by Sooterkin at Root Hall. Bromir refers to Agorn having been given higher clearance by Fuglemin, who is probably Agorn's Mr Muckymuck. Agorn heads back towards the Sneech side of the Great Chasm. At the bridge he tries to chat up the Gnoll guard Termagant and invites her to come fishing with him some time: she turns him down, although the Ichyoid guard Argus thinks she should have said yes. He comes on Furphy and his eggs again and we learn that Furphy is actually Agorn's son. The mother was called Awen and she and Agorn are estranged, though not bitterly so. A Denthir is mentioned who was probably their Finagler but is now dead. Furphy has had some kind of relationship with Dandilli (who went to the SubShafts) and will take no other mate, possibly because she put him off from doing so. He is sitting on the eggs because he is guarding them for two Jibjibs called Snurge and Scumble who are or have recently been conveying a message for him. Father and son talk, and Furphy says that that morning he saw that the physical world had changed but most people can't see it. Agorn is semi-willing to consider this and means to tell Digger about it tomorrow. Two Jibjibs called Ruck (male) and Smew (female) fly overhead in the dark, and we see them enter a hole in a sort of complex, compound stalactite formation, which we will learn is called the Uppermost Spire, and settle on a nest there. Ruck is carrying Urwyn's friend, the comparatlively large small Wyrm Zugo, although the Jibjibs don't know his name. Zugo slithers off into a crack, telling the Jibjibs to wait there for him. These two Jibjibs regularly carry a secretive group of Shallow Wyrms whom they refer to as Clients, transporting them around a widespread netwerk of "rings" whose purpose the Jibjibs don't know. They get snuggly in the nest, although Smew does not wish to have eggs. We see a Shallow Wyrm named Sneckdraw who seems to be spying on a ring, or at least on a tunnel used by a ring. Sneckdraw is detected and chased through the tunnels by helmeted guards named Vim, Crot, Ang and Diet, and escapes by jumping off an underground cliff onto the back of a tame (or sentient?) bat. Ang gets Ruck to fly him in pursuit with a view to killing them: Ruck queries this but when Ang assures him that Sneckdraw is not officially a member of any ring, and therefore not a client, Ruck is OK with it. They follow the bat's scent trail, but Sneckdraw and the bat dodge into a narrow tunnel which Ruck can't fit into. We see another Wyrm behind a kind of wooden screen in this tunnel. They come to a place where there is a graffitoed sign on the wall saying "Ring of the Newborn Word": Sneckdraw, who seems to be a freelance spy, dismounts and is challenged by guards called Conspue and Fream. They pay Sneckdraw with a food item and he or she reports on Zugo's presence at the Uppermost Spire. Fream conveys this message to a female superior whom we don't see, and then goes to speak to a female tuneller or miner called Glink, on whom Fream seems to be sweet. We see Sina giving the cleaning contract for the new hall to Maw and his crew. At Kronk's suggestion, Sina names the new group Leny Hall, although Maggle and Grik seem to know something mildly disreputable about Leny. Still in the same evening, we see a female Fixit named Astex who sits on a rock in a tunnel filled with plants and fungi. She seems to be fishing in a stream which flows alongside her rock. A male called Slix, who has been sent by a female commander called Poinx, comes to speak to her and get her observations - he calls her "our resident". Astex, who seems to have a cynical attitude to her own kind, says that the shield around the Spike was breached for a second or so, causing panic. Slix runs off before she can tell him about the Sneeches leaving. We learn that Astex is acquainted with Frowgler. We see Mortimer speaking about wizardry to Amos Grubb, who is himself a wizard, but who retired pre-Crash, after the incident with the Scary Lady. He says that Sylvester has some magic, although not as much as Mortimer, and their father Willoughby could have been a wizard if he hadn't been so frivolous. He believes there are still some schools of magic in operation somewhere, but he kept the fact of Mortimer's magic from Mortimer as a favour to Frederick and Nellie. Magic tends to run in families and other members of the E family also have at least some magical talent. They discuss the fact that Mortimer got the wand from Frowgler, and the fact that Frederick and Amos were trained by great-uncle Hindenburgh. If Mortimer practises as a magician he may get hassles from the Oracles of the Brush. We learn that wands should preferably be handled only by the owner, and that Mortimer unlocks locks by telekinesis. They discuss the nature of mind-reading and mind-control, wbich is far easier for Sneeches, Demons and Djinn to perform than other races, and Rosemary's susceptibility; magic-users on the other hand are very resistent to mind-control. They set off in search of Rosemary so Amos can get to know her. The scene cuts to the Nomes at the Pale camp. They are discussing the fact that if Nitfol becomes mayor he'll need a wife. He says that the only girl he found tolerable disappeared. Then Fizmo, the Hot Zone worker, appears and she and Nitfol get talking: she may or may not be the girl whom he liked before. Then we cut to The Spike, where Eunice and Rufus are talking. Rufus has recently had a talk with "God", which left him briefly unconscious and rubber-legged. He is behaving in quite a commanding, confident way, and speculating about what "God" and his henchman Dorian plan for Eunice next. After some edgy verbal sparring Eunice more-or-less agrees to be Rufus's assistant and bodyguard. 08: The End of the Day [18/02/2013 - 16/07/2013] We see Rosemary and Sylvester coming out of gender-specific lavatories which are delineated by male and female statues carrying a real spear and shield. They discuss finding Rosemary some better clothes so she can be properly introduced to Nellie and Amos, and she is tested by an Ettin-built electronic panel on the wall which confirms she is compatible with the house and can perform its ceremonies. Sylvester offers formally to employ her. Once they are both respectably dressed they go and introduce Rosemary to Nellie, although Sylvester tells Nellie that Rosemary's surname is Dapple, not Ripley. Nellie has already worked out that Rosemary arrived without passing through the village, and is angry about Mortimer being encouraged/allowed to learn magic. She opens up and talks about the group of magic-users of which she, Amos and Frederick were a part prior to the Crash, and Sylvester warns her about some of the recent developments in the Basement. As he talks we see vignettes of Chumley the Boogieman presiding over a growing collection of dead Fixits; the blonde woman with the pink bow, whom Rosemary called Mz Teree, reporting distressing changes in the Basement to someone who addresses her as Annabelle; and Frowgler telling the Scary Lady about the conversation Rosemary and Sylvester are currently having with Nellie. Sylvester leaves Rosemary and Nellie alone to talk about contraception, and we learn that there is a "Women's Circle" at the local Temple, where such things may be discussed. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester leave together, talking about local leaders - an impromptu lady mayor named Saffron Stout who runs an inn, and Patrick Skragg, the Sheriff. The Earl has warily polite relationships with both. Sylvester formally introduces Rosemary to Frederick. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester agree to conceal her true identity and membership of Hack n' Slash. They meet up with Amos and Mortimer and Amos, as a former wizard, comfirms that Mortimer no longer has psychic influence over Rosemary. Amos and Sylvester exchange news of the day, including some things Sylvester didn't tell Nellie, like about the Sneech gift, and about Tand - Sylvester thinks he has seen Tand mentioned in the records and Amos promises to look her up. Sylvester learns about The Pit flaring. We learn that "Pit" stands for "Pulse-Ignition Thaumnode" and that it was a booster device used to power flying trams. It is like a small version of a thing called the Daynight which seems to have done something catastrophic. After Amos leaves to go home, Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer go to the basement of the barracks, fetch a siege pot and sit it up on the top of the West Tower over the main entrance. Mortimer goes off to find clothes (his shirt having been shredded to make makeshift gloves in the Sneech den) and leaves Sylvester and Rosemary discussing the definition of "mansion" and the aftermath of the Crash - which wasn't nearly as bad in the poor rural area where Rosemary comes from, because hardly anybody there used magic anyway - and the ownership of land and property left vacant after the previous owners died in the disaster. They go off to eat and we see a series of vignettes: the Scary Lady visiting the Sneeches (but so far failing to find one); Amos collecting a package of Dornbeast-liver from the processor and taking it to Nellie, and discussing Rosemary with her; and Mortimer getting cleaned up. En route to a dinner of last night's Dornbeast tendrils, Rosemary and Sylvester pause to looke at a Panegate which leads elsewhere on their own world, although Sylvester says that such local Panegates are especially hard to open. Behind them is a statue of Pratchett's Discworld. Mortimer joins them at table and says he has put the umbrella aside until such time as he may decide to take up magic. They discuss re-opening access to a nearby beach so they can gather fish and seaweed, then they sign Rosemary into the Mansion's official staff record-book, still under the false name Dapple. Sylvester goes off to write up the day's events, and Mortimer goes and tries on clothes. Rosemary gets Amos to show her the library. Coming away with a stack of books on history, anthropology and moral philosophy, she experiences a psychic tweak which calls her to go to the Quiet Room and speak to (apparently) the Sneech dohickey, although she remains outside the locked door. She says that it and she are both protecting Sylvester, and suggests it should watch the Basement door, or the Weirdo. As the new Taskmistress she threatens the devices, saying that if any of them causes trouble she'll chuck them all into the Great Chasm. As she walks away we see Frowgler sitting by the foot of the door - he speaks to the dohickey as if they are old aquaintances. Returning to the Guest Room, Rosemary rearranges the furniture so she can sit facing the door, writes to her aunt and takes a bath. She falls asleep but immediately wakes into a dream which seems to be some kind of objectively real astral projection. She passes Skuy and Spot, who are arguing: Skuy at least seems to be also asleep and also taking part in the astral projection. Rosemary goes to the elevator and whacks the Operator with a mallet, which she then hands over to Skuy: the physically real Operator is aware of and intrigued by what has just happened to his astral equivalent. We see an overview of various people sleeping: Nellie and Amos; Umbuz and Piu (in bed together, so their relationship is progressing fast!); the Gobules Gorp and Phiga; Mortimer lying awake; and Yasmine sitting by a camp fire, staring at a Fleeb. Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, with her balloon in tow, descend to the Ettinworks and go to the same doorway where Sylvester and co. were passed the "KEEP OUT" sign. She is pased a similar cut-out message, this one saying "IN HER" with an extra "E" drawn or painted on to make it "IN HERE". The extra "E" is done in the style of the emblem of the Earls of E. The door opens and she goes through into the corridor of doors we saw before. A distant door is open to receive her but all we see through it is several floating lights - possibly ABOLs. More vignettes: Eunice talking to Cox, in front of Ettin signs or graffiti saying "shake hands" and "onebig onion". Hector talking to Nunsuch (and mentioning another character called Penfold): Nunsuch indicates some Ettin text which appears on a screen beside them and which changes gradually from the old font to the new. This text, which says "remote spike extrusion", triggers Hector to engage a "revised schedule" which he says is twenty years late. Meanwhile the Scary Lady leaves the room of lights and returns to the Mansion, where she bars the Basement door and puts a ward on it telling Basement dwellers to keep out. She opens a Panegate into a lush jungle and sets the balloon floating off into that jungle carrying the rescued Trundlebug, who lands in a bush where it meets a new friend (probably of the opposite sex, if Trundlebugs have sexes). She goes and reassures Frederick that although the magic umbrella is hers she didn't directly give it to Mortimer, and they start flirting. The scene shifts to the Trog holding area where Villipend and Hamble were formerly imprisoned, and we see that Hamble has survived electrocution. The prison seems to have done something to reverse the mental decline which caused him to jump into the Great Chasm in the first place, and he is now very clever and very ambitious. He half rescues, half kidnaps Squeeb, works out how to get out of the habitat and sets off to climb back up the chute with Squeeb strapped to his arm, seeking a new dawn which will be his. We learn on the way that Squeeb belongs to no ring, and despises the idea of doing so. Finally we see two vignettes. In one, a male soldier reports on Rosemary's disappearance to a female commander, the Tansy whom Rosemary saw in a vision. Tansy is working for some outfit or political party whose emblem is a triangle within a circle. She vows to find Rosemary wherever she has gone - and clearly with hostile intent. In the other, we see Sylvester's sister Lilith and their mother, talking in the darkness at the edge of a banquet in a jungle somewhere. The mother would have liked to have stayed, but she has received a psychic impression that they need to start heading back to E. Part Six: On My Way to Town [28/07/2013 - 16/11/2018] Note that from 03/05/2015, the Saturdays in the Basement strips show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with the action above ground. 01: Rise and Shine [28/07/2013 - 26/11/2013] The sun has just risen over the Mansion. The brothers are already awake: Sylvester resumes doing his paperwork, but Mortimer stands gazing out of a window, clutching the umbrella he said he wouldn't take up again unless and until he decided to take up magic, and thinking of himself as having "set out" - and that the world itself has also changed. Rosemary emerges and rings the bell for Schmedley, the butler, attracting Mortimer's attention. He introduces her to Schmedley, who tells her how to find Sylvester. Schmedley is not surprised to hear that Mortimer is a wizard. We see Arthur the Weirdo feeling the worse for wear. Sylvester shows Rosemary her new official quarters and office, which she is quite stunned by, and explains the heirarchy of the Mansion's servants to her. As Taskmistress she stands fairly high. One of her duties is, at least potentially, to find and hire a new sign-writer. Her quarters command a view of the ocean, which leads to a discussion about Panegates and the fact that no known Panegate leads to another continent, although some lead to alternative realities for the location of the Mansion. They move on to discussing why the villagers don't all move into the much-more-comfortable Mansion, and Rosemary's dream about the Operator. Sylvester didn't share it but we see a flashback to what must be his own dream, in which he, Rosemary and Nimue are attending a university lecture given by Protus, accompanied by three frogs, two sitting with the girls in the audience and one sitting with Protus, and Sylvester is aware that his own frog is missing (or has gone to Protus). We see a rusted, land-locked boat which Philbert had been going to convert into a building, and access to which is restricted, and a wizwitch detector which detects Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss security clearances, and local legends relating to a scruffy local folk-hero called Frizzlegarb who might have been a surviving Wilf. Legends say Frizzlegarb swam through a pool and there met what sounds like a Willygig. Sylvester shows Rosemary round her apartment and gives her a mechanical pocket-watch, then they get out Mortimer's Glowgem and test it on a sort of battery-tester: Glowgems can be recharged by dipping them in the River of Fire for a few days. We see an outtake of the Tribbletongued Hamster (in pirate getup), the plant and the ABOL escaping together in a toy boat, sailing along an underground tunnel: a sign in the backgorund points towards the sea. Sylvester mentions that the Mansion used to have a "wizwitch", a magic-wielder, as a regular member of staff and he supposes it now has one again. The scene cuts to Mortimer, who is talking to a strange wall of purple electricity, telling it he is going to go and celebrate the fact that he has grown up and got a job. He goes to Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where there are various amusements and places to eat. Back with Rosemary and Sylvester, he asks her about Hack & Slash's Commandant Spangler (who Rosemary had said was the only person she had previously met who had a private office). This segues into a conversation about their respective grandparents, and Rosemary running through a fake version of her family background, using her new, false surname Dapple. She discusses the remote possibility of using Protus to go back in time and save her parents - for whom she has little feeling - at the cost of giving up her own exciting future and getting stuck as a farm-girl. Meanwhile we see Frederick and Myrrh set out to do something - unspecified but involving hand-holding - "properly". Sylvester tells Rosemary about the demand there used to be for apartments linked to this private corridor for senior administrators, and they discuss the fact that in the past, pre-Luwig, the Earls were at risk of being assasinated just for being Earls. Rosemary goes off at a tangent about a fluffy-seeming female called Miss Gritz who was a traveller on the caravan Rosemary was guarding, and whom she suspects of being her apparent boyfriend's very high-powered personal bodyguard. Sylvester shows Rosemary round the official, ceremonial offices for himself and his secretary (but not his official chambers, which are untidy). The offices are designed to be intimidating. We learn that the mansion holds a throne for use if the king should visit - this nearly happened fifty years ago, but the king ws killed en route when his flagship The Velvet Glove went down during the Crash, and the current king tends to stay in the capital. The offices are designed with security in mind. We learn that the mansion has a High Tower access to which is blocked: Rufus tried to get in there, before he wandered off. Sylvester says Rufus likes to wander but he doesn't go far: Sylvester tried to get him to go to university but Rufus felt that the area around the mansion was where he was going to be. Meanwhile we see Eunice, Rufus's new assistant, emerging into the countryside from a concealed entrance inside a hollow boulder, and Yasmine riding away and thinking that in another hour's riding she will be able to remove her hood. Sylvester shows Rosemary an escape hatch under the desk, leading to a panic-room which used to be well-equippped but is now almost empty. We learn that in the early days the Earldom was passed on by mortal combat. Milo was the last Earl of E officially to kill his predecessor and the first to pass the Earldom on by blood although his grandson, Dorn II, may have been murdered by his daughter in law Charlotte, who then ruled in her husband Lemuel's stead while he got on with his Panegate research. We also learn that in those days the Earldoms of E and S were friends. Sylvester doesn't know as much about his mother's family, the Mundivagants, who are grand and grudging industrialists. His brother Ace works for them. Roisemary's family were all farmers with a long tradition, but they have died out. Rosemary asks about a sign saying "Gargoyle pits" and Sylvester tells her that there are creatures called Gargoyles and Spindizzies which were bred or manufactured by the Ettins to service and repair the buildings in which they live. Gargoyles deal with the exsterior and Spindizzies with the interior, especially service machinery behind the walls and in the basement. The Mansion is a semi-living thing, a sort of colony organism, but it is slowly running down. Sylvester and Rosemary speculate about the possibility of finding still-surviving Ettins who could restore it. They cone to a corridor where an end-wall has moved aside, giving access to a service-space, so Sylvester takes Rosemary to meet the Spindizzies, warning her to get the Can-Opener out first and not tell anybody about the Poke Kit. 02: Fishing Around [27/11/2013 - 22/03/2014] The scene opens with an Ichyoid pootering about under water, wearing some sort of equipment on his chest. We return to Sylvester, telling Rosemary that the core of the Mansion where they are is malleable and in a state of flux. Two Spindizzies appear: they have grey, hairless humanoid upper bodies trailing away into wormy tails, and pterosaur-like wings. They speak like intelligent but literal-minded computers but are friendly and kind, very concerned when they hear that Rosemary is taking over as Taskmistress in case that means Prunella has died. Sylvester agrees to buy in supplies which they request, and ask them if they can tell what the Can Opener is made of, but they can't, although they may be able to duplicate it, or something like it. Sylvester seems to want to make more. Every human (or in Myrrh's case, humanoid) in the Mansion has a designated Spindizzy who communicates with them: Horace and Emily are matched to Sylvester and Rosemary. As taskmistress Rosemary will need to talk to Emily weekly. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the Ettins: Sylvester thinks the Mansion with its Panegates and moving walls wasn't intended as a residence but as some other sort of facility. They wonder whether there are any surviving Ettins - and if so, how they would react to find Humans living in their laboratory, or whatever it is. We learn that the Spindizzies are mortal flesh-and-blood ceatures but they reproduce in a mechanical incubator. The chamber where they are all meeting is a sort of holo-deck, in which the Spindizzies usccessfully produce a useable mock-up of the Can-Opener, a quasi-humanoid sparring-partner for Rosemary to practice with and a chair for Sylvester to sit in and watch. We learn that one of Ludwig's assistants went far enough down into the depth to visit the Spindizzy incubator, and his granddaughter visited the Far=Eastern Shore on the other side of the ocean from the Mansion. There were human colonies there which may or may not have survived the Crash, about which the Spindizzies know nothing. Meanwhile we see vignettes of other characters. Mortimer is breakfasting and the Landing o' Family Fun, and visiting the Fish Museum there. Eunice Kelso is seen leaving the woods and heading for Eetown, wearing a rucksack: a retired Guardian called Mr Flem warns her that the woods are dangerous. Nelly is feeding (non-sentient) Jibjibs while Amos sets what looks like Mortimer's glowgem onto a handle. Arthur the Weirdo is taking a bath, Myrrh is setting out from her and Frederick's flat, and Schmedley is being addressed by somebody off-screen and short (probably Frowgler). The Spindizzies store a template for the Can-Opener and make a copy which is only real in this environment, which functions as a sort of Holo-Deck. They simulater a sparring partner for Rosemary to test her weapon, and some background scenery including a bad, Escheresque reproduction of part of a monument called the Citadel of the Hugging Squirrels, one of the Sculpted Isles in Isdanila. This reproduction was commissioned by Dorn I for his mother Nettana, who came from that area. The Sculted Isles date back to a msyterious Dawn Era. Sylvester dozes in a chair, leaving Rosemary to her sparring, but in fact she talks to the Spindizzies instead of fighting. She elarns that they have patterns for Ettin tools as well as human ones, but most of the Ettin ones are encrypted. She encrypts the pattern for the Can-Opener so only she and Sylvester can see it. It seems that any "productive individual" can come in and encrypt personalized tools. She learns that the Spindizzies could in principle find out what the Can-Opener is made of but their access to data is blocked beyond a certain level. Rufus might be able to fix it. They tell her Rufus is at Semi-Autonomous Research Structure #001. Rosemary doesn't want to spar now because she hasn't the time, but she takes the time to walk up the imaginary sky. She starts to ask Emily the Spindizzy whether she knows that she, Rosemary, is currently... then changes the subject, which may or may not have been important. Then she wakes Sylvester and tells him where Rufus is, which he translates as the Spike. He isn't pleased, and says that the Spike is very dangerous, partly because the machines there have no built-in safety systems. The information about Rufus came from a high-ranking Spindizzy called Tanith who was Nirvana's contact, but they have lost contact with Nirvana. Meanwhile a Valentine's Day out-take shows Sheriff Patrick Skragg giving a flower to his wife Halcyone, while their son Stepehen read a Willy-the-Wendigo book. Sylvester informs the Spindizzies about the departure of the Sneeches, and asks them what they know about Willigigs. They have been aware of Protus's presence for around a month but haven't spoken to him. They are not aware of Frowgler. Sylvester and Rosemary take their leave of them: Sylvester promises to bring them some antimony which they have asked for, and which he has in store. After they leave we see Sprocket the Gnoll engineer, holding a glowgem in a wrench, opening conversation with a male Spindizzy. Rosemary and Sylvester set off to go fishing. They discuss the Mansion's mineral stores, including gold, and Rosemary tells Sylvester what she learned from the Spindizzies while he was asleep, about the data block which Rufus might be able to fix. Sylvester suggests that the same person deliberately planeted the Can-Opener with Izchak for Rosemary to find, and prevented the Spindizzies from investigationg it: he fears he is being too paranoid but Rosemary, being profesionally paranoid, suggests there may be two conflicting secret factions at work. For the moment, Sylvester is not telling the Spindizzies about the return of Nirvana, the previous Taskmistress: he means to return to the Ettinworks once he has researched Tand, and will allow Nirvana and "Mz Teree" (Annabelle) to explain themselves before making a decision about them. They make their way down to a sea-level room where there are storage lockers for fishing gear and for beach leisure gear, and a small boat, and a door to the E family's private - and artifiually-enhanced - fishing beach. They used to have a proper boat-house etc. but much of it has fallen into ruins. Ichyoids don't like large-scale commerical fishing and cut large fishing nets, so before going outside they look though a security spy-hole and see only gulls. Sylvester also talks about what he considers to be the remote possibility of somebody from the Basement making their way up to the beach (suggesting that part of it is below sea-level), and at that we see the hamster and his crew in their miniature pirate ship, approaching the open air. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss boats, and an explorer called Semidemila, and then go outside, where they stand side by side on the beach and agree that their feelings for each other are brother/sisterly rather than romantic (although acknowledging that this could change). They catch fish and gather seaweed and then go inside to cook them. Meanwhile we see a small boat propelled by a magic-powered outboard motor, and piloted by a skinny, elderly male villager whom we saw before when Protus caused Sylvester to have a vision of a selection of villagers (among other things). The hamster and his pirate crew in their tiny wind-up clockwork boat approach and order this man to stand to and prepare to be boarded, and he thinks that all Tribble-Tongued Hamsters are insane. 03: A Change in the Scene [24/03/2014 - 12/07/2014] The scene opens with Nitfol, Fizmo and three Pales (one of whom may be Thrash, as he has the same double head-spike, but he is wearing or carrying a shield and doesn't have the stripe on his chest) about to enter a tangled wood. Nitfol says that Fizmo's presence isn't neccessary to his plans - but she has her own agenda. Then we see Yasmine riding through a wood. She is just pulling up in order to do something, now she is "far enough" from the Mansion, when she feels a vibration in her bag of Fleebs. She opens it and the Fleebs leap out, although they do not appear rabid. Meanwhile we see the E family make breakfast. Amos and Nellie bring Jib-Jib eggs, Sylvester and Rosemary have fish and edible seaweed, and Mortimer brings a bottle of a magically-active drink called Yurple Juice. He won it by playing a game at Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, and feels he may have cheated magically. The Weirdo (seriously hungover) and Fantod arrive and are introduced to Rosemary. Then Myrrh (the Scary Lady) and Frederick arrive, dressed as if for a very fancy trip to a smart restaurant or theatre, and Myrrh announces that they are now retiring from their work to keep the family alive. Myrrh also satisfies the Weirdo's curiosity by dropping her glamour and revealing to him that she is a Demon. Mortimer is now Sylvester's Regent, his understudy - about which he is less than thrilled. Sylvester tells him just to do what Sylvester tells him when Sylvester is present, othrwise what Rosemary tells him. Since the Mansion will now be less secure, Sylvester offers Amos and Nellie the chance to retire to the village, but they refuse. Instead, Amos will teach Mortimer magic. Meanwhile Sylvester, Rpsemary andf Mortimer need to go to the village to update Saffron, the lady mayor, on what's been happening, to sell Dornbeast parts and to attend the Temple. Mortimer wants to light an candle for Nitfol, whom he believes to be dead through his fault. Because the Poke Kit won't work so well away from the Mansion's magic tricklepoint, Rosemary and Sylvester go to the Barrackstack to deposit the Can Opener in a vault and collect other equipment. Meanwhile Mortimer goes to take antimony to the Spindizzies. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Ludwig's machines still work, and why this might be. Rosemary thinks that the Weirdo is ill or hungover but competant, and has had military training. Knowing that the Weirdo is conspiring with Yamine in some way, Sylvester says they should lock their doors at night. The Barrackstack goes down as far below ground as above. Although it contains some Ettin elements it was mainly built by Angus and Audra. There are sealed-off escape tunnels from the barracks which open into places which are now inside Eetown. A sign points to the Party Palace, built by Ernest, and describes the attractions on offer there. They discuss a very complex card-game called Quincunx, and some kind of game which involves magically-powered equipment and is played in an Underwear Arena. Whatever it is long-married couples are especially good at it (which suggests it might involve listing your partner's physical or sexual quirks), and people called Shrouders - the reverse of nudists - cannot play it. All the local villagers are informally Shrouders. Motimer takes the antimony to his Spindizzy contact, Charles. Charles recognizes the umbrella as a "thaumalogical flow enhancer and regulator" and already knew Mortimer had wizard potential. The scene cuts to a female Spindizzy, Clementine, who is talking to Sina, Sprocket and a male Trog, probably either Mowder or Grak. Sina is quizzing Clementine about her claim to have met the Earl. Sylvester opens a weapons-vault to keep the Can Opener in: like military exercises the vaults have random names. This one contains a wide range of good spears and swords. They put the Can-OPener into a safe, then enter Rosemary into the herediscan system. They discuss Griffiongton - his collection of obscene limericks, his management of the Factor E and his possession of three minions, Drowpole, Krell and Strauhatt. Rosemary is now Sylvester's minion, after Nirvana, who was the first. They see a statue which purports to be of an Obsidian Sneech, but is more sinister than accurate. This area of the mansion, which is actually of great military importance, is dotted with signs which suggest that only boring things happen there. Arthur and Fantod are sitting by the counting-down machine. Fantod, who seems to be an actual creature, looks stunned. Arthur says he assumes that "she knew all along" - perhaps a reference to Yasmine - and he plans to take Amos's advice - which was to drink the magically-active Yurple Juice. Sylvester gives Rosemary an instruction manual for the Poke Kit. She reads about secured sub-pockets and has a half memory of the Tree giving her a secret seed, but it slips her mind again. She experiments with taking a Glowgem in and out. Sylvester meanwhile asks Amos for a book on "night beasties" but they don't have a copy - only Rosemary's memory of reading it. Rosemary's Glowgem seems to be attracted to a sort of spiral ornament or mirror on the wall, which she stares at and may be hypnotized by. She finds the whole sub-pocket idea creepy, because there could be anything in there, and without the assistance of an official service engineer she wouldn't know it and might accidentally say a password which would cause something dangerous to erupt. They can't empty it by taking it into the Quiet Room, as that might damage it. Rosemary has written to Aunt Edna but she has described where she is, and Sylvester is concerned that her enemies might get it out of her aunt. Sylvester advises her to send another less specific letter via his lawyer, Mr Ferule. They discuss Tansy's army which is chasing Rosemary, and which is called The Quincunx (which is also the name of a complex game). If The Quincunx finds out where Rosemary is and comes as an army it would take them six months to get to E, but it's possible they could send an assassin, or hire a local one by wire. The cause of Rosemary's quarrel with Tansy seems to have been something bad that Tansy did to a Gnoll (although she doesn't tell Sylvester that) and there's a hint that the thing which Rosemary stole from The Quincunx was whatever she used to travel instantly to the east. Being about to leave to walk to the village, they discuss a thing at the entrance called the Gatestone, believed to have been moved there by Ettric, the 2nd Earl. We see Mortimer waiting for them in an official Assembly Alcove, and being joined there by Arthur the Weirdo and his puppet Fantod, who congratulate him on becoming Regent. Mortimer still smells of sphagnum dust, and this leads to a discussion of Arthur's days at the Weirdo Academy. 04: Barriers and Gates [14/07/2014 - 27/11/2014] We see the Saurs Buzz and Ig meeting by the ruins of a museum in Eetown. Ig has a Glowgem. Buzz wants Ig to tell him about what has become of Snerk. Mortimer and Arthur discuss whether Weirdos are allowed to marry (opinions vary). They discuss a girl named Melba who lives in the village, a friend of Mortimer's sister Lilith's, and quite eccentric, but Arthur says she is too frivolous to make an official Weirdo. Sylvester joins the others at the assembly point. Trailing behind him, Rosemary surreptitiously deposits several items - what may be her original letter to her aunt, plus a lantern and a bottle - in a large urn. It is one of several artistic and archaeological artefacts which grace the hallway. The main door of the mansion is set into a giant Ettin artefact like a huge boulder which manipulates light in some way. It leads to a walled outside area, the main gates of which have been deliberately blocked with rubble to prevent mass invasion. The party discuss the fortifications erected by previous earls, and the early earls themselves, and why the village is called Eetown not Etown. The fortifications are now a bit gappy, and electronic repellers are used to keep out wild animals. These also protect the orchard and the main path to the village. Sylvester and Mortimer, Rosemary, Arthur and Fantod walk towards Eetown, discussing how the area came to be renamed Audravania instead of Northwoods, and the vast lands which Audra had ruled before her fatal decision to poke the Hot Zone. Audra had made a voluntary marriage, albeit a political one, but prior to her many future Earls had been forcibly betrothed as children. Plenty of women at university wanted to marry Sylvester for his title. We learn that while at university Sylvester attended the coronation of the king and queen, Yancy and Fluer. Amos has visited the capital with Frederick, but Nellie has never been outside Audravania, except on her honeymoon. when they went to a fashionable spot called Rowen. This leads to a discussion of an island off Eetown, called Alwin, which belongs to the Earls but which they allow honeymooning couples from the village to use. Mortimer says that this arrangement is important to the villagers, which leads to him telling Sylvester what's going on there at the moment - including a break-in at Genrick's tailor shop, where stuff was taken overnight, but money was left for it. Rufus's friend Eunice is mentioned as one of a number of people who have recently moved into the area: the village is growing and there is a debate as to whether or not to expand it beyond the boundary hedge. They meet and speak to a pig-farmer called Terin Flem, who comes from the same area (Moonin) as Rosemary and who used to be Guardian to a hardline Oracle named Omega, whom Sylvester didn't get on with. Sylvester and Mortimer have an obscure private conversation about change, while Rosemary talks to Arthur and Fantod. Sylvester wants Mortimer not to go public about being a wizard, for the moment. Arthur tries to quiz Rosmary about how she got there but she evades the question and instead asks him about what Weirdos do. They are jesters who "speak truth to power". Arthur, Fantod and Rosemary discuss the new, safer denizens' tunnel from the mansion to the basement, and the disappearance of the Sneeches. Meanwhile the party arrives at the outskirts of the village and Sylvester shows Rosemary the irrigation ditches and other features. They come to the Temple, which was made from the remains of a very grand one which was destroyed in the Crash, and which lies just outside the hedge which surrounds the village, and they discuss it, and the character of Omega, the previous Oracle. We learn that Sylvester and Mortimer's father had been partially responsible for, and died in, some kind of accident involving stampeding elifinos in a nearby town called Noodle. They meet a little girl called Juniper, who is the granddaughter of Amos and Nellie. She has a special friendship with Fantod. The group go through a sensory ritual - watch the flames, smell the blossoms, taste the water, listen to the Brush. The last is done by sitting on a bench made of rare and precious materials. To mark Hallowe'en we see a raiding party of Nomes, including Umboz's brother Frotz who is desperate to get out of it, creeping towards a Gnoll village. They are scared off by a pumpkin-headed spectre which is really Frowgler in costume, using some kind of glowing magic or technology to fly. Rosemary and Juniper discuss where various people come from, and Rosemary manages to give the girl a very strange idea of what a walrus looks like. They talk with Sylvester about Inuit-equivalents called Tunits, and the secretive, hostile Haroons, and the harsh northen shore called Skralland, to the north of Audravania. We learn that there used to be a secretive underground nation called the Polarites, but their society was destroyed in the Crash. They used to have an exit tunnel near Eetown, for trade. There are people in Eetown of Haroon (Miss Lundquist) or Polarite (Peter Nigultrum) ancestry, and they can't ever go home. Meanwhile, Arthur and Mortimer sit on the bench and ask for divine assurance that they are doing the right thing, and both receive it, more or less. Fantod and Juniper talk about her hopes for a more interesting career than agriculture. We see an out-take for Thanksgiving, in which Myrrh and Frederick are about to start on a feast. I have left this in the time-line, as well as putting it with the Christmas cards etc., because it fits with the idea that they have gone on a second honeymoon. 05: Eetown - The Temple [28/11/2014 - 25/08/2015] The party from the Mansion enter the temple, where Sylvester introduces Rosemary to the Oracle Threnody and various town worthies. Sylvester assures the townsfolk in the Temple that Rosemary is human, and fully qualified to be Taskmistress, and tells them that Frederick has retired as Regent and Mortimer will be taking over. Sheriff Patrick Skragg quizzes Rosemary as to whether she is a fugitive from the King's Law. She swears that she isn't, then sends the child Juniper off with the Weirdo and Fantod to show Fantod how she's been practising some skill he's been helping her with. Once they are out of earshot she tells the rest that she is also taking over Myrrh's duties as bodyguard and will be wearing a sword. Threnody is dubious about Rosemary's past use of violent force, but accepts that it may have been necessary. The Sheriff provisionally accepts Rosemary's offer of help with the town militia, but Waldo Weequash, head of the Eetown Guild of Fisherfolk and Octopus Wranglers, thinks Rosewmary is a vagabond who will bring a criminal element into the town, Saffron Stout, innkeeper and impromptu mayor, points out that Rosemary will mainly be at the Mansion and agrees with the sheriff that they should give her a chance, and asks Sylvester to call on her privately later. Threnody - who is emergency backup Taskmistress - quizzes Rosemary about her Temple attendance, and Rosemary promises to make sure Sylvester goes to Temple more often. Outside the Temple, the townsfolk discuss Rosemary privately. The sheriff is planning to check up on her in police records, just in case, but they agree she seems saner than Myrrh. Mortimer and the Weirdo remain at the Temple to light memorial candles to speed the passage of the dead, the Weirdo for his friend Tulip, and Mortimer for Nitfol whom he wrongly believes to be dead. They discuss the fact that there are some Nomes and Motihauls who follow the Brush and have their own Oracles, but most non-humans have their own religions. Sylvester mentions that the Nomes have a male priest, and Threnody is interested in meeting him. While Mortimer and the Weirdo are praying, Rosemary and Sylvester look at the Temple's paintings of the various founding Oracles, and discuss their favourites. Rosemary follows Hettie, who carried a light in the darkness, and Sylvester likes Joice, who stood for inspiration. Mortimer passes on a message to Dirge, the current Guardian, that Finale, the previous Guardian, would like to speak to him. Mortimer wants to ask something, but feels that the time is not yet. The group go and stand by a large boulder outside the town gates ("The Town Rock") where they won't be overheard, and discuss Yasmine and the Weirdos generally. Mortimer is able to pick them out because he can sense their mind shapes. They discuss the fact that Rosemary has not been taught any magical theory, because she was educated at the Hack & Slash Academy whose purpose was to produce effective H&S employees and they very rarely encounter magic-users these days. Also H&S is riddled with factions: they used to have a Wizwitch Brigade and Rosemary suspects it may still exist but is being kept a secret, even from other factions in H&S. We learn that the Weirdo Academy is very ancient. It's in a town called Marksburg, in Fredonia, and is where the E boys' mother came from. Nowadays Marksburg has a stodgy reputation, but it has a lively history. In the past there were several Weirdo schools and they went by several names, such as Tomfool. Milo was the first Earl of E to hire one. The Trio fall to discussing the various worthies they met at the Temple. Sylvester fills Rosemary in on the background to the various people she met at the Temple, and village issues such as the need to bring in a full-time Healer, since at the moment the Oracle, Threnody, is both healer and teacher. Sylvester's only friends in the village are Peter Nigultrum the solicitor, and a fisherman called Captain Tugwart. They discuss who is and isn't local. People who were born in the village are accepted as local even if their parents were foreign, but if Rosemary stays fifty years she'll still be "The Mooninite" because she wasn't born in Eetown. She says she'll earn a more distinctive label than that, thinking of herself as some sinister dark queen with a flaming sword. Rosemary can tell that Dirge is combat-trained and wonders why the High Temple thought Eeetown needed him. This leads to a discussion about how the Spyders and Tree-Squids got into the area, and about things called Raviners or Hill Crabs. Mortimer would like to talk about the events of the previous day but they don't have time. As they approach the entrance to Eetown proper they discuss various Oracles Rosemary has met on her travels. In a brief out-take, we see Schmedley placing a black arm-band on the flipper of a statue of a world-turtle, to commemorate the death of Terry Pratchett. Sylvester and co. discuss the defenses of Eetown, with drawbridges put in after the Crash. The defenses ar enot very good, and post-Crash the town had some trouble with raiders until Myrrh got back. She, Frederick and Quincy had been holidaying in Aruba (a place without magic) when the Crash hit. It was on their way back that Quincy met Agnes, his future wife. Meanwhile the town made a defensive wall out of crashed cars, and then grew a hedge over and through them. We see an ancient wand-tree called an Oakapple (nothing to do with real oak apples) which grows just inside the hedge. Post-Crash, the rallying point for local survivors was a big pub called the Moose and Squirrel. Because it was a cheap outfit which didn't use much magic it survived the Crash relatively intact. The innkeeper, Simon, had acquired the place by dubious means, but he became impromptu mayor and did a good job of coordinating disaster relief. Hpthbvtw's remains will have to be decontaminated in some way because he was killed by an Operator blastm but the contamination is lessened by the fact that it was caused by the Operator's involuntary revival. The two Stirrers discuss this, with reference to Myrrh. the Scary Lady, whom they call the Collared Lurker. Sylvester and co. head for the local administrative offices, but as they pass by the fountain in the main square they become aware that they have an audience. Sylvester lectures Rosemary about the layout of the town, where the bathhopuse is etc., trying to sound confident and impress the watchers. The town has a watch tower, but these days it's mainly used as a love-nest. They speak to the townsfolk who have been watching them, and Rosemary (under the false surname Dapple) is introduced to everybody. Most striking, perhaps, is a young mother called Silence Krenshaw whom Sylvester knows very well, and had considered hiring as Taskmistress. We will learn that she and Sylvester were childhood playmates. They discuss Rosemary's duties, and that Sylvester wants Rosemary to serve as a Mature and Responsible Adult, a formal title which means that she will somehow help him to find a wife. He does not fancy Rosemary herself. Silence says that there is somebody out there for Sylvester. Mortimer meanwhile talks to an adoring fanclub of young girls. They ask him about his unbrella and he says you never know when a storm might blow up. One of them is evidently psychic and she realsies both that he is speaking metaphorically, and that a metaphorical storm is indeed coming. Sylvester and co. head for Government House, followed by a gaggle of children. They discuss the pudding plant, a local cash crop which only grows well in Audravania. Rosemary has never eaten a fresh one. Rosemary wonders why so small a town has a bank. Sulvester explains that it gives them independence from the Noodle Fish-Monger's Association, and lists the conditions required in order for them to have an official bank, and its personnel. It is illegal for an agent of the King's Law, such as the sheriff, officially to work for a bank. The town government is full of bickering and back-biting. The bank manager is Peter Nigultrum, who also helps the sub-literate to write letters. He is engaged to a woman called Ida, whom they meet coming away from the bank. Ida and Rosemary discuss Rosemary's home district of Moonin and the presence there of the Beacons, three offshore monoliths believed to date back to the Dawn Wars. Ida seems unaware that the Mansion is equally interesting and historic. The first Prime Oracle, Daisy, came from Moonin, but Rosemary feels that Daisy was ashamed of her humble origins. They meet Peter the bank manager, who works out that Rosemary is the new Taskmistress from her clothes. They tell Peter that Frederick and Myrrh have retired, and that Mortimer is a wizard. The only bit that surprises Peter is that Myrrh is able to retire. We glimpse Myrrh at some sort of hotel, apparently amusing herself by wrestling robots. Peter predicts that Mortimer's newfound wizard status will lead to trouble. We see Dirge, the current Guardian, and Terin Flem, the previous one, discussing the changes in personnel at the Mansion, and saying that Dirge has a decision to make. Immediately post-Crash, magic was regarded as evil, and Flem should really have told Omega that Mortimer was a wizard, and then somebody would have come and taken the boy away, but Flem liked Mortimer and kept quiet. An officious official named Appleby also failed to report Mortimer - Flem thinks he just never noticed what was going on because he was stuck behind his desk. Dirge will tell Threnody about Mortimer, but won't call someone to collect him unless Mortimer wants him to. Flem tells Dirge about Eunice being out in the woods again. Peter tells Mortimer there may still be a magic school which Threnody could help him find if Amos turns out not to be a good teacher. They discuss Polarite technology and social structures: Peter's father was in security, relatively low-status but with access to information. Peter had thought of contacting the surviving Polarites in the captal, but Sylvester says they would scorn him for having facial hair. The Symmites, the Polarite sub-group to which Peter's father belonged, were allowed to open a trade gate in the same country as Eetown, where they to some extent went native and became more open and sociable than most Polarites. That was why Peter's father was able to be wandering around on the surface without any magical machinery when the Crash hit, and so survived. ` Sylvester and Rosemary give Peter a highly edited version of Rosemary's life story. Peter knows the Mansion and its dangers well - he even has his own Spindizzy, Alfred. [An out-take at this point celebrates the legalization of gay mariage in the US by showing Baldy with a slightly younger - and much hairier - boyfriend, looking at rainbow flutterbys.] Peter tells Sylvester they have some paperwork to go over [Ipcress files!], so Sylvester asks Mortimer to take Rosemary away and introduce her to Shadrik. Sylvester and Peter then discuss Peter's upcoming marriage to Ida. Peter says Sylvester will never marry a local girl because they aren't academically stimulating enough - not even Ida or Silence - whereas he himself was looking for somebody who was restful to be with. Sylvester will be his best man. Sylvester trusts Peter so much that he tells him at least the gist of Rosemary's true story, including that Dapple isn't her real surname (although not what is). Peter will look out for people looking out for Rosemary. Sylvester doesn't want to marry Rosemary because she's not intellectual or educated, but she's a perfect Taskmistress - so perfect he suspects somebody is interfering in his life, and sent her to him. [Out-take: to celebrate the strip's twelfth anniverary: we briefly see the pirate hamster and his crew approaching an island which has a sentient tree.] We see that Eunice works in the pub, apparently as a cook. Rosemary and Mortimer are given free sausages by the town's Sausage Stroller. Mortimer is feeling very guilty about having accidentally magically hypnotised Rosemary the day before, so she punishes and absolves him by giving him a light bonk on the head. They talk about the fact that he has only left the area a few times, and comes across as rather sheltered, but now responsibility has been thrust on him and he will meet it. Rosemary talks about the relatively safe life she left to become a bodyguard, and the fact that her home village had an ancient ruined tower built by Gobblems, and which she used to climb. She later travelled to most of the places she could see from up there, but many of the towns were a bit same-y because they were rebuilt at the same time, after Unification. Talking about education and the E-family tutor causes Mortimer to realise there's something about Rufus and Eunice which he is forgetting. They look at Shadrik, which/who is a haulage Metalmin who is fairly bright but doesn't speak, and lives in a former stable. Dorian Ingersoll the hermit used to live in it. Dorian's history is confusing: we've been told he's lived in the Spike for forty-two years, but here we're told he lived in the forest when Mortimer was a child, and we've seen the ruins of his hut when Yasmine came across them. Shadrik's battery is flat but Rufus is working on recharging it. Rosemary works out that Sylvester just wanted her and Mortimer out of the way so he could speak to Peter privately. To kill time she suggests they climb the local watchtower, so she can survey the terrain. To get to it they go through a warehouse used to store apples, which has been altered and added to till it's almost as complex as the Mansion. They are passed by some sort of functionary (beginning with a B) who wears false Nome ears and costume wings. It's possible the B stands for Batgirl, especially as she lives in the Belfry "like usual". 06: Eetown - The State [26/08/2015 - 20/11/2015] From the tower they look down on the village square, which doubles as a fuzzball court. Mortimer points out various districts of the town, and they see Old Man Larssen's place outside the town hedge, although he has a hedge of his own. Rosemary is pleased to be able to see the Specific Ocean, which was on her To-Do List. They discuss a range of wonders Rosemary hopes to see, many of which have already beebn visited by Mortimer's mother and sister, although they were unable to get into a place called Sybola where there is some kind of secret Rosemary wishes to solve. A "really creepy" region called Mechana is mentioned. Rosemary thinks the main thing on Mortimer's To-Do List right now should be to learn how to use the wand-umbrella. A Labour Day out-take shows various kinds of labour in Eetown, including the Batgirl who is writing or drawing at an easel. Rosemary and Mortimer meet Sylvester outside the bank and he refers to the Batgirl as "our Flittermouse". Sylvester takes them to meet Sherman P Gray, the new(ish) government Clerk of Eetown. He has a telegraph machine run off batteries re-charged by a hand-turned charger, and many duties, one of which is to register new arrivals like Rosemary. He is also postman and tax-collector, and has a form for Mortimer to register as the new Regent of E. [In a brief out-take, we see the pirates (hamster and co.) arrive at Piratestash Island and recruit a resident gull to the crew. A stunted tree on the island implies that the Plant is being punished by being required to stay with the crew.] We learn about the unofficial but influential Tome of Royal Succession, a kind of Debrett's Peerage. The Keepers of the Tome will want to know not only about Mortimer becoming Regent, but about Rosemary becoming Taskmistress. We are reminded of the fact that this is a post-apocalyptic setup by the fact that Rosemary is impressed that the Post Office pigeon-holes have doors - and by the fact that those doors are post-Crash architectural salvage. Sherman sees from her form that Rosemary comes from an island called Dyngusmyles, which has a reputation for having wild, backwoods people, and has strange weather because it's close to the Beacons. Sherman himself comes from a mining area in Thull. They compare weather. Sylvester warns Sherman that Rosemary is a fighter and will be wearing a sword as part of her duties. Sherman OKs this but says that while they are in his government office weapons must be deposited in a special receptable, and Mortimer promptly puts his umbrella in it. Sherman fills Sylvester in on various items of news, including the fact that a ship from a far-off region named Coradine has visited a port called Woldercan. Coradine is part of the same continent as the Mansion but it's an island as far west as it gets, quite reclusive, and many of its inhabitants are Motihauls. To get to Woldercan the Coradine ship would have had to sail round the edge of a region called Kadath, which is inhabited by Wendigoes, and past an island called Honaly (as in Puff the Magic Dragon) where there are [human?] Viking-type sea-raiders whom we see sailing a ship whose sail bears the image of the hamster pirate captain. It's possible they came for Yurple Juice, a wildly popular and expensive drink with magical properties. The party take leave of Sherman, promising to return later to set up a post-box for Rosemary and collect the newspaper. There is a mention of the previous day's magical pit-flare being a reoccurring event, and of the recent finding of a dead Ichyoid washed into the harbour. Sylvester says that Myrrh is listed in the Official Threats Compendium, but since she hasn't killed anybody it's not worth anyone's while to go to the trouble of trying to banish her. Behind them, in his office, Sherman looks up Mortimer's umbrella in the Official Threats Compendium, and finds it. We elarn that there's a series of Government departments with harmless-sounding names - Redundancy, Secondary Overlap, Tertiary Retainment - which process information and look for interesting connections. They discuss rural pubs and Rosemary tells them about Rory Vinsmith, an innkeeper in Moonin who murdered some of his customers. In the west he is famous, but now they are so far from her home that nobody's heard of him. Saffron, the local innkeeper at the Moose and Squirrel, may have heard of him, and Sylvester quietly warns Rosemary that Saffron may have heard of her Aunt Eva, the gambler. Eunice Kelso is one of her barmaids. They enter the Moose and Squirrel and meet Sharona, Saffron's neice, who is evidently an old gitrlfriend of Mortimer's. She is overcome by the smell of sphagnum dust coming off Mortimer. They meet Mavis, one of the barmaids, and then Saffron. Saffron takes a bottle of Pudding Liquor, just uncorked that day, from a shelf: something grey is glimpsed poking out from behind an adjacent bottle. They drink from it, and Sylvester immediately passes out, while Rosemary begins seeing imaginary glowing flutterbies. Mortimer seems unaffected. 07: Revelations [30/11/2015 - 27/05/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for the next chapter I decided to include them. Rosemary and Sylvester wake, very groggy, to find themselves lying on a jetty on Alwin Island, the honeymoon destination, accompanied by a grey cat who had been outside the pub. The island will prove to be littered with large stone sculptures, mostly of non-human animals. They agree that they must have been drugged, not just drunk, and discuss possible culprits. Neither of them really thinks it was Saffron, and this is confirmed by a brief view of Mavis the barmaid discovering Saffron herself collapsed behind the bar. Sylvester's main suspect is Old Man Larssen, the town vet, who is very educated but also obsessive and secretive, a bit like Crazy Rhid - even so Sylvester doesn't really think he did it. He half suspects Eunice, who comes from Noodle and could be an agent of his enemies the Noodle Fishmongers' Association. No other visitors are expected - nobody comes there except newlyweds, or about-to-be-weds preparing the venue. There is however a rowing boat concealed on the island. They manage to stagger to their feet in order to go find the boat, but Rosemary thinks they are still both too stoned to steer and suggests that since they were planning to have a private talk anyway, now is a good time and place. About here we also see seasonal Christmas 2015 and New Year 2016 scenes featuring Smyts. Originally I included these Smyt outtakes in the Saturdays in the Basement section, since most of them take place underground, but then Rob decided to make one of them a chapter header which clearly belonged in the main story-line, so I moved them here. The Christmas scene just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but the New Year one is quite information-rich, which is why I've included it here as a regular strip. It shows a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. Sylvester shows Rosemary some of the sights of the island, since as Taskmistress she will be expected to oversee the team of respectable village matrons who prepare the honeymoon cabin for weddings. They return to the dock (and the cat) to sit and talk, on the far side of the island from the village. Further out they can see Scraggy Island, which holds a lighthouse and the town graveyard. The lighthouse keeper is Dougal Izzard. His wife Selene Perkins left but their daughter Shelby stayed, married Grumby the carpenter and had a son Edson who is apprentice lighthouse-keeper. Here there is an outtake scene showing Frederick and Myrrh playing chess with two men called Jebediah and Jones, who are wearing formal dinner suits. These are based on Angus Scrimm and David Bowie, who died that week, and a poster of Grabthar's Hammer on the wall commemorates Alan Rickman, also lost. The next day we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. Sylvester talks Rosemary through the history of the area, beginning with creation by the Brush and the first civilization, the Wilfs and Gobbblems (Dreamers and Builders), who erected wonderful buildings and even had colonies on the moon before destroying each other in the Dawn War. Sylvester has glimpsed what seemed to be a Wilf and a Gobblem through a Panegate, so it may be that there are survivors on other continents. Then the Ettins and Sneeches built up another high-tech civilization and then again destroyed it in war, after which Humans and Nomes moved in, spreading from jungles in the south. Before that destruction, the Ettins built the main towers of the mansions of E and S. The Tower of S was so-called because of an S-shaped mark on the walls, but the Mansion of E is a corruption of the Tower of Ett(in)s - their names were later changed from Tower to Mansion for some beaurocratic reason. Stitched through the main story-line we see more Smyt vignettes. We see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-sized lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). We see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis, and Super Smyt rescuing two other Smyts from a prison, and a Smyt St Patrick driving out serpents, and Smyts partying in a tree for Arbor Day. We learn that nomadic humans who didn't even have agriculture reached the Towers late in the human diaspora, at a time when the country of Ackbar, in the south, already had quite an advanced human civilization along the banks of the Refutation (De Nial). The name of the first Earl isn't known but he led his tribe into the valley and died while storming the Tower. Legend says he fought and defeated living Ettins but this is unlikely given their advanced technology. A lone Ettin skull was later found in the Tower. The first Earl's descendants avoided the interior of the Tower for generations afterwards but they set up camp and built new buildings around its foot. The area was rich in resources and they had to fight off would-be invaders. Sylvester gives Rosemary a detailed run-down of the various Earls, which you can find summarised on the background page. The most salient points are that many of the early Earls were villains and slave-traders who came to power by murdering their predecessors, until they got to the brilliant philosopher and strategist Milo, the Ninth Earl, who severed the family's links to the slave trade, converted to the new religion of the Brush, moved into the Ettin-built Tower and made contact with the Spindizzies. Milo's mother, Persafone, was a slave who deliberately trained Milo up to be a successful warrior who would murder Milo's father, Frake, at her urging, knowing Milo would help her to survive her intended coup against Frake. But Milo's heart was more in intellectual learning than bloodshed and after his wife died he abdicated in favour of his son, and sailed away to explore new lands. Milo's son Dorn I was scientifically-minded and bred the Dornbeasts for use as living siege engines. After he was killed by one his wife Aimee became regent for their son Dorn II, who unfortunately was a shallow sports jock. Dorn II was mostly gay and apart from getting an heir with his wife Olivia his sexual partnership was with a guy named Heffston, who was a much better strategist and ruler than Dorn. In an aside, we see Arthur and Fantod talking to village children. They seem to believe Rosemary and Sylvester are still in the inn with Saffron. Dorn II was killed, possibly by his daughter in law Charlotte, who had a loving but quarrelsome relationship with Dorn's son Lemuel, the Panegate expert. Lemuel eventually abdicated in favour of his daughter Wilhelmina, who was aided by her step-grandfather Heffston. Wilhelmina just called herself W for most purposes and was considered ceremonailly male, to the point of wearing a false beard. She had some magic, restricted to manipulating stone, and was a prolific sculptor who turned Alwin Island into a shrine to her dead husband Alwin. One of her younger sisters became a famous and scary witch called Arianya of the Bracken. W committed suicide by allowing a large block of stone to fall on her, and was succeeded by her son Linus, the combat botanist. He went on an expefition to the jungle and married a Zanduan woman named Padma who was his intellectual equal and they explored the Basement (at a time when most of the species down there were still shut into enclosed habitats) and put in lights. Linus it was who bred The Tree which made Basement society possible. 08: Naming Names [30/05/2016 - 23/12/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for this chapter I decided to include them. The chapter opens with a group of above-ground Smyts celebrating their version of Memorial Day. Sylvester continues to talk about his ancestors, and how Linus took the Seed of the Tree deep into the Basement and never came home. He talks about Griffington, the fifteenth Earl, who was very intelligent but only interested in making money, at which he was very successful. Griffington went on an expedition to the Infernal Engine, which was smaller in those days (so it's still growing), and to Mechana to look at their technology. He and other techs of the period managed to make their own basic robots and restore some of the much better Ettin ones - one of the latter, Akillhees, works in mathematics at the university. Griffington had a lot of commercial enemies and rivals, including the Scion of S. He died in an industrial accident (or maybe not an accident). [Out-take: eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub.] Griffington was succeeded by his son Angus and Angus's loyal and more cunning brother Cyrus. Angus went on a tour, like his ancestors, but he took an army with him and conquered S and other neighbouring states although some of them, such as Rowen, gave as good as they got. [Out-takes - a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch, and the next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise.] When Angus and Cyrus were young, Cyrus married Cassandra Grayflint and they had a son Artston. Griffington sent Angus to visit the Infernal Engine to broaden his mind, and as a result he fell for a very wild, rough but playful female techie named Syn who somewhat resembled Myrrh, who refused to marry him but became his consort, and who died in childbirth giving birth to Audra. Audra grew up at loggerheads with Cyrus, who had d1strusted her mother. In later life Angus's conquests ground to a halt and he died peacefully in bed - and Cyrus promptly tried to seize the earldom for himself and his son. [Fourth of July out-take - a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake.] Audra thrashed Cyrus in combat and convinced him to become her loyal follower. Together they conquered Rowen and then consolidated their holdings and formed the Northwoods Alliance. Audra contracted a loveless political marriage with the intellectually brilliant John Harfang, with whom she had a son, Ludwig. [Out-take - two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake to mark the strip's thirteenth birthday.] The Northwoods Alliance stood against the advancing army of Yorik Yurp, later Yorick I, and lost, despite the best efforts of John Harfang who, under the alias "The Frost Fox", served as a secret agent and was killed while on a mission (and later became the subject of a series of lurid spy thrillers). Audra protected Ludwig by hiding him away as a child and then sending him to the university under an assumed name, while getting one of Cyrus's grandchildren (so Ludwig's second cousin) to pretend to be Ludwig in order to draw Yorik's fire. The Northwoods Alliance eventually lost the war, in part because Wirtwam decided that Yorik was the lesser of two evils and Hyacinth of Wirtwam married him. But the war was long and bloody and forced the pace of technological development. Audra and Cyrus were probably looking for a technological edge when they poked the Hot Zone and were killed, but their deaths really finished the Alliance. Yorik crushed their last resistance by destroying the town of Glome (and incidentally probably killing the fake Ludwig), then re-built it, and any local nobles who were willing to swear allegiance were grafted into the new Yurpsland heirarchy. The real Ludwig was one of them - the Yurpsland troops didn't know who he was, and in any case had known Audra as the head of the Northwoods Alliance, not as the Earl of E. Ludwig's politically astute partner Penelope Orrery from Gilad (a temple-administered neutral state) coached him on how to do this. [Out-take - a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell.] Sylvester isn't sure whether Yorik was really fooled over Ludwig, or knew who he was but decided to spare him. Ludwig was a super-genius who enjoyed university and made many friends there; he was very popular with the girls and could have had his pick of the local beauties, but preferred the slightly plain Penelope for her brains. Ludwig didn't graduate because he went home to help his mother with the war affort; Penelope worked out his real identity somehow, and followed him (and reached E before he did). It was because Ludwig never graduated that the fund set up to pay for his tuition was never wound up, and remained available to pay future heirs' university fees. Ludwig tried to stop his mother from poking the Hot Zone but she did it anyway, and died, and he and Penelope were left holding the reins. They actually did very well, since Ludwig was able to sell his inventions - materially assisted by Yorik's conquest of the whole area, which had resulted in a unified trading and patent system. [Out-take for Labor Day - a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks.] It is mentioned that vamphyrs don't really exisa but zombies do (but only briefly as they tend to explode), that many of Ludwig's devices were one-off prototypes and that Yorik I wrote his own memoirs. These memoirs are little known because his son wasn't that interested in promoting them, and besides they weren't very well-written. But they deal extensively with Audra, whom Yorik rather admired - it was he who re-named the province where E is situated Audravania. [Out-take for Talk Like a Pirate Day - Captain Hamster, the crew of the Pretty Lady and a gull are all getting drunk on grog.] Ludwig died of pneumonia after getting soaked while walking in the rain. His son Ernest, hedonist, (consensual) philanderer and forger, took over. His parents were disappointed because he wasn't interested in science, or all that bright, but he was very interested in plays and a reasonably good actor himself, when he could be bothered. He married Lucidia Penderghast, gold-digger and amateur actress, and they nearly deserved each other. At university Ernest discovered that he was good at maths, history and a proficient if uninspired kind of art. He did a certain amount of commercial graphics work and a lot of art forgery, although the latter was really just a hobby. He was a fairly successful playwright, although not good at dialogue, and very good at improving other people's scripts. He and Lucidia fought a lot but seemed to enjoy it, and they had three sons, Philbert, Hindenburgh the wizard, and Valentin, who was the one to whom the Djinnoscope gave a clean death. Ernest was fatally stabbed by, or over, one of his lovers. [Out-take for Columbus Day - a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt.] Philbert married the artist Hepzibah Kelly and founded a chain of "Lovelace" orphanages, using Kelly's mother's maiden name. He helped preserve the Forest of Burzee as a public park instead of letting it be carved up into private estates. He supported many smaller charities and was a faithful husband. But Sylvester believes he did these things to rebuild the family's post-Ernest reputation, not because he really cared. Philbert was killed in a motor-racing accident a month before the Crash and was succeeded by his son Quincy. Quincy was not very bright, but he was genuinely caring and scraped through university by hard work. His Hall of Achievement entry just says that he tied his own shoes, but this turns out to be fairly serious: he kept walking, kept trying, and held the Mansion area together after the Crash. He survived the Crash because he, his brother Frederick and Myrrh were in Aruba, which uses no magic. Afterwards they had to walk hundreds of miles home - hence the importance of the shoes. On their way they picked up another survivor, Agnes Bloggett, who married Quincy. Hepzibah, who had stayed home because of health problems, died in the Crash. Quincy eventually died after falling from one of the Mansion's towers. [Out-takes - a Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en. Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. A Smyt nurse gives soup to a patient in bed. Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives.] Willoughby attended university where he met his future wife, Dorothea Mundivagant. Both were very vague but possibly magically gifted. Sylvester thinks that it was wrong of Frederick not to tell Mortimer that he, Mortimer, was a wizard - but it was probably a good decision not to tell Willoughby that he was. They had six children - Sylvester, Ace, Mortimer, the twins Lilith and Lenore, and Rufus. Rufus was conceived because the local contraceptive Stiflebloom plant had failed. [Out-take for Armistice Day - two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war.] Because Willoughby was so lazy and detached it was really Frederick and Myrrh who ran the earldom. After Willoughby died in the notorious Noodle Incident, Frederick became official Regent until Sylvester finished at university. [Thanksgiving out-take - two Smyts eat until they are insensible.] Sylvester did well at university and made friends, especially Bertrum W Skinknottle (who fell for and married Honoria Clemens) and Nimue Fayling. The students were divided into Houses. Nimue was in training to take over the family business, growing oranges. She and Sylvester dated, but split up because neither would give up their family responsibility. Sylvester went home alone and took over the Earl's duties. He found a job for Ace. His mother Dorothea inherited cash from her mother, and she and Lil went travelling. Mortimer and Rufus stayed around, and Mortimer started bringing home strange women, most notably Olga Q Bonmarrow, a drifter with mental health issues who was in love with Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Basement society has come along tremendously during Sylvester's lifetime (so post-Crash), and the idea that the Sneeches might be behind this. Sylvester forgot to ask Myrrh what she saw in the Sneech den, and now they don't even know where she is. We see that she is in a cat café, talking to the cats as if they understand each other. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss whether the Dohickey thank-you gift was for Sylvester or for his whole family, and Rosemary points out that the first Earls were meant to have killed off the Ettins who were holding the Sneeches prisoner. Whether they did or not, the Sneeches may believe they did. They discuss the fact that Sneeches do have childen, and whether or not they have intelligible emotions. Finally, Rosemary says that eveything else can wait, and that she will follow Sylvester's plans. He says he can't make plans until he knows what it is that Rosemary stole. She agrees to show it to him, but tells him to cover his eyes and ears while she gets it out of the Poke-Kit, so he doesn't learn any codes which he might later be forced to reveal. 09: Wreaking Havoc [26/12/2016 - 07/07/2017] Rosemary produces from the Poke Kit an oval object which she says is called the HJ42 but she thinks it's also a mythological object called the Chaos Key. This is clearly the same item which has been being passed around among the Basement folk - not just another of the same model but this actual one, becausae HJ42 is the designation of a specific instance of this gadget which was collected by an anthropological expedition. Either it's looped through time to appear twice in the same area at the same time, or when Rosemary thinks it's safely tucked away in her Poke Kit, it isn't. As the Chaos Key it has been used to open various kinds of metaphorical and literal doors, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Rosemary studied its semi-legendary history in the libraries of Hack'n'Slash. It may have been implicated in the Thricklefork Demon Massacre. It caused strange events - including a giant man-eating flower - at a place called Bellona. It was passed around the clans of Erewhon, trailing odd happenings. It was used to rob a bank, then disappeared from view, only to reappear among the artefacts brought back by the Hendrick-Joost Expedition. At this point Rosemary puts it back in the Poke Kit and she and Sylvester agree not to mention the name "Chaos Key" again if they can avoid it, but just to refer to it as the HJ42. The Hendrick-Joost Expedition came from the High University of Azimuth and visited the Infernal Engine, among other places. Many of the items they "collected" were really looted. Eventually Azimuth returned some of them to Yurpsland, including "HJ-42". These returned items were parcelled out between various Yurpsland museums and collectors, and #42 went to an Erewhonian noble named Cuddlup, who passed it on to an Erewhonian sect called the Chromans. The Chromans were great collectors and displayers of curios which demonstrated the wonders of the world - some of which were magically active. The most dangerous were kept in an offshore fortress which went into meltdown during the Crash. The HJ42 was put on display in various places but it made people nervous, so it was moved to a medium-level facility in a place called Gowplace at the tip of the Lawnrock Peninsula. After the Crash, Gowplace was re-named Chroma and became the Chromans' capital, and the HJ42 dropped out of sight again for several decades. About ten years ago, or forty years after the Crash, it resurfaced as part of a travelling Chroman display for which H&S provided security, and eventually it caused some alarming effect, although Rosemary's security clearance wasn't high enough to find out what. It was put back into storage, but at this point rumours about it began to be passed around. It was at this point that Rosemary first heard about it and began to research it - and so, unfortunately, did Tansy Rugan, the leader of the Quincunx, a kind of sinister private army. Rosemary started to suspect the Quincunx were searching for the HJ42, and knew it would be a seriously Bad Thing if they found it. She couldn't get H&S to take her concerns seriously enough, so she went AWOL, rode all the way to Chroma and stole the HJ42 herself. Two hours later the Quincunx arrived and started hunting her. She did her best to evade them but eventually Tansy cornered her. One of the buttons on the device was glowing so in desperation Rosemary pressed it, thinking that it might cause an explosion which would take out Tansy and her 2inC Nathan Holn along with Rosemary herself. Instead, it teleported her to the forest near Eetown. At first she wasn't sure whether she'd been moved through time or space, but then she met Mortimer and realised from his accent that she had shifted a long way to the east. She was very dazed and disoriented and just followed Mortimer home. They talk for a while about how Rosemary ended up with Hack'n'Slash in the first place. Bored with farming muckroots and lobster-fishing, she became a crew-woman on a boat called the Oshinoxtra. From there she went to the mainland and worked on a large farm, and even served as a minion on a Saur hunt. Once she'd saved up enough money she went to see the nearest city, Jonetown. Everything there was far more expensive than she'd expected but as luck would have it she was in the right place to rescue Edwird Soloman, a retired bureaucrat who was being harrassed by louts. She and Edwird hit it off and became firm friends, and he gave her a place to stay. She became his bodyguard and housekeeper, read his books and reached an uneasy accommodation with his girlfriend, Mrs Rumble. Sometime later, Rosemary and some friends were scavenging in a scrapyard when they encountered the demon Scratch, and Rosemary managed to overcome him to the point where he was willing to discuss his situation and behave reasonably. This caused unpleasantness between the neighbours and Edwird, and brought Rosemary to the attention of Hack'nSlash, who recruited her. While they are tidying up conversational loose ends, Rosemary tells Sylvester about a hermit she met in the SAR (where there are many hermits, but this one is The Hermit), and who was probably a wizard (or just possibly a demon). They establish that demons can communicate over long distances via leylines, hence Edgar learned Rosemary's name from Scratch, and Myrrh could arrange visits from friends. Rosemary is reluctant to ask Myrrh to pass along messages. Sylvester assures her Myrrh can keep a secret. They discuss Ilsa, who has a very able illegitimate daughter, Druscilla, who works for the big bank in the capital. Ilsa writes to her wih local gossip, so news of Rosemary's presence will soon reach the capital. Ilsa is half Haroon, and the Haroons do not worship the Brush, much, or care what the Oracles think about having children out of wedlock. Sylvester is trying to modernise the village, with some cooperation from the current Oracle, Threnody, who is a great improvement over her predecessor Omega. It is mentioned that opposite Frederick and Myrrh's old room there is a door labelled "Gwen's stuff", but neither of them knows who Gwen is or was. Sylvesgter has never investigated it, but assumes Myrrh will have done so. They discuss the fact that when Sylvester met with Protus he saw visions of Rhid and Villipend, whom they then met, so evidently he was seeing the future. He also saw Rosemary fighting a woman with a glowing glove, and that may be a true vision too. Rosemary thinks from the description that it is Tansy Rugan, so they will have to meet and fight some time soon. At least she'll probably have the Can-Opener, but she doesn't have it with her now. Sylvester wants them to have regular conferences, but he's not going to say where the next one is, in case of eavesdroppers. They discuss Rosemary's old teachers, and whether Myrrh and Frederick are gone for good: Rosemary hopes they are, Sylvester misses them. We glimpse Frederick being given an Ides of March cake by a waitress wearing antennae - or deely-boppers. Olaf Larrsen, the village vet, turns up in a motorboat and is introduced to Rosemary, who he is glad to see is not a "demon, Bonmarrow or Flibbler". Flibblers, whatever they are, are everywhere. Olaf agrees to give them a lift in return for information and a discount on the organs of the Dornbeast Rosemary killed the night she arrived (less than two days ago). He takes the couple and the cat back to the mainland. En route they discuss the reorganisation at the manor, and the Crash - Olaf used to build thaumtools, before the Crash, and has been able to measure the fact that magic is very slowly returning. He thinks the local Ichyoids are up to something. He tells them about the hamster pirate captain, who has now ceased to be an out-take and become part of main canon, and that he has met Protus, who was talking about someone named Winnifred. Sylvester warns Olaf that Nirvana Clepe may be back in the area. Sylvester asks Olaf whether he has seen Frowgler - he hasn't - but we cut away to see Frowgler talking to the village Flittermouse in her tower. She tells him that her name is Vyon Ward Parkin, an orphan who was taken in by the Flittermice after she was shunned because her family had died in a "Spew" from the Infernal Engine, and peoople feared she might be contaminated. We see that the Flittermice have a universal presence, at least in Yurpsland, and use actual bats as messengers. The Flittermice are an Order, whose job is to "flit into the dark places and do the mucky jobs that need to be done" - which they agree is also Frowgler's job. Vyon herself was literally posted to her new position in Eetown, in a box. It's a lonely job and she appreciates Frowgler's company, but she could have left if she wanted to, and did not. He gives her a "laughter marble" and says that some day everyone will know who he is behind the mask, then he leaves via an artificial tunnel which looks as if it was made for the purpose, and which takes him to water. As Frowgler swims away, we see him pass a tank containing an octopus named Aloysius. Violet Hopkirk lures Aloysius to the surface and milks him of ink. She overhears people gossipping about Frederick's retirement. We overhear two of her employers talking about her and how she has the talent to work on a "Wrangrig", but it isn't safe for girls. Cut to Sylvester and co. in the boat, discussing Wrangling Rigs, aka octopus inkpull platforms, and the fact that it's "not safe" for girls because it's thought to be bad luck, locally, to have a woman on board. Violet, who has a reputation for not talking, overhears more gossip, quizzes a local boy and learns about Sylvester's party going into The Moose and Squirrel and not coming out. She goes to the inn to talk to Eunice Kelso about it. Eunice doesn't know where the party went, and shoos Violet away. Violet returns to her mother, Helena, and they gossip about Rosemary. Sylvester greets a trapper in another boat, name of Rod, and his young son Ash. Ash is very interested in Rosemary. Mention is made of a Mobile Confectioners' Guild, whose members include salesmen called Lollipop Perambulators. Sylvester finds Ash refreshing - too many people treat him either with scorn or fear because of his position. Olaf tells Ash to tell his friend Aloysius (not the octopus!) to stay out of his garden, because it's magic. Sylvester tells him to spread the word that there is going to be a meeting at the Temple to formally introduce Rosemary. Rod and Ash in their boat sail past an islet with a distance marker on it, then we see a gull try to land on the islet, and be scared away by a green, snakey-looking thing which says "Boo" in Ichyoid runes. This is one of the same tentacled things (perhaps the same individual) which we saw in the Basement, rescuing Shabash from a reservoir. Rob and Ash come to shore and we see Ash gossipping with Aloysius on the dockside - both boys look about ten years old. A gull - perhaps the same one that was chased off by the tentacled thing - is sitting near Aloysius. Ash passes on Olaf's message about the magic garden, and Sylvester's about the Temple meeting. As they walk past the Spewing Wall - a forum for graffiti - the Flitttermouse's laughter marble hits the ground behind them, and Aloysius picks it up, hides it and tells Ash it's just a rock. The gull flits in and out of shot near them. They pass Fantod and the Weirdo having an adult conversation with Melba Corrigan and her whimp-pig Wilbur. Ash and Aloysius tell Fantod that they are planning to go to a haunted ruin tomorrow, and he warns them it might fall down, then Fantod warns Aloysius, specifically, to be careful with"whatever it is yer doin' all of a sudden". We then see the Oracle Threnody, in a medical office listening to a man's chest with a stethoscope; Mayoress Saffron Stout sitting behind her desk - and the Flittermouse, scoring things off a list on a notice board. Written on the corner of the board (not part of the list) is a note saying "Tell truth". She has a sort of umbrella stand which has various sorts of pole in it, including a Sneech stick. 10: Into the Woods [10/07/2017 - 03/11/2017] To start with we see Myrrh, who seems not to need to breathe, strolling through an undersea forest before rising to the surface; Frederick still being served food by the waitress in deely-boppers; and a female Eyebolt named Shmelcathy working at her desk. Other women in deely-boppers (all this culture wear them) are monitoring Frederick on a screen, under the command of an older woman with fluffy white hair, and are expressing amazement at how much he has eaten without passing out. They talk about his herediscan - he is related to a previous test subject - and how he must be a thaumaturgre to stay conscious, yet he isn't setting off their magic-detectors. The waitress, Svetlana Rostova, is told to tail him, and we learn that they are in the Zamyatin Spire, a very high-tech-looking place. Zamyatin Spire residents are all women, but other spires are for men only, or mixed. They discuss Yurpsland politics, which involve a ceremonial, hereditary king and a separate political ruler who seems to be self-appointed rather than elected. Also the fact that Frederick is a demithaumaturge, and that the Spires are on a major tricklepoint, so were not much affected by the Crash and still have working pre-Crash technology, which involves some enornmous gears which were built by an unknown society from before the Ettins. Svetlana is impressed to learn that Frederick's family have their own library, in which he read about the Spires. When Myrrh is mentioned, Svetlana surmises that Myrrh is Frederick's wife, because he wouldn't have been allowed into Zamyatin Spire if he didn't have a wife. They discuss the arrangements for straight women like Svetlana who wish to find a mate when they live in an all-female Spire, and see an agent of sorts, holding a giant needle like a dagger and trying to arrest somebody for smuggling Fuzz jars. Singing Fuzzes are a big fad in the Spires and are bred for size, intelligence and voice, which suggests that this could be the past of Frizzlegarb's future world of Hollows and Fuzz communities. Special barriers prevent Fuzzes from being moved from one Spire to another, except in jars. Myrrh, meanwhile, arises from a water-filled tube into a sort of domed cockpit, in which there is a plant-covered floor dotted with flowers and one of the little mini-Trog-like creatures which we saw Rosemary chasing out of the Mansion at the start of the story. She presses a button and then climbs up some sort of stair or ladder - with the little critter riding on her head - to a room where there is a naked male musician named Jones (who is clearly based on David Bowie/Jones, and is either a fellow demon or a large nome, as he has pointed ears), who plays the flute for her. Finally we see her pressing her claws into a set of holes on a control that opens a round purple door, and then standing in a place where there are striped, rugby-ball-shaped lights, and an enormous bust of a bearded, humanoid male demon wearing a medal. It's not clear whether this last image is part of the canonical sequence or just a Hallowe'en special. Frederick and Svetlana end up on a balcony which Svetlana calls a Bubble-viweing Recreation Platform, overlooking a hall where large coloured bubbles with blurry images inside well up, but Frederick says it's a Spindizzy interface chamber. We learn that the Spire community has a low birthrate and takes in orphans from elsewhere, but Svetlana was born there and heard her parents mention legless, truthful flying beings who could have been either Spindizzies or Helipaths. She is not sure whether the Spire city belonged to the Ettins or the Sneeches, originally - only that it was contested between two species. Frederick describes ancient weaponry - the Ettins used city-smashing Doombombs and the Sneeches used Tangles, giant vines which could infitrate and wreck Ettin machinery. Frederick has worked out that something was meant to happen to him in the restaurant where Svetlana works, but she assures him he wasn't intended to die. Solzhenitsyn Spire is about death, but Zamyatin is all about collecting and hoarding information. Frederick wants to go ask the nearest archivist about Spindizzies. Svetlana is unnerved by this, as asking questions is discouraged. They discuss the fact that Frederick is still collecting information which may be useful to his family, even though he is retired, and that Myrrh may or may not decide she has retired, and we see the woman with fluffy white hair monitoring their converation. Fredrick says he is filling in time until Myrrh gets back from "whatever you all have her doing", and it is at this point that we see Myrrh opening the purple door. Cutting back to Eetown, we see Olaf's boat pulling in to his private dock, and Captain Hamster's crew sleeping off a binge-drinking session, and Mortimer, with umbrella, waking in the woods (to which he was evidently transported from the pub, in the same way that his brother and Rosemary were transported to the island) with the sense that some sort of revelation has slipped away from him, and then encountering Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party in the woods. Once on shore, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Olaf knew Mortimer was a wizard, but didn't tell him. We see that Olaf has a fenced-off telegraph pole topped with magical gadgets. Mortimer is very relieved to see that Nitfol survived the Spyder, but ashamed that he had accidentally led the beavcer-shark to destroy Nitfol's home tree. Fizmo realises that Mortimer owes Nitfol a favour and can take them beyond the "Edge of the World", but Mortimer doesn't know what she means. At this point we get some portraits of various characters - Ilsa's and Saffron's parents, characters from the Willy the Wendigo books, some past E Weirdos, and one of Sylvester's university lecturers. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, discussing Olaf's thaum measurements. Sylvester thinks he has a second agenda - perhaps an attempt to bring back magic, which even the High University of Azimuth has been unable to do. Sylvester thinks this is a good idea, because he wants humanity to explore the other planets in the system, and doesn't see much future in steam power. Mortimer, Nitfol and Fizmo establish their frames of reference. The Nomes' world can be walked across in a day or two, and is bounded by a wall of mist you can't push through, and centred on the Spike - Fizmo's father Foblub was an exlporer, but even he didn't manage to walk all the way around the edge. Mortimer remembers a Spindizzy called Charles telling him about a solid haze. Sylvester shows Rosemary a road which leads south to a place called Eisles where there is a ferry across the River E, but no city because the nearby shore is too rocky for a port, and then on to Obtown. He points out Olaf Larrsen's house and then they head back towards the woods - as they do so they pass Aloysius hiding behind a bush, with the gull next to him. 11: New Openings [06/11/2017 - 02/02/2018] Rosemary tells Sylvester there was a kid hiding behind the bush they just passed, and Sylvester identifies him as Aloysius Culpepper, an orphan who lives with his uncle and aunt. We see Aloysius and the gull sneak into Olaf Larrsen's place and poke about in the fields, before using an upturned bucket to climb through a shed window, after testing that a magic-emitting plant on a shelf inside is safe by throwing a stick at it. He winds up a clockwork figure of a running man (later referred to as the Flailer, so probably its feet are meant to pound grain), and the noise attracts Olaf, who is carrying a fishing net with a hole in the bottom. He tells Aloysius to follow him or go home, so Aloysius and the gull follow him. They go to the main house where they are greeted by Olaf's housekeeper - we see Sylvester telling Rosemary that this is Ilsa, who used to work at the Mansion. Ilsa asks Aloysius what the gull's name is, but Aloysius says gulls only have names when they are flying. We see a scene of three gulls by the seashore, including one wearing a hat, who is part of the pirate hamster's crew, and still looks hungover. We return to Mortimer, talking to the Nomes. Nitfol doesn't know what Spindizzies are but he does know about the Mansion, because his father was a scholar who owned two and a half books. We see Nitfol's father with two books, one labelled "Socks", the other "Cookiedice", which is the name of one of the Hollows where we see Fuzzes living in the future. Mortimer mentions the library at the Mansion - Fizmo doesn't believe such a thing is possible, but Nitfol has heard stories of large book collections. We see a shadowy image of a female Nome filing scrolls on big racks. Mortimer describes the library as being in the Ivory Tower, which leads to a long digression about behemoth teeth (if behemoths are really elephants, Mortimer has a very confused idea of what they look like), and he mentions that there is an apartment at the top, with a pool, but nobody lives in it now, "most of the time". He mentions that the tower was built by Ludwig, which leads to a very muddled conversation, because the Nomes know Ludwig as a cult figure worshipped by some people in the Basement. Mortimer manages to explain about the Spindizzies and how literal they are, and how he once told Charles he felt trapped and Charles told him about the mist barrier. Mortimer thinks the Spindizzies might know how to bring the barrier down: Fizmo thinks this is fantasy, but Nitfol wants to meet them. Nitfol and Fizmo go off to confer, while the Pale who may be Thrash seeks to attract Mortimer's attention to something, and Mortimer wonders aloud whether this is the same Pale (Thrash) he met yesterday with Frowgler. We return to Zamyatin Spire, where Svetlana is disturbed by Frederick's whistling, because music is discouraged except in the gym and at culture festivals. She takes him to a stern-lloking senior archivist, who wasn't expecting them - Frederick tells this woman his name, but says she doesn't need to know Svetlana's. In Eetown, Ilsa brings cocoa (which he has never had before) for Aloysius, herb tea for Olaf and tripewater for the gull. Olaf says he's an old man and he has had to keep his books locked away because Omega didn't want people to see them, but now she's gone and her influence is waning, he has been hoping for someone like Aloysius to come along. He told Ash to tell Aloysius to stay away from the magic because he knew it would lure him in. Aloysius correctly surmises that Olaf wants him as an apprentice. Olaf says his wife Mamie, after whom his boat is named, died fifty years ago(by implication, in the Crash), so if Aloysius comes every day he can, and learns magic and veterinary medicine, when Olaf dies he will leave his house and all his money to Aloysius, aside from a bit for Ilsa. Olaf tells Aloysius that no wizwitch could channel all the forms of magic, but some were generalists who could do a little of a lot, and some, known as Hedgewizwitches, could do only one thing but did it very well. Mamie was one, because all she could do was heal, but very well. Aloysius is another - an "Animal Empathist", hence his link with the gull. Mortimer is still talking to the Pale who may or may not be Thrash, and shows him his umbrella. He tells the Pale that he is a wizard and asks if that's the problem, and the Pale shakes his head. Meanwhile Nitfol tells Fizmo he isn't going to go off with Mortimer immediately, but he will at some point, because Zpeaker also thought the barrier could be brought down, and if Nitfol's political plan fails they will at least have a means of leaving. The Pale draws Mortimer's attention to the fact that Spyders are creeping up on them. Frederick speaks to Senior Archivix Anushka Zhdanov. She tells him he is allowed to access archives up to Level Three, but won't say how many levels there are above that. He asks for information on Spindizzies. She asks if he is a Yurpslander, and when he says he is, she calls for someone named Snegurka and sends her to fetch a file. Olaf tells Aloysius that neither of them is a full wizard, but that in theory if you make the right thaum machine you can mimic any power. However, there isn't enough energy around post-Crash, so animal empathy is impossible to mimic and no one will be "horning in" on Aloysius's skill. There are no other empaths in the area, but there are a few other wizwitches of other kinds - some who know what they are (we see Myrrh, Amos Grubb and Mortimer) and some who don't (we see a teenage boy in a soft baggy hat, and a short teenage girl with a lot of long, bushy hair) and who he doesn't think could handle being told. 12: The New Level [05/02/2018 - 01/05/2016] At the start of the chapter we see Melba Corrigan's blobwart-vending cart and her pet pig Wilbur sitting in front of a large bush. Her hat is lying on the bush, and two butterflies (not flutterbys) fly up from behind it. Probably they represent sex and/or kisses, and she is behind the bush with Arthur the Weirdo. Faint words on the hedge appear to spell out "Nutella weather person" - I've no idea why. Rosemary and Sylvester arrive back at Eetown's South Road Gate. Sylvester would rather go home, but Rosemary reminds him that he needs to collect the post, and says that it probably wasn't a villager in a boat that took them to Alwin. They both think it was probably Mortimer, by magic, which means he has immense innate power and the potential to be "quite something". Meanwhile, Mortimer's party start to back away from a Spyder, which begins to spew thick ropes of web at them, while another one boxes them in from behind. But Thrash (Rob's notes seem to confirm that it is Thrash, so the stripe he had on his chest before must have been painted on) slashes their web-ropes with his sickle and beats down the one in front of Mortimer. It's not clear whether he has killed it or not, but he probably has, as later they will pass a dead one in that direction. Meanwhile, Senior Archivix Anushka offers Frederick a chair and a cup of tea while he waits for his file. Svetlana is impressed and concerned, as teachairs are only offered to important guests, and she isn't authorised to associate with important guests, but doesn't wish to leave. The Archivix gives Frederick permission for Svetlana to stay and have tea too, but Svetlana says it's not Anushka's decision to make. Olaf thinks Aloysius can handle being told he has magic, but also that an empathist can't do much harm. He warns him not to tell anyone else about his magic, because there are people - the picture implies it's official, government people - looking to capture functioning wizwitches. It's possible that Aloysius may have other, minor talents as well as his main one - Mamie did - and there are tests for this, but Olaf can't administer them. Amos and Frederick both could, but Frederick won't. Rosemary suggests that if Mortimer is going to be "something" so will Sylvester, since Mortimer obeys him. As they talk, a Flutterby - a creature with which Mortimer has a strong affinity - comes to them with a scrap of cloth tied around it, bearing a message apparently written in blood. Back to Mortimer's party. The Pales are fighting off the Spyders, and kill at least one behind Mortimer, but the Spyders keep coming. Mortimer has a moment of crisis where he decides he will no longer be either a follower or a causer of problems, and he shoots magical force from his umbrella-wand, declaring that there will be no more killing or dying (and gives himself an electric shock). The surviving Spyders run off, and we see two Spyders discussing the fact that they had thought all human wizwitches had been killed in the Crash, and that this raises the possibility that there may still be humans who are able to "talk" (I'm guessing this means Aloysius's animal empathy) and they must call a conclave to discuss this. Svetlana confirms to Frederick that it is her boss (or at least, the person who told her to watch Frederick) who decides whether she may stay and drink tea or not. She has a number as well as a name. Frederick addresses the security bugs in the walls and asks for Svetlana to be made his guide, stating her name and number, and since nobody answers with an objection, Svetlana is officially promoted to that role. She isn't sure what she thinks about this, as she had enjoyed being a waitress, but she does quite like her cup of tea. Olaf tells Aloysius that Amos gave up being an active wizard before the Crash - the pictures imply this had something to do with Myrrh, but Olaf will only tell Aloysius about it if Aloysius agrees to be trained. Amos has already asked Olaf to come to the Mansion to discuss something, so he will take Aloysius with him, but Aloysius shouldn't mention his possible apprenticeship etc. to Amos's wife Nellie. They have a complex misunderstanding about what "having views" means, which leads to mention of an apparently blind woman called Gretta Weed, who in the metaphorical sense sees further than Nellie. Gretta is brighter than Nellie, and Saffron brighter than Gretta, but Olaf is more concerned with their open-mindedness to new possibilities. They discuss the fact that once he is trained, Aloysius will have the choice to stay in Eetown or to move elsewhere. Once they have found a private spot, Sylvester reads his message, which says "Open Training Gate. Urgent." This refers to one of the Panegates at the Mansion. Sylvester still has to complete buisness in town but will rush through it. We see him ask a sausage vendor named Claudia what people are talking about - which is really all the news from the Mansion. She has been selling a lot of sausages because people are anxious/excited about the changes. Fizmo and Nitfol are surprised and impressed that Mortimer is a wizard, and reveal in conversation that Fizmo works for Frowgler, and Nitfol sort-of does too. We see Frowgler underground, talking to a Shallow Wyrm named Parkin who is guarding the Circle at the World's End. Fizmo says Frowgler can see the future (which Mortimer cannot), and warned her about a job she took. We see her underground in her hazmat suit, looking at a little creature similar to a Shallow Wyrm but not one, which is growling at her. Mortimer says Frowgler gave him good advice, but he works for his brother Sylvester, not for Frowgler. He tells them Sylvester is a sort of mayor, avoiding the charged word "Earl" by chance or design. Svetlana reveals that she prefers kvass to tea, although this is against her culture. The Spire folk drink actual tea, but tea in Yurpsland is usually brewed from other plants. Frederick himself drinks - cautiously - things brewed by Myrrh. They get onto discussing Yurplejuice - neither Svetlana nor Anoshka has tasted it, because it's restricted, and even in Yurpsland it's regulated. Olaf tells Aloysius about the other half of his business - the first half is treating sick animals, the second half is making and selling thaum-powered gadgets. He has always refused to make magical weapons - Zap-Tridents - partly out of morality and partly in case someone buys one and then kills him to prevent him making any for anyone else. In any case they only work at Tricklepoints, such as the one under the Mansion. To make his own gadgets work away from a Tricklepoint he has built big, cumbersome energy collectors. Aloysius shows Olaf the laughter marble, and Olaf says it does party tricks, which he will show him in the workshop. 13: Thicket [02/05/2018 - 16/11/2018] Sylvester says Claudia will be selling a lot more sausages, because more changes are coming, because he is planning to be more pro-active. He and Rosemary discuss Mayor Saffron's temper. Mortimer says he arrived here (in the woods) by accident, but now he's here he will help the Nomes. He asks why they are there and Fizmo says they are going to "that Crystal Thicket". Nitfol is initially angry, but Fizmo says that if Mortimer (with his evident magical power) is working for Mayor Koyeeb they're all dead anyway. Nitfol discusses good and bad leaders with Mortimer, and Mortimer correctly concludes that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb. He is still willing to help, on the understanding that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb for an ethical reason (i.e. because he is very bad at his job) and that he isn't planning to kill him. He knows where the Crystal Thicket is. Frederick tells Svetlana and Anoshka about Yurplejuice, which he hasn't had since the funeral of Mariah, the Mansion's groom, when they still had horses. It's made in Wirtvale, and the stuff which Yurpsland exports is second-rate, but the best brands are wonderful. This leads to a conversation about funerals: the Spire folk file their dead on shelves in a catacomb, but they do have a ceremony. They talk about the fact that Spire folk are trained for their jobs, but Frederick had to muddle through as both wizard and regent, and didn't do a terrific job. We see Myrrh emerging from a hole in a rocky floor, into a cavern where there are many pink stalactites and stalagmites. She is preceded by a butterfly - perhaps signifying that she and Jones have had sex. In the cavern is a giant Metalmin who knows what she is - it addresses her as "zarkette" - and challenges her to a game of chess. We see a woman with puffy white hair watching Myrrh and the Metalmin on a screen: this is the same woman who was earlier seen overseeing the team who were discussing the fact that Frederick wasn't being knocked out by what they had fed him. She is probably Svetlana's boss. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, still discussing Saffron Stout, and Saffron's father, who died when Sylvester was five, and her mother, who kept small yappy dogs. Neither was at all communicative about their past. Mortimer tells the Nomes there may be a magical way of getting where they're going. He tries to compare Panegates with the treewarping the Nomes do, which requires planning and equipment. Nitfol knows about twistpoints, but Mortimer says Panegates are safer, and there's one that leads to the edge of the Thicket. He has to explain that it's Panegate, not Paingate. Mention is made of Fizmo's married sister Fweep. Meanwhile, Frederick says that Spire folk who do badly at their jobs get sacked. Yurpsland is a young, recently unified country which hasn't worked out how to do things yet, whereas the Spire regime is 400 years old. He speaks about a Yurpslander named Owen Gregiry, who wrote a study on the Spires, and about various Spire monarchs, including the famous Ivana III, who fought off the Wendigoes. Frederick is more interested in Vasily II, who wanted to introduce changes. We flash to Violet Hopkirk, telling her mother she's going out but will be back in time to help with supper. Young Ash is her brother. We see the Flittermouse in her tower, watching Violet through a telescope as she sets out. Then we see Eunice calling two lads called Ricky and Wendell to come out from a wooden structure, because Saffron needs them. Then we see the old man and former Guardian Terin Flem, sitting on a rock talking to his grandchildren Stephan and Sparrow. He is going to wait at the rock until he sees the Mansion party come by on their way out of the village. We see Rosemary and Sylvester discussing the mayor of her home town, how as an orphan she was a problem for him, and how her Aunt Eva came to take her in. Eva was also seen as a problem because she had run off to the city, picked up foreign ways and then returned rich. There are things Rosemary wonders about Eva's return, but she's not going to talk about it in town where there are potential eavesdroppers. Mortimer and the Nomes agree that it would be as tedious to trek to the Mansion to find the Panegate as it would be to go to the Thicket on foot, and as far as Mortimer knows they won't be able to locate the Panegate at the Thicket end. He assumes they are going there to find a particular flower. He tells them not to tell him their plans, so he can't inadvertently give the game away. We cut to Sylvester's brother Ace, with spear and rucksack, walking through an unknown town in the west of Yurpsland and meeting up with a blonde Nome woman wearing a long skirt and a hat with a flower in it. He shows her a similar flower - which he was reluctant to wear in his hat. As he is Ace, she takes the nom de guerre Diamond (Ace suggests Joker). As they walk through the town, in the background we see a very odd face, or maybe a mask, with slanted oval eyes, watching them from some sort of battlement, and they pass a poster with a kind of alien face on it. Other, more human faces peer round corners at them wherever they walk. Ace comments on the fact that they are being followed, and asks if they are friends of Diamond's, or at least allies. Cut to the Mansion's butler Schmedley, standing in front of a large, open book and holding a cake with candles, to celebrate fifteen years since the strip began. There are eleven candles on the cake, three Flutterbys flying inside the house, and a Fuzz peering at the lighted window from outside. Frederick and Anushka discuss rules of succession. In the Spires the rulers are of alternating sex and bear a mystic Gear. Vasily II the would-be change-maker died young (as did Yorik II), and Frederick suggests that his death was suspiciously convenient. The village fishermen are deeply interested in Rosemary's hat. Coming from where she does, she is able to discuss fishing with them. One called Tom even invites them for a drink, but she and Sylvester have too much to do, and Sylvester says late in private that having the Earl in the inn would be a buzz-kill - nearly as bad as an Oracle in the pub. Fizmo is curious about the smell of sphagnum dust which still hangs around Mortimer. She and Nitfol discuss the birth of Fizmo's niece Faft, in a way which implies that Nomes can choose the gender of their foetus - although Nitfol denies it when Mortimer asks. Fizmo remembers she needs to ask the village healer Piu for Stiflebloom. Nitfol is an onlly child. Diamond says that Ace is an object of great local interest, which is why people are spying on them. He comments on her dyed-blonde hair. for some reason, she says that here she had no other option (even though we see a male Nome with brown hair watching them). Ace says there are always options, but sometimes all of them are bad, and he learned that from "you people" - some organisation to which Diamond belongs. The boundary between "here" (later described as "Out West"), where Ace has been for a while, and "Back East" where Ace comes from is a place called Nye. Diamond came there from somewhere "much, much worse" than here, which makes Ace say he questions her Nomishness. This may be related to this Hanukkah strip, which shows Nomes onducting a cultural celebration somewhere where they are a persecuted minority living in hiding. Ace and Diamond come to a plain, unmarked door in a wall, which Ace says people must only come to if they are already welcome there. It opens before them. Frederick tells Anushka that he ended up taking over running his "Spire" and training his successor (Sylvester) because the official leader (Willoughby) was no good at it. Willoughby died in the Noodle Incident, which the Spire folk haven't heard about. Frederick says he would have thought everyone to the ends of the known world would have heard of it, and this leads to a discussion of an island called Solla Sollew, which Svetlana says is the island at the farthest edge of the Revealed World, and which Frederick says an explorer described as "alive and burning". Anushka says that Solla Sollew isn't the farthest place from the Spires, just hard to reach because of magic-storms from the Glow Confection mountain range: the farthest point is the Biloka Penninsula on the far side of the Deep Southeastern Jungles. Frederick does not know why the town of Noodle is called Noodle, but the Noodle Incident is the most interesting thing that ever happened there. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the local fishermen. Tom is unmarried but has a thing going with Gretta Weed. It's OK for Mansionites other than the Earl to hang out in the local pub. Sylvester goes to collect post from Mr Gray. Mortimer's party, discussing Stiflebloom, pass what looks like a dead Spyder. Fizmo left their village because Nome girls were being encouraged to get pregnant instead of taking Stiflebloom. She and Kulkad went down into the Hot Zone in suits. She couldn't see much through the helmet, and can't really describe what they were monitoring. Mortimer says Sylvester will want to know, and Nitfol should want to know too if he's going to be a leader, so Fizmo says the thing they were watching was a sort of stone growth. Ace and Diamond pass two guards, and climb stairs to visit a Mr Shadwell. Ace fusses about the lack of a handrail, and Diamond says he reminds her of Algernon Jones, the hero of Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. At the top of the stairs, they find Mr Shadwell seated dead at his desk, with some kind of wound on his chest. Frederick wasn't present at the Noodle Incident and didn't hear about it till days later, because they didn't have a Sparkwire - a telegraph system. Sparkwire operators seem to be all women, who wear antennae like the ones the Spire people wear, although in the Spires they signify citizenship. The Spire ones seem to be implants - at least, they're not just attached to a band like the ones worn by Sparkwire operatives. In Noodle there is a museum about the Incident. In the Spires, Solovyov Spire is all museums, but some can only be visited by people with a high security clearance. While Sylvester is talking to Mr Gray, some village children ask Rosemary how she, Sylvester and Mortimer got out of the inn without anybody seeing them go. She says they used a one-time magic door. [Cut to Cap'n Hamster, talking to a sentient sea plant about the fact that his parents told him that somewhere across the waves there would by a pirate girl for him, and he will search till he finds her.] Fizmo tells Mortimer that when she was down in the Hot Zone, she had a button to push (and then run away) if the thing she was watching started to move. Technology doesn't work well down there, which was why they needed live watchers, but the button was shielded. Fizmo says she saw a rock grow legs and walk. Nitfol asked if it talked - she says no. Nitfol is not surprised, because he has heard stories from when Nomes used to mine down close to the Hot Zone. Diamond says she will pay Ace (who seems to be some kind of bodyguard, like Rosemary) to help her get away from the town, as she was Shadwell's "little mascot" and probably won't surive him for long if she stays. Ace agrees on condition that she doesn't lie to him, and that she tells him where the thing he came to collect is. She opens a wall safe and gives Ace sort of snow globe thing with a figure in it - a long-robed figure juggling the letter 007. Frederick has never been to the Noodle museum, but has heard testimony he trusts. Svetlana is worried about something, tells him "Negative", then looks warily at the walls and says it's nothing. Frederick says Willoughby set off some kind of chain reaction which badly damaged much of Noodle, but no-one except Willoughby died. The incident happened in part because of poor maintenance in Noodle, but that part of the story was hushed up. Mr Gray is concerned that there may be things which, unofficially, Sylvester should tell him about. They have a verbal skirmish in which Sylvester avoids telling him anything. He collects his post, rejoins Rosemary and says it may have been a tactical error for Mortimer to let people see that his umbrellla could be used as a weapon - which suggests Mr Gray is a government agent. Nitfol says that one of his ancestors, Nikmo, found a talking rock in the deeps, although most of the records of what it said were lost. Nikmo brought the rock home to the surface, but it stopped talking and he was ridiculed for saying it had. Family history says Nikmo later snuck the rock back into the deeps and it came back to life. He told his daughter Margi about it. Margi became a famous adventuress and had a son, Jindak. Margi told Jindakk that she thought Nikmo went back later to visit the rock, but she herself could never find it. Mortimer asks about the surviving records of what the rock said, and Nitfol says that the rock said it had been broken off from a larger boulder during a natural upheaval. We see Violet sneaking past behind Terin Flem, who is still keeping a lookout. She walks to the Mansion's gardens, where she startles Nellie Grubb, the gardener. Ace tells Diamond to place another globe, called a Zoinkglobe, into the safe. He had arranged to give Mr Shadwell this one in return for the one with the juggler, and now Shadwell's heirs can have it. He tells Diamond not to steal stuff from the safe unless they need it to survive, so she takes a small plaque with Shadwell's sigil on it, used to show that the bearer is in his favour. Ace comments that Louis and Buddy, the security guards, had let him up there with a spear, and may be part of whatever is going on. We return to the Spires, with a detour to a Smyt version of Spiderman - Spyder Smyt - to commemorate the death of Stan Lee. Frederick is talking about the official enquiry into the Noodle Incident. The Spires have official enquiries too - Svetlana says "Except when conditioned by circumstances", Frederick replies "Like when a gal happens to be carrying a big needle?" and Anushka says they don't talk about that here. Frederick says that what he has said came from his own experience, not from Svetlana. He says that Willoughby was scapegoated (although he really was somewhat to blame) - then a woman named Snegurka arrives with a file which was requested earlier (presumably the one on Spindizzies). Part Seven: Seats of Power [19/11/2018 - present] 01: Flight [19/11/2018 - 04/02/2019] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Eetown, discussing whether or not Mortimer will do anything illegal with his umbrella, for a given value of "illegal". Some countries encourage magic, some ban it, but Yurpsland has no unified policy. Mortimer and his party come to a barrier of webbing which marks the edge of Spyder territory. They cut through but are left rather gummed up: Fizmo wants Nitfol to ban Spyders when he is mayor. They begin to pass scattered fragments of ruined stone walls. Nitfol and Fizmo have not been this way before - their parents' and previous generations sometimes journeyed to the Thicket to collect special plants, but the mortality rate was high. Nitfol has more confidence in their safety now because they have the three Pales with them - but suddenly, somebody in the trees starts to throw rocks at them. Nellie tells Violet that being there, at the Mansion, isn't safe. Violet tells her her mother wants to marry her to someone called Tim Tonbee who is above her social status, in order to advance her. Violet thinks this is foolish, both because Tim will want to marry a girl of his own class, and because the life of an aristocratic housewife is not much better than that of a working class one. She's an expert inkwrangler, but girls aren't allowed to work on the rigs because it's thought they'll bring bad luck, and they aren't allowed to work in The Barn (where she currently inkwrangles) after they marry. She doesn't want to join the Navy because she doesn't want to kill people, and she can't be an Oracle because she doesn't hear the Brush in her heart. She doesn't fancy clerking. Ace and Diamond walk out past the guards Louis and Buddy, telling them Mr Shadwell deos not wish to be disturbed. Louis and Buddy wonder why Ace (a professional guard) gave them a disappointed look as he left. On their way out Ace and Diamond are accosted by two more serious-looking men, called Mr Stirscrim and Trymund, who ask who Ace is. Trymund says he's probably the Mundiv rep. Ace (whose mother is a Mundivagant) says that Dalton Mundivagant sent him. Snegurka hands the file to Anushka, and seems disturbed by the fact that Frederick thanks her. Anushka hands the file to Frederick, but won't tell him who authorised her to give it to anyone who asked about Spindizzies. Frederick and Svetlana prepare to leave, but he pauses and asks Anushka if she is married and has children (yes to both). Mortimer's party are being bombarded with rocks by a group of Tree Squids. Mortimer and the Nomes take cover in the long grass, but Nitfol says the Pales can take care of themselves. One of the Nomes, unspecified, says they need Umboz, the Squid-Coaxer, but Nitfol says these are different from the village squids. We see a brief scene of Umboz, Vezza and Piu getting on very well with the Pales at their hive. Piu seems to be learning new techniques from a Pale doctor, and Vezza and Zpeaker are looking at a device which looks like an organic version of an Ettin tool. The rocks stop coming because Thrash has knocked the Tree Squids out of their trees. Violet tells Nellie she wants to be her apprentice gardener. Nellie is dumbstruck. She tells Violet that she isn't getting paid because she is officially retired, but Violet says the next one will be paid. She listens out for news, and knows Sylvester has been making money on stocks and will soon need new staff, as the old guard get ever older. Nellie warns Violet again that the Mansion isn't safe and her parents would never agree to her working there, but Violet says she will leave home when she comes of age. Mr Stirscrim and Trymund wonder why Shadwell sent them to Rowade if the swap was happening today (sounds like somebody got them out of the way). Ace and Diamond say they made the swap and "didn't hear any complaints". Diamond shows Stirscrim the pass with Shadwell's sigil and he lets them pass, but he is still uneasy. Diamond tells Ace privately that Shadwell's habit was to foster rivalry among his troops, but when Stirscrim and Trymund do work together they have a fair amount of clout. She doesn't know which would come out on top if they fought. Ace asks her to show him the subtlest way out. Anushka says her kids turned out OK "for the most part". Frederick regrets not having children of his own. His nephew Willoughby became his foster son but he died. He tried again with Willoughby's children and they too mostly turned out OK (we see that he is doubtful about Mortimer and Lenore) and with other kids who came around (we see a girl with long curly hair looking at his Fugehorn). He tells Anushka to tell her kids she loves them and give them the advice she wants to give them, because there might not be a next time. Svetlana looks stressed. She and Frederick leave and we see Snegurka come to make sure Anushka has heard an urgent debriefing summons. Anushka says she has, and calls Snegurka "ninnyhammer". Thrash jumps down from the trees to rejoin the other two Pales. A hail of rocks follows but it begins to die down and the Pales look puzzled. 02: Entangled [05/02/2018 - 03/05/2019] Mortimer and the two Nomes wonder nervously what will happen if the Pales don't return from squid-chasing. The scene switches to the Pale camp, where Zpeaker is telling Vezza how the Pales grow their tools. [Out-take - we see Nimue in her orchard, alive and well and growing oranges, but the scene is partly greyed out because there is so little magic in Abalone. After this Rob provided a whole sequence of four strips on Rosemary going on a blind date, and said that it was canonical, but as it is set at some indefinite time in the future I've left it in the Supplementary Art section. It does show us that the Mansion has a set Portal Point for people to teleport through.] Nellie tells Violet to go home for now, not to wander off the path, and she will discuss with Amos and "His Grace" the possibility of taking her on as an apprentice. Ace and Diamond go through a small door marked "Nome" into an underground complex (with rats) where Ace has to walk bent over. They are briefly accosted by a male Nome, a sort of steeplejack named Uffer whjo works in "The Heights", but they ignore him. Svetlana still looks stressed. She starts to tell Frederick he must do something, when another woman named Idita comes to re-dress Svetlana in clothing suited to a higher rank, if she is going to escort Frederick. Svetlana looks even less happy. She is taken to a booth, where an ironic-looking woman named Alena whom she knows from school or college is assisting. The Pales rejoin Mortimer and the Nomes, but the Tree-Squid are still throwing stones at them. Mortimer doesn't want to use magic again and Nitfol agrees, so they set off into the brambles under Nitfol's command, using the Pales' sickles to cut through. Nitfol is looking more and more like a leader. Eventually they come to a giant, pink, glowing, three-pronged crystal set in a base: Mortimer says it marks the start of the Thicket. We cut to Rosemary and Sylvester, walking away from the town at a dignified pace they have to maintain until they pass Terin. Rosemary asks why the provincial flag is the E symbol, given that Audra played down her history. It may have had something to do with taxes, and been picked because goods with the E stamp were so widespread in the area - we see that they sold self-sealing stem bolts. Ace and Diamond run into more Nomes, led by a very hostile older man called Roquat. He tells Ace to get out - Ace moves Diamond aside and says he'll get out when Roquat gets out of the way. Roquat draws a knife, so Ace knocks him and his companions down. As Ace and Diamond leave, one of the downed Nomes warns Ace that Diamond will stab him in the back. Svetlana and Idita enter the booth, while Alena, who has a weapon with a rotating blade, stands guard. She and Frederick engage in mild banter, although she says he's a disruptive influence. Fizmo asks Mortimer why humans built the Thicket, and he says the Ettins built it. Fizmo has never heard of them. Mortimer asks if the others have. Nitfol has heard stories of The Earl fighting a two-headed giant called Ettin (real Ettins had one head but two brains). Thrash indicates that this is untrue and that he knows about real Ettins. Sylvester gives them a brief history lesson and says he doesn't know why they built the Thicket, and that they are probably already too close to it - in the distance we can see a jumble of the giant glowy pink shards. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the flag of Moonin, which shows the ancient towers called the Beacons, but some people would prefer a lobster. The islands in that area have always fought, but a leader named Wirtanen who had a lobster flag briefly united the islands, but he didn't rule the deep landsiders who have their own flags. Rosemary agrees that the current, Beacon flag is boring, but doens't care otherwise. They reach Terin. Diamond is glad Ace didn't kill anyone, even though she's willing to kill if necessary. She has something she needs to do which she says will be fine so long as there isn't a Backwash. This is a wave of magical power which surges out from the Infernal Engine, which extends underground and moves at a rate of a few centimetres a year. Where they are, it used to be, and it has left part of itself in place as it moved on, so they are still to some extent inside it. The Heights are jumbles of high beams left behind by the Engine, which occasionally generate magical items, which Highscalers like Uffer collect. Frederick and Alena discuss the fact that clothes in the Spires are designed by a committee, while in Yurpsland they are mostly designed by a particular married couple. 03: No Turning Back [06/05/2018 - present] Mortimer's party progress, keeping together. Mortimer, being taller, can see a large, distant rock which he thinks is near the Panegate. Nitfol says one direction is as good as another, and Mortimer says the direction of the Thicket (the jumble of crystals) is bad. Saturdays in the Basement [03/05/2014 - present] These strips run every Saturday and show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with what's happening above ground to Rosemary and co.. I decided to split them off onto a separate page to make the action easier to follow. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nests [03/05/2014 - 08/08/2015] The scene opens with a cavern on the wall of which is a cross between a set of bunk-beds and two layers of miniature, open-fronted rooms, made from wooden beams. These are labelled with the names of a group of female Gnoll warren-mates - Hiltsa, Lanwja, Piranom, Pergola, Skuy, Islupis, Ambri and Irnissa. Islupis is not present, or at least not visible, and Ambri is off-stage except for her hand. All we can see of Piranom is her feet (wearing shoes, in odd colours) and the ends of long hair. Hiltsa, who looks very bad-tempered, is throwing stones at the board behind Lawnja's head. Irnissa reports that Skuy and Pergola didn't come home last night. We see Skuy telling Irnissa and Piranom that she is moving to Leny Hall, and that she'll never take a mate because she has a proper job as Sina's assistant. Irnissa intends to stay at home where it's safe. We then see Skuy carrying her belongings past a memorial to the Nome War, and passing the Gnoll security guards Forfind and Findfor and the Ghast soldier Dpxbfo. [Meanwhile in an outtake a female Gnoll named Carmal delivers a pie-in-the-face to Dap, ordered by Tuft to celebrate "their" anniversary - actually the strip's eleventh anniversary. Carmal evidently is some kind of courier or perhaps a Kissogram girl.] Hamble and Squeeb discuss Othara. Hamble has thought of killing her to discourage explorers, but decides she is more useful alive: he's waiting for somebody else. ` Meanwhile, we see Wrawa (female Trog) wake from her exhausted sleep. Kottle the (Gnoll) Healer tries to speak to her but she runs off and he sends Maggle (another female Trog) to follow her and keep an eye on her. Maggle is alarmed to see that Wrawa appears to be heading for the Great Chasm, but when Wrawa reaches The Plunge and stands hovering at the edge, and Maggle calls out to her not to do it, Wrawa replies "Don't do what?" and seems not to know where she is. We see that the gap in the fence at the plunge-point originally led not to a sheer fall but to an extensible bridge, which is now tucked in under the lip of the drop. Wrawa says that she can smell something on the breeze and she is the second person to do something, and then says that she is going to prepare something for the people who will follow her and then jumps off the Plunge point in a calm, abstracted way that suggests she knows there's a soft landing below. She lands in the bushes down in the Chasm. She avoids being sucked into the chute, and instead walks along the top of it to the Trog habitat on the far side of the Chasm, where she meets Hamble and Squeeb, who have evidently gone back down there to live even though they may venture elsewhere. Wrawa remembers and likes Hamble from her childhood, and tells him how she has been affected by Rhid's chemicals and by the death of Leny. We see that Rhid himself has ended up in a hospital called the Humane Zone. Hamble warns Wrawa that this place, the deep-down Trog habitat, has an effect on people, but Wrawa seems quite keen on the idea and wants to absorb the atmosphere. She is aware of Hamble's ambitions to return to the world and make his mark; she doesn't intend to oppose him, nor to assist him at this point (and secretly feels that it will make little difference if she does). She goes to sleep, hanging uipside down from the ceiling. We see Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr awake in her sleeping pool, called by a voice of unknown origin. Ploot arrives to check on Urwyn, who has nothing to report, as there has been no activity around the Elevator. Unnoticed by them, a Smyt Sherlock Holems and Watson pass by, stalked or followed by another Smyt. Ploot fills Urwyn on with what's been going on with Sina and the new hall, and two Ghast medics, Vptwbotw and Vpfbotw, arrive with a Porta-Pool to collect their dead. Ploot prepares to drag the dead Gobule, whom he recognizes as one of Guttle's servants, away to Maw. Urwyn thanks Ploot for watching out for him and we are shown that Urwyn's friend Zugo, wearing armour, is also watching from a crack in the wall. Meanwhile the Ghasts wheel their Porta-Pool past various characters in and around Leny Hall. We see the Gnoll Muscod giving a heart-shaped flower to Folla, and two Gobules from Maw's household pushing some kind of large wheel. We see Catmorlo talking to Furphy, Satyrsong peeking at Krink, a Helipath sign-writer, Voog and an unknown female Motihaul. They pass a well where an Ichyoid is drawing water, a male Trog being led on a lead by a female Nome, a JibJib, Frag guarding the entrance to Le Tree and a female Motihaul pushing her eggs in a pram. On the walls are posters warning people about Fixits. In Time Hall they pass an Ooze, a Trog whom we saw before in Bowel Hall, and Pizzle talking to a male Motihaul Candle Monk named Crumpton. Then another Ichyoid at another well, a female Gnoll water-seller named Bujold, and a Fixit information desk, manned by a Boogieman. At the desk are a Gnoll with a flower in his hair whom we have seen before, and an unknown Gobule and male Trog, the Gobule with a bump on his head which suggests that a Fixit has been struck off him, and the Trog carrying a battered hat (not a Fixit, from the look of it). The two Ghast medics take the Porta-Pool to Amorph Hall. The area is still under lockdown, so there is nobody to meet the funeral party except Stirrer Hptwfvth and Apprentice Stirrer Hpthfvx, and a chap called Septwbfn, who pushes a handcart labelled Tangible Karma, and gives the medics a free fungus to compensate them for having had to go near the Operator. The two Stirrers place the Porta-Pool on a mark on the floor and a strange, elaborate machine, acquired directly from the SubShafts (not from the SubShaft manager Egrote) and normally cloaked from any notice, descends from the ceiling to hover over the pool and probe or stir the contents and decontaminate the contents. It seems that the SubShafts themselves are sentient but nobody knows for sure: there is a Ghast team studying them. The two Ghast Stirrers Hptwfvth and Hpthfvx bring the Porta-Poll containing the remains of Hpthbvtw - a.k.a. High Pool Third of Batch Three Hundred and Fifty Two - to the pool whence he came, and prepare to stir him back into it, with a ceremonial speech about his memories and dreams being added back into the common pool and into the Official Record. We see this happening. We go back to Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr sleeping in her pool again, and being called again to wake up. It can't be Hpthbvtw who is calling her, since we saw her being called before he was added back into the pool, but it does seem like it's probably the same pool. Some essence of the pool speaks to Hpobfvfr, taking on Hpthbvtw's form, but she objects to that so it becomes her mother Hpobvo instead. The pool, the collective consciousness, approves of Hpobfvfr's willingness to go against convention, and wants the Ghasts to go out and "engage the world", especially now with humans reappearing and the Sneeches leaving. The pool consciouisness explains to Hpobfvfr that their world, the Basement, runs on machinery behind the walls which is powered by Sneech squeezings, and without the Sneeches it's already beginning to fail. It wants Hpobfvfr to go talk to the humans, who may have useful information. She is quite keen to talk to Mortimer again. Saturdays in the Basement :: Tests [15/08/2015 - 26/03/2016] We see Shabash, one of the female Gnolls who shot at Agorn by mistake for Boromir, walking nervously through a dark place, scaring away a Doom Bee and a sort of miniature, non-sentient Saur called a Lizhopper. She passes a gap in the wall through which we see Maggle the Trog running across a lighted space, then Shabash surprises Faddle in the dark. She can smell that Faddle has been in The Place No-One Talks About, which turns out to be the cave where he was taken by and to the female Gnolls in collars, whom he refers to as Placettes. Along with "the usual phizz" they told him that the world was ending in some sense, and gave him a task to perform. Following their accidental attack on Agorn, Fanga and Shabash have split up in order to go to ground: Faddle suspects the Placettes of having engineered this to leave Shabash free to be recruited. They are joined by Carmal, who has been instructed in a vision to come and meet the Placettes' Assigned One. We see the vision in black-and-white flashback, and it looks suspiciously like Frowgler wearing the pumpkin-head costume in which he scared the Nomes. The Placettes have given Faddle three glowgem shapes which have to be inserted into sockets on some important mechanism on an upper level. The three shapes have to be inserted all at the same time into slots which are too far apart for one person to reach them simultaneously, presumably as a safety measure. They are dangerous in some way - possibly radioactive - but Faddle is better able to handle them than "normal" people (perhaps because as a Finagler he's not likely to reproduce), and has been given a backpack with a protective lining to carry them in. On their way, they pass through a "Wintergate" cave which is basically a permanent Hallowe'en display. They have to wear seasonal hats while in the Wintergate cave, and this prompts Carmal to tell Faddle about Fixits. As they reach the edge of the area inhabited by organized Basement society, they meet a Queen Snake named Marsslina, who is an aquaintance of Faddle's. We learn that the Queen Snakes and the Ecadems have some sort of secretive joint society and have their own underground greenhouse for growing food (although Queen Snakes mainly eat tunnel-rats), but their garden has been raided by Biters and so Marsslina is having to forage for a pudding-gourd for their own version of Thanksgiving. After Marsslina has moved on, Faddle says that Queen Snakes prefer to be called Empress Snakes and the three Gnolls discuss the terms Queen, Empress and Emperor. We learn that some Basement dwellers have traditional folklore about an all-powerful ancient Emperor named Ett, who is a fusion/confusion of the Ettins with the three early Earls named Ettric. The Placettes seem to have some kind of government status, since Gnolls just do as they say even if it's dangerous. Faddle reckons he and Shabash and Carmal have been chosen for this particular mission to and beyond the risky Fringes because they're expendable, whereas people like Mimsy and Piranom are too valuable to the Placettes to be risked. Faddle and co. pass through outgrowths of The Tree to reach a chamber full of Ettin machines. They drop the objects they've been carrying into slots on the machines. A human male named Mr Norton (who is really in the Spike with the Fixits, and who might be Rufus under another name) speaks to them through the machines and tells them that these machines are being activated because the technology which depended on Sneech Squeezings will soon fail. Shabash leaves, but Carmal and Faddle agree to perform other tasks for Norton, in exchange for Glowgems. Saturdays in the Basement :: Shabash and Rowbynn [02/04/2016 - 01/07/2017] Shabash gets lost and falls down a shaft at the fringes of the Basement. She lands in a reservoir, whence she is fished out and dumped into a dry service area by a green creature with a lot of tentacles and a long thin neck terminating in just eyes. It appears to be intelligent, since we see it start to fill in the hole in the ceiling through which Shabash fell, and it's using sophisticated tools. It's also holding a frog - who doesn't seem to be Frowgler. A maintenance bot then trundles up behind Shabash and first bonks and then tases her in an effort to get her to leave, seeing her as an intruder. She gets up to go, sees what she has been talking to and is amazed, because she can see it's a Metalmin and she thought all the Metalmins were long dead. The bot tells her it is the property of the Eman family and she doesn't like the idea that something sentient(ish) can be property. She names it Sparky. Sparky tells her to take her queries to "Facilities Manager Elizabeth Merrill" and the sound of the name, combined with the fact that Sparky is good at maths, makes Shabash think the Emans are Eyebolts. Shabash sets off to explore, believing that she can smell Eyebolts, but what she finds is a container garden under artificial lights. Beyond that, she finds Telic the Helipath Healer's surgery, and Crazy Rhid, heavily bandaged and strapped into a hospital bed. Telic turns out to be rather sinister. S/he injects Shabash with a paralysing agent in case she is there to murder hir - a reasonable precaution given her profession - but once she is helpless s/he starts to ruminate out loud about using her as a test subject, a clinical guinea pig. Rhid however talks hir out of it (and incidentally acknowledges both that he is a murderer himself, and that he has some well-intentioned long-term goal) so Telic dumps Shabash out in a corridor and locks the door behind her. Rhid gives Telic permission to experiment on him instead, since he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but cautions hir not to damage him too much - because Digger Odel still has a use for him. Shabash is very collapsed. As she lies on her back, trying to recover from the drug Telic gave her, a male Shallow Wyrm named Rowbynn drops down from somewhere high up and lands on her snout. Rowbynn is studying the quasi-sexual Wyrm process of "Eating", which turns out to be a kind of fusion. The Shallow Wyrm attaches to "Hooks and Trenches" on the skull of a Deep Wyrm - both male, apparently, so perhaps also female to female - and becomes permanently bound in place. The two then form a mental and physical gestalt organism which returns to the Hot Zone and stays there. Rowbynn finds that Shabash too has Hooks and Trenches, of a sort - which, as he acknowledges, raises interesting biological questions - and he is able to form a temporary bond with her which enables them to speak mind to mind, rather as we saw Hax speaking to Camora mind to mind before he took her over. Rowbynn is a member of the inner circle of the Ring of Clear Air, and as such his official rôle is to lie around being pampered and building up his strength in order to compete in some official contest to do with Eating rituals. But he had a lively mind and wanted something more, so he began investigating Shallow Wyrm society and mapping the extent of it through information he could glean while remaining with his own ring, and was surprised by how many and how different the rings were. We see vignettes of Vim, captain of the guard to the hostile Ring of the Uppermost Spire, stalking Sneckdraw the spy, and also of Kryt the observer, observing. Eventually that wasn't enough to satisfy Rowbynn's need for knowledge so he escaped from his minders and went exploring. He suspects that many others have done the same, and we see a vignette of Urwyn. Rowbynn tells Shabash that she will be able to break the link with him if she wants to, but if she lets him stay he can help her with her current lifestyle, and has "advantageous secrets to share". He knows where there are caches of human artefacts and knowledge, located by himself or by other Wyrms, and in return he wants her help in learning more about Fixits. He is very interested in them because the way they take over their "mounts'" minds seems similar to the Eating process. Shabash explains that she has a problem, related to the fact that she and Fanga were retained to assassinate Bromir. Rowbynn is aware of Bromir, who is "the hero of the Tubish Vat incident". Instead they attacked the very similar-looking Agorn, who is on a list of Gnolls who mustn't be killed. The list also includes Agorn's son Furphy, Comshaw, Mimsy, Niddle, Wittol, Swodswal and Catmorlo among others. Rowbynn hadn't known about the list but says something odd is going on with the Gnolls. Shabash went into hiding because she feared Agorn would report her to "some nob" but admits she isn't sure any of them know they are protected, although she expects Agorn to know. Rowbynn says a social facade is being maintained, and we see part of a pair of giant jaws depositing an apple for Agita. He says that an unknown nob or nobs is pushing society, especially the Gnolls, in a particular direction, but he doesn't know what or why. He is investigating out of curiosity rather than a desire to expose the truth. Shabash is hungry so they end the psychic conversation. It took less time than it felt like, but even so a hopeful slime grub is about to bite her ear. Slime grubs are not edible unless fricaseed, so Rowbynn directs her to a branch of the Tree. She has had a tiring and perplexing day, so after she has eaten Rowbynn directs her to a sleeping niche. They establish silent communication and then both fall asleep, and find themselves in a shared dream. Above them they can see the famous Skibble (although we cannot), although he doesn't look as Rowbynn imagined him - Shabash says he wears disguises. The dream becomes ever more bizarre - Rowbynn says Skibble is juggling feral ABOLs. Shabash wants to challenge Skibble with a tesselator, which appears in her hand, but Rowbynn says the Grumpy Pincher ate all the tesselators, twice. Shabash charges, Rowbynn goes to her aid, and Skibble confines them to a tight space for a zillion years "or 'til we bowbing wake up". They flibble. Saturdays in the Basement :: Leny Hall [08/07/2017 - 24/02/2018] We see Pergola the Gnoll, neart Leny Hall, looking at light spilling down from a gap in the ceiling and supporting a tiny fir tree. She has never seen a single tree on its own before, not part of The Tree, and tells Maggle the Trog that a woman called Swinthin had told her about free-standing trees, after she and some others had gone outside to the forest to capture Raviners for breeding, so they could extract Raviner ichor (we see a female Motihaul named Swidnica selling it), but the Raviners got loose and became a pest. Pergola has never dared to above ground herself, even after the tunnel was put in, because of the scary stories (in her imagination Nomes seem as scary as Spyders and Tree-Squids) and because it all seemed overwhelming. She loves plants and manages to nurture a few with artificial light, but she thinks if she saw plants growing freely in the sun and rain she would stay up there and never come home. Maggle has been to the doorway and only saw clouds and rain and too much light which hurt her eyes, but she is willing to go out with Pergola and guide her back. Pergola asks Maggle to tell Sina about the tree and the gap to the outside which they could work on to make their own exit - and which forest creatures can enter through. Maggle says Sina is very busy - we see Maggle talking to a female Eyebolt secretary - and that Sina and Sprocket are busy talking to Spindizzies. Maggle hasn't been to see the Spindizzies because she has no particular questions to ask them, even though she spends a lot of time exploring. She does it for fun, and often gets into trouble - she's not driven like Pergola. Pergola grew up on a fungus farm but became more interested in the weeds. Maggle works on a farm at times, to earn money when she gets bored with eating fungi and slime grubs. Most people can't eat them, but Maggle is a darkpelter Trog and is special. Darkpelters only crop up occasionally and randomly. They are resistant to poisons, and more likely to pair up with Nomes (although Maggle has her eye on a fellow Trog). Because of her resistance to toxins she helped to eradicate a dangerous plant called a jab-bramble which has harmful uses - we see a flash of Rhid doing something sinister with a ball of something. They meet up with Finimbrun, who is carrying a large domino, maybe 10" long. Rhid had left a set scattered around, and Finimbrun doesn't know what they are or whether they are dangerous or not. Pergola is wary of devices but Finimbrun thinks she's a hypocrite, because plants are just as dangerous and she was involved with the Crudbean, or at least knew Crud. She and Crud had neigbouring plots. He was sad after the death of his wife, and had a lot of equipment which was being funded by somebody else. She was nearby when the Crudbean erupted, but so were many other people. Comshaw interviewed her and then killed the Crudbean with one of Rhid's devices, and Pergola profited because souvenir hunters bought all her plants in the hope that they had been contaminated with traces of Crudbean, although it still wasn't enough for her to get her own place. Finimbrun lives with Kashkavala, who is an animal expert and food technician. We see her talking to a tunnel-rat called Snert. Timf calls Pergola to come and sort out some blorp plants, so she goes off, leaving Maggle looking warily at a flickering light. There is an odd little scene where Tuft the Gobule and Dap the Gnoll are agreeing that some large-scale thing has gone wrong, but Dap can't be arsed to find out what. Of to the side of them we see a machine that seems to be flaring off gas. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nitid the Helipath [03/03/2018 - present] We see Nitid the artist and Flange the engineer, both Helipaths, talking. Flange, who is working on a junction box, is on his own because Sprocket the Gnoll has gone off courting with Sina, which Helipaths consider very inefficient. There are a lot of wiring problems at the moment - Nitid wonders if this is to do with the previous day, which the Observatory staff say was The Day That Changed Everything, but Flange is skeptical. S/he and Sprocket did some work at the Observatory and were not impressed by their record-keeping. [Out-take: we see an elderly male Gnoll named Skritch fishing, to commemorate the death of Patrick McManus.] Nitid asks Flange if s/he recognises a particular symbol. Flange says if it were rotated it would become a symbol important to Humans (it's a fancy capital E). Flange is inclined to believe that Humans still exist. Flange goes off to do more engineering work, and Nitid goes to the Time Hall, where s/he talks to a female Ecadem named Fyke. Fyke is sad because yesterday a male Ecadem named Smyth, who was working as a bouncer, died in the fight at Le Tree, without ever having found a mate, and there are so few Ecadems left. His friends had tried to talk him out of taking such a dangerous job, as Ecadems are fragile. Fyke has her name painted on her side, which Nitid refreshes for her for free. It has something to do with the worship of the Brush and bearing witness in some way. The sect to which Fyke, who is a bit of a fanatic, belongs believe that there are holy Emissaries living behind the sun, and that the sun turns into the moon at night, covered with mysterious runes. The moon must not be breached but the sun should be, and a Jibjib named Speedy tried to fly to the sun to do this, but fell back exhausted. Fyke thinks they should build a tower to reach the sun, using the Mansion as a base. She thinks the Council will do this sort of thing; Nitid supported the sending of a Helipath named Aprat to join the Council but believes it won't achieve much because Agita, Nevus and Guttle will thwart it. A Boogieman named Trevor summons Fyke away to help deal with a situation. Nitid enters the Hall of the Brush, monitored by a female Eyebolt named Evulgate, who reports to a male ditto named Fremescent. Evulgate is collecting credits awarded to her for sharp observation, but needs another 23 credits before she will even be told what events are credit-worthy. In the Hall of the Brush, Nitid speaks to an elderly-looking Gobule priest named Kalon. Nitid isn't really sure why s/he came: Kalon goes through a list of possibilities and they decide that Nitid feels alienated from hir community. S/he does not want to talk to Nefast, a Helipath who is an Ear of the Brush, so Kalon suggests s/he should talk to Febrifuge. Febrifuge is somebody who keeps a record of favours owed, as a kind of currency, but that's not why Kalon thinks Nitid should speak to him or her. The Hall of the Brush is full of different sects. We see a male Trog holding a flower in a pot, wearing a flower on his head and declaring that "The Bloom is Eternal" to a Gnoll Doomsayer who says that "The End if Nigh", and a male Motihaul in a hooded robe debating theology with a Gnoll Beebler. At Febrifuge's door Nitid meets Shona, who has come to deposit a favour to return the one done her by Comshaw and Niddle the day before. A male Gnoll, a Spelling Guild member, OKs Nitid's spelling of hir own name on hir own forehad. The Guildsman then goes and shouts at two Doomsayers who have spelled their placards wrong. Meanwhile Pizzle turns up and asks Nitid to exchange one seed for another, which Nitid does. Tiny flags pass by low down in the frame, and the Gnoll Irnissa appears with two plants in a pot, and says that the League of Short People are on the march. Irnissa is just there to deliver plants, and assumes Nitid is also there as a professional. They discuss Leny Hall - Irnissa thinks anyone going near Crazy Rhid's old place is crazy themselves - and a male Motihaul in a lurid superhero costume passes them, carrying a alrge grasshopper impaled on a fork. Shone is in with Febrifuge, depositing favours she owes to Comshaw and Niddle. Irnissa considers Niddle far more impressive than Comshaw and says he's changing the world through his Finagling, although she herself only "fools around" and doesn't mate (only couples with a Finagler have young). She thinks Comshaw married Camora for her money. Sundays in the SubShafts [03/09/2006 - present] The timeline of the SubShaft 44f strips is confusing. The series is used as a foil for seasonal gags about e.g. Hallowe'en but given how short-lived Gnolls are, the jokes for a given season are certainly not taking place annually within the story, and the strip for 25th March 2012 and comments by Rob confirm that these events are happening roughly parallel with events in the main strip, meaning that up until 16th July 2013 they take place during the course of a single day. This means that one has to explain how come Cully ends up in possession of a device called the Zorper which is also being passed around among the characters in the main story. Because the SubShafts series is so long that it causes loading problems if displayed on a single page, I have split it into sections, but these are mine rather than Rob's. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors. A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle. Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God. We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out). We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights. While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm. Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets. A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully. A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant. Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie. Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders. They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out. We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere). They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire. The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional. Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus. They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for. The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie. Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate. We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit. While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there. Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears. Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it. Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus. Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do. The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now. In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature. Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God. She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too. Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it. Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function. Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts. Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future. Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute. Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires. Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come. Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage. Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports. The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself. We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one. Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer. As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe. Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected. Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded. The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life. It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side. Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit. Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance. Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator. Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct. The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room. They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch. Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used. We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind. We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf. We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly. In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings. Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears. Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor. Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar. They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt. Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free. The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did. They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation. We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow. Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers. Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower. A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off. We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva. Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood. As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things. They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting. 3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question. They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up. Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it. Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride. They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station". Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive. First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it. The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls. Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches. I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva. Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong. She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake. Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches. Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does. Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list. They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come. Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight. Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure. They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger. They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about. She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately. Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying. SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based. Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed. Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth. Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend.. For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair. At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner. Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world. To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep. On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub. For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise. For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell. For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt. A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives. On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible. Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet". Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion. A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page. Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else. If you are seeing this text, your browser does not support inline frames
01: An Intermission [14/06/2004 - 06/09/2004] The Weirdo reports on the mansion's creatures and cultures to a shadowy female figure in pointed shoulder-pads and a hood with two floppy little points (possibly a humab in female Motihaul clothes), who comes from the capitol. His report includes Protus the Willigig, who seems to know the Weirdo from the future. He is unable to discuss the Operator, for reasons he cannot tell. Comments are made on the fact that fleebs just sit around and stare. We hear that things "Out West" are going badly, that fleebs are involved somehow and that someone called Tulip, a friend of the Weirdo's, has been killed: also that events at the Mansion are of great importance. They discuss the fact that fleebs from the east turned up in the west at the same time that a woman obviously from the west (Rosemary) turned up in the east, but are interrupted by evidence of surveillance.
In the forest tunnel, Comshaw's party encounter the remains of a "Metalmin", a man-shaped robot. After they've gone their presence partly activates it but its head falls off and provokes a small war among some tiny sentient creatures called Smyts and Fuzzes, until the Fuzzes are eaten by a slime grub.
A Gnoll called Blit and an Ooze called Noet discuss signs and portents indicating that this may be the day that changes the world, and try to persuade a Ghast called Vipthiboo, who is searching for a Dornbeast pup. Blit and Noet accidentally activate an electronic idol to the god Kaylu which they understand to be an ancient Human artefact, and find the Dornbeast. We learn that Furphy reports to Nevus.
Gorp and Phiga report to a battered Gobule elder called Maw, but are pursued by the Ghast Sepferb from whom they stole the cakeshroom. Maw and his squabbling assistants Twiz and Devura return the cakeshroom to Sepferb (who more or less works for the Council but also may be involved in a secret project). We learn that a long time ago Maw ate a Ghast who was some kind of charismatic political troublemaker, and the Ghasts are more grateful than offended. Maw lectures his cohorts about cooperation, but as we cut away to the viewpoint of the unknown watcher, we see them attacked by an unidentified assailant (later named as Nash).
The watcher, now identified as male and moustachioed and referred to as the Overseer (or at least an Overseer - we will later learn that he is called Mr Hand), has a sarcastic Metalmin butler called Hector who is in a poor state of repair. The Overseer seems to live on alcohol, especially the low-grade products of the Mansion's former Moe vineyard. A strange octopussy creature with a stalk on its head, called a Scalpsucker, is clinging to the Overseer's face: he peels it off and Hector later deposits it down a chute into a tank where more are being bred. On his way to the chute, Hector passes alcoves containing strange things - a mummified king on a throne, sitting next to a dial saying Yes, No, Cheese (Yes is selected); a strange mechanism plugged into the Tree; and a chained Trog running on a treadmill, trying to grab a lure in the form of a Gnoll doll. As the Scalpsucker crashes down the chute we glimpse a hatted Smyt who seems to have multiple arms like a Hindu deity, or perhaps who is juggling and whirring its two arms so they seem like many, accomapanied by a spider. There is a reference to the Overseer hiring two mechanics to fix a scanner - the same two who were working on Project Y.
Inside a hatch on Hector's back is a repair manual in the Overseer's handwriting but which he doesn't remember writing: this may have been forged by Hector who then wiped the memory. The Overseer sends his agents Sprocket (Gnoll) and Flange (Helipath) to get a spare part for Hector from the wrecked Metalmin in the tunnel. Meanwhile we meet some little Sciencebug religious fanatics in tiny space-suits who are trying to cross the Overseer's office to reach the shrine of a beetle-deity called Roshambo (who we will later learn is a character in a comic, along with Frowgler the Horned Frog) without being zapped by a bug-zapper. One is killed in a religious dispute, and some philosophical Smyt monks eat the remains. We learn that long ago the Overseer was friends with a Gnoll called Drax, and that it was the Overseer who was spying on the Weirdo, and wants to find out who his contact from the capitol is. Watching the screens we see that the drugged Wyrm (Tabo) at Le Tree is an old friend of Percy's and they have another friend called Skibble, not present: the screens also show sinister half-seen faces in the dark, probably The Gibber.
When the Scalpsucker arrives in the breeding tank and starts mating, the vibrations shake loose a literal Bad Penny, an evil coin, which is then at least partially eaten by little Biters. We see that Hector has a three-eyed robot dog called Nunsuch. Hector wakes a Boogieman whose job is to beat the Middle Gong, which tells Sylvester that the day is half over.
02: The Grand Tour [07/09/2004 - 29/11/2004] Snoot takes Sylvester and Rosemary to meet an Eyebolt called Spatchcock, and on the way he shows them a sort of small menagerie set up by Nevus, with creatures in glass cases. One of the exhibits is an energy being called an ABOL (sentient ball of light), and the others are a large "Tribbletongued" hamster and a sentient house-plant resembling an Ficus. These are cameos from other ComicGenesis comics - the ABOL from Reasoned Cognition, the hamster from Furmentation and the plant from Station V3. Sylvester tells Rosemary that the ABOL is sentient and she touches its case with a view to releasing it, and gets a severe electric shock. After they leave we see that all three exhibits are sentient and the hamster means to escape: he has a set of pirate gear hidden in his cage.
Sylvester and co. also pass a strange multi-tentacled thing which looks like a plant which is imitating an insect, with "eyes" which open up like flower-buds to reveal two small sentient creatures resembling Wyrms but attached to the plant at the tail, and called Ahz and Skiv. We later hear this plant-thing called The Growth.
We see a group of very regimented Eyebolt clerks, one of whom is arrested for Weirding - which seems to involve the imagination and astral manifestation of imagined objects.
We see a young Flutterby (like a very tough dragonfly) fooling around, imitated by a Smyt.
A young female Trog called Wrawa recruits two mature male Trogs called Leny and Kronk to assist Sina in persuading Crazy Rhid to let them run the bucket chain through his home/laboratory. The loss of mind by older Trogs is discussed, and friends or acquaintances of Kronk's called Yurd and Hamble are mentioned, who committed suicide by jumping into the Chasm when they felt their minds going. We see Leny try to eat a flutterby but it is, literally, too strong for him - it prises his jaws open and flies off. We learn that while male Trogs invariably develop progressive dementia after reaching full adulthood, 90% of female Trogs just die.
The auction for Protus's gadget escalates.
We are introduced to SuperSmyt and his unassuming alter-ego.
A Wyrm called Yaypo ventures into the Hot Zone. A Wyrm called Gibb hunts talking rocks, not very successfully, and we see a pebble break loose and become sentient. It falls into a deep zone where there are Nome workers in space suits, who are monitoring something to see if it changes. The pebble grows legs and runs away. It gets into the airvents where it is unfazed by pest-control systems. It causes an explosion which in turn causes one of the space-suited workers, a very talkative one, to quit.
Comshaw, Digger and Niddle reach the gate that keeps Spyders and tree-squids out of the tunnels. They venture out into the forest, and Niddle is overcome by the sight of the sky. They meet a Saur (who we will later learn is called Buzz and works for a mysterious Boss, probably Frowgler the "real life" horned frog, whom we will meet later) and some Pales. The Saur passes on a message that their world is ending, and about decisions Comshaw will need to make to minimize the damage.
03: The Nome War [30/11/2004 - 10/01/2005] Digger Odel undermines and brings down a killer tree (probably the same one that tried to catch Mortimer), watched by a Nome called Umboz, a squid-coaxer (we learn later that this means he persuades tree-squids to position themselves around his home village to protect it), and his daughter Vezza. Umboz is wrongly credited by other Nomes with killing the tree, and so clearing a path to a neighbouring North Gnoll village. Kayeeb, the local Nome mayor, proposes attacking the Gnoll villagers who are currently occupied with the Pales, and orders Umboz to lead the expedition. Umboz, fearing he is being set up because he is a political dissident, flees with Vezza.
Umboz tells Vezza about a war between mining Nomes and Gnolls in the basement several generations ago. Overcrowding frayed everybody's tempers, and then there was an explosion in a Nome mine which was attributed to the Gnolls, although it was really set off by a "monster" or Demon (who was probably a Human - in fact, almost certainly Mortimer, as he has referred to himself as having done something in the past which annoyed a lot of Nomes). The Nomes attacked the Gnolls in retaliation and the Operator stoked the war by handing out weapons.
The Nomes lost the war because they had a hereditary leader called Zabern who wasn't much good. The Gnoll leader was Compline, who had survived serious childhood injuries and had been persuaded to lead the Gnoll army by his mate Caytid. Caytid was able to use magic, as both Gnolls and Nomes had been able to do in the distant past, and she brought other female Gnolls into the war as archers. A few mining Nomes were given refuge underground with other species but most ended up fleeing the basement and living in the forest alongside the forest Gnolls.
The Nomes who fled to the forest were helped by the Pales there, but then some of the very alien Sneeches emerged in between the enemy lines. Both sides disengaged and fled, blocking off that part of the basement where the Sneeches were by plugging the tunnels to the forest on one side, and pulling down all but one of the Human-made bridges across an underground chasm on the other, trapping the Sneeches in a narrow zone. [This is why the Council had to make a new tunnel from their side of the basement to the forest.] Pales sometimes sneek back down through Sneech territory and across the one remaining bridge to trade, but they don't always make it back alive. Umboz says that unlike all the other intelligent species, "Sneeches aren't people".
Zabern was succeeded as Nome leader by his brother Gizgum, who was quite good at it, but rule then passed to Gizgum's son Tinsot and grandson Kaleeb, who weren't.
Vezza, whose mother is dead, advises her father to marry a female Nome called Piu, who pretends to hate him but secretly likes him. At this point they are interrupted by a battered Nitfol and two Pales. Nitfol tells Umboz and Vezza to come with him, but agrees to pick up Piu on the way as well, in case the Mayor persecutes her for her connection with Umboz.
04: CROSSOVER: The Zayfaring Stranger [13/01/2005 - 15/03/2005] A Human man called Zay, who is dimension-hopping to try to find a lost friend called Phil, crashes through a dimension gate into the Mansion. Frederick's partner The Scary Lady takes Zay to a Panegate, a fixed portal, and sends him on his way: because he is rude, and sneers at her for being kind to a trundlebug, she sends him somewhere difficult and filled with tentacles. While they are walking to the Panegate we get to see some strange bits of the Mansion, including a sort of amusement arcade called Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where the Scary Lady acquires a balloon, and we meet an elderly woman called Prunella (Nellie Grubb, Amos's wife) with whom Frederick was once in love, although another man won her.
We hear about the Crash, the sudden loss of magic, which occurred when Prunella was a child - later established as having taken place about fifty years previously. We also hear about an Earl called Ernest who had a sinister or otherwise extreme sense of fun, and we see that Frederick's partner can do at least some magic, enough to modify memory - she makes Prunella forget their meeting. We also see a magical lift-shaft which you levitate up after telling a musical crystal what door you want to get to, and some unspecified creatures (just the eyes in darkness) hiding behind a barred opening in the lift shaft, who call The Scary Lady "the Destroyer" and are there to watch what she does and defend their home from her.
The balloon turns out to be strangely significant. Although the Scary Lady lets go of the string and allows it to float off soon after she acquires it, we see at the end that it is sentient, and is following her like a pet.
05: Business Dealings [17/03/2005 - 19/07/2005] We start by seeing the same trundlebug that The Scary Lady saved, as it flees from a predator, falls down a shaft and is swept through the bowels of the mansion to land ultimately on Rosemary's helmet - by which point it has shrunk to less than half its original size, as a result of being teleported by anti-vermin filters. It's supposed to regain its full size after a few minutes, but doesn't quite.
We learn that Rosemary was an undercover hired guard for merchant caravans "Out West", pretending to be a travelling juggler while in fact working for a big security firm called Hack 'n Slash. People in the west travel in caravans for safety, owing to widespread social disintegration.
Snoot, assisted by a Gnoll called Erud, takes Rosemary and Sylvester to see the Eyebolt called Spatchcock, the manager of Le Tree. Spatchcock wants to talk to them because they mentioned paper napkins, and paper is a great rarity in the basement: the restaurant was actually planning to introduce them but this is a great secret so he assumes they are industrial spies. He scans them with his antennae and decides that they are forest Nomes from somewhere near an architectural feature called The Spike, who were sent by a rival restaurant called Le Gnollhole. Sylvester plays along with this, and inadvertently describes the appearance of Comshaw, the only Gnoll he knows, as being that of the Gnoll who sent him. Spatchcock then thinks that Comshaw, and the Council, are spying on Le Tree, which can only add to the tension between the Council faction and Nevus.
We learn that the Earl is considered to be a "fairytale monster". Snoot, who knows the two are Humans, spies on part of this conversation, then goes to the Growth and extracts from it a small, stroppy Wyrm called Squeeb, Nevus's brother in law, who is studying Ahz and Skiv. Snoot sets Squeeb to infiltrate Sylvester's backpack and spy on him: Ahz and Skiv are pleased to see Squeeb go.
Meanwhile, the Saur Snerk, acting for his employer, wins the bidding for the HJ42. The others give him a head start before they come after him, and he runs for it.
Comshaw and Niddle set out rather vaguely to follow the Pales, capturing a small Scalpsucker along the way. They meet a female Gnoll called Shona, the sister of Sina and also Nevus the Wyrm's assistant, who is waiting for the auction to finish so she can give Nevus a message from a Mr Faldstool. Shona is due to marry a mate Snerd and a Finagler Wubb, but she is concerned that Wubb may not be up to the job and her and Snerd's children will grow up delinquent or deranged. Niddle, normally quite vague and submissive, takes charge to give Shona advice about Finagling. We learn that Comshaw had a very clever friend called Boffin, and they were in an accident in which something fell on them, and Boffin died. We see three Pales corner Niddle against a tree.
The Trog Wrawa and her adult friends Leny and Kronk discuss a male Trog called Villipend who jumped into the Great Chasm when he felt his mind going, and Kronk says that was a good thing, he's glad Villipend is dead. A friend of Kronk's called Yurd who also jumped is mentioned, and a friend of Leny's called Grum who has gone to visit the forest. Wrawa bullies Tuft and Dap into calling Odum, a male Trog friend of theirs, whom she then recruits to join Sina. Dap seems to have some kind of alarm-switch he can summon help with.
Sprocket and Flange reach the wrecked Metalmin in the forest tunnel, and find Skoil, the young Poker whom Comshaw duelled, still lying unconscious or perhaps even dead.
06: Crazy Rhid [22/07/2005 - 23/08/2005] Sina's party encounters Crazy Rhid in the hallway outside his home, carrying an explosive plant-bomb. They discuss why he almost alone among Gnolls wears clothes, and why other species do or don't. We learn that he used to be a Candle Monk, but was kicked out for blowing things up. They are interrupted by a ghost cat (a crossover from another strip). Rid refuses to let them run the bucket chain through his home and when they try to argue he kills Leny with the bomb, and Wrawa then attacks him and causes him to flee, leaving the coast clear.
07: Le Tree Lecture Series [25/08/2005 - 11/10/2005] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Le Tree: as they do so Snoot plants Squeeb in Sylvester's backpack in order to spy on them and find out what they are, but Squeeb is zapped by something he finds in the pack. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the life-support Tree which runs throughout the basement and mansion, providing air, food and light without apparently needing to be fed: Sylvester says it's kept the system going for nine generations and people who attack it come to a bad end. Rosemary finds it rather sinister.
They also talk about conditions in the west and we learn that there is a Motihaul Semi-Autonomous Region, and in or near it is a very large, sinister, smoking machine or factory called the Infernal Engine. We also learn that although Ghasts are normally peaceful, there's a colony called Ghastvale where they are murderous to other sentients, and it blocks a mountain pass and forces traders to go through the Motihaul SAR instead.
They discuss Sylvester and Mortimer's money-grubbing sister Lenore, and an old flame of Rosemary's called Edwird is mentioned. It's established that Sylvester also has an old flame, not named, and that Mortimer is highly successful with the opposite sex and makes a habit of bringing home strange and dangerous women. They leave the restaurant and walk out into a pitched battle between Nevus's forces and the Council, and a Gobule, one of those who was present then the Operator flamed, warns them about the fire at the elevator. They decide to go the long way back to the mansion, through the Sneech den and past many dangers, rather than face an angry, flaming Operator, and Camora and Hax emerge from their alcove and offer to guide them.
Part Three: The Widening Gyre [12/10/2005 - 14/07/2007] 01: Strangers in the Night [12/10/2005 - 19/10/2005] We see the woman to whom the Weirdo, Arthur, was reporting earlier. High up in the Mansion she runs into Protus, who addresses her as Yasmine Fotheringby - we learn she has a strong accent and comes from a place called Shibolith. She asks him the quickest way to get down to the forest so he creates a rupture in space and pushes her through it, causing her to fall out into a ruined building in the forest, close to where Comshaw and Niddle are encountering the Pales. We learn that Protus cannot walk - so the time-machine thing he sits in may be part of him - and that he is working with structures called time pylons, at leach one of which is in the Mansion. 02: Frowgler the Horned Frog [20/10/2005 - 02/11/2005] In the woods Shona meets a talking frog called Frowgler, who possesses horns and a dragonish tail, both retractable. We will learn later that "Frowgler the Horned Frog" is the name of a guru figure in a popular local action comic, along with Roshambo the Warrior-Beetle, whom the Sciencebugs worship. We learn from their conversation that Nomes are able to "tree-warp" in order to create Tardis-like bigger-on-the-inside homes in tree-trunks, and Nevus uses this technology to hide his henchTrogs. Frowgler seems to dislike Nevus, and tells Shona that there's no future in working for Nevus, and she should work for Comshaw instead. He slightly implies that he might be a Demon, which makes Shona nervous: after she has departed to give her message to Nevus, Frowgler regrets having told her his name. He knows the names of her and her sister Sina. 03: Auction Aftermath [03/11/2005 - 20/11/2005] Knowing that the other three bidders at the auction will only allow him a brief head-start, Snerk the Saur flees with the HJ42. Agita is overbearing to Mortimer so he distracts her by kissing her, causing her to recoil in horror. The three fall out: Guttle threatens to eat Agita and Nevus, and Nevus tricks Guttle into trying to eat a booby-trapped bauble created by Crazy Rhid, which ties him up in tendrils. We see a bearded Gnoll, a Gobule with four little tentacles on his head and a blindfolded Trog (we learn later that Trogs are very sensitive to sunlight) spying on the outcome of the auction - they seem to be henchbeings of the three bosses. The Gnoll we will later learn is called Agorn, and works for Agita. Mortimer tries to sneak away, carrying his sack of fleebs, and falls down a hole. Snerk collides with Shona, who is coming with her message for Nevus: the collision sets off the HJ42 again. 04: Good Rhiddence [21/11/2005 - 15/12/2005] Crazy Rhid runs away, and Snerd goes into his home hall to find Sina and get an update. Sina, who has been blinded by a blast, tells him that Leny is dead and the Ghast Sepferb, the same one who retrieved the cakeshroom from Maw's den, is badly hurt. Sina sends a reluctant Snerd to tell the Ghasts so they can bring help for Sepferb, and sends Kronk the Trog to pursue Rhid. Kronk mentions that he was present - a long time ago - when Digger and a Trog named Yurd "saved the world". Noone present knows who Digger is. Sina also sends a Wyrm called Ploot to organise other Wyrms, and a Motihaul called Hiblehoy to help Wrawa dispose of Leny's body, so the Gobules don't eat him. Clochard speaks to a female Motihaul named Nugabela, who has children by Izchak, and has bought Bung's toadstool from Faddle. They see the Candle Monks massing to confront the Evil One and Clochard follows them, hoping for a show. 05: Guidance [16/12/2005 - 03/01/2006] Outside Le Tree, Hax prompts Camora to ask Rosemary and Sylvester to pay her for guiding them: Sylvester pays her with paper, already scribbled on on one side (Rosemary's To Do list) and she is glad to get it. A fountain with toxic fluid is mentioned. Sylvester pretends they are forest Nomes but Hax assures Camora they are Humans: we see a flashback in which Sylvester and the Scary Lady were involved in some trouble in the basement. We learn that the basement dwellers call the Mansion "God's Cactus" and that "God" in this context is not a deity but a wealthy, elderly man. The Candle Monks see the party and proclaim the Evil One: meanwhile in the background we see a heavily armed Gnoll we will later learn is called Hesper. 06: Thrash [05/01/2006 - 18/02/2006] Still carrying the Scalpsucker, Comshaw sets out to track Niddle. As he does so he hears the sound "PROZ" made by the HJ42 firing. He encounters a Saur called Ig who used to know him and his late friend Boffin: Ig tells Comshaw he saw Niddle with a group of Pales, one of whom is called/has the job-title Thrash because he winnows out problems. Thrash has a double head-spike and a pale diagonal stripe across his chest, which may be innate or may be painted on. There is a mention of an Eyebolt called Preznit who is on the basement Council, and wants to save the world. Ig says that Buzz's Boss - presumably Frowgler - appeared on the scene only recently and workes with the Pale government, called the Nexus. Comshaw also learns from Ig that there had been an earlier explosion which went ZORP, so the two were symmetrically matched. Ig and Comshaw come to a mount dotted with bare tree-trunks: the top of this mound is called The Pit, and it normally performs some action which is currently quiescent. They hear a loud click and then a rainbow-striped pillar of magical Fire shoots out of the top of the mound, before switching off with another click. Comshaw guesses Niddle set it off by accident. Ig and Comshaw discuss some aspects of Pale culture, especially the carrying of flags with mysterious holes in, and we learn that in the past Comshaw, in his rôle as Poker, "brought down" a pair of rogue Trogs called the Raver brothers, and killed Crudbean - a sort of Triffid accidentally created by Crud, one of the protagonists in Sundays in SubShaft 44f. They find Niddle and the Pales, who had been knocked over by the Fire blast. Comshaw gets their attention by throwing the Scalpsucker at them, but is amazed to find how unimpressed by him Thrash is. The Scalpsucker gets flung into the forest. 07: The Hole Thing [20/02/2006 - 01/04/2006] Mortimer, still looking for Nitfol, finds himself at the bottom of a deep, crumbling pit created by the HJ42 blast. This sort of thing evidently happens to him a lot. A mongoose-like creature called a Tunnelrat and a thing like a small eyeless Saur, called a Lurker, try to attack him but end up fighting each other. He asks a friendly female Scalpsucker to go for help, but then a small landslide reveals a door and he and the Scalpsucker go through it. They find themselves in the basement storage-area of a pre-Crash branch of a Walmart-like superstore called World o' Pots, where Mortimer, still clutching his sack of fleebs, upends a crate of sphagnum dust over himself. There they encounter a scary-looking but well-meaning and slightly malfunctioning robot which Mortimer is able to semi-control by involking a "herediscan" which shows him to be an Eman, and which showers him with free samples of a fruit-flavoured dessert called Sploo and with little sweets called Yummysticks. Mortimer's brother Rufus then appears on the scene. 08: Sittin' in a Tree [02/04/2006 - 27/04/2006] We see the Nome Umboz calling on his neighbour, a female healer named Piu (the one who Vezza previously said fancied him). Umboz and Piu semi propose to each other. He tells her that Mayor Kayeeb tried to have him killed, and she decides to run away with him - but is alarmed when he tells her that they two, plus Vezza and Nitfol, have all been invited to visit the local Pale hive, sinc Pales are normally very reclusive. As they leave, in the background we see first one of a pot of ornamental carnivorous plants, and then a kind of jelly monster in a bowl, trying and failing to eat a small flutterby. We learn that Nomes live by creating Tardis-like spaces which are entered and exited through neighbouring trees but are bigger than their interiors, and apparently anchored to more than one tree. Piu and Umboz rejoin Nitfol, Vezza and the Pales, and as they set out Comshaw's Scalpsucker lands behind them. 09: Back and Forth [28/04/2006 - 20/05/2006] Propelled by the firing of the HJ42, Snerk the Saur and Shona the Gnoll find themselves fifty years in the past in the local Human city of Eetown three months prior to The Crash. They encounter a young woman called Ilsa with dyed green hair and one with long dark hair who seems to be the Scary Lady when young: they are fighting about the Eman family because the Scary Lady is loyal to the Earl Philbert's brother, Frederick, and Ilsa hates the Earl. The Scary Lady tries to use a magical 'fluence on Shona, but Gnolls are highly resistant to that sort of thing, so she grabs Shona physically and then is transported back to the future with her and Snerk. The Scary Lady tries unsuccessfully to remove her necklace/collar - this coincides with and may be the cause of the eruption of Fire from The Pit. She meets Frowgler and they discuss the collar, which is magical, tied into the power of the mansion and was put on her by Frederick. Frowgler warns her about the Crash about to happen three months ahead in her own time, and that she has to ensure that Frederick and his brother Quincy, Sylvester's future grandfather, survive it in order to preserve causality. She refers to Frowgler as being "dressed like" a horned frog, so she knows him as something else. We learn that she is some sort of dangerous nihilistic being, maybe a demon, whom the young Frederick and a friend summoned and then couldn't banish again, so Frederick used up all his own power to create the collar that controls her. She hated him, yet grew also to love him. Returned to her own time, she co-opts Ilsa to assist her, and we see that a book called The Return of Frowgler is on sale. 10: Candle Monks [28/05/2006 - 09/06/2006] Rosemary, Sylvester, Camora and Hax confront the Candle Monks and we learn that Camora is the "Evil One" - because two weeks previously she accidentally knocked over their Eternal Candle while dodging a rack of lesser candles knocked over by Niddle. Rosemary scares them off by being commanding, but we learn that their theology is fairly sensible - they light candles because they don't like being solely dependent on The Tree for so much, including light. Camora tells the Humans about various religious sects in the Basement, including the Ludwigites, who worship the great scientist Ludwig as an ally against the wicked Earl-monster, apparently without realising either that he was Human or that he was the heir of E and eventually became the 18th Earl himself. We see that the Gnoll Clochard is now tailing them - and that he reports to Digger Odel. 11: Dropping Out [10/06/2006 - 16/07/2006] Camora, Rosemary and Hax go to visit a lavatory (known as a drophole) leaving Sylvester waiting outside. Protus appears to him and says he needs to speak to him in private, and they are not alone (probably because of Squeeb hiding in Sylvester's backpack). He jumps Sylvester to some kind of hyperspace cul-de-sac where Humans can survive, and where Protus goes in order not to be overlooked by his employers (unspecified). We learn that Protus has lost a very valuable object. He needs Sylvester's help to find it because he has special abilities - a Gnoll called Froole or Frodle is mentioned who also has these powers, but not as much, and Mr Hand is mentioned as a nuisance to Protus. Sylvester is able to see images generated by machinery which Protus has set up: he sees Mortimer wearing a pink outfit including a pointy hat and an umbrella, flying hand in hand with a sort of Superwoman figure; he sees Rosemary fighting a woman who is wearing some sort of leather gear and a magic glove; he sees brief images of a male Motihaul, probably Izchak (see below), of Crazy Rhid and of a male Trog in a crown, and mentions that Humans breed Trogs - probably less intelligent ones - for leather. He sees snapshots of various villagers including the local Oracle, Threnody, of Angus's giant pot which is stored in the mansion and of what looks like some Sneech growths, then of an old car (auto). Protus says the car is the thing he's looking for. Protus then sends Sylvester back to outside the drophole, then reappears from further in the future to thank him for his help in recovering the car/auto. Rosemary, Camora and Hax then emerge and Camora can tell by scent that Protus has been there. She mentions that on a previous occasion Protus took Skibble. 12: Bad Rubbish [18/07/2006 - 04/09/2006] Sina (still blind) and her cohorts, including another female Gnoll called Skuy, Wrawa the Trog and Wyrms called Voog and Ploot, demolish Crazy Rhid's hall in case of booby-traps, while the adult male Trog Kronk pursues Rhid himself. Other than booby-traps, however, the hall appears to be empty, so they know there's a workshop elsewhere. Ploot and Voog discuss Wyrm politics - their need for Telic (the healer) and someone called Hesper (who we later find out is a Gnoll armourer) and for Coldzoners generally, a separatist Wyrm politician called Mother Byng and trouble in the Burn Zone and with the sentient Rocks, which may cause them to need Rhid's weapons. Voog is injured by a booby-trap, which causes Sina to have a crisis of nerve about her leadership skills, but Skuy appeals to her desire to impress Comshaw. She leads her troops in setting off traps by throwing rocks, but they fall foul of a pot of Trog Repellant and a mysterious web. Meanwhile, Wrawa and a Motihaul colleague take Leny's body to be rendered down, because he wanted to be useful, and Rhid is seen fleeing past Tuft and Dap. We see Hpobfvfr, accompanied by a sled-mounted flame-thrower, interrogating Gorp about Hpthbvtw's death, and Nevus's Eyebolt secretary trying to get the flame-thrower recalled. 13: After Thrash [05/09/2006 - 30/10/2006] Comshaw and Niddle meet up by The Pit: Niddle still has his coming and going crystal, and close exposure to Fire has left him with some extra clairvoyant knowledge of recent events. He mentions Mortimer, and Comshaw recognises the name as that of a supposed demon who caused an epxlosion which started the Nome-Gnoll war, and we learn that Compline and Caytid disappeared during a Sneech attack at the end of the war. We learn that Comshaw's father Comfrey tried to do something in the forest which Comshaw, his mother and the late Clerihew, Comshaw's parents' Finagler, spent their lives trying to live down. We also learn that that the forerunners of Finaglers were called Schemers, now rare in the Basement but still common in the forest, and that Comshaw and Camora are regarded as the best mated Gnoll couple, and Sina and her intended, Sprocket, are the next best, although Sina has a crush on Comshaw. There is mention of a beautiful but too quiet Gnoll named Mimsy who was Comshaw's girlfriend before Camora. Mimsy seems to be the Gnoll who now carries Nevus. Niddle warns Comshaw that Thrash is dangerous, and that Pales communicate super-sonically although a few other people, including some Schemers and Finaglers, can hear them. We learn that forest dwellers call the Mansion of E "The Stump", and that Ig is friends with a Gnoll called Splat. Nevus recounts the vision he had when the Fire brushed past him - basically he saw scenes from all the things going on around them, and now he fills Comshaw in on them. We learn that the two Pales who are accompanying the Nome group are called Fetch and Stepit. Niddle saw Nellie Grubb - Frederick's neighbour - heading to the village. He knows where Mortimer currently is, so Comshaw sets out to speak to Mortimer and find out what the Humans want. After the party sets off we see a Metalmin or some other robot (we only see part of the head - it's definitely not Hector) come into view near The Pit; a stranger in Piu's house; Shona talking to Nevus and Mimsy; Snerk finding a dead Spyder (actually, the same one which earlier attacked Nitfol and Mortimer); and the white-haired, oldish version of The Scary Lady, accompanied by what seems to be a sentient balloon. 14: Rufus [01/11/2006 - 27/12/2006] Mortimer and Rufus discuss the family - they have sisters Lenore and Lil and a daredevil brother Ace. A few weeks ago Mortimer received a postcard from their mother and Lil sent from a place called Oongawa. We learn that World o' Pots is 60% owned by Pale shareholders (Pales from a sub-country called Shibolith, not the local ones) and the Pales did well out of The Crash because Human soldiers now buy their non-magical weapons, but the Pales also suffered many losses in The Crash so it's unlikely they engineered it. They pass through a cloakring designed to prevent magical snooping, The ex shop is full of extraordinary things, including food suplies on which Rufus lives, and a demon-trap bottle which Rufus had installed, and which required an extensible ceiling to fit it in, made by the Hammerspace Company, which specialised in extra-dimensional products including "Poke-Kits" - weightless portable storage space. In the in-universe comic which featured Frowgler the demon frog and Roshambo the warrior beetle, Frowgler gave Roshambo a Poke-Kit. We also learn about a massacre at a place called Thricklefork after "an idiot at the Royal Academy of Magic" summoned demons. Rufus gets whacked by one of his own defensive booby traps, but they make it to Rufus's room. Rufus says that for a year ha has seen mysterious comings and goings from the Mansion of E (not the basement) and that the culprits are not Frederick, the Grubbs, Schmedley or Arthur the Weirdo. He believes it is down to Mr Hand, living high in the Mansion. Mr Hand is very old - believed to be the wizard who locked the Operator in the Elevator nearly eighty years ago - may or may not be Human, and has a Metalmin servant named Hector, which means he is the Overseer. While they discuss Mr Hand, a shadowy figure is watching. This proves to be a woman named Eunice, who looks like the Superwoman figure Mortimer was flying with in Sylvester's Protus-induced vision, but wears gloves like the woman he saw Rosemary fighting. Eunice stuns Mortimer and tells Rufus, who has apparently known her for years, that she and the other villagers, including Threnody the Oracle, all work for somebody more important than Mr Hand. She works for God (the old rich guy, not the deity), and if Rufus comes with her, God will give him the answers he seeks. 15: Snerk Meets the Boss [28/12/2006 - 05/01/2007] Snerk, the Saur who won the auction, is nibbling on the dead Spyder when Frowgler appears. It was Frowgler who put him up to bidding for what he calls the Zorper - the HJ42. Snerk tells Frowgler that the Zorper fired - which Frowgler isn't concerned about - and gives Frowgler both the Zorper and a Poke-Kit containing extra fleebs, which Frowgler had loaned to him. Frowgler dismisses Snerk, telling him to tell people called Lumpy and Buzz (presumably the Saur who gave Comshaw a message about the end of the world when he first emerged from the tunnel) he hopes to be back at headquarters tomorrow - but then he says goodbye to Snerk's departing back as if he expects never to see him again. Left alone, he speaks as if he has seen the Zorper before, then activates it. To do so he extends not only retractable claws but what looks like a button with a "3" on it, set into the palm of his right hand. This time the Zorper goes "OZPR". 16: Closing In [06/01/2007 - 25/01/2007] Clochard asks Bung where Digger Odel is, and Bung says Digger is returning after being hired by a mysterious personage to bring down the killer tree. Meanwhile Rosemary's party are heading for Izchak's weapons shop, and Hpobfvfr is seen fleeing, apparently because the flame-thrower is about to explode. Camora explains Basement politics - how the Ghasts encouraged the formation of the Council as a peaceful alternative to the gang bosses Agita, Nevus and Guttle, because they need a stable environment in which to maintain their breeding-pools and reproduce. Camora regards the Council as meddlers, except that they did bring down and confine the demons Chauncy and Edgar. Hpobfvfr gets mixed up with Sina's bucket chain as a result of a misunderstanding - she is looking for Hepthbav/Hpthbvtw and hears that there is an injured male Ghast near Crazy Rhid's place, but in fact it's Sepfrbfrx, one of Sina's team. 17: Conflagration [26/01/2007 - 26/03/2007] Rosemary and Sylvester come to Time Hall, where there is a poisonous fountain and a levitating Ettin-made clock. They proceed to Sidestep Hall, the Motihaul village, which is divided by gender, and have a certian amount of difficulty getting past the guards, Smatchet and Gunsel. The guards have seen a "hat" like Camora's before. Although Rosemary has a sense of unease, the party don't realise they are being overlooked by hidden seige engine controllers, including an officer we will later learn is called Upernavik. Meanwhile, the Scary Lady is still wandering around the mansion with her sentient balloon, and Sina asks Hpobfvfr how to sort out an anti-Dornbeast net which is blocking the way through Rhid's place. We learn that sphagnum grit repels most Dornbeasts, unless specially trained, and that Hpobfvfr has a cutting claw concealed in her flesh since she was a child, and this is painful. Hpobfvfr goes to the Elevator looking for Hepthbav/Hpthbvtw and the Operator, suspended in the fire, tries to hypnotise her. Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, upstairs in the mansion and still accompanied by her balloon, looking at the doorway which leads to Sneech territory and being concerned that it is silent when there should be a sound of screeching, and then coming to the top of the lift shaft. The Operator can sense her throughout. She uses her power to force the Operator back into his lift and put out the flames, but as she does so he grabs Hpobfvfr and drags her into the Elevator with him, and one final flare of energy passes all along the bucket chain and causes a tool to be flung with sufficient force to damage Chauncy and Edgar's containment bottle. 18: Chauncy & Edgar [27/03/2007 - 24/04/2007] The people in the bucket chain who were caught up in the energy flow have been knocked down by it, apart from the Gnolls such as Niff, Folla and Wittol who are all still standing. Sina wants everybody to go home, now, because she feel something worse than fire will re-emerge from the Elevator. Skuy and Voog can feel that Hpobfvfr was taken away. Meanwhile the demons Chauncy and Edgar, who are extremely polite and careful with each other, investigate the damage to their bottle. We learn that they fear the Caged King (the devil in the elevator) and something called the Burning Eye (later comments suggest this is not the sun but something near the mansion) very much, and the Scary Lady somewhat less so. Chauncy temporarily detaches one of Edgar's horns and uses it as a chisel to break their way out through the side of the bottle. Once they are free, Edgar, the more Human-looking one, tries to set off on his own, but Chauncy (who resembles a woodlouse) won't let him. They kill a Helipath (who we will later learn is called Rubrak), one of the bucket chain beings who were knocked down by the energy surge - Chauncy cuts him and then Edgar drops part of a heavy weight (which seems to be levitating, since most of it stays up after the rope is cut) on to him. But Edgar is less murderous than of old, and turns down the chance to vivisect Rubrak's working partner, a Jibjib (who we will later learn is called Snipe). We learn that Chauncy and Edgar were sucked through some kind of hole from their own dimension, where they were under such constant threat that they had no time to take names or to think, and when they arrived they kept up the same level of violence. Now as prisoners they have had time to calm down. They are aware of Rosemary, who passed by their bottle an hour or two beforehand: they can tell that she is of this dimension, not a heavyweight being like the Operator or the Scary Lady, but still she feels different and they go in search of her to dissect her and find out why. Meanwhile we see the Gobule Bung wake from deep sleep, apparently with clairvoyant knowledge of the demons' escape, and send two Jibjib henchbirds out with some kind of message or mission. 19: Remnants [25/04/2007 - 21/05/2007] Sina takes a mourning leave of the missing Hpobfvfr, and many of her surviving forces disperse to home and/or safety, and Smyts move in to devour the dead. Sina speaks to a female Trog called Maggle who has a dark coat which is associated with resistance to Trog repellant, and sends her to take the buckets back to Tunktal the bucket maker, who is regarded with revulsion. Rhid's hidden workshop was blown open and exposed when Hpobfvfr disposed of the booby-traps: Sina and Skuy go to tell the Council about it, leaving Ploot and Voog to guard the workshop and prevent Rhid from returning. There is a twistpoint there through which visions (relating to other stories) appear. Sina and Skuy head for the Council and to get help for Sepferb, still lying injured on the floor. They meet Catmorlo, who collects her cakeshroom - then a female Motihaul named Asota who warns them that Nevus and the Council are fighting, and Chauncy and Edgar are loose. 20: The Lady and the King [22/05/2007 - 09/06/2007] The Scary Lady calls the Operator to the upstairs doors of the lift: he asks if she wants to know about the Sneeches and she tells him it's because he was having too much fun with the fire etc. and she had been contractually obliged to intervene, although various distractions conspired (possibly literally) to delay her in so doing. The Operator metamorphoses into a crowned figure and tries to tempt her to break her contract and let him do as he pleases, and in return he will restore both her and Frederick's full power, maybe send them through a Panegate to a place where they can be gods, but she rejects his offer. He mentions creatures he calles "poor Shades" who refer to her as The Destroyer - presumably the ones we saw watching her from behind a grille as she escorted Zay to the Panegate. She mentions him standing on a balcony being cheered by what looks like a Human crowd, raising the possibility that he might once have been one of the local Human(ish) kings. After she leaves, the Operator/King comments to himself that she was feeling unexpectedly hopeful and he wants to find out why. He reaches through the dimensions to touch one of Protus's time pylons: it gives him a shock but he hangs on and scrolls back through the Scary Lady's recent experiences, dismissing Zay and Prunella as sources of hopefulness before coming to an unbreachable barrier. He believes she has seen whatever Protus is hiding among his time pylons, but doesn't know it. He wants to call her back some time soon to speak to her again, and we learn that he has engineered a test for Rosemary, and if she passes he will want her back too - but it depends on his gaining control over Hpobfvfr, who is still resisting his attempts to take over her mind. Meanwhile, something the Operator said has led the Scary Lady to assume there's something up with the Sneeches. She takes up her Sneechstick and prepares to go through the archway which leads to the route which runs through the Sneech den - so she will presumably be going down the route that Sylvester and Rosemary will eventually be coming up. 21: No Gnoll is an Island [11/06/2007 - 14/07/2007] We see brief snapshots of the various groups - Skuy talking urgently to Ploot and Voog; people throwing stones at Chauncy and Edgar; Agita and Nevus and their assistants leaving the auction etc., then we cut to Ig, Comshaw and Niddle in the forest. Niddle is just insisting that he saw a vision of an active, moving Metalmin when they hear the "OZPR" noise made by the HJ42 as Frowgler activates it. This is followed by a burst of purple light from behind the trees, and Comshaw says this is far more violent than and of a different quality from the previous such event. An enormous boulder is thrown through the air, narrowly missing them. Niddle wants to go investigate the source of the blast, but Ig smells something coming which makes him run, so the Gnolls join him and they climb up onto the ruins of an old Human fountain. Ig tells them that what's coming is a skunk shark - not as bad as a beaver shark, and a useful omnivore which thins out the saplings to create open woods. They operate within a big circle roughly around the mansion, and north of that circle the Deep woods grow impenetrably thick. There have been other passing remarks which suggest that the area around the mansion is circumscribed in some way. They have to hang around on top of the fountain's plinth for a couple of hours, talking, until the shark has gone. We learn that the GBOLs, the lights generated by The Tree, are dimmer at night and in winter, and that The Tree extends above ground and responds to sunlight. The basement-dwellers got the idea of a twenty-hour day from the Ettin-made clock in Time Hall which, like a lot of other Ettin artefacts, they wrongly believe to have been made by Humans. Part Four: The Road Less Travelled [16/07/2007 - 26/02/2010] 01: Izchak [16/07/2007 - 30/08/2007] Sylvester's party come to a Motihaul-owned shop called Izchak's Sharp n' Pointy. There Rosemary is attracted by a weapon like a halberd with a weighted butt. Behind her back Izchak tells Sylvester and Camora it's not for sale because it's trapped in an "airbox", an Ettin-made forcefield which the basement dwellers wrongly attribute to Humans, and which neither he nor Sprocket and Flange have been able to open. However, if he was telling the truth then something Rosemary does, or some change in conditions, causes the airbox to open and the weapon comes freely to Rosemary - Sylvester later opines that this is supicious, as if it's been set up for her to take. As Rosemary is paying for her new weapon, Chauncy and Edgar carve their way in through the wall. They want to dissect Rosemary and Sylvester to see how they differ, but Rosemary thrashes Edgar with her new weapon and then tells him that his victims felt similar pain. Edgar it transpires is not callous or brutal: rather, because the Human world is so flimsy in comparison with his own he had believed that the world and the creatures in it weren't real, but something like a video game. Now that she has shown him that these are real people he doesn't intend them harm. We learn that Rosemary did something similar in the past with a demon called Scratch. We learn some background information. Demons in this world communicate with each other long-distance by a process called "tapping the lines". Chauncy and Edgar would have left long ago but they are constrained by some kind of barrier around the local area (it does seem to be local, not the planet's magnetic field). Chauncy asks Rosemary to strike him too so he can feel it, and she does so but nearly breaks her wrists, because he is so solid. Sylvester tells the two demons to go ask the Scary Lady to help them to get away. They say she has forbidden them from ever going upstairs again, but then Chauncy senses that she is on her way down, so they go in search of her. After they have left, Rosemary starts looking for a suitably grand romantic name for her new pole weapon, and Sylvester dubs it "the Can-Opener". 02: Upernavik [31/08/2007 - 26/09/2007] As they come away from Izchak's place, Sylvester's party encounter a group of male Motihaul soldiers armed with cold-forged iron weapons, inbound to tackle Chauncy and Edgar, and are warned by their officer, Matagam, to leave the area. The head of male Motihaul security, Upernavik, is listening through bugging devices: he must have heard the confrontation between Rosemary and Edgar, because he has "Scratch" written on his notepad. He sets Whisp (a dark-pelted female Trog) to tail Rosemary, Camora and Sylvester, then orders his side-kick called Knumdrot (a play on the Patrician's secretary Drumknot) to lock down their whole Hall, but Knumdrot refuses, citing a Contract which states that a Full Hall Lockdown requires the prior consent of both Upernavik and his female counterpart, Angmagslika. Upernavik regards consulting with Angmagslika as a dire ordeal - but he doesn't need to meet her after all because he receives a message from her telling him to initiate Lockdown. A horn is honked to alert two male Motihauls called Notserplib and Nagolder, who are dozing in a very cozy flat or office full of ornaments and games. We see the sound travel down pipes past a Smyt graffiti-artist ("Fnord wuz ere") and a Trundlebug who is looking at something like a Pacman monster. The two Motihauls have a pet tunnelrat called Hackit who is sleeping on Nagolder's stomach, and has to be lifted up with defensive gloves and placed in a box to control him. His job is to protect them from slimegrubs. Once Hackit has been safely boxed, they swim down a well-shaft to an underwater capstan which they turn to close off the Hall: they seem to be able to breathe underwater. Nagolder, we learn, is a friend to Cully, the young Gnoll who was banished to SubShaft 44f. Shut outside in the corridor, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that he considers her to be only the second most frightening woman he knows - after his great-aunt the Scary Lady. 03: The Gibber [27/09/2007 - 01/11/2007] Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their upbringing - Sylvester's parents were loving but absent, his father a twit who died young, his mother always a traveller, so he was raised largely by the Scary Lady. Rosemary, whose parents we know drowned in a maritime accident, was raised by her Aunt Eva and by Eva's former bodyguard Zeke. We see a vignette of Eva teaching Rosemary how to pick locks. Heading towards the long way out, they pass a group entity called The Gibber, guarded and assisted by an elderly female Gnoll (the grandmother of Mimsy), a Poker called Anathama. Rosemary and Sylvester tell Anathama they are forest Nomes, but Anathema as a youngster saw the young Sylvester and the Scary Lady fleeing a running fight in the Basement and she knows that they are Human, although she doesn't comment. We learn that seven years previously a group centred around a male Gnoll called Altholen, inspired by stories of the magic-users Caytid the Gnoll and a male Motihaul called Othar, used "Sneech squeezings" and the underground River of Fire (= magic) in an attempt to reawaken the magic in the world. Instead, they caused a cataclysm called the Breach which extended right up into the Mansion, where it caused sparks or similar to shoot out of the Tree. In the Basement it killed a large number of Ecadems and generated many new twistpoints. Camora's sires' Finagler Twitchel helped to seal it again: her sires Buccula and Choller also claimed credit for sealing the Breach but Anathama says they just got in the way, and it was Yurd and co. who fixed it. One of the effects of the Breach was to bring The Gibber, a cloud of half-seen faces in the darkness, into being in their own pocket of reality, overlaying what had been Helinew Hall. The Gibber have great knowledge and always tell the truth, so they function as an oracle. They tell truths to Rosemary and Sylvester, which they later tell Anathama were among the greatest truths they have ever given. To Rosemary they say "What you stole is even more dangerous and precious than you know. In the end, you will fly away and live forever, and you will leave the world shattered in your wake." To Sylvester: "You will return to where you started, and you will become what you hate. And in doing so, you will restore the world to what it was." After Rosemary and co. have left, The Gibber tell Anathema that they are dying - the power source which maintains them has failed. She is quite upset by this. She tells them that her duty with them has not been onerous, especially considering some of the things she has done in the past - we see her crawling through a tunnel to collect glowgems - and she mentions somebody called Bokonan who was "Sent into the SubShafts, and then.." This was connected with some necessary but personally risky thing that a group she belonged to, along with Bokonan and Digger and unspecified others, was and are doing. She needs to find Digger and tell him that Humans are back. Digger has never been to The Gibber to hear his truth. 04: Hop Skip and Several Jumps [02/11/2007 - 08/01/2008] Bung's Jibjib messengers go to Maw - who is just wrapping up winning a battle against his assailants - and warns him that Chancy and Edgar are loose. The people at Rhid's place arm themselves with the remains of his Dornbeast-repellant globes, ready to fling them at the demons. Meanwhile, Nevus and Agita return to the Basement and Nevus is surprised to find that in his absence his forces have gone to war against the Council, in his name and claiming his authorisation. The Nome party - Vezza, Piu, Umboz and Nitfol - and their Pale escort cross a rope bridge en route to the Pale camp. The Pales have a telescope set up to watch for the returning party. The Nex him or herself, the ruler, is apprehensive and says that "she" is coming and she may or may not be "the one", and the outcome will prove "Frogmask" - presumably Frowgler - right or wrong. The action cuts to the high thin tower called The Spike, on the edge of a lake somewhere near the mansion, where a high-ranking male Fixit called Cox is using a mesmerised Pale mount to listen to Pale communications. We learn that Fixits are born in breeding pens and then brought to The Spike, and that Cox is significantly older than fifty and witnessed the Crash. Cox speaks to a Human called Dorian who has lived in The Spike for forty-two years. Dorian is being ridden by a Fixit but it seems that Dorian is the one doing the talking, and is in a position of authority. Dorian says that somebody called Kelso is "finally bringing in her pet idiot" - presumably Rufus. Later evidence suggests that Kelso is Eunice by another name, probably her surname Cox floats down through the tower, using artificial levitation devices, until he meets a female Fixit called Vix who is riding a controlled Nome girl, and pushing a gurney holding industrial supplies. During the chapter headed Thrash, in the 900th strip which in real-time appeared almost two years before this one, a light message saying "900 WOO HOO" was seen shining from the top of The Spike. In-universe, this of course was earlier the same afternoon, and Vix says that the "wooflare" has drained some resource which the supplies on the gurney will help to stabilise, but Cox calls her away to walk with him. He talks to her about the Crash and the Human cities he once saw - from one of which be brought back an Ettin airbox, perhaps the one the Can Opener was in at Izchak's shop. There is a reference to a shield around the area, and to a new Human being brought in to The Spike, presumably Rufus. Protus, he thinks, has some vast plan - he first appeared five years beforehand and since then there have been more wooflares, both in the Spike and the SubShafts, and more twistpoints. Mr Hand has been passing on reports from the Hot Zone observers which also suggest imminent events. There is a reference to a power nicknamed the Topspike - probably the same as God - and to a serious female enemy in the west (where Rosemary was somehow transported from). He suggests that if Vix gets the chance to flee, she should take it. Meanwhile Frowgler crawls out of the crater left by the OZPR event - he seems mildly disappointed that it didn't kill him. At the Mansion, the Weirdo, grieving for his dead friend Tulip, has got roaring drunk, climbed up to the roof terrace, set off a siren called the Mugwump Alarm (although there are no longer any Mugwumps in the area and they are believed to be extinct) and passed out. Amos Grubb comes to shut off the alarm - which requires complex instructions from a code book (he seems to be the Mansion's librarian) - and has a conversation with Fantod, the Weirdo's ventriloquist's puppet, in which Fantod speaks as if he is an independent entity. Fantod tells Amos about some events he and the Weirdo witnessed by the Elevator, and refers to Rosemary as a "sword bunny". They seem to be regular visitors to the Basement. The Weirdo having sobered up a little, he and Amos walk down many stairs within the Mansion, and we glimpse a Panegate which opens into a world of yellow light and many busy Helipaths. We see strange machinery and Tree branches in the walls, including Ludwig's Vent Tapper 3000, which seems to be trying to tickle a magical flame into life. We see a female Gobule called Gulch teaching three baby Gobules called Gif, Glub and Gip, and telling them about great bones within the ground. 05: Skibble's Place [09/01/2008 - 01/03/2008] We learn from Camora that Mortimer was the "demon" who caused the Nome War, and from Sylvester that his parents chose their children's names from a very pompus classic book called Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. Rosemary is alarmed by the idea of eternal life - she says she'd get really bored after the first thousand years - but comforts herself by interpreting it as eternal fame rather than eternal life. Sylvester is less alarmed by the idea of becoming what he hates, since he hates some quite harmless things, and this leads to a discussion of his siblings and family in general. They come to Skibble's place (no Skibble, just his place), guarded by a male Gnoll called Cerbis, who lends them a token with an "E" on it, to be used to activate a device to summon the Great Riddler through whose territory they must soon pass, and he says they owe Skibble a favour for it. They discuss the aurilnode on the wall outside it: it was invented by a Helipath called Auril and Sylvester is impressed and disturbed by the level of sophistication, which suggests outside help, and also by the spectacular magical even caused by Altholen, even though he failed in his purpose. He tells Camora about magic and the Crash. Sylvester wonders whether Auril used Sneech squeezings in his work. Camora says he was too sane to do so, and this leads to a discussion about genius and eccentricity - about Rufus, who takes dangerous scientific risks, and Rosemary's friend Edwird, who likes to swim in ice water, and Telic the r doctor, who operates on hirself. Camora realises that Rosemary and Sylvester just want to get home, and she wants to take them to the Council's tunnel, but Hax says this is a bad idea as it would give an invading force an easy way in. They set off for the Riddle Grotto, with Whisp trailing them. Meanwhile Shona, returning from the forest, realises her sister Sina is in trouble and goes in search of her, as does Sprocket. Nevus, Mimsy and a couple of male Gnoll soldiers one of whom is called Frag are trying to fight their way through to Nevus's office. Agita meets with her assistant Flibbergib the Eyebolt, who is riding on a Gobule and has come to warn her about the fighting, and to complain about Weirders. Guttle, still partially wrapped in tendrils, comes stamping down the tunnel, dismissing Skoil from his service as he tramples him underfoot: two Trog raiders are unwise enough to attempt to mug him, but they don't even notice Digger passing them by. We see a scarred Rhid, still trailed by Kronk and contemplating desperate measures. We see the scuttly little sentient rock still trying to climb out of the Hot Zone. We see the Scary Lady and her balloon venture into the Sneech den, thinking that something is very wrong. Clochard and Anathama meet up, both looking for Digger, and exchange dire news which is trumped by one of Bung's Jibjibs warning them that Chauncy and Edgar are loose. They discuss the fact that Anathama saw Sylvester in the Basement fifteen years before, along with the "Clawblaster" - evidently the Scary Lady - and now he's with Rosemary, and with the pole weapon which Anathama has seen before, and although he's older he's far from old which tells Anathama that Humans have much longer lifespans than Gnolls. 06: The Three Great Riddles [03/03/2008 - 04/06/2008] Camora is telling Rosemary and Sylvester about Skibble - it's not clear what species Skibble is but he's a sort of Trickster and is friends with someone called Blitz who is probably a Gobule. Heading for the Riddle Grotto they pass a sign warning of a defence system called Death Doors, which are doors which attack any non-Human trying to open them, as with the Djinnoscope. They pass a door labelled Pots Room without stopping. Sylvester mentions the Djinnoscope, Camora asks about it and he describes the Hall of Achievement to her - but she knows it as the Death Hall. Sylvester explains that the Djinnoscope is called that because it can grant boons, like a Djinn. They come to the Riddle Grotto and find themselves on a jetty at the side of a deep pool. Theoretically no one can cross without authorisation because the Riddler lives in the water and is fantastically fast, but a Jibjib called Speedy once flew across on a bet with soemone called Shilpit. Othar the magical Motihaul is mentioned again, this time as an explorer. We learn that the Three Great Riddles were named by Dorn, 10th Earl of E, who also created the Dornbeasts as battle-mounts, and ended up being eaten by them. Rosemary and Sylvester prepare to take their leave of Camora: she still wants to tell them there's an easier, safer way out, but Hax prevents her. She notices that the cabinet which holds the Summoner has changed shape (from a kind of squat bullet-shape to a straight-line oblong) since they first came into the grotto, but Rosemary and Sylvester have seen no change, which suggests that either their memory or the time-line is being tampered with. Sylvester says it's always been as it now is - and that it reminds him of something he saw with Protus. Hax invades Camora's mind and takes it over, saying that he must follow his orders and she would find it distressing to be aware of what those orders are, and her mind and her sanity are precious and must be preserved. Having been taken over, Camora now says she was foolish to suggest that the cabinet had changed, but Sylvester refers to his great-great-uncle Hindenburgh the wizard, who also witnessed things changing. Sylvester inserts a token into the Summoner and it sets off a siren which summons the Riddler himself - a giant Ichyoid about 60ft high, older than the Earldom of E and speaking a Human/Ichyoid pidgin represented as Futhark runes (occasionally upside-down Futhark runes). He starts by asking them their business, and addressing Sylvester by name, and expressing sorrow at his father Willoughby's death. Sylvester introduces Rosemary as "non-family - staying?" The Riddler replies that she is dangerous. Sylvester asks if he, Rosemary and their possessions may pass over, and the Riddler asks if "Fixit Gnoll" wants to cross too, but they don't understand what he means. He asks for information on Frowgler, but Sylvester only knows about the comic-book character and explains that he is a two-dimensional representation drawn by somebody called Linderhoff. We learn from Rosemary that Roshambo, and his talking sword Slasher, and the frog-wizard Frowgler, and other characters including Naif and Arax, are hugely popular cultural icons and the comic's been running since before the Crash, although Sylvester later comments that the quality of the comics has declined since then. Sylvester recalls Mortimer complaining that his Roshambo action figure had been damaged - this may relate to the Sciencebugs who were worshipping a Roshambo figure on Mr Hand's desk. The Riddler finds their information about Frowgler interesting, and gives them permission to cross. Sylvester warns Camora not to try to follow them as she doesn't have permission to cross, and admits to her that they are Humans and promises to try to come back and speak formally to Comshaw and the Basement authorities - but it's not Camora they are speaking too now. Rosemary and Sylvester are both aware that Camora has changed, but they don't know why. A pontoon rises and rotates into position, enabling Rosemary and Sylvester to cross the pool. Sylvester says there used to be a lot of ways in and out of the Basement but they were gradually all closed off except two - Rosemary reckons there must be at least one more to explain the various appearances and disappearances. The pontoon's action is so jerky that as they get to the far side they fall in a heap and Rosemary jokily tries to kiss Sylvester. We learn about herediscans, security devices which identify members of the E family, and that the family used to manufacture reverse-engineered Ettin-style robots and sell them under the brand name Factor E. They talk about the Crash and how close civilisation came to total collapse. Rosemary's Aunt Eva was close to starving but she later ended up as a professional card-player (hence the bodyguard): Rosemary says that in the town of Nye some card-games played right through the Crash. Hax walks Camora through a secret door in the corridor wall into some sort of control centre, and Whisp doesn't see it but does note that Camora's scent just stops. Hax seems to be planning to kill Rosemary and Sylvester. 07: Decisions Decisions [05/06/2008 - 05/07/2008] Chauncy and Edgar locate the Scary Lady in the Sneech Den and ask her to help them get through the barrier: they do not want to go home because they have become used to having names. Sprocket and Flange place a piece of equipment, probably from the old Metalmin, in a service hatch whence it is collected by an Ichyoid. Hiblehoy and Wrawa leave Leny's body in Bowel Hall to be rendered down. They are paid in glowgems: Wrawa tells Hiblehoy to take half for himself and give the other half to Telic to research why the Trogs develop dementia. She crashes out and has to be carried home to bed by Hiblehoy, through the running battle which is still raging. Thrash finds Frowgler, slightly singed. Frowgler says that his own story is so odd even he doesn't believe it, and that he means to see that the Pales get what they want, and it's not his problem whether or not they'll still want it once they've got it. Frowgler says that he is neither so clever as the Nex nor so powerful as the ruler in the Spike but still he is the most important person Thrash has ever met. Thrash decides to help Frowgler rather than finishing him off. We see two male forest Gnolls called Scrof and Louch who had been out on a foraging/raiding party and got caught in all the strange events. Louch, a cousin of Comshaw's, couldn't cross over the rope bridge because the Pales were there, and had to go north and use a minimalist bridge just called The Rope, and consisting of just three cords. Now he is tired and wants to go back to their village, the northernmost of a pair, which is just a big communal burrow. Louch is fed up with how poorly they live and wants to learn to read like his mother, and better himself: he thinks he will ask Umboz the Nome to teach his people how to cultivate crops, but we see the Nome mayor saying that Umboz is a traitor, and ordering Umboz's brother Frotz to regain the family honour by leading a raid on Louch's village. In the Basement, we see a male Gnoll, Bung's friend Faddle, heading home with a plant in a pot, and a mixed-sex couple called Niff and Folla looking for somewhere to hide from the fighting, and instead running into the newly returned Shona. They start to tell her about Chancy and Edgar and then overhear two Motihauls talking about it, and about Sina setting up a safe zone in Crazy Rhid's place (because of the weaponry there). Shona thinks that a safe zone at Rhid's place is an oxymoron, but Niff and Folla tell her that Sina has driven Rhid off. 08: The River of Fire [07/07/2008 - 26/11/2008] Deep underground, overlooking the River of Fire, is a bridge or gantry of some kind protruding from a pueblo-style earth building. Here we see a male Gnoll called Blit, with a bandaged leg, and a male Motihaul called Gongoozle discussing the fact that this is meant to be The Day That Changes Everything but it seems to be change for the worse, and the Gobule Lairs are all now at war with each other. A female Trog called Espy (who we will later learn is or used to be a primary-school teacher of young Trogs, and who is remarkably old-looking for a Trog and yet still mentally sharp) summons Blit to go downstairs to see someone called the Observer, and sends Gongoozle away because he is not on the Observer's staff and they are closing the observatory to outsiders. Blit goes downstairs by a complex route of lifts and stairs and corridors, passing other workers - a nameless Gobule and two Eyebolts called Poindext (or Poyndext) and Suscalva - doing mysterious scientific things, then two Gobule labourers called Ottus and Piterbult and a short watch-being of unknown species called Wences. He is caught by a booby-trap and catapulted through the air to land in a padded cart operated by a Helipath called Lucint and two Jibjibs. Lucint carries a stunned Blit down to an observation pod where they meet two pink female Oozes. The lower-down one of these seems to be The Observer (so it's not Mr Hand) and has become stiff due to proximity to the Fire, and is losing the ability to change shape. The higher-up one seems to be the Observer-to-Be, a trainee. The River of Fire affects different species in different ways: it is rapidly harmful to Motihauls, Helipaths have to wear goggles to keep from going dizzy, Ghasts go mad and Wyrms can't go near it at all. Eyebolts, Gobules, Jibjibs and Trogs are hardly affected, and Gnolls, especially mated trios of Gnolls, are affected in some way but also affect the Fire back, disturbing its flow. The Observer has summoned Blit to look at the fire and see what he can see. She mentions other Days That Changed Everything but says this one is especially odd, with an unexplained reference to a Nome called Rejov. Blit looks through a viewing hatch into the river and sees images of a cactus - almost certainly "God's Cactus", the Mansion of E - and of a "fancy pot", then letters telling him two Humans are about to cross the Grotto Bridge. Meanwhile, at the edge of the Riddler's Grotto Sylvester lectures Rosemary about what Humans have learned about magic from Ettin writings. In their world it seems to function like magnetism - it's generated in or by the planet's core, sprays out from the South Pole in a series of leylines resembling lines of longitude and then dives back in at the North Pole. These leylines have been much fainter since the Crash. There are also random magical upwellings called tricklepoints which are still active and useable, and there's one at the source of the River of Fire. Not far away to the south, the Forest of Burzee contains an even bigger tricklepoint. Different tricklepoints behave differently and are good for different things: the one under the Mansion is being squeezed by something down in the Hot Zone, causing the River to be sprayed out of it. The female Earl Audra, mother of Ludwig, investigated it, dug exploratory mines right down deep into the Hot Zone and in doing so triggered a cataclysm which enlarged the Great Chasm. Her father Angus threw condemned prisoners into the River of Fire, and Chauncy and Edgar probably entered the world through it. [The Operator, however, came to town by tram.] Sylvester warns Rosemary to expect to see visions as they approach the River, and they set off. Whisp, who is evidently blazingly fast and agile, watches them from the far side of the Grotto and then crosses the Pool by bounding across the sinking bridge and dodging the Riddler's lightning-fast claws, although she suspects him of not caring enough to try very hard to catch her. Sylvester tells Rosemary that witches and wizards - thaumslingers - used to wear magic-concentrators called thaumtappers inside their pointy hats, which killed most of them when the Crash came. The batteries in their helmets run on small thaumtappers and Rosemary sees visions when she switches her helmet light on while wearing it. We learn that Sylvester is not very devout, and has private reasons for not going to the Temple every week, and that the local temple of the Brush was moved from the Mansion to the local village of Eetown after an Earl called Ernest (father of Philbert) quarrelled with an Oracle called Purity. Ernest was a forger and died in a dramatic way. As they approach the River they start to see externally-manifested visions of people from their pasts. Sylvester sees Dirge, a thuggish man from the village, threatening to hit him. Rosemary sees her tutor, friend and perhaps (although he was a lot older than her) lover, Edwird, and a respected bodyguard colleague called Baldy. She apologises to Edwird for having hurt him by leaving him, and expects Baldy may be her enemy now because she went AWOL from a job they were both working on. The vision of a "Pyrite" appears, with a parrot on his shoulder - the pirate, who was someone Rosemary was once on a course with, dissipates when swiped with the Can-Opener but the parrot seems to be real. Sylvester sees Mr Ferule, the family lawyer, who administers the trust which pays for the eldest in each generation of Emans to go to university. Sylvester teaches Rosemary to conjure shapes out of the magic-saturated air and tells her that Ludwig studied them, and said that they were connected in some way with the distance between Eyebolts (something we have seen managers of Eyebolt clerks worrying about, and these shapes resemble those conjured by Eyebolt Weirders). We learn that brilliant Ludwig had an almost equally brilliant common-law wife called Penelope. As they approach the River it starts to show them what they most want to see. Rosemary sees a half-formed vision of her dead parents, and Sylvester sees a naked, busty, willing Rosemary - the real Rosemary is quite flattered (and she sees a naked Sylvester, but doesn't let on). We learn that for some reason Sylvester cannot or may not marry anyone from Eetown. We learn that the species in the Basement are native and represent all the known intelligent species in the world, except Mugwumps and Wendigoes. Rosemary wants to know why the Mansion isn't known as a tourist attraction, as the Infernal Engine is. Rosemary and Sylvester recognise and acknowledge that they are already friends, and see a vision of Nimue, Sylvester's girlfriend from university. They come to the start of a bridge across the River. A magical surge envelops them and Rosemary (only) sees a vision of the Tree personified as a sort of Ent. It tells her that she is carrying the seeds of some important thing, an egg and a claw of it: the Can-Opener is the claw, and the egg is whatever Rosemary carries with her and which she refers to as having brought her there. Presumably, this is the same thing that she stole. Rosemary is becoming connected to "the system entire", the setup that runs the world and of which the Tree is a part, and she must turn that setup upside down. It gives her another seed - this one actually looks a bit like a real seed - which she tucks inside her Poke-Kit. As Rosemary wakes from the trance she forgets who she was talking to, but just before she wakes the Tree starts to tell her she will remember when she needs to. She tries to tell Sylvester about what happened and ask whether she can trust what se saw, but it slides out of her mind. Meanwhile, Whisp is still stalking them, and Hax uses Camora to collect a blunderbuss. 09: Loose Ends (Basement Edition) [27/11/2008 - 07/01/2009] Faddle the Gnoll brings Bung the Gobule a pot-plant as a thank-you for the profit he made from selling Bung's toadstool. We learn that Bung is quite an important political or merchantile player and are reminded that he knows Digger. One of his Jibjibs returns - she has been warning "folks" about Chauncy and Edgar (and she doesn't know who Digger is). We learn that Faddle is a failed or partial Finagler - and that this entails being a good psychological observer. Anathama and Clochard are in some kind of long-standing political conspiracy with Digger. He meets up with them and takes them much deeper underground to a comfortable bedroom cum office which has artificial lights - so the Tree can't see what goes on there. There they meet their old friend the male Gnoll Bokonon, an elderly Finagler who they had believed had been lost in the SubShafts a long time ago: he had last been heard of in SubShaft 44f, compiling a report on Crud, the developer of the Crudbean, which was just after Comshaw killed the Ravers and Nevus started Le Tree. Bokonon believes the Tree is esssentially on the same side as them. Digger goes back out to see what he can do or learn about the fighting and Chancy and Edgar, leaving the three Gnolls behind to gossip in Gnoll jargon. Clochard and Anathama make the most of what time they have in this dangerous local situation, and go off together to make love. Meanwhile, we see The Scary Lady and her sentient balloon escorting Chauncy and Edgar to a Panegate. Nevus, Guttle and Agita resume command of their forces, although Agita is still scrubbing off Mortimer's kiss. Two Ghast medics collect Sepferb from outside Crazy Rhid's place and place him in a restorative porta-pool: Hiblehoy turns up, carrying an exhausted, sleeping Wrawa, and they advise him on her care and warn him she may be in an erratic mental state when she wakes up. Hiblehoy can't get home because Sidestep Hall is in lockdown, so a Trog called Mowder lets him and Wrawa into Rhid's place, where Sina is trying to organise an emergency demon-proof camp. Maggle has not succeeded in getting through all the fighting to return the buckets to Tunktal. The Wyrms Voog and Ploot have identified a source of water in one of the side-rooms of Rhid's place but there is machinery in the way. Sprocket and Flange turn up and are set to dismantle the machines. Maggle and Flange discuss the level of sexual tension between Sina and Sprocket, and whether they've chosen a Finagler yet. Meanwhile a New Year out-take shows Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party walking past some large human ruins, with the Spike in the background. 10: Loose Ends (Mansion Edition) [08/01/2009 - 02/03/2009] Amos Grubb puts Arthur the Weirdo and his hand-puppet Fantod to bed in their actic room: we see Arthur has a soft-toy Wendigo. We see a system of lifts and pulleys within the walls of the mansion: this is used to deliver to Hector a box containing the spare pieces which Sprocket and Flange earlier salvaged from the defunct Metalmin. On his way back from collecting the box Hector passes a talking machine, a Panegate, a gun (?) in a case marked "In case of Ludwig, break glass", preserved specimens of a Mugwump and a Wendigo, and a painting of one of the titanbugs which the Pales use as war mounts. Reaching his own quarters he takes the spare part out of the box and dumps the box down a chute, then goes to Mr Hand - on the way passing the Trog on the treadmill, who is now flaked out asleep. Mr Hand is eager to talk to Hax the Fixit. He swaps the spare part into Hector, who then repairs Mr Hand's scanners. Hand looks at pictures from around the Basement and comments on the non presence of The Gibber, which may connect to something the Sneeches have done (left?). He tries to track Rosemary and Sylvester but can't see them because they are close to the River, so he sends Hector to talk to the Riddler. He has a special interest in and wariness of Rosemary. As Hector leaves, Mr Hand is 'phoned by some colleague for a conference. Hector pases the dead king on his throne: the dial is now at No. Amos goes outside and observes unusual activity in the Tree. He lets himself into the Ivory Tower and lights a candle by magic, but Nellie catches him and tells him off for taking the risk, as she fears a second Crash. Amos is a former thaumslinger. Nellie has brought back from the village a large young man called Patrick, the local sheriff. Amos reports to Patrick about Rosemary. Patrick and his colleagues watch the Earl and are aware that Rosemary arrived without seeming to pass through the surorunding area. Amos reassures him she's not from another world. Patrick wants Sylvester to report to him. Amos and Nellie give him a book on wine-making for someone called Saffron in the village, and a Willy the Wendigo book for his son. 11: Loose Ends (Forest Edition) [03/03/2009 - 21/04/2009] Umboz, Vezza, Piu and Nitfol and their Pale escort arrive at the Pale hive, a kind of amorphous but high-tech. (with e.g. gas-lighting), pueblo-type castle. There they meet a Pale called Zpeaker, with two head-spikes, whose job is to project sounds that other species can hear, in order to talk to them. We learn that Nitfol had been rescued from the Spyder by Pales, who presumably killed the Spyder and who took him to Frowgler. Frowgler told him that he had sent the Pales to save him, and now he, Nitfol, had to save Umboz and Vezza. Nitfol asks to see the Nexus, the Pale leader, but the other three Nomes prefer to go and rest. Frowgler has told the Pales they will benefit by helping these Nomes: Umboz is afraid they want him to open a breach in his village's squid-based defences but Zpeaker says not. What the Pales hope for is a way to breach the barrier which they, and the Nomes, experience as keeping them bound within this local area. We learn that after the Nome/Gnoll war, the Nomes taught the Pales how to tree-warp (opening a Tardis-like space within a tree-trunk): they have used these skills to set up comfortable quarters for their Nome visitors. Umboz and Piu discuss who should replace Mayor Kayeeb: Nitfol, returning, volunteers. The others reluctantly agree, as the destruction of his home tree by the beaver shark gives him a non-conspiratorial excuse for seeking a new lifestyle. The Nexus and Nitfol have a plan of campaign worked out which will involve the collection of strange and difficult substances from the deep forest. Meanwhile, the skunk shark is still chewing its way through the bushes, and Comshaw and co. are still roosting on top of the ruined fountain. We see Yasmine Fotheringby waking up dazed and regaining her composure in the ruins where Protus dropped her - in fact, the above-ground bit of the same branch of World o' Pots where Mortimer fell into the underground storage area. She takes off a mask within the hood: we still cannot see her face or species, but she thinks of herself as Human. She belongs to the Weirdoes' Guild. She sets off to rejoin her horse but then hears a sleeping Mortimer coughing inside a building guarded by a not very effective Sneech security device, and goes to investigate. 12: Urwyn and the Elevator [22/04/2009 - 03/08/2009] Shona, Niff (the male) and Folla arrive at Rhid's ex place, where the male Trog Mowder is now the gatekeeper: the gate in question is being constructed by a Helipath called Fosic. Mowder believes that Rhid's former place, under Sina's leadership, will become a new multi-species Hall offering greater opportunities for individuality and personal advancement than the existing Halls, and maybe even start a trend for many new Halls springing up around the fringes of the old ones. Shona wants to see Sina, her sister, but Sina sends her a message telling her to go home. Mowder suggests that she come in anyway and report to Catmorlo to be assigned a job, thus becoming Sina's employee instead of Nevus's, but Shona walks away. We meet a tiny, diffident mini-Wyrm called Urwyn. He volunteers to help with the new Hall, and Mowder sends a male Gnoll called Satyrsong to carry Urwyn to Catmorlo. Satyrsong has an extreme hairdo which he cultivates for effect. People are milling about carrying out tasks assigned by Catmorlo: Urwyn notices that a new piece of unknown eqipment which has been brough in sends out a trail of energy to another piece, but no-one listens to him when he tries to tell them about it. Urwyn is assigned to stay out of sight and watch the Elevator. As Skuy carries Urwyn towards the Elevator, Voog examines him to see if he has to "eat" him, which is actually a metaphor for some sexual element of the relationship between the large Deep Wyrms and the little ones. This leads to a conversation in which Skuy says she will never use a Finagler: she was in love with Cully who was exiled to SubShaft 44f by Nevus. Skuy takes Urwyn to meet Sina, who is in Rhid's laboratory where Sprocket is clearing out the msot dangerous stuff. Wrawa has been left to sleep and a Gnoll Healer named Kottle is assigned to keep an eye on her. Two Trogs called Grik and Grak have appointed themselves as Sina's bodyguards. Sina's sight is returning, and she is kept very busy organising everybody. Hiblehoy is sent to make up beds - we learn that it is difficult, but not impossible, for male and female Motihauls to work together. There is some conversation about Rhid's obligatory stuffed crocagator: someone called Nubby keeps a pool of live ones at the far end of the Basement, but Urwyn has never been to see them because there's no [unspecified secret thing he doesn't want to name]. We learn that Rid used to be a Candle Monk but got thrown out, and that he was trained by a Gnoll wizard (? probably a wizard) called Burtgum who died in some kind of accident. Urwyn will summon help, if he needs it, by pinging a glass ball. A Gnoll called Finimbrun is to be that help. Finimbrun takes Urwyn to meet somebody called Huff and they all get caught up inside a mechanical Kraken, a Human-made advertising float which Rhid had acquired somewhere. The kraken's long tentacle is used to transport Urwyn to the Elevator. There he meets another small Wyrm, a friend of his called Zugo, who is doing some kind of foraging work for "the Circle". We learn that Urwyn is some Wyrm equivalent of a pampered aristocrat but he wants to be useful and do work, and Zugo, who is the equivalent of working-class, is unusual in that he will talk to Urwyn. Urwyn asks Zugo to warn "the innerest Ring" that Rhid has been ousted: he expects that if anybody in that Ring notices that he, Urwyn has left, they'll be glad to be rid of him. Meanwhile, Flange has created a device called a bim toggler with which he has opened a false wall to reveal a sequence of rooms beyond. He believes there may be other large rooms left sealed by the Humans. An alarmingly gungho female Motihaul called Othara, granddaughter of the famous Othar, turns up and volunteers to explore the new space, which Sina hopes will relieve overcrowding in the Halls. Sina realises she forgot to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, but at that moment the Elevator doors open and Hpobfvfr appears, red-eyed and controlled by the Operator. Urwyn tells Zugo to leave. Hpobfvfr still ahtes the Operator but he has nevertheless convinced her that he is her superior officer: they speak of different levels of passwords in a way that suggests she operates in some artificial way like a Metalmin and her mind can be hacked into. The Operator sends her to fetch Sylvester's cold iron frying pan: although it hurts the Operator to touch it, he holds it and uses it to probe the boundaries of his cage. He sends her to gather up the remains of Hpthbvtw (Hepthbav), which he thinks he can use: but when he realises that Hpobfvfr has a strong emotional link to Hpthbvtw, and that this is weakening his hold over her (her eyes get noticeably less red), he orders her back into the lift. He tells her that he too had a mate he was fond of, and offspring, and he doesn't know if he will see them again but in the very long term he will "literally move heaven and earth" for the chance to do so. Finimbrun comes to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, and Urwyn tells him she's already appeared: he goes off again to tell Sina. Meanwhile, the Operator does something to Hpobfvfr's physiology which causes a red flicker around her head, and then tells her to track and kill Rosemary and Sylvester - a task she takes to with enthusiasm. In fact, the Operator is seeking to test Rosemary against a more forceful opponent than Chancy and Edgar, because he has a use for her if she wins. Ploot, the large Deep Wyrm, comes to speak to Urwyn about what he has seen. In the foreground, a Smyt summons a trundlebug and rides it like a horse. Urwyn comments on the fact that Ploot is the first Deep Wyrm he's met who didn't examine him to see if he needed to "eat" him. Ploot says he's just not very interested in that kind of thing - it's a powerful and necessary drive but a small minority just don't have it. They see an externalised Vision, or what Ploot calls a "Glimpse" (actually celebrating the strip's sixth birthday). Ploot tells Urwyn he stays up high (for a Wyrm) in the Basement because he doesn't want to breed and also because times are changing, as the Vision suggests, and he wants to help people who are trying to smooth the transition and set up a new society etc.. Urwyn mutters that he isn't sure he'd mind if Ploot wanted to Eat him.... Another Shallow Wyrm called Kryt, who has been secretly watching this exchange, goes to some kind of communication station and starts to give a secret report about the Operator to some Wyrm authority. There seems to be a small colony of the little Shallow Wyrms living around this communication point. Meanwhile a large flutterby, dazed by crashing into light globes, flies past them and down into the depths, where it is struck by the radiator of a large lorry or armoured car, being driven deep undergound. 13: The Great Chasm [04/08/2009 - 26/02/2010] On the lorry are two very amusing, characterful Fixits, a male and a female who seem to be working partners, both riding unconscious Gnoll mounts, who mention an engineer called Tix who had been complaining that the "Sneechtaps" were all offline. They come to an underground building which looks a bit like the Mansion of E upside-down and has levitating lifts, where they report to a very bossy female Fixit called Grix. It is mentioned that there is a schedule which Nevus and the Council have pre-empted by attacking each other. They bear a message saying that Mr Hand wants to see Hax urgently. Grix reveals that Hax has a history of getting into scrapes (nearly as bad as Mortimer) and has just spent almost ten years relegated to the (breeding?) pens in the mountains. Grix summons a female Ichyoid called Igor who brings in boxes of what we later learn is delicate, increasingly-hard-to-obtain material vital for the maintenance of the underpinnings of the River of Fire. The partners are despatched to take these boxes to the Chasmside Covert Observation Station: after they have left, Igor wishes to discuss Rufus, apparently as a replacement for Mr Hand, but this is so secret a matter that Grix tells her they must know nothing about it ever. The two partners are sent on another long lorry journey to deliver the boxes. With them in the lorry are other consignments, including a cage containing a giant (hamster-sized) Fuzz which sings in notes coloured in the same rainbow colours as the River of Fire, underneath which they pass. The female Fixit expresses moral doubts about what they are doing by controlling their mounts. En route they pass the Quarentine Alcove of Forbidden Objects, which contains strange things such as a statue of an Ichyoid and a giant, broken statue of Kaylu with wires hanging out of it. When they reach the Chasmside Covert Observation Station they unload in a large, open hangar and then report to Fixits called Apix and Birux. Apix says that Nevus and Preznit (for the Council) have called a cease-fire. He is aware of Sylvester and of Rosemary, whom he calls "regrettably proactive". The male of the two partners then goes up to an observation deck where he talks to a Fixit called Peex (riding on/fused with an Eyebolt) and they discuss Project Y, the same thing Sprocket and Flange were working on earlier. Project Y will give their employers much more effective surveillance but may not be finished in their lifetime. There is a suggestion that their current surveillance system involves the Tree. The action cuts to Rosemary and Sylvester, who are discussing Rosemary's Poke-Kit, and the E family library in the Ivory Tower, and books they have read about Erewhonian anthropology and night creatures, and the availability of different foods in different areas. We learn that Amos Grubb is the Mansion's librarian and Nellie Grubb is the gardener. As Rosemary and Sylvester climb the steps leading away from the far side of the River there are no more visions, just an odd smell of marshberries. They reach a lighted area, and Rosemary becomes temporarily hypnotised after looking at a spinning light. She is amazed to discover that the Can Opener fits inside her Poke-Kit, which previously had only been able to hold small objects: Sylvester attributes this to the power of the tricklepoint. Pre-Crash folk heroes named Readman and Billsmith are mentioned, who carried a whole library and an arsenal in Poke-Kits. Sylvester talks about the Spike (and at least some bits of the Mansion, since e.g. the Panegates have the same characteristic writing on them as the Spike) having been built by Ettins, and about the ancient war between Ettins and Sneeches, which killed all the Ettins and most of the Sneeches. We learn that the Ettins sent a mission to the Moon to investigate artefacts of unknown origin there. Sylvester says that the Sneeches in the Basement usually allow travellers through their territory if they stick to the main road and don't engage with anybody. They occasionally give travellers gifts, which may be beneficial, dangerous or both: Audra's cost her a hand but she said it was worth it: latterly, Sneech gifts are usually either thrown away or stored in the Quiet Room (a magic-deadening space upstairs in the Mansion). The new Earl has to walk through the Sneech colony alone, but Sylvester saw no Sneeches. Sylvester talks about the zoo which the Ettins set up in the Basement, before Humans arrived in the area. Most of the local sentient species were exhibits - except the Sneeches, who were prisoners of war and research subjects; the Gnolls, who were free-lance "vermion" living where they chose; and the Gobules and Eyebolts, who were on the staff of the zoo. After the Ettins died the exhibits escaped and set up a mixed society in the Basement, and Humans came into the country across the sea in large numbers from Tiranog via a region called Abalone, and took over the area (there were already older Human colonies in Shiboleth who got there by a different route, but never spread, and who now speak a very different dialect from the rest; and even before them the insular, hostile Human group called Haroons were brought into Alfibay by someone or something). After the Crash the Basement Pales moved out into the vacated ruins of Eetown. This probably has something to do with the presence of a large, ultimately Pale-owned World o' Pots in Eetown. Sylvester mentions Ilsa Lundquist, who was head housekeeper at the Mansion for years, and whose mother was a Haroon. This must be the same green-haired, Earl-hating Ilsa whom Snerk and Shona met when the HJ42 went PROZ and jumped them back to Eetown shortly before the Crash. Ilsa had a distracted air - probably because the Scary Lady was controlling her in some way - and eventually retired to the village. The Mansion still has a very old, almost mummified butler called Schmedley. They used to have all sorts of servants, including an hereditary string-measurer: the last incumbent choked to death a week and a half before the Crash. Rosemary has plans for reviving the Mansion's fortunes. We learn that King Yorik III and his children died in the Crash. The current king Yancy II is a figurehead: the Bureaucracy really governs. Sylvester follows the fortunes of various factions in the Times and has plans for playing the stockmarket. There is a long discussion about the politics of the various sub-countries, including a place called Blefusco which is clearly equivalent to France. As they approach the top of the stairs, the hypnotic lights go out. They talk about the various habitats in the Basement ex-zoo, the death of the Wendigoes in the failed arctic exhibit (no loss, according to Sylvester), and the Willy the Wendigo books, and birth-control failures, and the pointlessness of Rosemary's crush on Baldy because he was "a homguy". We learn that the Helipaths and Ecadems were probably brought in by the Ettins through a Panegate. Sylvester understands the Panegates to open into alternate heres, rather than other planets, although they occasionally spawn portals to further-away places. We learn that Rosemary's parents drowned in a maritime accident, and that there were terrible Dawn Wars before the Ettins ande Sneeches came along. We aren't told who the combatants were but inimical races called Wilfs/Wifts and Gobblems/Gobble'Ems are mentioned, who are now known in this world only from bone framgments and fairy tales but who still exist beyond one of the Panegates, so it may have been them. For whatever reason, the Panegates only show worlds a long way diverged from this one. The 12th Earl, Lemuel, investigated the Panegates and was probably killed by one: the controls are difficult and dangerous to operate, but there are a few simple ones which do work and part of the rite of passage of the new Earl is to go through one to e.g. the Forest or Charlotte's Cave. Rosemary and Sylvester reach the Great Chasm. Mr Hand watches them on his monitors, but disclaims all knowledge to somebody on the 'phone. Ludwig installed railings and bridges over the Chasm: there is a gap in the rails opposite the door they emerge from, but no bridge. Walking along a ledge to get to the actual bridge, they encounter an elderly male Gobule called Theophan the Recluse. Theophan is one of a long series of Theophans who were all famous mentors. Gobule young are self-supporting and non-sentient, like baby guinea-pigs. They scatter in large numbers to grow or die. Those that live, become sentient: some of those become mere scavengers around the fringes but the luckiest are taken on by a mentor and educated. This Theophan was a student of Theophan the Rotund, along with Maw, Bung, Cram and Guttle. We learn that Gobule mentors occasionally mentor other species: Sylvester seems to be considering using one for his own future children. We hear about a Jibjib boss called Flap who runs an expensive ferry service across the Chasm, and learn that Theophan has chosen to stay beside the Chasm because it goes all the way down to the Hot Zone and he feels there's something terribly important down there. He tastes the Can Opener and thinks it is made of Sneech squeezings, or something similar. We learn that Theophan also stays by the Chasm to provide a sort of counselling service to male Trogs who come to the Chasm to kill themselves at the projecting jetty called the Plunge. After Rosemary and Sylvester have left we see Whisp still trailing them, then two baby Gobules emerge from a hole and talk to Theophan. We learn that those Nomes who still live in the Basement live in Root Hall with the Eyebolts. Rosemary is aware of Whisp following them. As they approach the Plunge point, trying to lose Whisp, they are passed by Crazy Rhid coming the other way, with Kronk still on his trail some way behind him. Nearby, we see a male Ghast waiting for somebody, and Hpobfvfr passing by behind him, presumably looking for Rosemary and Sylvester: the unknown male glimpses her and seems to realise something is odd about her. A shot is fired (by Camora, with the blunderbuss, under Hax's control, from a high vantage point), striking Rosemary on the helmet and dazing her: Kronk pushes her aside in order to pursue Rhid, and she and Sylvester fall into the Chasm. Rhid and Kronk pass Whisp, who smells Camora's presence nearby, and then a Trog juggler who we later learn is called Stonwal. Digger Odel rescues Rhid, sort-of, by pulling him in behind a concealed panel. Whisp traces Camora's scent to another concealed panel, then leaves to report back to Upernavik and Knumdrot. Meanwhile we see Hpobfvfr go to the edge of the Plunge and peer over, then turn back. Behind the second panel, Hax disengages from Camora. He believes he has contained her memory and delayed her awakening, but she wakes instantly, with full memory, and tries to grab him. He escapes down a crack in the rock. We see fissures in the rock containing odd bits of struts and tools and what looks like a Smyt-sized pink racing car, then a bat waking and flying through wider fissures towards the outside. Part Five: Mechanisms in the Dark [27/02/2010 - 16/07/2013] 01: Sitting in a Tree [27/02/2010 - 04/06/2010] Now that it is getting dark Comshaw, Niddle and Ig finally feel safe to come down from the ruined fountain. Ig is now wearing/carrying Niddle's backpack. Yasmine enters the ruined building where she heard coughing, and discovers Mortimer, still coming round from having been stunned by Eunice. He has a note from Rufus on his chest but we aren't told what it says. He correctly identifies Yasmine as a Weirdo - which she finds amazing, apparently because it suggests a degree of clairvoyance not seen since the Crash. He also identifies the building as Dorian's old hut (presumably the Dorian who now lives in the Spike), but seems confused: when Yasmine mentions Protus as the Willigig currently living in the Mansion, Mortimer recalls being somewhere near the Basement at some point and Skibble, who seems to be a friend of his, turning up and mentioning Protus to him, but he doesn't coherently connect this with the Willigig who gave him the HJ42 after the incident with the tree-squid earlier in the day - although he then refers to Protus as "really grumpy", so he must have made the connection mentally. Yasmine claims she is there to conduct an official Weirdo's Guild review of Arthur's performance. Yasmine sets off again to find her horse, and Mortimer again sets out to find Nitfol and rescue him if still alive. He is briefly distracted by a flutterby and calls it to his finger: Yasmine sees this and is again amazed by his psychic talent. A bearded Gnoll with a spear (who we later learn is Agita's henchman Agorn) overhears them talking, and we see Mortimer's scalpsucker messenger fall asleep, still only halfway up the side of the shaft. Yasmine and Mortimer get along well and he tells her about all the odd things which happen to him. They talk about Mortimer and Sylvester doing their duty and Sylvester still getting scorned by the villagers, about chaos theory and flutterbys, and she tells him to tell Frederick about the odd things which happen to him. Thinking of what Protus showed her, but not saying it, she tells Mortimer she expects to be back some day and when she returns she expects him to have made some progress with his situation. As Yasmine leaves, Mortimer gives her his sack of fleebs. The listening Gnoll wonders whether to follow one or the other, go home and report or go join the Spikefolk, who carry out strange rites. He appears to decide to follow Mortimer. Ig, Comshaw and Niddle are trying to locate Mortimer by smell but they smell something odd as well, metal and skin, wet and burnt - Niddle says this smell was all over the mound that the Fire came out of earlier ("The Pit"). The way they describe the smell, it probably relates to either Frowgler or the Meltalmin or robot which we glimped earlier near The Pit. Again there is mention of a barrier which Humans live beyond, as if there's some sort of cordon keeping the Basement folk in. Niddle is pleased that he was exposed to the Fire and saw visions, as he thinks this will prove to be important. Mortimer encounters Frowgler, Thrash and two other Pales. He recognises Frowgler as a comic-book character but Frowgler says that he is "not THE Frowgler. Just.. A Frowgler", although he claims to be in a similar position to his fictional counterpart, in that he has come to assist the Good Guys against powerful evil forces, much bigger and more powerful than mere demons. Mortimer and Thrash are both Good Guys. Frowgler comments that the local Pales call their fort "The Camp" because they expect it to be temporary, and advises Mortimer on how to find the Spyder web he is looking for. Mortimer asks if Yasmine was right to tell him to talk to Frederick, and Frowgler thinks she probably was. As Frowgler and the Pales leave, Mortimer finds an umbrella. It doesn't belong to anyone in Frowgler's party, so he keeps it. Agorn realises that Comshaw's party are behind him, and hides. He overhears Comshaw sniffing out the fact that the Human, Mortimer, went one way and the Pales and the metal-smelling thing went another. So in this case the metal-smelling thing must be Frowgler. Agorn is impressed, but in a kind of patronising way: he sees Comshaw as a young fellow with potential. The space-suited worker who earlier quit the Hot Zone observation station climbs out of a hatch in one of the ruined buildings, takes off her helmet and reveals herself to be a female Nome called Fizmo. She mentions having been taken below by someone called Fogorner, who she believes was working for the group in the Spike. She forces her way out of the locked building through a crack high in the stonework. She meets Frowgler, whom she knows - he had advised her not to take the subterranean job. Now he says going back down would be the safest thing for her, but not the best thing. Learning that she likes Nitfol, he suggests she go with Thrash to the Pale camp where Nitfol now is, and she agrees. Frowgler gives her a hat, since Nomes hate to be bareheaded, but he warns her to examine hats from other sources carefully. It is clear he is warning her about Fixits, and that Fogorner is controlled by a Fixit. He also warns her that the beaver shark - of which there is only one - is loose nearby, and that he is trying to stop Kayeeb doing something which will destroy the Nome village (presumably, attacking the Gnolls). Frowgler denies being a demon and says he was put on earth to do what he is doing. He goes down the tunnel Fizmo came out of, and she goes off with the Pales, talking at them about a Nome who built a prototype plane which crashed, and her ideas about hot air balloons. We see a flat-topped tower among the ruins, containing a giant glowgem which gives off light. Down below is a lorry in some sort of workshop. The glowgem connects to the lights which channel daylight to the Great Chasm, and we see that Rosemary and Sylvester have landed in a peculiar fluffy outgrowth of the Tree. Rosemary, probably still dazed, identifies Rhid whom they have just seen as one of the people Protus showed to Sylvester, and thinks that the woman he saw her fighting - whom she calls Tansy - is about to show up. Her helmet light is damaged, and Sylvester's helmet is missing, caught in the Tree. He manages with some difficulty to retrieve it, so that they have light and can proceed. 02: Lying in a Hole [05/06/2010 - 16/09/2010] Rosemary tears her skirt - which is stolen - to make ties to keep their helmets on. The pre-existence of Wyverns, a kind of extinct dragon, is mentioned, and the fact that Rosemary has killed people. Sylvester thinks the padded branches below the Plunge point are there to stop Trogs killing themselves, and this is born out when they find a strategically-placed pot of Trog repellant which herds any Trogs who land in the Tree towards a narrow spur bridge over the abyss (made by a very reputable construction firm). The spur ends with a tube-like chute which they are sucked in by, and which takes them to a padded landing-site in a room within the cliff, which contains a broken office cabinet which has "The Threshold" written on it, and which moves about under its own power. They meet a thing called a Lurker - a cave-creature like a blind, bald, sub-sentient Saur. Dog-like, it wants them to follow it: Rosemary thinks it's leading them into an ambush. Following it, they come to a place which looks like the Ettins' artificial Trog habitat, except sterile and dead, without the moss and fresh water etc. of the zoo exhibit. Sylvester feels that he and Rosemary are both acting rather wildly, and that this is due to exposure to vents leading to the Hot Zone. They come to an archway labelled "Serene Cavern of Blissful Relaxation", beside which is a slightly sick poem about the death of Yurd. Within are the people the Lurker, Blinky, was reporting to - two male trogs called Villipend and Hamble. Both are less flat-faced and probably mentally sharper than Kronk, but Villipend is crowned, paranoid and deranged. Hamble tries to calm him but he is sure that Rosemary and Sylvester are the "Tormentors" who keep him trapped there, and it doesn't help that he smells his enemy Kronk (who brushed past them at the Plunge point) on them. When Sylvester says he doesn't know where the exit is, Villipend throws a weapon which Rosemary fends off with the Can-Opener, which Villipend calls a Sneech claw. Rosemary and Villipend fight and Villipend manages to get in a kick which throws her against the wall. Sylvester intervenes, warns him grimly that he is the terrible Earl of E and fires a primitive taser which he has in his backpack - but Villipend dodges and it is Hamble who is struck and apparently killed. The act of firing the taser also throws Squeeb out of the backpack and onto the floor. Villipend is impressed by the taser but annoyed because he wanted to kill Hamble himself. He threatens Sylvester so Rosemary slashes him with the Can-Opener and he hides in the dark. Sylvester finds a door operated by a Herediscan which identifies him as a member of the E family and lets him through. He tells Villipend (now clinging to the ceiling) he will leave the door open. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their weapons training (and we learn that at the bodyguard training-school she went to, the fencing master was a Mr Montoya). She is concerned that she may not be able to stop Villipend if he attacks again, because he's in peak condition and she has no practice with the Can-Opener. As they move away from the Hot Zone vents, Rosemary becomes calmer. Sylvester tells her about the SubShafts, a tangle of tunnels which are greatly affected by the Hot Zone. The Eyebolts who worked for the Ettins lived there, then the mining Nomes as well. After an upheaval (presumably the Gnoll/Nome war) they all moved out, the Eyebolts to elsewhere in the Basement, the Nomes to the Forest, and now it's mainly Gnolls who live in the SubShafts. We seen an outline of Cully, Chunner and Crud, all heavily armed - Cully with a flame-thrower, Chunner with a blunderbuss and Crud with something similar to the Can-Opener. Rosemary and Sylvester come to an area of large engineering works at the start of a walkway or bridge at the edge of the long drop. Villipend jumps them, wrests the Can-Opener from Rosemary and tries to force Sylvester to go back downstairs and close the door to Villipend's domain, so he can continue to trap other Trogs there. Sylvester is willing to jump into the Chasm rather than do so. Meanwhile, Mortimer finds the remains of the dead Spyder. Comshaw's party are still tracking Mortimer, and Agorn is still trailing them. Mortimer comes to the crater caused when Frowgler set off the HJ42, and wrongly assumes Nitfol and the spyder were both blown up. He climbs down into the crater and retrieves the HJ42, then Comshaw, Niddle and Ig arrive at the edge of the crater and engage him in conversation about the goals of Humanity. They all conclude that Comshaw needs to speak to Sylvester (hearing that Sylvester is the Earl, Comshaw assumes he must be very scary). The thing Niddle is carrying, which he found in the tunnel and which is similar to but not the same as a glowgem, starts radiating energy. Niddle says he can almost hear it speak, it's waited a long time and now it's almost time for some unspecified meeting. Snerk appears, pursued by the beaver shark, as Niddle begins to count down from five. Mortimer tells the others to run, while he stands his ground and summons a flock of flutterbys to distract the shark. The two Saurs run but Comshaw and Niddle are still present when Niddle's not-a-glowgem discharges its energy in a huge dome of light. Mortimer and the shark are transported into open underground space by a twistpoint and fall down to where Rosemary and Sylvester are. The letters PZOR appear, suggesting that the not-glowgem and the HJ42 interacted to create the twistpoints, burst of light etc.. The shark bites Villipend and Rosemary retrieves the Can-Opener and pushes both of them off the edge and into the deep. Comshaw and Niddle are jumped through another twistpoint back to their own home, where Camora is brooding. Niddle crashes out, as Telic had warned that he would, burbling about the fact that Mortimer has the same haircut as him, and something about a window. Camora tells Comshaw about Hax. He decides to go back out to warn everyone, leaving her to care for Niddle, but first they have an unspecified erotic session. Ig is twistpointed to outside the home of his ex girlfriend Nerda, the mother of his as-yet unhatched children. He offers her the stuff in Niddle's backpack so she lets him in. Snerk is less lucky. As a result (or cause) of an unspecified backlash he is dumped into the middle of a high-tech. experimental facility of some kind being run by two Ghasts. He is pinned in some uncomfortable scary machinery which may be examining him or may be cleaning and immunising him - it's not clear which - and then confined to an artifical woodland habitat designed especially for Saurs, although he doesn't realise this and believes he has been twistpointed to a real forest far away. He wishes to leave a.s.a.p. in order to report to Frowgler. There are a lot of other Saurs there - he meets a dozy girl called Dizel and a much more sensible, very large female called Zil who tells him that if he can find a way out she's coming with him. We learn that the habitat also contains big, dim, agressive Saur relatives called Sawtooths, and we see that there are Gnolls - who may be there unofficially. Meanwhile, the not-glowgem falls back into the crater, and the HJ42 falls through a crack in the floor of the crater. Agorn investigates and sees that the hole which has opened up contains a ladder. He can smell Sneeches in the depths. 03: Spanner in the Works [17/09/2010 - 15/01/2011] Sylvester identifies their location as the Ettinworks investigated by Krell, Earl Griffington's assistant. Sylvester, Mortimer (smelling peculiar, with umbrella) and Rosemary set out along the walkway: lights, electric crackles and deep rumbling noises come on as they walk. Rosemary has a sense that the Can-Opener may do exciting things around electrical discharges, and puts it in the Poke-Kit. They come to an unusually passive Sneech plant-machine growth which is blocking the walkway, and edge past it. Mortimer insists on taking the lead as he is the most expendable. The other two have been ignoring Mortimer and rather treating him like a small child but they begin to realise their mistake. They are far below the level of the Sneech nest - Mortimer recounts comments by Skibble suggesting the Sneeches are expanding their territory. Having passed the Sneech growth they come in sight of an Ettin underhub - a lighthouse-like tower which stretches from the floor where they are, through the open cavern of the Ettinworks to the ceiling of the cavern, which is the floor of the shallower levels overhead, with a row of windows ringing the tower up near the ceiling. Sylvester talks of a network of underground roads and buildings which was wrecked and sealed off when Audra poked the Hot Zone and caused the Chasm to spread - it is clear this is the system now being opened up and used by the Fixits. They go into the underhub and prepare to climb a spiralling internal ramp, and have a conversation in which Rosemary is amazed to learn that a famous, ancient philosopher named Milo was the 9th Earl of E. They find a signpost written in a Human script and recently annotated in the handwriting of Nirvana Clepe, former Taskmistress of the Mansion, who retired eight years ago when her wife died, and supposedly lives three days' ride away. Mortimer is showing clairvoyance - he knows how old the writing is, and that the Sneeches have never been inside the underhub. There is a discussion about Threnody the local Oracle, whom Sylvester fancies (Dirge is her Guardian). The interior of the underhub is full of concealed twistpoints - as they climb, the interior changes illogically and it's possible to go up and end up lower down. There are a series of signposts to guide them. Talking about twistpoints leads them to realise that they each met Protus today. Mortimer talks about Yasmine, and about ending up in Dorian's old hut. He recalls Dorian as a hermit from his childhood, although Dorian has been working for the group in the Spike for forty-two years. Sylvester is sure Yasmine was lying about being there to review Arthur, unless the Guild have changed the rules without telling him. Employing a Weirdo, we learn, is a requisite part of being an aristocrat. They come to a group of elongated, slope-sided pillars labelled "do not touch". After they have passed on without touching them, we see that they are local Panegates. Windows open in them to show a room with a table set for dinner, two female Gnolls gossiping (one has a flutterby on a string) and two Dornbeasts, large and small. Frowgler, looking rough, emerges from the Dornbeast one although the Dornbeasts cannot pass. He goes back through another, smaller window and we hear a voice comment that he is damaged. Frowgler says he met one of Protus's new friends. The twistpoints in the underhub aren't mentioned in the Mansion's records. Sylvester thinks the Ettins' devices were built to shut down in the event of a Crash, and are now waking again. They discuss the Crash, and what they could do before it - still far less than the Ettins did. They had a high-level tram which took a week to cross the country: the Ettins went to the moon. They come to another pillar labelled "touch". In order to get past a twistpoint and go up again Mortimer touches it with his umbrella, and a ray from the ceiling strikes the other two. Sylvester loses nearly all his memory - although he recalls Nimue - and Rosemary loses some of her intelligence, regresses emotionally and starts acting like an eager-to-please, extremely literal-minded five-year-old with no conversational filters. Rosemary's memory is intact and she realises what has happened and warns Mortimer he will have to tell her what to do. This is a double-edged sword as she is now extremely hypnotically susceptible. Following Mortimer's instincts, they hold the umbrella together and touch the pillar again, and this time a levitating lift called a Woosher arrives. The Woosher carries them up inside the tower, and while they are on it the ramps that were there before disappear. Meanwhile, Nevus's troops are at Comshaw's door, believing he sent Sylvester and Rosemary to spy on Le Tree. Comshaw emerges and duffs them up with his poking stick. He gets one of them, a young male Trog called Skradt, to take him to Nevus. Skradt is interested in learning to be a Poker himself. The Basement is now very quiet - most people are hiding. They go to Le Tree, where Gnoll doorkeepers called Forfind and Frag let them pass. We see that the hamster, plant and ABOL have escaped. Comshaw offers to trade true information for a truce. Nevus agrees and asks him why he and the Council hired Sylvester and Rosemary to come to Le Tree and start a war. Comshaw explains that he did no such thing although he's not sure about the Council. Nevus accepts that Rosemary and Sylvester were lying. Comshaw tells him they are Humans and Sylvester is the Earl (which he learned from Mortimer at the crater), and then suddenly strikes a Fixit from the head of Neilguye, Nevus's Motihaul accountant, where Nevus can see it. A Boogieman, Malcolm, catches the Fixit and it dies - they are very fragile. Comshaw goes to tell the Council about the Humans and the Fixits, and Skradt comes with him. 04: Closing Out an Era (The Ettinworks) [18/01/2011 - 04/06/2011] As they ride the Woosher Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer discuss the fact that there must be "some rich guy with horrible mutant tastebuds" keeping Moe Wines in business (there is, of course - Mr Hand). They discuss the fact that Sylvester is the Earl (which he has forgotten) and the succession. They pass an unknown woman in brown, with blond hair with a pink bow on top - Rosemary calls her Mz Teree - who seems to be the one marking the signs. Hpobfvfr is stil trailing them. When they disembark, higher up, the tower changes again and they find more ramps. It is mentioned that they need never have gone down to look for the Pots Room, because Mortimer knows where there is a supply of seige pots in a disused barracks. Rosemary's bodyguard training is still sharp even if the rest of her isn't. They discuss twistpoints, and confirm that it is possible to walk down a ramp, then back up the same ramp, and end up somewhere different from where they started. The new signpost is decorated with a heart with "N C + A S" written in it: they think this may be Nirvana Clepe and the Mz Teree woman. With more down-and-up twists they arrive at the level of the bank of windows, up against the roof of the cavern where the Ettinworks are, and just under the floor of the upper part of the Basement. At this point they are probably back at about the level of Le Tree, or maybe a storey or two below it. As they walk Rosemary burbles, and starts to speak about Tansy - who she thinks is the woman Sylvester saw her fighting when Protus showed him visions - and a word beginning "Qu". The view from the windows looks as if it is of starry space rather than down into the Ettinworks, but they do not go to look, for fear of triggering more dangerous events. Leading up from the window room is a flight of stone steps going up into the body of the rock above them. There is also an Ettin-style door with a gap about 10" high underneath it. Mortimer peers underneath and sees a corridor of human-type doors, one with a pair of shoes outside it, but a little metal sign saying "KEEP OUT" falls down in front of him, with thye letters cut out of it as holes. Sylvester feels that there are Humans in that corridor, but when he turns his back it's a non-Human-looking hand, possibly Frowgler's, which retrieves the "KEEP OUT" sign. They set off up the stone steps towards the Sneech den. Rosemary and Sylvester are starting to improve. There is some oblique discussion about Sylvester not telling Rosemary the Scary Lady's name, then about Mortimer's friend the Scalpsucker - Mortimer remembers falling down the hole leading to the old World o' Pots storeroom but doesn't seem to recall meeting Rufus. They come to a door opened by number pad, leading to a double-doored Sneech-lock. Emerging, they pass an alcove containing an entrance to the elevator, above the one where they emerged earlier. Past that is a round room at the bottom of a shaft, with a crystal on a stand in the middle, playing a popular song. There are also double metal doors, closed, and stairs leading up and down. Mortimer hopes to use the stairs but finds the ones going up are labelled "Operation Certain Death" and the ones going down, "Slimegrub Breedpits". The down-flight shows signs of recent flooding, but Mortimer retrieves a glowgem from the first landing down, with a mysterious socket just right for fitting it onto the point of his umbrella. Rosemary seems slightly hypnotised by it. They plan to go upstairs, towards Operation Certain Death, but then they hear something big and loud crashing downstairs towards them. Rosemary draws the Can-Opener, which Sylvester calls a Paleslicer. They use the singing crystal thing to levitate them up to a higher floor, but Rosemary is grabbed and held back, floating, by what proves to be an enormous, female relative of Ahz and Skiv, called Tand. Tand can smell that Rosemary has been near Ahz and Skiv and believes, wrongly, that she knows who they are, so after some initial problems adjusting her voice to Human levels, she tells her to tell them to get a move on with their allotted task of growing a garden, a task for which they were all sent here by someone else. Tand says Rosemary is not like any other human she's met, and one of the other two (has to be Mortimer) is sparkly like a lot of humans used to be but haven't been for a while - apparently she is sensing him as a magic-user. Tand has to leave because she is literally over-stretched and her torch is going out. She is afraid to meet, in the dark, a male "horrible mask-thing" who can go anywhere - this may be Frowgler, since the Pales call him Frogmask. Released, Rosemary floats up to the boys. She feels herself to be now entirely back to normal (although later events will show that this isn't quite true). Sylvester recognises the name Tand from his records, but still hasn't wholly regained his memory. Meanwhile, Comshaw and Skradt come to the Council entrance, which is heavily defended. An Eyebolt receptionist called Witherward admits them by dropping them down a shaft. They arrive in the midst of a full meeting, including Twiz, acting for Maw; Snerd, acting for Sina; Commander Chumley (the Council's Chief of Security) for the Boogiemen and a Ghast "Stirrer", some kind of high ceremonial functionary relating to how the Ghasts reproduce (they have to use special breeding pools within their home base and are unable to set up more outside it), who is in some way not physically present. On the Council are Doyen, a female Trog; Gavzada, a female Motihaul; Wunk, a male Gnoll; Aprat, a Helipath and Chairbeing Preznit, a male Eyebolt, although he tries to hide his species behind a mask. Twiz is very interested in the new Hall Sina is setting up. The Council is concerned about Rhid and what he may do next, and whether Sina is a safe person to be a leader. Gavzada is keen on anything which keeps Othara occupied, and they are cautiously positive so long as Sina and her engineer Fosic build walls to keep epople away from the Operator. Comshaw then strikes a Fixit from the head of a femal Gnoll called Widdendreem, who seems to be the Council's record-keeper. He wants to catch it alive but Widdendreem, freed from the Fixit, pounces and kills it. Widdendrem is angry that she now owes Comshaw a debt, and concerned by the fact that she has killed a person. She tells them the name "Fixit" and that the dead one was a female called Snurfix, reporting to a male nicknamed Slinker. Snurfix had crept onto her head while she slept. We learn that young Fixits are raised in cages "beyond the Spikeshield", which must be the barrier others have spoken of. Chumley sends Widdendreem to write down all she recalls about the Fixits, while Comshaw tells the Council what he knows about them - leaving out Camora's name. Chumley decrees that no one in the Council Chamber shall wear a hat - all the Councillors drop their hoods and Preznit, whose brain is in his torso, strips to his socks. The Council agrees to tell all the key players - Maw, Agita etc. - whilst trying to prevent the knowledge of the Fixits from spreading generally for the moment, for fear of what God might do when he learns his spy network has been blown. They want all the leaders warned before God takes any action. Comshaw tells them about the Humans, and Sylvester being the Earl, but he doesn't know if he is the Earl. The Earl "tore the world in two fighting Yurp, the Demon King" - Yurp is not yet identified, unless he is the Operator, but the Earl is evidently Audra, who caused the Chasm to spread. Comshaw plans to go speak to Sylvester tomorrow. Comshaw, Skradt, Snerd and Twiz head for the exit, discussing Ghast reproduction and Trog education (here we learn that Espy is a teacher). They slide down a chute and land in a corridor by the battered-looking Gobule Mingent, who is eating the dead from the battle. Twiz has been chewing a piece of the dead Fixit - they tell Mingent if he smells anything like it, to bite it. Twiz runs off. Comshaw thinks Snerd should work for Sina but Snerd says Shona wouldn't like it, and he loves Shona. Comshaw and Skradt set off together. They encounter a Jibjib called Schrik being ridden by a Fixit, and try and fail to take the Fixit alive. The Fixit has been using Schrik to spy on Flap's ferry across the Great Chasm. An important Boogieman ruler called Crispin is mentioned. Comshaw sends Schrik to take the dead Fixit to Sina and then work for her. Skradt reveals that he joined Nevus hoping for an early death in battle, so he wouldn't have to choose to take the Plunge. But Comshaw has given him a vision of something more useful, plus he wants to learn to fight as well as him. Frowgler, watching through a crack in the wall, thinks they make a good team. 05: Closing Out an Era (The Sneech Den) [06/06/2011 - 16/12/2011] Sylvester, Mortimer and Rosemary pass another large inactive Sneech node and several smaller ones, and some graffitti relating to dragons - although we're not told whether they are a legend or, like wyverns, a real if possibly extinct animal. There is a conversation about Mortimer's history of failed relationships with scary women, in the course of which he tells Rosemary that his relationship with her will be strictly business while she is staring bug-eyed at the hypno-gem, and he reveals that he has the hots for Yasmine. Rosemary is in command over Sylvester because that's part of her job as bodyguard. There is a lot of discussion of Sneech races and technology, living walls etc. and also Rosemary's poor origins on Gnomin. Mortimer takes off his shirt so Rosemary can make them rag boots and mittens so they don't have to touch the Sneech material: he passes his umbrella to Sylvester as he does so and sees the gem glows much less brightly when Sylvester holds the umbrella. Rosemary has absorbed the hypnotic lesson that her relationship with Mortimer is strictly business. Following a trail of fresh air through the tunnels of the Sneech den, they come to a bridge over a moderate drop, guarded on either side by relatives of Fern's. The intelligent plants are wary of Rosemary but agree to disarm her and carry the Can-Opener across the bridge themselves for her to collect on the far side. As they get there the Gnoll Agorn falls while trying to climb down from the crater above, and lands at their feet. Agorn hasn't noticed, but Niddle's apearing and disapearing gem (hereafter the Hitchhiking Gem) is now attached to his spear. As the Human trio prepare to leave, one of the the plants delays them and asks - by spelling with its tongue - that they be given names. Sylvester names them after the Founding Oracles, a group of women who spread the religion of the Brush - Violet, Daisy, Joice, Jenny, Kathryne, Hettie, Evangeline, Vivian and Petunia. Sylvester promises to visit them again: as the Humans leave we see the plants talk amongst themselves by some rapid means. The Humans come to the main corridor through the Sneech den, which is studded with tall, light-bearing tree-like things. Meanwhile Comshaw and Skradt come to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, where Agita (a Motihaul) has her office. They have a complicated system of clearances in which Comshaw ranks quite high. An Eyebolt called Philodox admits them. While waiting to be seen they observe that two of the Eyebolt clerks are wearing Fixit-type hats but they seem to be just hats. An Eyebolt called Giddhom says thay are in fashion because some people claim they help you to think. Weirding is discussed, and the eccentricities of various species - we learn that Helipaths refuse to cross the Great Chasm to Sneech side even though Sneeches get on OK with them. The hatted clerks are Scrutineers, recording everything visitors say - Skradt wishes to be recorded as a would-be Poker. [Around here we have a Labor Day out-take showing local man Arlen and his daughter Juniper, digging a ditch at the back of a hedge near the village of Eetown. The hedge seems to have the rusted remains of a pre-crash vehicle incorporated into it.] Comshaw borrows Giddhom's hat so Fixits will think he's controlled. They are escorted to see Agita by an Eyebolt called Peripatet riding in a special buggy which was damaged during an eventful visit by Strode, the aggressive female Motihaul in the pumpkin-head mask who appears in Sundays in SubShaft 44f. They pass more clerks one of whom, Ogdoad, is wearing a Fixit. We learn that the Eyebolts in Root Hall distrust the GBOLs, and therefore presumably the Tree, and make their own lights. Comshaw and Skradt come to Agita and her Eyebolt clerk Flibbergib, and Agita gives them apples. She has with her her young daughter, Rishathra, and a Gnoll guard called Termagant. Agita and Comshaw catch up on the events of the day (including establishing that it was the young Mortimer who somehow started the Nome War after falling through into a mine), and Comshaw gets her to summon Ogdoad, who insists on a promise of safe conduct before he will come in. He has some involvement with another Eyebolt (?) called Tribblerig and some scheme involving Sneech squeezings. As Ogdoad enters the office Comshaw baps the Fixit, called Endix, off his head and Skradt catches him in a bowl but Endix somehow commits suicide. Ogdoad is terribly distressed, for he and Endix had become at least semi-partners. Comshaw and Skradt leave Root Hall, and are quizzed as they leave by an Eyebolt who assumes it's all to do with Sneech squeezings. As they come away from Root Hall they pass the male Nome called Rezrov, still with his arm in a sling, leading, on a string, a very flirtatious-looking female Trog named Hogminny. Both are smeared with green paint. We are told that some Nomes and some Trogs have a "thing", and learn that Skradt tentatively fancies Maggle. Comshaw 'phones the Council and tells them he has delivered their message to Agita, and he has a message for them from Root Hall saying Ogdoad is involved with a Sneech squeezings scheme but they'll handle it. Comshaw takes Skradt home with him and Camora and Niddle are quite welcoming, although if he's staying they may need to move to a bigger apartment. All sleep, exhausted. Meanwhile, Agita takes Ogdoad with her to see a female Motihaul accountant called Marritza who is wearing a Fixit named Arnix. Agita threatens Arnix with a pointed umbrella ferrule, then tells him that the gaff regarding God and the Fixits is well and truly blown, and offers him the chance to ride on Ogdoad and act as a liason officer between herself and God. Arnix and Ogdoad both agree. Meanwhile. Sprocket is upset to see that Crazy Rhid's ex place connects to large areas of still-working machinery, the only machinery that good outside the SubShafts, and Rhid didn't tell anyone. Sina now has a makeshift office, an Eyebolt receptionist called Nikhedonia and Maggle acting as gopher. Sina and Sprocket decide to marry, right now - Wittol, who will be their Finagler, has already anticipated this and started to make arrangements. We learn that Niddle has had experiences which make him a perfect Finagler - so perfect he may be a whole new thing. We learn that Gnoll marriage customs involve a receptacle called a Tweebowl, a Tool and a Blossom and, at some point before they have whelps, a visit to the Fluffy Foo-Foo Cave, and without a Finagler things go badly wrong for mated pairs. Yet, some couples such as Niff and Folla live unofficially, without a Finagler, and manage fine. Sprocket, Wittol and Sina have a hasty cermeony, with the possibility of a more formal one later. Afterwards Snerd turns up and thinks Nikhedonia's hat is a Fixit, although it's just a hat. As he is explaining, Schrik turns up with an actual dead Fixit. Maggle and Kronk are sent out to show the dead Fixit around and kill any live ones they find, and Snerd returns to his mate Shona and Finagler Wubb. Flange reminds Sprocket of their obligations to their employer Mr Hand, and tells him about Rubrak being killed by Chauncy and Edgar. Sprocket and Flange will probably cease to be partners now. Sprocket talks privately to Sina about Mr Hand and the job - he has realised that the femal Motihaul who put him in touch with Mr Hand was wearing/worn by a Fixit. Mr Hand has had them installing devices called Y-nodes which look like Sneech growths, and produce ultrasonic sound only small creatures can hear. Fleebs in the presence of a Y-node turn to face it and stare. Sprocket sees Mr Hand as ruthless and controlling but constructive rather than destructive in his intentions. They agree to tell Comshaw about it, then get on to the serious business of their wedding night. As a final wrap-up, we see Snoot bitching to Izchak about his bloody awful day; the Super Rock pausing to rest and to talk to another rock which can talk, but not walk; Digger reporting to Frowgler that things are going to plan and he has no questions to ask; and Frederick preparing to serenade the Grubbs on a Fugehorn. 06: Twilight [17/12/2011 - 09/06/2012] Agorn encounters Hpobfvfr, who is trailing the Humans. She addresses him as if he is two people - she senses the sentient Hitchiking Gem which Agorn doesn't know he is carrying. Sylvester and co. enter the main corridor, which is again unnaturally quiet - we learn there should be trilobite-thingies scuttling about trailing organic wires etc.. While discussing local politics and a performing troupe who once came to the local village, Mortimer accidentally causes Rosemary to fixate on the gem in his umbrella, and gives her three hypnotic commands - "Go to sleep, but act like you're still awake!", "Take a note! I am not going to keep making these mistakes with women!" and "Do as you're told! Stay in your place! Speak only when spoken to! The Brush wills it!". They pass a Sneech tower which is at the edge between Human and Sneech territory and is labelled "NO INTERRUPTIONS", then they come to a neon sign saying "OUR TRAJECTORYS DIVERGE PAYMENT FOR YE ASSISTANCE" (although Sylvester doesn't know what assistance is meant). This dissolves, leaving a squat obelisk which moves when it is touched, and which Rosemary names the Dohickey. The Sneeches themselves have gone. The obelisk steers them around a hole in the floor, which proves to be the hole which Chauncy and Edgar left when they exited Izchak's shop looking for the Scary Lady. Matagam the Motihaul soldier and a Boogieman called Geoff climb out of the hole, checking where Chauncy and Edgar went. Heading for the Mansion proper, Rosemary, Mortimer and Sylvester pass the entrance to a tunnel put in by the Council to monitor the Humans. They emerge from an elaborate vesitbule decorated with ornamental fake stalagmites and flaming braziers, into a plain downstairs room containing the entrance to the elevator and a small extension of the Tree, and with "BEWARE MR FLIP" written on the wall. Mr Flip is a character we meet in Sundays in SubShaft 44f, but Mortimer says the graffito has been there his whole life. To get further they need to go through a locked door, the key to which Sylvester dropped while falling into the Great Chasm. Matagam and Geoff head for the Council tunnel and are passed by Hpobfvfr, who corners the humans against the locked door. Mortimer senses that her mind has been tampered with and speaks to her sympathetically, incidentally getting between her and her intended targets. Then we see in flashback that the male Ghast she passed just before Rosemary and Sylvester fell into the Chasm realised that something was wrong and went and fetched help. Hpthva, the officer in charge of a party of Ghast soldiers who have been following behind, orders Hpobfvfr to stand down, and this breaks the Operator's hold over her. Hearing Rosemary address Mortimer by name, Hpthva quries this and he says he is "Mortimer Eman.. because we're going to be all.. formal": in doing so he inadvertently gives Rosemary another hypnotic command. Having confirmed Mortimer's name and that he might be the one who started the Nome War, and having learned that they are Human, Hpthva wants to arrest the trio, but great aunt Scary appears in the doorway (with balloon) and scares them off. Somewhere, she has acquired a flower which she is now wearing tucked into the v-neck of her dress. After the Ghasts leave, the rest go through into the house and Scary cures Sylvester's memory problems. He is very reluctant to ask her to do anything which will put him under an obligation to her. Scary tries to touch the Sneech obelisk, but it fizzes a shock at her. Meanwhile Sylvester realises something is wrong with Rosemary, and when she starts addressing Mortimer as "Mr Eman" because "We are being all formal" Sylvester realises that she is following Mortimer's commands literally. Mortimer tries to snap her out of it by giving her a ridiculous command to "be a dog" but she goes down on all fours and starts growling. Scary is detachedly impressed by his power, and thinks there is a real risk Rosemary will become permanently enthralled. Alarmed, Mortimer tries to order Rosemary to be herself. In the short term it seems to have worked, but it remains to be seen whether she has internalised any of his commands. Mortimer goes off to speak to Frederick. Restored to normal function, Rosemary is introduced to the Scary Lady (whose name we finally learn to bne Myrrh) and the two go off for a private chat in which it is revealed that Rosemary knows the Scary Lady to be not human, and that the Scary Lady loves and protects Frederick to the point of being willing to kill anybody who threatens anybody he cares about, such as his nephews. The same minituarised trundlebug who fell onto Rosemary's helmet earlier in the day is revealed to be still lurking in her broken lamp, and the Scary Lady rescues it, then goes off to see what's happened to the Sneeches. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Scary Lady, and how Frederick summoned her by accident while trying to get a Djinn. He spent his energy on a collar to control her and stop her from running wild and killing bystanders, as Demons had done in the past, but now she wears the collar voluntarily and uses it to assist her own magic in some way. She has been a good partner to Frederick and a good great-aunt to his family, and Sylvester is loyal to her and will protect her if necessary. Sylvester schedules a talk about Rosemary's recent history for the next day but he fears to be overheard, so they must go somewhere secure. They prove to each other that they are human by checking each other's ears (Sylvester's ears are apparently jaw-droppingly strange, but not pointed) and discuss the origins of Demons and Djinn and the possibility that they are, after all, just people. Sylvester realises something about Frederick and why he hid books on Demons which he feels foolish not to have realised before, which leads to a conversation about a duel which Rosemary lost in a way which made her realise her own mortality and how dangerous her job was, and they take the Sneech obelisk towards the Quiet Room. Meanwhile, the Scary Lady enters the Sneech den and speaks to Frowgler, who is crawling out of the top of the shaft created by Chauncy and Edgar. They seem not to have spoken to each other for fifty years, but are on good terms. Mortimer goes to speak to Frederick, who is playing his Fugehorn into some kind of vaguely tree-like amplifier. On the way he meets Nellie, who recognises the umbrella he is carrying and seems shocked by it. She is concerned, generally, for Mortimer's safety and well-being, and for that of her own husband Amos although he is sitting quietly doing some book-binding, and seems to be enjoying Frederick's music. Mortimer believes Rosemary and Sylvester are now an item: Nellie expects him to be jealous but he doesn't seem to be. Frederick tells Mortimer that he's a wizard and that there's a wand built into the umbrella, but he won't help Mortimer to learn magic because he thinks it brings only misery. Meanwhile Sylvester and Rosemary talk as they steer the dohickey towards the Quiet Room, and we learn that Frederick actually plays the Fugehorn very well, that what he is playing is a well-known lament for the victims of the Crash, and that Ernest, the Earl who was an art forger, was also a genuine patron of the arts and built a whole wing of the castle for theatre and other performing arts. As they approach the Quiet Room Rosemary's Poke Kit shrinks and begins to disgorge its contents, so Sylvester goes alone to deposit the Sneech dohickey. The Quiet Room contains the Dark Crystal, a Triforce symbol from the Zelda stories, a clockwork monkey playing cymbals, a statuette of Cthulhu, a flower in a pot and a crescent thing which looks like the head of another Can-Opener-type pike. After Sylvester leaves, all these objects begin to glow with magic and the crescent speaks and greets the dohickey. Sylvester and Rosemary go to find a sword for her and to change the lock on the basement door, since he has lost his key in the basement. They find a powerful taser, much stronger than the one Sylvester tried to use on Villipend: Rosemary says Hack'N'Slash have offered a big reward for a working one, but they leave it where it is because it's probably only its proximity to the Quiet Room which is keeping it from exploding. Sylvester says that the things in the Quiet Room are dangerous, that destroying them in the Great Chasm would lead to earthquakes and that left in the Quiet Room those that are Sneech gifts gradually fade away, and in any case they usually switch off when the recipient dies. The crescent thing is not known to be dangerous - just annoying. They meet up with Mortimer, and Sylvester assures him he hadn't known that he was a wizard. Mortimer is half thinking of going after Yasmine, but he hopes she will return to the Mansion. Sylvester fears this could lead to a division of loyalties, depending on what it is the Weirdos are plotting. He thinks their father may also have been an unknown wizard. Mortimer describes his encounter with Frowgler, who he has realised gave him the umbrella surreptitiously, and Sylvester believes him because the Great Riddler also mentioned Frowgler. They intend to debrief each other the next day but not now, because Rosemary feels they may be overheard. She meanwhile is planning to fetch a seige-pot from the barracks. Mortimer goes off and heads up the North Tower, and Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Weirdos, who are a combination of jester, priest and counsellor. We learn that Oracles (but not Weirdos) carry out midwifery - and euthanasia. We learn that there are seige-engines mounted on the Main Tower and also that Rosemary can't act, as they discuss the plays which used to be put on at the Mansion, and the history of Kaylu - a Hitlerian dictator who introduced a country called Tomania to a crazed, murderous empire-building cult which worshipped a two-tailed monkey god, and was destroyed by the Crash in some way connected with the Infernal Engine. Sylvester feels that he no longer knows what's going on around his home. Having collected the necessary materials they board up the door to the Basement, using a mechanical nail-planter which could be valuable if they can find somebody to replicate it for sale. They leave the door unbarred for the Scary Lady and Syklvester declares their business with the Basement is done for the day, although he will keep his promise to call on the Ferns again, and his plans for the rest of the evening require Rosemary to retain her (Audra's) helmet. We see Frederick return to the suite of rooms he shares with the Scary Lady, and gaze nostalgically at a photograph of his younger self and other youths in wizard gear. 07: Career Paths [11/06/2012 - 16/02/2013] We see Agorn emerge, with relief, from a tunnel mouth partway up a rock-face near a bridge across the Great Chasm. He edges along a narrow ledge, past Furphy who is trying to hatch some eggs, and comes to a bridge with a checkpoint at either end, although this one at the Sneech end is deserted. He crosses and speaks to a Gnoll border guard called Varuna, and an Ichyoid guard, and tells Varuna to warn his "vile employer" (presumably Nevus or Guttle) that if the nobs keep poking in the Sneech den the Sneeches will some day poke back. The entrance to Crescent Hall is right by the bridge, in the line of fire. He talks to another Gnoll guard called Scibile who fills him in on the events of the day, then he walks into a maze of dark, much-graffitoed stone passages and stairs. The Hitchhiking Gem falls from his spear with a clunk and he spots it and posts it down a metal hatch. It clangs down into a chain of pipes, and we see that the pipes pass by an odd kind of sculpture or device consisting of coloured spikes almost like giant coloured pencils, with single letters on them, mainly vowels. This may have to do with the religion of the Brush that coloured in the world. On top of these spikes sits a small red-brown Fuzz, clutching a flaming torch. Agorn, meanwhile, keeps going until he comes to an area where there are lighted windows and street signs. He goes to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, and speaks to a male receptionist called Enchiridon. He is left waiting for a long time while a female Scrutineer called Hypothimia records his every word and action. She is stressed and angry because with all that's been going on - the fire, Chancy and Edgar on the loose etc. - she wants to be with her mate Brimborion and their children but instead she is stuck here in this petty desk job. Peripatet arrives in his wheeled chair to collect Agorn but before Agorn goes he tells Hypothimia that he himself has been parted from his mate (he seems to have only one) and his child has been lost through some sort of mental transformation (he went away but left his body behind), but all you can do is pick yourself up and try to change things for the better. As Agorn and Peripatet proceed through Root Hall we learn that Peripatet has a girlfrind called Glossolalia, and Agorn sniffs out (literally) that Skradt is now with Comshaw. They pass various official messages on the walls but one seems like a religious or political statement - "Remontado decided she had had o nuff shaft folderol so off she went and uprooted us all". As they pass the door to Scritchpod 205 a female Eyebolt in a wheeled chair passes them going the other way, wearing what may be a normal hat or may be a Fixit, and a wave of "weirding" hallucinations emanates from behind the closed door. Peripatet takes Agorn to a door behind which is a dark space containing dark objects, perhaps Ettin machinery, glowing with dull red lights. Agorn refuses to enter. An unseen, probably male presence (Agorn addresses it as "Mr Muckymuck") behind a hatch dismisses Peripatet, who leaves at speed - the presence says that Peripatet does well at clandestine cart-races. It wants to discuss Agorn's boss, and says that "some of us" are aware of, and broadly approve of, what "you all" are doing. Consequently Agorn has been given Class Eight clearance, which means he can now come and go unescorted through most areas of Root Hall. The presence is somebody Agorn has had indirect contact with or knowledge of, but has never spoken to directly before: it asks him to supply any useful information he comes across in return, and Agorn tells him that humans are real. The presence starts to half tell Agorn about Fixits but Agorn appears not to be receptive to the idea of hats being significant, and leaves. Meanwhile the chit for Agorn's new clearance is dropped down a pneumatic pipe system to a clerk who reads it and then eats it and replaces it with another which he writes himself. He is monitoring something on a small screen. Agorn goes to the "Grafted Zone" of Root Hall and speaks to Flibbergib, Agita's Eyebolt receptionist, who again tries to tell him about the Fixits, not very clearly. Agita arrives and we see a flashback to the aftermath of the auction, and Agita sending Agorn to trail Mortimer. Agorn reports the basics of the toing and froing he has seen surrounding Mortimer, Rufus, Eunice and Yasmine. Agita fundamentally misunderstands what Humans are - she knows they are like big Nomes so she thinks they are a local mutation caused by the Spike, and gradually spreading through the local forest. She shows Agorn a written note warning him about the Fixits and telling him to lie low until tomorrow - which suggests she doesn't want to speak out loud in front of Flibbergib, or fears others may be listening. Meanwhile we see various characters sleeping, including the smal Wyrm Squeeb, asleep deep in the chasm, and Bung's friend Faddle the Gnoll, who is very much awake. He is trying to evade somebody, but is rounded up by a hunting party of female Gnolls. Next we see him and four females, all wearing collars with lights on the front, sleeping together in a large nest. As Agorn leaves Root Hall he notices that there are fewer Eyebolt watchers on duty than there usually are. The last one usually hides inside a free-standing stone sign outside the exit, but there is no-one there, and what looks like blood on the spy-hole. The "blood" is a trick to get him to stop and look, and he is narrowly missed by an arrow fired by one of two dark-haired female Gnolls (Fanga and 33333), who had momentarily mistaken him for somebody else. Agorn lets himself into a concealed bedsit room behind a panel out in the Fringes. In the dust on a table, someone has drawn an arrow and written "She thought you were someone else", surrounded by what look like Smyt footprints: we later learn that messages on the table are a regular thing and usually correct, and the marks on the table are referred to as flipper marks, although they look too small to be Frowgler's. Digger comes in - it's his pad - and Agorn addreses him as "Boss". We see that Agorn and Digger have known about the Fixits for some time. Agorn reports the day's activities to Digger, giving him more detail than he told Agita: he feels that something nudged him to get him to go down the hole which led him to the Ferns. We see that they have been watching the humans and giving them descriptive nicknames (e.g. Arthur the Weirdo with his ventriloquist's puppet Fantod is "Snoop two-head"). Agorn would like to bring Conshaw into their conspiracy, or whatever it is, but Digger vetoes the idea. Agorn sets out to see to some personal matters, but as he leaves Digger points out that when "Muckymuck" at Root Hall said that he and others were broadly pleased with what Agorn's boss was doing he may have meant Digger himself and their conspiracy-whatever, not Agita. Agorn is alarmed at this idea. Coming away from Digger's bedsit he meets a Gnoll called Bromir who looks a lot like him and believes himself to be the target of the assassins who were hired by Sooterkin at Root Hall. Bromir refers to Agorn having been given higher clearance by Fuglemin, who is probably Agorn's Mr Muckymuck. Agorn heads back towards the Sneech side of the Great Chasm. At the bridge he tries to chat up the Gnoll guard Termagant and invites her to come fishing with him some time: she turns him down, although the Ichyoid guard Argus thinks she should have said yes. He comes on Furphy and his eggs again and we learn that Furphy is actually Agorn's son. The mother was called Awen and she and Agorn are estranged, though not bitterly so. A Denthir is mentioned who was probably their Finagler but is now dead. Furphy has had some kind of relationship with Dandilli (who went to the SubShafts) and will take no other mate, possibly because she put him off from doing so. He is sitting on the eggs because he is guarding them for two Jibjibs called Snurge and Scumble who are or have recently been conveying a message for him. Father and son talk, and Furphy says that that morning he saw that the physical world had changed but most people can't see it. Agorn is semi-willing to consider this and means to tell Digger about it tomorrow. Two Jibjibs called Ruck (male) and Smew (female) fly overhead in the dark, and we see them enter a hole in a sort of complex, compound stalactite formation, which we will learn is called the Uppermost Spire, and settle on a nest there. Ruck is carrying Urwyn's friend, the comparatlively large small Wyrm Zugo, although the Jibjibs don't know his name. Zugo slithers off into a crack, telling the Jibjibs to wait there for him. These two Jibjibs regularly carry a secretive group of Shallow Wyrms whom they refer to as Clients, transporting them around a widespread netwerk of "rings" whose purpose the Jibjibs don't know. They get snuggly in the nest, although Smew does not wish to have eggs. We see a Shallow Wyrm named Sneckdraw who seems to be spying on a ring, or at least on a tunnel used by a ring. Sneckdraw is detected and chased through the tunnels by helmeted guards named Vim, Crot, Ang and Diet, and escapes by jumping off an underground cliff onto the back of a tame (or sentient?) bat. Ang gets Ruck to fly him in pursuit with a view to killing them: Ruck queries this but when Ang assures him that Sneckdraw is not officially a member of any ring, and therefore not a client, Ruck is OK with it. They follow the bat's scent trail, but Sneckdraw and the bat dodge into a narrow tunnel which Ruck can't fit into. We see another Wyrm behind a kind of wooden screen in this tunnel. They come to a place where there is a graffitoed sign on the wall saying "Ring of the Newborn Word": Sneckdraw, who seems to be a freelance spy, dismounts and is challenged by guards called Conspue and Fream. They pay Sneckdraw with a food item and he or she reports on Zugo's presence at the Uppermost Spire. Fream conveys this message to a female superior whom we don't see, and then goes to speak to a female tuneller or miner called Glink, on whom Fream seems to be sweet. We see Sina giving the cleaning contract for the new hall to Maw and his crew. At Kronk's suggestion, Sina names the new group Leny Hall, although Maggle and Grik seem to know something mildly disreputable about Leny. Still in the same evening, we see a female Fixit named Astex who sits on a rock in a tunnel filled with plants and fungi. She seems to be fishing in a stream which flows alongside her rock. A male called Slix, who has been sent by a female commander called Poinx, comes to speak to her and get her observations - he calls her "our resident". Astex, who seems to have a cynical attitude to her own kind, says that the shield around the Spike was breached for a second or so, causing panic. Slix runs off before she can tell him about the Sneeches leaving. We learn that Astex is acquainted with Frowgler. We see Mortimer speaking about wizardry to Amos Grubb, who is himself a wizard, but who retired pre-Crash, after the incident with the Scary Lady. He says that Sylvester has some magic, although not as much as Mortimer, and their father Willoughby could have been a wizard if he hadn't been so frivolous. He believes there are still some schools of magic in operation somewhere, but he kept the fact of Mortimer's magic from Mortimer as a favour to Frederick and Nellie. Magic tends to run in families and other members of the E family also have at least some magical talent. They discuss the fact that Mortimer got the wand from Frowgler, and the fact that Frederick and Amos were trained by great-uncle Hindenburgh. If Mortimer practises as a magician he may get hassles from the Oracles of the Brush. We learn that wands should preferably be handled only by the owner, and that Mortimer unlocks locks by telekinesis. They discuss the nature of mind-reading and mind-control, wbich is far easier for Sneeches, Demons and Djinn to perform than other races, and Rosemary's susceptibility; magic-users on the other hand are very resistent to mind-control. They set off in search of Rosemary so Amos can get to know her. The scene cuts to the Nomes at the Pale camp. They are discussing the fact that if Nitfol becomes mayor he'll need a wife. He says that the only girl he found tolerable disappeared. Then Fizmo, the Hot Zone worker, appears and she and Nitfol get talking: she may or may not be the girl whom he liked before. Then we cut to The Spike, where Eunice and Rufus are talking. Rufus has recently had a talk with "God", which left him briefly unconscious and rubber-legged. He is behaving in quite a commanding, confident way, and speculating about what "God" and his henchman Dorian plan for Eunice next. After some edgy verbal sparring Eunice more-or-less agrees to be Rufus's assistant and bodyguard. 08: The End of the Day [18/02/2013 - 16/07/2013] We see Rosemary and Sylvester coming out of gender-specific lavatories which are delineated by male and female statues carrying a real spear and shield. They discuss finding Rosemary some better clothes so she can be properly introduced to Nellie and Amos, and she is tested by an Ettin-built electronic panel on the wall which confirms she is compatible with the house and can perform its ceremonies. Sylvester offers formally to employ her. Once they are both respectably dressed they go and introduce Rosemary to Nellie, although Sylvester tells Nellie that Rosemary's surname is Dapple, not Ripley. Nellie has already worked out that Rosemary arrived without passing through the village, and is angry about Mortimer being encouraged/allowed to learn magic. She opens up and talks about the group of magic-users of which she, Amos and Frederick were a part prior to the Crash, and Sylvester warns her about some of the recent developments in the Basement. As he talks we see vignettes of Chumley the Boogieman presiding over a growing collection of dead Fixits; the blonde woman with the pink bow, whom Rosemary called Mz Teree, reporting distressing changes in the Basement to someone who addresses her as Annabelle; and Frowgler telling the Scary Lady about the conversation Rosemary and Sylvester are currently having with Nellie. Sylvester leaves Rosemary and Nellie alone to talk about contraception, and we learn that there is a "Women's Circle" at the local Temple, where such things may be discussed. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester leave together, talking about local leaders - an impromptu lady mayor named Saffron Stout who runs an inn, and Patrick Skragg, the Sheriff. The Earl has warily polite relationships with both. Sylvester formally introduces Rosemary to Frederick. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester agree to conceal her true identity and membership of Hack n' Slash. They meet up with Amos and Mortimer and Amos, as a former wizard, comfirms that Mortimer no longer has psychic influence over Rosemary. Amos and Sylvester exchange news of the day, including some things Sylvester didn't tell Nellie, like about the Sneech gift, and about Tand - Sylvester thinks he has seen Tand mentioned in the records and Amos promises to look her up. Sylvester learns about The Pit flaring. We learn that "Pit" stands for "Pulse-Ignition Thaumnode" and that it was a booster device used to power flying trams. It is like a small version of a thing called the Daynight which seems to have done something catastrophic. After Amos leaves to go home, Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer go to the basement of the barracks, fetch a siege pot and sit it up on the top of the West Tower over the main entrance. Mortimer goes off to find clothes (his shirt having been shredded to make makeshift gloves in the Sneech den) and leaves Sylvester and Rosemary discussing the definition of "mansion" and the aftermath of the Crash - which wasn't nearly as bad in the poor rural area where Rosemary comes from, because hardly anybody there used magic anyway - and the ownership of land and property left vacant after the previous owners died in the disaster. They go off to eat and we see a series of vignettes: the Scary Lady visiting the Sneeches (but so far failing to find one); Amos collecting a package of Dornbeast-liver from the processor and taking it to Nellie, and discussing Rosemary with her; and Mortimer getting cleaned up. En route to a dinner of last night's Dornbeast tendrils, Rosemary and Sylvester pause to looke at a Panegate which leads elsewhere on their own world, although Sylvester says that such local Panegates are especially hard to open. Behind them is a statue of Pratchett's Discworld. Mortimer joins them at table and says he has put the umbrella aside until such time as he may decide to take up magic. They discuss re-opening access to a nearby beach so they can gather fish and seaweed, then they sign Rosemary into the Mansion's official staff record-book, still under the false name Dapple. Sylvester goes off to write up the day's events, and Mortimer goes and tries on clothes. Rosemary gets Amos to show her the library. Coming away with a stack of books on history, anthropology and moral philosophy, she experiences a psychic tweak which calls her to go to the Quiet Room and speak to (apparently) the Sneech dohickey, although she remains outside the locked door. She says that it and she are both protecting Sylvester, and suggests it should watch the Basement door, or the Weirdo. As the new Taskmistress she threatens the devices, saying that if any of them causes trouble she'll chuck them all into the Great Chasm. As she walks away we see Frowgler sitting by the foot of the door - he speaks to the dohickey as if they are old aquaintances. Returning to the Guest Room, Rosemary rearranges the furniture so she can sit facing the door, writes to her aunt and takes a bath. She falls asleep but immediately wakes into a dream which seems to be some kind of objectively real astral projection. She passes Skuy and Spot, who are arguing: Skuy at least seems to be also asleep and also taking part in the astral projection. Rosemary goes to the elevator and whacks the Operator with a mallet, which she then hands over to Skuy: the physically real Operator is aware of and intrigued by what has just happened to his astral equivalent. We see an overview of various people sleeping: Nellie and Amos; Umbuz and Piu (in bed together, so their relationship is progressing fast!); the Gobules Gorp and Phiga; Mortimer lying awake; and Yasmine sitting by a camp fire, staring at a Fleeb. Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, with her balloon in tow, descend to the Ettinworks and go to the same doorway where Sylvester and co. were passed the "KEEP OUT" sign. She is pased a similar cut-out message, this one saying "IN HER" with an extra "E" drawn or painted on to make it "IN HERE". The extra "E" is done in the style of the emblem of the Earls of E. The door opens and she goes through into the corridor of doors we saw before. A distant door is open to receive her but all we see through it is several floating lights - possibly ABOLs. More vignettes: Eunice talking to Cox, in front of Ettin signs or graffiti saying "shake hands" and "onebig onion". Hector talking to Nunsuch (and mentioning another character called Penfold): Nunsuch indicates some Ettin text which appears on a screen beside them and which changes gradually from the old font to the new. This text, which says "remote spike extrusion", triggers Hector to engage a "revised schedule" which he says is twenty years late. Meanwhile the Scary Lady leaves the room of lights and returns to the Mansion, where she bars the Basement door and puts a ward on it telling Basement dwellers to keep out. She opens a Panegate into a lush jungle and sets the balloon floating off into that jungle carrying the rescued Trundlebug, who lands in a bush where it meets a new friend (probably of the opposite sex, if Trundlebugs have sexes). She goes and reassures Frederick that although the magic umbrella is hers she didn't directly give it to Mortimer, and they start flirting. The scene shifts to the Trog holding area where Villipend and Hamble were formerly imprisoned, and we see that Hamble has survived electrocution. The prison seems to have done something to reverse the mental decline which caused him to jump into the Great Chasm in the first place, and he is now very clever and very ambitious. He half rescues, half kidnaps Squeeb, works out how to get out of the habitat and sets off to climb back up the chute with Squeeb strapped to his arm, seeking a new dawn which will be his. We learn on the way that Squeeb belongs to no ring, and despises the idea of doing so. Finally we see two vignettes. In one, a male soldier reports on Rosemary's disappearance to a female commander, the Tansy whom Rosemary saw in a vision. Tansy is working for some outfit or political party whose emblem is a triangle within a circle. She vows to find Rosemary wherever she has gone - and clearly with hostile intent. In the other, we see Sylvester's sister Lilith and their mother, talking in the darkness at the edge of a banquet in a jungle somewhere. The mother would have liked to have stayed, but she has received a psychic impression that they need to start heading back to E. Part Six: On My Way to Town [28/07/2013 - 16/11/2018] Note that from 03/05/2015, the Saturdays in the Basement strips show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with the action above ground. 01: Rise and Shine [28/07/2013 - 26/11/2013] The sun has just risen over the Mansion. The brothers are already awake: Sylvester resumes doing his paperwork, but Mortimer stands gazing out of a window, clutching the umbrella he said he wouldn't take up again unless and until he decided to take up magic, and thinking of himself as having "set out" - and that the world itself has also changed. Rosemary emerges and rings the bell for Schmedley, the butler, attracting Mortimer's attention. He introduces her to Schmedley, who tells her how to find Sylvester. Schmedley is not surprised to hear that Mortimer is a wizard. We see Arthur the Weirdo feeling the worse for wear. Sylvester shows Rosemary her new official quarters and office, which she is quite stunned by, and explains the heirarchy of the Mansion's servants to her. As Taskmistress she stands fairly high. One of her duties is, at least potentially, to find and hire a new sign-writer. Her quarters command a view of the ocean, which leads to a discussion about Panegates and the fact that no known Panegate leads to another continent, although some lead to alternative realities for the location of the Mansion. They move on to discussing why the villagers don't all move into the much-more-comfortable Mansion, and Rosemary's dream about the Operator. Sylvester didn't share it but we see a flashback to what must be his own dream, in which he, Rosemary and Nimue are attending a university lecture given by Protus, accompanied by three frogs, two sitting with the girls in the audience and one sitting with Protus, and Sylvester is aware that his own frog is missing (or has gone to Protus). We see a rusted, land-locked boat which Philbert had been going to convert into a building, and access to which is restricted, and a wizwitch detector which detects Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss security clearances, and local legends relating to a scruffy local folk-hero called Frizzlegarb who might have been a surviving Wilf. Legends say Frizzlegarb swam through a pool and there met what sounds like a Willygig. Sylvester shows Rosemary round her apartment and gives her a mechanical pocket-watch, then they get out Mortimer's Glowgem and test it on a sort of battery-tester: Glowgems can be recharged by dipping them in the River of Fire for a few days. We see an outtake of the Tribbletongued Hamster (in pirate getup), the plant and the ABOL escaping together in a toy boat, sailing along an underground tunnel: a sign in the backgorund points towards the sea. Sylvester mentions that the Mansion used to have a "wizwitch", a magic-wielder, as a regular member of staff and he supposes it now has one again. The scene cuts to Mortimer, who is talking to a strange wall of purple electricity, telling it he is going to go and celebrate the fact that he has grown up and got a job. He goes to Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where there are various amusements and places to eat. Back with Rosemary and Sylvester, he asks her about Hack & Slash's Commandant Spangler (who Rosemary had said was the only person she had previously met who had a private office). This segues into a conversation about their respective grandparents, and Rosemary running through a fake version of her family background, using her new, false surname Dapple. She discusses the remote possibility of using Protus to go back in time and save her parents - for whom she has little feeling - at the cost of giving up her own exciting future and getting stuck as a farm-girl. Meanwhile we see Frederick and Myrrh set out to do something - unspecified but involving hand-holding - "properly". Sylvester tells Rosemary about the demand there used to be for apartments linked to this private corridor for senior administrators, and they discuss the fact that in the past, pre-Luwig, the Earls were at risk of being assasinated just for being Earls. Rosemary goes off at a tangent about a fluffy-seeming female called Miss Gritz who was a traveller on the caravan Rosemary was guarding, and whom she suspects of being her apparent boyfriend's very high-powered personal bodyguard. Sylvester shows Rosemary round the official, ceremonial offices for himself and his secretary (but not his official chambers, which are untidy). The offices are designed to be intimidating. We learn that the mansion holds a throne for use if the king should visit - this nearly happened fifty years ago, but the king ws killed en route when his flagship The Velvet Glove went down during the Crash, and the current king tends to stay in the capital. The offices are designed with security in mind. We learn that the mansion has a High Tower access to which is blocked: Rufus tried to get in there, before he wandered off. Sylvester says Rufus likes to wander but he doesn't go far: Sylvester tried to get him to go to university but Rufus felt that the area around the mansion was where he was going to be. Meanwhile we see Eunice, Rufus's new assistant, emerging into the countryside from a concealed entrance inside a hollow boulder, and Yasmine riding away and thinking that in another hour's riding she will be able to remove her hood. Sylvester shows Rosemary an escape hatch under the desk, leading to a panic-room which used to be well-equippped but is now almost empty. We learn that in the early days the Earldom was passed on by mortal combat. Milo was the last Earl of E officially to kill his predecessor and the first to pass the Earldom on by blood although his grandson, Dorn II, may have been murdered by his daughter in law Charlotte, who then ruled in her husband Lemuel's stead while he got on with his Panegate research. We also learn that in those days the Earldoms of E and S were friends. Sylvester doesn't know as much about his mother's family, the Mundivagants, who are grand and grudging industrialists. His brother Ace works for them. Roisemary's family were all farmers with a long tradition, but they have died out. Rosemary asks about a sign saying "Gargoyle pits" and Sylvester tells her that there are creatures called Gargoyles and Spindizzies which were bred or manufactured by the Ettins to service and repair the buildings in which they live. Gargoyles deal with the exsterior and Spindizzies with the interior, especially service machinery behind the walls and in the basement. The Mansion is a semi-living thing, a sort of colony organism, but it is slowly running down. Sylvester and Rosemary speculate about the possibility of finding still-surviving Ettins who could restore it. They cone to a corridor where an end-wall has moved aside, giving access to a service-space, so Sylvester takes Rosemary to meet the Spindizzies, warning her to get the Can-Opener out first and not tell anybody about the Poke Kit. 02: Fishing Around [27/11/2013 - 22/03/2014] The scene opens with an Ichyoid pootering about under water, wearing some sort of equipment on his chest. We return to Sylvester, telling Rosemary that the core of the Mansion where they are is malleable and in a state of flux. Two Spindizzies appear: they have grey, hairless humanoid upper bodies trailing away into wormy tails, and pterosaur-like wings. They speak like intelligent but literal-minded computers but are friendly and kind, very concerned when they hear that Rosemary is taking over as Taskmistress in case that means Prunella has died. Sylvester agrees to buy in supplies which they request, and ask them if they can tell what the Can Opener is made of, but they can't, although they may be able to duplicate it, or something like it. Sylvester seems to want to make more. Every human (or in Myrrh's case, humanoid) in the Mansion has a designated Spindizzy who communicates with them: Horace and Emily are matched to Sylvester and Rosemary. As taskmistress Rosemary will need to talk to Emily weekly. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the Ettins: Sylvester thinks the Mansion with its Panegates and moving walls wasn't intended as a residence but as some other sort of facility. They wonder whether there are any surviving Ettins - and if so, how they would react to find Humans living in their laboratory, or whatever it is. We learn that the Spindizzies are mortal flesh-and-blood ceatures but they reproduce in a mechanical incubator. The chamber where they are all meeting is a sort of holo-deck, in which the Spindizzies usccessfully produce a useable mock-up of the Can-Opener, a quasi-humanoid sparring-partner for Rosemary to practice with and a chair for Sylvester to sit in and watch. We learn that one of Ludwig's assistants went far enough down into the depth to visit the Spindizzy incubator, and his granddaughter visited the Far=Eastern Shore on the other side of the ocean from the Mansion. There were human colonies there which may or may not have survived the Crash, about which the Spindizzies know nothing. Meanwhile we see vignettes of other characters. Mortimer is breakfasting and the Landing o' Family Fun, and visiting the Fish Museum there. Eunice Kelso is seen leaving the woods and heading for Eetown, wearing a rucksack: a retired Guardian called Mr Flem warns her that the woods are dangerous. Nelly is feeding (non-sentient) Jibjibs while Amos sets what looks like Mortimer's glowgem onto a handle. Arthur the Weirdo is taking a bath, Myrrh is setting out from her and Frederick's flat, and Schmedley is being addressed by somebody off-screen and short (probably Frowgler). The Spindizzies store a template for the Can-Opener and make a copy which is only real in this environment, which functions as a sort of Holo-Deck. They simulater a sparring partner for Rosemary to test her weapon, and some background scenery including a bad, Escheresque reproduction of part of a monument called the Citadel of the Hugging Squirrels, one of the Sculpted Isles in Isdanila. This reproduction was commissioned by Dorn I for his mother Nettana, who came from that area. The Sculted Isles date back to a msyterious Dawn Era. Sylvester dozes in a chair, leaving Rosemary to her sparring, but in fact she talks to the Spindizzies instead of fighting. She elarns that they have patterns for Ettin tools as well as human ones, but most of the Ettin ones are encrypted. She encrypts the pattern for the Can-Opener so only she and Sylvester can see it. It seems that any "productive individual" can come in and encrypt personalized tools. She learns that the Spindizzies could in principle find out what the Can-Opener is made of but their access to data is blocked beyond a certain level. Rufus might be able to fix it. They tell her Rufus is at Semi-Autonomous Research Structure #001. Rosemary doesn't want to spar now because she hasn't the time, but she takes the time to walk up the imaginary sky. She starts to ask Emily the Spindizzy whether she knows that she, Rosemary, is currently... then changes the subject, which may or may not have been important. Then she wakes Sylvester and tells him where Rufus is, which he translates as the Spike. He isn't pleased, and says that the Spike is very dangerous, partly because the machines there have no built-in safety systems. The information about Rufus came from a high-ranking Spindizzy called Tanith who was Nirvana's contact, but they have lost contact with Nirvana. Meanwhile a Valentine's Day out-take shows Sheriff Patrick Skragg giving a flower to his wife Halcyone, while their son Stepehen read a Willy-the-Wendigo book. Sylvester informs the Spindizzies about the departure of the Sneeches, and asks them what they know about Willigigs. They have been aware of Protus's presence for around a month but haven't spoken to him. They are not aware of Frowgler. Sylvester and Rosemary take their leave of them: Sylvester promises to bring them some antimony which they have asked for, and which he has in store. After they leave we see Sprocket the Gnoll engineer, holding a glowgem in a wrench, opening conversation with a male Spindizzy. Rosemary and Sylvester set off to go fishing. They discuss the Mansion's mineral stores, including gold, and Rosemary tells Sylvester what she learned from the Spindizzies while he was asleep, about the data block which Rufus might be able to fix. Sylvester suggests that the same person deliberately planeted the Can-Opener with Izchak for Rosemary to find, and prevented the Spindizzies from investigationg it: he fears he is being too paranoid but Rosemary, being profesionally paranoid, suggests there may be two conflicting secret factions at work. For the moment, Sylvester is not telling the Spindizzies about the return of Nirvana, the previous Taskmistress: he means to return to the Ettinworks once he has researched Tand, and will allow Nirvana and "Mz Teree" (Annabelle) to explain themselves before making a decision about them. They make their way down to a sea-level room where there are storage lockers for fishing gear and for beach leisure gear, and a small boat, and a door to the E family's private - and artifiually-enhanced - fishing beach. They used to have a proper boat-house etc. but much of it has fallen into ruins. Ichyoids don't like large-scale commerical fishing and cut large fishing nets, so before going outside they look though a security spy-hole and see only gulls. Sylvester also talks about what he considers to be the remote possibility of somebody from the Basement making their way up to the beach (suggesting that part of it is below sea-level), and at that we see the hamster and his crew in their miniature pirate ship, approaching the open air. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss boats, and an explorer called Semidemila, and then go outside, where they stand side by side on the beach and agree that their feelings for each other are brother/sisterly rather than romantic (although acknowledging that this could change). They catch fish and gather seaweed and then go inside to cook them. Meanwhile we see a small boat propelled by a magic-powered outboard motor, and piloted by a skinny, elderly male villager whom we saw before when Protus caused Sylvester to have a vision of a selection of villagers (among other things). The hamster and his pirate crew in their tiny wind-up clockwork boat approach and order this man to stand to and prepare to be boarded, and he thinks that all Tribble-Tongued Hamsters are insane. 03: A Change in the Scene [24/03/2014 - 12/07/2014] The scene opens with Nitfol, Fizmo and three Pales (one of whom may be Thrash, as he has the same double head-spike, but he is wearing or carrying a shield and doesn't have the stripe on his chest) about to enter a tangled wood. Nitfol says that Fizmo's presence isn't neccessary to his plans - but she has her own agenda. Then we see Yasmine riding through a wood. She is just pulling up in order to do something, now she is "far enough" from the Mansion, when she feels a vibration in her bag of Fleebs. She opens it and the Fleebs leap out, although they do not appear rabid. Meanwhile we see the E family make breakfast. Amos and Nellie bring Jib-Jib eggs, Sylvester and Rosemary have fish and edible seaweed, and Mortimer brings a bottle of a magically-active drink called Yurple Juice. He won it by playing a game at Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, and feels he may have cheated magically. The Weirdo (seriously hungover) and Fantod arrive and are introduced to Rosemary. Then Myrrh (the Scary Lady) and Frederick arrive, dressed as if for a very fancy trip to a smart restaurant or theatre, and Myrrh announces that they are now retiring from their work to keep the family alive. Myrrh also satisfies the Weirdo's curiosity by dropping her glamour and revealing to him that she is a Demon. Mortimer is now Sylvester's Regent, his understudy - about which he is less than thrilled. Sylvester tells him just to do what Sylvester tells him when Sylvester is present, othrwise what Rosemary tells him. Since the Mansion will now be less secure, Sylvester offers Amos and Nellie the chance to retire to the village, but they refuse. Instead, Amos will teach Mortimer magic. Meanwhile Sylvester, Rpsemary andf Mortimer need to go to the village to update Saffron, the lady mayor, on what's been happening, to sell Dornbeast parts and to attend the Temple. Mortimer wants to light an candle for Nitfol, whom he believes to be dead through his fault. Because the Poke Kit won't work so well away from the Mansion's magic tricklepoint, Rosemary and Sylvester go to the Barrackstack to deposit the Can Opener in a vault and collect other equipment. Meanwhile Mortimer goes to take antimony to the Spindizzies. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Ludwig's machines still work, and why this might be. Rosemary thinks that the Weirdo is ill or hungover but competant, and has had military training. Knowing that the Weirdo is conspiring with Yamine in some way, Sylvester says they should lock their doors at night. The Barrackstack goes down as far below ground as above. Although it contains some Ettin elements it was mainly built by Angus and Audra. There are sealed-off escape tunnels from the barracks which open into places which are now inside Eetown. A sign points to the Party Palace, built by Ernest, and describes the attractions on offer there. They discuss a very complex card-game called Quincunx, and some kind of game which involves magically-powered equipment and is played in an Underwear Arena. Whatever it is long-married couples are especially good at it (which suggests it might involve listing your partner's physical or sexual quirks), and people called Shrouders - the reverse of nudists - cannot play it. All the local villagers are informally Shrouders. Motimer takes the antimony to his Spindizzy contact, Charles. Charles recognizes the umbrella as a "thaumalogical flow enhancer and regulator" and already knew Mortimer had wizard potential. The scene cuts to a female Spindizzy, Clementine, who is talking to Sina, Sprocket and a male Trog, probably either Mowder or Grak. Sina is quizzing Clementine about her claim to have met the Earl. Sylvester opens a weapons-vault to keep the Can Opener in: like military exercises the vaults have random names. This one contains a wide range of good spears and swords. They put the Can-OPener into a safe, then enter Rosemary into the herediscan system. They discuss Griffiongton - his collection of obscene limericks, his management of the Factor E and his possession of three minions, Drowpole, Krell and Strauhatt. Rosemary is now Sylvester's minion, after Nirvana, who was the first. They see a statue which purports to be of an Obsidian Sneech, but is more sinister than accurate. This area of the mansion, which is actually of great military importance, is dotted with signs which suggest that only boring things happen there. Arthur and Fantod are sitting by the counting-down machine. Fantod, who seems to be an actual creature, looks stunned. Arthur says he assumes that "she knew all along" - perhaps a reference to Yasmine - and he plans to take Amos's advice - which was to drink the magically-active Yurple Juice. Sylvester gives Rosemary an instruction manual for the Poke Kit. She reads about secured sub-pockets and has a half memory of the Tree giving her a secret seed, but it slips her mind again. She experiments with taking a Glowgem in and out. Sylvester meanwhile asks Amos for a book on "night beasties" but they don't have a copy - only Rosemary's memory of reading it. Rosemary's Glowgem seems to be attracted to a sort of spiral ornament or mirror on the wall, which she stares at and may be hypnotized by. She finds the whole sub-pocket idea creepy, because there could be anything in there, and without the assistance of an official service engineer she wouldn't know it and might accidentally say a password which would cause something dangerous to erupt. They can't empty it by taking it into the Quiet Room, as that might damage it. Rosemary has written to Aunt Edna but she has described where she is, and Sylvester is concerned that her enemies might get it out of her aunt. Sylvester advises her to send another less specific letter via his lawyer, Mr Ferule. They discuss Tansy's army which is chasing Rosemary, and which is called The Quincunx (which is also the name of a complex game). If The Quincunx finds out where Rosemary is and comes as an army it would take them six months to get to E, but it's possible they could send an assassin, or hire a local one by wire. The cause of Rosemary's quarrel with Tansy seems to have been something bad that Tansy did to a Gnoll (although she doesn't tell Sylvester that) and there's a hint that the thing which Rosemary stole from The Quincunx was whatever she used to travel instantly to the east. Being about to leave to walk to the village, they discuss a thing at the entrance called the Gatestone, believed to have been moved there by Ettric, the 2nd Earl. We see Mortimer waiting for them in an official Assembly Alcove, and being joined there by Arthur the Weirdo and his puppet Fantod, who congratulate him on becoming Regent. Mortimer still smells of sphagnum dust, and this leads to a discussion of Arthur's days at the Weirdo Academy. 04: Barriers and Gates [14/07/2014 - 27/11/2014] We see the Saurs Buzz and Ig meeting by the ruins of a museum in Eetown. Ig has a Glowgem. Buzz wants Ig to tell him about what has become of Snerk. Mortimer and Arthur discuss whether Weirdos are allowed to marry (opinions vary). They discuss a girl named Melba who lives in the village, a friend of Mortimer's sister Lilith's, and quite eccentric, but Arthur says she is too frivolous to make an official Weirdo. Sylvester joins the others at the assembly point. Trailing behind him, Rosemary surreptitiously deposits several items - what may be her original letter to her aunt, plus a lantern and a bottle - in a large urn. It is one of several artistic and archaeological artefacts which grace the hallway. The main door of the mansion is set into a giant Ettin artefact like a huge boulder which manipulates light in some way. It leads to a walled outside area, the main gates of which have been deliberately blocked with rubble to prevent mass invasion. The party discuss the fortifications erected by previous earls, and the early earls themselves, and why the village is called Eetown not Etown. The fortifications are now a bit gappy, and electronic repellers are used to keep out wild animals. These also protect the orchard and the main path to the village. Sylvester and Mortimer, Rosemary, Arthur and Fantod walk towards Eetown, discussing how the area came to be renamed Audravania instead of Northwoods, and the vast lands which Audra had ruled before her fatal decision to poke the Hot Zone. Audra had made a voluntary marriage, albeit a political one, but prior to her many future Earls had been forcibly betrothed as children. Plenty of women at university wanted to marry Sylvester for his title. We learn that while at university Sylvester attended the coronation of the king and queen, Yancy and Fluer. Amos has visited the capital with Frederick, but Nellie has never been outside Audravania, except on her honeymoon. when they went to a fashionable spot called Rowen. This leads to a discussion of an island off Eetown, called Alwin, which belongs to the Earls but which they allow honeymooning couples from the village to use. Mortimer says that this arrangement is important to the villagers, which leads to him telling Sylvester what's going on there at the moment - including a break-in at Genrick's tailor shop, where stuff was taken overnight, but money was left for it. Rufus's friend Eunice is mentioned as one of a number of people who have recently moved into the area: the village is growing and there is a debate as to whether or not to expand it beyond the boundary hedge. They meet and speak to a pig-farmer called Terin Flem, who comes from the same area (Moonin) as Rosemary and who used to be Guardian to a hardline Oracle named Omega, whom Sylvester didn't get on with. Sylvester and Mortimer have an obscure private conversation about change, while Rosemary talks to Arthur and Fantod. Sylvester wants Mortimer not to go public about being a wizard, for the moment. Arthur tries to quiz Rosmary about how she got there but she evades the question and instead asks him about what Weirdos do. They are jesters who "speak truth to power". Arthur, Fantod and Rosemary discuss the new, safer denizens' tunnel from the mansion to the basement, and the disappearance of the Sneeches. Meanwhile the party arrives at the outskirts of the village and Sylvester shows Rosemary the irrigation ditches and other features. They come to the Temple, which was made from the remains of a very grand one which was destroyed in the Crash, and which lies just outside the hedge which surrounds the village, and they discuss it, and the character of Omega, the previous Oracle. We learn that Sylvester and Mortimer's father had been partially responsible for, and died in, some kind of accident involving stampeding elifinos in a nearby town called Noodle. They meet a little girl called Juniper, who is the granddaughter of Amos and Nellie. She has a special friendship with Fantod. The group go through a sensory ritual - watch the flames, smell the blossoms, taste the water, listen to the Brush. The last is done by sitting on a bench made of rare and precious materials. To mark Hallowe'en we see a raiding party of Nomes, including Umboz's brother Frotz who is desperate to get out of it, creeping towards a Gnoll village. They are scared off by a pumpkin-headed spectre which is really Frowgler in costume, using some kind of glowing magic or technology to fly. Rosemary and Juniper discuss where various people come from, and Rosemary manages to give the girl a very strange idea of what a walrus looks like. They talk with Sylvester about Inuit-equivalents called Tunits, and the secretive, hostile Haroons, and the harsh northen shore called Skralland, to the north of Audravania. We learn that there used to be a secretive underground nation called the Polarites, but their society was destroyed in the Crash. They used to have an exit tunnel near Eetown, for trade. There are people in Eetown of Haroon (Miss Lundquist) or Polarite (Peter Nigultrum) ancestry, and they can't ever go home. Meanwhile, Arthur and Mortimer sit on the bench and ask for divine assurance that they are doing the right thing, and both receive it, more or less. Fantod and Juniper talk about her hopes for a more interesting career than agriculture. We see an out-take for Thanksgiving, in which Myrrh and Frederick are about to start on a feast. I have left this in the time-line, as well as putting it with the Christmas cards etc., because it fits with the idea that they have gone on a second honeymoon. 05: Eetown - The Temple [28/11/2014 - 25/08/2015] The party from the Mansion enter the temple, where Sylvester introduces Rosemary to the Oracle Threnody and various town worthies. Sylvester assures the townsfolk in the Temple that Rosemary is human, and fully qualified to be Taskmistress, and tells them that Frederick has retired as Regent and Mortimer will be taking over. Sheriff Patrick Skragg quizzes Rosemary as to whether she is a fugitive from the King's Law. She swears that she isn't, then sends the child Juniper off with the Weirdo and Fantod to show Fantod how she's been practising some skill he's been helping her with. Once they are out of earshot she tells the rest that she is also taking over Myrrh's duties as bodyguard and will be wearing a sword. Threnody is dubious about Rosemary's past use of violent force, but accepts that it may have been necessary. The Sheriff provisionally accepts Rosemary's offer of help with the town militia, but Waldo Weequash, head of the Eetown Guild of Fisherfolk and Octopus Wranglers, thinks Rosewmary is a vagabond who will bring a criminal element into the town, Saffron Stout, innkeeper and impromptu mayor, points out that Rosemary will mainly be at the Mansion and agrees with the sheriff that they should give her a chance, and asks Sylvester to call on her privately later. Threnody - who is emergency backup Taskmistress - quizzes Rosemary about her Temple attendance, and Rosemary promises to make sure Sylvester goes to Temple more often. Outside the Temple, the townsfolk discuss Rosemary privately. The sheriff is planning to check up on her in police records, just in case, but they agree she seems saner than Myrrh. Mortimer and the Weirdo remain at the Temple to light memorial candles to speed the passage of the dead, the Weirdo for his friend Tulip, and Mortimer for Nitfol whom he wrongly believes to be dead. They discuss the fact that there are some Nomes and Motihauls who follow the Brush and have their own Oracles, but most non-humans have their own religions. Sylvester mentions that the Nomes have a male priest, and Threnody is interested in meeting him. While Mortimer and the Weirdo are praying, Rosemary and Sylvester look at the Temple's paintings of the various founding Oracles, and discuss their favourites. Rosemary follows Hettie, who carried a light in the darkness, and Sylvester likes Joice, who stood for inspiration. Mortimer passes on a message to Dirge, the current Guardian, that Finale, the previous Guardian, would like to speak to him. Mortimer wants to ask something, but feels that the time is not yet. The group go and stand by a large boulder outside the town gates ("The Town Rock") where they won't be overheard, and discuss Yasmine and the Weirdos generally. Mortimer is able to pick them out because he can sense their mind shapes. They discuss the fact that Rosemary has not been taught any magical theory, because she was educated at the Hack & Slash Academy whose purpose was to produce effective H&S employees and they very rarely encounter magic-users these days. Also H&S is riddled with factions: they used to have a Wizwitch Brigade and Rosemary suspects it may still exist but is being kept a secret, even from other factions in H&S. We learn that the Weirdo Academy is very ancient. It's in a town called Marksburg, in Fredonia, and is where the E boys' mother came from. Nowadays Marksburg has a stodgy reputation, but it has a lively history. In the past there were several Weirdo schools and they went by several names, such as Tomfool. Milo was the first Earl of E to hire one. The Trio fall to discussing the various worthies they met at the Temple. Sylvester fills Rosemary in on the background to the various people she met at the Temple, and village issues such as the need to bring in a full-time Healer, since at the moment the Oracle, Threnody, is both healer and teacher. Sylvester's only friends in the village are Peter Nigultrum the solicitor, and a fisherman called Captain Tugwart. They discuss who is and isn't local. People who were born in the village are accepted as local even if their parents were foreign, but if Rosemary stays fifty years she'll still be "The Mooninite" because she wasn't born in Eetown. She says she'll earn a more distinctive label than that, thinking of herself as some sinister dark queen with a flaming sword. Rosemary can tell that Dirge is combat-trained and wonders why the High Temple thought Eeetown needed him. This leads to a discussion about how the Spyders and Tree-Squids got into the area, and about things called Raviners or Hill Crabs. Mortimer would like to talk about the events of the previous day but they don't have time. As they approach the entrance to Eetown proper they discuss various Oracles Rosemary has met on her travels. In a brief out-take, we see Schmedley placing a black arm-band on the flipper of a statue of a world-turtle, to commemorate the death of Terry Pratchett. Sylvester and co. discuss the defenses of Eetown, with drawbridges put in after the Crash. The defenses ar enot very good, and post-Crash the town had some trouble with raiders until Myrrh got back. She, Frederick and Quincy had been holidaying in Aruba (a place without magic) when the Crash hit. It was on their way back that Quincy met Agnes, his future wife. Meanwhile the town made a defensive wall out of crashed cars, and then grew a hedge over and through them. We see an ancient wand-tree called an Oakapple (nothing to do with real oak apples) which grows just inside the hedge. Post-Crash, the rallying point for local survivors was a big pub called the Moose and Squirrel. Because it was a cheap outfit which didn't use much magic it survived the Crash relatively intact. The innkeeper, Simon, had acquired the place by dubious means, but he became impromptu mayor and did a good job of coordinating disaster relief. Hpthbvtw's remains will have to be decontaminated in some way because he was killed by an Operator blastm but the contamination is lessened by the fact that it was caused by the Operator's involuntary revival. The two Stirrers discuss this, with reference to Myrrh. the Scary Lady, whom they call the Collared Lurker. Sylvester and co. head for the local administrative offices, but as they pass by the fountain in the main square they become aware that they have an audience. Sylvester lectures Rosemary about the layout of the town, where the bathhopuse is etc., trying to sound confident and impress the watchers. The town has a watch tower, but these days it's mainly used as a love-nest. They speak to the townsfolk who have been watching them, and Rosemary (under the false surname Dapple) is introduced to everybody. Most striking, perhaps, is a young mother called Silence Krenshaw whom Sylvester knows very well, and had considered hiring as Taskmistress. We will learn that she and Sylvester were childhood playmates. They discuss Rosemary's duties, and that Sylvester wants Rosemary to serve as a Mature and Responsible Adult, a formal title which means that she will somehow help him to find a wife. He does not fancy Rosemary herself. Silence says that there is somebody out there for Sylvester. Mortimer meanwhile talks to an adoring fanclub of young girls. They ask him about his unbrella and he says you never know when a storm might blow up. One of them is evidently psychic and she realsies both that he is speaking metaphorically, and that a metaphorical storm is indeed coming. Sylvester and co. head for Government House, followed by a gaggle of children. They discuss the pudding plant, a local cash crop which only grows well in Audravania. Rosemary has never eaten a fresh one. Rosemary wonders why so small a town has a bank. Sulvester explains that it gives them independence from the Noodle Fish-Monger's Association, and lists the conditions required in order for them to have an official bank, and its personnel. It is illegal for an agent of the King's Law, such as the sheriff, officially to work for a bank. The town government is full of bickering and back-biting. The bank manager is Peter Nigultrum, who also helps the sub-literate to write letters. He is engaged to a woman called Ida, whom they meet coming away from the bank. Ida and Rosemary discuss Rosemary's home district of Moonin and the presence there of the Beacons, three offshore monoliths believed to date back to the Dawn Wars. Ida seems unaware that the Mansion is equally interesting and historic. The first Prime Oracle, Daisy, came from Moonin, but Rosemary feels that Daisy was ashamed of her humble origins. They meet Peter the bank manager, who works out that Rosemary is the new Taskmistress from her clothes. They tell Peter that Frederick and Myrrh have retired, and that Mortimer is a wizard. The only bit that surprises Peter is that Myrrh is able to retire. We glimpse Myrrh at some sort of hotel, apparently amusing herself by wrestling robots. Peter predicts that Mortimer's newfound wizard status will lead to trouble. We see Dirge, the current Guardian, and Terin Flem, the previous one, discussing the changes in personnel at the Mansion, and saying that Dirge has a decision to make. Immediately post-Crash, magic was regarded as evil, and Flem should really have told Omega that Mortimer was a wizard, and then somebody would have come and taken the boy away, but Flem liked Mortimer and kept quiet. An officious official named Appleby also failed to report Mortimer - Flem thinks he just never noticed what was going on because he was stuck behind his desk. Dirge will tell Threnody about Mortimer, but won't call someone to collect him unless Mortimer wants him to. Flem tells Dirge about Eunice being out in the woods again. Peter tells Mortimer there may still be a magic school which Threnody could help him find if Amos turns out not to be a good teacher. They discuss Polarite technology and social structures: Peter's father was in security, relatively low-status but with access to information. Peter had thought of contacting the surviving Polarites in the captal, but Sylvester says they would scorn him for having facial hair. The Symmites, the Polarite sub-group to which Peter's father belonged, were allowed to open a trade gate in the same country as Eetown, where they to some extent went native and became more open and sociable than most Polarites. That was why Peter's father was able to be wandering around on the surface without any magical machinery when the Crash hit, and so survived. ` Sylvester and Rosemary give Peter a highly edited version of Rosemary's life story. Peter knows the Mansion and its dangers well - he even has his own Spindizzy, Alfred. [An out-take at this point celebrates the legalization of gay mariage in the US by showing Baldy with a slightly younger - and much hairier - boyfriend, looking at rainbow flutterbys.] Peter tells Sylvester they have some paperwork to go over [Ipcress files!], so Sylvester asks Mortimer to take Rosemary away and introduce her to Shadrik. Sylvester and Peter then discuss Peter's upcoming marriage to Ida. Peter says Sylvester will never marry a local girl because they aren't academically stimulating enough - not even Ida or Silence - whereas he himself was looking for somebody who was restful to be with. Sylvester will be his best man. Sylvester trusts Peter so much that he tells him at least the gist of Rosemary's true story, including that Dapple isn't her real surname (although not what is). Peter will look out for people looking out for Rosemary. Sylvester doesn't want to marry Rosemary because she's not intellectual or educated, but she's a perfect Taskmistress - so perfect he suspects somebody is interfering in his life, and sent her to him. [Out-take: to celebrate the strip's twelfth anniverary: we briefly see the pirate hamster and his crew approaching an island which has a sentient tree.] We see that Eunice works in the pub, apparently as a cook. Rosemary and Mortimer are given free sausages by the town's Sausage Stroller. Mortimer is feeling very guilty about having accidentally magically hypnotised Rosemary the day before, so she punishes and absolves him by giving him a light bonk on the head. They talk about the fact that he has only left the area a few times, and comes across as rather sheltered, but now responsibility has been thrust on him and he will meet it. Rosemary talks about the relatively safe life she left to become a bodyguard, and the fact that her home village had an ancient ruined tower built by Gobblems, and which she used to climb. She later travelled to most of the places she could see from up there, but many of the towns were a bit same-y because they were rebuilt at the same time, after Unification. Talking about education and the E-family tutor causes Mortimer to realise there's something about Rufus and Eunice which he is forgetting. They look at Shadrik, which/who is a haulage Metalmin who is fairly bright but doesn't speak, and lives in a former stable. Dorian Ingersoll the hermit used to live in it. Dorian's history is confusing: we've been told he's lived in the Spike for forty-two years, but here we're told he lived in the forest when Mortimer was a child, and we've seen the ruins of his hut when Yasmine came across them. Shadrik's battery is flat but Rufus is working on recharging it. Rosemary works out that Sylvester just wanted her and Mortimer out of the way so he could speak to Peter privately. To kill time she suggests they climb the local watchtower, so she can survey the terrain. To get to it they go through a warehouse used to store apples, which has been altered and added to till it's almost as complex as the Mansion. They are passed by some sort of functionary (beginning with a B) who wears false Nome ears and costume wings. It's possible the B stands for Batgirl, especially as she lives in the Belfry "like usual". 06: Eetown - The State [26/08/2015 - 20/11/2015] From the tower they look down on the village square, which doubles as a fuzzball court. Mortimer points out various districts of the town, and they see Old Man Larssen's place outside the town hedge, although he has a hedge of his own. Rosemary is pleased to be able to see the Specific Ocean, which was on her To-Do List. They discuss a range of wonders Rosemary hopes to see, many of which have already beebn visited by Mortimer's mother and sister, although they were unable to get into a place called Sybola where there is some kind of secret Rosemary wishes to solve. A "really creepy" region called Mechana is mentioned. Rosemary thinks the main thing on Mortimer's To-Do List right now should be to learn how to use the wand-umbrella. A Labour Day out-take shows various kinds of labour in Eetown, including the Batgirl who is writing or drawing at an easel. Rosemary and Mortimer meet Sylvester outside the bank and he refers to the Batgirl as "our Flittermouse". Sylvester takes them to meet Sherman P Gray, the new(ish) government Clerk of Eetown. He has a telegraph machine run off batteries re-charged by a hand-turned charger, and many duties, one of which is to register new arrivals like Rosemary. He is also postman and tax-collector, and has a form for Mortimer to register as the new Regent of E. [In a brief out-take, we see the pirates (hamster and co.) arrive at Piratestash Island and recruit a resident gull to the crew. A stunted tree on the island implies that the Plant is being punished by being required to stay with the crew.] We learn about the unofficial but influential Tome of Royal Succession, a kind of Debrett's Peerage. The Keepers of the Tome will want to know not only about Mortimer becoming Regent, but about Rosemary becoming Taskmistress. We are reminded of the fact that this is a post-apocalyptic setup by the fact that Rosemary is impressed that the Post Office pigeon-holes have doors - and by the fact that those doors are post-Crash architectural salvage. Sherman sees from her form that Rosemary comes from an island called Dyngusmyles, which has a reputation for having wild, backwoods people, and has strange weather because it's close to the Beacons. Sherman himself comes from a mining area in Thull. They compare weather. Sylvester warns Sherman that Rosemary is a fighter and will be wearing a sword as part of her duties. Sherman OKs this but says that while they are in his government office weapons must be deposited in a special receptable, and Mortimer promptly puts his umbrella in it. Sherman fills Sylvester in on various items of news, including the fact that a ship from a far-off region named Coradine has visited a port called Woldercan. Coradine is part of the same continent as the Mansion but it's an island as far west as it gets, quite reclusive, and many of its inhabitants are Motihauls. To get to Woldercan the Coradine ship would have had to sail round the edge of a region called Kadath, which is inhabited by Wendigoes, and past an island called Honaly (as in Puff the Magic Dragon) where there are [human?] Viking-type sea-raiders whom we see sailing a ship whose sail bears the image of the hamster pirate captain. It's possible they came for Yurple Juice, a wildly popular and expensive drink with magical properties. The party take leave of Sherman, promising to return later to set up a post-box for Rosemary and collect the newspaper. There is a mention of the previous day's magical pit-flare being a reoccurring event, and of the recent finding of a dead Ichyoid washed into the harbour. Sylvester says that Myrrh is listed in the Official Threats Compendium, but since she hasn't killed anybody it's not worth anyone's while to go to the trouble of trying to banish her. Behind them, in his office, Sherman looks up Mortimer's umbrella in the Official Threats Compendium, and finds it. We elarn that there's a series of Government departments with harmless-sounding names - Redundancy, Secondary Overlap, Tertiary Retainment - which process information and look for interesting connections. They discuss rural pubs and Rosemary tells them about Rory Vinsmith, an innkeeper in Moonin who murdered some of his customers. In the west he is famous, but now they are so far from her home that nobody's heard of him. Saffron, the local innkeeper at the Moose and Squirrel, may have heard of him, and Sylvester quietly warns Rosemary that Saffron may have heard of her Aunt Eva, the gambler. Eunice Kelso is one of her barmaids. They enter the Moose and Squirrel and meet Sharona, Saffron's neice, who is evidently an old gitrlfriend of Mortimer's. She is overcome by the smell of sphagnum dust coming off Mortimer. They meet Mavis, one of the barmaids, and then Saffron. Saffron takes a bottle of Pudding Liquor, just uncorked that day, from a shelf: something grey is glimpsed poking out from behind an adjacent bottle. They drink from it, and Sylvester immediately passes out, while Rosemary begins seeing imaginary glowing flutterbies. Mortimer seems unaffected. 07: Revelations [30/11/2015 - 27/05/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for the next chapter I decided to include them. Rosemary and Sylvester wake, very groggy, to find themselves lying on a jetty on Alwin Island, the honeymoon destination, accompanied by a grey cat who had been outside the pub. The island will prove to be littered with large stone sculptures, mostly of non-human animals. They agree that they must have been drugged, not just drunk, and discuss possible culprits. Neither of them really thinks it was Saffron, and this is confirmed by a brief view of Mavis the barmaid discovering Saffron herself collapsed behind the bar. Sylvester's main suspect is Old Man Larssen, the town vet, who is very educated but also obsessive and secretive, a bit like Crazy Rhid - even so Sylvester doesn't really think he did it. He half suspects Eunice, who comes from Noodle and could be an agent of his enemies the Noodle Fishmongers' Association. No other visitors are expected - nobody comes there except newlyweds, or about-to-be-weds preparing the venue. There is however a rowing boat concealed on the island. They manage to stagger to their feet in order to go find the boat, but Rosemary thinks they are still both too stoned to steer and suggests that since they were planning to have a private talk anyway, now is a good time and place. About here we also see seasonal Christmas 2015 and New Year 2016 scenes featuring Smyts. Originally I included these Smyt outtakes in the Saturdays in the Basement section, since most of them take place underground, but then Rob decided to make one of them a chapter header which clearly belonged in the main story-line, so I moved them here. The Christmas scene just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but the New Year one is quite information-rich, which is why I've included it here as a regular strip. It shows a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. Sylvester shows Rosemary some of the sights of the island, since as Taskmistress she will be expected to oversee the team of respectable village matrons who prepare the honeymoon cabin for weddings. They return to the dock (and the cat) to sit and talk, on the far side of the island from the village. Further out they can see Scraggy Island, which holds a lighthouse and the town graveyard. The lighthouse keeper is Dougal Izzard. His wife Selene Perkins left but their daughter Shelby stayed, married Grumby the carpenter and had a son Edson who is apprentice lighthouse-keeper. Here there is an outtake scene showing Frederick and Myrrh playing chess with two men called Jebediah and Jones, who are wearing formal dinner suits. These are based on Angus Scrimm and David Bowie, who died that week, and a poster of Grabthar's Hammer on the wall commemorates Alan Rickman, also lost. The next day we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. Sylvester talks Rosemary through the history of the area, beginning with creation by the Brush and the first civilization, the Wilfs and Gobbblems (Dreamers and Builders), who erected wonderful buildings and even had colonies on the moon before destroying each other in the Dawn War. Sylvester has glimpsed what seemed to be a Wilf and a Gobblem through a Panegate, so it may be that there are survivors on other continents. Then the Ettins and Sneeches built up another high-tech civilization and then again destroyed it in war, after which Humans and Nomes moved in, spreading from jungles in the south. Before that destruction, the Ettins built the main towers of the mansions of E and S. The Tower of S was so-called because of an S-shaped mark on the walls, but the Mansion of E is a corruption of the Tower of Ett(in)s - their names were later changed from Tower to Mansion for some beaurocratic reason. Stitched through the main story-line we see more Smyt vignettes. We see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-sized lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). We see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis, and Super Smyt rescuing two other Smyts from a prison, and a Smyt St Patrick driving out serpents, and Smyts partying in a tree for Arbor Day. We learn that nomadic humans who didn't even have agriculture reached the Towers late in the human diaspora, at a time when the country of Ackbar, in the south, already had quite an advanced human civilization along the banks of the Refutation (De Nial). The name of the first Earl isn't known but he led his tribe into the valley and died while storming the Tower. Legend says he fought and defeated living Ettins but this is unlikely given their advanced technology. A lone Ettin skull was later found in the Tower. The first Earl's descendants avoided the interior of the Tower for generations afterwards but they set up camp and built new buildings around its foot. The area was rich in resources and they had to fight off would-be invaders. Sylvester gives Rosemary a detailed run-down of the various Earls, which you can find summarised on the background page. The most salient points are that many of the early Earls were villains and slave-traders who came to power by murdering their predecessors, until they got to the brilliant philosopher and strategist Milo, the Ninth Earl, who severed the family's links to the slave trade, converted to the new religion of the Brush, moved into the Ettin-built Tower and made contact with the Spindizzies. Milo's mother, Persafone, was a slave who deliberately trained Milo up to be a successful warrior who would murder Milo's father, Frake, at her urging, knowing Milo would help her to survive her intended coup against Frake. But Milo's heart was more in intellectual learning than bloodshed and after his wife died he abdicated in favour of his son, and sailed away to explore new lands. Milo's son Dorn I was scientifically-minded and bred the Dornbeasts for use as living siege engines. After he was killed by one his wife Aimee became regent for their son Dorn II, who unfortunately was a shallow sports jock. Dorn II was mostly gay and apart from getting an heir with his wife Olivia his sexual partnership was with a guy named Heffston, who was a much better strategist and ruler than Dorn. In an aside, we see Arthur and Fantod talking to village children. They seem to believe Rosemary and Sylvester are still in the inn with Saffron. Dorn II was killed, possibly by his daughter in law Charlotte, who had a loving but quarrelsome relationship with Dorn's son Lemuel, the Panegate expert. Lemuel eventually abdicated in favour of his daughter Wilhelmina, who was aided by her step-grandfather Heffston. Wilhelmina just called herself W for most purposes and was considered ceremonailly male, to the point of wearing a false beard. She had some magic, restricted to manipulating stone, and was a prolific sculptor who turned Alwin Island into a shrine to her dead husband Alwin. One of her younger sisters became a famous and scary witch called Arianya of the Bracken. W committed suicide by allowing a large block of stone to fall on her, and was succeeded by her son Linus, the combat botanist. He went on an expefition to the jungle and married a Zanduan woman named Padma who was his intellectual equal and they explored the Basement (at a time when most of the species down there were still shut into enclosed habitats) and put in lights. Linus it was who bred The Tree which made Basement society possible. 08: Naming Names [30/05/2016 - 23/12/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for this chapter I decided to include them. The chapter opens with a group of above-ground Smyts celebrating their version of Memorial Day. Sylvester continues to talk about his ancestors, and how Linus took the Seed of the Tree deep into the Basement and never came home. He talks about Griffington, the fifteenth Earl, who was very intelligent but only interested in making money, at which he was very successful. Griffington went on an expedition to the Infernal Engine, which was smaller in those days (so it's still growing), and to Mechana to look at their technology. He and other techs of the period managed to make their own basic robots and restore some of the much better Ettin ones - one of the latter, Akillhees, works in mathematics at the university. Griffington had a lot of commercial enemies and rivals, including the Scion of S. He died in an industrial accident (or maybe not an accident). [Out-take: eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub.] Griffington was succeeded by his son Angus and Angus's loyal and more cunning brother Cyrus. Angus went on a tour, like his ancestors, but he took an army with him and conquered S and other neighbouring states although some of them, such as Rowen, gave as good as they got. [Out-takes - a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch, and the next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise.] When Angus and Cyrus were young, Cyrus married Cassandra Grayflint and they had a son Artston. Griffington sent Angus to visit the Infernal Engine to broaden his mind, and as a result he fell for a very wild, rough but playful female techie named Syn who somewhat resembled Myrrh, who refused to marry him but became his consort, and who died in childbirth giving birth to Audra. Audra grew up at loggerheads with Cyrus, who had d1strusted her mother. In later life Angus's conquests ground to a halt and he died peacefully in bed - and Cyrus promptly tried to seize the earldom for himself and his son. [Fourth of July out-take - a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake.] Audra thrashed Cyrus in combat and convinced him to become her loyal follower. Together they conquered Rowen and then consolidated their holdings and formed the Northwoods Alliance. Audra contracted a loveless political marriage with the intellectually brilliant John Harfang, with whom she had a son, Ludwig. [Out-take - two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake to mark the strip's thirteenth birthday.] The Northwoods Alliance stood against the advancing army of Yorik Yurp, later Yorick I, and lost, despite the best efforts of John Harfang who, under the alias "The Frost Fox", served as a secret agent and was killed while on a mission (and later became the subject of a series of lurid spy thrillers). Audra protected Ludwig by hiding him away as a child and then sending him to the university under an assumed name, while getting one of Cyrus's grandchildren (so Ludwig's second cousin) to pretend to be Ludwig in order to draw Yorik's fire. The Northwoods Alliance eventually lost the war, in part because Wirtwam decided that Yorik was the lesser of two evils and Hyacinth of Wirtwam married him. But the war was long and bloody and forced the pace of technological development. Audra and Cyrus were probably looking for a technological edge when they poked the Hot Zone and were killed, but their deaths really finished the Alliance. Yorik crushed their last resistance by destroying the town of Glome (and incidentally probably killing the fake Ludwig), then re-built it, and any local nobles who were willing to swear allegiance were grafted into the new Yurpsland heirarchy. The real Ludwig was one of them - the Yurpsland troops didn't know who he was, and in any case had known Audra as the head of the Northwoods Alliance, not as the Earl of E. Ludwig's politically astute partner Penelope Orrery from Gilad (a temple-administered neutral state) coached him on how to do this. [Out-take - a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell.] Sylvester isn't sure whether Yorik was really fooled over Ludwig, or knew who he was but decided to spare him. Ludwig was a super-genius who enjoyed university and made many friends there; he was very popular with the girls and could have had his pick of the local beauties, but preferred the slightly plain Penelope for her brains. Ludwig didn't graduate because he went home to help his mother with the war affort; Penelope worked out his real identity somehow, and followed him (and reached E before he did). It was because Ludwig never graduated that the fund set up to pay for his tuition was never wound up, and remained available to pay future heirs' university fees. Ludwig tried to stop his mother from poking the Hot Zone but she did it anyway, and died, and he and Penelope were left holding the reins. They actually did very well, since Ludwig was able to sell his inventions - materially assisted by Yorik's conquest of the whole area, which had resulted in a unified trading and patent system. [Out-take for Labor Day - a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks.] It is mentioned that vamphyrs don't really exisa but zombies do (but only briefly as they tend to explode), that many of Ludwig's devices were one-off prototypes and that Yorik I wrote his own memoirs. These memoirs are little known because his son wasn't that interested in promoting them, and besides they weren't very well-written. But they deal extensively with Audra, whom Yorik rather admired - it was he who re-named the province where E is situated Audravania. [Out-take for Talk Like a Pirate Day - Captain Hamster, the crew of the Pretty Lady and a gull are all getting drunk on grog.] Ludwig died of pneumonia after getting soaked while walking in the rain. His son Ernest, hedonist, (consensual) philanderer and forger, took over. His parents were disappointed because he wasn't interested in science, or all that bright, but he was very interested in plays and a reasonably good actor himself, when he could be bothered. He married Lucidia Penderghast, gold-digger and amateur actress, and they nearly deserved each other. At university Ernest discovered that he was good at maths, history and a proficient if uninspired kind of art. He did a certain amount of commercial graphics work and a lot of art forgery, although the latter was really just a hobby. He was a fairly successful playwright, although not good at dialogue, and very good at improving other people's scripts. He and Lucidia fought a lot but seemed to enjoy it, and they had three sons, Philbert, Hindenburgh the wizard, and Valentin, who was the one to whom the Djinnoscope gave a clean death. Ernest was fatally stabbed by, or over, one of his lovers. [Out-take for Columbus Day - a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt.] Philbert married the artist Hepzibah Kelly and founded a chain of "Lovelace" orphanages, using Kelly's mother's maiden name. He helped preserve the Forest of Burzee as a public park instead of letting it be carved up into private estates. He supported many smaller charities and was a faithful husband. But Sylvester believes he did these things to rebuild the family's post-Ernest reputation, not because he really cared. Philbert was killed in a motor-racing accident a month before the Crash and was succeeded by his son Quincy. Quincy was not very bright, but he was genuinely caring and scraped through university by hard work. His Hall of Achievement entry just says that he tied his own shoes, but this turns out to be fairly serious: he kept walking, kept trying, and held the Mansion area together after the Crash. He survived the Crash because he, his brother Frederick and Myrrh were in Aruba, which uses no magic. Afterwards they had to walk hundreds of miles home - hence the importance of the shoes. On their way they picked up another survivor, Agnes Bloggett, who married Quincy. Hepzibah, who had stayed home because of health problems, died in the Crash. Quincy eventually died after falling from one of the Mansion's towers. [Out-takes - a Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en. Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. A Smyt nurse gives soup to a patient in bed. Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives.] Willoughby attended university where he met his future wife, Dorothea Mundivagant. Both were very vague but possibly magically gifted. Sylvester thinks that it was wrong of Frederick not to tell Mortimer that he, Mortimer, was a wizard - but it was probably a good decision not to tell Willoughby that he was. They had six children - Sylvester, Ace, Mortimer, the twins Lilith and Lenore, and Rufus. Rufus was conceived because the local contraceptive Stiflebloom plant had failed. [Out-take for Armistice Day - two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war.] Because Willoughby was so lazy and detached it was really Frederick and Myrrh who ran the earldom. After Willoughby died in the notorious Noodle Incident, Frederick became official Regent until Sylvester finished at university. [Thanksgiving out-take - two Smyts eat until they are insensible.] Sylvester did well at university and made friends, especially Bertrum W Skinknottle (who fell for and married Honoria Clemens) and Nimue Fayling. The students were divided into Houses. Nimue was in training to take over the family business, growing oranges. She and Sylvester dated, but split up because neither would give up their family responsibility. Sylvester went home alone and took over the Earl's duties. He found a job for Ace. His mother Dorothea inherited cash from her mother, and she and Lil went travelling. Mortimer and Rufus stayed around, and Mortimer started bringing home strange women, most notably Olga Q Bonmarrow, a drifter with mental health issues who was in love with Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Basement society has come along tremendously during Sylvester's lifetime (so post-Crash), and the idea that the Sneeches might be behind this. Sylvester forgot to ask Myrrh what she saw in the Sneech den, and now they don't even know where she is. We see that she is in a cat café, talking to the cats as if they understand each other. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss whether the Dohickey thank-you gift was for Sylvester or for his whole family, and Rosemary points out that the first Earls were meant to have killed off the Ettins who were holding the Sneeches prisoner. Whether they did or not, the Sneeches may believe they did. They discuss the fact that Sneeches do have childen, and whether or not they have intelligible emotions. Finally, Rosemary says that eveything else can wait, and that she will follow Sylvester's plans. He says he can't make plans until he knows what it is that Rosemary stole. She agrees to show it to him, but tells him to cover his eyes and ears while she gets it out of the Poke-Kit, so he doesn't learn any codes which he might later be forced to reveal. 09: Wreaking Havoc [26/12/2016 - 07/07/2017] Rosemary produces from the Poke Kit an oval object which she says is called the HJ42 but she thinks it's also a mythological object called the Chaos Key. This is clearly the same item which has been being passed around among the Basement folk - not just another of the same model but this actual one, becausae HJ42 is the designation of a specific instance of this gadget which was collected by an anthropological expedition. Either it's looped through time to appear twice in the same area at the same time, or when Rosemary thinks it's safely tucked away in her Poke Kit, it isn't. As the Chaos Key it has been used to open various kinds of metaphorical and literal doors, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Rosemary studied its semi-legendary history in the libraries of Hack'n'Slash. It may have been implicated in the Thricklefork Demon Massacre. It caused strange events - including a giant man-eating flower - at a place called Bellona. It was passed around the clans of Erewhon, trailing odd happenings. It was used to rob a bank, then disappeared from view, only to reappear among the artefacts brought back by the Hendrick-Joost Expedition. At this point Rosemary puts it back in the Poke Kit and she and Sylvester agree not to mention the name "Chaos Key" again if they can avoid it, but just to refer to it as the HJ42. The Hendrick-Joost Expedition came from the High University of Azimuth and visited the Infernal Engine, among other places. Many of the items they "collected" were really looted. Eventually Azimuth returned some of them to Yurpsland, including "HJ-42". These returned items were parcelled out between various Yurpsland museums and collectors, and #42 went to an Erewhonian noble named Cuddlup, who passed it on to an Erewhonian sect called the Chromans. The Chromans were great collectors and displayers of curios which demonstrated the wonders of the world - some of which were magically active. The most dangerous were kept in an offshore fortress which went into meltdown during the Crash. The HJ42 was put on display in various places but it made people nervous, so it was moved to a medium-level facility in a place called Gowplace at the tip of the Lawnrock Peninsula. After the Crash, Gowplace was re-named Chroma and became the Chromans' capital, and the HJ42 dropped out of sight again for several decades. About ten years ago, or forty years after the Crash, it resurfaced as part of a travelling Chroman display for which H&S provided security, and eventually it caused some alarming effect, although Rosemary's security clearance wasn't high enough to find out what. It was put back into storage, but at this point rumours about it began to be passed around. It was at this point that Rosemary first heard about it and began to research it - and so, unfortunately, did Tansy Rugan, the leader of the Quincunx, a kind of sinister private army. Rosemary started to suspect the Quincunx were searching for the HJ42, and knew it would be a seriously Bad Thing if they found it. She couldn't get H&S to take her concerns seriously enough, so she went AWOL, rode all the way to Chroma and stole the HJ42 herself. Two hours later the Quincunx arrived and started hunting her. She did her best to evade them but eventually Tansy cornered her. One of the buttons on the device was glowing so in desperation Rosemary pressed it, thinking that it might cause an explosion which would take out Tansy and her 2inC Nathan Holn along with Rosemary herself. Instead, it teleported her to the forest near Eetown. At first she wasn't sure whether she'd been moved through time or space, but then she met Mortimer and realised from his accent that she had shifted a long way to the east. She was very dazed and disoriented and just followed Mortimer home. They talk for a while about how Rosemary ended up with Hack'n'Slash in the first place. Bored with farming muckroots and lobster-fishing, she became a crew-woman on a boat called the Oshinoxtra. From there she went to the mainland and worked on a large farm, and even served as a minion on a Saur hunt. Once she'd saved up enough money she went to see the nearest city, Jonetown. Everything there was far more expensive than she'd expected but as luck would have it she was in the right place to rescue Edwird Soloman, a retired bureaucrat who was being harrassed by louts. She and Edwird hit it off and became firm friends, and he gave her a place to stay. She became his bodyguard and housekeeper, read his books and reached an uneasy accommodation with his girlfriend, Mrs Rumble. Sometime later, Rosemary and some friends were scavenging in a scrapyard when they encountered the demon Scratch, and Rosemary managed to overcome him to the point where he was willing to discuss his situation and behave reasonably. This caused unpleasantness between the neighbours and Edwird, and brought Rosemary to the attention of Hack'nSlash, who recruited her. While they are tidying up conversational loose ends, Rosemary tells Sylvester about a hermit she met in the SAR (where there are many hermits, but this one is The Hermit), and who was probably a wizard (or just possibly a demon). They establish that demons can communicate over long distances via leylines, hence Edgar learned Rosemary's name from Scratch, and Myrrh could arrange visits from friends. Rosemary is reluctant to ask Myrrh to pass along messages. Sylvester assures her Myrrh can keep a secret. They discuss Ilsa, who has a very able illegitimate daughter, Druscilla, who works for the big bank in the capital. Ilsa writes to her wih local gossip, so news of Rosemary's presence will soon reach the capital. Ilsa is half Haroon, and the Haroons do not worship the Brush, much, or care what the Oracles think about having children out of wedlock. Sylvester is trying to modernise the village, with some cooperation from the current Oracle, Threnody, who is a great improvement over her predecessor Omega. It is mentioned that opposite Frederick and Myrrh's old room there is a door labelled "Gwen's stuff", but neither of them knows who Gwen is or was. Sylvesgter has never investigated it, but assumes Myrrh will have done so. They discuss the fact that when Sylvester met with Protus he saw visions of Rhid and Villipend, whom they then met, so evidently he was seeing the future. He also saw Rosemary fighting a woman with a glowing glove, and that may be a true vision too. Rosemary thinks from the description that it is Tansy Rugan, so they will have to meet and fight some time soon. At least she'll probably have the Can-Opener, but she doesn't have it with her now. Sylvester wants them to have regular conferences, but he's not going to say where the next one is, in case of eavesdroppers. They discuss Rosemary's old teachers, and whether Myrrh and Frederick are gone for good: Rosemary hopes they are, Sylvester misses them. We glimpse Frederick being given an Ides of March cake by a waitress wearing antennae - or deely-boppers. Olaf Larrsen, the village vet, turns up in a motorboat and is introduced to Rosemary, who he is glad to see is not a "demon, Bonmarrow or Flibbler". Flibblers, whatever they are, are everywhere. Olaf agrees to give them a lift in return for information and a discount on the organs of the Dornbeast Rosemary killed the night she arrived (less than two days ago). He takes the couple and the cat back to the mainland. En route they discuss the reorganisation at the manor, and the Crash - Olaf used to build thaumtools, before the Crash, and has been able to measure the fact that magic is very slowly returning. He thinks the local Ichyoids are up to something. He tells them about the hamster pirate captain, who has now ceased to be an out-take and become part of main canon, and that he has met Protus, who was talking about someone named Winnifred. Sylvester warns Olaf that Nirvana Clepe may be back in the area. Sylvester asks Olaf whether he has seen Frowgler - he hasn't - but we cut away to see Frowgler talking to the village Flittermouse in her tower. She tells him that her name is Vyon Ward Parkin, an orphan who was taken in by the Flittermice after she was shunned because her family had died in a "Spew" from the Infernal Engine, and peoople feared she might be contaminated. We see that the Flittermice have a universal presence, at least in Yurpsland, and use actual bats as messengers. The Flittermice are an Order, whose job is to "flit into the dark places and do the mucky jobs that need to be done" - which they agree is also Frowgler's job. Vyon herself was literally posted to her new position in Eetown, in a box. It's a lonely job and she appreciates Frowgler's company, but she could have left if she wanted to, and did not. He gives her a "laughter marble" and says that some day everyone will know who he is behind the mask, then he leaves via an artificial tunnel which looks as if it was made for the purpose, and which takes him to water. As Frowgler swims away, we see him pass a tank containing an octopus named Aloysius. Violet Hopkirk lures Aloysius to the surface and milks him of ink. She overhears people gossipping about Frederick's retirement. We overhear two of her employers talking about her and how she has the talent to work on a "Wrangrig", but it isn't safe for girls. Cut to Sylvester and co. in the boat, discussing Wrangling Rigs, aka octopus inkpull platforms, and the fact that it's "not safe" for girls because it's thought to be bad luck, locally, to have a woman on board. Violet, who has a reputation for not talking, overhears more gossip, quizzes a local boy and learns about Sylvester's party going into The Moose and Squirrel and not coming out. She goes to the inn to talk to Eunice Kelso about it. Eunice doesn't know where the party went, and shoos Violet away. Violet returns to her mother, Helena, and they gossip about Rosemary. Sylvester greets a trapper in another boat, name of Rod, and his young son Ash. Ash is very interested in Rosemary. Mention is made of a Mobile Confectioners' Guild, whose members include salesmen called Lollipop Perambulators. Sylvester finds Ash refreshing - too many people treat him either with scorn or fear because of his position. Olaf tells Ash to tell his friend Aloysius (not the octopus!) to stay out of his garden, because it's magic. Sylvester tells him to spread the word that there is going to be a meeting at the Temple to formally introduce Rosemary. Rod and Ash in their boat sail past an islet with a distance marker on it, then we see a gull try to land on the islet, and be scared away by a green, snakey-looking thing which says "Boo" in Ichyoid runes. This is one of the same tentacled things (perhaps the same individual) which we saw in the Basement, rescuing Shabash from a reservoir. Rob and Ash come to shore and we see Ash gossipping with Aloysius on the dockside - both boys look about ten years old. A gull - perhaps the same one that was chased off by the tentacled thing - is sitting near Aloysius. Ash passes on Olaf's message about the magic garden, and Sylvester's about the Temple meeting. As they walk past the Spewing Wall - a forum for graffiti - the Flitttermouse's laughter marble hits the ground behind them, and Aloysius picks it up, hides it and tells Ash it's just a rock. The gull flits in and out of shot near them. They pass Fantod and the Weirdo having an adult conversation with Melba Corrigan and her whimp-pig Wilbur. Ash and Aloysius tell Fantod that they are planning to go to a haunted ruin tomorrow, and he warns them it might fall down, then Fantod warns Aloysius, specifically, to be careful with"whatever it is yer doin' all of a sudden". We then see the Oracle Threnody, in a medical office listening to a man's chest with a stethoscope; Mayoress Saffron Stout sitting behind her desk - and the Flittermouse, scoring things off a list on a notice board. Written on the corner of the board (not part of the list) is a note saying "Tell truth". She has a sort of umbrella stand which has various sorts of pole in it, including a Sneech stick. 10: Into the Woods [10/07/2017 - 03/11/2017] To start with we see Myrrh, who seems not to need to breathe, strolling through an undersea forest before rising to the surface; Frederick still being served food by the waitress in deely-boppers; and a female Eyebolt named Shmelcathy working at her desk. Other women in deely-boppers (all this culture wear them) are monitoring Frederick on a screen, under the command of an older woman with fluffy white hair, and are expressing amazement at how much he has eaten without passing out. They talk about his herediscan - he is related to a previous test subject - and how he must be a thaumaturgre to stay conscious, yet he isn't setting off their magic-detectors. The waitress, Svetlana Rostova, is told to tail him, and we learn that they are in the Zamyatin Spire, a very high-tech-looking place. Zamyatin Spire residents are all women, but other spires are for men only, or mixed. They discuss Yurpsland politics, which involve a ceremonial, hereditary king and a separate political ruler who seems to be self-appointed rather than elected. Also the fact that Frederick is a demithaumaturge, and that the Spires are on a major tricklepoint, so were not much affected by the Crash and still have working pre-Crash technology, which involves some enornmous gears which were built by an unknown society from before the Ettins. Svetlana is impressed to learn that Frederick's family have their own library, in which he read about the Spires. When Myrrh is mentioned, Svetlana surmises that Myrrh is Frederick's wife, because he wouldn't have been allowed into Zamyatin Spire if he didn't have a wife. They discuss the arrangements for straight women like Svetlana who wish to find a mate when they live in an all-female Spire, and see an agent of sorts, holding a giant needle like a dagger and trying to arrest somebody for smuggling Fuzz jars. Singing Fuzzes are a big fad in the Spires and are bred for size, intelligence and voice, which suggests that this could be the past of Frizzlegarb's future world of Hollows and Fuzz communities. Special barriers prevent Fuzzes from being moved from one Spire to another, except in jars. Myrrh, meanwhile, arises from a water-filled tube into a sort of domed cockpit, in which there is a plant-covered floor dotted with flowers and one of the little mini-Trog-like creatures which we saw Rosemary chasing out of the Mansion at the start of the story. She presses a button and then climbs up some sort of stair or ladder - with the little critter riding on her head - to a room where there is a naked male musician named Jones (who is clearly based on David Bowie/Jones, and is either a fellow demon or a large nome, as he has pointed ears), who plays the flute for her. Finally we see her pressing her claws into a set of holes on a control that opens a round purple door, and then standing in a place where there are striped, rugby-ball-shaped lights, and an enormous bust of a bearded, humanoid male demon wearing a medal. It's not clear whether this last image is part of the canonical sequence or just a Hallowe'en special. Frederick and Svetlana end up on a balcony which Svetlana calls a Bubble-viweing Recreation Platform, overlooking a hall where large coloured bubbles with blurry images inside well up, but Frederick says it's a Spindizzy interface chamber. We learn that the Spire community has a low birthrate and takes in orphans from elsewhere, but Svetlana was born there and heard her parents mention legless, truthful flying beings who could have been either Spindizzies or Helipaths. She is not sure whether the Spire city belonged to the Ettins or the Sneeches, originally - only that it was contested between two species. Frederick describes ancient weaponry - the Ettins used city-smashing Doombombs and the Sneeches used Tangles, giant vines which could infitrate and wreck Ettin machinery. Frederick has worked out that something was meant to happen to him in the restaurant where Svetlana works, but she assures him he wasn't intended to die. Solzhenitsyn Spire is about death, but Zamyatin is all about collecting and hoarding information. Frederick wants to go ask the nearest archivist about Spindizzies. Svetlana is unnerved by this, as asking questions is discouraged. They discuss the fact that Frederick is still collecting information which may be useful to his family, even though he is retired, and that Myrrh may or may not decide she has retired, and we see the woman with fluffy white hair monitoring their converation. Fredrick says he is filling in time until Myrrh gets back from "whatever you all have her doing", and it is at this point that we see Myrrh opening the purple door. Cutting back to Eetown, we see Olaf's boat pulling in to his private dock, and Captain Hamster's crew sleeping off a binge-drinking session, and Mortimer, with umbrella, waking in the woods (to which he was evidently transported from the pub, in the same way that his brother and Rosemary were transported to the island) with the sense that some sort of revelation has slipped away from him, and then encountering Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party in the woods. Once on shore, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Olaf knew Mortimer was a wizard, but didn't tell him. We see that Olaf has a fenced-off telegraph pole topped with magical gadgets. Mortimer is very relieved to see that Nitfol survived the Spyder, but ashamed that he had accidentally led the beavcer-shark to destroy Nitfol's home tree. Fizmo realises that Mortimer owes Nitfol a favour and can take them beyond the "Edge of the World", but Mortimer doesn't know what she means. At this point we get some portraits of various characters - Ilsa's and Saffron's parents, characters from the Willy the Wendigo books, some past E Weirdos, and one of Sylvester's university lecturers. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, discussing Olaf's thaum measurements. Sylvester thinks he has a second agenda - perhaps an attempt to bring back magic, which even the High University of Azimuth has been unable to do. Sylvester thinks this is a good idea, because he wants humanity to explore the other planets in the system, and doesn't see much future in steam power. Mortimer, Nitfol and Fizmo establish their frames of reference. The Nomes' world can be walked across in a day or two, and is bounded by a wall of mist you can't push through, and centred on the Spike - Fizmo's father Foblub was an exlporer, but even he didn't manage to walk all the way around the edge. Mortimer remembers a Spindizzy called Charles telling him about a solid haze. Sylvester shows Rosemary a road which leads south to a place called Eisles where there is a ferry across the River E, but no city because the nearby shore is too rocky for a port, and then on to Obtown. He points out Olaf Larrsen's house and then they head back towards the woods - as they do so they pass Aloysius hiding behind a bush, with the gull next to him. 11: New Openings [06/11/2017 - 02/02/2018] Rosemary tells Sylvester there was a kid hiding behind the bush they just passed, and Sylvester identifies him as Aloysius Culpepper, an orphan who lives with his uncle and aunt. We see Aloysius and the gull sneak into Olaf Larrsen's place and poke about in the fields, before using an upturned bucket to climb through a shed window, after testing that a magic-emitting plant on a shelf inside is safe by throwing a stick at it. He winds up a clockwork figure of a running man (later referred to as the Flailer, so probably its feet are meant to pound grain), and the noise attracts Olaf, who is carrying a fishing net with a hole in the bottom. He tells Aloysius to follow him or go home, so Aloysius and the gull follow him. They go to the main house where they are greeted by Olaf's housekeeper - we see Sylvester telling Rosemary that this is Ilsa, who used to work at the Mansion. Ilsa asks Aloysius what the gull's name is, but Aloysius says gulls only have names when they are flying. We see a scene of three gulls by the seashore, including one wearing a hat, who is part of the pirate hamster's crew, and still looks hungover. We return to Mortimer, talking to the Nomes. Nitfol doesn't know what Spindizzies are but he does know about the Mansion, because his father was a scholar who owned two and a half books. We see Nitfol's father with two books, one labelled "Socks", the other "Cookiedice", which is the name of one of the Hollows where we see Fuzzes living in the future. Mortimer mentions the library at the Mansion - Fizmo doesn't believe such a thing is possible, but Nitfol has heard stories of large book collections. We see a shadowy image of a female Nome filing scrolls on big racks. Mortimer describes the library as being in the Ivory Tower, which leads to a long digression about behemoth teeth (if behemoths are really elephants, Mortimer has a very confused idea of what they look like), and he mentions that there is an apartment at the top, with a pool, but nobody lives in it now, "most of the time". He mentions that the tower was built by Ludwig, which leads to a very muddled conversation, because the Nomes know Ludwig as a cult figure worshipped by some people in the Basement. Mortimer manages to explain about the Spindizzies and how literal they are, and how he once told Charles he felt trapped and Charles told him about the mist barrier. Mortimer thinks the Spindizzies might know how to bring the barrier down: Fizmo thinks this is fantasy, but Nitfol wants to meet them. Nitfol and Fizmo go off to confer, while the Pale who may be Thrash seeks to attract Mortimer's attention to something, and Mortimer wonders aloud whether this is the same Pale (Thrash) he met yesterday with Frowgler. We return to Zamyatin Spire, where Svetlana is disturbed by Frederick's whistling, because music is discouraged except in the gym and at culture festivals. She takes him to a stern-lloking senior archivist, who wasn't expecting them - Frederick tells this woman his name, but says she doesn't need to know Svetlana's. In Eetown, Ilsa brings cocoa (which he has never had before) for Aloysius, herb tea for Olaf and tripewater for the gull. Olaf says he's an old man and he has had to keep his books locked away because Omega didn't want people to see them, but now she's gone and her influence is waning, he has been hoping for someone like Aloysius to come along. He told Ash to tell Aloysius to stay away from the magic because he knew it would lure him in. Aloysius correctly surmises that Olaf wants him as an apprentice. Olaf says his wife Mamie, after whom his boat is named, died fifty years ago(by implication, in the Crash), so if Aloysius comes every day he can, and learns magic and veterinary medicine, when Olaf dies he will leave his house and all his money to Aloysius, aside from a bit for Ilsa. Olaf tells Aloysius that no wizwitch could channel all the forms of magic, but some were generalists who could do a little of a lot, and some, known as Hedgewizwitches, could do only one thing but did it very well. Mamie was one, because all she could do was heal, but very well. Aloysius is another - an "Animal Empathist", hence his link with the gull. Mortimer is still talking to the Pale who may or may not be Thrash, and shows him his umbrella. He tells the Pale that he is a wizard and asks if that's the problem, and the Pale shakes his head. Meanwhile Nitfol tells Fizmo he isn't going to go off with Mortimer immediately, but he will at some point, because Zpeaker also thought the barrier could be brought down, and if Nitfol's political plan fails they will at least have a means of leaving. The Pale draws Mortimer's attention to the fact that Spyders are creeping up on them. Frederick speaks to Senior Archivix Anushka Zhdanov. She tells him he is allowed to access archives up to Level Three, but won't say how many levels there are above that. He asks for information on Spindizzies. She asks if he is a Yurpslander, and when he says he is, she calls for someone named Snegurka and sends her to fetch a file. Olaf tells Aloysius that neither of them is a full wizard, but that in theory if you make the right thaum machine you can mimic any power. However, there isn't enough energy around post-Crash, so animal empathy is impossible to mimic and no one will be "horning in" on Aloysius's skill. There are no other empaths in the area, but there are a few other wizwitches of other kinds - some who know what they are (we see Myrrh, Amos Grubb and Mortimer) and some who don't (we see a teenage boy in a soft baggy hat, and a short teenage girl with a lot of long, bushy hair) and who he doesn't think could handle being told. 12: The New Level [05/02/2018 - 01/05/2016] At the start of the chapter we see Melba Corrigan's blobwart-vending cart and her pet pig Wilbur sitting in front of a large bush. Her hat is lying on the bush, and two butterflies (not flutterbys) fly up from behind it. Probably they represent sex and/or kisses, and she is behind the bush with Arthur the Weirdo. Faint words on the hedge appear to spell out "Nutella weather person" - I've no idea why. Rosemary and Sylvester arrive back at Eetown's South Road Gate. Sylvester would rather go home, but Rosemary reminds him that he needs to collect the post, and says that it probably wasn't a villager in a boat that took them to Alwin. They both think it was probably Mortimer, by magic, which means he has immense innate power and the potential to be "quite something". Meanwhile, Mortimer's party start to back away from a Spyder, which begins to spew thick ropes of web at them, while another one boxes them in from behind. But Thrash (Rob's notes seem to confirm that it is Thrash, so the stripe he had on his chest before must have been painted on) slashes their web-ropes with his sickle and beats down the one in front of Mortimer. It's not clear whether he has killed it or not, but he probably has, as later they will pass a dead one in that direction. Meanwhile, Senior Archivix Anushka offers Frederick a chair and a cup of tea while he waits for his file. Svetlana is impressed and concerned, as teachairs are only offered to important guests, and she isn't authorised to associate with important guests, but doesn't wish to leave. The Archivix gives Frederick permission for Svetlana to stay and have tea too, but Svetlana says it's not Anushka's decision to make. Olaf thinks Aloysius can handle being told he has magic, but also that an empathist can't do much harm. He warns him not to tell anyone else about his magic, because there are people - the picture implies it's official, government people - looking to capture functioning wizwitches. It's possible that Aloysius may have other, minor talents as well as his main one - Mamie did - and there are tests for this, but Olaf can't administer them. Amos and Frederick both could, but Frederick won't. Rosemary suggests that if Mortimer is going to be "something" so will Sylvester, since Mortimer obeys him. As they talk, a Flutterby - a creature with which Mortimer has a strong affinity - comes to them with a scrap of cloth tied around it, bearing a message apparently written in blood. Back to Mortimer's party. The Pales are fighting off the Spyders, and kill at least one behind Mortimer, but the Spyders keep coming. Mortimer has a moment of crisis where he decides he will no longer be either a follower or a causer of problems, and he shoots magical force from his umbrella-wand, declaring that there will be no more killing or dying (and gives himself an electric shock). The surviving Spyders run off, and we see two Spyders discussing the fact that they had thought all human wizwitches had been killed in the Crash, and that this raises the possibility that there may still be humans who are able to "talk" (I'm guessing this means Aloysius's animal empathy) and they must call a conclave to discuss this. Svetlana confirms to Frederick that it is her boss (or at least, the person who told her to watch Frederick) who decides whether she may stay and drink tea or not. She has a number as well as a name. Frederick addresses the security bugs in the walls and asks for Svetlana to be made his guide, stating her name and number, and since nobody answers with an objection, Svetlana is officially promoted to that role. She isn't sure what she thinks about this, as she had enjoyed being a waitress, but she does quite like her cup of tea. Olaf tells Aloysius that Amos gave up being an active wizard before the Crash - the pictures imply this had something to do with Myrrh, but Olaf will only tell Aloysius about it if Aloysius agrees to be trained. Amos has already asked Olaf to come to the Mansion to discuss something, so he will take Aloysius with him, but Aloysius shouldn't mention his possible apprenticeship etc. to Amos's wife Nellie. They have a complex misunderstanding about what "having views" means, which leads to mention of an apparently blind woman called Gretta Weed, who in the metaphorical sense sees further than Nellie. Gretta is brighter than Nellie, and Saffron brighter than Gretta, but Olaf is more concerned with their open-mindedness to new possibilities. They discuss the fact that once he is trained, Aloysius will have the choice to stay in Eetown or to move elsewhere. Once they have found a private spot, Sylvester reads his message, which says "Open Training Gate. Urgent." This refers to one of the Panegates at the Mansion. Sylvester still has to complete buisness in town but will rush through it. We see him ask a sausage vendor named Claudia what people are talking about - which is really all the news from the Mansion. She has been selling a lot of sausages because people are anxious/excited about the changes. Fizmo and Nitfol are surprised and impressed that Mortimer is a wizard, and reveal in conversation that Fizmo works for Frowgler, and Nitfol sort-of does too. We see Frowgler underground, talking to a Shallow Wyrm named Parkin who is guarding the Circle at the World's End. Fizmo says Frowgler can see the future (which Mortimer cannot), and warned her about a job she took. We see her underground in her hazmat suit, looking at a little creature similar to a Shallow Wyrm but not one, which is growling at her. Mortimer says Frowgler gave him good advice, but he works for his brother Sylvester, not for Frowgler. He tells them Sylvester is a sort of mayor, avoiding the charged word "Earl" by chance or design. Svetlana reveals that she prefers kvass to tea, although this is against her culture. The Spire folk drink actual tea, but tea in Yurpsland is usually brewed from other plants. Frederick himself drinks - cautiously - things brewed by Myrrh. They get onto discussing Yurplejuice - neither Svetlana nor Anoshka has tasted it, because it's restricted, and even in Yurpsland it's regulated. Olaf tells Aloysius about the other half of his business - the first half is treating sick animals, the second half is making and selling thaum-powered gadgets. He has always refused to make magical weapons - Zap-Tridents - partly out of morality and partly in case someone buys one and then kills him to prevent him making any for anyone else. In any case they only work at Tricklepoints, such as the one under the Mansion. To make his own gadgets work away from a Tricklepoint he has built big, cumbersome energy collectors. Aloysius shows Olaf the laughter marble, and Olaf says it does party tricks, which he will show him in the workshop. 13: Thicket [02/05/2018 - 16/11/2018] Sylvester says Claudia will be selling a lot more sausages, because more changes are coming, because he is planning to be more pro-active. He and Rosemary discuss Mayor Saffron's temper. Mortimer says he arrived here (in the woods) by accident, but now he's here he will help the Nomes. He asks why they are there and Fizmo says they are going to "that Crystal Thicket". Nitfol is initially angry, but Fizmo says that if Mortimer (with his evident magical power) is working for Mayor Koyeeb they're all dead anyway. Nitfol discusses good and bad leaders with Mortimer, and Mortimer correctly concludes that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb. He is still willing to help, on the understanding that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb for an ethical reason (i.e. because he is very bad at his job) and that he isn't planning to kill him. He knows where the Crystal Thicket is. Frederick tells Svetlana and Anoshka about Yurplejuice, which he hasn't had since the funeral of Mariah, the Mansion's groom, when they still had horses. It's made in Wirtvale, and the stuff which Yurpsland exports is second-rate, but the best brands are wonderful. This leads to a conversation about funerals: the Spire folk file their dead on shelves in a catacomb, but they do have a ceremony. They talk about the fact that Spire folk are trained for their jobs, but Frederick had to muddle through as both wizard and regent, and didn't do a terrific job. We see Myrrh emerging from a hole in a rocky floor, into a cavern where there are many pink stalactites and stalagmites. She is preceded by a butterfly - perhaps signifying that she and Jones have had sex. In the cavern is a giant Metalmin who knows what she is - it addresses her as "zarkette" - and challenges her to a game of chess. We see a woman with puffy white hair watching Myrrh and the Metalmin on a screen: this is the same woman who was earlier seen overseeing the team who were discussing the fact that Frederick wasn't being knocked out by what they had fed him. She is probably Svetlana's boss. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, still discussing Saffron Stout, and Saffron's father, who died when Sylvester was five, and her mother, who kept small yappy dogs. Neither was at all communicative about their past. Mortimer tells the Nomes there may be a magical way of getting where they're going. He tries to compare Panegates with the treewarping the Nomes do, which requires planning and equipment. Nitfol knows about twistpoints, but Mortimer says Panegates are safer, and there's one that leads to the edge of the Thicket. He has to explain that it's Panegate, not Paingate. Mention is made of Fizmo's married sister Fweep. Meanwhile, Frederick says that Spire folk who do badly at their jobs get sacked. Yurpsland is a young, recently unified country which hasn't worked out how to do things yet, whereas the Spire regime is 400 years old. He speaks about a Yurpslander named Owen Gregiry, who wrote a study on the Spires, and about various Spire monarchs, including the famous Ivana III, who fought off the Wendigoes. Frederick is more interested in Vasily II, who wanted to introduce changes. We flash to Violet Hopkirk, telling her mother she's going out but will be back in time to help with supper. Young Ash is her brother. We see the Flittermouse in her tower, watching Violet through a telescope as she sets out. Then we see Eunice calling two lads called Ricky and Wendell to come out from a wooden structure, because Saffron needs them. Then we see the old man and former Guardian Terin Flem, sitting on a rock talking to his grandchildren Stephan and Sparrow. He is going to wait at the rock until he sees the Mansion party come by on their way out of the village. We see Rosemary and Sylvester discussing the mayor of her home town, how as an orphan she was a problem for him, and how her Aunt Eva came to take her in. Eva was also seen as a problem because she had run off to the city, picked up foreign ways and then returned rich. There are things Rosemary wonders about Eva's return, but she's not going to talk about it in town where there are potential eavesdroppers. Mortimer and the Nomes agree that it would be as tedious to trek to the Mansion to find the Panegate as it would be to go to the Thicket on foot, and as far as Mortimer knows they won't be able to locate the Panegate at the Thicket end. He assumes they are going there to find a particular flower. He tells them not to tell him their plans, so he can't inadvertently give the game away. We cut to Sylvester's brother Ace, with spear and rucksack, walking through an unknown town in the west of Yurpsland and meeting up with a blonde Nome woman wearing a long skirt and a hat with a flower in it. He shows her a similar flower - which he was reluctant to wear in his hat. As he is Ace, she takes the nom de guerre Diamond (Ace suggests Joker). As they walk through the town, in the background we see a very odd face, or maybe a mask, with slanted oval eyes, watching them from some sort of battlement, and they pass a poster with a kind of alien face on it. Other, more human faces peer round corners at them wherever they walk. Ace comments on the fact that they are being followed, and asks if they are friends of Diamond's, or at least allies. Cut to the Mansion's butler Schmedley, standing in front of a large, open book and holding a cake with candles, to celebrate fifteen years since the strip began. There are eleven candles on the cake, three Flutterbys flying inside the house, and a Fuzz peering at the lighted window from outside. Frederick and Anushka discuss rules of succession. In the Spires the rulers are of alternating sex and bear a mystic Gear. Vasily II the would-be change-maker died young (as did Yorik II), and Frederick suggests that his death was suspiciously convenient. The village fishermen are deeply interested in Rosemary's hat. Coming from where she does, she is able to discuss fishing with them. One called Tom even invites them for a drink, but she and Sylvester have too much to do, and Sylvester says late in private that having the Earl in the inn would be a buzz-kill - nearly as bad as an Oracle in the pub. Fizmo is curious about the smell of sphagnum dust which still hangs around Mortimer. She and Nitfol discuss the birth of Fizmo's niece Faft, in a way which implies that Nomes can choose the gender of their foetus - although Nitfol denies it when Mortimer asks. Fizmo remembers she needs to ask the village healer Piu for Stiflebloom. Nitfol is an onlly child. Diamond says that Ace is an object of great local interest, which is why people are spying on them. He comments on her dyed-blonde hair. for some reason, she says that here she had no other option (even though we see a male Nome with brown hair watching them). Ace says there are always options, but sometimes all of them are bad, and he learned that from "you people" - some organisation to which Diamond belongs. The boundary between "here" (later described as "Out West"), where Ace has been for a while, and "Back East" where Ace comes from is a place called Nye. Diamond came there from somewhere "much, much worse" than here, which makes Ace say he questions her Nomishness. This may be related to this Hanukkah strip, which shows Nomes onducting a cultural celebration somewhere where they are a persecuted minority living in hiding. Ace and Diamond come to a plain, unmarked door in a wall, which Ace says people must only come to if they are already welcome there. It opens before them. Frederick tells Anushka that he ended up taking over running his "Spire" and training his successor (Sylvester) because the official leader (Willoughby) was no good at it. Willoughby died in the Noodle Incident, which the Spire folk haven't heard about. Frederick says he would have thought everyone to the ends of the known world would have heard of it, and this leads to a discussion of an island called Solla Sollew, which Svetlana says is the island at the farthest edge of the Revealed World, and which Frederick says an explorer described as "alive and burning". Anushka says that Solla Sollew isn't the farthest place from the Spires, just hard to reach because of magic-storms from the Glow Confection mountain range: the farthest point is the Biloka Penninsula on the far side of the Deep Southeastern Jungles. Frederick does not know why the town of Noodle is called Noodle, but the Noodle Incident is the most interesting thing that ever happened there. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the local fishermen. Tom is unmarried but has a thing going with Gretta Weed. It's OK for Mansionites other than the Earl to hang out in the local pub. Sylvester goes to collect post from Mr Gray. Mortimer's party, discussing Stiflebloom, pass what looks like a dead Spyder. Fizmo left their village because Nome girls were being encouraged to get pregnant instead of taking Stiflebloom. She and Kulkad went down into the Hot Zone in suits. She couldn't see much through the helmet, and can't really describe what they were monitoring. Mortimer says Sylvester will want to know, and Nitfol should want to know too if he's going to be a leader, so Fizmo says the thing they were watching was a sort of stone growth. Ace and Diamond pass two guards, and climb stairs to visit a Mr Shadwell. Ace fusses about the lack of a handrail, and Diamond says he reminds her of Algernon Jones, the hero of Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. At the top of the stairs, they find Mr Shadwell seated dead at his desk, with some kind of wound on his chest. Frederick wasn't present at the Noodle Incident and didn't hear about it till days later, because they didn't have a Sparkwire - a telegraph system. Sparkwire operators seem to be all women, who wear antennae like the ones the Spire people wear, although in the Spires they signify citizenship. The Spire ones seem to be implants - at least, they're not just attached to a band like the ones worn by Sparkwire operatives. In Noodle there is a museum about the Incident. In the Spires, Solovyov Spire is all museums, but some can only be visited by people with a high security clearance. While Sylvester is talking to Mr Gray, some village children ask Rosemary how she, Sylvester and Mortimer got out of the inn without anybody seeing them go. She says they used a one-time magic door. [Cut to Cap'n Hamster, talking to a sentient sea plant about the fact that his parents told him that somewhere across the waves there would by a pirate girl for him, and he will search till he finds her.] Fizmo tells Mortimer that when she was down in the Hot Zone, she had a button to push (and then run away) if the thing she was watching started to move. Technology doesn't work well down there, which was why they needed live watchers, but the button was shielded. Fizmo says she saw a rock grow legs and walk. Nitfol asked if it talked - she says no. Nitfol is not surprised, because he has heard stories from when Nomes used to mine down close to the Hot Zone. Diamond says she will pay Ace (who seems to be some kind of bodyguard, like Rosemary) to help her get away from the town, as she was Shadwell's "little mascot" and probably won't surive him for long if she stays. Ace agrees on condition that she doesn't lie to him, and that she tells him where the thing he came to collect is. She opens a wall safe and gives Ace sort of snow globe thing with a figure in it - a long-robed figure juggling the letter 007. Frederick has never been to the Noodle museum, but has heard testimony he trusts. Svetlana is worried about something, tells him "Negative", then looks warily at the walls and says it's nothing. Frederick says Willoughby set off some kind of chain reaction which badly damaged much of Noodle, but no-one except Willoughby died. The incident happened in part because of poor maintenance in Noodle, but that part of the story was hushed up. Mr Gray is concerned that there may be things which, unofficially, Sylvester should tell him about. They have a verbal skirmish in which Sylvester avoids telling him anything. He collects his post, rejoins Rosemary and says it may have been a tactical error for Mortimer to let people see that his umbrellla could be used as a weapon - which suggests Mr Gray is a government agent. Nitfol says that one of his ancestors, Nikmo, found a talking rock in the deeps, although most of the records of what it said were lost. Nikmo brought the rock home to the surface, but it stopped talking and he was ridiculed for saying it had. Family history says Nikmo later snuck the rock back into the deeps and it came back to life. He told his daughter Margi about it. Margi became a famous adventuress and had a son, Jindak. Margi told Jindakk that she thought Nikmo went back later to visit the rock, but she herself could never find it. Mortimer asks about the surviving records of what the rock said, and Nitfol says that the rock said it had been broken off from a larger boulder during a natural upheaval. We see Violet sneaking past behind Terin Flem, who is still keeping a lookout. She walks to the Mansion's gardens, where she startles Nellie Grubb, the gardener. Ace tells Diamond to place another globe, called a Zoinkglobe, into the safe. He had arranged to give Mr Shadwell this one in return for the one with the juggler, and now Shadwell's heirs can have it. He tells Diamond not to steal stuff from the safe unless they need it to survive, so she takes a small plaque with Shadwell's sigil on it, used to show that the bearer is in his favour. Ace comments that Louis and Buddy, the security guards, had let him up there with a spear, and may be part of whatever is going on. We return to the Spires, with a detour to a Smyt version of Spiderman - Spyder Smyt - to commemorate the death of Stan Lee. Frederick is talking about the official enquiry into the Noodle Incident. The Spires have official enquiries too - Svetlana says "Except when conditioned by circumstances", Frederick replies "Like when a gal happens to be carrying a big needle?" and Anushka says they don't talk about that here. Frederick says that what he has said came from his own experience, not from Svetlana. He says that Willoughby was scapegoated (although he really was somewhat to blame) - then a woman named Snegurka arrives with a file which was requested earlier (presumably the one on Spindizzies). Part Seven: Seats of Power [19/11/2018 - present] 01: Flight [19/11/2018 - 04/02/2019] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Eetown, discussing whether or not Mortimer will do anything illegal with his umbrella, for a given value of "illegal". Some countries encourage magic, some ban it, but Yurpsland has no unified policy. Mortimer and his party come to a barrier of webbing which marks the edge of Spyder territory. They cut through but are left rather gummed up: Fizmo wants Nitfol to ban Spyders when he is mayor. They begin to pass scattered fragments of ruined stone walls. Nitfol and Fizmo have not been this way before - their parents' and previous generations sometimes journeyed to the Thicket to collect special plants, but the mortality rate was high. Nitfol has more confidence in their safety now because they have the three Pales with them - but suddenly, somebody in the trees starts to throw rocks at them. Nellie tells Violet that being there, at the Mansion, isn't safe. Violet tells her her mother wants to marry her to someone called Tim Tonbee who is above her social status, in order to advance her. Violet thinks this is foolish, both because Tim will want to marry a girl of his own class, and because the life of an aristocratic housewife is not much better than that of a working class one. She's an expert inkwrangler, but girls aren't allowed to work on the rigs because it's thought they'll bring bad luck, and they aren't allowed to work in The Barn (where she currently inkwrangles) after they marry. She doesn't want to join the Navy because she doesn't want to kill people, and she can't be an Oracle because she doesn't hear the Brush in her heart. She doesn't fancy clerking. Ace and Diamond walk out past the guards Louis and Buddy, telling them Mr Shadwell deos not wish to be disturbed. Louis and Buddy wonder why Ace (a professional guard) gave them a disappointed look as he left. On their way out Ace and Diamond are accosted by two more serious-looking men, called Mr Stirscrim and Trymund, who ask who Ace is. Trymund says he's probably the Mundiv rep. Ace (whose mother is a Mundivagant) says that Dalton Mundivagant sent him. Snegurka hands the file to Anushka, and seems disturbed by the fact that Frederick thanks her. Anushka hands the file to Frederick, but won't tell him who authorised her to give it to anyone who asked about Spindizzies. Frederick and Svetlana prepare to leave, but he pauses and asks Anushka if she is married and has children (yes to both). Mortimer's party are being bombarded with rocks by a group of Tree Squids. Mortimer and the Nomes take cover in the long grass, but Nitfol says the Pales can take care of themselves. One of the Nomes, unspecified, says they need Umboz, the Squid-Coaxer, but Nitfol says these are different from the village squids. We see a brief scene of Umboz, Vezza and Piu getting on very well with the Pales at their hive. Piu seems to be learning new techniques from a Pale doctor, and Vezza and Zpeaker are looking at a device which looks like an organic version of an Ettin tool. The rocks stop coming because Thrash has knocked the Tree Squids out of their trees. Violet tells Nellie she wants to be her apprentice gardener. Nellie is dumbstruck. She tells Violet that she isn't getting paid because she is officially retired, but Violet says the next one will be paid. She listens out for news, and knows Sylvester has been making money on stocks and will soon need new staff, as the old guard get ever older. Nellie warns Violet again that the Mansion isn't safe and her parents would never agree to her working there, but Violet says she will leave home when she comes of age. Mr Stirscrim and Trymund wonder why Shadwell sent them to Rowade if the swap was happening today (sounds like somebody got them out of the way). Ace and Diamond say they made the swap and "didn't hear any complaints". Diamond shows Stirscrim the pass with Shadwell's sigil and he lets them pass, but he is still uneasy. Diamond tells Ace privately that Shadwell's habit was to foster rivalry among his troops, but when Stirscrim and Trymund do work together they have a fair amount of clout. She doesn't know which would come out on top if they fought. Ace asks her to show him the subtlest way out. Anushka says her kids turned out OK "for the most part". Frederick regrets not having children of his own. His nephew Willoughby became his foster son but he died. He tried again with Willoughby's children and they too mostly turned out OK (we see that he is doubtful about Mortimer and Lenore) and with other kids who came around (we see a girl with long curly hair looking at his Fugehorn). He tells Anushka to tell her kids she loves them and give them the advice she wants to give them, because there might not be a next time. Svetlana looks stressed. She and Frederick leave and we see Snegurka come to make sure Anushka has heard an urgent debriefing summons. Anushka says she has, and calls Snegurka "ninnyhammer". Thrash jumps down from the trees to rejoin the other two Pales. A hail of rocks follows but it begins to die down and the Pales look puzzled. 02: Entangled [05/02/2018 - 03/05/2019] Mortimer and the two Nomes wonder nervously what will happen if the Pales don't return from squid-chasing. The scene switches to the Pale camp, where Zpeaker is telling Vezza how the Pales grow their tools. [Out-take - we see Nimue in her orchard, alive and well and growing oranges, but the scene is partly greyed out because there is so little magic in Abalone. After this Rob provided a whole sequence of four strips on Rosemary going on a blind date, and said that it was canonical, but as it is set at some indefinite time in the future I've left it in the Supplementary Art section. It does show us that the Mansion has a set Portal Point for people to teleport through.] Nellie tells Violet to go home for now, not to wander off the path, and she will discuss with Amos and "His Grace" the possibility of taking her on as an apprentice. Ace and Diamond go through a small door marked "Nome" into an underground complex (with rats) where Ace has to walk bent over. They are briefly accosted by a male Nome, a sort of steeplejack named Uffer whjo works in "The Heights", but they ignore him. Svetlana still looks stressed. She starts to tell Frederick he must do something, when another woman named Idita comes to re-dress Svetlana in clothing suited to a higher rank, if she is going to escort Frederick. Svetlana looks even less happy. She is taken to a booth, where an ironic-looking woman named Alena whom she knows from school or college is assisting. The Pales rejoin Mortimer and the Nomes, but the Tree-Squid are still throwing stones at them. Mortimer doesn't want to use magic again and Nitfol agrees, so they set off into the brambles under Nitfol's command, using the Pales' sickles to cut through. Nitfol is looking more and more like a leader. Eventually they come to a giant, pink, glowing, three-pronged crystal set in a base: Mortimer says it marks the start of the Thicket. We cut to Rosemary and Sylvester, walking away from the town at a dignified pace they have to maintain until they pass Terin. Rosemary asks why the provincial flag is the E symbol, given that Audra played down her history. It may have had something to do with taxes, and been picked because goods with the E stamp were so widespread in the area - we see that they sold self-sealing stem bolts. Ace and Diamond run into more Nomes, led by a very hostile older man called Roquat. He tells Ace to get out - Ace moves Diamond aside and says he'll get out when Roquat gets out of the way. Roquat draws a knife, so Ace knocks him and his companions down. As Ace and Diamond leave, one of the downed Nomes warns Ace that Diamond will stab him in the back. Svetlana and Idita enter the booth, while Alena, who has a weapon with a rotating blade, stands guard. She and Frederick engage in mild banter, although she says he's a disruptive influence. Fizmo asks Mortimer why humans built the Thicket, and he says the Ettins built it. Fizmo has never heard of them. Mortimer asks if the others have. Nitfol has heard stories of The Earl fighting a two-headed giant called Ettin (real Ettins had one head but two brains). Thrash indicates that this is untrue and that he knows about real Ettins. Sylvester gives them a brief history lesson and says he doesn't know why they built the Thicket, and that they are probably already too close to it - in the distance we can see a jumble of the giant glowy pink shards. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the flag of Moonin, which shows the ancient towers called the Beacons, but some people would prefer a lobster. The islands in that area have always fought, but a leader named Wirtanen who had a lobster flag briefly united the islands, but he didn't rule the deep landsiders who have their own flags. Rosemary agrees that the current, Beacon flag is boring, but doens't care otherwise. They reach Terin. Diamond is glad Ace didn't kill anyone, even though she's willing to kill if necessary. She has something she needs to do which she says will be fine so long as there isn't a Backwash. This is a wave of magical power which surges out from the Infernal Engine, which extends underground and moves at a rate of a few centimetres a year. Where they are, it used to be, and it has left part of itself in place as it moved on, so they are still to some extent inside it. The Heights are jumbles of high beams left behind by the Engine, which occasionally generate magical items, which Highscalers like Uffer collect. Frederick and Alena discuss the fact that clothes in the Spires are designed by a committee, while in Yurpsland they are mostly designed by a particular married couple. 03: No Turning Back [06/05/2018 - present] Mortimer's party progress, keeping together. Mortimer, being taller, can see a large, distant rock which he thinks is near the Panegate. Nitfol says one direction is as good as another, and Mortimer says the direction of the Thicket (the jumble of crystals) is bad. Saturdays in the Basement [03/05/2014 - present] These strips run every Saturday and show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with what's happening above ground to Rosemary and co.. I decided to split them off onto a separate page to make the action easier to follow. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nests [03/05/2014 - 08/08/2015] The scene opens with a cavern on the wall of which is a cross between a set of bunk-beds and two layers of miniature, open-fronted rooms, made from wooden beams. These are labelled with the names of a group of female Gnoll warren-mates - Hiltsa, Lanwja, Piranom, Pergola, Skuy, Islupis, Ambri and Irnissa. Islupis is not present, or at least not visible, and Ambri is off-stage except for her hand. All we can see of Piranom is her feet (wearing shoes, in odd colours) and the ends of long hair. Hiltsa, who looks very bad-tempered, is throwing stones at the board behind Lawnja's head. Irnissa reports that Skuy and Pergola didn't come home last night. We see Skuy telling Irnissa and Piranom that she is moving to Leny Hall, and that she'll never take a mate because she has a proper job as Sina's assistant. Irnissa intends to stay at home where it's safe. We then see Skuy carrying her belongings past a memorial to the Nome War, and passing the Gnoll security guards Forfind and Findfor and the Ghast soldier Dpxbfo. [Meanwhile in an outtake a female Gnoll named Carmal delivers a pie-in-the-face to Dap, ordered by Tuft to celebrate "their" anniversary - actually the strip's eleventh anniversary. Carmal evidently is some kind of courier or perhaps a Kissogram girl.] Hamble and Squeeb discuss Othara. Hamble has thought of killing her to discourage explorers, but decides she is more useful alive: he's waiting for somebody else. ` Meanwhile, we see Wrawa (female Trog) wake from her exhausted sleep. Kottle the (Gnoll) Healer tries to speak to her but she runs off and he sends Maggle (another female Trog) to follow her and keep an eye on her. Maggle is alarmed to see that Wrawa appears to be heading for the Great Chasm, but when Wrawa reaches The Plunge and stands hovering at the edge, and Maggle calls out to her not to do it, Wrawa replies "Don't do what?" and seems not to know where she is. We see that the gap in the fence at the plunge-point originally led not to a sheer fall but to an extensible bridge, which is now tucked in under the lip of the drop. Wrawa says that she can smell something on the breeze and she is the second person to do something, and then says that she is going to prepare something for the people who will follow her and then jumps off the Plunge point in a calm, abstracted way that suggests she knows there's a soft landing below. She lands in the bushes down in the Chasm. She avoids being sucked into the chute, and instead walks along the top of it to the Trog habitat on the far side of the Chasm, where she meets Hamble and Squeeb, who have evidently gone back down there to live even though they may venture elsewhere. Wrawa remembers and likes Hamble from her childhood, and tells him how she has been affected by Rhid's chemicals and by the death of Leny. We see that Rhid himself has ended up in a hospital called the Humane Zone. Hamble warns Wrawa that this place, the deep-down Trog habitat, has an effect on people, but Wrawa seems quite keen on the idea and wants to absorb the atmosphere. She is aware of Hamble's ambitions to return to the world and make his mark; she doesn't intend to oppose him, nor to assist him at this point (and secretly feels that it will make little difference if she does). She goes to sleep, hanging uipside down from the ceiling. We see Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr awake in her sleeping pool, called by a voice of unknown origin. Ploot arrives to check on Urwyn, who has nothing to report, as there has been no activity around the Elevator. Unnoticed by them, a Smyt Sherlock Holems and Watson pass by, stalked or followed by another Smyt. Ploot fills Urwyn on with what's been going on with Sina and the new hall, and two Ghast medics, Vptwbotw and Vpfbotw, arrive with a Porta-Pool to collect their dead. Ploot prepares to drag the dead Gobule, whom he recognizes as one of Guttle's servants, away to Maw. Urwyn thanks Ploot for watching out for him and we are shown that Urwyn's friend Zugo, wearing armour, is also watching from a crack in the wall. Meanwhile the Ghasts wheel their Porta-Pool past various characters in and around Leny Hall. We see the Gnoll Muscod giving a heart-shaped flower to Folla, and two Gobules from Maw's household pushing some kind of large wheel. We see Catmorlo talking to Furphy, Satyrsong peeking at Krink, a Helipath sign-writer, Voog and an unknown female Motihaul. They pass a well where an Ichyoid is drawing water, a male Trog being led on a lead by a female Nome, a JibJib, Frag guarding the entrance to Le Tree and a female Motihaul pushing her eggs in a pram. On the walls are posters warning people about Fixits. In Time Hall they pass an Ooze, a Trog whom we saw before in Bowel Hall, and Pizzle talking to a male Motihaul Candle Monk named Crumpton. Then another Ichyoid at another well, a female Gnoll water-seller named Bujold, and a Fixit information desk, manned by a Boogieman. At the desk are a Gnoll with a flower in his hair whom we have seen before, and an unknown Gobule and male Trog, the Gobule with a bump on his head which suggests that a Fixit has been struck off him, and the Trog carrying a battered hat (not a Fixit, from the look of it). The two Ghast medics take the Porta-Pool to Amorph Hall. The area is still under lockdown, so there is nobody to meet the funeral party except Stirrer Hptwfvth and Apprentice Stirrer Hpthfvx, and a chap called Septwbfn, who pushes a handcart labelled Tangible Karma, and gives the medics a free fungus to compensate them for having had to go near the Operator. The two Stirrers place the Porta-Pool on a mark on the floor and a strange, elaborate machine, acquired directly from the SubShafts (not from the SubShaft manager Egrote) and normally cloaked from any notice, descends from the ceiling to hover over the pool and probe or stir the contents and decontaminate the contents. It seems that the SubShafts themselves are sentient but nobody knows for sure: there is a Ghast team studying them. The two Ghast Stirrers Hptwfvth and Hpthfvx bring the Porta-Poll containing the remains of Hpthbvtw - a.k.a. High Pool Third of Batch Three Hundred and Fifty Two - to the pool whence he came, and prepare to stir him back into it, with a ceremonial speech about his memories and dreams being added back into the common pool and into the Official Record. We see this happening. We go back to Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr sleeping in her pool again, and being called again to wake up. It can't be Hpthbvtw who is calling her, since we saw her being called before he was added back into the pool, but it does seem like it's probably the same pool. Some essence of the pool speaks to Hpobfvfr, taking on Hpthbvtw's form, but she objects to that so it becomes her mother Hpobvo instead. The pool, the collective consciousness, approves of Hpobfvfr's willingness to go against convention, and wants the Ghasts to go out and "engage the world", especially now with humans reappearing and the Sneeches leaving. The pool consciouisness explains to Hpobfvfr that their world, the Basement, runs on machinery behind the walls which is powered by Sneech squeezings, and without the Sneeches it's already beginning to fail. It wants Hpobfvfr to go talk to the humans, who may have useful information. She is quite keen to talk to Mortimer again. Saturdays in the Basement :: Tests [15/08/2015 - 26/03/2016] We see Shabash, one of the female Gnolls who shot at Agorn by mistake for Boromir, walking nervously through a dark place, scaring away a Doom Bee and a sort of miniature, non-sentient Saur called a Lizhopper. She passes a gap in the wall through which we see Maggle the Trog running across a lighted space, then Shabash surprises Faddle in the dark. She can smell that Faddle has been in The Place No-One Talks About, which turns out to be the cave where he was taken by and to the female Gnolls in collars, whom he refers to as Placettes. Along with "the usual phizz" they told him that the world was ending in some sense, and gave him a task to perform. Following their accidental attack on Agorn, Fanga and Shabash have split up in order to go to ground: Faddle suspects the Placettes of having engineered this to leave Shabash free to be recruited. They are joined by Carmal, who has been instructed in a vision to come and meet the Placettes' Assigned One. We see the vision in black-and-white flashback, and it looks suspiciously like Frowgler wearing the pumpkin-head costume in which he scared the Nomes. The Placettes have given Faddle three glowgem shapes which have to be inserted into sockets on some important mechanism on an upper level. The three shapes have to be inserted all at the same time into slots which are too far apart for one person to reach them simultaneously, presumably as a safety measure. They are dangerous in some way - possibly radioactive - but Faddle is better able to handle them than "normal" people (perhaps because as a Finagler he's not likely to reproduce), and has been given a backpack with a protective lining to carry them in. On their way, they pass through a "Wintergate" cave which is basically a permanent Hallowe'en display. They have to wear seasonal hats while in the Wintergate cave, and this prompts Carmal to tell Faddle about Fixits. As they reach the edge of the area inhabited by organized Basement society, they meet a Queen Snake named Marsslina, who is an aquaintance of Faddle's. We learn that the Queen Snakes and the Ecadems have some sort of secretive joint society and have their own underground greenhouse for growing food (although Queen Snakes mainly eat tunnel-rats), but their garden has been raided by Biters and so Marsslina is having to forage for a pudding-gourd for their own version of Thanksgiving. After Marsslina has moved on, Faddle says that Queen Snakes prefer to be called Empress Snakes and the three Gnolls discuss the terms Queen, Empress and Emperor. We learn that some Basement dwellers have traditional folklore about an all-powerful ancient Emperor named Ett, who is a fusion/confusion of the Ettins with the three early Earls named Ettric. The Placettes seem to have some kind of government status, since Gnolls just do as they say even if it's dangerous. Faddle reckons he and Shabash and Carmal have been chosen for this particular mission to and beyond the risky Fringes because they're expendable, whereas people like Mimsy and Piranom are too valuable to the Placettes to be risked. Faddle and co. pass through outgrowths of The Tree to reach a chamber full of Ettin machines. They drop the objects they've been carrying into slots on the machines. A human male named Mr Norton (who is really in the Spike with the Fixits, and who might be Rufus under another name) speaks to them through the machines and tells them that these machines are being activated because the technology which depended on Sneech Squeezings will soon fail. Shabash leaves, but Carmal and Faddle agree to perform other tasks for Norton, in exchange for Glowgems. Saturdays in the Basement :: Shabash and Rowbynn [02/04/2016 - 01/07/2017] Shabash gets lost and falls down a shaft at the fringes of the Basement. She lands in a reservoir, whence she is fished out and dumped into a dry service area by a green creature with a lot of tentacles and a long thin neck terminating in just eyes. It appears to be intelligent, since we see it start to fill in the hole in the ceiling through which Shabash fell, and it's using sophisticated tools. It's also holding a frog - who doesn't seem to be Frowgler. A maintenance bot then trundles up behind Shabash and first bonks and then tases her in an effort to get her to leave, seeing her as an intruder. She gets up to go, sees what she has been talking to and is amazed, because she can see it's a Metalmin and she thought all the Metalmins were long dead. The bot tells her it is the property of the Eman family and she doesn't like the idea that something sentient(ish) can be property. She names it Sparky. Sparky tells her to take her queries to "Facilities Manager Elizabeth Merrill" and the sound of the name, combined with the fact that Sparky is good at maths, makes Shabash think the Emans are Eyebolts. Shabash sets off to explore, believing that she can smell Eyebolts, but what she finds is a container garden under artificial lights. Beyond that, she finds Telic the Helipath Healer's surgery, and Crazy Rhid, heavily bandaged and strapped into a hospital bed. Telic turns out to be rather sinister. S/he injects Shabash with a paralysing agent in case she is there to murder hir - a reasonable precaution given her profession - but once she is helpless s/he starts to ruminate out loud about using her as a test subject, a clinical guinea pig. Rhid however talks hir out of it (and incidentally acknowledges both that he is a murderer himself, and that he has some well-intentioned long-term goal) so Telic dumps Shabash out in a corridor and locks the door behind her. Rhid gives Telic permission to experiment on him instead, since he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but cautions hir not to damage him too much - because Digger Odel still has a use for him. Shabash is very collapsed. As she lies on her back, trying to recover from the drug Telic gave her, a male Shallow Wyrm named Rowbynn drops down from somewhere high up and lands on her snout. Rowbynn is studying the quasi-sexual Wyrm process of "Eating", which turns out to be a kind of fusion. The Shallow Wyrm attaches to "Hooks and Trenches" on the skull of a Deep Wyrm - both male, apparently, so perhaps also female to female - and becomes permanently bound in place. The two then form a mental and physical gestalt organism which returns to the Hot Zone and stays there. Rowbynn finds that Shabash too has Hooks and Trenches, of a sort - which, as he acknowledges, raises interesting biological questions - and he is able to form a temporary bond with her which enables them to speak mind to mind, rather as we saw Hax speaking to Camora mind to mind before he took her over. Rowbynn is a member of the inner circle of the Ring of Clear Air, and as such his official rôle is to lie around being pampered and building up his strength in order to compete in some official contest to do with Eating rituals. But he had a lively mind and wanted something more, so he began investigating Shallow Wyrm society and mapping the extent of it through information he could glean while remaining with his own ring, and was surprised by how many and how different the rings were. We see vignettes of Vim, captain of the guard to the hostile Ring of the Uppermost Spire, stalking Sneckdraw the spy, and also of Kryt the observer, observing. Eventually that wasn't enough to satisfy Rowbynn's need for knowledge so he escaped from his minders and went exploring. He suspects that many others have done the same, and we see a vignette of Urwyn. Rowbynn tells Shabash that she will be able to break the link with him if she wants to, but if she lets him stay he can help her with her current lifestyle, and has "advantageous secrets to share". He knows where there are caches of human artefacts and knowledge, located by himself or by other Wyrms, and in return he wants her help in learning more about Fixits. He is very interested in them because the way they take over their "mounts'" minds seems similar to the Eating process. Shabash explains that she has a problem, related to the fact that she and Fanga were retained to assassinate Bromir. Rowbynn is aware of Bromir, who is "the hero of the Tubish Vat incident". Instead they attacked the very similar-looking Agorn, who is on a list of Gnolls who mustn't be killed. The list also includes Agorn's son Furphy, Comshaw, Mimsy, Niddle, Wittol, Swodswal and Catmorlo among others. Rowbynn hadn't known about the list but says something odd is going on with the Gnolls. Shabash went into hiding because she feared Agorn would report her to "some nob" but admits she isn't sure any of them know they are protected, although she expects Agorn to know. Rowbynn says a social facade is being maintained, and we see part of a pair of giant jaws depositing an apple for Agita. He says that an unknown nob or nobs is pushing society, especially the Gnolls, in a particular direction, but he doesn't know what or why. He is investigating out of curiosity rather than a desire to expose the truth. Shabash is hungry so they end the psychic conversation. It took less time than it felt like, but even so a hopeful slime grub is about to bite her ear. Slime grubs are not edible unless fricaseed, so Rowbynn directs her to a branch of the Tree. She has had a tiring and perplexing day, so after she has eaten Rowbynn directs her to a sleeping niche. They establish silent communication and then both fall asleep, and find themselves in a shared dream. Above them they can see the famous Skibble (although we cannot), although he doesn't look as Rowbynn imagined him - Shabash says he wears disguises. The dream becomes ever more bizarre - Rowbynn says Skibble is juggling feral ABOLs. Shabash wants to challenge Skibble with a tesselator, which appears in her hand, but Rowbynn says the Grumpy Pincher ate all the tesselators, twice. Shabash charges, Rowbynn goes to her aid, and Skibble confines them to a tight space for a zillion years "or 'til we bowbing wake up". They flibble. Saturdays in the Basement :: Leny Hall [08/07/2017 - 24/02/2018] We see Pergola the Gnoll, neart Leny Hall, looking at light spilling down from a gap in the ceiling and supporting a tiny fir tree. She has never seen a single tree on its own before, not part of The Tree, and tells Maggle the Trog that a woman called Swinthin had told her about free-standing trees, after she and some others had gone outside to the forest to capture Raviners for breeding, so they could extract Raviner ichor (we see a female Motihaul named Swidnica selling it), but the Raviners got loose and became a pest. Pergola has never dared to above ground herself, even after the tunnel was put in, because of the scary stories (in her imagination Nomes seem as scary as Spyders and Tree-Squids) and because it all seemed overwhelming. She loves plants and manages to nurture a few with artificial light, but she thinks if she saw plants growing freely in the sun and rain she would stay up there and never come home. Maggle has been to the doorway and only saw clouds and rain and too much light which hurt her eyes, but she is willing to go out with Pergola and guide her back. Pergola asks Maggle to tell Sina about the tree and the gap to the outside which they could work on to make their own exit - and which forest creatures can enter through. Maggle says Sina is very busy - we see Maggle talking to a female Eyebolt secretary - and that Sina and Sprocket are busy talking to Spindizzies. Maggle hasn't been to see the Spindizzies because she has no particular questions to ask them, even though she spends a lot of time exploring. She does it for fun, and often gets into trouble - she's not driven like Pergola. Pergola grew up on a fungus farm but became more interested in the weeds. Maggle works on a farm at times, to earn money when she gets bored with eating fungi and slime grubs. Most people can't eat them, but Maggle is a darkpelter Trog and is special. Darkpelters only crop up occasionally and randomly. They are resistant to poisons, and more likely to pair up with Nomes (although Maggle has her eye on a fellow Trog). Because of her resistance to toxins she helped to eradicate a dangerous plant called a jab-bramble which has harmful uses - we see a flash of Rhid doing something sinister with a ball of something. They meet up with Finimbrun, who is carrying a large domino, maybe 10" long. Rhid had left a set scattered around, and Finimbrun doesn't know what they are or whether they are dangerous or not. Pergola is wary of devices but Finimbrun thinks she's a hypocrite, because plants are just as dangerous and she was involved with the Crudbean, or at least knew Crud. She and Crud had neigbouring plots. He was sad after the death of his wife, and had a lot of equipment which was being funded by somebody else. She was nearby when the Crudbean erupted, but so were many other people. Comshaw interviewed her and then killed the Crudbean with one of Rhid's devices, and Pergola profited because souvenir hunters bought all her plants in the hope that they had been contaminated with traces of Crudbean, although it still wasn't enough for her to get her own place. Finimbrun lives with Kashkavala, who is an animal expert and food technician. We see her talking to a tunnel-rat called Snert. Timf calls Pergola to come and sort out some blorp plants, so she goes off, leaving Maggle looking warily at a flickering light. There is an odd little scene where Tuft the Gobule and Dap the Gnoll are agreeing that some large-scale thing has gone wrong, but Dap can't be arsed to find out what. Of to the side of them we see a machine that seems to be flaring off gas. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nitid the Helipath [03/03/2018 - present] We see Nitid the artist and Flange the engineer, both Helipaths, talking. Flange, who is working on a junction box, is on his own because Sprocket the Gnoll has gone off courting with Sina, which Helipaths consider very inefficient. There are a lot of wiring problems at the moment - Nitid wonders if this is to do with the previous day, which the Observatory staff say was The Day That Changed Everything, but Flange is skeptical. S/he and Sprocket did some work at the Observatory and were not impressed by their record-keeping. [Out-take: we see an elderly male Gnoll named Skritch fishing, to commemorate the death of Patrick McManus.] Nitid asks Flange if s/he recognises a particular symbol. Flange says if it were rotated it would become a symbol important to Humans (it's a fancy capital E). Flange is inclined to believe that Humans still exist. Flange goes off to do more engineering work, and Nitid goes to the Time Hall, where s/he talks to a female Ecadem named Fyke. Fyke is sad because yesterday a male Ecadem named Smyth, who was working as a bouncer, died in the fight at Le Tree, without ever having found a mate, and there are so few Ecadems left. His friends had tried to talk him out of taking such a dangerous job, as Ecadems are fragile. Fyke has her name painted on her side, which Nitid refreshes for her for free. It has something to do with the worship of the Brush and bearing witness in some way. The sect to which Fyke, who is a bit of a fanatic, belongs believe that there are holy Emissaries living behind the sun, and that the sun turns into the moon at night, covered with mysterious runes. The moon must not be breached but the sun should be, and a Jibjib named Speedy tried to fly to the sun to do this, but fell back exhausted. Fyke thinks they should build a tower to reach the sun, using the Mansion as a base. She thinks the Council will do this sort of thing; Nitid supported the sending of a Helipath named Aprat to join the Council but believes it won't achieve much because Agita, Nevus and Guttle will thwart it. A Boogieman named Trevor summons Fyke away to help deal with a situation. Nitid enters the Hall of the Brush, monitored by a female Eyebolt named Evulgate, who reports to a male ditto named Fremescent. Evulgate is collecting credits awarded to her for sharp observation, but needs another 23 credits before she will even be told what events are credit-worthy. In the Hall of the Brush, Nitid speaks to an elderly-looking Gobule priest named Kalon. Nitid isn't really sure why s/he came: Kalon goes through a list of possibilities and they decide that Nitid feels alienated from hir community. S/he does not want to talk to Nefast, a Helipath who is an Ear of the Brush, so Kalon suggests s/he should talk to Febrifuge. Febrifuge is somebody who keeps a record of favours owed, as a kind of currency, but that's not why Kalon thinks Nitid should speak to him or her. The Hall of the Brush is full of different sects. We see a male Trog holding a flower in a pot, wearing a flower on his head and declaring that "The Bloom is Eternal" to a Gnoll Doomsayer who says that "The End if Nigh", and a male Motihaul in a hooded robe debating theology with a Gnoll Beebler. At Febrifuge's door Nitid meets Shona, who has come to deposit a favour to return the one done her by Comshaw and Niddle the day before. A male Gnoll, a Spelling Guild member, OKs Nitid's spelling of hir own name on hir own forehad. The Guildsman then goes and shouts at two Doomsayers who have spelled their placards wrong. Meanwhile Pizzle turns up and asks Nitid to exchange one seed for another, which Nitid does. Tiny flags pass by low down in the frame, and the Gnoll Irnissa appears with two plants in a pot, and says that the League of Short People are on the march. Irnissa is just there to deliver plants, and assumes Nitid is also there as a professional. They discuss Leny Hall - Irnissa thinks anyone going near Crazy Rhid's old place is crazy themselves - and a male Motihaul in a lurid superhero costume passes them, carrying a alrge grasshopper impaled on a fork. Shone is in with Febrifuge, depositing favours she owes to Comshaw and Niddle. Irnissa considers Niddle far more impressive than Comshaw and says he's changing the world through his Finagling, although she herself only "fools around" and doesn't mate (only couples with a Finagler have young). She thinks Comshaw married Camora for her money. Sundays in the SubShafts [03/09/2006 - present] The timeline of the SubShaft 44f strips is confusing. The series is used as a foil for seasonal gags about e.g. Hallowe'en but given how short-lived Gnolls are, the jokes for a given season are certainly not taking place annually within the story, and the strip for 25th March 2012 and comments by Rob confirm that these events are happening roughly parallel with events in the main strip, meaning that up until 16th July 2013 they take place during the course of a single day. This means that one has to explain how come Cully ends up in possession of a device called the Zorper which is also being passed around among the characters in the main story. Because the SubShafts series is so long that it causes loading problems if displayed on a single page, I have split it into sections, but these are mine rather than Rob's. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors. A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle. Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God. We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out). We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights. While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm. Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets. A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully. A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant. Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie. Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders. They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out. We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere). They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire. The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional. Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus. They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for. The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie. Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate. We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit. While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there. Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears. Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it. Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus. Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do. The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now. In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature. Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God. She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too. Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it. Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function. Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts. Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future. Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute. Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires. Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come. Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage. Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports. The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself. We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one. Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer. As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe. Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected. Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded. The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life. It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side. Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit. Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance. Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator. Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct. The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room. They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch. Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used. We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind. We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf. We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly. In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings. Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears. Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor. Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar. They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt. Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free. The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did. They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation. We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow. Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers. Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower. A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off. We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva. Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood. As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things. They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting. 3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question. They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up. Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it. Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride. They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station". Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive. First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it. The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls. Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches. I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva. Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong. She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake. Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches. Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does. Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list. They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come. Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight. Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure. They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger. They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about. She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately. Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying. SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based. Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed. Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth. Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend.. For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair. At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner. Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world. To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep. On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub. For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise. For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell. For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt. A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives. On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible. Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet". Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion. A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page. Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else. If you are seeing this text, your browser does not support inline frames
01: Strangers in the Night [12/10/2005 - 19/10/2005] We see the woman to whom the Weirdo, Arthur, was reporting earlier. High up in the Mansion she runs into Protus, who addresses her as Yasmine Fotheringby - we learn she has a strong accent and comes from a place called Shibolith. She asks him the quickest way to get down to the forest so he creates a rupture in space and pushes her through it, causing her to fall out into a ruined building in the forest, close to where Comshaw and Niddle are encountering the Pales. We learn that Protus cannot walk - so the time-machine thing he sits in may be part of him - and that he is working with structures called time pylons, at leach one of which is in the Mansion.
02: Frowgler the Horned Frog [20/10/2005 - 02/11/2005] In the woods Shona meets a talking frog called Frowgler, who possesses horns and a dragonish tail, both retractable. We will learn later that "Frowgler the Horned Frog" is the name of a guru figure in a popular local action comic, along with Roshambo the Warrior-Beetle, whom the Sciencebugs worship. We learn from their conversation that Nomes are able to "tree-warp" in order to create Tardis-like bigger-on-the-inside homes in tree-trunks, and Nevus uses this technology to hide his henchTrogs.
Frowgler seems to dislike Nevus, and tells Shona that there's no future in working for Nevus, and she should work for Comshaw instead. He slightly implies that he might be a Demon, which makes Shona nervous: after she has departed to give her message to Nevus, Frowgler regrets having told her his name. He knows the names of her and her sister Sina.
03: Auction Aftermath [03/11/2005 - 20/11/2005] Knowing that the other three bidders at the auction will only allow him a brief head-start, Snerk the Saur flees with the HJ42. Agita is overbearing to Mortimer so he distracts her by kissing her, causing her to recoil in horror. The three fall out: Guttle threatens to eat Agita and Nevus, and Nevus tricks Guttle into trying to eat a booby-trapped bauble created by Crazy Rhid, which ties him up in tendrils.
We see a bearded Gnoll, a Gobule with four little tentacles on his head and a blindfolded Trog (we learn later that Trogs are very sensitive to sunlight) spying on the outcome of the auction - they seem to be henchbeings of the three bosses. The Gnoll we will later learn is called Agorn, and works for Agita. Mortimer tries to sneak away, carrying his sack of fleebs, and falls down a hole. Snerk collides with Shona, who is coming with her message for Nevus: the collision sets off the HJ42 again.
04: Good Rhiddence [21/11/2005 - 15/12/2005] Crazy Rhid runs away, and Snerd goes into his home hall to find Sina and get an update. Sina, who has been blinded by a blast, tells him that Leny is dead and the Ghast Sepferb, the same one who retrieved the cakeshroom from Maw's den, is badly hurt. Sina sends a reluctant Snerd to tell the Ghasts so they can bring help for Sepferb, and sends Kronk the Trog to pursue Rhid. Kronk mentions that he was present - a long time ago - when Digger and a Trog named Yurd "saved the world". Noone present knows who Digger is. Sina also sends a Wyrm called Ploot to organise other Wyrms, and a Motihaul called Hiblehoy to help Wrawa dispose of Leny's body, so the Gobules don't eat him.
Clochard speaks to a female Motihaul named Nugabela, who has children by Izchak, and has bought Bung's toadstool from Faddle. They see the Candle Monks massing to confront the Evil One and Clochard follows them, hoping for a show.
05: Guidance [16/12/2005 - 03/01/2006] Outside Le Tree, Hax prompts Camora to ask Rosemary and Sylvester to pay her for guiding them: Sylvester pays her with paper, already scribbled on on one side (Rosemary's To Do list) and she is glad to get it. A fountain with toxic fluid is mentioned. Sylvester pretends they are forest Nomes but Hax assures Camora they are Humans: we see a flashback in which Sylvester and the Scary Lady were involved in some trouble in the basement. We learn that the basement dwellers call the Mansion "God's Cactus" and that "God" in this context is not a deity but a wealthy, elderly man. The Candle Monks see the party and proclaim the Evil One: meanwhile in the background we see a heavily armed Gnoll we will later learn is called Hesper.
06: Thrash [05/01/2006 - 18/02/2006] Still carrying the Scalpsucker, Comshaw sets out to track Niddle. As he does so he hears the sound "PROZ" made by the HJ42 firing. He encounters a Saur called Ig who used to know him and his late friend Boffin: Ig tells Comshaw he saw Niddle with a group of Pales, one of whom is called/has the job-title Thrash because he winnows out problems. Thrash has a double head-spike and a pale diagonal stripe across his chest, which may be innate or may be painted on. There is a mention of an Eyebolt called Preznit who is on the basement Council, and wants to save the world. Ig says that Buzz's Boss - presumably Frowgler - appeared on the scene only recently and workes with the Pale government, called the Nexus. Comshaw also learns from Ig that there had been an earlier explosion which went ZORP, so the two were symmetrically matched.
Ig and Comshaw come to a mount dotted with bare tree-trunks: the top of this mound is called The Pit, and it normally performs some action which is currently quiescent. They hear a loud click and then a rainbow-striped pillar of magical Fire shoots out of the top of the mound, before switching off with another click. Comshaw guesses Niddle set it off by accident.
Ig and Comshaw discuss some aspects of Pale culture, especially the carrying of flags with mysterious holes in, and we learn that in the past Comshaw, in his rôle as Poker, "brought down" a pair of rogue Trogs called the Raver brothers, and killed Crudbean - a sort of Triffid accidentally created by Crud, one of the protagonists in Sundays in SubShaft 44f.
They find Niddle and the Pales, who had been knocked over by the Fire blast. Comshaw gets their attention by throwing the Scalpsucker at them, but is amazed to find how unimpressed by him Thrash is. The Scalpsucker gets flung into the forest.
07: The Hole Thing [20/02/2006 - 01/04/2006] Mortimer, still looking for Nitfol, finds himself at the bottom of a deep, crumbling pit created by the HJ42 blast. This sort of thing evidently happens to him a lot. A mongoose-like creature called a Tunnelrat and a thing like a small eyeless Saur, called a Lurker, try to attack him but end up fighting each other. He asks a friendly female Scalpsucker to go for help, but then a small landslide reveals a door and he and the Scalpsucker go through it.
They find themselves in the basement storage-area of a pre-Crash branch of a Walmart-like superstore called World o' Pots, where Mortimer, still clutching his sack of fleebs, upends a crate of sphagnum dust over himself. There they encounter a scary-looking but well-meaning and slightly malfunctioning robot which Mortimer is able to semi-control by involking a "herediscan" which shows him to be an Eman, and which showers him with free samples of a fruit-flavoured dessert called Sploo and with little sweets called Yummysticks. Mortimer's brother Rufus then appears on the scene.
08: Sittin' in a Tree [02/04/2006 - 27/04/2006] We see the Nome Umboz calling on his neighbour, a female healer named Piu (the one who Vezza previously said fancied him). Umboz and Piu semi propose to each other. He tells her that Mayor Kayeeb tried to have him killed, and she decides to run away with him - but is alarmed when he tells her that they two, plus Vezza and Nitfol, have all been invited to visit the local Pale hive, sinc Pales are normally very reclusive. As they leave, in the background we see first one of a pot of ornamental carnivorous plants, and then a kind of jelly monster in a bowl, trying and failing to eat a small flutterby.
We learn that Nomes live by creating Tardis-like spaces which are entered and exited through neighbouring trees but are bigger than their interiors, and apparently anchored to more than one tree. Piu and Umboz rejoin Nitfol, Vezza and the Pales, and as they set out Comshaw's Scalpsucker lands behind them.
09: Back and Forth [28/04/2006 - 20/05/2006] Propelled by the firing of the HJ42, Snerk the Saur and Shona the Gnoll find themselves fifty years in the past in the local Human city of Eetown three months prior to The Crash. They encounter a young woman called Ilsa with dyed green hair and one with long dark hair who seems to be the Scary Lady when young: they are fighting about the Eman family because the Scary Lady is loyal to the Earl Philbert's brother, Frederick, and Ilsa hates the Earl. The Scary Lady tries to use a magical 'fluence on Shona, but Gnolls are highly resistant to that sort of thing, so she grabs Shona physically and then is transported back to the future with her and Snerk.
The Scary Lady tries unsuccessfully to remove her necklace/collar - this coincides with and may be the cause of the eruption of Fire from The Pit. She meets Frowgler and they discuss the collar, which is magical, tied into the power of the mansion and was put on her by Frederick. Frowgler warns her about the Crash about to happen three months ahead in her own time, and that she has to ensure that Frederick and his brother Quincy, Sylvester's future grandfather, survive it in order to preserve causality. She refers to Frowgler as being "dressed like" a horned frog, so she knows him as something else.
We learn that she is some sort of dangerous nihilistic being, maybe a demon, whom the young Frederick and a friend summoned and then couldn't banish again, so Frederick used up all his own power to create the collar that controls her. She hated him, yet grew also to love him. Returned to her own time, she co-opts Ilsa to assist her, and we see that a book called The Return of Frowgler is on sale.
10: Candle Monks [28/05/2006 - 09/06/2006] Rosemary, Sylvester, Camora and Hax confront the Candle Monks and we learn that Camora is the "Evil One" - because two weeks previously she accidentally knocked over their Eternal Candle while dodging a rack of lesser candles knocked over by Niddle. Rosemary scares them off by being commanding, but we learn that their theology is fairly sensible - they light candles because they don't like being solely dependent on The Tree for so much, including light.
Camora tells the Humans about various religious sects in the Basement, including the Ludwigites, who worship the great scientist Ludwig as an ally against the wicked Earl-monster, apparently without realising either that he was Human or that he was the heir of E and eventually became the 18th Earl himself.
We see that the Gnoll Clochard is now tailing them - and that he reports to Digger Odel.
11: Dropping Out [10/06/2006 - 16/07/2006] Camora, Rosemary and Hax go to visit a lavatory (known as a drophole) leaving Sylvester waiting outside. Protus appears to him and says he needs to speak to him in private, and they are not alone (probably because of Squeeb hiding in Sylvester's backpack). He jumps Sylvester to some kind of hyperspace cul-de-sac where Humans can survive, and where Protus goes in order not to be overlooked by his employers (unspecified).
We learn that Protus has lost a very valuable object. He needs Sylvester's help to find it because he has special abilities - a Gnoll called Froole or Frodle is mentioned who also has these powers, but not as much, and Mr Hand is mentioned as a nuisance to Protus. Sylvester is able to see images generated by machinery which Protus has set up: he sees Mortimer wearing a pink outfit including a pointy hat and an umbrella, flying hand in hand with a sort of Superwoman figure; he sees Rosemary fighting a woman who is wearing some sort of leather gear and a magic glove; he sees brief images of a male Motihaul, probably Izchak (see below), of Crazy Rhid and of a male Trog in a crown, and mentions that Humans breed Trogs - probably less intelligent ones - for leather. He sees snapshots of various villagers including the local Oracle, Threnody, of Angus's giant pot which is stored in the mansion and of what looks like some Sneech growths, then of an old car (auto). Protus says the car is the thing he's looking for.
Protus then sends Sylvester back to outside the drophole, then reappears from further in the future to thank him for his help in recovering the car/auto. Rosemary, Camora and Hax then emerge and Camora can tell by scent that Protus has been there. She mentions that on a previous occasion Protus took Skibble.
12: Bad Rubbish [18/07/2006 - 04/09/2006] Sina (still blind) and her cohorts, including another female Gnoll called Skuy, Wrawa the Trog and Wyrms called Voog and Ploot, demolish Crazy Rhid's hall in case of booby-traps, while the adult male Trog Kronk pursues Rhid himself. Other than booby-traps, however, the hall appears to be empty, so they know there's a workshop elsewhere.
Ploot and Voog discuss Wyrm politics - their need for Telic (the healer) and someone called Hesper (who we later find out is a Gnoll armourer) and for Coldzoners generally, a separatist Wyrm politician called Mother Byng and trouble in the Burn Zone and with the sentient Rocks, which may cause them to need Rhid's weapons.
Voog is injured by a booby-trap, which causes Sina to have a crisis of nerve about her leadership skills, but Skuy appeals to her desire to impress Comshaw. She leads her troops in setting off traps by throwing rocks, but they fall foul of a pot of Trog Repellant and a mysterious web.
Meanwhile, Wrawa and a Motihaul colleague take Leny's body to be rendered down, because he wanted to be useful, and Rhid is seen fleeing past Tuft and Dap. We see Hpobfvfr, accompanied by a sled-mounted flame-thrower, interrogating Gorp about Hpthbvtw's death, and Nevus's Eyebolt secretary trying to get the flame-thrower recalled.
13: After Thrash [05/09/2006 - 30/10/2006] Comshaw and Niddle meet up by The Pit: Niddle still has his coming and going crystal, and close exposure to Fire has left him with some extra clairvoyant knowledge of recent events. He mentions Mortimer, and Comshaw recognises the name as that of a supposed demon who caused an epxlosion which started the Nome-Gnoll war, and we learn that Compline and Caytid disappeared during a Sneech attack at the end of the war. We learn that Comshaw's father Comfrey tried to do something in the forest which Comshaw, his mother and the late Clerihew, Comshaw's parents' Finagler, spent their lives trying to live down.
We also learn that that the forerunners of Finaglers were called Schemers, now rare in the Basement but still common in the forest, and that Comshaw and Camora are regarded as the best mated Gnoll couple, and Sina and her intended, Sprocket, are the next best, although Sina has a crush on Comshaw. There is mention of a beautiful but too quiet Gnoll named Mimsy who was Comshaw's girlfriend before Camora. Mimsy seems to be the Gnoll who now carries Nevus.
Niddle warns Comshaw that Thrash is dangerous, and that Pales communicate super-sonically although a few other people, including some Schemers and Finaglers, can hear them. We learn that forest dwellers call the Mansion of E "The Stump", and that Ig is friends with a Gnoll called Splat.
Nevus recounts the vision he had when the Fire brushed past him - basically he saw scenes from all the things going on around them, and now he fills Comshaw in on them. We learn that the two Pales who are accompanying the Nome group are called Fetch and Stepit. Niddle saw Nellie Grubb - Frederick's neighbour - heading to the village. He knows where Mortimer currently is, so Comshaw sets out to speak to Mortimer and find out what the Humans want. After the party sets off we see a Metalmin or some other robot (we only see part of the head - it's definitely not Hector) come into view near The Pit; a stranger in Piu's house; Shona talking to Nevus and Mimsy; Snerk finding a dead Spyder (actually, the same one which earlier attacked Nitfol and Mortimer); and the white-haired, oldish version of The Scary Lady, accompanied by what seems to be a sentient balloon.
14: Rufus [01/11/2006 - 27/12/2006] Mortimer and Rufus discuss the family - they have sisters Lenore and Lil and a daredevil brother Ace. A few weeks ago Mortimer received a postcard from their mother and Lil sent from a place called Oongawa. We learn that World o' Pots is 60% owned by Pale shareholders (Pales from a sub-country called Shibolith, not the local ones) and the Pales did well out of The Crash because Human soldiers now buy their non-magical weapons, but the Pales also suffered many losses in The Crash so it's unlikely they engineered it. They pass through a cloakring designed to prevent magical snooping,
The ex shop is full of extraordinary things, including food suplies on which Rufus lives, and a demon-trap bottle which Rufus had installed, and which required an extensible ceiling to fit it in, made by the Hammerspace Company, which specialised in extra-dimensional products including "Poke-Kits" - weightless portable storage space. In the in-universe comic which featured Frowgler the demon frog and Roshambo the warrior beetle, Frowgler gave Roshambo a Poke-Kit. We also learn about a massacre at a place called Thricklefork after "an idiot at the Royal Academy of Magic" summoned demons.
Rufus gets whacked by one of his own defensive booby traps, but they make it to Rufus's room. Rufus says that for a year ha has seen mysterious comings and goings from the Mansion of E (not the basement) and that the culprits are not Frederick, the Grubbs, Schmedley or Arthur the Weirdo. He believes it is down to Mr Hand, living high in the Mansion. Mr Hand is very old - believed to be the wizard who locked the Operator in the Elevator nearly eighty years ago - may or may not be Human, and has a Metalmin servant named Hector, which means he is the Overseer.
While they discuss Mr Hand, a shadowy figure is watching. This proves to be a woman named Eunice, who looks like the Superwoman figure Mortimer was flying with in Sylvester's Protus-induced vision, but wears gloves like the woman he saw Rosemary fighting. Eunice stuns Mortimer and tells Rufus, who has apparently known her for years, that she and the other villagers, including Threnody the Oracle, all work for somebody more important than Mr Hand. She works for God (the old rich guy, not the deity), and if Rufus comes with her, God will give him the answers he seeks.
15: Snerk Meets the Boss [28/12/2006 - 05/01/2007] Snerk, the Saur who won the auction, is nibbling on the dead Spyder when Frowgler appears. It was Frowgler who put him up to bidding for what he calls the Zorper - the HJ42. Snerk tells Frowgler that the Zorper fired - which Frowgler isn't concerned about - and gives Frowgler both the Zorper and a Poke-Kit containing extra fleebs, which Frowgler had loaned to him. Frowgler dismisses Snerk, telling him to tell people called Lumpy and Buzz (presumably the Saur who gave Comshaw a message about the end of the world when he first emerged from the tunnel) he hopes to be back at headquarters tomorrow - but then he says goodbye to Snerk's departing back as if he expects never to see him again. Left alone, he speaks as if he has seen the Zorper before, then activates it. To do so he extends not only retractable claws but what looks like a button with a "3" on it, set into the palm of his right hand. This time the Zorper goes "OZPR".
16: Closing In [06/01/2007 - 25/01/2007] Clochard asks Bung where Digger Odel is, and Bung says Digger is returning after being hired by a mysterious personage to bring down the killer tree. Meanwhile Rosemary's party are heading for Izchak's weapons shop, and Hpobfvfr is seen fleeing, apparently because the flame-thrower is about to explode.
Camora explains Basement politics - how the Ghasts encouraged the formation of the Council as a peaceful alternative to the gang bosses Agita, Nevus and Guttle, because they need a stable environment in which to maintain their breeding-pools and reproduce. Camora regards the Council as meddlers, except that they did bring down and confine the demons Chauncy and Edgar. Hpobfvfr gets mixed up with Sina's bucket chain as a result of a misunderstanding - she is looking for Hepthbav/Hpthbvtw and hears that there is an injured male Ghast near Crazy Rhid's place, but in fact it's Sepfrbfrx, one of Sina's team.
17: Conflagration [26/01/2007 - 26/03/2007] Rosemary and Sylvester come to Time Hall, where there is a poisonous fountain and a levitating Ettin-made clock. They proceed to Sidestep Hall, the Motihaul village, which is divided by gender, and have a certian amount of difficulty getting past the guards, Smatchet and Gunsel. The guards have seen a "hat" like Camora's before. Although Rosemary has a sense of unease, the party don't realise they are being overlooked by hidden seige engine controllers, including an officer we will later learn is called Upernavik.
Meanwhile, the Scary Lady is still wandering around the mansion with her sentient balloon, and Sina asks Hpobfvfr how to sort out an anti-Dornbeast net which is blocking the way through Rhid's place. We learn that sphagnum grit repels most Dornbeasts, unless specially trained, and that Hpobfvfr has a cutting claw concealed in her flesh since she was a child, and this is painful.
Hpobfvfr goes to the Elevator looking for Hepthbav/Hpthbvtw and the Operator, suspended in the fire, tries to hypnotise her. Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, upstairs in the mansion and still accompanied by her balloon, looking at the doorway which leads to Sneech territory and being concerned that it is silent when there should be a sound of screeching, and then coming to the top of the lift shaft. The Operator can sense her throughout. She uses her power to force the Operator back into his lift and put out the flames, but as she does so he grabs Hpobfvfr and drags her into the Elevator with him, and one final flare of energy passes all along the bucket chain and causes a tool to be flung with sufficient force to damage Chauncy and Edgar's containment bottle.
18: Chauncy & Edgar [27/03/2007 - 24/04/2007] The people in the bucket chain who were caught up in the energy flow have been knocked down by it, apart from the Gnolls such as Niff, Folla and Wittol who are all still standing. Sina wants everybody to go home, now, because she feel something worse than fire will re-emerge from the Elevator. Skuy and Voog can feel that Hpobfvfr was taken away.
Meanwhile the demons Chauncy and Edgar, who are extremely polite and careful with each other, investigate the damage to their bottle. We learn that they fear the Caged King (the devil in the elevator) and something called the Burning Eye (later comments suggest this is not the sun but something near the mansion) very much, and the Scary Lady somewhat less so.
Chauncy temporarily detaches one of Edgar's horns and uses it as a chisel to break their way out through the side of the bottle. Once they are free, Edgar, the more Human-looking one, tries to set off on his own, but Chauncy (who resembles a woodlouse) won't let him. They kill a Helipath (who we will later learn is called Rubrak), one of the bucket chain beings who were knocked down by the energy surge - Chauncy cuts him and then Edgar drops part of a heavy weight (which seems to be levitating, since most of it stays up after the rope is cut) on to him. But Edgar is less murderous than of old, and turns down the chance to vivisect Rubrak's working partner, a Jibjib (who we will later learn is called Snipe).
We learn that Chauncy and Edgar were sucked through some kind of hole from their own dimension, where they were under such constant threat that they had no time to take names or to think, and when they arrived they kept up the same level of violence. Now as prisoners they have had time to calm down. They are aware of Rosemary, who passed by their bottle an hour or two beforehand: they can tell that she is of this dimension, not a heavyweight being like the Operator or the Scary Lady, but still she feels different and they go in search of her to dissect her and find out why.
Meanwhile we see the Gobule Bung wake from deep sleep, apparently with clairvoyant knowledge of the demons' escape, and send two Jibjib henchbirds out with some kind of message or mission.
19: Remnants [25/04/2007 - 21/05/2007] Sina takes a mourning leave of the missing Hpobfvfr, and many of her surviving forces disperse to home and/or safety, and Smyts move in to devour the dead. Sina speaks to a female Trog called Maggle who has a dark coat which is associated with resistance to Trog repellant, and sends her to take the buckets back to Tunktal the bucket maker, who is regarded with revulsion. Rhid's hidden workshop was blown open and exposed when Hpobfvfr disposed of the booby-traps: Sina and Skuy go to tell the Council about it, leaving Ploot and Voog to guard the workshop and prevent Rhid from returning. There is a twistpoint there through which visions (relating to other stories) appear.
Sina and Skuy head for the Council and to get help for Sepferb, still lying injured on the floor. They meet Catmorlo, who collects her cakeshroom - then a female Motihaul named Asota who warns them that Nevus and the Council are fighting, and Chauncy and Edgar are loose.
20: The Lady and the King [22/05/2007 - 09/06/2007] The Scary Lady calls the Operator to the upstairs doors of the lift: he asks if she wants to know about the Sneeches and she tells him it's because he was having too much fun with the fire etc. and she had been contractually obliged to intervene, although various distractions conspired (possibly literally) to delay her in so doing. The Operator metamorphoses into a crowned figure and tries to tempt her to break her contract and let him do as he pleases, and in return he will restore both her and Frederick's full power, maybe send them through a Panegate to a place where they can be gods, but she rejects his offer.
He mentions creatures he calles "poor Shades" who refer to her as The Destroyer - presumably the ones we saw watching her from behind a grille as she escorted Zay to the Panegate. She mentions him standing on a balcony being cheered by what looks like a Human crowd, raising the possibility that he might once have been one of the local Human(ish) kings.
After she leaves, the Operator/King comments to himself that she was feeling unexpectedly hopeful and he wants to find out why. He reaches through the dimensions to touch one of Protus's time pylons: it gives him a shock but he hangs on and scrolls back through the Scary Lady's recent experiences, dismissing Zay and Prunella as sources of hopefulness before coming to an unbreachable barrier. He believes she has seen whatever Protus is hiding among his time pylons, but doesn't know it. He wants to call her back some time soon to speak to her again, and we learn that he has engineered a test for Rosemary, and if she passes he will want her back too - but it depends on his gaining control over Hpobfvfr, who is still resisting his attempts to take over her mind.
Meanwhile, something the Operator said has led the Scary Lady to assume there's something up with the Sneeches. She takes up her Sneechstick and prepares to go through the archway which leads to the route which runs through the Sneech den - so she will presumably be going down the route that Sylvester and Rosemary will eventually be coming up.
21: No Gnoll is an Island [11/06/2007 - 14/07/2007] We see brief snapshots of the various groups - Skuy talking urgently to Ploot and Voog; people throwing stones at Chauncy and Edgar; Agita and Nevus and their assistants leaving the auction etc., then we cut to Ig, Comshaw and Niddle in the forest. Niddle is just insisting that he saw a vision of an active, moving Metalmin when they hear the "OZPR" noise made by the HJ42 as Frowgler activates it. This is followed by a burst of purple light from behind the trees, and Comshaw says this is far more violent than and of a different quality from the previous such event. An enormous boulder is thrown through the air, narrowly missing them.
Niddle wants to go investigate the source of the blast, but Ig smells something coming which makes him run, so the Gnolls join him and they climb up onto the ruins of an old Human fountain. Ig tells them that what's coming is a skunk shark - not as bad as a beaver shark, and a useful omnivore which thins out the saplings to create open woods. They operate within a big circle roughly around the mansion, and north of that circle the Deep woods grow impenetrably thick. There have been other passing remarks which suggest that the area around the mansion is circumscribed in some way.
They have to hang around on top of the fountain's plinth for a couple of hours, talking, until the shark has gone. We learn that the GBOLs, the lights generated by The Tree, are dimmer at night and in winter, and that The Tree extends above ground and responds to sunlight. The basement-dwellers got the idea of a twenty-hour day from the Ettin-made clock in Time Hall which, like a lot of other Ettin artefacts, they wrongly believe to have been made by Humans.
Part Four: The Road Less Travelled [16/07/2007 - 26/02/2010] 01: Izchak [16/07/2007 - 30/08/2007] Sylvester's party come to a Motihaul-owned shop called Izchak's Sharp n' Pointy. There Rosemary is attracted by a weapon like a halberd with a weighted butt. Behind her back Izchak tells Sylvester and Camora it's not for sale because it's trapped in an "airbox", an Ettin-made forcefield which the basement dwellers wrongly attribute to Humans, and which neither he nor Sprocket and Flange have been able to open. However, if he was telling the truth then something Rosemary does, or some change in conditions, causes the airbox to open and the weapon comes freely to Rosemary - Sylvester later opines that this is supicious, as if it's been set up for her to take. As Rosemary is paying for her new weapon, Chauncy and Edgar carve their way in through the wall. They want to dissect Rosemary and Sylvester to see how they differ, but Rosemary thrashes Edgar with her new weapon and then tells him that his victims felt similar pain. Edgar it transpires is not callous or brutal: rather, because the Human world is so flimsy in comparison with his own he had believed that the world and the creatures in it weren't real, but something like a video game. Now that she has shown him that these are real people he doesn't intend them harm. We learn that Rosemary did something similar in the past with a demon called Scratch. We learn some background information. Demons in this world communicate with each other long-distance by a process called "tapping the lines". Chauncy and Edgar would have left long ago but they are constrained by some kind of barrier around the local area (it does seem to be local, not the planet's magnetic field). Chauncy asks Rosemary to strike him too so he can feel it, and she does so but nearly breaks her wrists, because he is so solid. Sylvester tells the two demons to go ask the Scary Lady to help them to get away. They say she has forbidden them from ever going upstairs again, but then Chauncy senses that she is on her way down, so they go in search of her. After they have left, Rosemary starts looking for a suitably grand romantic name for her new pole weapon, and Sylvester dubs it "the Can-Opener". 02: Upernavik [31/08/2007 - 26/09/2007] As they come away from Izchak's place, Sylvester's party encounter a group of male Motihaul soldiers armed with cold-forged iron weapons, inbound to tackle Chauncy and Edgar, and are warned by their officer, Matagam, to leave the area. The head of male Motihaul security, Upernavik, is listening through bugging devices: he must have heard the confrontation between Rosemary and Edgar, because he has "Scratch" written on his notepad. He sets Whisp (a dark-pelted female Trog) to tail Rosemary, Camora and Sylvester, then orders his side-kick called Knumdrot (a play on the Patrician's secretary Drumknot) to lock down their whole Hall, but Knumdrot refuses, citing a Contract which states that a Full Hall Lockdown requires the prior consent of both Upernavik and his female counterpart, Angmagslika. Upernavik regards consulting with Angmagslika as a dire ordeal - but he doesn't need to meet her after all because he receives a message from her telling him to initiate Lockdown. A horn is honked to alert two male Motihauls called Notserplib and Nagolder, who are dozing in a very cozy flat or office full of ornaments and games. We see the sound travel down pipes past a Smyt graffiti-artist ("Fnord wuz ere") and a Trundlebug who is looking at something like a Pacman monster. The two Motihauls have a pet tunnelrat called Hackit who is sleeping on Nagolder's stomach, and has to be lifted up with defensive gloves and placed in a box to control him. His job is to protect them from slimegrubs. Once Hackit has been safely boxed, they swim down a well-shaft to an underwater capstan which they turn to close off the Hall: they seem to be able to breathe underwater. Nagolder, we learn, is a friend to Cully, the young Gnoll who was banished to SubShaft 44f. Shut outside in the corridor, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that he considers her to be only the second most frightening woman he knows - after his great-aunt the Scary Lady. 03: The Gibber [27/09/2007 - 01/11/2007] Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their upbringing - Sylvester's parents were loving but absent, his father a twit who died young, his mother always a traveller, so he was raised largely by the Scary Lady. Rosemary, whose parents we know drowned in a maritime accident, was raised by her Aunt Eva and by Eva's former bodyguard Zeke. We see a vignette of Eva teaching Rosemary how to pick locks. Heading towards the long way out, they pass a group entity called The Gibber, guarded and assisted by an elderly female Gnoll (the grandmother of Mimsy), a Poker called Anathama. Rosemary and Sylvester tell Anathama they are forest Nomes, but Anathema as a youngster saw the young Sylvester and the Scary Lady fleeing a running fight in the Basement and she knows that they are Human, although she doesn't comment. We learn that seven years previously a group centred around a male Gnoll called Altholen, inspired by stories of the magic-users Caytid the Gnoll and a male Motihaul called Othar, used "Sneech squeezings" and the underground River of Fire (= magic) in an attempt to reawaken the magic in the world. Instead, they caused a cataclysm called the Breach which extended right up into the Mansion, where it caused sparks or similar to shoot out of the Tree. In the Basement it killed a large number of Ecadems and generated many new twistpoints. Camora's sires' Finagler Twitchel helped to seal it again: her sires Buccula and Choller also claimed credit for sealing the Breach but Anathama says they just got in the way, and it was Yurd and co. who fixed it. One of the effects of the Breach was to bring The Gibber, a cloud of half-seen faces in the darkness, into being in their own pocket of reality, overlaying what had been Helinew Hall. The Gibber have great knowledge and always tell the truth, so they function as an oracle. They tell truths to Rosemary and Sylvester, which they later tell Anathama were among the greatest truths they have ever given. To Rosemary they say "What you stole is even more dangerous and precious than you know. In the end, you will fly away and live forever, and you will leave the world shattered in your wake." To Sylvester: "You will return to where you started, and you will become what you hate. And in doing so, you will restore the world to what it was." After Rosemary and co. have left, The Gibber tell Anathema that they are dying - the power source which maintains them has failed. She is quite upset by this. She tells them that her duty with them has not been onerous, especially considering some of the things she has done in the past - we see her crawling through a tunnel to collect glowgems - and she mentions somebody called Bokonan who was "Sent into the SubShafts, and then.." This was connected with some necessary but personally risky thing that a group she belonged to, along with Bokonan and Digger and unspecified others, was and are doing. She needs to find Digger and tell him that Humans are back. Digger has never been to The Gibber to hear his truth. 04: Hop Skip and Several Jumps [02/11/2007 - 08/01/2008] Bung's Jibjib messengers go to Maw - who is just wrapping up winning a battle against his assailants - and warns him that Chancy and Edgar are loose. The people at Rhid's place arm themselves with the remains of his Dornbeast-repellant globes, ready to fling them at the demons. Meanwhile, Nevus and Agita return to the Basement and Nevus is surprised to find that in his absence his forces have gone to war against the Council, in his name and claiming his authorisation. The Nome party - Vezza, Piu, Umboz and Nitfol - and their Pale escort cross a rope bridge en route to the Pale camp. The Pales have a telescope set up to watch for the returning party. The Nex him or herself, the ruler, is apprehensive and says that "she" is coming and she may or may not be "the one", and the outcome will prove "Frogmask" - presumably Frowgler - right or wrong. The action cuts to the high thin tower called The Spike, on the edge of a lake somewhere near the mansion, where a high-ranking male Fixit called Cox is using a mesmerised Pale mount to listen to Pale communications. We learn that Fixits are born in breeding pens and then brought to The Spike, and that Cox is significantly older than fifty and witnessed the Crash. Cox speaks to a Human called Dorian who has lived in The Spike for forty-two years. Dorian is being ridden by a Fixit but it seems that Dorian is the one doing the talking, and is in a position of authority. Dorian says that somebody called Kelso is "finally bringing in her pet idiot" - presumably Rufus. Later evidence suggests that Kelso is Eunice by another name, probably her surname Cox floats down through the tower, using artificial levitation devices, until he meets a female Fixit called Vix who is riding a controlled Nome girl, and pushing a gurney holding industrial supplies. During the chapter headed Thrash, in the 900th strip which in real-time appeared almost two years before this one, a light message saying "900 WOO HOO" was seen shining from the top of The Spike. In-universe, this of course was earlier the same afternoon, and Vix says that the "wooflare" has drained some resource which the supplies on the gurney will help to stabilise, but Cox calls her away to walk with him. He talks to her about the Crash and the Human cities he once saw - from one of which be brought back an Ettin airbox, perhaps the one the Can Opener was in at Izchak's shop. There is a reference to a shield around the area, and to a new Human being brought in to The Spike, presumably Rufus. Protus, he thinks, has some vast plan - he first appeared five years beforehand and since then there have been more wooflares, both in the Spike and the SubShafts, and more twistpoints. Mr Hand has been passing on reports from the Hot Zone observers which also suggest imminent events. There is a reference to a power nicknamed the Topspike - probably the same as God - and to a serious female enemy in the west (where Rosemary was somehow transported from). He suggests that if Vix gets the chance to flee, she should take it. Meanwhile Frowgler crawls out of the crater left by the OZPR event - he seems mildly disappointed that it didn't kill him. At the Mansion, the Weirdo, grieving for his dead friend Tulip, has got roaring drunk, climbed up to the roof terrace, set off a siren called the Mugwump Alarm (although there are no longer any Mugwumps in the area and they are believed to be extinct) and passed out. Amos Grubb comes to shut off the alarm - which requires complex instructions from a code book (he seems to be the Mansion's librarian) - and has a conversation with Fantod, the Weirdo's ventriloquist's puppet, in which Fantod speaks as if he is an independent entity. Fantod tells Amos about some events he and the Weirdo witnessed by the Elevator, and refers to Rosemary as a "sword bunny". They seem to be regular visitors to the Basement. The Weirdo having sobered up a little, he and Amos walk down many stairs within the Mansion, and we glimpse a Panegate which opens into a world of yellow light and many busy Helipaths. We see strange machinery and Tree branches in the walls, including Ludwig's Vent Tapper 3000, which seems to be trying to tickle a magical flame into life. We see a female Gobule called Gulch teaching three baby Gobules called Gif, Glub and Gip, and telling them about great bones within the ground. 05: Skibble's Place [09/01/2008 - 01/03/2008] We learn from Camora that Mortimer was the "demon" who caused the Nome War, and from Sylvester that his parents chose their children's names from a very pompus classic book called Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. Rosemary is alarmed by the idea of eternal life - she says she'd get really bored after the first thousand years - but comforts herself by interpreting it as eternal fame rather than eternal life. Sylvester is less alarmed by the idea of becoming what he hates, since he hates some quite harmless things, and this leads to a discussion of his siblings and family in general. They come to Skibble's place (no Skibble, just his place), guarded by a male Gnoll called Cerbis, who lends them a token with an "E" on it, to be used to activate a device to summon the Great Riddler through whose territory they must soon pass, and he says they owe Skibble a favour for it. They discuss the aurilnode on the wall outside it: it was invented by a Helipath called Auril and Sylvester is impressed and disturbed by the level of sophistication, which suggests outside help, and also by the spectacular magical even caused by Altholen, even though he failed in his purpose. He tells Camora about magic and the Crash. Sylvester wonders whether Auril used Sneech squeezings in his work. Camora says he was too sane to do so, and this leads to a discussion about genius and eccentricity - about Rufus, who takes dangerous scientific risks, and Rosemary's friend Edwird, who likes to swim in ice water, and Telic the r doctor, who operates on hirself. Camora realises that Rosemary and Sylvester just want to get home, and she wants to take them to the Council's tunnel, but Hax says this is a bad idea as it would give an invading force an easy way in. They set off for the Riddle Grotto, with Whisp trailing them. Meanwhile Shona, returning from the forest, realises her sister Sina is in trouble and goes in search of her, as does Sprocket. Nevus, Mimsy and a couple of male Gnoll soldiers one of whom is called Frag are trying to fight their way through to Nevus's office. Agita meets with her assistant Flibbergib the Eyebolt, who is riding on a Gobule and has come to warn her about the fighting, and to complain about Weirders. Guttle, still partially wrapped in tendrils, comes stamping down the tunnel, dismissing Skoil from his service as he tramples him underfoot: two Trog raiders are unwise enough to attempt to mug him, but they don't even notice Digger passing them by. We see a scarred Rhid, still trailed by Kronk and contemplating desperate measures. We see the scuttly little sentient rock still trying to climb out of the Hot Zone. We see the Scary Lady and her balloon venture into the Sneech den, thinking that something is very wrong. Clochard and Anathama meet up, both looking for Digger, and exchange dire news which is trumped by one of Bung's Jibjibs warning them that Chauncy and Edgar are loose. They discuss the fact that Anathama saw Sylvester in the Basement fifteen years before, along with the "Clawblaster" - evidently the Scary Lady - and now he's with Rosemary, and with the pole weapon which Anathama has seen before, and although he's older he's far from old which tells Anathama that Humans have much longer lifespans than Gnolls. 06: The Three Great Riddles [03/03/2008 - 04/06/2008] Camora is telling Rosemary and Sylvester about Skibble - it's not clear what species Skibble is but he's a sort of Trickster and is friends with someone called Blitz who is probably a Gobule. Heading for the Riddle Grotto they pass a sign warning of a defence system called Death Doors, which are doors which attack any non-Human trying to open them, as with the Djinnoscope. They pass a door labelled Pots Room without stopping. Sylvester mentions the Djinnoscope, Camora asks about it and he describes the Hall of Achievement to her - but she knows it as the Death Hall. Sylvester explains that the Djinnoscope is called that because it can grant boons, like a Djinn. They come to the Riddle Grotto and find themselves on a jetty at the side of a deep pool. Theoretically no one can cross without authorisation because the Riddler lives in the water and is fantastically fast, but a Jibjib called Speedy once flew across on a bet with soemone called Shilpit. Othar the magical Motihaul is mentioned again, this time as an explorer. We learn that the Three Great Riddles were named by Dorn, 10th Earl of E, who also created the Dornbeasts as battle-mounts, and ended up being eaten by them. Rosemary and Sylvester prepare to take their leave of Camora: she still wants to tell them there's an easier, safer way out, but Hax prevents her. She notices that the cabinet which holds the Summoner has changed shape (from a kind of squat bullet-shape to a straight-line oblong) since they first came into the grotto, but Rosemary and Sylvester have seen no change, which suggests that either their memory or the time-line is being tampered with. Sylvester says it's always been as it now is - and that it reminds him of something he saw with Protus. Hax invades Camora's mind and takes it over, saying that he must follow his orders and she would find it distressing to be aware of what those orders are, and her mind and her sanity are precious and must be preserved. Having been taken over, Camora now says she was foolish to suggest that the cabinet had changed, but Sylvester refers to his great-great-uncle Hindenburgh the wizard, who also witnessed things changing. Sylvester inserts a token into the Summoner and it sets off a siren which summons the Riddler himself - a giant Ichyoid about 60ft high, older than the Earldom of E and speaking a Human/Ichyoid pidgin represented as Futhark runes (occasionally upside-down Futhark runes). He starts by asking them their business, and addressing Sylvester by name, and expressing sorrow at his father Willoughby's death. Sylvester introduces Rosemary as "non-family - staying?" The Riddler replies that she is dangerous. Sylvester asks if he, Rosemary and their possessions may pass over, and the Riddler asks if "Fixit Gnoll" wants to cross too, but they don't understand what he means. He asks for information on Frowgler, but Sylvester only knows about the comic-book character and explains that he is a two-dimensional representation drawn by somebody called Linderhoff. We learn from Rosemary that Roshambo, and his talking sword Slasher, and the frog-wizard Frowgler, and other characters including Naif and Arax, are hugely popular cultural icons and the comic's been running since before the Crash, although Sylvester later comments that the quality of the comics has declined since then. Sylvester recalls Mortimer complaining that his Roshambo action figure had been damaged - this may relate to the Sciencebugs who were worshipping a Roshambo figure on Mr Hand's desk. The Riddler finds their information about Frowgler interesting, and gives them permission to cross. Sylvester warns Camora not to try to follow them as she doesn't have permission to cross, and admits to her that they are Humans and promises to try to come back and speak formally to Comshaw and the Basement authorities - but it's not Camora they are speaking too now. Rosemary and Sylvester are both aware that Camora has changed, but they don't know why. A pontoon rises and rotates into position, enabling Rosemary and Sylvester to cross the pool. Sylvester says there used to be a lot of ways in and out of the Basement but they were gradually all closed off except two - Rosemary reckons there must be at least one more to explain the various appearances and disappearances. The pontoon's action is so jerky that as they get to the far side they fall in a heap and Rosemary jokily tries to kiss Sylvester. We learn about herediscans, security devices which identify members of the E family, and that the family used to manufacture reverse-engineered Ettin-style robots and sell them under the brand name Factor E. They talk about the Crash and how close civilisation came to total collapse. Rosemary's Aunt Eva was close to starving but she later ended up as a professional card-player (hence the bodyguard): Rosemary says that in the town of Nye some card-games played right through the Crash. Hax walks Camora through a secret door in the corridor wall into some sort of control centre, and Whisp doesn't see it but does note that Camora's scent just stops. Hax seems to be planning to kill Rosemary and Sylvester. 07: Decisions Decisions [05/06/2008 - 05/07/2008] Chauncy and Edgar locate the Scary Lady in the Sneech Den and ask her to help them get through the barrier: they do not want to go home because they have become used to having names. Sprocket and Flange place a piece of equipment, probably from the old Metalmin, in a service hatch whence it is collected by an Ichyoid. Hiblehoy and Wrawa leave Leny's body in Bowel Hall to be rendered down. They are paid in glowgems: Wrawa tells Hiblehoy to take half for himself and give the other half to Telic to research why the Trogs develop dementia. She crashes out and has to be carried home to bed by Hiblehoy, through the running battle which is still raging. Thrash finds Frowgler, slightly singed. Frowgler says that his own story is so odd even he doesn't believe it, and that he means to see that the Pales get what they want, and it's not his problem whether or not they'll still want it once they've got it. Frowgler says that he is neither so clever as the Nex nor so powerful as the ruler in the Spike but still he is the most important person Thrash has ever met. Thrash decides to help Frowgler rather than finishing him off. We see two male forest Gnolls called Scrof and Louch who had been out on a foraging/raiding party and got caught in all the strange events. Louch, a cousin of Comshaw's, couldn't cross over the rope bridge because the Pales were there, and had to go north and use a minimalist bridge just called The Rope, and consisting of just three cords. Now he is tired and wants to go back to their village, the northernmost of a pair, which is just a big communal burrow. Louch is fed up with how poorly they live and wants to learn to read like his mother, and better himself: he thinks he will ask Umboz the Nome to teach his people how to cultivate crops, but we see the Nome mayor saying that Umboz is a traitor, and ordering Umboz's brother Frotz to regain the family honour by leading a raid on Louch's village. In the Basement, we see a male Gnoll, Bung's friend Faddle, heading home with a plant in a pot, and a mixed-sex couple called Niff and Folla looking for somewhere to hide from the fighting, and instead running into the newly returned Shona. They start to tell her about Chancy and Edgar and then overhear two Motihauls talking about it, and about Sina setting up a safe zone in Crazy Rhid's place (because of the weaponry there). Shona thinks that a safe zone at Rhid's place is an oxymoron, but Niff and Folla tell her that Sina has driven Rhid off. 08: The River of Fire [07/07/2008 - 26/11/2008] Deep underground, overlooking the River of Fire, is a bridge or gantry of some kind protruding from a pueblo-style earth building. Here we see a male Gnoll called Blit, with a bandaged leg, and a male Motihaul called Gongoozle discussing the fact that this is meant to be The Day That Changes Everything but it seems to be change for the worse, and the Gobule Lairs are all now at war with each other. A female Trog called Espy (who we will later learn is or used to be a primary-school teacher of young Trogs, and who is remarkably old-looking for a Trog and yet still mentally sharp) summons Blit to go downstairs to see someone called the Observer, and sends Gongoozle away because he is not on the Observer's staff and they are closing the observatory to outsiders. Blit goes downstairs by a complex route of lifts and stairs and corridors, passing other workers - a nameless Gobule and two Eyebolts called Poindext (or Poyndext) and Suscalva - doing mysterious scientific things, then two Gobule labourers called Ottus and Piterbult and a short watch-being of unknown species called Wences. He is caught by a booby-trap and catapulted through the air to land in a padded cart operated by a Helipath called Lucint and two Jibjibs. Lucint carries a stunned Blit down to an observation pod where they meet two pink female Oozes. The lower-down one of these seems to be The Observer (so it's not Mr Hand) and has become stiff due to proximity to the Fire, and is losing the ability to change shape. The higher-up one seems to be the Observer-to-Be, a trainee. The River of Fire affects different species in different ways: it is rapidly harmful to Motihauls, Helipaths have to wear goggles to keep from going dizzy, Ghasts go mad and Wyrms can't go near it at all. Eyebolts, Gobules, Jibjibs and Trogs are hardly affected, and Gnolls, especially mated trios of Gnolls, are affected in some way but also affect the Fire back, disturbing its flow. The Observer has summoned Blit to look at the fire and see what he can see. She mentions other Days That Changed Everything but says this one is especially odd, with an unexplained reference to a Nome called Rejov. Blit looks through a viewing hatch into the river and sees images of a cactus - almost certainly "God's Cactus", the Mansion of E - and of a "fancy pot", then letters telling him two Humans are about to cross the Grotto Bridge. Meanwhile, at the edge of the Riddler's Grotto Sylvester lectures Rosemary about what Humans have learned about magic from Ettin writings. In their world it seems to function like magnetism - it's generated in or by the planet's core, sprays out from the South Pole in a series of leylines resembling lines of longitude and then dives back in at the North Pole. These leylines have been much fainter since the Crash. There are also random magical upwellings called tricklepoints which are still active and useable, and there's one at the source of the River of Fire. Not far away to the south, the Forest of Burzee contains an even bigger tricklepoint. Different tricklepoints behave differently and are good for different things: the one under the Mansion is being squeezed by something down in the Hot Zone, causing the River to be sprayed out of it. The female Earl Audra, mother of Ludwig, investigated it, dug exploratory mines right down deep into the Hot Zone and in doing so triggered a cataclysm which enlarged the Great Chasm. Her father Angus threw condemned prisoners into the River of Fire, and Chauncy and Edgar probably entered the world through it. [The Operator, however, came to town by tram.] Sylvester warns Rosemary to expect to see visions as they approach the River, and they set off. Whisp, who is evidently blazingly fast and agile, watches them from the far side of the Grotto and then crosses the Pool by bounding across the sinking bridge and dodging the Riddler's lightning-fast claws, although she suspects him of not caring enough to try very hard to catch her. Sylvester tells Rosemary that witches and wizards - thaumslingers - used to wear magic-concentrators called thaumtappers inside their pointy hats, which killed most of them when the Crash came. The batteries in their helmets run on small thaumtappers and Rosemary sees visions when she switches her helmet light on while wearing it. We learn that Sylvester is not very devout, and has private reasons for not going to the Temple every week, and that the local temple of the Brush was moved from the Mansion to the local village of Eetown after an Earl called Ernest (father of Philbert) quarrelled with an Oracle called Purity. Ernest was a forger and died in a dramatic way. As they approach the River they start to see externally-manifested visions of people from their pasts. Sylvester sees Dirge, a thuggish man from the village, threatening to hit him. Rosemary sees her tutor, friend and perhaps (although he was a lot older than her) lover, Edwird, and a respected bodyguard colleague called Baldy. She apologises to Edwird for having hurt him by leaving him, and expects Baldy may be her enemy now because she went AWOL from a job they were both working on. The vision of a "Pyrite" appears, with a parrot on his shoulder - the pirate, who was someone Rosemary was once on a course with, dissipates when swiped with the Can-Opener but the parrot seems to be real. Sylvester sees Mr Ferule, the family lawyer, who administers the trust which pays for the eldest in each generation of Emans to go to university. Sylvester teaches Rosemary to conjure shapes out of the magic-saturated air and tells her that Ludwig studied them, and said that they were connected in some way with the distance between Eyebolts (something we have seen managers of Eyebolt clerks worrying about, and these shapes resemble those conjured by Eyebolt Weirders). We learn that brilliant Ludwig had an almost equally brilliant common-law wife called Penelope. As they approach the River it starts to show them what they most want to see. Rosemary sees a half-formed vision of her dead parents, and Sylvester sees a naked, busty, willing Rosemary - the real Rosemary is quite flattered (and she sees a naked Sylvester, but doesn't let on). We learn that for some reason Sylvester cannot or may not marry anyone from Eetown. We learn that the species in the Basement are native and represent all the known intelligent species in the world, except Mugwumps and Wendigoes. Rosemary wants to know why the Mansion isn't known as a tourist attraction, as the Infernal Engine is. Rosemary and Sylvester recognise and acknowledge that they are already friends, and see a vision of Nimue, Sylvester's girlfriend from university. They come to the start of a bridge across the River. A magical surge envelops them and Rosemary (only) sees a vision of the Tree personified as a sort of Ent. It tells her that she is carrying the seeds of some important thing, an egg and a claw of it: the Can-Opener is the claw, and the egg is whatever Rosemary carries with her and which she refers to as having brought her there. Presumably, this is the same thing that she stole. Rosemary is becoming connected to "the system entire", the setup that runs the world and of which the Tree is a part, and she must turn that setup upside down. It gives her another seed - this one actually looks a bit like a real seed - which she tucks inside her Poke-Kit. As Rosemary wakes from the trance she forgets who she was talking to, but just before she wakes the Tree starts to tell her she will remember when she needs to. She tries to tell Sylvester about what happened and ask whether she can trust what se saw, but it slides out of her mind. Meanwhile, Whisp is still stalking them, and Hax uses Camora to collect a blunderbuss. 09: Loose Ends (Basement Edition) [27/11/2008 - 07/01/2009] Faddle the Gnoll brings Bung the Gobule a pot-plant as a thank-you for the profit he made from selling Bung's toadstool. We learn that Bung is quite an important political or merchantile player and are reminded that he knows Digger. One of his Jibjibs returns - she has been warning "folks" about Chauncy and Edgar (and she doesn't know who Digger is). We learn that Faddle is a failed or partial Finagler - and that this entails being a good psychological observer. Anathama and Clochard are in some kind of long-standing political conspiracy with Digger. He meets up with them and takes them much deeper underground to a comfortable bedroom cum office which has artificial lights - so the Tree can't see what goes on there. There they meet their old friend the male Gnoll Bokonon, an elderly Finagler who they had believed had been lost in the SubShafts a long time ago: he had last been heard of in SubShaft 44f, compiling a report on Crud, the developer of the Crudbean, which was just after Comshaw killed the Ravers and Nevus started Le Tree. Bokonon believes the Tree is esssentially on the same side as them. Digger goes back out to see what he can do or learn about the fighting and Chancy and Edgar, leaving the three Gnolls behind to gossip in Gnoll jargon. Clochard and Anathama make the most of what time they have in this dangerous local situation, and go off together to make love. Meanwhile, we see The Scary Lady and her sentient balloon escorting Chauncy and Edgar to a Panegate. Nevus, Guttle and Agita resume command of their forces, although Agita is still scrubbing off Mortimer's kiss. Two Ghast medics collect Sepferb from outside Crazy Rhid's place and place him in a restorative porta-pool: Hiblehoy turns up, carrying an exhausted, sleeping Wrawa, and they advise him on her care and warn him she may be in an erratic mental state when she wakes up. Hiblehoy can't get home because Sidestep Hall is in lockdown, so a Trog called Mowder lets him and Wrawa into Rhid's place, where Sina is trying to organise an emergency demon-proof camp. Maggle has not succeeded in getting through all the fighting to return the buckets to Tunktal. The Wyrms Voog and Ploot have identified a source of water in one of the side-rooms of Rhid's place but there is machinery in the way. Sprocket and Flange turn up and are set to dismantle the machines. Maggle and Flange discuss the level of sexual tension between Sina and Sprocket, and whether they've chosen a Finagler yet. Meanwhile a New Year out-take shows Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party walking past some large human ruins, with the Spike in the background. 10: Loose Ends (Mansion Edition) [08/01/2009 - 02/03/2009] Amos Grubb puts Arthur the Weirdo and his hand-puppet Fantod to bed in their actic room: we see Arthur has a soft-toy Wendigo. We see a system of lifts and pulleys within the walls of the mansion: this is used to deliver to Hector a box containing the spare pieces which Sprocket and Flange earlier salvaged from the defunct Metalmin. On his way back from collecting the box Hector passes a talking machine, a Panegate, a gun (?) in a case marked "In case of Ludwig, break glass", preserved specimens of a Mugwump and a Wendigo, and a painting of one of the titanbugs which the Pales use as war mounts. Reaching his own quarters he takes the spare part out of the box and dumps the box down a chute, then goes to Mr Hand - on the way passing the Trog on the treadmill, who is now flaked out asleep. Mr Hand is eager to talk to Hax the Fixit. He swaps the spare part into Hector, who then repairs Mr Hand's scanners. Hand looks at pictures from around the Basement and comments on the non presence of The Gibber, which may connect to something the Sneeches have done (left?). He tries to track Rosemary and Sylvester but can't see them because they are close to the River, so he sends Hector to talk to the Riddler. He has a special interest in and wariness of Rosemary. As Hector leaves, Mr Hand is 'phoned by some colleague for a conference. Hector pases the dead king on his throne: the dial is now at No. Amos goes outside and observes unusual activity in the Tree. He lets himself into the Ivory Tower and lights a candle by magic, but Nellie catches him and tells him off for taking the risk, as she fears a second Crash. Amos is a former thaumslinger. Nellie has brought back from the village a large young man called Patrick, the local sheriff. Amos reports to Patrick about Rosemary. Patrick and his colleagues watch the Earl and are aware that Rosemary arrived without seeming to pass through the surorunding area. Amos reassures him she's not from another world. Patrick wants Sylvester to report to him. Amos and Nellie give him a book on wine-making for someone called Saffron in the village, and a Willy the Wendigo book for his son. 11: Loose Ends (Forest Edition) [03/03/2009 - 21/04/2009] Umboz, Vezza, Piu and Nitfol and their Pale escort arrive at the Pale hive, a kind of amorphous but high-tech. (with e.g. gas-lighting), pueblo-type castle. There they meet a Pale called Zpeaker, with two head-spikes, whose job is to project sounds that other species can hear, in order to talk to them. We learn that Nitfol had been rescued from the Spyder by Pales, who presumably killed the Spyder and who took him to Frowgler. Frowgler told him that he had sent the Pales to save him, and now he, Nitfol, had to save Umboz and Vezza. Nitfol asks to see the Nexus, the Pale leader, but the other three Nomes prefer to go and rest. Frowgler has told the Pales they will benefit by helping these Nomes: Umboz is afraid they want him to open a breach in his village's squid-based defences but Zpeaker says not. What the Pales hope for is a way to breach the barrier which they, and the Nomes, experience as keeping them bound within this local area. We learn that after the Nome/Gnoll war, the Nomes taught the Pales how to tree-warp (opening a Tardis-like space within a tree-trunk): they have used these skills to set up comfortable quarters for their Nome visitors. Umboz and Piu discuss who should replace Mayor Kayeeb: Nitfol, returning, volunteers. The others reluctantly agree, as the destruction of his home tree by the beaver shark gives him a non-conspiratorial excuse for seeking a new lifestyle. The Nexus and Nitfol have a plan of campaign worked out which will involve the collection of strange and difficult substances from the deep forest. Meanwhile, the skunk shark is still chewing its way through the bushes, and Comshaw and co. are still roosting on top of the ruined fountain. We see Yasmine Fotheringby waking up dazed and regaining her composure in the ruins where Protus dropped her - in fact, the above-ground bit of the same branch of World o' Pots where Mortimer fell into the underground storage area. She takes off a mask within the hood: we still cannot see her face or species, but she thinks of herself as Human. She belongs to the Weirdoes' Guild. She sets off to rejoin her horse but then hears a sleeping Mortimer coughing inside a building guarded by a not very effective Sneech security device, and goes to investigate. 12: Urwyn and the Elevator [22/04/2009 - 03/08/2009] Shona, Niff (the male) and Folla arrive at Rhid's ex place, where the male Trog Mowder is now the gatekeeper: the gate in question is being constructed by a Helipath called Fosic. Mowder believes that Rhid's former place, under Sina's leadership, will become a new multi-species Hall offering greater opportunities for individuality and personal advancement than the existing Halls, and maybe even start a trend for many new Halls springing up around the fringes of the old ones. Shona wants to see Sina, her sister, but Sina sends her a message telling her to go home. Mowder suggests that she come in anyway and report to Catmorlo to be assigned a job, thus becoming Sina's employee instead of Nevus's, but Shona walks away. We meet a tiny, diffident mini-Wyrm called Urwyn. He volunteers to help with the new Hall, and Mowder sends a male Gnoll called Satyrsong to carry Urwyn to Catmorlo. Satyrsong has an extreme hairdo which he cultivates for effect. People are milling about carrying out tasks assigned by Catmorlo: Urwyn notices that a new piece of unknown eqipment which has been brough in sends out a trail of energy to another piece, but no-one listens to him when he tries to tell them about it. Urwyn is assigned to stay out of sight and watch the Elevator. As Skuy carries Urwyn towards the Elevator, Voog examines him to see if he has to "eat" him, which is actually a metaphor for some sexual element of the relationship between the large Deep Wyrms and the little ones. This leads to a conversation in which Skuy says she will never use a Finagler: she was in love with Cully who was exiled to SubShaft 44f by Nevus. Skuy takes Urwyn to meet Sina, who is in Rhid's laboratory where Sprocket is clearing out the msot dangerous stuff. Wrawa has been left to sleep and a Gnoll Healer named Kottle is assigned to keep an eye on her. Two Trogs called Grik and Grak have appointed themselves as Sina's bodyguards. Sina's sight is returning, and she is kept very busy organising everybody. Hiblehoy is sent to make up beds - we learn that it is difficult, but not impossible, for male and female Motihauls to work together. There is some conversation about Rhid's obligatory stuffed crocagator: someone called Nubby keeps a pool of live ones at the far end of the Basement, but Urwyn has never been to see them because there's no [unspecified secret thing he doesn't want to name]. We learn that Rid used to be a Candle Monk but got thrown out, and that he was trained by a Gnoll wizard (? probably a wizard) called Burtgum who died in some kind of accident. Urwyn will summon help, if he needs it, by pinging a glass ball. A Gnoll called Finimbrun is to be that help. Finimbrun takes Urwyn to meet somebody called Huff and they all get caught up inside a mechanical Kraken, a Human-made advertising float which Rhid had acquired somewhere. The kraken's long tentacle is used to transport Urwyn to the Elevator. There he meets another small Wyrm, a friend of his called Zugo, who is doing some kind of foraging work for "the Circle". We learn that Urwyn is some Wyrm equivalent of a pampered aristocrat but he wants to be useful and do work, and Zugo, who is the equivalent of working-class, is unusual in that he will talk to Urwyn. Urwyn asks Zugo to warn "the innerest Ring" that Rhid has been ousted: he expects that if anybody in that Ring notices that he, Urwyn has left, they'll be glad to be rid of him. Meanwhile, Flange has created a device called a bim toggler with which he has opened a false wall to reveal a sequence of rooms beyond. He believes there may be other large rooms left sealed by the Humans. An alarmingly gungho female Motihaul called Othara, granddaughter of the famous Othar, turns up and volunteers to explore the new space, which Sina hopes will relieve overcrowding in the Halls. Sina realises she forgot to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, but at that moment the Elevator doors open and Hpobfvfr appears, red-eyed and controlled by the Operator. Urwyn tells Zugo to leave. Hpobfvfr still ahtes the Operator but he has nevertheless convinced her that he is her superior officer: they speak of different levels of passwords in a way that suggests she operates in some artificial way like a Metalmin and her mind can be hacked into. The Operator sends her to fetch Sylvester's cold iron frying pan: although it hurts the Operator to touch it, he holds it and uses it to probe the boundaries of his cage. He sends her to gather up the remains of Hpthbvtw (Hepthbav), which he thinks he can use: but when he realises that Hpobfvfr has a strong emotional link to Hpthbvtw, and that this is weakening his hold over her (her eyes get noticeably less red), he orders her back into the lift. He tells her that he too had a mate he was fond of, and offspring, and he doesn't know if he will see them again but in the very long term he will "literally move heaven and earth" for the chance to do so. Finimbrun comes to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, and Urwyn tells him she's already appeared: he goes off again to tell Sina. Meanwhile, the Operator does something to Hpobfvfr's physiology which causes a red flicker around her head, and then tells her to track and kill Rosemary and Sylvester - a task she takes to with enthusiasm. In fact, the Operator is seeking to test Rosemary against a more forceful opponent than Chancy and Edgar, because he has a use for her if she wins. Ploot, the large Deep Wyrm, comes to speak to Urwyn about what he has seen. In the foreground, a Smyt summons a trundlebug and rides it like a horse. Urwyn comments on the fact that Ploot is the first Deep Wyrm he's met who didn't examine him to see if he needed to "eat" him. Ploot says he's just not very interested in that kind of thing - it's a powerful and necessary drive but a small minority just don't have it. They see an externalised Vision, or what Ploot calls a "Glimpse" (actually celebrating the strip's sixth birthday). Ploot tells Urwyn he stays up high (for a Wyrm) in the Basement because he doesn't want to breed and also because times are changing, as the Vision suggests, and he wants to help people who are trying to smooth the transition and set up a new society etc.. Urwyn mutters that he isn't sure he'd mind if Ploot wanted to Eat him.... Another Shallow Wyrm called Kryt, who has been secretly watching this exchange, goes to some kind of communication station and starts to give a secret report about the Operator to some Wyrm authority. There seems to be a small colony of the little Shallow Wyrms living around this communication point. Meanwhile a large flutterby, dazed by crashing into light globes, flies past them and down into the depths, where it is struck by the radiator of a large lorry or armoured car, being driven deep undergound. 13: The Great Chasm [04/08/2009 - 26/02/2010] On the lorry are two very amusing, characterful Fixits, a male and a female who seem to be working partners, both riding unconscious Gnoll mounts, who mention an engineer called Tix who had been complaining that the "Sneechtaps" were all offline. They come to an underground building which looks a bit like the Mansion of E upside-down and has levitating lifts, where they report to a very bossy female Fixit called Grix. It is mentioned that there is a schedule which Nevus and the Council have pre-empted by attacking each other. They bear a message saying that Mr Hand wants to see Hax urgently. Grix reveals that Hax has a history of getting into scrapes (nearly as bad as Mortimer) and has just spent almost ten years relegated to the (breeding?) pens in the mountains. Grix summons a female Ichyoid called Igor who brings in boxes of what we later learn is delicate, increasingly-hard-to-obtain material vital for the maintenance of the underpinnings of the River of Fire. The partners are despatched to take these boxes to the Chasmside Covert Observation Station: after they have left, Igor wishes to discuss Rufus, apparently as a replacement for Mr Hand, but this is so secret a matter that Grix tells her they must know nothing about it ever. The two partners are sent on another long lorry journey to deliver the boxes. With them in the lorry are other consignments, including a cage containing a giant (hamster-sized) Fuzz which sings in notes coloured in the same rainbow colours as the River of Fire, underneath which they pass. The female Fixit expresses moral doubts about what they are doing by controlling their mounts. En route they pass the Quarentine Alcove of Forbidden Objects, which contains strange things such as a statue of an Ichyoid and a giant, broken statue of Kaylu with wires hanging out of it. When they reach the Chasmside Covert Observation Station they unload in a large, open hangar and then report to Fixits called Apix and Birux. Apix says that Nevus and Preznit (for the Council) have called a cease-fire. He is aware of Sylvester and of Rosemary, whom he calls "regrettably proactive". The male of the two partners then goes up to an observation deck where he talks to a Fixit called Peex (riding on/fused with an Eyebolt) and they discuss Project Y, the same thing Sprocket and Flange were working on earlier. Project Y will give their employers much more effective surveillance but may not be finished in their lifetime. There is a suggestion that their current surveillance system involves the Tree. The action cuts to Rosemary and Sylvester, who are discussing Rosemary's Poke-Kit, and the E family library in the Ivory Tower, and books they have read about Erewhonian anthropology and night creatures, and the availability of different foods in different areas. We learn that Amos Grubb is the Mansion's librarian and Nellie Grubb is the gardener. As Rosemary and Sylvester climb the steps leading away from the far side of the River there are no more visions, just an odd smell of marshberries. They reach a lighted area, and Rosemary becomes temporarily hypnotised after looking at a spinning light. She is amazed to discover that the Can Opener fits inside her Poke-Kit, which previously had only been able to hold small objects: Sylvester attributes this to the power of the tricklepoint. Pre-Crash folk heroes named Readman and Billsmith are mentioned, who carried a whole library and an arsenal in Poke-Kits. Sylvester talks about the Spike (and at least some bits of the Mansion, since e.g. the Panegates have the same characteristic writing on them as the Spike) having been built by Ettins, and about the ancient war between Ettins and Sneeches, which killed all the Ettins and most of the Sneeches. We learn that the Ettins sent a mission to the Moon to investigate artefacts of unknown origin there. Sylvester says that the Sneeches in the Basement usually allow travellers through their territory if they stick to the main road and don't engage with anybody. They occasionally give travellers gifts, which may be beneficial, dangerous or both: Audra's cost her a hand but she said it was worth it: latterly, Sneech gifts are usually either thrown away or stored in the Quiet Room (a magic-deadening space upstairs in the Mansion). The new Earl has to walk through the Sneech colony alone, but Sylvester saw no Sneeches. Sylvester talks about the zoo which the Ettins set up in the Basement, before Humans arrived in the area. Most of the local sentient species were exhibits - except the Sneeches, who were prisoners of war and research subjects; the Gnolls, who were free-lance "vermion" living where they chose; and the Gobules and Eyebolts, who were on the staff of the zoo. After the Ettins died the exhibits escaped and set up a mixed society in the Basement, and Humans came into the country across the sea in large numbers from Tiranog via a region called Abalone, and took over the area (there were already older Human colonies in Shiboleth who got there by a different route, but never spread, and who now speak a very different dialect from the rest; and even before them the insular, hostile Human group called Haroons were brought into Alfibay by someone or something). After the Crash the Basement Pales moved out into the vacated ruins of Eetown. This probably has something to do with the presence of a large, ultimately Pale-owned World o' Pots in Eetown. Sylvester mentions Ilsa Lundquist, who was head housekeeper at the Mansion for years, and whose mother was a Haroon. This must be the same green-haired, Earl-hating Ilsa whom Snerk and Shona met when the HJ42 went PROZ and jumped them back to Eetown shortly before the Crash. Ilsa had a distracted air - probably because the Scary Lady was controlling her in some way - and eventually retired to the village. The Mansion still has a very old, almost mummified butler called Schmedley. They used to have all sorts of servants, including an hereditary string-measurer: the last incumbent choked to death a week and a half before the Crash. Rosemary has plans for reviving the Mansion's fortunes. We learn that King Yorik III and his children died in the Crash. The current king Yancy II is a figurehead: the Bureaucracy really governs. Sylvester follows the fortunes of various factions in the Times and has plans for playing the stockmarket. There is a long discussion about the politics of the various sub-countries, including a place called Blefusco which is clearly equivalent to France. As they approach the top of the stairs, the hypnotic lights go out. They talk about the various habitats in the Basement ex-zoo, the death of the Wendigoes in the failed arctic exhibit (no loss, according to Sylvester), and the Willy the Wendigo books, and birth-control failures, and the pointlessness of Rosemary's crush on Baldy because he was "a homguy". We learn that the Helipaths and Ecadems were probably brought in by the Ettins through a Panegate. Sylvester understands the Panegates to open into alternate heres, rather than other planets, although they occasionally spawn portals to further-away places. We learn that Rosemary's parents drowned in a maritime accident, and that there were terrible Dawn Wars before the Ettins ande Sneeches came along. We aren't told who the combatants were but inimical races called Wilfs/Wifts and Gobblems/Gobble'Ems are mentioned, who are now known in this world only from bone framgments and fairy tales but who still exist beyond one of the Panegates, so it may have been them. For whatever reason, the Panegates only show worlds a long way diverged from this one. The 12th Earl, Lemuel, investigated the Panegates and was probably killed by one: the controls are difficult and dangerous to operate, but there are a few simple ones which do work and part of the rite of passage of the new Earl is to go through one to e.g. the Forest or Charlotte's Cave. Rosemary and Sylvester reach the Great Chasm. Mr Hand watches them on his monitors, but disclaims all knowledge to somebody on the 'phone. Ludwig installed railings and bridges over the Chasm: there is a gap in the rails opposite the door they emerge from, but no bridge. Walking along a ledge to get to the actual bridge, they encounter an elderly male Gobule called Theophan the Recluse. Theophan is one of a long series of Theophans who were all famous mentors. Gobule young are self-supporting and non-sentient, like baby guinea-pigs. They scatter in large numbers to grow or die. Those that live, become sentient: some of those become mere scavengers around the fringes but the luckiest are taken on by a mentor and educated. This Theophan was a student of Theophan the Rotund, along with Maw, Bung, Cram and Guttle. We learn that Gobule mentors occasionally mentor other species: Sylvester seems to be considering using one for his own future children. We hear about a Jibjib boss called Flap who runs an expensive ferry service across the Chasm, and learn that Theophan has chosen to stay beside the Chasm because it goes all the way down to the Hot Zone and he feels there's something terribly important down there. He tastes the Can Opener and thinks it is made of Sneech squeezings, or something similar. We learn that Theophan also stays by the Chasm to provide a sort of counselling service to male Trogs who come to the Chasm to kill themselves at the projecting jetty called the Plunge. After Rosemary and Sylvester have left we see Whisp still trailing them, then two baby Gobules emerge from a hole and talk to Theophan. We learn that those Nomes who still live in the Basement live in Root Hall with the Eyebolts. Rosemary is aware of Whisp following them. As they approach the Plunge point, trying to lose Whisp, they are passed by Crazy Rhid coming the other way, with Kronk still on his trail some way behind him. Nearby, we see a male Ghast waiting for somebody, and Hpobfvfr passing by behind him, presumably looking for Rosemary and Sylvester: the unknown male glimpses her and seems to realise something is odd about her. A shot is fired (by Camora, with the blunderbuss, under Hax's control, from a high vantage point), striking Rosemary on the helmet and dazing her: Kronk pushes her aside in order to pursue Rhid, and she and Sylvester fall into the Chasm. Rhid and Kronk pass Whisp, who smells Camora's presence nearby, and then a Trog juggler who we later learn is called Stonwal. Digger Odel rescues Rhid, sort-of, by pulling him in behind a concealed panel. Whisp traces Camora's scent to another concealed panel, then leaves to report back to Upernavik and Knumdrot. Meanwhile we see Hpobfvfr go to the edge of the Plunge and peer over, then turn back. Behind the second panel, Hax disengages from Camora. He believes he has contained her memory and delayed her awakening, but she wakes instantly, with full memory, and tries to grab him. He escapes down a crack in the rock. We see fissures in the rock containing odd bits of struts and tools and what looks like a Smyt-sized pink racing car, then a bat waking and flying through wider fissures towards the outside. Part Five: Mechanisms in the Dark [27/02/2010 - 16/07/2013] 01: Sitting in a Tree [27/02/2010 - 04/06/2010] Now that it is getting dark Comshaw, Niddle and Ig finally feel safe to come down from the ruined fountain. Ig is now wearing/carrying Niddle's backpack. Yasmine enters the ruined building where she heard coughing, and discovers Mortimer, still coming round from having been stunned by Eunice. He has a note from Rufus on his chest but we aren't told what it says. He correctly identifies Yasmine as a Weirdo - which she finds amazing, apparently because it suggests a degree of clairvoyance not seen since the Crash. He also identifies the building as Dorian's old hut (presumably the Dorian who now lives in the Spike), but seems confused: when Yasmine mentions Protus as the Willigig currently living in the Mansion, Mortimer recalls being somewhere near the Basement at some point and Skibble, who seems to be a friend of his, turning up and mentioning Protus to him, but he doesn't coherently connect this with the Willigig who gave him the HJ42 after the incident with the tree-squid earlier in the day - although he then refers to Protus as "really grumpy", so he must have made the connection mentally. Yasmine claims she is there to conduct an official Weirdo's Guild review of Arthur's performance. Yasmine sets off again to find her horse, and Mortimer again sets out to find Nitfol and rescue him if still alive. He is briefly distracted by a flutterby and calls it to his finger: Yasmine sees this and is again amazed by his psychic talent. A bearded Gnoll with a spear (who we later learn is Agita's henchman Agorn) overhears them talking, and we see Mortimer's scalpsucker messenger fall asleep, still only halfway up the side of the shaft. Yasmine and Mortimer get along well and he tells her about all the odd things which happen to him. They talk about Mortimer and Sylvester doing their duty and Sylvester still getting scorned by the villagers, about chaos theory and flutterbys, and she tells him to tell Frederick about the odd things which happen to him. Thinking of what Protus showed her, but not saying it, she tells Mortimer she expects to be back some day and when she returns she expects him to have made some progress with his situation. As Yasmine leaves, Mortimer gives her his sack of fleebs. The listening Gnoll wonders whether to follow one or the other, go home and report or go join the Spikefolk, who carry out strange rites. He appears to decide to follow Mortimer. Ig, Comshaw and Niddle are trying to locate Mortimer by smell but they smell something odd as well, metal and skin, wet and burnt - Niddle says this smell was all over the mound that the Fire came out of earlier ("The Pit"). The way they describe the smell, it probably relates to either Frowgler or the Meltalmin or robot which we glimped earlier near The Pit. Again there is mention of a barrier which Humans live beyond, as if there's some sort of cordon keeping the Basement folk in. Niddle is pleased that he was exposed to the Fire and saw visions, as he thinks this will prove to be important. Mortimer encounters Frowgler, Thrash and two other Pales. He recognises Frowgler as a comic-book character but Frowgler says that he is "not THE Frowgler. Just.. A Frowgler", although he claims to be in a similar position to his fictional counterpart, in that he has come to assist the Good Guys against powerful evil forces, much bigger and more powerful than mere demons. Mortimer and Thrash are both Good Guys. Frowgler comments that the local Pales call their fort "The Camp" because they expect it to be temporary, and advises Mortimer on how to find the Spyder web he is looking for. Mortimer asks if Yasmine was right to tell him to talk to Frederick, and Frowgler thinks she probably was. As Frowgler and the Pales leave, Mortimer finds an umbrella. It doesn't belong to anyone in Frowgler's party, so he keeps it. Agorn realises that Comshaw's party are behind him, and hides. He overhears Comshaw sniffing out the fact that the Human, Mortimer, went one way and the Pales and the metal-smelling thing went another. So in this case the metal-smelling thing must be Frowgler. Agorn is impressed, but in a kind of patronising way: he sees Comshaw as a young fellow with potential. The space-suited worker who earlier quit the Hot Zone observation station climbs out of a hatch in one of the ruined buildings, takes off her helmet and reveals herself to be a female Nome called Fizmo. She mentions having been taken below by someone called Fogorner, who she believes was working for the group in the Spike. She forces her way out of the locked building through a crack high in the stonework. She meets Frowgler, whom she knows - he had advised her not to take the subterranean job. Now he says going back down would be the safest thing for her, but not the best thing. Learning that she likes Nitfol, he suggests she go with Thrash to the Pale camp where Nitfol now is, and she agrees. Frowgler gives her a hat, since Nomes hate to be bareheaded, but he warns her to examine hats from other sources carefully. It is clear he is warning her about Fixits, and that Fogorner is controlled by a Fixit. He also warns her that the beaver shark - of which there is only one - is loose nearby, and that he is trying to stop Kayeeb doing something which will destroy the Nome village (presumably, attacking the Gnolls). Frowgler denies being a demon and says he was put on earth to do what he is doing. He goes down the tunnel Fizmo came out of, and she goes off with the Pales, talking at them about a Nome who built a prototype plane which crashed, and her ideas about hot air balloons. We see a flat-topped tower among the ruins, containing a giant glowgem which gives off light. Down below is a lorry in some sort of workshop. The glowgem connects to the lights which channel daylight to the Great Chasm, and we see that Rosemary and Sylvester have landed in a peculiar fluffy outgrowth of the Tree. Rosemary, probably still dazed, identifies Rhid whom they have just seen as one of the people Protus showed to Sylvester, and thinks that the woman he saw her fighting - whom she calls Tansy - is about to show up. Her helmet light is damaged, and Sylvester's helmet is missing, caught in the Tree. He manages with some difficulty to retrieve it, so that they have light and can proceed. 02: Lying in a Hole [05/06/2010 - 16/09/2010] Rosemary tears her skirt - which is stolen - to make ties to keep their helmets on. The pre-existence of Wyverns, a kind of extinct dragon, is mentioned, and the fact that Rosemary has killed people. Sylvester thinks the padded branches below the Plunge point are there to stop Trogs killing themselves, and this is born out when they find a strategically-placed pot of Trog repellant which herds any Trogs who land in the Tree towards a narrow spur bridge over the abyss (made by a very reputable construction firm). The spur ends with a tube-like chute which they are sucked in by, and which takes them to a padded landing-site in a room within the cliff, which contains a broken office cabinet which has "The Threshold" written on it, and which moves about under its own power. They meet a thing called a Lurker - a cave-creature like a blind, bald, sub-sentient Saur. Dog-like, it wants them to follow it: Rosemary thinks it's leading them into an ambush. Following it, they come to a place which looks like the Ettins' artificial Trog habitat, except sterile and dead, without the moss and fresh water etc. of the zoo exhibit. Sylvester feels that he and Rosemary are both acting rather wildly, and that this is due to exposure to vents leading to the Hot Zone. They come to an archway labelled "Serene Cavern of Blissful Relaxation", beside which is a slightly sick poem about the death of Yurd. Within are the people the Lurker, Blinky, was reporting to - two male trogs called Villipend and Hamble. Both are less flat-faced and probably mentally sharper than Kronk, but Villipend is crowned, paranoid and deranged. Hamble tries to calm him but he is sure that Rosemary and Sylvester are the "Tormentors" who keep him trapped there, and it doesn't help that he smells his enemy Kronk (who brushed past them at the Plunge point) on them. When Sylvester says he doesn't know where the exit is, Villipend throws a weapon which Rosemary fends off with the Can-Opener, which Villipend calls a Sneech claw. Rosemary and Villipend fight and Villipend manages to get in a kick which throws her against the wall. Sylvester intervenes, warns him grimly that he is the terrible Earl of E and fires a primitive taser which he has in his backpack - but Villipend dodges and it is Hamble who is struck and apparently killed. The act of firing the taser also throws Squeeb out of the backpack and onto the floor. Villipend is impressed by the taser but annoyed because he wanted to kill Hamble himself. He threatens Sylvester so Rosemary slashes him with the Can-Opener and he hides in the dark. Sylvester finds a door operated by a Herediscan which identifies him as a member of the E family and lets him through. He tells Villipend (now clinging to the ceiling) he will leave the door open. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their weapons training (and we learn that at the bodyguard training-school she went to, the fencing master was a Mr Montoya). She is concerned that she may not be able to stop Villipend if he attacks again, because he's in peak condition and she has no practice with the Can-Opener. As they move away from the Hot Zone vents, Rosemary becomes calmer. Sylvester tells her about the SubShafts, a tangle of tunnels which are greatly affected by the Hot Zone. The Eyebolts who worked for the Ettins lived there, then the mining Nomes as well. After an upheaval (presumably the Gnoll/Nome war) they all moved out, the Eyebolts to elsewhere in the Basement, the Nomes to the Forest, and now it's mainly Gnolls who live in the SubShafts. We seen an outline of Cully, Chunner and Crud, all heavily armed - Cully with a flame-thrower, Chunner with a blunderbuss and Crud with something similar to the Can-Opener. Rosemary and Sylvester come to an area of large engineering works at the start of a walkway or bridge at the edge of the long drop. Villipend jumps them, wrests the Can-Opener from Rosemary and tries to force Sylvester to go back downstairs and close the door to Villipend's domain, so he can continue to trap other Trogs there. Sylvester is willing to jump into the Chasm rather than do so. Meanwhile, Mortimer finds the remains of the dead Spyder. Comshaw's party are still tracking Mortimer, and Agorn is still trailing them. Mortimer comes to the crater caused when Frowgler set off the HJ42, and wrongly assumes Nitfol and the spyder were both blown up. He climbs down into the crater and retrieves the HJ42, then Comshaw, Niddle and Ig arrive at the edge of the crater and engage him in conversation about the goals of Humanity. They all conclude that Comshaw needs to speak to Sylvester (hearing that Sylvester is the Earl, Comshaw assumes he must be very scary). The thing Niddle is carrying, which he found in the tunnel and which is similar to but not the same as a glowgem, starts radiating energy. Niddle says he can almost hear it speak, it's waited a long time and now it's almost time for some unspecified meeting. Snerk appears, pursued by the beaver shark, as Niddle begins to count down from five. Mortimer tells the others to run, while he stands his ground and summons a flock of flutterbys to distract the shark. The two Saurs run but Comshaw and Niddle are still present when Niddle's not-a-glowgem discharges its energy in a huge dome of light. Mortimer and the shark are transported into open underground space by a twistpoint and fall down to where Rosemary and Sylvester are. The letters PZOR appear, suggesting that the not-glowgem and the HJ42 interacted to create the twistpoints, burst of light etc.. The shark bites Villipend and Rosemary retrieves the Can-Opener and pushes both of them off the edge and into the deep. Comshaw and Niddle are jumped through another twistpoint back to their own home, where Camora is brooding. Niddle crashes out, as Telic had warned that he would, burbling about the fact that Mortimer has the same haircut as him, and something about a window. Camora tells Comshaw about Hax. He decides to go back out to warn everyone, leaving her to care for Niddle, but first they have an unspecified erotic session. Ig is twistpointed to outside the home of his ex girlfriend Nerda, the mother of his as-yet unhatched children. He offers her the stuff in Niddle's backpack so she lets him in. Snerk is less lucky. As a result (or cause) of an unspecified backlash he is dumped into the middle of a high-tech. experimental facility of some kind being run by two Ghasts. He is pinned in some uncomfortable scary machinery which may be examining him or may be cleaning and immunising him - it's not clear which - and then confined to an artifical woodland habitat designed especially for Saurs, although he doesn't realise this and believes he has been twistpointed to a real forest far away. He wishes to leave a.s.a.p. in order to report to Frowgler. There are a lot of other Saurs there - he meets a dozy girl called Dizel and a much more sensible, very large female called Zil who tells him that if he can find a way out she's coming with him. We learn that the habitat also contains big, dim, agressive Saur relatives called Sawtooths, and we see that there are Gnolls - who may be there unofficially. Meanwhile, the not-glowgem falls back into the crater, and the HJ42 falls through a crack in the floor of the crater. Agorn investigates and sees that the hole which has opened up contains a ladder. He can smell Sneeches in the depths. 03: Spanner in the Works [17/09/2010 - 15/01/2011] Sylvester identifies their location as the Ettinworks investigated by Krell, Earl Griffington's assistant. Sylvester, Mortimer (smelling peculiar, with umbrella) and Rosemary set out along the walkway: lights, electric crackles and deep rumbling noises come on as they walk. Rosemary has a sense that the Can-Opener may do exciting things around electrical discharges, and puts it in the Poke-Kit. They come to an unusually passive Sneech plant-machine growth which is blocking the walkway, and edge past it. Mortimer insists on taking the lead as he is the most expendable. The other two have been ignoring Mortimer and rather treating him like a small child but they begin to realise their mistake. They are far below the level of the Sneech nest - Mortimer recounts comments by Skibble suggesting the Sneeches are expanding their territory. Having passed the Sneech growth they come in sight of an Ettin underhub - a lighthouse-like tower which stretches from the floor where they are, through the open cavern of the Ettinworks to the ceiling of the cavern, which is the floor of the shallower levels overhead, with a row of windows ringing the tower up near the ceiling. Sylvester talks of a network of underground roads and buildings which was wrecked and sealed off when Audra poked the Hot Zone and caused the Chasm to spread - it is clear this is the system now being opened up and used by the Fixits. They go into the underhub and prepare to climb a spiralling internal ramp, and have a conversation in which Rosemary is amazed to learn that a famous, ancient philosopher named Milo was the 9th Earl of E. They find a signpost written in a Human script and recently annotated in the handwriting of Nirvana Clepe, former Taskmistress of the Mansion, who retired eight years ago when her wife died, and supposedly lives three days' ride away. Mortimer is showing clairvoyance - he knows how old the writing is, and that the Sneeches have never been inside the underhub. There is a discussion about Threnody the local Oracle, whom Sylvester fancies (Dirge is her Guardian). The interior of the underhub is full of concealed twistpoints - as they climb, the interior changes illogically and it's possible to go up and end up lower down. There are a series of signposts to guide them. Talking about twistpoints leads them to realise that they each met Protus today. Mortimer talks about Yasmine, and about ending up in Dorian's old hut. He recalls Dorian as a hermit from his childhood, although Dorian has been working for the group in the Spike for forty-two years. Sylvester is sure Yasmine was lying about being there to review Arthur, unless the Guild have changed the rules without telling him. Employing a Weirdo, we learn, is a requisite part of being an aristocrat. They come to a group of elongated, slope-sided pillars labelled "do not touch". After they have passed on without touching them, we see that they are local Panegates. Windows open in them to show a room with a table set for dinner, two female Gnolls gossiping (one has a flutterby on a string) and two Dornbeasts, large and small. Frowgler, looking rough, emerges from the Dornbeast one although the Dornbeasts cannot pass. He goes back through another, smaller window and we hear a voice comment that he is damaged. Frowgler says he met one of Protus's new friends. The twistpoints in the underhub aren't mentioned in the Mansion's records. Sylvester thinks the Ettins' devices were built to shut down in the event of a Crash, and are now waking again. They discuss the Crash, and what they could do before it - still far less than the Ettins did. They had a high-level tram which took a week to cross the country: the Ettins went to the moon. They come to another pillar labelled "touch". In order to get past a twistpoint and go up again Mortimer touches it with his umbrella, and a ray from the ceiling strikes the other two. Sylvester loses nearly all his memory - although he recalls Nimue - and Rosemary loses some of her intelligence, regresses emotionally and starts acting like an eager-to-please, extremely literal-minded five-year-old with no conversational filters. Rosemary's memory is intact and she realises what has happened and warns Mortimer he will have to tell her what to do. This is a double-edged sword as she is now extremely hypnotically susceptible. Following Mortimer's instincts, they hold the umbrella together and touch the pillar again, and this time a levitating lift called a Woosher arrives. The Woosher carries them up inside the tower, and while they are on it the ramps that were there before disappear. Meanwhile, Nevus's troops are at Comshaw's door, believing he sent Sylvester and Rosemary to spy on Le Tree. Comshaw emerges and duffs them up with his poking stick. He gets one of them, a young male Trog called Skradt, to take him to Nevus. Skradt is interested in learning to be a Poker himself. The Basement is now very quiet - most people are hiding. They go to Le Tree, where Gnoll doorkeepers called Forfind and Frag let them pass. We see that the hamster, plant and ABOL have escaped. Comshaw offers to trade true information for a truce. Nevus agrees and asks him why he and the Council hired Sylvester and Rosemary to come to Le Tree and start a war. Comshaw explains that he did no such thing although he's not sure about the Council. Nevus accepts that Rosemary and Sylvester were lying. Comshaw tells him they are Humans and Sylvester is the Earl (which he learned from Mortimer at the crater), and then suddenly strikes a Fixit from the head of Neilguye, Nevus's Motihaul accountant, where Nevus can see it. A Boogieman, Malcolm, catches the Fixit and it dies - they are very fragile. Comshaw goes to tell the Council about the Humans and the Fixits, and Skradt comes with him. 04: Closing Out an Era (The Ettinworks) [18/01/2011 - 04/06/2011] As they ride the Woosher Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer discuss the fact that there must be "some rich guy with horrible mutant tastebuds" keeping Moe Wines in business (there is, of course - Mr Hand). They discuss the fact that Sylvester is the Earl (which he has forgotten) and the succession. They pass an unknown woman in brown, with blond hair with a pink bow on top - Rosemary calls her Mz Teree - who seems to be the one marking the signs. Hpobfvfr is stil trailing them. When they disembark, higher up, the tower changes again and they find more ramps. It is mentioned that they need never have gone down to look for the Pots Room, because Mortimer knows where there is a supply of seige pots in a disused barracks. Rosemary's bodyguard training is still sharp even if the rest of her isn't. They discuss twistpoints, and confirm that it is possible to walk down a ramp, then back up the same ramp, and end up somewhere different from where they started. The new signpost is decorated with a heart with "N C + A S" written in it: they think this may be Nirvana Clepe and the Mz Teree woman. With more down-and-up twists they arrive at the level of the bank of windows, up against the roof of the cavern where the Ettinworks are, and just under the floor of the upper part of the Basement. At this point they are probably back at about the level of Le Tree, or maybe a storey or two below it. As they walk Rosemary burbles, and starts to speak about Tansy - who she thinks is the woman Sylvester saw her fighting when Protus showed him visions - and a word beginning "Qu". The view from the windows looks as if it is of starry space rather than down into the Ettinworks, but they do not go to look, for fear of triggering more dangerous events. Leading up from the window room is a flight of stone steps going up into the body of the rock above them. There is also an Ettin-style door with a gap about 10" high underneath it. Mortimer peers underneath and sees a corridor of human-type doors, one with a pair of shoes outside it, but a little metal sign saying "KEEP OUT" falls down in front of him, with thye letters cut out of it as holes. Sylvester feels that there are Humans in that corridor, but when he turns his back it's a non-Human-looking hand, possibly Frowgler's, which retrieves the "KEEP OUT" sign. They set off up the stone steps towards the Sneech den. Rosemary and Sylvester are starting to improve. There is some oblique discussion about Sylvester not telling Rosemary the Scary Lady's name, then about Mortimer's friend the Scalpsucker - Mortimer remembers falling down the hole leading to the old World o' Pots storeroom but doesn't seem to recall meeting Rufus. They come to a door opened by number pad, leading to a double-doored Sneech-lock. Emerging, they pass an alcove containing an entrance to the elevator, above the one where they emerged earlier. Past that is a round room at the bottom of a shaft, with a crystal on a stand in the middle, playing a popular song. There are also double metal doors, closed, and stairs leading up and down. Mortimer hopes to use the stairs but finds the ones going up are labelled "Operation Certain Death" and the ones going down, "Slimegrub Breedpits". The down-flight shows signs of recent flooding, but Mortimer retrieves a glowgem from the first landing down, with a mysterious socket just right for fitting it onto the point of his umbrella. Rosemary seems slightly hypnotised by it. They plan to go upstairs, towards Operation Certain Death, but then they hear something big and loud crashing downstairs towards them. Rosemary draws the Can-Opener, which Sylvester calls a Paleslicer. They use the singing crystal thing to levitate them up to a higher floor, but Rosemary is grabbed and held back, floating, by what proves to be an enormous, female relative of Ahz and Skiv, called Tand. Tand can smell that Rosemary has been near Ahz and Skiv and believes, wrongly, that she knows who they are, so after some initial problems adjusting her voice to Human levels, she tells her to tell them to get a move on with their allotted task of growing a garden, a task for which they were all sent here by someone else. Tand says Rosemary is not like any other human she's met, and one of the other two (has to be Mortimer) is sparkly like a lot of humans used to be but haven't been for a while - apparently she is sensing him as a magic-user. Tand has to leave because she is literally over-stretched and her torch is going out. She is afraid to meet, in the dark, a male "horrible mask-thing" who can go anywhere - this may be Frowgler, since the Pales call him Frogmask. Released, Rosemary floats up to the boys. She feels herself to be now entirely back to normal (although later events will show that this isn't quite true). Sylvester recognises the name Tand from his records, but still hasn't wholly regained his memory. Meanwhile, Comshaw and Skradt come to the Council entrance, which is heavily defended. An Eyebolt receptionist called Witherward admits them by dropping them down a shaft. They arrive in the midst of a full meeting, including Twiz, acting for Maw; Snerd, acting for Sina; Commander Chumley (the Council's Chief of Security) for the Boogiemen and a Ghast "Stirrer", some kind of high ceremonial functionary relating to how the Ghasts reproduce (they have to use special breeding pools within their home base and are unable to set up more outside it), who is in some way not physically present. On the Council are Doyen, a female Trog; Gavzada, a female Motihaul; Wunk, a male Gnoll; Aprat, a Helipath and Chairbeing Preznit, a male Eyebolt, although he tries to hide his species behind a mask. Twiz is very interested in the new Hall Sina is setting up. The Council is concerned about Rhid and what he may do next, and whether Sina is a safe person to be a leader. Gavzada is keen on anything which keeps Othara occupied, and they are cautiously positive so long as Sina and her engineer Fosic build walls to keep epople away from the Operator. Comshaw then strikes a Fixit from the head of a femal Gnoll called Widdendreem, who seems to be the Council's record-keeper. He wants to catch it alive but Widdendreem, freed from the Fixit, pounces and kills it. Widdendrem is angry that she now owes Comshaw a debt, and concerned by the fact that she has killed a person. She tells them the name "Fixit" and that the dead one was a female called Snurfix, reporting to a male nicknamed Slinker. Snurfix had crept onto her head while she slept. We learn that young Fixits are raised in cages "beyond the Spikeshield", which must be the barrier others have spoken of. Chumley sends Widdendreem to write down all she recalls about the Fixits, while Comshaw tells the Council what he knows about them - leaving out Camora's name. Chumley decrees that no one in the Council Chamber shall wear a hat - all the Councillors drop their hoods and Preznit, whose brain is in his torso, strips to his socks. The Council agrees to tell all the key players - Maw, Agita etc. - whilst trying to prevent the knowledge of the Fixits from spreading generally for the moment, for fear of what God might do when he learns his spy network has been blown. They want all the leaders warned before God takes any action. Comshaw tells them about the Humans, and Sylvester being the Earl, but he doesn't know if he is the Earl. The Earl "tore the world in two fighting Yurp, the Demon King" - Yurp is not yet identified, unless he is the Operator, but the Earl is evidently Audra, who caused the Chasm to spread. Comshaw plans to go speak to Sylvester tomorrow. Comshaw, Skradt, Snerd and Twiz head for the exit, discussing Ghast reproduction and Trog education (here we learn that Espy is a teacher). They slide down a chute and land in a corridor by the battered-looking Gobule Mingent, who is eating the dead from the battle. Twiz has been chewing a piece of the dead Fixit - they tell Mingent if he smells anything like it, to bite it. Twiz runs off. Comshaw thinks Snerd should work for Sina but Snerd says Shona wouldn't like it, and he loves Shona. Comshaw and Skradt set off together. They encounter a Jibjib called Schrik being ridden by a Fixit, and try and fail to take the Fixit alive. The Fixit has been using Schrik to spy on Flap's ferry across the Great Chasm. An important Boogieman ruler called Crispin is mentioned. Comshaw sends Schrik to take the dead Fixit to Sina and then work for her. Skradt reveals that he joined Nevus hoping for an early death in battle, so he wouldn't have to choose to take the Plunge. But Comshaw has given him a vision of something more useful, plus he wants to learn to fight as well as him. Frowgler, watching through a crack in the wall, thinks they make a good team. 05: Closing Out an Era (The Sneech Den) [06/06/2011 - 16/12/2011] Sylvester, Mortimer and Rosemary pass another large inactive Sneech node and several smaller ones, and some graffitti relating to dragons - although we're not told whether they are a legend or, like wyverns, a real if possibly extinct animal. There is a conversation about Mortimer's history of failed relationships with scary women, in the course of which he tells Rosemary that his relationship with her will be strictly business while she is staring bug-eyed at the hypno-gem, and he reveals that he has the hots for Yasmine. Rosemary is in command over Sylvester because that's part of her job as bodyguard. There is a lot of discussion of Sneech races and technology, living walls etc. and also Rosemary's poor origins on Gnomin. Mortimer takes off his shirt so Rosemary can make them rag boots and mittens so they don't have to touch the Sneech material: he passes his umbrella to Sylvester as he does so and sees the gem glows much less brightly when Sylvester holds the umbrella. Rosemary has absorbed the hypnotic lesson that her relationship with Mortimer is strictly business. Following a trail of fresh air through the tunnels of the Sneech den, they come to a bridge over a moderate drop, guarded on either side by relatives of Fern's. The intelligent plants are wary of Rosemary but agree to disarm her and carry the Can-Opener across the bridge themselves for her to collect on the far side. As they get there the Gnoll Agorn falls while trying to climb down from the crater above, and lands at their feet. Agorn hasn't noticed, but Niddle's apearing and disapearing gem (hereafter the Hitchhiking Gem) is now attached to his spear. As the Human trio prepare to leave, one of the the plants delays them and asks - by spelling with its tongue - that they be given names. Sylvester names them after the Founding Oracles, a group of women who spread the religion of the Brush - Violet, Daisy, Joice, Jenny, Kathryne, Hettie, Evangeline, Vivian and Petunia. Sylvester promises to visit them again: as the Humans leave we see the plants talk amongst themselves by some rapid means. The Humans come to the main corridor through the Sneech den, which is studded with tall, light-bearing tree-like things. Meanwhile Comshaw and Skradt come to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, where Agita (a Motihaul) has her office. They have a complicated system of clearances in which Comshaw ranks quite high. An Eyebolt called Philodox admits them. While waiting to be seen they observe that two of the Eyebolt clerks are wearing Fixit-type hats but they seem to be just hats. An Eyebolt called Giddhom says thay are in fashion because some people claim they help you to think. Weirding is discussed, and the eccentricities of various species - we learn that Helipaths refuse to cross the Great Chasm to Sneech side even though Sneeches get on OK with them. The hatted clerks are Scrutineers, recording everything visitors say - Skradt wishes to be recorded as a would-be Poker. [Around here we have a Labor Day out-take showing local man Arlen and his daughter Juniper, digging a ditch at the back of a hedge near the village of Eetown. The hedge seems to have the rusted remains of a pre-crash vehicle incorporated into it.] Comshaw borrows Giddhom's hat so Fixits will think he's controlled. They are escorted to see Agita by an Eyebolt called Peripatet riding in a special buggy which was damaged during an eventful visit by Strode, the aggressive female Motihaul in the pumpkin-head mask who appears in Sundays in SubShaft 44f. They pass more clerks one of whom, Ogdoad, is wearing a Fixit. We learn that the Eyebolts in Root Hall distrust the GBOLs, and therefore presumably the Tree, and make their own lights. Comshaw and Skradt come to Agita and her Eyebolt clerk Flibbergib, and Agita gives them apples. She has with her her young daughter, Rishathra, and a Gnoll guard called Termagant. Agita and Comshaw catch up on the events of the day (including establishing that it was the young Mortimer who somehow started the Nome War after falling through into a mine), and Comshaw gets her to summon Ogdoad, who insists on a promise of safe conduct before he will come in. He has some involvement with another Eyebolt (?) called Tribblerig and some scheme involving Sneech squeezings. As Ogdoad enters the office Comshaw baps the Fixit, called Endix, off his head and Skradt catches him in a bowl but Endix somehow commits suicide. Ogdoad is terribly distressed, for he and Endix had become at least semi-partners. Comshaw and Skradt leave Root Hall, and are quizzed as they leave by an Eyebolt who assumes it's all to do with Sneech squeezings. As they come away from Root Hall they pass the male Nome called Rezrov, still with his arm in a sling, leading, on a string, a very flirtatious-looking female Trog named Hogminny. Both are smeared with green paint. We are told that some Nomes and some Trogs have a "thing", and learn that Skradt tentatively fancies Maggle. Comshaw 'phones the Council and tells them he has delivered their message to Agita, and he has a message for them from Root Hall saying Ogdoad is involved with a Sneech squeezings scheme but they'll handle it. Comshaw takes Skradt home with him and Camora and Niddle are quite welcoming, although if he's staying they may need to move to a bigger apartment. All sleep, exhausted. Meanwhile, Agita takes Ogdoad with her to see a female Motihaul accountant called Marritza who is wearing a Fixit named Arnix. Agita threatens Arnix with a pointed umbrella ferrule, then tells him that the gaff regarding God and the Fixits is well and truly blown, and offers him the chance to ride on Ogdoad and act as a liason officer between herself and God. Arnix and Ogdoad both agree. Meanwhile. Sprocket is upset to see that Crazy Rhid's ex place connects to large areas of still-working machinery, the only machinery that good outside the SubShafts, and Rhid didn't tell anyone. Sina now has a makeshift office, an Eyebolt receptionist called Nikhedonia and Maggle acting as gopher. Sina and Sprocket decide to marry, right now - Wittol, who will be their Finagler, has already anticipated this and started to make arrangements. We learn that Niddle has had experiences which make him a perfect Finagler - so perfect he may be a whole new thing. We learn that Gnoll marriage customs involve a receptacle called a Tweebowl, a Tool and a Blossom and, at some point before they have whelps, a visit to the Fluffy Foo-Foo Cave, and without a Finagler things go badly wrong for mated pairs. Yet, some couples such as Niff and Folla live unofficially, without a Finagler, and manage fine. Sprocket, Wittol and Sina have a hasty cermeony, with the possibility of a more formal one later. Afterwards Snerd turns up and thinks Nikhedonia's hat is a Fixit, although it's just a hat. As he is explaining, Schrik turns up with an actual dead Fixit. Maggle and Kronk are sent out to show the dead Fixit around and kill any live ones they find, and Snerd returns to his mate Shona and Finagler Wubb. Flange reminds Sprocket of their obligations to their employer Mr Hand, and tells him about Rubrak being killed by Chauncy and Edgar. Sprocket and Flange will probably cease to be partners now. Sprocket talks privately to Sina about Mr Hand and the job - he has realised that the femal Motihaul who put him in touch with Mr Hand was wearing/worn by a Fixit. Mr Hand has had them installing devices called Y-nodes which look like Sneech growths, and produce ultrasonic sound only small creatures can hear. Fleebs in the presence of a Y-node turn to face it and stare. Sprocket sees Mr Hand as ruthless and controlling but constructive rather than destructive in his intentions. They agree to tell Comshaw about it, then get on to the serious business of their wedding night. As a final wrap-up, we see Snoot bitching to Izchak about his bloody awful day; the Super Rock pausing to rest and to talk to another rock which can talk, but not walk; Digger reporting to Frowgler that things are going to plan and he has no questions to ask; and Frederick preparing to serenade the Grubbs on a Fugehorn. 06: Twilight [17/12/2011 - 09/06/2012] Agorn encounters Hpobfvfr, who is trailing the Humans. She addresses him as if he is two people - she senses the sentient Hitchiking Gem which Agorn doesn't know he is carrying. Sylvester and co. enter the main corridor, which is again unnaturally quiet - we learn there should be trilobite-thingies scuttling about trailing organic wires etc.. While discussing local politics and a performing troupe who once came to the local village, Mortimer accidentally causes Rosemary to fixate on the gem in his umbrella, and gives her three hypnotic commands - "Go to sleep, but act like you're still awake!", "Take a note! I am not going to keep making these mistakes with women!" and "Do as you're told! Stay in your place! Speak only when spoken to! The Brush wills it!". They pass a Sneech tower which is at the edge between Human and Sneech territory and is labelled "NO INTERRUPTIONS", then they come to a neon sign saying "OUR TRAJECTORYS DIVERGE PAYMENT FOR YE ASSISTANCE" (although Sylvester doesn't know what assistance is meant). This dissolves, leaving a squat obelisk which moves when it is touched, and which Rosemary names the Dohickey. The Sneeches themselves have gone. The obelisk steers them around a hole in the floor, which proves to be the hole which Chauncy and Edgar left when they exited Izchak's shop looking for the Scary Lady. Matagam the Motihaul soldier and a Boogieman called Geoff climb out of the hole, checking where Chauncy and Edgar went. Heading for the Mansion proper, Rosemary, Mortimer and Sylvester pass the entrance to a tunnel put in by the Council to monitor the Humans. They emerge from an elaborate vesitbule decorated with ornamental fake stalagmites and flaming braziers, into a plain downstairs room containing the entrance to the elevator and a small extension of the Tree, and with "BEWARE MR FLIP" written on the wall. Mr Flip is a character we meet in Sundays in SubShaft 44f, but Mortimer says the graffito has been there his whole life. To get further they need to go through a locked door, the key to which Sylvester dropped while falling into the Great Chasm. Matagam and Geoff head for the Council tunnel and are passed by Hpobfvfr, who corners the humans against the locked door. Mortimer senses that her mind has been tampered with and speaks to her sympathetically, incidentally getting between her and her intended targets. Then we see in flashback that the male Ghast she passed just before Rosemary and Sylvester fell into the Chasm realised that something was wrong and went and fetched help. Hpthva, the officer in charge of a party of Ghast soldiers who have been following behind, orders Hpobfvfr to stand down, and this breaks the Operator's hold over her. Hearing Rosemary address Mortimer by name, Hpthva quries this and he says he is "Mortimer Eman.. because we're going to be all.. formal": in doing so he inadvertently gives Rosemary another hypnotic command. Having confirmed Mortimer's name and that he might be the one who started the Nome War, and having learned that they are Human, Hpthva wants to arrest the trio, but great aunt Scary appears in the doorway (with balloon) and scares them off. Somewhere, she has acquired a flower which she is now wearing tucked into the v-neck of her dress. After the Ghasts leave, the rest go through into the house and Scary cures Sylvester's memory problems. He is very reluctant to ask her to do anything which will put him under an obligation to her. Scary tries to touch the Sneech obelisk, but it fizzes a shock at her. Meanwhile Sylvester realises something is wrong with Rosemary, and when she starts addressing Mortimer as "Mr Eman" because "We are being all formal" Sylvester realises that she is following Mortimer's commands literally. Mortimer tries to snap her out of it by giving her a ridiculous command to "be a dog" but she goes down on all fours and starts growling. Scary is detachedly impressed by his power, and thinks there is a real risk Rosemary will become permanently enthralled. Alarmed, Mortimer tries to order Rosemary to be herself. In the short term it seems to have worked, but it remains to be seen whether she has internalised any of his commands. Mortimer goes off to speak to Frederick. Restored to normal function, Rosemary is introduced to the Scary Lady (whose name we finally learn to bne Myrrh) and the two go off for a private chat in which it is revealed that Rosemary knows the Scary Lady to be not human, and that the Scary Lady loves and protects Frederick to the point of being willing to kill anybody who threatens anybody he cares about, such as his nephews. The same minituarised trundlebug who fell onto Rosemary's helmet earlier in the day is revealed to be still lurking in her broken lamp, and the Scary Lady rescues it, then goes off to see what's happened to the Sneeches. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Scary Lady, and how Frederick summoned her by accident while trying to get a Djinn. He spent his energy on a collar to control her and stop her from running wild and killing bystanders, as Demons had done in the past, but now she wears the collar voluntarily and uses it to assist her own magic in some way. She has been a good partner to Frederick and a good great-aunt to his family, and Sylvester is loyal to her and will protect her if necessary. Sylvester schedules a talk about Rosemary's recent history for the next day but he fears to be overheard, so they must go somewhere secure. They prove to each other that they are human by checking each other's ears (Sylvester's ears are apparently jaw-droppingly strange, but not pointed) and discuss the origins of Demons and Djinn and the possibility that they are, after all, just people. Sylvester realises something about Frederick and why he hid books on Demons which he feels foolish not to have realised before, which leads to a conversation about a duel which Rosemary lost in a way which made her realise her own mortality and how dangerous her job was, and they take the Sneech obelisk towards the Quiet Room. Meanwhile, the Scary Lady enters the Sneech den and speaks to Frowgler, who is crawling out of the top of the shaft created by Chauncy and Edgar. They seem not to have spoken to each other for fifty years, but are on good terms. Mortimer goes to speak to Frederick, who is playing his Fugehorn into some kind of vaguely tree-like amplifier. On the way he meets Nellie, who recognises the umbrella he is carrying and seems shocked by it. She is concerned, generally, for Mortimer's safety and well-being, and for that of her own husband Amos although he is sitting quietly doing some book-binding, and seems to be enjoying Frederick's music. Mortimer believes Rosemary and Sylvester are now an item: Nellie expects him to be jealous but he doesn't seem to be. Frederick tells Mortimer that he's a wizard and that there's a wand built into the umbrella, but he won't help Mortimer to learn magic because he thinks it brings only misery. Meanwhile Sylvester and Rosemary talk as they steer the dohickey towards the Quiet Room, and we learn that Frederick actually plays the Fugehorn very well, that what he is playing is a well-known lament for the victims of the Crash, and that Ernest, the Earl who was an art forger, was also a genuine patron of the arts and built a whole wing of the castle for theatre and other performing arts. As they approach the Quiet Room Rosemary's Poke Kit shrinks and begins to disgorge its contents, so Sylvester goes alone to deposit the Sneech dohickey. The Quiet Room contains the Dark Crystal, a Triforce symbol from the Zelda stories, a clockwork monkey playing cymbals, a statuette of Cthulhu, a flower in a pot and a crescent thing which looks like the head of another Can-Opener-type pike. After Sylvester leaves, all these objects begin to glow with magic and the crescent speaks and greets the dohickey. Sylvester and Rosemary go to find a sword for her and to change the lock on the basement door, since he has lost his key in the basement. They find a powerful taser, much stronger than the one Sylvester tried to use on Villipend: Rosemary says Hack'N'Slash have offered a big reward for a working one, but they leave it where it is because it's probably only its proximity to the Quiet Room which is keeping it from exploding. Sylvester says that the things in the Quiet Room are dangerous, that destroying them in the Great Chasm would lead to earthquakes and that left in the Quiet Room those that are Sneech gifts gradually fade away, and in any case they usually switch off when the recipient dies. The crescent thing is not known to be dangerous - just annoying. They meet up with Mortimer, and Sylvester assures him he hadn't known that he was a wizard. Mortimer is half thinking of going after Yasmine, but he hopes she will return to the Mansion. Sylvester fears this could lead to a division of loyalties, depending on what it is the Weirdos are plotting. He thinks their father may also have been an unknown wizard. Mortimer describes his encounter with Frowgler, who he has realised gave him the umbrella surreptitiously, and Sylvester believes him because the Great Riddler also mentioned Frowgler. They intend to debrief each other the next day but not now, because Rosemary feels they may be overheard. She meanwhile is planning to fetch a seige-pot from the barracks. Mortimer goes off and heads up the North Tower, and Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Weirdos, who are a combination of jester, priest and counsellor. We learn that Oracles (but not Weirdos) carry out midwifery - and euthanasia. We learn that there are seige-engines mounted on the Main Tower and also that Rosemary can't act, as they discuss the plays which used to be put on at the Mansion, and the history of Kaylu - a Hitlerian dictator who introduced a country called Tomania to a crazed, murderous empire-building cult which worshipped a two-tailed monkey god, and was destroyed by the Crash in some way connected with the Infernal Engine. Sylvester feels that he no longer knows what's going on around his home. Having collected the necessary materials they board up the door to the Basement, using a mechanical nail-planter which could be valuable if they can find somebody to replicate it for sale. They leave the door unbarred for the Scary Lady and Syklvester declares their business with the Basement is done for the day, although he will keep his promise to call on the Ferns again, and his plans for the rest of the evening require Rosemary to retain her (Audra's) helmet. We see Frederick return to the suite of rooms he shares with the Scary Lady, and gaze nostalgically at a photograph of his younger self and other youths in wizard gear. 07: Career Paths [11/06/2012 - 16/02/2013] We see Agorn emerge, with relief, from a tunnel mouth partway up a rock-face near a bridge across the Great Chasm. He edges along a narrow ledge, past Furphy who is trying to hatch some eggs, and comes to a bridge with a checkpoint at either end, although this one at the Sneech end is deserted. He crosses and speaks to a Gnoll border guard called Varuna, and an Ichyoid guard, and tells Varuna to warn his "vile employer" (presumably Nevus or Guttle) that if the nobs keep poking in the Sneech den the Sneeches will some day poke back. The entrance to Crescent Hall is right by the bridge, in the line of fire. He talks to another Gnoll guard called Scibile who fills him in on the events of the day, then he walks into a maze of dark, much-graffitoed stone passages and stairs. The Hitchhiking Gem falls from his spear with a clunk and he spots it and posts it down a metal hatch. It clangs down into a chain of pipes, and we see that the pipes pass by an odd kind of sculpture or device consisting of coloured spikes almost like giant coloured pencils, with single letters on them, mainly vowels. This may have to do with the religion of the Brush that coloured in the world. On top of these spikes sits a small red-brown Fuzz, clutching a flaming torch. Agorn, meanwhile, keeps going until he comes to an area where there are lighted windows and street signs. He goes to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, and speaks to a male receptionist called Enchiridon. He is left waiting for a long time while a female Scrutineer called Hypothimia records his every word and action. She is stressed and angry because with all that's been going on - the fire, Chancy and Edgar on the loose etc. - she wants to be with her mate Brimborion and their children but instead she is stuck here in this petty desk job. Peripatet arrives in his wheeled chair to collect Agorn but before Agorn goes he tells Hypothimia that he himself has been parted from his mate (he seems to have only one) and his child has been lost through some sort of mental transformation (he went away but left his body behind), but all you can do is pick yourself up and try to change things for the better. As Agorn and Peripatet proceed through Root Hall we learn that Peripatet has a girlfrind called Glossolalia, and Agorn sniffs out (literally) that Skradt is now with Comshaw. They pass various official messages on the walls but one seems like a religious or political statement - "Remontado decided she had had o nuff shaft folderol so off she went and uprooted us all". As they pass the door to Scritchpod 205 a female Eyebolt in a wheeled chair passes them going the other way, wearing what may be a normal hat or may be a Fixit, and a wave of "weirding" hallucinations emanates from behind the closed door. Peripatet takes Agorn to a door behind which is a dark space containing dark objects, perhaps Ettin machinery, glowing with dull red lights. Agorn refuses to enter. An unseen, probably male presence (Agorn addresses it as "Mr Muckymuck") behind a hatch dismisses Peripatet, who leaves at speed - the presence says that Peripatet does well at clandestine cart-races. It wants to discuss Agorn's boss, and says that "some of us" are aware of, and broadly approve of, what "you all" are doing. Consequently Agorn has been given Class Eight clearance, which means he can now come and go unescorted through most areas of Root Hall. The presence is somebody Agorn has had indirect contact with or knowledge of, but has never spoken to directly before: it asks him to supply any useful information he comes across in return, and Agorn tells him that humans are real. The presence starts to half tell Agorn about Fixits but Agorn appears not to be receptive to the idea of hats being significant, and leaves. Meanwhile the chit for Agorn's new clearance is dropped down a pneumatic pipe system to a clerk who reads it and then eats it and replaces it with another which he writes himself. He is monitoring something on a small screen. Agorn goes to the "Grafted Zone" of Root Hall and speaks to Flibbergib, Agita's Eyebolt receptionist, who again tries to tell him about the Fixits, not very clearly. Agita arrives and we see a flashback to the aftermath of the auction, and Agita sending Agorn to trail Mortimer. Agorn reports the basics of the toing and froing he has seen surrounding Mortimer, Rufus, Eunice and Yasmine. Agita fundamentally misunderstands what Humans are - she knows they are like big Nomes so she thinks they are a local mutation caused by the Spike, and gradually spreading through the local forest. She shows Agorn a written note warning him about the Fixits and telling him to lie low until tomorrow - which suggests she doesn't want to speak out loud in front of Flibbergib, or fears others may be listening. Meanwhile we see various characters sleeping, including the smal Wyrm Squeeb, asleep deep in the chasm, and Bung's friend Faddle the Gnoll, who is very much awake. He is trying to evade somebody, but is rounded up by a hunting party of female Gnolls. Next we see him and four females, all wearing collars with lights on the front, sleeping together in a large nest. As Agorn leaves Root Hall he notices that there are fewer Eyebolt watchers on duty than there usually are. The last one usually hides inside a free-standing stone sign outside the exit, but there is no-one there, and what looks like blood on the spy-hole. The "blood" is a trick to get him to stop and look, and he is narrowly missed by an arrow fired by one of two dark-haired female Gnolls (Fanga and 33333), who had momentarily mistaken him for somebody else. Agorn lets himself into a concealed bedsit room behind a panel out in the Fringes. In the dust on a table, someone has drawn an arrow and written "She thought you were someone else", surrounded by what look like Smyt footprints: we later learn that messages on the table are a regular thing and usually correct, and the marks on the table are referred to as flipper marks, although they look too small to be Frowgler's. Digger comes in - it's his pad - and Agorn addreses him as "Boss". We see that Agorn and Digger have known about the Fixits for some time. Agorn reports the day's activities to Digger, giving him more detail than he told Agita: he feels that something nudged him to get him to go down the hole which led him to the Ferns. We see that they have been watching the humans and giving them descriptive nicknames (e.g. Arthur the Weirdo with his ventriloquist's puppet Fantod is "Snoop two-head"). Agorn would like to bring Conshaw into their conspiracy, or whatever it is, but Digger vetoes the idea. Agorn sets out to see to some personal matters, but as he leaves Digger points out that when "Muckymuck" at Root Hall said that he and others were broadly pleased with what Agorn's boss was doing he may have meant Digger himself and their conspiracy-whatever, not Agita. Agorn is alarmed at this idea. Coming away from Digger's bedsit he meets a Gnoll called Bromir who looks a lot like him and believes himself to be the target of the assassins who were hired by Sooterkin at Root Hall. Bromir refers to Agorn having been given higher clearance by Fuglemin, who is probably Agorn's Mr Muckymuck. Agorn heads back towards the Sneech side of the Great Chasm. At the bridge he tries to chat up the Gnoll guard Termagant and invites her to come fishing with him some time: she turns him down, although the Ichyoid guard Argus thinks she should have said yes. He comes on Furphy and his eggs again and we learn that Furphy is actually Agorn's son. The mother was called Awen and she and Agorn are estranged, though not bitterly so. A Denthir is mentioned who was probably their Finagler but is now dead. Furphy has had some kind of relationship with Dandilli (who went to the SubShafts) and will take no other mate, possibly because she put him off from doing so. He is sitting on the eggs because he is guarding them for two Jibjibs called Snurge and Scumble who are or have recently been conveying a message for him. Father and son talk, and Furphy says that that morning he saw that the physical world had changed but most people can't see it. Agorn is semi-willing to consider this and means to tell Digger about it tomorrow. Two Jibjibs called Ruck (male) and Smew (female) fly overhead in the dark, and we see them enter a hole in a sort of complex, compound stalactite formation, which we will learn is called the Uppermost Spire, and settle on a nest there. Ruck is carrying Urwyn's friend, the comparatlively large small Wyrm Zugo, although the Jibjibs don't know his name. Zugo slithers off into a crack, telling the Jibjibs to wait there for him. These two Jibjibs regularly carry a secretive group of Shallow Wyrms whom they refer to as Clients, transporting them around a widespread netwerk of "rings" whose purpose the Jibjibs don't know. They get snuggly in the nest, although Smew does not wish to have eggs. We see a Shallow Wyrm named Sneckdraw who seems to be spying on a ring, or at least on a tunnel used by a ring. Sneckdraw is detected and chased through the tunnels by helmeted guards named Vim, Crot, Ang and Diet, and escapes by jumping off an underground cliff onto the back of a tame (or sentient?) bat. Ang gets Ruck to fly him in pursuit with a view to killing them: Ruck queries this but when Ang assures him that Sneckdraw is not officially a member of any ring, and therefore not a client, Ruck is OK with it. They follow the bat's scent trail, but Sneckdraw and the bat dodge into a narrow tunnel which Ruck can't fit into. We see another Wyrm behind a kind of wooden screen in this tunnel. They come to a place where there is a graffitoed sign on the wall saying "Ring of the Newborn Word": Sneckdraw, who seems to be a freelance spy, dismounts and is challenged by guards called Conspue and Fream. They pay Sneckdraw with a food item and he or she reports on Zugo's presence at the Uppermost Spire. Fream conveys this message to a female superior whom we don't see, and then goes to speak to a female tuneller or miner called Glink, on whom Fream seems to be sweet. We see Sina giving the cleaning contract for the new hall to Maw and his crew. At Kronk's suggestion, Sina names the new group Leny Hall, although Maggle and Grik seem to know something mildly disreputable about Leny. Still in the same evening, we see a female Fixit named Astex who sits on a rock in a tunnel filled with plants and fungi. She seems to be fishing in a stream which flows alongside her rock. A male called Slix, who has been sent by a female commander called Poinx, comes to speak to her and get her observations - he calls her "our resident". Astex, who seems to have a cynical attitude to her own kind, says that the shield around the Spike was breached for a second or so, causing panic. Slix runs off before she can tell him about the Sneeches leaving. We learn that Astex is acquainted with Frowgler. We see Mortimer speaking about wizardry to Amos Grubb, who is himself a wizard, but who retired pre-Crash, after the incident with the Scary Lady. He says that Sylvester has some magic, although not as much as Mortimer, and their father Willoughby could have been a wizard if he hadn't been so frivolous. He believes there are still some schools of magic in operation somewhere, but he kept the fact of Mortimer's magic from Mortimer as a favour to Frederick and Nellie. Magic tends to run in families and other members of the E family also have at least some magical talent. They discuss the fact that Mortimer got the wand from Frowgler, and the fact that Frederick and Amos were trained by great-uncle Hindenburgh. If Mortimer practises as a magician he may get hassles from the Oracles of the Brush. We learn that wands should preferably be handled only by the owner, and that Mortimer unlocks locks by telekinesis. They discuss the nature of mind-reading and mind-control, wbich is far easier for Sneeches, Demons and Djinn to perform than other races, and Rosemary's susceptibility; magic-users on the other hand are very resistent to mind-control. They set off in search of Rosemary so Amos can get to know her. The scene cuts to the Nomes at the Pale camp. They are discussing the fact that if Nitfol becomes mayor he'll need a wife. He says that the only girl he found tolerable disappeared. Then Fizmo, the Hot Zone worker, appears and she and Nitfol get talking: she may or may not be the girl whom he liked before. Then we cut to The Spike, where Eunice and Rufus are talking. Rufus has recently had a talk with "God", which left him briefly unconscious and rubber-legged. He is behaving in quite a commanding, confident way, and speculating about what "God" and his henchman Dorian plan for Eunice next. After some edgy verbal sparring Eunice more-or-less agrees to be Rufus's assistant and bodyguard. 08: The End of the Day [18/02/2013 - 16/07/2013] We see Rosemary and Sylvester coming out of gender-specific lavatories which are delineated by male and female statues carrying a real spear and shield. They discuss finding Rosemary some better clothes so she can be properly introduced to Nellie and Amos, and she is tested by an Ettin-built electronic panel on the wall which confirms she is compatible with the house and can perform its ceremonies. Sylvester offers formally to employ her. Once they are both respectably dressed they go and introduce Rosemary to Nellie, although Sylvester tells Nellie that Rosemary's surname is Dapple, not Ripley. Nellie has already worked out that Rosemary arrived without passing through the village, and is angry about Mortimer being encouraged/allowed to learn magic. She opens up and talks about the group of magic-users of which she, Amos and Frederick were a part prior to the Crash, and Sylvester warns her about some of the recent developments in the Basement. As he talks we see vignettes of Chumley the Boogieman presiding over a growing collection of dead Fixits; the blonde woman with the pink bow, whom Rosemary called Mz Teree, reporting distressing changes in the Basement to someone who addresses her as Annabelle; and Frowgler telling the Scary Lady about the conversation Rosemary and Sylvester are currently having with Nellie. Sylvester leaves Rosemary and Nellie alone to talk about contraception, and we learn that there is a "Women's Circle" at the local Temple, where such things may be discussed. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester leave together, talking about local leaders - an impromptu lady mayor named Saffron Stout who runs an inn, and Patrick Skragg, the Sheriff. The Earl has warily polite relationships with both. Sylvester formally introduces Rosemary to Frederick. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester agree to conceal her true identity and membership of Hack n' Slash. They meet up with Amos and Mortimer and Amos, as a former wizard, comfirms that Mortimer no longer has psychic influence over Rosemary. Amos and Sylvester exchange news of the day, including some things Sylvester didn't tell Nellie, like about the Sneech gift, and about Tand - Sylvester thinks he has seen Tand mentioned in the records and Amos promises to look her up. Sylvester learns about The Pit flaring. We learn that "Pit" stands for "Pulse-Ignition Thaumnode" and that it was a booster device used to power flying trams. It is like a small version of a thing called the Daynight which seems to have done something catastrophic. After Amos leaves to go home, Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer go to the basement of the barracks, fetch a siege pot and sit it up on the top of the West Tower over the main entrance. Mortimer goes off to find clothes (his shirt having been shredded to make makeshift gloves in the Sneech den) and leaves Sylvester and Rosemary discussing the definition of "mansion" and the aftermath of the Crash - which wasn't nearly as bad in the poor rural area where Rosemary comes from, because hardly anybody there used magic anyway - and the ownership of land and property left vacant after the previous owners died in the disaster. They go off to eat and we see a series of vignettes: the Scary Lady visiting the Sneeches (but so far failing to find one); Amos collecting a package of Dornbeast-liver from the processor and taking it to Nellie, and discussing Rosemary with her; and Mortimer getting cleaned up. En route to a dinner of last night's Dornbeast tendrils, Rosemary and Sylvester pause to looke at a Panegate which leads elsewhere on their own world, although Sylvester says that such local Panegates are especially hard to open. Behind them is a statue of Pratchett's Discworld. Mortimer joins them at table and says he has put the umbrella aside until such time as he may decide to take up magic. They discuss re-opening access to a nearby beach so they can gather fish and seaweed, then they sign Rosemary into the Mansion's official staff record-book, still under the false name Dapple. Sylvester goes off to write up the day's events, and Mortimer goes and tries on clothes. Rosemary gets Amos to show her the library. Coming away with a stack of books on history, anthropology and moral philosophy, she experiences a psychic tweak which calls her to go to the Quiet Room and speak to (apparently) the Sneech dohickey, although she remains outside the locked door. She says that it and she are both protecting Sylvester, and suggests it should watch the Basement door, or the Weirdo. As the new Taskmistress she threatens the devices, saying that if any of them causes trouble she'll chuck them all into the Great Chasm. As she walks away we see Frowgler sitting by the foot of the door - he speaks to the dohickey as if they are old aquaintances. Returning to the Guest Room, Rosemary rearranges the furniture so she can sit facing the door, writes to her aunt and takes a bath. She falls asleep but immediately wakes into a dream which seems to be some kind of objectively real astral projection. She passes Skuy and Spot, who are arguing: Skuy at least seems to be also asleep and also taking part in the astral projection. Rosemary goes to the elevator and whacks the Operator with a mallet, which she then hands over to Skuy: the physically real Operator is aware of and intrigued by what has just happened to his astral equivalent. We see an overview of various people sleeping: Nellie and Amos; Umbuz and Piu (in bed together, so their relationship is progressing fast!); the Gobules Gorp and Phiga; Mortimer lying awake; and Yasmine sitting by a camp fire, staring at a Fleeb. Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, with her balloon in tow, descend to the Ettinworks and go to the same doorway where Sylvester and co. were passed the "KEEP OUT" sign. She is pased a similar cut-out message, this one saying "IN HER" with an extra "E" drawn or painted on to make it "IN HERE". The extra "E" is done in the style of the emblem of the Earls of E. The door opens and she goes through into the corridor of doors we saw before. A distant door is open to receive her but all we see through it is several floating lights - possibly ABOLs. More vignettes: Eunice talking to Cox, in front of Ettin signs or graffiti saying "shake hands" and "onebig onion". Hector talking to Nunsuch (and mentioning another character called Penfold): Nunsuch indicates some Ettin text which appears on a screen beside them and which changes gradually from the old font to the new. This text, which says "remote spike extrusion", triggers Hector to engage a "revised schedule" which he says is twenty years late. Meanwhile the Scary Lady leaves the room of lights and returns to the Mansion, where she bars the Basement door and puts a ward on it telling Basement dwellers to keep out. She opens a Panegate into a lush jungle and sets the balloon floating off into that jungle carrying the rescued Trundlebug, who lands in a bush where it meets a new friend (probably of the opposite sex, if Trundlebugs have sexes). She goes and reassures Frederick that although the magic umbrella is hers she didn't directly give it to Mortimer, and they start flirting. The scene shifts to the Trog holding area where Villipend and Hamble were formerly imprisoned, and we see that Hamble has survived electrocution. The prison seems to have done something to reverse the mental decline which caused him to jump into the Great Chasm in the first place, and he is now very clever and very ambitious. He half rescues, half kidnaps Squeeb, works out how to get out of the habitat and sets off to climb back up the chute with Squeeb strapped to his arm, seeking a new dawn which will be his. We learn on the way that Squeeb belongs to no ring, and despises the idea of doing so. Finally we see two vignettes. In one, a male soldier reports on Rosemary's disappearance to a female commander, the Tansy whom Rosemary saw in a vision. Tansy is working for some outfit or political party whose emblem is a triangle within a circle. She vows to find Rosemary wherever she has gone - and clearly with hostile intent. In the other, we see Sylvester's sister Lilith and their mother, talking in the darkness at the edge of a banquet in a jungle somewhere. The mother would have liked to have stayed, but she has received a psychic impression that they need to start heading back to E. Part Six: On My Way to Town [28/07/2013 - 16/11/2018] Note that from 03/05/2015, the Saturdays in the Basement strips show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with the action above ground. 01: Rise and Shine [28/07/2013 - 26/11/2013] The sun has just risen over the Mansion. The brothers are already awake: Sylvester resumes doing his paperwork, but Mortimer stands gazing out of a window, clutching the umbrella he said he wouldn't take up again unless and until he decided to take up magic, and thinking of himself as having "set out" - and that the world itself has also changed. Rosemary emerges and rings the bell for Schmedley, the butler, attracting Mortimer's attention. He introduces her to Schmedley, who tells her how to find Sylvester. Schmedley is not surprised to hear that Mortimer is a wizard. We see Arthur the Weirdo feeling the worse for wear. Sylvester shows Rosemary her new official quarters and office, which she is quite stunned by, and explains the heirarchy of the Mansion's servants to her. As Taskmistress she stands fairly high. One of her duties is, at least potentially, to find and hire a new sign-writer. Her quarters command a view of the ocean, which leads to a discussion about Panegates and the fact that no known Panegate leads to another continent, although some lead to alternative realities for the location of the Mansion. They move on to discussing why the villagers don't all move into the much-more-comfortable Mansion, and Rosemary's dream about the Operator. Sylvester didn't share it but we see a flashback to what must be his own dream, in which he, Rosemary and Nimue are attending a university lecture given by Protus, accompanied by three frogs, two sitting with the girls in the audience and one sitting with Protus, and Sylvester is aware that his own frog is missing (or has gone to Protus). We see a rusted, land-locked boat which Philbert had been going to convert into a building, and access to which is restricted, and a wizwitch detector which detects Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss security clearances, and local legends relating to a scruffy local folk-hero called Frizzlegarb who might have been a surviving Wilf. Legends say Frizzlegarb swam through a pool and there met what sounds like a Willygig. Sylvester shows Rosemary round her apartment and gives her a mechanical pocket-watch, then they get out Mortimer's Glowgem and test it on a sort of battery-tester: Glowgems can be recharged by dipping them in the River of Fire for a few days. We see an outtake of the Tribbletongued Hamster (in pirate getup), the plant and the ABOL escaping together in a toy boat, sailing along an underground tunnel: a sign in the backgorund points towards the sea. Sylvester mentions that the Mansion used to have a "wizwitch", a magic-wielder, as a regular member of staff and he supposes it now has one again. The scene cuts to Mortimer, who is talking to a strange wall of purple electricity, telling it he is going to go and celebrate the fact that he has grown up and got a job. He goes to Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where there are various amusements and places to eat. Back with Rosemary and Sylvester, he asks her about Hack & Slash's Commandant Spangler (who Rosemary had said was the only person she had previously met who had a private office). This segues into a conversation about their respective grandparents, and Rosemary running through a fake version of her family background, using her new, false surname Dapple. She discusses the remote possibility of using Protus to go back in time and save her parents - for whom she has little feeling - at the cost of giving up her own exciting future and getting stuck as a farm-girl. Meanwhile we see Frederick and Myrrh set out to do something - unspecified but involving hand-holding - "properly". Sylvester tells Rosemary about the demand there used to be for apartments linked to this private corridor for senior administrators, and they discuss the fact that in the past, pre-Luwig, the Earls were at risk of being assasinated just for being Earls. Rosemary goes off at a tangent about a fluffy-seeming female called Miss Gritz who was a traveller on the caravan Rosemary was guarding, and whom she suspects of being her apparent boyfriend's very high-powered personal bodyguard. Sylvester shows Rosemary round the official, ceremonial offices for himself and his secretary (but not his official chambers, which are untidy). The offices are designed to be intimidating. We learn that the mansion holds a throne for use if the king should visit - this nearly happened fifty years ago, but the king ws killed en route when his flagship The Velvet Glove went down during the Crash, and the current king tends to stay in the capital. The offices are designed with security in mind. We learn that the mansion has a High Tower access to which is blocked: Rufus tried to get in there, before he wandered off. Sylvester says Rufus likes to wander but he doesn't go far: Sylvester tried to get him to go to university but Rufus felt that the area around the mansion was where he was going to be. Meanwhile we see Eunice, Rufus's new assistant, emerging into the countryside from a concealed entrance inside a hollow boulder, and Yasmine riding away and thinking that in another hour's riding she will be able to remove her hood. Sylvester shows Rosemary an escape hatch under the desk, leading to a panic-room which used to be well-equippped but is now almost empty. We learn that in the early days the Earldom was passed on by mortal combat. Milo was the last Earl of E officially to kill his predecessor and the first to pass the Earldom on by blood although his grandson, Dorn II, may have been murdered by his daughter in law Charlotte, who then ruled in her husband Lemuel's stead while he got on with his Panegate research. We also learn that in those days the Earldoms of E and S were friends. Sylvester doesn't know as much about his mother's family, the Mundivagants, who are grand and grudging industrialists. His brother Ace works for them. Roisemary's family were all farmers with a long tradition, but they have died out. Rosemary asks about a sign saying "Gargoyle pits" and Sylvester tells her that there are creatures called Gargoyles and Spindizzies which were bred or manufactured by the Ettins to service and repair the buildings in which they live. Gargoyles deal with the exsterior and Spindizzies with the interior, especially service machinery behind the walls and in the basement. The Mansion is a semi-living thing, a sort of colony organism, but it is slowly running down. Sylvester and Rosemary speculate about the possibility of finding still-surviving Ettins who could restore it. They cone to a corridor where an end-wall has moved aside, giving access to a service-space, so Sylvester takes Rosemary to meet the Spindizzies, warning her to get the Can-Opener out first and not tell anybody about the Poke Kit. 02: Fishing Around [27/11/2013 - 22/03/2014] The scene opens with an Ichyoid pootering about under water, wearing some sort of equipment on his chest. We return to Sylvester, telling Rosemary that the core of the Mansion where they are is malleable and in a state of flux. Two Spindizzies appear: they have grey, hairless humanoid upper bodies trailing away into wormy tails, and pterosaur-like wings. They speak like intelligent but literal-minded computers but are friendly and kind, very concerned when they hear that Rosemary is taking over as Taskmistress in case that means Prunella has died. Sylvester agrees to buy in supplies which they request, and ask them if they can tell what the Can Opener is made of, but they can't, although they may be able to duplicate it, or something like it. Sylvester seems to want to make more. Every human (or in Myrrh's case, humanoid) in the Mansion has a designated Spindizzy who communicates with them: Horace and Emily are matched to Sylvester and Rosemary. As taskmistress Rosemary will need to talk to Emily weekly. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the Ettins: Sylvester thinks the Mansion with its Panegates and moving walls wasn't intended as a residence but as some other sort of facility. They wonder whether there are any surviving Ettins - and if so, how they would react to find Humans living in their laboratory, or whatever it is. We learn that the Spindizzies are mortal flesh-and-blood ceatures but they reproduce in a mechanical incubator. The chamber where they are all meeting is a sort of holo-deck, in which the Spindizzies usccessfully produce a useable mock-up of the Can-Opener, a quasi-humanoid sparring-partner for Rosemary to practice with and a chair for Sylvester to sit in and watch. We learn that one of Ludwig's assistants went far enough down into the depth to visit the Spindizzy incubator, and his granddaughter visited the Far=Eastern Shore on the other side of the ocean from the Mansion. There were human colonies there which may or may not have survived the Crash, about which the Spindizzies know nothing. Meanwhile we see vignettes of other characters. Mortimer is breakfasting and the Landing o' Family Fun, and visiting the Fish Museum there. Eunice Kelso is seen leaving the woods and heading for Eetown, wearing a rucksack: a retired Guardian called Mr Flem warns her that the woods are dangerous. Nelly is feeding (non-sentient) Jibjibs while Amos sets what looks like Mortimer's glowgem onto a handle. Arthur the Weirdo is taking a bath, Myrrh is setting out from her and Frederick's flat, and Schmedley is being addressed by somebody off-screen and short (probably Frowgler). The Spindizzies store a template for the Can-Opener and make a copy which is only real in this environment, which functions as a sort of Holo-Deck. They simulater a sparring partner for Rosemary to test her weapon, and some background scenery including a bad, Escheresque reproduction of part of a monument called the Citadel of the Hugging Squirrels, one of the Sculpted Isles in Isdanila. This reproduction was commissioned by Dorn I for his mother Nettana, who came from that area. The Sculted Isles date back to a msyterious Dawn Era. Sylvester dozes in a chair, leaving Rosemary to her sparring, but in fact she talks to the Spindizzies instead of fighting. She elarns that they have patterns for Ettin tools as well as human ones, but most of the Ettin ones are encrypted. She encrypts the pattern for the Can-Opener so only she and Sylvester can see it. It seems that any "productive individual" can come in and encrypt personalized tools. She learns that the Spindizzies could in principle find out what the Can-Opener is made of but their access to data is blocked beyond a certain level. Rufus might be able to fix it. They tell her Rufus is at Semi-Autonomous Research Structure #001. Rosemary doesn't want to spar now because she hasn't the time, but she takes the time to walk up the imaginary sky. She starts to ask Emily the Spindizzy whether she knows that she, Rosemary, is currently... then changes the subject, which may or may not have been important. Then she wakes Sylvester and tells him where Rufus is, which he translates as the Spike. He isn't pleased, and says that the Spike is very dangerous, partly because the machines there have no built-in safety systems. The information about Rufus came from a high-ranking Spindizzy called Tanith who was Nirvana's contact, but they have lost contact with Nirvana. Meanwhile a Valentine's Day out-take shows Sheriff Patrick Skragg giving a flower to his wife Halcyone, while their son Stepehen read a Willy-the-Wendigo book. Sylvester informs the Spindizzies about the departure of the Sneeches, and asks them what they know about Willigigs. They have been aware of Protus's presence for around a month but haven't spoken to him. They are not aware of Frowgler. Sylvester and Rosemary take their leave of them: Sylvester promises to bring them some antimony which they have asked for, and which he has in store. After they leave we see Sprocket the Gnoll engineer, holding a glowgem in a wrench, opening conversation with a male Spindizzy. Rosemary and Sylvester set off to go fishing. They discuss the Mansion's mineral stores, including gold, and Rosemary tells Sylvester what she learned from the Spindizzies while he was asleep, about the data block which Rufus might be able to fix. Sylvester suggests that the same person deliberately planeted the Can-Opener with Izchak for Rosemary to find, and prevented the Spindizzies from investigationg it: he fears he is being too paranoid but Rosemary, being profesionally paranoid, suggests there may be two conflicting secret factions at work. For the moment, Sylvester is not telling the Spindizzies about the return of Nirvana, the previous Taskmistress: he means to return to the Ettinworks once he has researched Tand, and will allow Nirvana and "Mz Teree" (Annabelle) to explain themselves before making a decision about them. They make their way down to a sea-level room where there are storage lockers for fishing gear and for beach leisure gear, and a small boat, and a door to the E family's private - and artifiually-enhanced - fishing beach. They used to have a proper boat-house etc. but much of it has fallen into ruins. Ichyoids don't like large-scale commerical fishing and cut large fishing nets, so before going outside they look though a security spy-hole and see only gulls. Sylvester also talks about what he considers to be the remote possibility of somebody from the Basement making their way up to the beach (suggesting that part of it is below sea-level), and at that we see the hamster and his crew in their miniature pirate ship, approaching the open air. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss boats, and an explorer called Semidemila, and then go outside, where they stand side by side on the beach and agree that their feelings for each other are brother/sisterly rather than romantic (although acknowledging that this could change). They catch fish and gather seaweed and then go inside to cook them. Meanwhile we see a small boat propelled by a magic-powered outboard motor, and piloted by a skinny, elderly male villager whom we saw before when Protus caused Sylvester to have a vision of a selection of villagers (among other things). The hamster and his pirate crew in their tiny wind-up clockwork boat approach and order this man to stand to and prepare to be boarded, and he thinks that all Tribble-Tongued Hamsters are insane. 03: A Change in the Scene [24/03/2014 - 12/07/2014] The scene opens with Nitfol, Fizmo and three Pales (one of whom may be Thrash, as he has the same double head-spike, but he is wearing or carrying a shield and doesn't have the stripe on his chest) about to enter a tangled wood. Nitfol says that Fizmo's presence isn't neccessary to his plans - but she has her own agenda. Then we see Yasmine riding through a wood. She is just pulling up in order to do something, now she is "far enough" from the Mansion, when she feels a vibration in her bag of Fleebs. She opens it and the Fleebs leap out, although they do not appear rabid. Meanwhile we see the E family make breakfast. Amos and Nellie bring Jib-Jib eggs, Sylvester and Rosemary have fish and edible seaweed, and Mortimer brings a bottle of a magically-active drink called Yurple Juice. He won it by playing a game at Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, and feels he may have cheated magically. The Weirdo (seriously hungover) and Fantod arrive and are introduced to Rosemary. Then Myrrh (the Scary Lady) and Frederick arrive, dressed as if for a very fancy trip to a smart restaurant or theatre, and Myrrh announces that they are now retiring from their work to keep the family alive. Myrrh also satisfies the Weirdo's curiosity by dropping her glamour and revealing to him that she is a Demon. Mortimer is now Sylvester's Regent, his understudy - about which he is less than thrilled. Sylvester tells him just to do what Sylvester tells him when Sylvester is present, othrwise what Rosemary tells him. Since the Mansion will now be less secure, Sylvester offers Amos and Nellie the chance to retire to the village, but they refuse. Instead, Amos will teach Mortimer magic. Meanwhile Sylvester, Rpsemary andf Mortimer need to go to the village to update Saffron, the lady mayor, on what's been happening, to sell Dornbeast parts and to attend the Temple. Mortimer wants to light an candle for Nitfol, whom he believes to be dead through his fault. Because the Poke Kit won't work so well away from the Mansion's magic tricklepoint, Rosemary and Sylvester go to the Barrackstack to deposit the Can Opener in a vault and collect other equipment. Meanwhile Mortimer goes to take antimony to the Spindizzies. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Ludwig's machines still work, and why this might be. Rosemary thinks that the Weirdo is ill or hungover but competant, and has had military training. Knowing that the Weirdo is conspiring with Yamine in some way, Sylvester says they should lock their doors at night. The Barrackstack goes down as far below ground as above. Although it contains some Ettin elements it was mainly built by Angus and Audra. There are sealed-off escape tunnels from the barracks which open into places which are now inside Eetown. A sign points to the Party Palace, built by Ernest, and describes the attractions on offer there. They discuss a very complex card-game called Quincunx, and some kind of game which involves magically-powered equipment and is played in an Underwear Arena. Whatever it is long-married couples are especially good at it (which suggests it might involve listing your partner's physical or sexual quirks), and people called Shrouders - the reverse of nudists - cannot play it. All the local villagers are informally Shrouders. Motimer takes the antimony to his Spindizzy contact, Charles. Charles recognizes the umbrella as a "thaumalogical flow enhancer and regulator" and already knew Mortimer had wizard potential. The scene cuts to a female Spindizzy, Clementine, who is talking to Sina, Sprocket and a male Trog, probably either Mowder or Grak. Sina is quizzing Clementine about her claim to have met the Earl. Sylvester opens a weapons-vault to keep the Can Opener in: like military exercises the vaults have random names. This one contains a wide range of good spears and swords. They put the Can-OPener into a safe, then enter Rosemary into the herediscan system. They discuss Griffiongton - his collection of obscene limericks, his management of the Factor E and his possession of three minions, Drowpole, Krell and Strauhatt. Rosemary is now Sylvester's minion, after Nirvana, who was the first. They see a statue which purports to be of an Obsidian Sneech, but is more sinister than accurate. This area of the mansion, which is actually of great military importance, is dotted with signs which suggest that only boring things happen there. Arthur and Fantod are sitting by the counting-down machine. Fantod, who seems to be an actual creature, looks stunned. Arthur says he assumes that "she knew all along" - perhaps a reference to Yasmine - and he plans to take Amos's advice - which was to drink the magically-active Yurple Juice. Sylvester gives Rosemary an instruction manual for the Poke Kit. She reads about secured sub-pockets and has a half memory of the Tree giving her a secret seed, but it slips her mind again. She experiments with taking a Glowgem in and out. Sylvester meanwhile asks Amos for a book on "night beasties" but they don't have a copy - only Rosemary's memory of reading it. Rosemary's Glowgem seems to be attracted to a sort of spiral ornament or mirror on the wall, which she stares at and may be hypnotized by. She finds the whole sub-pocket idea creepy, because there could be anything in there, and without the assistance of an official service engineer she wouldn't know it and might accidentally say a password which would cause something dangerous to erupt. They can't empty it by taking it into the Quiet Room, as that might damage it. Rosemary has written to Aunt Edna but she has described where she is, and Sylvester is concerned that her enemies might get it out of her aunt. Sylvester advises her to send another less specific letter via his lawyer, Mr Ferule. They discuss Tansy's army which is chasing Rosemary, and which is called The Quincunx (which is also the name of a complex game). If The Quincunx finds out where Rosemary is and comes as an army it would take them six months to get to E, but it's possible they could send an assassin, or hire a local one by wire. The cause of Rosemary's quarrel with Tansy seems to have been something bad that Tansy did to a Gnoll (although she doesn't tell Sylvester that) and there's a hint that the thing which Rosemary stole from The Quincunx was whatever she used to travel instantly to the east. Being about to leave to walk to the village, they discuss a thing at the entrance called the Gatestone, believed to have been moved there by Ettric, the 2nd Earl. We see Mortimer waiting for them in an official Assembly Alcove, and being joined there by Arthur the Weirdo and his puppet Fantod, who congratulate him on becoming Regent. Mortimer still smells of sphagnum dust, and this leads to a discussion of Arthur's days at the Weirdo Academy. 04: Barriers and Gates [14/07/2014 - 27/11/2014] We see the Saurs Buzz and Ig meeting by the ruins of a museum in Eetown. Ig has a Glowgem. Buzz wants Ig to tell him about what has become of Snerk. Mortimer and Arthur discuss whether Weirdos are allowed to marry (opinions vary). They discuss a girl named Melba who lives in the village, a friend of Mortimer's sister Lilith's, and quite eccentric, but Arthur says she is too frivolous to make an official Weirdo. Sylvester joins the others at the assembly point. Trailing behind him, Rosemary surreptitiously deposits several items - what may be her original letter to her aunt, plus a lantern and a bottle - in a large urn. It is one of several artistic and archaeological artefacts which grace the hallway. The main door of the mansion is set into a giant Ettin artefact like a huge boulder which manipulates light in some way. It leads to a walled outside area, the main gates of which have been deliberately blocked with rubble to prevent mass invasion. The party discuss the fortifications erected by previous earls, and the early earls themselves, and why the village is called Eetown not Etown. The fortifications are now a bit gappy, and electronic repellers are used to keep out wild animals. These also protect the orchard and the main path to the village. Sylvester and Mortimer, Rosemary, Arthur and Fantod walk towards Eetown, discussing how the area came to be renamed Audravania instead of Northwoods, and the vast lands which Audra had ruled before her fatal decision to poke the Hot Zone. Audra had made a voluntary marriage, albeit a political one, but prior to her many future Earls had been forcibly betrothed as children. Plenty of women at university wanted to marry Sylvester for his title. We learn that while at university Sylvester attended the coronation of the king and queen, Yancy and Fluer. Amos has visited the capital with Frederick, but Nellie has never been outside Audravania, except on her honeymoon. when they went to a fashionable spot called Rowen. This leads to a discussion of an island off Eetown, called Alwin, which belongs to the Earls but which they allow honeymooning couples from the village to use. Mortimer says that this arrangement is important to the villagers, which leads to him telling Sylvester what's going on there at the moment - including a break-in at Genrick's tailor shop, where stuff was taken overnight, but money was left for it. Rufus's friend Eunice is mentioned as one of a number of people who have recently moved into the area: the village is growing and there is a debate as to whether or not to expand it beyond the boundary hedge. They meet and speak to a pig-farmer called Terin Flem, who comes from the same area (Moonin) as Rosemary and who used to be Guardian to a hardline Oracle named Omega, whom Sylvester didn't get on with. Sylvester and Mortimer have an obscure private conversation about change, while Rosemary talks to Arthur and Fantod. Sylvester wants Mortimer not to go public about being a wizard, for the moment. Arthur tries to quiz Rosmary about how she got there but she evades the question and instead asks him about what Weirdos do. They are jesters who "speak truth to power". Arthur, Fantod and Rosemary discuss the new, safer denizens' tunnel from the mansion to the basement, and the disappearance of the Sneeches. Meanwhile the party arrives at the outskirts of the village and Sylvester shows Rosemary the irrigation ditches and other features. They come to the Temple, which was made from the remains of a very grand one which was destroyed in the Crash, and which lies just outside the hedge which surrounds the village, and they discuss it, and the character of Omega, the previous Oracle. We learn that Sylvester and Mortimer's father had been partially responsible for, and died in, some kind of accident involving stampeding elifinos in a nearby town called Noodle. They meet a little girl called Juniper, who is the granddaughter of Amos and Nellie. She has a special friendship with Fantod. The group go through a sensory ritual - watch the flames, smell the blossoms, taste the water, listen to the Brush. The last is done by sitting on a bench made of rare and precious materials. To mark Hallowe'en we see a raiding party of Nomes, including Umboz's brother Frotz who is desperate to get out of it, creeping towards a Gnoll village. They are scared off by a pumpkin-headed spectre which is really Frowgler in costume, using some kind of glowing magic or technology to fly. Rosemary and Juniper discuss where various people come from, and Rosemary manages to give the girl a very strange idea of what a walrus looks like. They talk with Sylvester about Inuit-equivalents called Tunits, and the secretive, hostile Haroons, and the harsh northen shore called Skralland, to the north of Audravania. We learn that there used to be a secretive underground nation called the Polarites, but their society was destroyed in the Crash. They used to have an exit tunnel near Eetown, for trade. There are people in Eetown of Haroon (Miss Lundquist) or Polarite (Peter Nigultrum) ancestry, and they can't ever go home. Meanwhile, Arthur and Mortimer sit on the bench and ask for divine assurance that they are doing the right thing, and both receive it, more or less. Fantod and Juniper talk about her hopes for a more interesting career than agriculture. We see an out-take for Thanksgiving, in which Myrrh and Frederick are about to start on a feast. I have left this in the time-line, as well as putting it with the Christmas cards etc., because it fits with the idea that they have gone on a second honeymoon. 05: Eetown - The Temple [28/11/2014 - 25/08/2015] The party from the Mansion enter the temple, where Sylvester introduces Rosemary to the Oracle Threnody and various town worthies. Sylvester assures the townsfolk in the Temple that Rosemary is human, and fully qualified to be Taskmistress, and tells them that Frederick has retired as Regent and Mortimer will be taking over. Sheriff Patrick Skragg quizzes Rosemary as to whether she is a fugitive from the King's Law. She swears that she isn't, then sends the child Juniper off with the Weirdo and Fantod to show Fantod how she's been practising some skill he's been helping her with. Once they are out of earshot she tells the rest that she is also taking over Myrrh's duties as bodyguard and will be wearing a sword. Threnody is dubious about Rosemary's past use of violent force, but accepts that it may have been necessary. The Sheriff provisionally accepts Rosemary's offer of help with the town militia, but Waldo Weequash, head of the Eetown Guild of Fisherfolk and Octopus Wranglers, thinks Rosewmary is a vagabond who will bring a criminal element into the town, Saffron Stout, innkeeper and impromptu mayor, points out that Rosemary will mainly be at the Mansion and agrees with the sheriff that they should give her a chance, and asks Sylvester to call on her privately later. Threnody - who is emergency backup Taskmistress - quizzes Rosemary about her Temple attendance, and Rosemary promises to make sure Sylvester goes to Temple more often. Outside the Temple, the townsfolk discuss Rosemary privately. The sheriff is planning to check up on her in police records, just in case, but they agree she seems saner than Myrrh. Mortimer and the Weirdo remain at the Temple to light memorial candles to speed the passage of the dead, the Weirdo for his friend Tulip, and Mortimer for Nitfol whom he wrongly believes to be dead. They discuss the fact that there are some Nomes and Motihauls who follow the Brush and have their own Oracles, but most non-humans have their own religions. Sylvester mentions that the Nomes have a male priest, and Threnody is interested in meeting him. While Mortimer and the Weirdo are praying, Rosemary and Sylvester look at the Temple's paintings of the various founding Oracles, and discuss their favourites. Rosemary follows Hettie, who carried a light in the darkness, and Sylvester likes Joice, who stood for inspiration. Mortimer passes on a message to Dirge, the current Guardian, that Finale, the previous Guardian, would like to speak to him. Mortimer wants to ask something, but feels that the time is not yet. The group go and stand by a large boulder outside the town gates ("The Town Rock") where they won't be overheard, and discuss Yasmine and the Weirdos generally. Mortimer is able to pick them out because he can sense their mind shapes. They discuss the fact that Rosemary has not been taught any magical theory, because she was educated at the Hack & Slash Academy whose purpose was to produce effective H&S employees and they very rarely encounter magic-users these days. Also H&S is riddled with factions: they used to have a Wizwitch Brigade and Rosemary suspects it may still exist but is being kept a secret, even from other factions in H&S. We learn that the Weirdo Academy is very ancient. It's in a town called Marksburg, in Fredonia, and is where the E boys' mother came from. Nowadays Marksburg has a stodgy reputation, but it has a lively history. In the past there were several Weirdo schools and they went by several names, such as Tomfool. Milo was the first Earl of E to hire one. The Trio fall to discussing the various worthies they met at the Temple. Sylvester fills Rosemary in on the background to the various people she met at the Temple, and village issues such as the need to bring in a full-time Healer, since at the moment the Oracle, Threnody, is both healer and teacher. Sylvester's only friends in the village are Peter Nigultrum the solicitor, and a fisherman called Captain Tugwart. They discuss who is and isn't local. People who were born in the village are accepted as local even if their parents were foreign, but if Rosemary stays fifty years she'll still be "The Mooninite" because she wasn't born in Eetown. She says she'll earn a more distinctive label than that, thinking of herself as some sinister dark queen with a flaming sword. Rosemary can tell that Dirge is combat-trained and wonders why the High Temple thought Eeetown needed him. This leads to a discussion about how the Spyders and Tree-Squids got into the area, and about things called Raviners or Hill Crabs. Mortimer would like to talk about the events of the previous day but they don't have time. As they approach the entrance to Eetown proper they discuss various Oracles Rosemary has met on her travels. In a brief out-take, we see Schmedley placing a black arm-band on the flipper of a statue of a world-turtle, to commemorate the death of Terry Pratchett. Sylvester and co. discuss the defenses of Eetown, with drawbridges put in after the Crash. The defenses ar enot very good, and post-Crash the town had some trouble with raiders until Myrrh got back. She, Frederick and Quincy had been holidaying in Aruba (a place without magic) when the Crash hit. It was on their way back that Quincy met Agnes, his future wife. Meanwhile the town made a defensive wall out of crashed cars, and then grew a hedge over and through them. We see an ancient wand-tree called an Oakapple (nothing to do with real oak apples) which grows just inside the hedge. Post-Crash, the rallying point for local survivors was a big pub called the Moose and Squirrel. Because it was a cheap outfit which didn't use much magic it survived the Crash relatively intact. The innkeeper, Simon, had acquired the place by dubious means, but he became impromptu mayor and did a good job of coordinating disaster relief. Hpthbvtw's remains will have to be decontaminated in some way because he was killed by an Operator blastm but the contamination is lessened by the fact that it was caused by the Operator's involuntary revival. The two Stirrers discuss this, with reference to Myrrh. the Scary Lady, whom they call the Collared Lurker. Sylvester and co. head for the local administrative offices, but as they pass by the fountain in the main square they become aware that they have an audience. Sylvester lectures Rosemary about the layout of the town, where the bathhopuse is etc., trying to sound confident and impress the watchers. The town has a watch tower, but these days it's mainly used as a love-nest. They speak to the townsfolk who have been watching them, and Rosemary (under the false surname Dapple) is introduced to everybody. Most striking, perhaps, is a young mother called Silence Krenshaw whom Sylvester knows very well, and had considered hiring as Taskmistress. We will learn that she and Sylvester were childhood playmates. They discuss Rosemary's duties, and that Sylvester wants Rosemary to serve as a Mature and Responsible Adult, a formal title which means that she will somehow help him to find a wife. He does not fancy Rosemary herself. Silence says that there is somebody out there for Sylvester. Mortimer meanwhile talks to an adoring fanclub of young girls. They ask him about his unbrella and he says you never know when a storm might blow up. One of them is evidently psychic and she realsies both that he is speaking metaphorically, and that a metaphorical storm is indeed coming. Sylvester and co. head for Government House, followed by a gaggle of children. They discuss the pudding plant, a local cash crop which only grows well in Audravania. Rosemary has never eaten a fresh one. Rosemary wonders why so small a town has a bank. Sulvester explains that it gives them independence from the Noodle Fish-Monger's Association, and lists the conditions required in order for them to have an official bank, and its personnel. It is illegal for an agent of the King's Law, such as the sheriff, officially to work for a bank. The town government is full of bickering and back-biting. The bank manager is Peter Nigultrum, who also helps the sub-literate to write letters. He is engaged to a woman called Ida, whom they meet coming away from the bank. Ida and Rosemary discuss Rosemary's home district of Moonin and the presence there of the Beacons, three offshore monoliths believed to date back to the Dawn Wars. Ida seems unaware that the Mansion is equally interesting and historic. The first Prime Oracle, Daisy, came from Moonin, but Rosemary feels that Daisy was ashamed of her humble origins. They meet Peter the bank manager, who works out that Rosemary is the new Taskmistress from her clothes. They tell Peter that Frederick and Myrrh have retired, and that Mortimer is a wizard. The only bit that surprises Peter is that Myrrh is able to retire. We glimpse Myrrh at some sort of hotel, apparently amusing herself by wrestling robots. Peter predicts that Mortimer's newfound wizard status will lead to trouble. We see Dirge, the current Guardian, and Terin Flem, the previous one, discussing the changes in personnel at the Mansion, and saying that Dirge has a decision to make. Immediately post-Crash, magic was regarded as evil, and Flem should really have told Omega that Mortimer was a wizard, and then somebody would have come and taken the boy away, but Flem liked Mortimer and kept quiet. An officious official named Appleby also failed to report Mortimer - Flem thinks he just never noticed what was going on because he was stuck behind his desk. Dirge will tell Threnody about Mortimer, but won't call someone to collect him unless Mortimer wants him to. Flem tells Dirge about Eunice being out in the woods again. Peter tells Mortimer there may still be a magic school which Threnody could help him find if Amos turns out not to be a good teacher. They discuss Polarite technology and social structures: Peter's father was in security, relatively low-status but with access to information. Peter had thought of contacting the surviving Polarites in the captal, but Sylvester says they would scorn him for having facial hair. The Symmites, the Polarite sub-group to which Peter's father belonged, were allowed to open a trade gate in the same country as Eetown, where they to some extent went native and became more open and sociable than most Polarites. That was why Peter's father was able to be wandering around on the surface without any magical machinery when the Crash hit, and so survived. ` Sylvester and Rosemary give Peter a highly edited version of Rosemary's life story. Peter knows the Mansion and its dangers well - he even has his own Spindizzy, Alfred. [An out-take at this point celebrates the legalization of gay mariage in the US by showing Baldy with a slightly younger - and much hairier - boyfriend, looking at rainbow flutterbys.] Peter tells Sylvester they have some paperwork to go over [Ipcress files!], so Sylvester asks Mortimer to take Rosemary away and introduce her to Shadrik. Sylvester and Peter then discuss Peter's upcoming marriage to Ida. Peter says Sylvester will never marry a local girl because they aren't academically stimulating enough - not even Ida or Silence - whereas he himself was looking for somebody who was restful to be with. Sylvester will be his best man. Sylvester trusts Peter so much that he tells him at least the gist of Rosemary's true story, including that Dapple isn't her real surname (although not what is). Peter will look out for people looking out for Rosemary. Sylvester doesn't want to marry Rosemary because she's not intellectual or educated, but she's a perfect Taskmistress - so perfect he suspects somebody is interfering in his life, and sent her to him. [Out-take: to celebrate the strip's twelfth anniverary: we briefly see the pirate hamster and his crew approaching an island which has a sentient tree.] We see that Eunice works in the pub, apparently as a cook. Rosemary and Mortimer are given free sausages by the town's Sausage Stroller. Mortimer is feeling very guilty about having accidentally magically hypnotised Rosemary the day before, so she punishes and absolves him by giving him a light bonk on the head. They talk about the fact that he has only left the area a few times, and comes across as rather sheltered, but now responsibility has been thrust on him and he will meet it. Rosemary talks about the relatively safe life she left to become a bodyguard, and the fact that her home village had an ancient ruined tower built by Gobblems, and which she used to climb. She later travelled to most of the places she could see from up there, but many of the towns were a bit same-y because they were rebuilt at the same time, after Unification. Talking about education and the E-family tutor causes Mortimer to realise there's something about Rufus and Eunice which he is forgetting. They look at Shadrik, which/who is a haulage Metalmin who is fairly bright but doesn't speak, and lives in a former stable. Dorian Ingersoll the hermit used to live in it. Dorian's history is confusing: we've been told he's lived in the Spike for forty-two years, but here we're told he lived in the forest when Mortimer was a child, and we've seen the ruins of his hut when Yasmine came across them. Shadrik's battery is flat but Rufus is working on recharging it. Rosemary works out that Sylvester just wanted her and Mortimer out of the way so he could speak to Peter privately. To kill time she suggests they climb the local watchtower, so she can survey the terrain. To get to it they go through a warehouse used to store apples, which has been altered and added to till it's almost as complex as the Mansion. They are passed by some sort of functionary (beginning with a B) who wears false Nome ears and costume wings. It's possible the B stands for Batgirl, especially as she lives in the Belfry "like usual". 06: Eetown - The State [26/08/2015 - 20/11/2015] From the tower they look down on the village square, which doubles as a fuzzball court. Mortimer points out various districts of the town, and they see Old Man Larssen's place outside the town hedge, although he has a hedge of his own. Rosemary is pleased to be able to see the Specific Ocean, which was on her To-Do List. They discuss a range of wonders Rosemary hopes to see, many of which have already beebn visited by Mortimer's mother and sister, although they were unable to get into a place called Sybola where there is some kind of secret Rosemary wishes to solve. A "really creepy" region called Mechana is mentioned. Rosemary thinks the main thing on Mortimer's To-Do List right now should be to learn how to use the wand-umbrella. A Labour Day out-take shows various kinds of labour in Eetown, including the Batgirl who is writing or drawing at an easel. Rosemary and Mortimer meet Sylvester outside the bank and he refers to the Batgirl as "our Flittermouse". Sylvester takes them to meet Sherman P Gray, the new(ish) government Clerk of Eetown. He has a telegraph machine run off batteries re-charged by a hand-turned charger, and many duties, one of which is to register new arrivals like Rosemary. He is also postman and tax-collector, and has a form for Mortimer to register as the new Regent of E. [In a brief out-take, we see the pirates (hamster and co.) arrive at Piratestash Island and recruit a resident gull to the crew. A stunted tree on the island implies that the Plant is being punished by being required to stay with the crew.] We learn about the unofficial but influential Tome of Royal Succession, a kind of Debrett's Peerage. The Keepers of the Tome will want to know not only about Mortimer becoming Regent, but about Rosemary becoming Taskmistress. We are reminded of the fact that this is a post-apocalyptic setup by the fact that Rosemary is impressed that the Post Office pigeon-holes have doors - and by the fact that those doors are post-Crash architectural salvage. Sherman sees from her form that Rosemary comes from an island called Dyngusmyles, which has a reputation for having wild, backwoods people, and has strange weather because it's close to the Beacons. Sherman himself comes from a mining area in Thull. They compare weather. Sylvester warns Sherman that Rosemary is a fighter and will be wearing a sword as part of her duties. Sherman OKs this but says that while they are in his government office weapons must be deposited in a special receptable, and Mortimer promptly puts his umbrella in it. Sherman fills Sylvester in on various items of news, including the fact that a ship from a far-off region named Coradine has visited a port called Woldercan. Coradine is part of the same continent as the Mansion but it's an island as far west as it gets, quite reclusive, and many of its inhabitants are Motihauls. To get to Woldercan the Coradine ship would have had to sail round the edge of a region called Kadath, which is inhabited by Wendigoes, and past an island called Honaly (as in Puff the Magic Dragon) where there are [human?] Viking-type sea-raiders whom we see sailing a ship whose sail bears the image of the hamster pirate captain. It's possible they came for Yurple Juice, a wildly popular and expensive drink with magical properties. The party take leave of Sherman, promising to return later to set up a post-box for Rosemary and collect the newspaper. There is a mention of the previous day's magical pit-flare being a reoccurring event, and of the recent finding of a dead Ichyoid washed into the harbour. Sylvester says that Myrrh is listed in the Official Threats Compendium, but since she hasn't killed anybody it's not worth anyone's while to go to the trouble of trying to banish her. Behind them, in his office, Sherman looks up Mortimer's umbrella in the Official Threats Compendium, and finds it. We elarn that there's a series of Government departments with harmless-sounding names - Redundancy, Secondary Overlap, Tertiary Retainment - which process information and look for interesting connections. They discuss rural pubs and Rosemary tells them about Rory Vinsmith, an innkeeper in Moonin who murdered some of his customers. In the west he is famous, but now they are so far from her home that nobody's heard of him. Saffron, the local innkeeper at the Moose and Squirrel, may have heard of him, and Sylvester quietly warns Rosemary that Saffron may have heard of her Aunt Eva, the gambler. Eunice Kelso is one of her barmaids. They enter the Moose and Squirrel and meet Sharona, Saffron's neice, who is evidently an old gitrlfriend of Mortimer's. She is overcome by the smell of sphagnum dust coming off Mortimer. They meet Mavis, one of the barmaids, and then Saffron. Saffron takes a bottle of Pudding Liquor, just uncorked that day, from a shelf: something grey is glimpsed poking out from behind an adjacent bottle. They drink from it, and Sylvester immediately passes out, while Rosemary begins seeing imaginary glowing flutterbies. Mortimer seems unaffected. 07: Revelations [30/11/2015 - 27/05/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for the next chapter I decided to include them. Rosemary and Sylvester wake, very groggy, to find themselves lying on a jetty on Alwin Island, the honeymoon destination, accompanied by a grey cat who had been outside the pub. The island will prove to be littered with large stone sculptures, mostly of non-human animals. They agree that they must have been drugged, not just drunk, and discuss possible culprits. Neither of them really thinks it was Saffron, and this is confirmed by a brief view of Mavis the barmaid discovering Saffron herself collapsed behind the bar. Sylvester's main suspect is Old Man Larssen, the town vet, who is very educated but also obsessive and secretive, a bit like Crazy Rhid - even so Sylvester doesn't really think he did it. He half suspects Eunice, who comes from Noodle and could be an agent of his enemies the Noodle Fishmongers' Association. No other visitors are expected - nobody comes there except newlyweds, or about-to-be-weds preparing the venue. There is however a rowing boat concealed on the island. They manage to stagger to their feet in order to go find the boat, but Rosemary thinks they are still both too stoned to steer and suggests that since they were planning to have a private talk anyway, now is a good time and place. About here we also see seasonal Christmas 2015 and New Year 2016 scenes featuring Smyts. Originally I included these Smyt outtakes in the Saturdays in the Basement section, since most of them take place underground, but then Rob decided to make one of them a chapter header which clearly belonged in the main story-line, so I moved them here. The Christmas scene just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but the New Year one is quite information-rich, which is why I've included it here as a regular strip. It shows a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. Sylvester shows Rosemary some of the sights of the island, since as Taskmistress she will be expected to oversee the team of respectable village matrons who prepare the honeymoon cabin for weddings. They return to the dock (and the cat) to sit and talk, on the far side of the island from the village. Further out they can see Scraggy Island, which holds a lighthouse and the town graveyard. The lighthouse keeper is Dougal Izzard. His wife Selene Perkins left but their daughter Shelby stayed, married Grumby the carpenter and had a son Edson who is apprentice lighthouse-keeper. Here there is an outtake scene showing Frederick and Myrrh playing chess with two men called Jebediah and Jones, who are wearing formal dinner suits. These are based on Angus Scrimm and David Bowie, who died that week, and a poster of Grabthar's Hammer on the wall commemorates Alan Rickman, also lost. The next day we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. Sylvester talks Rosemary through the history of the area, beginning with creation by the Brush and the first civilization, the Wilfs and Gobbblems (Dreamers and Builders), who erected wonderful buildings and even had colonies on the moon before destroying each other in the Dawn War. Sylvester has glimpsed what seemed to be a Wilf and a Gobblem through a Panegate, so it may be that there are survivors on other continents. Then the Ettins and Sneeches built up another high-tech civilization and then again destroyed it in war, after which Humans and Nomes moved in, spreading from jungles in the south. Before that destruction, the Ettins built the main towers of the mansions of E and S. The Tower of S was so-called because of an S-shaped mark on the walls, but the Mansion of E is a corruption of the Tower of Ett(in)s - their names were later changed from Tower to Mansion for some beaurocratic reason. Stitched through the main story-line we see more Smyt vignettes. We see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-sized lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). We see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis, and Super Smyt rescuing two other Smyts from a prison, and a Smyt St Patrick driving out serpents, and Smyts partying in a tree for Arbor Day. We learn that nomadic humans who didn't even have agriculture reached the Towers late in the human diaspora, at a time when the country of Ackbar, in the south, already had quite an advanced human civilization along the banks of the Refutation (De Nial). The name of the first Earl isn't known but he led his tribe into the valley and died while storming the Tower. Legend says he fought and defeated living Ettins but this is unlikely given their advanced technology. A lone Ettin skull was later found in the Tower. The first Earl's descendants avoided the interior of the Tower for generations afterwards but they set up camp and built new buildings around its foot. The area was rich in resources and they had to fight off would-be invaders. Sylvester gives Rosemary a detailed run-down of the various Earls, which you can find summarised on the background page. The most salient points are that many of the early Earls were villains and slave-traders who came to power by murdering their predecessors, until they got to the brilliant philosopher and strategist Milo, the Ninth Earl, who severed the family's links to the slave trade, converted to the new religion of the Brush, moved into the Ettin-built Tower and made contact with the Spindizzies. Milo's mother, Persafone, was a slave who deliberately trained Milo up to be a successful warrior who would murder Milo's father, Frake, at her urging, knowing Milo would help her to survive her intended coup against Frake. But Milo's heart was more in intellectual learning than bloodshed and after his wife died he abdicated in favour of his son, and sailed away to explore new lands. Milo's son Dorn I was scientifically-minded and bred the Dornbeasts for use as living siege engines. After he was killed by one his wife Aimee became regent for their son Dorn II, who unfortunately was a shallow sports jock. Dorn II was mostly gay and apart from getting an heir with his wife Olivia his sexual partnership was with a guy named Heffston, who was a much better strategist and ruler than Dorn. In an aside, we see Arthur and Fantod talking to village children. They seem to believe Rosemary and Sylvester are still in the inn with Saffron. Dorn II was killed, possibly by his daughter in law Charlotte, who had a loving but quarrelsome relationship with Dorn's son Lemuel, the Panegate expert. Lemuel eventually abdicated in favour of his daughter Wilhelmina, who was aided by her step-grandfather Heffston. Wilhelmina just called herself W for most purposes and was considered ceremonailly male, to the point of wearing a false beard. She had some magic, restricted to manipulating stone, and was a prolific sculptor who turned Alwin Island into a shrine to her dead husband Alwin. One of her younger sisters became a famous and scary witch called Arianya of the Bracken. W committed suicide by allowing a large block of stone to fall on her, and was succeeded by her son Linus, the combat botanist. He went on an expefition to the jungle and married a Zanduan woman named Padma who was his intellectual equal and they explored the Basement (at a time when most of the species down there were still shut into enclosed habitats) and put in lights. Linus it was who bred The Tree which made Basement society possible. 08: Naming Names [30/05/2016 - 23/12/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for this chapter I decided to include them. The chapter opens with a group of above-ground Smyts celebrating their version of Memorial Day. Sylvester continues to talk about his ancestors, and how Linus took the Seed of the Tree deep into the Basement and never came home. He talks about Griffington, the fifteenth Earl, who was very intelligent but only interested in making money, at which he was very successful. Griffington went on an expedition to the Infernal Engine, which was smaller in those days (so it's still growing), and to Mechana to look at their technology. He and other techs of the period managed to make their own basic robots and restore some of the much better Ettin ones - one of the latter, Akillhees, works in mathematics at the university. Griffington had a lot of commercial enemies and rivals, including the Scion of S. He died in an industrial accident (or maybe not an accident). [Out-take: eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub.] Griffington was succeeded by his son Angus and Angus's loyal and more cunning brother Cyrus. Angus went on a tour, like his ancestors, but he took an army with him and conquered S and other neighbouring states although some of them, such as Rowen, gave as good as they got. [Out-takes - a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch, and the next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise.] When Angus and Cyrus were young, Cyrus married Cassandra Grayflint and they had a son Artston. Griffington sent Angus to visit the Infernal Engine to broaden his mind, and as a result he fell for a very wild, rough but playful female techie named Syn who somewhat resembled Myrrh, who refused to marry him but became his consort, and who died in childbirth giving birth to Audra. Audra grew up at loggerheads with Cyrus, who had d1strusted her mother. In later life Angus's conquests ground to a halt and he died peacefully in bed - and Cyrus promptly tried to seize the earldom for himself and his son. [Fourth of July out-take - a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake.] Audra thrashed Cyrus in combat and convinced him to become her loyal follower. Together they conquered Rowen and then consolidated their holdings and formed the Northwoods Alliance. Audra contracted a loveless political marriage with the intellectually brilliant John Harfang, with whom she had a son, Ludwig. [Out-take - two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake to mark the strip's thirteenth birthday.] The Northwoods Alliance stood against the advancing army of Yorik Yurp, later Yorick I, and lost, despite the best efforts of John Harfang who, under the alias "The Frost Fox", served as a secret agent and was killed while on a mission (and later became the subject of a series of lurid spy thrillers). Audra protected Ludwig by hiding him away as a child and then sending him to the university under an assumed name, while getting one of Cyrus's grandchildren (so Ludwig's second cousin) to pretend to be Ludwig in order to draw Yorik's fire. The Northwoods Alliance eventually lost the war, in part because Wirtwam decided that Yorik was the lesser of two evils and Hyacinth of Wirtwam married him. But the war was long and bloody and forced the pace of technological development. Audra and Cyrus were probably looking for a technological edge when they poked the Hot Zone and were killed, but their deaths really finished the Alliance. Yorik crushed their last resistance by destroying the town of Glome (and incidentally probably killing the fake Ludwig), then re-built it, and any local nobles who were willing to swear allegiance were grafted into the new Yurpsland heirarchy. The real Ludwig was one of them - the Yurpsland troops didn't know who he was, and in any case had known Audra as the head of the Northwoods Alliance, not as the Earl of E. Ludwig's politically astute partner Penelope Orrery from Gilad (a temple-administered neutral state) coached him on how to do this. [Out-take - a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell.] Sylvester isn't sure whether Yorik was really fooled over Ludwig, or knew who he was but decided to spare him. Ludwig was a super-genius who enjoyed university and made many friends there; he was very popular with the girls and could have had his pick of the local beauties, but preferred the slightly plain Penelope for her brains. Ludwig didn't graduate because he went home to help his mother with the war affort; Penelope worked out his real identity somehow, and followed him (and reached E before he did). It was because Ludwig never graduated that the fund set up to pay for his tuition was never wound up, and remained available to pay future heirs' university fees. Ludwig tried to stop his mother from poking the Hot Zone but she did it anyway, and died, and he and Penelope were left holding the reins. They actually did very well, since Ludwig was able to sell his inventions - materially assisted by Yorik's conquest of the whole area, which had resulted in a unified trading and patent system. [Out-take for Labor Day - a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks.] It is mentioned that vamphyrs don't really exisa but zombies do (but only briefly as they tend to explode), that many of Ludwig's devices were one-off prototypes and that Yorik I wrote his own memoirs. These memoirs are little known because his son wasn't that interested in promoting them, and besides they weren't very well-written. But they deal extensively with Audra, whom Yorik rather admired - it was he who re-named the province where E is situated Audravania. [Out-take for Talk Like a Pirate Day - Captain Hamster, the crew of the Pretty Lady and a gull are all getting drunk on grog.] Ludwig died of pneumonia after getting soaked while walking in the rain. His son Ernest, hedonist, (consensual) philanderer and forger, took over. His parents were disappointed because he wasn't interested in science, or all that bright, but he was very interested in plays and a reasonably good actor himself, when he could be bothered. He married Lucidia Penderghast, gold-digger and amateur actress, and they nearly deserved each other. At university Ernest discovered that he was good at maths, history and a proficient if uninspired kind of art. He did a certain amount of commercial graphics work and a lot of art forgery, although the latter was really just a hobby. He was a fairly successful playwright, although not good at dialogue, and very good at improving other people's scripts. He and Lucidia fought a lot but seemed to enjoy it, and they had three sons, Philbert, Hindenburgh the wizard, and Valentin, who was the one to whom the Djinnoscope gave a clean death. Ernest was fatally stabbed by, or over, one of his lovers. [Out-take for Columbus Day - a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt.] Philbert married the artist Hepzibah Kelly and founded a chain of "Lovelace" orphanages, using Kelly's mother's maiden name. He helped preserve the Forest of Burzee as a public park instead of letting it be carved up into private estates. He supported many smaller charities and was a faithful husband. But Sylvester believes he did these things to rebuild the family's post-Ernest reputation, not because he really cared. Philbert was killed in a motor-racing accident a month before the Crash and was succeeded by his son Quincy. Quincy was not very bright, but he was genuinely caring and scraped through university by hard work. His Hall of Achievement entry just says that he tied his own shoes, but this turns out to be fairly serious: he kept walking, kept trying, and held the Mansion area together after the Crash. He survived the Crash because he, his brother Frederick and Myrrh were in Aruba, which uses no magic. Afterwards they had to walk hundreds of miles home - hence the importance of the shoes. On their way they picked up another survivor, Agnes Bloggett, who married Quincy. Hepzibah, who had stayed home because of health problems, died in the Crash. Quincy eventually died after falling from one of the Mansion's towers. [Out-takes - a Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en. Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. A Smyt nurse gives soup to a patient in bed. Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives.] Willoughby attended university where he met his future wife, Dorothea Mundivagant. Both were very vague but possibly magically gifted. Sylvester thinks that it was wrong of Frederick not to tell Mortimer that he, Mortimer, was a wizard - but it was probably a good decision not to tell Willoughby that he was. They had six children - Sylvester, Ace, Mortimer, the twins Lilith and Lenore, and Rufus. Rufus was conceived because the local contraceptive Stiflebloom plant had failed. [Out-take for Armistice Day - two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war.] Because Willoughby was so lazy and detached it was really Frederick and Myrrh who ran the earldom. After Willoughby died in the notorious Noodle Incident, Frederick became official Regent until Sylvester finished at university. [Thanksgiving out-take - two Smyts eat until they are insensible.] Sylvester did well at university and made friends, especially Bertrum W Skinknottle (who fell for and married Honoria Clemens) and Nimue Fayling. The students were divided into Houses. Nimue was in training to take over the family business, growing oranges. She and Sylvester dated, but split up because neither would give up their family responsibility. Sylvester went home alone and took over the Earl's duties. He found a job for Ace. His mother Dorothea inherited cash from her mother, and she and Lil went travelling. Mortimer and Rufus stayed around, and Mortimer started bringing home strange women, most notably Olga Q Bonmarrow, a drifter with mental health issues who was in love with Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Basement society has come along tremendously during Sylvester's lifetime (so post-Crash), and the idea that the Sneeches might be behind this. Sylvester forgot to ask Myrrh what she saw in the Sneech den, and now they don't even know where she is. We see that she is in a cat café, talking to the cats as if they understand each other. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss whether the Dohickey thank-you gift was for Sylvester or for his whole family, and Rosemary points out that the first Earls were meant to have killed off the Ettins who were holding the Sneeches prisoner. Whether they did or not, the Sneeches may believe they did. They discuss the fact that Sneeches do have childen, and whether or not they have intelligible emotions. Finally, Rosemary says that eveything else can wait, and that she will follow Sylvester's plans. He says he can't make plans until he knows what it is that Rosemary stole. She agrees to show it to him, but tells him to cover his eyes and ears while she gets it out of the Poke-Kit, so he doesn't learn any codes which he might later be forced to reveal. 09: Wreaking Havoc [26/12/2016 - 07/07/2017] Rosemary produces from the Poke Kit an oval object which she says is called the HJ42 but she thinks it's also a mythological object called the Chaos Key. This is clearly the same item which has been being passed around among the Basement folk - not just another of the same model but this actual one, becausae HJ42 is the designation of a specific instance of this gadget which was collected by an anthropological expedition. Either it's looped through time to appear twice in the same area at the same time, or when Rosemary thinks it's safely tucked away in her Poke Kit, it isn't. As the Chaos Key it has been used to open various kinds of metaphorical and literal doors, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Rosemary studied its semi-legendary history in the libraries of Hack'n'Slash. It may have been implicated in the Thricklefork Demon Massacre. It caused strange events - including a giant man-eating flower - at a place called Bellona. It was passed around the clans of Erewhon, trailing odd happenings. It was used to rob a bank, then disappeared from view, only to reappear among the artefacts brought back by the Hendrick-Joost Expedition. At this point Rosemary puts it back in the Poke Kit and she and Sylvester agree not to mention the name "Chaos Key" again if they can avoid it, but just to refer to it as the HJ42. The Hendrick-Joost Expedition came from the High University of Azimuth and visited the Infernal Engine, among other places. Many of the items they "collected" were really looted. Eventually Azimuth returned some of them to Yurpsland, including "HJ-42". These returned items were parcelled out between various Yurpsland museums and collectors, and #42 went to an Erewhonian noble named Cuddlup, who passed it on to an Erewhonian sect called the Chromans. The Chromans were great collectors and displayers of curios which demonstrated the wonders of the world - some of which were magically active. The most dangerous were kept in an offshore fortress which went into meltdown during the Crash. The HJ42 was put on display in various places but it made people nervous, so it was moved to a medium-level facility in a place called Gowplace at the tip of the Lawnrock Peninsula. After the Crash, Gowplace was re-named Chroma and became the Chromans' capital, and the HJ42 dropped out of sight again for several decades. About ten years ago, or forty years after the Crash, it resurfaced as part of a travelling Chroman display for which H&S provided security, and eventually it caused some alarming effect, although Rosemary's security clearance wasn't high enough to find out what. It was put back into storage, but at this point rumours about it began to be passed around. It was at this point that Rosemary first heard about it and began to research it - and so, unfortunately, did Tansy Rugan, the leader of the Quincunx, a kind of sinister private army. Rosemary started to suspect the Quincunx were searching for the HJ42, and knew it would be a seriously Bad Thing if they found it. She couldn't get H&S to take her concerns seriously enough, so she went AWOL, rode all the way to Chroma and stole the HJ42 herself. Two hours later the Quincunx arrived and started hunting her. She did her best to evade them but eventually Tansy cornered her. One of the buttons on the device was glowing so in desperation Rosemary pressed it, thinking that it might cause an explosion which would take out Tansy and her 2inC Nathan Holn along with Rosemary herself. Instead, it teleported her to the forest near Eetown. At first she wasn't sure whether she'd been moved through time or space, but then she met Mortimer and realised from his accent that she had shifted a long way to the east. She was very dazed and disoriented and just followed Mortimer home. They talk for a while about how Rosemary ended up with Hack'n'Slash in the first place. Bored with farming muckroots and lobster-fishing, she became a crew-woman on a boat called the Oshinoxtra. From there she went to the mainland and worked on a large farm, and even served as a minion on a Saur hunt. Once she'd saved up enough money she went to see the nearest city, Jonetown. Everything there was far more expensive than she'd expected but as luck would have it she was in the right place to rescue Edwird Soloman, a retired bureaucrat who was being harrassed by louts. She and Edwird hit it off and became firm friends, and he gave her a place to stay. She became his bodyguard and housekeeper, read his books and reached an uneasy accommodation with his girlfriend, Mrs Rumble. Sometime later, Rosemary and some friends were scavenging in a scrapyard when they encountered the demon Scratch, and Rosemary managed to overcome him to the point where he was willing to discuss his situation and behave reasonably. This caused unpleasantness between the neighbours and Edwird, and brought Rosemary to the attention of Hack'nSlash, who recruited her. While they are tidying up conversational loose ends, Rosemary tells Sylvester about a hermit she met in the SAR (where there are many hermits, but this one is The Hermit), and who was probably a wizard (or just possibly a demon). They establish that demons can communicate over long distances via leylines, hence Edgar learned Rosemary's name from Scratch, and Myrrh could arrange visits from friends. Rosemary is reluctant to ask Myrrh to pass along messages. Sylvester assures her Myrrh can keep a secret. They discuss Ilsa, who has a very able illegitimate daughter, Druscilla, who works for the big bank in the capital. Ilsa writes to her wih local gossip, so news of Rosemary's presence will soon reach the capital. Ilsa is half Haroon, and the Haroons do not worship the Brush, much, or care what the Oracles think about having children out of wedlock. Sylvester is trying to modernise the village, with some cooperation from the current Oracle, Threnody, who is a great improvement over her predecessor Omega. It is mentioned that opposite Frederick and Myrrh's old room there is a door labelled "Gwen's stuff", but neither of them knows who Gwen is or was. Sylvesgter has never investigated it, but assumes Myrrh will have done so. They discuss the fact that when Sylvester met with Protus he saw visions of Rhid and Villipend, whom they then met, so evidently he was seeing the future. He also saw Rosemary fighting a woman with a glowing glove, and that may be a true vision too. Rosemary thinks from the description that it is Tansy Rugan, so they will have to meet and fight some time soon. At least she'll probably have the Can-Opener, but she doesn't have it with her now. Sylvester wants them to have regular conferences, but he's not going to say where the next one is, in case of eavesdroppers. They discuss Rosemary's old teachers, and whether Myrrh and Frederick are gone for good: Rosemary hopes they are, Sylvester misses them. We glimpse Frederick being given an Ides of March cake by a waitress wearing antennae - or deely-boppers. Olaf Larrsen, the village vet, turns up in a motorboat and is introduced to Rosemary, who he is glad to see is not a "demon, Bonmarrow or Flibbler". Flibblers, whatever they are, are everywhere. Olaf agrees to give them a lift in return for information and a discount on the organs of the Dornbeast Rosemary killed the night she arrived (less than two days ago). He takes the couple and the cat back to the mainland. En route they discuss the reorganisation at the manor, and the Crash - Olaf used to build thaumtools, before the Crash, and has been able to measure the fact that magic is very slowly returning. He thinks the local Ichyoids are up to something. He tells them about the hamster pirate captain, who has now ceased to be an out-take and become part of main canon, and that he has met Protus, who was talking about someone named Winnifred. Sylvester warns Olaf that Nirvana Clepe may be back in the area. Sylvester asks Olaf whether he has seen Frowgler - he hasn't - but we cut away to see Frowgler talking to the village Flittermouse in her tower. She tells him that her name is Vyon Ward Parkin, an orphan who was taken in by the Flittermice after she was shunned because her family had died in a "Spew" from the Infernal Engine, and peoople feared she might be contaminated. We see that the Flittermice have a universal presence, at least in Yurpsland, and use actual bats as messengers. The Flittermice are an Order, whose job is to "flit into the dark places and do the mucky jobs that need to be done" - which they agree is also Frowgler's job. Vyon herself was literally posted to her new position in Eetown, in a box. It's a lonely job and she appreciates Frowgler's company, but she could have left if she wanted to, and did not. He gives her a "laughter marble" and says that some day everyone will know who he is behind the mask, then he leaves via an artificial tunnel which looks as if it was made for the purpose, and which takes him to water. As Frowgler swims away, we see him pass a tank containing an octopus named Aloysius. Violet Hopkirk lures Aloysius to the surface and milks him of ink. She overhears people gossipping about Frederick's retirement. We overhear two of her employers talking about her and how she has the talent to work on a "Wrangrig", but it isn't safe for girls. Cut to Sylvester and co. in the boat, discussing Wrangling Rigs, aka octopus inkpull platforms, and the fact that it's "not safe" for girls because it's thought to be bad luck, locally, to have a woman on board. Violet, who has a reputation for not talking, overhears more gossip, quizzes a local boy and learns about Sylvester's party going into The Moose and Squirrel and not coming out. She goes to the inn to talk to Eunice Kelso about it. Eunice doesn't know where the party went, and shoos Violet away. Violet returns to her mother, Helena, and they gossip about Rosemary. Sylvester greets a trapper in another boat, name of Rod, and his young son Ash. Ash is very interested in Rosemary. Mention is made of a Mobile Confectioners' Guild, whose members include salesmen called Lollipop Perambulators. Sylvester finds Ash refreshing - too many people treat him either with scorn or fear because of his position. Olaf tells Ash to tell his friend Aloysius (not the octopus!) to stay out of his garden, because it's magic. Sylvester tells him to spread the word that there is going to be a meeting at the Temple to formally introduce Rosemary. Rod and Ash in their boat sail past an islet with a distance marker on it, then we see a gull try to land on the islet, and be scared away by a green, snakey-looking thing which says "Boo" in Ichyoid runes. This is one of the same tentacled things (perhaps the same individual) which we saw in the Basement, rescuing Shabash from a reservoir. Rob and Ash come to shore and we see Ash gossipping with Aloysius on the dockside - both boys look about ten years old. A gull - perhaps the same one that was chased off by the tentacled thing - is sitting near Aloysius. Ash passes on Olaf's message about the magic garden, and Sylvester's about the Temple meeting. As they walk past the Spewing Wall - a forum for graffiti - the Flitttermouse's laughter marble hits the ground behind them, and Aloysius picks it up, hides it and tells Ash it's just a rock. The gull flits in and out of shot near them. They pass Fantod and the Weirdo having an adult conversation with Melba Corrigan and her whimp-pig Wilbur. Ash and Aloysius tell Fantod that they are planning to go to a haunted ruin tomorrow, and he warns them it might fall down, then Fantod warns Aloysius, specifically, to be careful with"whatever it is yer doin' all of a sudden". We then see the Oracle Threnody, in a medical office listening to a man's chest with a stethoscope; Mayoress Saffron Stout sitting behind her desk - and the Flittermouse, scoring things off a list on a notice board. Written on the corner of the board (not part of the list) is a note saying "Tell truth". She has a sort of umbrella stand which has various sorts of pole in it, including a Sneech stick. 10: Into the Woods [10/07/2017 - 03/11/2017] To start with we see Myrrh, who seems not to need to breathe, strolling through an undersea forest before rising to the surface; Frederick still being served food by the waitress in deely-boppers; and a female Eyebolt named Shmelcathy working at her desk. Other women in deely-boppers (all this culture wear them) are monitoring Frederick on a screen, under the command of an older woman with fluffy white hair, and are expressing amazement at how much he has eaten without passing out. They talk about his herediscan - he is related to a previous test subject - and how he must be a thaumaturgre to stay conscious, yet he isn't setting off their magic-detectors. The waitress, Svetlana Rostova, is told to tail him, and we learn that they are in the Zamyatin Spire, a very high-tech-looking place. Zamyatin Spire residents are all women, but other spires are for men only, or mixed. They discuss Yurpsland politics, which involve a ceremonial, hereditary king and a separate political ruler who seems to be self-appointed rather than elected. Also the fact that Frederick is a demithaumaturge, and that the Spires are on a major tricklepoint, so were not much affected by the Crash and still have working pre-Crash technology, which involves some enornmous gears which were built by an unknown society from before the Ettins. Svetlana is impressed to learn that Frederick's family have their own library, in which he read about the Spires. When Myrrh is mentioned, Svetlana surmises that Myrrh is Frederick's wife, because he wouldn't have been allowed into Zamyatin Spire if he didn't have a wife. They discuss the arrangements for straight women like Svetlana who wish to find a mate when they live in an all-female Spire, and see an agent of sorts, holding a giant needle like a dagger and trying to arrest somebody for smuggling Fuzz jars. Singing Fuzzes are a big fad in the Spires and are bred for size, intelligence and voice, which suggests that this could be the past of Frizzlegarb's future world of Hollows and Fuzz communities. Special barriers prevent Fuzzes from being moved from one Spire to another, except in jars. Myrrh, meanwhile, arises from a water-filled tube into a sort of domed cockpit, in which there is a plant-covered floor dotted with flowers and one of the little mini-Trog-like creatures which we saw Rosemary chasing out of the Mansion at the start of the story. She presses a button and then climbs up some sort of stair or ladder - with the little critter riding on her head - to a room where there is a naked male musician named Jones (who is clearly based on David Bowie/Jones, and is either a fellow demon or a large nome, as he has pointed ears), who plays the flute for her. Finally we see her pressing her claws into a set of holes on a control that opens a round purple door, and then standing in a place where there are striped, rugby-ball-shaped lights, and an enormous bust of a bearded, humanoid male demon wearing a medal. It's not clear whether this last image is part of the canonical sequence or just a Hallowe'en special. Frederick and Svetlana end up on a balcony which Svetlana calls a Bubble-viweing Recreation Platform, overlooking a hall where large coloured bubbles with blurry images inside well up, but Frederick says it's a Spindizzy interface chamber. We learn that the Spire community has a low birthrate and takes in orphans from elsewhere, but Svetlana was born there and heard her parents mention legless, truthful flying beings who could have been either Spindizzies or Helipaths. She is not sure whether the Spire city belonged to the Ettins or the Sneeches, originally - only that it was contested between two species. Frederick describes ancient weaponry - the Ettins used city-smashing Doombombs and the Sneeches used Tangles, giant vines which could infitrate and wreck Ettin machinery. Frederick has worked out that something was meant to happen to him in the restaurant where Svetlana works, but she assures him he wasn't intended to die. Solzhenitsyn Spire is about death, but Zamyatin is all about collecting and hoarding information. Frederick wants to go ask the nearest archivist about Spindizzies. Svetlana is unnerved by this, as asking questions is discouraged. They discuss the fact that Frederick is still collecting information which may be useful to his family, even though he is retired, and that Myrrh may or may not decide she has retired, and we see the woman with fluffy white hair monitoring their converation. Fredrick says he is filling in time until Myrrh gets back from "whatever you all have her doing", and it is at this point that we see Myrrh opening the purple door. Cutting back to Eetown, we see Olaf's boat pulling in to his private dock, and Captain Hamster's crew sleeping off a binge-drinking session, and Mortimer, with umbrella, waking in the woods (to which he was evidently transported from the pub, in the same way that his brother and Rosemary were transported to the island) with the sense that some sort of revelation has slipped away from him, and then encountering Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party in the woods. Once on shore, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Olaf knew Mortimer was a wizard, but didn't tell him. We see that Olaf has a fenced-off telegraph pole topped with magical gadgets. Mortimer is very relieved to see that Nitfol survived the Spyder, but ashamed that he had accidentally led the beavcer-shark to destroy Nitfol's home tree. Fizmo realises that Mortimer owes Nitfol a favour and can take them beyond the "Edge of the World", but Mortimer doesn't know what she means. At this point we get some portraits of various characters - Ilsa's and Saffron's parents, characters from the Willy the Wendigo books, some past E Weirdos, and one of Sylvester's university lecturers. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, discussing Olaf's thaum measurements. Sylvester thinks he has a second agenda - perhaps an attempt to bring back magic, which even the High University of Azimuth has been unable to do. Sylvester thinks this is a good idea, because he wants humanity to explore the other planets in the system, and doesn't see much future in steam power. Mortimer, Nitfol and Fizmo establish their frames of reference. The Nomes' world can be walked across in a day or two, and is bounded by a wall of mist you can't push through, and centred on the Spike - Fizmo's father Foblub was an exlporer, but even he didn't manage to walk all the way around the edge. Mortimer remembers a Spindizzy called Charles telling him about a solid haze. Sylvester shows Rosemary a road which leads south to a place called Eisles where there is a ferry across the River E, but no city because the nearby shore is too rocky for a port, and then on to Obtown. He points out Olaf Larrsen's house and then they head back towards the woods - as they do so they pass Aloysius hiding behind a bush, with the gull next to him. 11: New Openings [06/11/2017 - 02/02/2018] Rosemary tells Sylvester there was a kid hiding behind the bush they just passed, and Sylvester identifies him as Aloysius Culpepper, an orphan who lives with his uncle and aunt. We see Aloysius and the gull sneak into Olaf Larrsen's place and poke about in the fields, before using an upturned bucket to climb through a shed window, after testing that a magic-emitting plant on a shelf inside is safe by throwing a stick at it. He winds up a clockwork figure of a running man (later referred to as the Flailer, so probably its feet are meant to pound grain), and the noise attracts Olaf, who is carrying a fishing net with a hole in the bottom. He tells Aloysius to follow him or go home, so Aloysius and the gull follow him. They go to the main house where they are greeted by Olaf's housekeeper - we see Sylvester telling Rosemary that this is Ilsa, who used to work at the Mansion. Ilsa asks Aloysius what the gull's name is, but Aloysius says gulls only have names when they are flying. We see a scene of three gulls by the seashore, including one wearing a hat, who is part of the pirate hamster's crew, and still looks hungover. We return to Mortimer, talking to the Nomes. Nitfol doesn't know what Spindizzies are but he does know about the Mansion, because his father was a scholar who owned two and a half books. We see Nitfol's father with two books, one labelled "Socks", the other "Cookiedice", which is the name of one of the Hollows where we see Fuzzes living in the future. Mortimer mentions the library at the Mansion - Fizmo doesn't believe such a thing is possible, but Nitfol has heard stories of large book collections. We see a shadowy image of a female Nome filing scrolls on big racks. Mortimer describes the library as being in the Ivory Tower, which leads to a long digression about behemoth teeth (if behemoths are really elephants, Mortimer has a very confused idea of what they look like), and he mentions that there is an apartment at the top, with a pool, but nobody lives in it now, "most of the time". He mentions that the tower was built by Ludwig, which leads to a very muddled conversation, because the Nomes know Ludwig as a cult figure worshipped by some people in the Basement. Mortimer manages to explain about the Spindizzies and how literal they are, and how he once told Charles he felt trapped and Charles told him about the mist barrier. Mortimer thinks the Spindizzies might know how to bring the barrier down: Fizmo thinks this is fantasy, but Nitfol wants to meet them. Nitfol and Fizmo go off to confer, while the Pale who may be Thrash seeks to attract Mortimer's attention to something, and Mortimer wonders aloud whether this is the same Pale (Thrash) he met yesterday with Frowgler. We return to Zamyatin Spire, where Svetlana is disturbed by Frederick's whistling, because music is discouraged except in the gym and at culture festivals. She takes him to a stern-lloking senior archivist, who wasn't expecting them - Frederick tells this woman his name, but says she doesn't need to know Svetlana's. In Eetown, Ilsa brings cocoa (which he has never had before) for Aloysius, herb tea for Olaf and tripewater for the gull. Olaf says he's an old man and he has had to keep his books locked away because Omega didn't want people to see them, but now she's gone and her influence is waning, he has been hoping for someone like Aloysius to come along. He told Ash to tell Aloysius to stay away from the magic because he knew it would lure him in. Aloysius correctly surmises that Olaf wants him as an apprentice. Olaf says his wife Mamie, after whom his boat is named, died fifty years ago(by implication, in the Crash), so if Aloysius comes every day he can, and learns magic and veterinary medicine, when Olaf dies he will leave his house and all his money to Aloysius, aside from a bit for Ilsa. Olaf tells Aloysius that no wizwitch could channel all the forms of magic, but some were generalists who could do a little of a lot, and some, known as Hedgewizwitches, could do only one thing but did it very well. Mamie was one, because all she could do was heal, but very well. Aloysius is another - an "Animal Empathist", hence his link with the gull. Mortimer is still talking to the Pale who may or may not be Thrash, and shows him his umbrella. He tells the Pale that he is a wizard and asks if that's the problem, and the Pale shakes his head. Meanwhile Nitfol tells Fizmo he isn't going to go off with Mortimer immediately, but he will at some point, because Zpeaker also thought the barrier could be brought down, and if Nitfol's political plan fails they will at least have a means of leaving. The Pale draws Mortimer's attention to the fact that Spyders are creeping up on them. Frederick speaks to Senior Archivix Anushka Zhdanov. She tells him he is allowed to access archives up to Level Three, but won't say how many levels there are above that. He asks for information on Spindizzies. She asks if he is a Yurpslander, and when he says he is, she calls for someone named Snegurka and sends her to fetch a file. Olaf tells Aloysius that neither of them is a full wizard, but that in theory if you make the right thaum machine you can mimic any power. However, there isn't enough energy around post-Crash, so animal empathy is impossible to mimic and no one will be "horning in" on Aloysius's skill. There are no other empaths in the area, but there are a few other wizwitches of other kinds - some who know what they are (we see Myrrh, Amos Grubb and Mortimer) and some who don't (we see a teenage boy in a soft baggy hat, and a short teenage girl with a lot of long, bushy hair) and who he doesn't think could handle being told. 12: The New Level [05/02/2018 - 01/05/2016] At the start of the chapter we see Melba Corrigan's blobwart-vending cart and her pet pig Wilbur sitting in front of a large bush. Her hat is lying on the bush, and two butterflies (not flutterbys) fly up from behind it. Probably they represent sex and/or kisses, and she is behind the bush with Arthur the Weirdo. Faint words on the hedge appear to spell out "Nutella weather person" - I've no idea why. Rosemary and Sylvester arrive back at Eetown's South Road Gate. Sylvester would rather go home, but Rosemary reminds him that he needs to collect the post, and says that it probably wasn't a villager in a boat that took them to Alwin. They both think it was probably Mortimer, by magic, which means he has immense innate power and the potential to be "quite something". Meanwhile, Mortimer's party start to back away from a Spyder, which begins to spew thick ropes of web at them, while another one boxes them in from behind. But Thrash (Rob's notes seem to confirm that it is Thrash, so the stripe he had on his chest before must have been painted on) slashes their web-ropes with his sickle and beats down the one in front of Mortimer. It's not clear whether he has killed it or not, but he probably has, as later they will pass a dead one in that direction. Meanwhile, Senior Archivix Anushka offers Frederick a chair and a cup of tea while he waits for his file. Svetlana is impressed and concerned, as teachairs are only offered to important guests, and she isn't authorised to associate with important guests, but doesn't wish to leave. The Archivix gives Frederick permission for Svetlana to stay and have tea too, but Svetlana says it's not Anushka's decision to make. Olaf thinks Aloysius can handle being told he has magic, but also that an empathist can't do much harm. He warns him not to tell anyone else about his magic, because there are people - the picture implies it's official, government people - looking to capture functioning wizwitches. It's possible that Aloysius may have other, minor talents as well as his main one - Mamie did - and there are tests for this, but Olaf can't administer them. Amos and Frederick both could, but Frederick won't. Rosemary suggests that if Mortimer is going to be "something" so will Sylvester, since Mortimer obeys him. As they talk, a Flutterby - a creature with which Mortimer has a strong affinity - comes to them with a scrap of cloth tied around it, bearing a message apparently written in blood. Back to Mortimer's party. The Pales are fighting off the Spyders, and kill at least one behind Mortimer, but the Spyders keep coming. Mortimer has a moment of crisis where he decides he will no longer be either a follower or a causer of problems, and he shoots magical force from his umbrella-wand, declaring that there will be no more killing or dying (and gives himself an electric shock). The surviving Spyders run off, and we see two Spyders discussing the fact that they had thought all human wizwitches had been killed in the Crash, and that this raises the possibility that there may still be humans who are able to "talk" (I'm guessing this means Aloysius's animal empathy) and they must call a conclave to discuss this. Svetlana confirms to Frederick that it is her boss (or at least, the person who told her to watch Frederick) who decides whether she may stay and drink tea or not. She has a number as well as a name. Frederick addresses the security bugs in the walls and asks for Svetlana to be made his guide, stating her name and number, and since nobody answers with an objection, Svetlana is officially promoted to that role. She isn't sure what she thinks about this, as she had enjoyed being a waitress, but she does quite like her cup of tea. Olaf tells Aloysius that Amos gave up being an active wizard before the Crash - the pictures imply this had something to do with Myrrh, but Olaf will only tell Aloysius about it if Aloysius agrees to be trained. Amos has already asked Olaf to come to the Mansion to discuss something, so he will take Aloysius with him, but Aloysius shouldn't mention his possible apprenticeship etc. to Amos's wife Nellie. They have a complex misunderstanding about what "having views" means, which leads to mention of an apparently blind woman called Gretta Weed, who in the metaphorical sense sees further than Nellie. Gretta is brighter than Nellie, and Saffron brighter than Gretta, but Olaf is more concerned with their open-mindedness to new possibilities. They discuss the fact that once he is trained, Aloysius will have the choice to stay in Eetown or to move elsewhere. Once they have found a private spot, Sylvester reads his message, which says "Open Training Gate. Urgent." This refers to one of the Panegates at the Mansion. Sylvester still has to complete buisness in town but will rush through it. We see him ask a sausage vendor named Claudia what people are talking about - which is really all the news from the Mansion. She has been selling a lot of sausages because people are anxious/excited about the changes. Fizmo and Nitfol are surprised and impressed that Mortimer is a wizard, and reveal in conversation that Fizmo works for Frowgler, and Nitfol sort-of does too. We see Frowgler underground, talking to a Shallow Wyrm named Parkin who is guarding the Circle at the World's End. Fizmo says Frowgler can see the future (which Mortimer cannot), and warned her about a job she took. We see her underground in her hazmat suit, looking at a little creature similar to a Shallow Wyrm but not one, which is growling at her. Mortimer says Frowgler gave him good advice, but he works for his brother Sylvester, not for Frowgler. He tells them Sylvester is a sort of mayor, avoiding the charged word "Earl" by chance or design. Svetlana reveals that she prefers kvass to tea, although this is against her culture. The Spire folk drink actual tea, but tea in Yurpsland is usually brewed from other plants. Frederick himself drinks - cautiously - things brewed by Myrrh. They get onto discussing Yurplejuice - neither Svetlana nor Anoshka has tasted it, because it's restricted, and even in Yurpsland it's regulated. Olaf tells Aloysius about the other half of his business - the first half is treating sick animals, the second half is making and selling thaum-powered gadgets. He has always refused to make magical weapons - Zap-Tridents - partly out of morality and partly in case someone buys one and then kills him to prevent him making any for anyone else. In any case they only work at Tricklepoints, such as the one under the Mansion. To make his own gadgets work away from a Tricklepoint he has built big, cumbersome energy collectors. Aloysius shows Olaf the laughter marble, and Olaf says it does party tricks, which he will show him in the workshop. 13: Thicket [02/05/2018 - 16/11/2018] Sylvester says Claudia will be selling a lot more sausages, because more changes are coming, because he is planning to be more pro-active. He and Rosemary discuss Mayor Saffron's temper. Mortimer says he arrived here (in the woods) by accident, but now he's here he will help the Nomes. He asks why they are there and Fizmo says they are going to "that Crystal Thicket". Nitfol is initially angry, but Fizmo says that if Mortimer (with his evident magical power) is working for Mayor Koyeeb they're all dead anyway. Nitfol discusses good and bad leaders with Mortimer, and Mortimer correctly concludes that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb. He is still willing to help, on the understanding that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb for an ethical reason (i.e. because he is very bad at his job) and that he isn't planning to kill him. He knows where the Crystal Thicket is. Frederick tells Svetlana and Anoshka about Yurplejuice, which he hasn't had since the funeral of Mariah, the Mansion's groom, when they still had horses. It's made in Wirtvale, and the stuff which Yurpsland exports is second-rate, but the best brands are wonderful. This leads to a conversation about funerals: the Spire folk file their dead on shelves in a catacomb, but they do have a ceremony. They talk about the fact that Spire folk are trained for their jobs, but Frederick had to muddle through as both wizard and regent, and didn't do a terrific job. We see Myrrh emerging from a hole in a rocky floor, into a cavern where there are many pink stalactites and stalagmites. She is preceded by a butterfly - perhaps signifying that she and Jones have had sex. In the cavern is a giant Metalmin who knows what she is - it addresses her as "zarkette" - and challenges her to a game of chess. We see a woman with puffy white hair watching Myrrh and the Metalmin on a screen: this is the same woman who was earlier seen overseeing the team who were discussing the fact that Frederick wasn't being knocked out by what they had fed him. She is probably Svetlana's boss. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, still discussing Saffron Stout, and Saffron's father, who died when Sylvester was five, and her mother, who kept small yappy dogs. Neither was at all communicative about their past. Mortimer tells the Nomes there may be a magical way of getting where they're going. He tries to compare Panegates with the treewarping the Nomes do, which requires planning and equipment. Nitfol knows about twistpoints, but Mortimer says Panegates are safer, and there's one that leads to the edge of the Thicket. He has to explain that it's Panegate, not Paingate. Mention is made of Fizmo's married sister Fweep. Meanwhile, Frederick says that Spire folk who do badly at their jobs get sacked. Yurpsland is a young, recently unified country which hasn't worked out how to do things yet, whereas the Spire regime is 400 years old. He speaks about a Yurpslander named Owen Gregiry, who wrote a study on the Spires, and about various Spire monarchs, including the famous Ivana III, who fought off the Wendigoes. Frederick is more interested in Vasily II, who wanted to introduce changes. We flash to Violet Hopkirk, telling her mother she's going out but will be back in time to help with supper. Young Ash is her brother. We see the Flittermouse in her tower, watching Violet through a telescope as she sets out. Then we see Eunice calling two lads called Ricky and Wendell to come out from a wooden structure, because Saffron needs them. Then we see the old man and former Guardian Terin Flem, sitting on a rock talking to his grandchildren Stephan and Sparrow. He is going to wait at the rock until he sees the Mansion party come by on their way out of the village. We see Rosemary and Sylvester discussing the mayor of her home town, how as an orphan she was a problem for him, and how her Aunt Eva came to take her in. Eva was also seen as a problem because she had run off to the city, picked up foreign ways and then returned rich. There are things Rosemary wonders about Eva's return, but she's not going to talk about it in town where there are potential eavesdroppers. Mortimer and the Nomes agree that it would be as tedious to trek to the Mansion to find the Panegate as it would be to go to the Thicket on foot, and as far as Mortimer knows they won't be able to locate the Panegate at the Thicket end. He assumes they are going there to find a particular flower. He tells them not to tell him their plans, so he can't inadvertently give the game away. We cut to Sylvester's brother Ace, with spear and rucksack, walking through an unknown town in the west of Yurpsland and meeting up with a blonde Nome woman wearing a long skirt and a hat with a flower in it. He shows her a similar flower - which he was reluctant to wear in his hat. As he is Ace, she takes the nom de guerre Diamond (Ace suggests Joker). As they walk through the town, in the background we see a very odd face, or maybe a mask, with slanted oval eyes, watching them from some sort of battlement, and they pass a poster with a kind of alien face on it. Other, more human faces peer round corners at them wherever they walk. Ace comments on the fact that they are being followed, and asks if they are friends of Diamond's, or at least allies. Cut to the Mansion's butler Schmedley, standing in front of a large, open book and holding a cake with candles, to celebrate fifteen years since the strip began. There are eleven candles on the cake, three Flutterbys flying inside the house, and a Fuzz peering at the lighted window from outside. Frederick and Anushka discuss rules of succession. In the Spires the rulers are of alternating sex and bear a mystic Gear. Vasily II the would-be change-maker died young (as did Yorik II), and Frederick suggests that his death was suspiciously convenient. The village fishermen are deeply interested in Rosemary's hat. Coming from where she does, she is able to discuss fishing with them. One called Tom even invites them for a drink, but she and Sylvester have too much to do, and Sylvester says late in private that having the Earl in the inn would be a buzz-kill - nearly as bad as an Oracle in the pub. Fizmo is curious about the smell of sphagnum dust which still hangs around Mortimer. She and Nitfol discuss the birth of Fizmo's niece Faft, in a way which implies that Nomes can choose the gender of their foetus - although Nitfol denies it when Mortimer asks. Fizmo remembers she needs to ask the village healer Piu for Stiflebloom. Nitfol is an onlly child. Diamond says that Ace is an object of great local interest, which is why people are spying on them. He comments on her dyed-blonde hair. for some reason, she says that here she had no other option (even though we see a male Nome with brown hair watching them). Ace says there are always options, but sometimes all of them are bad, and he learned that from "you people" - some organisation to which Diamond belongs. The boundary between "here" (later described as "Out West"), where Ace has been for a while, and "Back East" where Ace comes from is a place called Nye. Diamond came there from somewhere "much, much worse" than here, which makes Ace say he questions her Nomishness. This may be related to this Hanukkah strip, which shows Nomes onducting a cultural celebration somewhere where they are a persecuted minority living in hiding. Ace and Diamond come to a plain, unmarked door in a wall, which Ace says people must only come to if they are already welcome there. It opens before them. Frederick tells Anushka that he ended up taking over running his "Spire" and training his successor (Sylvester) because the official leader (Willoughby) was no good at it. Willoughby died in the Noodle Incident, which the Spire folk haven't heard about. Frederick says he would have thought everyone to the ends of the known world would have heard of it, and this leads to a discussion of an island called Solla Sollew, which Svetlana says is the island at the farthest edge of the Revealed World, and which Frederick says an explorer described as "alive and burning". Anushka says that Solla Sollew isn't the farthest place from the Spires, just hard to reach because of magic-storms from the Glow Confection mountain range: the farthest point is the Biloka Penninsula on the far side of the Deep Southeastern Jungles. Frederick does not know why the town of Noodle is called Noodle, but the Noodle Incident is the most interesting thing that ever happened there. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the local fishermen. Tom is unmarried but has a thing going with Gretta Weed. It's OK for Mansionites other than the Earl to hang out in the local pub. Sylvester goes to collect post from Mr Gray. Mortimer's party, discussing Stiflebloom, pass what looks like a dead Spyder. Fizmo left their village because Nome girls were being encouraged to get pregnant instead of taking Stiflebloom. She and Kulkad went down into the Hot Zone in suits. She couldn't see much through the helmet, and can't really describe what they were monitoring. Mortimer says Sylvester will want to know, and Nitfol should want to know too if he's going to be a leader, so Fizmo says the thing they were watching was a sort of stone growth. Ace and Diamond pass two guards, and climb stairs to visit a Mr Shadwell. Ace fusses about the lack of a handrail, and Diamond says he reminds her of Algernon Jones, the hero of Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. At the top of the stairs, they find Mr Shadwell seated dead at his desk, with some kind of wound on his chest. Frederick wasn't present at the Noodle Incident and didn't hear about it till days later, because they didn't have a Sparkwire - a telegraph system. Sparkwire operators seem to be all women, who wear antennae like the ones the Spire people wear, although in the Spires they signify citizenship. The Spire ones seem to be implants - at least, they're not just attached to a band like the ones worn by Sparkwire operatives. In Noodle there is a museum about the Incident. In the Spires, Solovyov Spire is all museums, but some can only be visited by people with a high security clearance. While Sylvester is talking to Mr Gray, some village children ask Rosemary how she, Sylvester and Mortimer got out of the inn without anybody seeing them go. She says they used a one-time magic door. [Cut to Cap'n Hamster, talking to a sentient sea plant about the fact that his parents told him that somewhere across the waves there would by a pirate girl for him, and he will search till he finds her.] Fizmo tells Mortimer that when she was down in the Hot Zone, she had a button to push (and then run away) if the thing she was watching started to move. Technology doesn't work well down there, which was why they needed live watchers, but the button was shielded. Fizmo says she saw a rock grow legs and walk. Nitfol asked if it talked - she says no. Nitfol is not surprised, because he has heard stories from when Nomes used to mine down close to the Hot Zone. Diamond says she will pay Ace (who seems to be some kind of bodyguard, like Rosemary) to help her get away from the town, as she was Shadwell's "little mascot" and probably won't surive him for long if she stays. Ace agrees on condition that she doesn't lie to him, and that she tells him where the thing he came to collect is. She opens a wall safe and gives Ace sort of snow globe thing with a figure in it - a long-robed figure juggling the letter 007. Frederick has never been to the Noodle museum, but has heard testimony he trusts. Svetlana is worried about something, tells him "Negative", then looks warily at the walls and says it's nothing. Frederick says Willoughby set off some kind of chain reaction which badly damaged much of Noodle, but no-one except Willoughby died. The incident happened in part because of poor maintenance in Noodle, but that part of the story was hushed up. Mr Gray is concerned that there may be things which, unofficially, Sylvester should tell him about. They have a verbal skirmish in which Sylvester avoids telling him anything. He collects his post, rejoins Rosemary and says it may have been a tactical error for Mortimer to let people see that his umbrellla could be used as a weapon - which suggests Mr Gray is a government agent. Nitfol says that one of his ancestors, Nikmo, found a talking rock in the deeps, although most of the records of what it said were lost. Nikmo brought the rock home to the surface, but it stopped talking and he was ridiculed for saying it had. Family history says Nikmo later snuck the rock back into the deeps and it came back to life. He told his daughter Margi about it. Margi became a famous adventuress and had a son, Jindak. Margi told Jindakk that she thought Nikmo went back later to visit the rock, but she herself could never find it. Mortimer asks about the surviving records of what the rock said, and Nitfol says that the rock said it had been broken off from a larger boulder during a natural upheaval. We see Violet sneaking past behind Terin Flem, who is still keeping a lookout. She walks to the Mansion's gardens, where she startles Nellie Grubb, the gardener. Ace tells Diamond to place another globe, called a Zoinkglobe, into the safe. He had arranged to give Mr Shadwell this one in return for the one with the juggler, and now Shadwell's heirs can have it. He tells Diamond not to steal stuff from the safe unless they need it to survive, so she takes a small plaque with Shadwell's sigil on it, used to show that the bearer is in his favour. Ace comments that Louis and Buddy, the security guards, had let him up there with a spear, and may be part of whatever is going on. We return to the Spires, with a detour to a Smyt version of Spiderman - Spyder Smyt - to commemorate the death of Stan Lee. Frederick is talking about the official enquiry into the Noodle Incident. The Spires have official enquiries too - Svetlana says "Except when conditioned by circumstances", Frederick replies "Like when a gal happens to be carrying a big needle?" and Anushka says they don't talk about that here. Frederick says that what he has said came from his own experience, not from Svetlana. He says that Willoughby was scapegoated (although he really was somewhat to blame) - then a woman named Snegurka arrives with a file which was requested earlier (presumably the one on Spindizzies). Part Seven: Seats of Power [19/11/2018 - present] 01: Flight [19/11/2018 - 04/02/2019] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Eetown, discussing whether or not Mortimer will do anything illegal with his umbrella, for a given value of "illegal". Some countries encourage magic, some ban it, but Yurpsland has no unified policy. Mortimer and his party come to a barrier of webbing which marks the edge of Spyder territory. They cut through but are left rather gummed up: Fizmo wants Nitfol to ban Spyders when he is mayor. They begin to pass scattered fragments of ruined stone walls. Nitfol and Fizmo have not been this way before - their parents' and previous generations sometimes journeyed to the Thicket to collect special plants, but the mortality rate was high. Nitfol has more confidence in their safety now because they have the three Pales with them - but suddenly, somebody in the trees starts to throw rocks at them. Nellie tells Violet that being there, at the Mansion, isn't safe. Violet tells her her mother wants to marry her to someone called Tim Tonbee who is above her social status, in order to advance her. Violet thinks this is foolish, both because Tim will want to marry a girl of his own class, and because the life of an aristocratic housewife is not much better than that of a working class one. She's an expert inkwrangler, but girls aren't allowed to work on the rigs because it's thought they'll bring bad luck, and they aren't allowed to work in The Barn (where she currently inkwrangles) after they marry. She doesn't want to join the Navy because she doesn't want to kill people, and she can't be an Oracle because she doesn't hear the Brush in her heart. She doesn't fancy clerking. Ace and Diamond walk out past the guards Louis and Buddy, telling them Mr Shadwell deos not wish to be disturbed. Louis and Buddy wonder why Ace (a professional guard) gave them a disappointed look as he left. On their way out Ace and Diamond are accosted by two more serious-looking men, called Mr Stirscrim and Trymund, who ask who Ace is. Trymund says he's probably the Mundiv rep. Ace (whose mother is a Mundivagant) says that Dalton Mundivagant sent him. Snegurka hands the file to Anushka, and seems disturbed by the fact that Frederick thanks her. Anushka hands the file to Frederick, but won't tell him who authorised her to give it to anyone who asked about Spindizzies. Frederick and Svetlana prepare to leave, but he pauses and asks Anushka if she is married and has children (yes to both). Mortimer's party are being bombarded with rocks by a group of Tree Squids. Mortimer and the Nomes take cover in the long grass, but Nitfol says the Pales can take care of themselves. One of the Nomes, unspecified, says they need Umboz, the Squid-Coaxer, but Nitfol says these are different from the village squids. We see a brief scene of Umboz, Vezza and Piu getting on very well with the Pales at their hive. Piu seems to be learning new techniques from a Pale doctor, and Vezza and Zpeaker are looking at a device which looks like an organic version of an Ettin tool. The rocks stop coming because Thrash has knocked the Tree Squids out of their trees. Violet tells Nellie she wants to be her apprentice gardener. Nellie is dumbstruck. She tells Violet that she isn't getting paid because she is officially retired, but Violet says the next one will be paid. She listens out for news, and knows Sylvester has been making money on stocks and will soon need new staff, as the old guard get ever older. Nellie warns Violet again that the Mansion isn't safe and her parents would never agree to her working there, but Violet says she will leave home when she comes of age. Mr Stirscrim and Trymund wonder why Shadwell sent them to Rowade if the swap was happening today (sounds like somebody got them out of the way). Ace and Diamond say they made the swap and "didn't hear any complaints". Diamond shows Stirscrim the pass with Shadwell's sigil and he lets them pass, but he is still uneasy. Diamond tells Ace privately that Shadwell's habit was to foster rivalry among his troops, but when Stirscrim and Trymund do work together they have a fair amount of clout. She doesn't know which would come out on top if they fought. Ace asks her to show him the subtlest way out. Anushka says her kids turned out OK "for the most part". Frederick regrets not having children of his own. His nephew Willoughby became his foster son but he died. He tried again with Willoughby's children and they too mostly turned out OK (we see that he is doubtful about Mortimer and Lenore) and with other kids who came around (we see a girl with long curly hair looking at his Fugehorn). He tells Anushka to tell her kids she loves them and give them the advice she wants to give them, because there might not be a next time. Svetlana looks stressed. She and Frederick leave and we see Snegurka come to make sure Anushka has heard an urgent debriefing summons. Anushka says she has, and calls Snegurka "ninnyhammer". Thrash jumps down from the trees to rejoin the other two Pales. A hail of rocks follows but it begins to die down and the Pales look puzzled. 02: Entangled [05/02/2018 - 03/05/2019] Mortimer and the two Nomes wonder nervously what will happen if the Pales don't return from squid-chasing. The scene switches to the Pale camp, where Zpeaker is telling Vezza how the Pales grow their tools. [Out-take - we see Nimue in her orchard, alive and well and growing oranges, but the scene is partly greyed out because there is so little magic in Abalone. After this Rob provided a whole sequence of four strips on Rosemary going on a blind date, and said that it was canonical, but as it is set at some indefinite time in the future I've left it in the Supplementary Art section. It does show us that the Mansion has a set Portal Point for people to teleport through.] Nellie tells Violet to go home for now, not to wander off the path, and she will discuss with Amos and "His Grace" the possibility of taking her on as an apprentice. Ace and Diamond go through a small door marked "Nome" into an underground complex (with rats) where Ace has to walk bent over. They are briefly accosted by a male Nome, a sort of steeplejack named Uffer whjo works in "The Heights", but they ignore him. Svetlana still looks stressed. She starts to tell Frederick he must do something, when another woman named Idita comes to re-dress Svetlana in clothing suited to a higher rank, if she is going to escort Frederick. Svetlana looks even less happy. She is taken to a booth, where an ironic-looking woman named Alena whom she knows from school or college is assisting. The Pales rejoin Mortimer and the Nomes, but the Tree-Squid are still throwing stones at them. Mortimer doesn't want to use magic again and Nitfol agrees, so they set off into the brambles under Nitfol's command, using the Pales' sickles to cut through. Nitfol is looking more and more like a leader. Eventually they come to a giant, pink, glowing, three-pronged crystal set in a base: Mortimer says it marks the start of the Thicket. We cut to Rosemary and Sylvester, walking away from the town at a dignified pace they have to maintain until they pass Terin. Rosemary asks why the provincial flag is the E symbol, given that Audra played down her history. It may have had something to do with taxes, and been picked because goods with the E stamp were so widespread in the area - we see that they sold self-sealing stem bolts. Ace and Diamond run into more Nomes, led by a very hostile older man called Roquat. He tells Ace to get out - Ace moves Diamond aside and says he'll get out when Roquat gets out of the way. Roquat draws a knife, so Ace knocks him and his companions down. As Ace and Diamond leave, one of the downed Nomes warns Ace that Diamond will stab him in the back. Svetlana and Idita enter the booth, while Alena, who has a weapon with a rotating blade, stands guard. She and Frederick engage in mild banter, although she says he's a disruptive influence. Fizmo asks Mortimer why humans built the Thicket, and he says the Ettins built it. Fizmo has never heard of them. Mortimer asks if the others have. Nitfol has heard stories of The Earl fighting a two-headed giant called Ettin (real Ettins had one head but two brains). Thrash indicates that this is untrue and that he knows about real Ettins. Sylvester gives them a brief history lesson and says he doesn't know why they built the Thicket, and that they are probably already too close to it - in the distance we can see a jumble of the giant glowy pink shards. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the flag of Moonin, which shows the ancient towers called the Beacons, but some people would prefer a lobster. The islands in that area have always fought, but a leader named Wirtanen who had a lobster flag briefly united the islands, but he didn't rule the deep landsiders who have their own flags. Rosemary agrees that the current, Beacon flag is boring, but doens't care otherwise. They reach Terin. Diamond is glad Ace didn't kill anyone, even though she's willing to kill if necessary. She has something she needs to do which she says will be fine so long as there isn't a Backwash. This is a wave of magical power which surges out from the Infernal Engine, which extends underground and moves at a rate of a few centimetres a year. Where they are, it used to be, and it has left part of itself in place as it moved on, so they are still to some extent inside it. The Heights are jumbles of high beams left behind by the Engine, which occasionally generate magical items, which Highscalers like Uffer collect. Frederick and Alena discuss the fact that clothes in the Spires are designed by a committee, while in Yurpsland they are mostly designed by a particular married couple. 03: No Turning Back [06/05/2018 - present] Mortimer's party progress, keeping together. Mortimer, being taller, can see a large, distant rock which he thinks is near the Panegate. Nitfol says one direction is as good as another, and Mortimer says the direction of the Thicket (the jumble of crystals) is bad. Saturdays in the Basement [03/05/2014 - present] These strips run every Saturday and show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with what's happening above ground to Rosemary and co.. I decided to split them off onto a separate page to make the action easier to follow. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nests [03/05/2014 - 08/08/2015] The scene opens with a cavern on the wall of which is a cross between a set of bunk-beds and two layers of miniature, open-fronted rooms, made from wooden beams. These are labelled with the names of a group of female Gnoll warren-mates - Hiltsa, Lanwja, Piranom, Pergola, Skuy, Islupis, Ambri and Irnissa. Islupis is not present, or at least not visible, and Ambri is off-stage except for her hand. All we can see of Piranom is her feet (wearing shoes, in odd colours) and the ends of long hair. Hiltsa, who looks very bad-tempered, is throwing stones at the board behind Lawnja's head. Irnissa reports that Skuy and Pergola didn't come home last night. We see Skuy telling Irnissa and Piranom that she is moving to Leny Hall, and that she'll never take a mate because she has a proper job as Sina's assistant. Irnissa intends to stay at home where it's safe. We then see Skuy carrying her belongings past a memorial to the Nome War, and passing the Gnoll security guards Forfind and Findfor and the Ghast soldier Dpxbfo. [Meanwhile in an outtake a female Gnoll named Carmal delivers a pie-in-the-face to Dap, ordered by Tuft to celebrate "their" anniversary - actually the strip's eleventh anniversary. Carmal evidently is some kind of courier or perhaps a Kissogram girl.] Hamble and Squeeb discuss Othara. Hamble has thought of killing her to discourage explorers, but decides she is more useful alive: he's waiting for somebody else. ` Meanwhile, we see Wrawa (female Trog) wake from her exhausted sleep. Kottle the (Gnoll) Healer tries to speak to her but she runs off and he sends Maggle (another female Trog) to follow her and keep an eye on her. Maggle is alarmed to see that Wrawa appears to be heading for the Great Chasm, but when Wrawa reaches The Plunge and stands hovering at the edge, and Maggle calls out to her not to do it, Wrawa replies "Don't do what?" and seems not to know where she is. We see that the gap in the fence at the plunge-point originally led not to a sheer fall but to an extensible bridge, which is now tucked in under the lip of the drop. Wrawa says that she can smell something on the breeze and she is the second person to do something, and then says that she is going to prepare something for the people who will follow her and then jumps off the Plunge point in a calm, abstracted way that suggests she knows there's a soft landing below. She lands in the bushes down in the Chasm. She avoids being sucked into the chute, and instead walks along the top of it to the Trog habitat on the far side of the Chasm, where she meets Hamble and Squeeb, who have evidently gone back down there to live even though they may venture elsewhere. Wrawa remembers and likes Hamble from her childhood, and tells him how she has been affected by Rhid's chemicals and by the death of Leny. We see that Rhid himself has ended up in a hospital called the Humane Zone. Hamble warns Wrawa that this place, the deep-down Trog habitat, has an effect on people, but Wrawa seems quite keen on the idea and wants to absorb the atmosphere. She is aware of Hamble's ambitions to return to the world and make his mark; she doesn't intend to oppose him, nor to assist him at this point (and secretly feels that it will make little difference if she does). She goes to sleep, hanging uipside down from the ceiling. We see Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr awake in her sleeping pool, called by a voice of unknown origin. Ploot arrives to check on Urwyn, who has nothing to report, as there has been no activity around the Elevator. Unnoticed by them, a Smyt Sherlock Holems and Watson pass by, stalked or followed by another Smyt. Ploot fills Urwyn on with what's been going on with Sina and the new hall, and two Ghast medics, Vptwbotw and Vpfbotw, arrive with a Porta-Pool to collect their dead. Ploot prepares to drag the dead Gobule, whom he recognizes as one of Guttle's servants, away to Maw. Urwyn thanks Ploot for watching out for him and we are shown that Urwyn's friend Zugo, wearing armour, is also watching from a crack in the wall. Meanwhile the Ghasts wheel their Porta-Pool past various characters in and around Leny Hall. We see the Gnoll Muscod giving a heart-shaped flower to Folla, and two Gobules from Maw's household pushing some kind of large wheel. We see Catmorlo talking to Furphy, Satyrsong peeking at Krink, a Helipath sign-writer, Voog and an unknown female Motihaul. They pass a well where an Ichyoid is drawing water, a male Trog being led on a lead by a female Nome, a JibJib, Frag guarding the entrance to Le Tree and a female Motihaul pushing her eggs in a pram. On the walls are posters warning people about Fixits. In Time Hall they pass an Ooze, a Trog whom we saw before in Bowel Hall, and Pizzle talking to a male Motihaul Candle Monk named Crumpton. Then another Ichyoid at another well, a female Gnoll water-seller named Bujold, and a Fixit information desk, manned by a Boogieman. At the desk are a Gnoll with a flower in his hair whom we have seen before, and an unknown Gobule and male Trog, the Gobule with a bump on his head which suggests that a Fixit has been struck off him, and the Trog carrying a battered hat (not a Fixit, from the look of it). The two Ghast medics take the Porta-Pool to Amorph Hall. The area is still under lockdown, so there is nobody to meet the funeral party except Stirrer Hptwfvth and Apprentice Stirrer Hpthfvx, and a chap called Septwbfn, who pushes a handcart labelled Tangible Karma, and gives the medics a free fungus to compensate them for having had to go near the Operator. The two Stirrers place the Porta-Pool on a mark on the floor and a strange, elaborate machine, acquired directly from the SubShafts (not from the SubShaft manager Egrote) and normally cloaked from any notice, descends from the ceiling to hover over the pool and probe or stir the contents and decontaminate the contents. It seems that the SubShafts themselves are sentient but nobody knows for sure: there is a Ghast team studying them. The two Ghast Stirrers Hptwfvth and Hpthfvx bring the Porta-Poll containing the remains of Hpthbvtw - a.k.a. High Pool Third of Batch Three Hundred and Fifty Two - to the pool whence he came, and prepare to stir him back into it, with a ceremonial speech about his memories and dreams being added back into the common pool and into the Official Record. We see this happening. We go back to Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr sleeping in her pool again, and being called again to wake up. It can't be Hpthbvtw who is calling her, since we saw her being called before he was added back into the pool, but it does seem like it's probably the same pool. Some essence of the pool speaks to Hpobfvfr, taking on Hpthbvtw's form, but she objects to that so it becomes her mother Hpobvo instead. The pool, the collective consciousness, approves of Hpobfvfr's willingness to go against convention, and wants the Ghasts to go out and "engage the world", especially now with humans reappearing and the Sneeches leaving. The pool consciouisness explains to Hpobfvfr that their world, the Basement, runs on machinery behind the walls which is powered by Sneech squeezings, and without the Sneeches it's already beginning to fail. It wants Hpobfvfr to go talk to the humans, who may have useful information. She is quite keen to talk to Mortimer again. Saturdays in the Basement :: Tests [15/08/2015 - 26/03/2016] We see Shabash, one of the female Gnolls who shot at Agorn by mistake for Boromir, walking nervously through a dark place, scaring away a Doom Bee and a sort of miniature, non-sentient Saur called a Lizhopper. She passes a gap in the wall through which we see Maggle the Trog running across a lighted space, then Shabash surprises Faddle in the dark. She can smell that Faddle has been in The Place No-One Talks About, which turns out to be the cave where he was taken by and to the female Gnolls in collars, whom he refers to as Placettes. Along with "the usual phizz" they told him that the world was ending in some sense, and gave him a task to perform. Following their accidental attack on Agorn, Fanga and Shabash have split up in order to go to ground: Faddle suspects the Placettes of having engineered this to leave Shabash free to be recruited. They are joined by Carmal, who has been instructed in a vision to come and meet the Placettes' Assigned One. We see the vision in black-and-white flashback, and it looks suspiciously like Frowgler wearing the pumpkin-head costume in which he scared the Nomes. The Placettes have given Faddle three glowgem shapes which have to be inserted into sockets on some important mechanism on an upper level. The three shapes have to be inserted all at the same time into slots which are too far apart for one person to reach them simultaneously, presumably as a safety measure. They are dangerous in some way - possibly radioactive - but Faddle is better able to handle them than "normal" people (perhaps because as a Finagler he's not likely to reproduce), and has been given a backpack with a protective lining to carry them in. On their way, they pass through a "Wintergate" cave which is basically a permanent Hallowe'en display. They have to wear seasonal hats while in the Wintergate cave, and this prompts Carmal to tell Faddle about Fixits. As they reach the edge of the area inhabited by organized Basement society, they meet a Queen Snake named Marsslina, who is an aquaintance of Faddle's. We learn that the Queen Snakes and the Ecadems have some sort of secretive joint society and have their own underground greenhouse for growing food (although Queen Snakes mainly eat tunnel-rats), but their garden has been raided by Biters and so Marsslina is having to forage for a pudding-gourd for their own version of Thanksgiving. After Marsslina has moved on, Faddle says that Queen Snakes prefer to be called Empress Snakes and the three Gnolls discuss the terms Queen, Empress and Emperor. We learn that some Basement dwellers have traditional folklore about an all-powerful ancient Emperor named Ett, who is a fusion/confusion of the Ettins with the three early Earls named Ettric. The Placettes seem to have some kind of government status, since Gnolls just do as they say even if it's dangerous. Faddle reckons he and Shabash and Carmal have been chosen for this particular mission to and beyond the risky Fringes because they're expendable, whereas people like Mimsy and Piranom are too valuable to the Placettes to be risked. Faddle and co. pass through outgrowths of The Tree to reach a chamber full of Ettin machines. They drop the objects they've been carrying into slots on the machines. A human male named Mr Norton (who is really in the Spike with the Fixits, and who might be Rufus under another name) speaks to them through the machines and tells them that these machines are being activated because the technology which depended on Sneech Squeezings will soon fail. Shabash leaves, but Carmal and Faddle agree to perform other tasks for Norton, in exchange for Glowgems. Saturdays in the Basement :: Shabash and Rowbynn [02/04/2016 - 01/07/2017] Shabash gets lost and falls down a shaft at the fringes of the Basement. She lands in a reservoir, whence she is fished out and dumped into a dry service area by a green creature with a lot of tentacles and a long thin neck terminating in just eyes. It appears to be intelligent, since we see it start to fill in the hole in the ceiling through which Shabash fell, and it's using sophisticated tools. It's also holding a frog - who doesn't seem to be Frowgler. A maintenance bot then trundles up behind Shabash and first bonks and then tases her in an effort to get her to leave, seeing her as an intruder. She gets up to go, sees what she has been talking to and is amazed, because she can see it's a Metalmin and she thought all the Metalmins were long dead. The bot tells her it is the property of the Eman family and she doesn't like the idea that something sentient(ish) can be property. She names it Sparky. Sparky tells her to take her queries to "Facilities Manager Elizabeth Merrill" and the sound of the name, combined with the fact that Sparky is good at maths, makes Shabash think the Emans are Eyebolts. Shabash sets off to explore, believing that she can smell Eyebolts, but what she finds is a container garden under artificial lights. Beyond that, she finds Telic the Helipath Healer's surgery, and Crazy Rhid, heavily bandaged and strapped into a hospital bed. Telic turns out to be rather sinister. S/he injects Shabash with a paralysing agent in case she is there to murder hir - a reasonable precaution given her profession - but once she is helpless s/he starts to ruminate out loud about using her as a test subject, a clinical guinea pig. Rhid however talks hir out of it (and incidentally acknowledges both that he is a murderer himself, and that he has some well-intentioned long-term goal) so Telic dumps Shabash out in a corridor and locks the door behind her. Rhid gives Telic permission to experiment on him instead, since he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but cautions hir not to damage him too much - because Digger Odel still has a use for him. Shabash is very collapsed. As she lies on her back, trying to recover from the drug Telic gave her, a male Shallow Wyrm named Rowbynn drops down from somewhere high up and lands on her snout. Rowbynn is studying the quasi-sexual Wyrm process of "Eating", which turns out to be a kind of fusion. The Shallow Wyrm attaches to "Hooks and Trenches" on the skull of a Deep Wyrm - both male, apparently, so perhaps also female to female - and becomes permanently bound in place. The two then form a mental and physical gestalt organism which returns to the Hot Zone and stays there. Rowbynn finds that Shabash too has Hooks and Trenches, of a sort - which, as he acknowledges, raises interesting biological questions - and he is able to form a temporary bond with her which enables them to speak mind to mind, rather as we saw Hax speaking to Camora mind to mind before he took her over. Rowbynn is a member of the inner circle of the Ring of Clear Air, and as such his official rôle is to lie around being pampered and building up his strength in order to compete in some official contest to do with Eating rituals. But he had a lively mind and wanted something more, so he began investigating Shallow Wyrm society and mapping the extent of it through information he could glean while remaining with his own ring, and was surprised by how many and how different the rings were. We see vignettes of Vim, captain of the guard to the hostile Ring of the Uppermost Spire, stalking Sneckdraw the spy, and also of Kryt the observer, observing. Eventually that wasn't enough to satisfy Rowbynn's need for knowledge so he escaped from his minders and went exploring. He suspects that many others have done the same, and we see a vignette of Urwyn. Rowbynn tells Shabash that she will be able to break the link with him if she wants to, but if she lets him stay he can help her with her current lifestyle, and has "advantageous secrets to share". He knows where there are caches of human artefacts and knowledge, located by himself or by other Wyrms, and in return he wants her help in learning more about Fixits. He is very interested in them because the way they take over their "mounts'" minds seems similar to the Eating process. Shabash explains that she has a problem, related to the fact that she and Fanga were retained to assassinate Bromir. Rowbynn is aware of Bromir, who is "the hero of the Tubish Vat incident". Instead they attacked the very similar-looking Agorn, who is on a list of Gnolls who mustn't be killed. The list also includes Agorn's son Furphy, Comshaw, Mimsy, Niddle, Wittol, Swodswal and Catmorlo among others. Rowbynn hadn't known about the list but says something odd is going on with the Gnolls. Shabash went into hiding because she feared Agorn would report her to "some nob" but admits she isn't sure any of them know they are protected, although she expects Agorn to know. Rowbynn says a social facade is being maintained, and we see part of a pair of giant jaws depositing an apple for Agita. He says that an unknown nob or nobs is pushing society, especially the Gnolls, in a particular direction, but he doesn't know what or why. He is investigating out of curiosity rather than a desire to expose the truth. Shabash is hungry so they end the psychic conversation. It took less time than it felt like, but even so a hopeful slime grub is about to bite her ear. Slime grubs are not edible unless fricaseed, so Rowbynn directs her to a branch of the Tree. She has had a tiring and perplexing day, so after she has eaten Rowbynn directs her to a sleeping niche. They establish silent communication and then both fall asleep, and find themselves in a shared dream. Above them they can see the famous Skibble (although we cannot), although he doesn't look as Rowbynn imagined him - Shabash says he wears disguises. The dream becomes ever more bizarre - Rowbynn says Skibble is juggling feral ABOLs. Shabash wants to challenge Skibble with a tesselator, which appears in her hand, but Rowbynn says the Grumpy Pincher ate all the tesselators, twice. Shabash charges, Rowbynn goes to her aid, and Skibble confines them to a tight space for a zillion years "or 'til we bowbing wake up". They flibble. Saturdays in the Basement :: Leny Hall [08/07/2017 - 24/02/2018] We see Pergola the Gnoll, neart Leny Hall, looking at light spilling down from a gap in the ceiling and supporting a tiny fir tree. She has never seen a single tree on its own before, not part of The Tree, and tells Maggle the Trog that a woman called Swinthin had told her about free-standing trees, after she and some others had gone outside to the forest to capture Raviners for breeding, so they could extract Raviner ichor (we see a female Motihaul named Swidnica selling it), but the Raviners got loose and became a pest. Pergola has never dared to above ground herself, even after the tunnel was put in, because of the scary stories (in her imagination Nomes seem as scary as Spyders and Tree-Squids) and because it all seemed overwhelming. She loves plants and manages to nurture a few with artificial light, but she thinks if she saw plants growing freely in the sun and rain she would stay up there and never come home. Maggle has been to the doorway and only saw clouds and rain and too much light which hurt her eyes, but she is willing to go out with Pergola and guide her back. Pergola asks Maggle to tell Sina about the tree and the gap to the outside which they could work on to make their own exit - and which forest creatures can enter through. Maggle says Sina is very busy - we see Maggle talking to a female Eyebolt secretary - and that Sina and Sprocket are busy talking to Spindizzies. Maggle hasn't been to see the Spindizzies because she has no particular questions to ask them, even though she spends a lot of time exploring. She does it for fun, and often gets into trouble - she's not driven like Pergola. Pergola grew up on a fungus farm but became more interested in the weeds. Maggle works on a farm at times, to earn money when she gets bored with eating fungi and slime grubs. Most people can't eat them, but Maggle is a darkpelter Trog and is special. Darkpelters only crop up occasionally and randomly. They are resistant to poisons, and more likely to pair up with Nomes (although Maggle has her eye on a fellow Trog). Because of her resistance to toxins she helped to eradicate a dangerous plant called a jab-bramble which has harmful uses - we see a flash of Rhid doing something sinister with a ball of something. They meet up with Finimbrun, who is carrying a large domino, maybe 10" long. Rhid had left a set scattered around, and Finimbrun doesn't know what they are or whether they are dangerous or not. Pergola is wary of devices but Finimbrun thinks she's a hypocrite, because plants are just as dangerous and she was involved with the Crudbean, or at least knew Crud. She and Crud had neigbouring plots. He was sad after the death of his wife, and had a lot of equipment which was being funded by somebody else. She was nearby when the Crudbean erupted, but so were many other people. Comshaw interviewed her and then killed the Crudbean with one of Rhid's devices, and Pergola profited because souvenir hunters bought all her plants in the hope that they had been contaminated with traces of Crudbean, although it still wasn't enough for her to get her own place. Finimbrun lives with Kashkavala, who is an animal expert and food technician. We see her talking to a tunnel-rat called Snert. Timf calls Pergola to come and sort out some blorp plants, so she goes off, leaving Maggle looking warily at a flickering light. There is an odd little scene where Tuft the Gobule and Dap the Gnoll are agreeing that some large-scale thing has gone wrong, but Dap can't be arsed to find out what. Of to the side of them we see a machine that seems to be flaring off gas. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nitid the Helipath [03/03/2018 - present] We see Nitid the artist and Flange the engineer, both Helipaths, talking. Flange, who is working on a junction box, is on his own because Sprocket the Gnoll has gone off courting with Sina, which Helipaths consider very inefficient. There are a lot of wiring problems at the moment - Nitid wonders if this is to do with the previous day, which the Observatory staff say was The Day That Changed Everything, but Flange is skeptical. S/he and Sprocket did some work at the Observatory and were not impressed by their record-keeping. [Out-take: we see an elderly male Gnoll named Skritch fishing, to commemorate the death of Patrick McManus.] Nitid asks Flange if s/he recognises a particular symbol. Flange says if it were rotated it would become a symbol important to Humans (it's a fancy capital E). Flange is inclined to believe that Humans still exist. Flange goes off to do more engineering work, and Nitid goes to the Time Hall, where s/he talks to a female Ecadem named Fyke. Fyke is sad because yesterday a male Ecadem named Smyth, who was working as a bouncer, died in the fight at Le Tree, without ever having found a mate, and there are so few Ecadems left. His friends had tried to talk him out of taking such a dangerous job, as Ecadems are fragile. Fyke has her name painted on her side, which Nitid refreshes for her for free. It has something to do with the worship of the Brush and bearing witness in some way. The sect to which Fyke, who is a bit of a fanatic, belongs believe that there are holy Emissaries living behind the sun, and that the sun turns into the moon at night, covered with mysterious runes. The moon must not be breached but the sun should be, and a Jibjib named Speedy tried to fly to the sun to do this, but fell back exhausted. Fyke thinks they should build a tower to reach the sun, using the Mansion as a base. She thinks the Council will do this sort of thing; Nitid supported the sending of a Helipath named Aprat to join the Council but believes it won't achieve much because Agita, Nevus and Guttle will thwart it. A Boogieman named Trevor summons Fyke away to help deal with a situation. Nitid enters the Hall of the Brush, monitored by a female Eyebolt named Evulgate, who reports to a male ditto named Fremescent. Evulgate is collecting credits awarded to her for sharp observation, but needs another 23 credits before she will even be told what events are credit-worthy. In the Hall of the Brush, Nitid speaks to an elderly-looking Gobule priest named Kalon. Nitid isn't really sure why s/he came: Kalon goes through a list of possibilities and they decide that Nitid feels alienated from hir community. S/he does not want to talk to Nefast, a Helipath who is an Ear of the Brush, so Kalon suggests s/he should talk to Febrifuge. Febrifuge is somebody who keeps a record of favours owed, as a kind of currency, but that's not why Kalon thinks Nitid should speak to him or her. The Hall of the Brush is full of different sects. We see a male Trog holding a flower in a pot, wearing a flower on his head and declaring that "The Bloom is Eternal" to a Gnoll Doomsayer who says that "The End if Nigh", and a male Motihaul in a hooded robe debating theology with a Gnoll Beebler. At Febrifuge's door Nitid meets Shona, who has come to deposit a favour to return the one done her by Comshaw and Niddle the day before. A male Gnoll, a Spelling Guild member, OKs Nitid's spelling of hir own name on hir own forehad. The Guildsman then goes and shouts at two Doomsayers who have spelled their placards wrong. Meanwhile Pizzle turns up and asks Nitid to exchange one seed for another, which Nitid does. Tiny flags pass by low down in the frame, and the Gnoll Irnissa appears with two plants in a pot, and says that the League of Short People are on the march. Irnissa is just there to deliver plants, and assumes Nitid is also there as a professional. They discuss Leny Hall - Irnissa thinks anyone going near Crazy Rhid's old place is crazy themselves - and a male Motihaul in a lurid superhero costume passes them, carrying a alrge grasshopper impaled on a fork. Shone is in with Febrifuge, depositing favours she owes to Comshaw and Niddle. Irnissa considers Niddle far more impressive than Comshaw and says he's changing the world through his Finagling, although she herself only "fools around" and doesn't mate (only couples with a Finagler have young). She thinks Comshaw married Camora for her money. Sundays in the SubShafts [03/09/2006 - present] The timeline of the SubShaft 44f strips is confusing. The series is used as a foil for seasonal gags about e.g. Hallowe'en but given how short-lived Gnolls are, the jokes for a given season are certainly not taking place annually within the story, and the strip for 25th March 2012 and comments by Rob confirm that these events are happening roughly parallel with events in the main strip, meaning that up until 16th July 2013 they take place during the course of a single day. This means that one has to explain how come Cully ends up in possession of a device called the Zorper which is also being passed around among the characters in the main story. Because the SubShafts series is so long that it causes loading problems if displayed on a single page, I have split it into sections, but these are mine rather than Rob's. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors. A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle. Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God. We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out). We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights. While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm. Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets. A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully. A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant. Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie. Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders. They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out. We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere). They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire. The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional. Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus. They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for. The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie. Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate. We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit. While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there. Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears. Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it. Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus. Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do. The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now. In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature. Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God. She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too. Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it. Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function. Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts. Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future. Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute. Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires. Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come. Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage. Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports. The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself. We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one. Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer. As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe. Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected. Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded. The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life. It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side. Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit. Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance. Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator. Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct. The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room. They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch. Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used. We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind. We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf. We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly. In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings. Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears. Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor. Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar. They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt. Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free. The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did. They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation. We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow. Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers. Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower. A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off. We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva. Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood. As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things. They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting. 3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question. They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up. Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it. Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride. They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station". Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive. First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it. The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls. Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches. I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva. Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong. She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake. Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches. Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does. Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list. They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come. Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight. Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure. They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger. They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about. She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately. Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying. SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based. Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed. Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth. Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend.. For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair. At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner. Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world. To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep. On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub. For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise. For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell. For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt. A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives. On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible. Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet". Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion. A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page. Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else. If you are seeing this text, your browser does not support inline frames
01: Izchak [16/07/2007 - 30/08/2007] Sylvester's party come to a Motihaul-owned shop called Izchak's Sharp n' Pointy. There Rosemary is attracted by a weapon like a halberd with a weighted butt. Behind her back Izchak tells Sylvester and Camora it's not for sale because it's trapped in an "airbox", an Ettin-made forcefield which the basement dwellers wrongly attribute to Humans, and which neither he nor Sprocket and Flange have been able to open. However, if he was telling the truth then something Rosemary does, or some change in conditions, causes the airbox to open and the weapon comes freely to Rosemary - Sylvester later opines that this is supicious, as if it's been set up for her to take.
As Rosemary is paying for her new weapon, Chauncy and Edgar carve their way in through the wall. They want to dissect Rosemary and Sylvester to see how they differ, but Rosemary thrashes Edgar with her new weapon and then tells him that his victims felt similar pain. Edgar it transpires is not callous or brutal: rather, because the Human world is so flimsy in comparison with his own he had believed that the world and the creatures in it weren't real, but something like a video game. Now that she has shown him that these are real people he doesn't intend them harm. We learn that Rosemary did something similar in the past with a demon called Scratch.
We learn some background information. Demons in this world communicate with each other long-distance by a process called "tapping the lines". Chauncy and Edgar would have left long ago but they are constrained by some kind of barrier around the local area (it does seem to be local, not the planet's magnetic field). Chauncy asks Rosemary to strike him too so he can feel it, and she does so but nearly breaks her wrists, because he is so solid.
Sylvester tells the two demons to go ask the Scary Lady to help them to get away. They say she has forbidden them from ever going upstairs again, but then Chauncy senses that she is on her way down, so they go in search of her. After they have left, Rosemary starts looking for a suitably grand romantic name for her new pole weapon, and Sylvester dubs it "the Can-Opener".
02: Upernavik [31/08/2007 - 26/09/2007] As they come away from Izchak's place, Sylvester's party encounter a group of male Motihaul soldiers armed with cold-forged iron weapons, inbound to tackle Chauncy and Edgar, and are warned by their officer, Matagam, to leave the area. The head of male Motihaul security, Upernavik, is listening through bugging devices: he must have heard the confrontation between Rosemary and Edgar, because he has "Scratch" written on his notepad. He sets Whisp (a dark-pelted female Trog) to tail Rosemary, Camora and Sylvester, then orders his side-kick called Knumdrot (a play on the Patrician's secretary Drumknot) to lock down their whole Hall, but Knumdrot refuses, citing a Contract which states that a Full Hall Lockdown requires the prior consent of both Upernavik and his female counterpart, Angmagslika. Upernavik regards consulting with Angmagslika as a dire ordeal - but he doesn't need to meet her after all because he receives a message from her telling him to initiate Lockdown.
A horn is honked to alert two male Motihauls called Notserplib and Nagolder, who are dozing in a very cozy flat or office full of ornaments and games. We see the sound travel down pipes past a Smyt graffiti-artist ("Fnord wuz ere") and a Trundlebug who is looking at something like a Pacman monster. The two Motihauls have a pet tunnelrat called Hackit who is sleeping on Nagolder's stomach, and has to be lifted up with defensive gloves and placed in a box to control him. His job is to protect them from slimegrubs. Once Hackit has been safely boxed, they swim down a well-shaft to an underwater capstan which they turn to close off the Hall: they seem to be able to breathe underwater. Nagolder, we learn, is a friend to Cully, the young Gnoll who was banished to SubShaft 44f.
Shut outside in the corridor, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that he considers her to be only the second most frightening woman he knows - after his great-aunt the Scary Lady.
03: The Gibber [27/09/2007 - 01/11/2007] Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their upbringing - Sylvester's parents were loving but absent, his father a twit who died young, his mother always a traveller, so he was raised largely by the Scary Lady. Rosemary, whose parents we know drowned in a maritime accident, was raised by her Aunt Eva and by Eva's former bodyguard Zeke. We see a vignette of Eva teaching Rosemary how to pick locks.
Heading towards the long way out, they pass a group entity called The Gibber, guarded and assisted by an elderly female Gnoll (the grandmother of Mimsy), a Poker called Anathama. Rosemary and Sylvester tell Anathama they are forest Nomes, but Anathema as a youngster saw the young Sylvester and the Scary Lady fleeing a running fight in the Basement and she knows that they are Human, although she doesn't comment.
We learn that seven years previously a group centred around a male Gnoll called Altholen, inspired by stories of the magic-users Caytid the Gnoll and a male Motihaul called Othar, used "Sneech squeezings" and the underground River of Fire (= magic) in an attempt to reawaken the magic in the world. Instead, they caused a cataclysm called the Breach which extended right up into the Mansion, where it caused sparks or similar to shoot out of the Tree. In the Basement it killed a large number of Ecadems and generated many new twistpoints. Camora's sires' Finagler Twitchel helped to seal it again: her sires Buccula and Choller also claimed credit for sealing the Breach but Anathama says they just got in the way, and it was Yurd and co. who fixed it.
One of the effects of the Breach was to bring The Gibber, a cloud of half-seen faces in the darkness, into being in their own pocket of reality, overlaying what had been Helinew Hall. The Gibber have great knowledge and always tell the truth, so they function as an oracle. They tell truths to Rosemary and Sylvester, which they later tell Anathama were among the greatest truths they have ever given. To Rosemary they say "What you stole is even more dangerous and precious than you know. In the end, you will fly away and live forever, and you will leave the world shattered in your wake." To Sylvester: "You will return to where you started, and you will become what you hate. And in doing so, you will restore the world to what it was."
After Rosemary and co. have left, The Gibber tell Anathema that they are dying - the power source which maintains them has failed. She is quite upset by this. She tells them that her duty with them has not been onerous, especially considering some of the things she has done in the past - we see her crawling through a tunnel to collect glowgems - and she mentions somebody called Bokonan who was "Sent into the SubShafts, and then.." This was connected with some necessary but personally risky thing that a group she belonged to, along with Bokonan and Digger and unspecified others, was and are doing. She needs to find Digger and tell him that Humans are back. Digger has never been to The Gibber to hear his truth.
04: Hop Skip and Several Jumps [02/11/2007 - 08/01/2008] Bung's Jibjib messengers go to Maw - who is just wrapping up winning a battle against his assailants - and warns him that Chancy and Edgar are loose. The people at Rhid's place arm themselves with the remains of his Dornbeast-repellant globes, ready to fling them at the demons. Meanwhile, Nevus and Agita return to the Basement and Nevus is surprised to find that in his absence his forces have gone to war against the Council, in his name and claiming his authorisation. The Nome party - Vezza, Piu, Umboz and Nitfol - and their Pale escort cross a rope bridge en route to the Pale camp. The Pales have a telescope set up to watch for the returning party. The Nex him or herself, the ruler, is apprehensive and says that "she" is coming and she may or may not be "the one", and the outcome will prove "Frogmask" - presumably Frowgler - right or wrong.
The action cuts to the high thin tower called The Spike, on the edge of a lake somewhere near the mansion, where a high-ranking male Fixit called Cox is using a mesmerised Pale mount to listen to Pale communications. We learn that Fixits are born in breeding pens and then brought to The Spike, and that Cox is significantly older than fifty and witnessed the Crash. Cox speaks to a Human called Dorian who has lived in The Spike for forty-two years. Dorian is being ridden by a Fixit but it seems that Dorian is the one doing the talking, and is in a position of authority. Dorian says that somebody called Kelso is "finally bringing in her pet idiot" - presumably Rufus. Later evidence suggests that Kelso is Eunice by another name, probably her surname
Cox floats down through the tower, using artificial levitation devices, until he meets a female Fixit called Vix who is riding a controlled Nome girl, and pushing a gurney holding industrial supplies. During the chapter headed Thrash, in the 900th strip which in real-time appeared almost two years before this one, a light message saying "900 WOO HOO" was seen shining from the top of The Spike. In-universe, this of course was earlier the same afternoon, and Vix says that the "wooflare" has drained some resource which the supplies on the gurney will help to stabilise, but Cox calls her away to walk with him.
He talks to her about the Crash and the Human cities he once saw - from one of which be brought back an Ettin airbox, perhaps the one the Can Opener was in at Izchak's shop. There is a reference to a shield around the area, and to a new Human being brought in to The Spike, presumably Rufus. Protus, he thinks, has some vast plan - he first appeared five years beforehand and since then there have been more wooflares, both in the Spike and the SubShafts, and more twistpoints. Mr Hand has been passing on reports from the Hot Zone observers which also suggest imminent events. There is a reference to a power nicknamed the Topspike - probably the same as God - and to a serious female enemy in the west (where Rosemary was somehow transported from). He suggests that if Vix gets the chance to flee, she should take it.
Meanwhile Frowgler crawls out of the crater left by the OZPR event - he seems mildly disappointed that it didn't kill him.
At the Mansion, the Weirdo, grieving for his dead friend Tulip, has got roaring drunk, climbed up to the roof terrace, set off a siren called the Mugwump Alarm (although there are no longer any Mugwumps in the area and they are believed to be extinct) and passed out. Amos Grubb comes to shut off the alarm - which requires complex instructions from a code book (he seems to be the Mansion's librarian) - and has a conversation with Fantod, the Weirdo's ventriloquist's puppet, in which Fantod speaks as if he is an independent entity. Fantod tells Amos about some events he and the Weirdo witnessed by the Elevator, and refers to Rosemary as a "sword bunny". They seem to be regular visitors to the Basement.
The Weirdo having sobered up a little, he and Amos walk down many stairs within the Mansion, and we glimpse a Panegate which opens into a world of yellow light and many busy Helipaths. We see strange machinery and Tree branches in the walls, including Ludwig's Vent Tapper 3000, which seems to be trying to tickle a magical flame into life. We see a female Gobule called Gulch teaching three baby Gobules called Gif, Glub and Gip, and telling them about great bones within the ground.
05: Skibble's Place [09/01/2008 - 01/03/2008] We learn from Camora that Mortimer was the "demon" who caused the Nome War, and from Sylvester that his parents chose their children's names from a very pompus classic book called Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. Rosemary is alarmed by the idea of eternal life - she says she'd get really bored after the first thousand years - but comforts herself by interpreting it as eternal fame rather than eternal life. Sylvester is less alarmed by the idea of becoming what he hates, since he hates some quite harmless things, and this leads to a discussion of his siblings and family in general.
They come to Skibble's place (no Skibble, just his place), guarded by a male Gnoll called Cerbis, who lends them a token with an "E" on it, to be used to activate a device to summon the Great Riddler through whose territory they must soon pass, and he says they owe Skibble a favour for it. They discuss the aurilnode on the wall outside it: it was invented by a Helipath called Auril and Sylvester is impressed and disturbed by the level of sophistication, which suggests outside help, and also by the spectacular magical even caused by Altholen, even though he failed in his purpose. He tells Camora about magic and the Crash.
Sylvester wonders whether Auril used Sneech squeezings in his work. Camora says he was too sane to do so, and this leads to a discussion about genius and eccentricity - about Rufus, who takes dangerous scientific risks, and Rosemary's friend Edwird, who likes to swim in ice water, and Telic the r doctor, who operates on hirself.
Camora realises that Rosemary and Sylvester just want to get home, and she wants to take them to the Council's tunnel, but Hax says this is a bad idea as it would give an invading force an easy way in. They set off for the Riddle Grotto, with Whisp trailing them.
Meanwhile Shona, returning from the forest, realises her sister Sina is in trouble and goes in search of her, as does Sprocket. Nevus, Mimsy and a couple of male Gnoll soldiers one of whom is called Frag are trying to fight their way through to Nevus's office. Agita meets with her assistant Flibbergib the Eyebolt, who is riding on a Gobule and has come to warn her about the fighting, and to complain about Weirders. Guttle, still partially wrapped in tendrils, comes stamping down the tunnel, dismissing Skoil from his service as he tramples him underfoot: two Trog raiders are unwise enough to attempt to mug him, but they don't even notice Digger passing them by.
We see a scarred Rhid, still trailed by Kronk and contemplating desperate measures. We see the scuttly little sentient rock still trying to climb out of the Hot Zone. We see the Scary Lady and her balloon venture into the Sneech den, thinking that something is very wrong.
Clochard and Anathama meet up, both looking for Digger, and exchange dire news which is trumped by one of Bung's Jibjibs warning them that Chauncy and Edgar are loose. They discuss the fact that Anathama saw Sylvester in the Basement fifteen years before, along with the "Clawblaster" - evidently the Scary Lady - and now he's with Rosemary, and with the pole weapon which Anathama has seen before, and although he's older he's far from old which tells Anathama that Humans have much longer lifespans than Gnolls.
06: The Three Great Riddles [03/03/2008 - 04/06/2008] Camora is telling Rosemary and Sylvester about Skibble - it's not clear what species Skibble is but he's a sort of Trickster and is friends with someone called Blitz who is probably a Gobule. Heading for the Riddle Grotto they pass a sign warning of a defence system called Death Doors, which are doors which attack any non-Human trying to open them, as with the Djinnoscope. They pass a door labelled Pots Room without stopping. Sylvester mentions the Djinnoscope, Camora asks about it and he describes the Hall of Achievement to her - but she knows it as the Death Hall. Sylvester explains that the Djinnoscope is called that because it can grant boons, like a Djinn.
They come to the Riddle Grotto and find themselves on a jetty at the side of a deep pool. Theoretically no one can cross without authorisation because the Riddler lives in the water and is fantastically fast, but a Jibjib called Speedy once flew across on a bet with soemone called Shilpit. Othar the magical Motihaul is mentioned again, this time as an explorer. We learn that the Three Great Riddles were named by Dorn, 10th Earl of E, who also created the Dornbeasts as battle-mounts, and ended up being eaten by them.
Rosemary and Sylvester prepare to take their leave of Camora: she still wants to tell them there's an easier, safer way out, but Hax prevents her. She notices that the cabinet which holds the Summoner has changed shape (from a kind of squat bullet-shape to a straight-line oblong) since they first came into the grotto, but Rosemary and Sylvester have seen no change, which suggests that either their memory or the time-line is being tampered with. Sylvester says it's always been as it now is - and that it reminds him of something he saw with Protus. Hax invades Camora's mind and takes it over, saying that he must follow his orders and she would find it distressing to be aware of what those orders are, and her mind and her sanity are precious and must be preserved. Having been taken over, Camora now says she was foolish to suggest that the cabinet had changed, but Sylvester refers to his great-great-uncle Hindenburgh the wizard, who also witnessed things changing.
Sylvester inserts a token into the Summoner and it sets off a siren which summons the Riddler himself - a giant Ichyoid about 60ft high, older than the Earldom of E and speaking a Human/Ichyoid pidgin represented as Futhark runes (occasionally upside-down Futhark runes). He starts by asking them their business, and addressing Sylvester by name, and expressing sorrow at his father Willoughby's death. Sylvester introduces Rosemary as "non-family - staying?" The Riddler replies that she is dangerous.
Sylvester asks if he, Rosemary and their possessions may pass over, and the Riddler asks if "Fixit Gnoll" wants to cross too, but they don't understand what he means. He asks for information on Frowgler, but Sylvester only knows about the comic-book character and explains that he is a two-dimensional representation drawn by somebody called Linderhoff. We learn from Rosemary that Roshambo, and his talking sword Slasher, and the frog-wizard Frowgler, and other characters including Naif and Arax, are hugely popular cultural icons and the comic's been running since before the Crash, although Sylvester later comments that the quality of the comics has declined since then. Sylvester recalls Mortimer complaining that his Roshambo action figure had been damaged - this may relate to the Sciencebugs who were worshipping a Roshambo figure on Mr Hand's desk.
The Riddler finds their information about Frowgler interesting, and gives them permission to cross. Sylvester warns Camora not to try to follow them as she doesn't have permission to cross, and admits to her that they are Humans and promises to try to come back and speak formally to Comshaw and the Basement authorities - but it's not Camora they are speaking too now. Rosemary and Sylvester are both aware that Camora has changed, but they don't know why.
A pontoon rises and rotates into position, enabling Rosemary and Sylvester to cross the pool. Sylvester says there used to be a lot of ways in and out of the Basement but they were gradually all closed off except two - Rosemary reckons there must be at least one more to explain the various appearances and disappearances. The pontoon's action is so jerky that as they get to the far side they fall in a heap and Rosemary jokily tries to kiss Sylvester.
We learn about herediscans, security devices which identify members of the E family, and that the family used to manufacture reverse-engineered Ettin-style robots and sell them under the brand name Factor E. They talk about the Crash and how close civilisation came to total collapse. Rosemary's Aunt Eva was close to starving but she later ended up as a professional card-player (hence the bodyguard): Rosemary says that in the town of Nye some card-games played right through the Crash.
Hax walks Camora through a secret door in the corridor wall into some sort of control centre, and Whisp doesn't see it but does note that Camora's scent just stops. Hax seems to be planning to kill Rosemary and Sylvester.
07: Decisions Decisions [05/06/2008 - 05/07/2008] Chauncy and Edgar locate the Scary Lady in the Sneech Den and ask her to help them get through the barrier: they do not want to go home because they have become used to having names.
Sprocket and Flange place a piece of equipment, probably from the old Metalmin, in a service hatch whence it is collected by an Ichyoid.
Hiblehoy and Wrawa leave Leny's body in Bowel Hall to be rendered down. They are paid in glowgems: Wrawa tells Hiblehoy to take half for himself and give the other half to Telic to research why the Trogs develop dementia. She crashes out and has to be carried home to bed by Hiblehoy, through the running battle which is still raging.
Thrash finds Frowgler, slightly singed. Frowgler says that his own story is so odd even he doesn't believe it, and that he means to see that the Pales get what they want, and it's not his problem whether or not they'll still want it once they've got it. Frowgler says that he is neither so clever as the Nex nor so powerful as the ruler in the Spike but still he is the most important person Thrash has ever met. Thrash decides to help Frowgler rather than finishing him off.
We see two male forest Gnolls called Scrof and Louch who had been out on a foraging/raiding party and got caught in all the strange events. Louch, a cousin of Comshaw's, couldn't cross over the rope bridge because the Pales were there, and had to go north and use a minimalist bridge just called The Rope, and consisting of just three cords. Now he is tired and wants to go back to their village, the northernmost of a pair, which is just a big communal burrow. Louch is fed up with how poorly they live and wants to learn to read like his mother, and better himself: he thinks he will ask Umboz the Nome to teach his people how to cultivate crops, but we see the Nome mayor saying that Umboz is a traitor, and ordering Umboz's brother Frotz to regain the family honour by leading a raid on Louch's village.
In the Basement, we see a male Gnoll, Bung's friend Faddle, heading home with a plant in a pot, and a mixed-sex couple called Niff and Folla looking for somewhere to hide from the fighting, and instead running into the newly returned Shona. They start to tell her about Chancy and Edgar and then overhear two Motihauls talking about it, and about Sina setting up a safe zone in Crazy Rhid's place (because of the weaponry there). Shona thinks that a safe zone at Rhid's place is an oxymoron, but Niff and Folla tell her that Sina has driven Rhid off.
08: The River of Fire [07/07/2008 - 26/11/2008] Deep underground, overlooking the River of Fire, is a bridge or gantry of some kind protruding from a pueblo-style earth building. Here we see a male Gnoll called Blit, with a bandaged leg, and a male Motihaul called Gongoozle discussing the fact that this is meant to be The Day That Changes Everything but it seems to be change for the worse, and the Gobule Lairs are all now at war with each other. A female Trog called Espy (who we will later learn is or used to be a primary-school teacher of young Trogs, and who is remarkably old-looking for a Trog and yet still mentally sharp) summons Blit to go downstairs to see someone called the Observer, and sends Gongoozle away because he is not on the Observer's staff and they are closing the observatory to outsiders.
Blit goes downstairs by a complex route of lifts and stairs and corridors, passing other workers - a nameless Gobule and two Eyebolts called Poindext (or Poyndext) and Suscalva - doing mysterious scientific things, then two Gobule labourers called Ottus and Piterbult and a short watch-being of unknown species called Wences. He is caught by a booby-trap and catapulted through the air to land in a padded cart operated by a Helipath called Lucint and two Jibjibs.
Lucint carries a stunned Blit down to an observation pod where they meet two pink female Oozes. The lower-down one of these seems to be The Observer (so it's not Mr Hand) and has become stiff due to proximity to the Fire, and is losing the ability to change shape. The higher-up one seems to be the Observer-to-Be, a trainee.
The River of Fire affects different species in different ways: it is rapidly harmful to Motihauls, Helipaths have to wear goggles to keep from going dizzy, Ghasts go mad and Wyrms can't go near it at all. Eyebolts, Gobules, Jibjibs and Trogs are hardly affected, and Gnolls, especially mated trios of Gnolls, are affected in some way but also affect the Fire back, disturbing its flow. The Observer has summoned Blit to look at the fire and see what he can see. She mentions other Days That Changed Everything but says this one is especially odd, with an unexplained reference to a Nome called Rejov. Blit looks through a viewing hatch into the river and sees images of a cactus - almost certainly "God's Cactus", the Mansion of E - and of a "fancy pot", then letters telling him two Humans are about to cross the Grotto Bridge.
Meanwhile, at the edge of the Riddler's Grotto Sylvester lectures Rosemary about what Humans have learned about magic from Ettin writings. In their world it seems to function like magnetism - it's generated in or by the planet's core, sprays out from the South Pole in a series of leylines resembling lines of longitude and then dives back in at the North Pole. These leylines have been much fainter since the Crash. There are also random magical upwellings called tricklepoints which are still active and useable, and there's one at the source of the River of Fire. Not far away to the south, the Forest of Burzee contains an even bigger tricklepoint.
Different tricklepoints behave differently and are good for different things: the one under the Mansion is being squeezed by something down in the Hot Zone, causing the River to be sprayed out of it. The female Earl Audra, mother of Ludwig, investigated it, dug exploratory mines right down deep into the Hot Zone and in doing so triggered a cataclysm which enlarged the Great Chasm. Her father Angus threw condemned prisoners into the River of Fire, and Chauncy and Edgar probably entered the world through it. [The Operator, however, came to town by tram.]
Sylvester warns Rosemary to expect to see visions as they approach the River, and they set off. Whisp, who is evidently blazingly fast and agile, watches them from the far side of the Grotto and then crosses the Pool by bounding across the sinking bridge and dodging the Riddler's lightning-fast claws, although she suspects him of not caring enough to try very hard to catch her.
Sylvester tells Rosemary that witches and wizards - thaumslingers - used to wear magic-concentrators called thaumtappers inside their pointy hats, which killed most of them when the Crash came. The batteries in their helmets run on small thaumtappers and Rosemary sees visions when she switches her helmet light on while wearing it.
We learn that Sylvester is not very devout, and has private reasons for not going to the Temple every week, and that the local temple of the Brush was moved from the Mansion to the local village of Eetown after an Earl called Ernest (father of Philbert) quarrelled with an Oracle called Purity. Ernest was a forger and died in a dramatic way.
As they approach the River they start to see externally-manifested visions of people from their pasts. Sylvester sees Dirge, a thuggish man from the village, threatening to hit him. Rosemary sees her tutor, friend and perhaps (although he was a lot older than her) lover, Edwird, and a respected bodyguard colleague called Baldy. She apologises to Edwird for having hurt him by leaving him, and expects Baldy may be her enemy now because she went AWOL from a job they were both working on. The vision of a "Pyrite" appears, with a parrot on his shoulder - the pirate, who was someone Rosemary was once on a course with, dissipates when swiped with the Can-Opener but the parrot seems to be real.
Sylvester sees Mr Ferule, the family lawyer, who administers the trust which pays for the eldest in each generation of Emans to go to university. Sylvester teaches Rosemary to conjure shapes out of the magic-saturated air and tells her that Ludwig studied them, and said that they were connected in some way with the distance between Eyebolts (something we have seen managers of Eyebolt clerks worrying about, and these shapes resemble those conjured by Eyebolt Weirders). We learn that brilliant Ludwig had an almost equally brilliant common-law wife called Penelope.
As they approach the River it starts to show them what they most want to see. Rosemary sees a half-formed vision of her dead parents, and Sylvester sees a naked, busty, willing Rosemary - the real Rosemary is quite flattered (and she sees a naked Sylvester, but doesn't let on). We learn that for some reason Sylvester cannot or may not marry anyone from Eetown. We learn that the species in the Basement are native and represent all the known intelligent species in the world, except Mugwumps and Wendigoes. Rosemary wants to know why the Mansion isn't known as a tourist attraction, as the Infernal Engine is. Rosemary and Sylvester recognise and acknowledge that they are already friends, and see a vision of Nimue, Sylvester's girlfriend from university.
They come to the start of a bridge across the River. A magical surge envelops them and Rosemary (only) sees a vision of the Tree personified as a sort of Ent. It tells her that she is carrying the seeds of some important thing, an egg and a claw of it: the Can-Opener is the claw, and the egg is whatever Rosemary carries with her and which she refers to as having brought her there. Presumably, this is the same thing that she stole. Rosemary is becoming connected to "the system entire", the setup that runs the world and of which the Tree is a part, and she must turn that setup upside down. It gives her another seed - this one actually looks a bit like a real seed - which she tucks inside her Poke-Kit.
As Rosemary wakes from the trance she forgets who she was talking to, but just before she wakes the Tree starts to tell her she will remember when she needs to. She tries to tell Sylvester about what happened and ask whether she can trust what se saw, but it slides out of her mind. Meanwhile, Whisp is still stalking them, and Hax uses Camora to collect a blunderbuss.
09: Loose Ends (Basement Edition) [27/11/2008 - 07/01/2009] Faddle the Gnoll brings Bung the Gobule a pot-plant as a thank-you for the profit he made from selling Bung's toadstool. We learn that Bung is quite an important political or merchantile player and are reminded that he knows Digger. One of his Jibjibs returns - she has been warning "folks" about Chauncy and Edgar (and she doesn't know who Digger is). We learn that Faddle is a failed or partial Finagler - and that this entails being a good psychological observer.
Anathama and Clochard are in some kind of long-standing political conspiracy with Digger. He meets up with them and takes them much deeper underground to a comfortable bedroom cum office which has artificial lights - so the Tree can't see what goes on there. There they meet their old friend the male Gnoll Bokonon, an elderly Finagler who they had believed had been lost in the SubShafts a long time ago: he had last been heard of in SubShaft 44f, compiling a report on Crud, the developer of the Crudbean, which was just after Comshaw killed the Ravers and Nevus started Le Tree. Bokonon believes the Tree is esssentially on the same side as them.
Digger goes back out to see what he can do or learn about the fighting and Chancy and Edgar, leaving the three Gnolls behind to gossip in Gnoll jargon. Clochard and Anathama make the most of what time they have in this dangerous local situation, and go off together to make love.
Meanwhile, we see The Scary Lady and her sentient balloon escorting Chauncy and Edgar to a Panegate. Nevus, Guttle and Agita resume command of their forces, although Agita is still scrubbing off Mortimer's kiss. Two Ghast medics collect Sepferb from outside Crazy Rhid's place and place him in a restorative porta-pool: Hiblehoy turns up, carrying an exhausted, sleeping Wrawa, and they advise him on her care and warn him she may be in an erratic mental state when she wakes up.
Hiblehoy can't get home because Sidestep Hall is in lockdown, so a Trog called Mowder lets him and Wrawa into Rhid's place, where Sina is trying to organise an emergency demon-proof camp. Maggle has not succeeded in getting through all the fighting to return the buckets to Tunktal. The Wyrms Voog and Ploot have identified a source of water in one of the side-rooms of Rhid's place but there is machinery in the way. Sprocket and Flange turn up and are set to dismantle the machines. Maggle and Flange discuss the level of sexual tension between Sina and Sprocket, and whether they've chosen a Finagler yet.
Meanwhile a New Year out-take shows Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party walking past some large human ruins, with the Spike in the background.
10: Loose Ends (Mansion Edition) [08/01/2009 - 02/03/2009] Amos Grubb puts Arthur the Weirdo and his hand-puppet Fantod to bed in their actic room: we see Arthur has a soft-toy Wendigo. We see a system of lifts and pulleys within the walls of the mansion: this is used to deliver to Hector a box containing the spare pieces which Sprocket and Flange earlier salvaged from the defunct Metalmin. On his way back from collecting the box Hector passes a talking machine, a Panegate, a gun (?) in a case marked "In case of Ludwig, break glass", preserved specimens of a Mugwump and a Wendigo, and a painting of one of the titanbugs which the Pales use as war mounts. Reaching his own quarters he takes the spare part out of the box and dumps the box down a chute, then goes to Mr Hand - on the way passing the Trog on the treadmill, who is now flaked out asleep.
Mr Hand is eager to talk to Hax the Fixit. He swaps the spare part into Hector, who then repairs Mr Hand's scanners. Hand looks at pictures from around the Basement and comments on the non presence of The Gibber, which may connect to something the Sneeches have done (left?). He tries to track Rosemary and Sylvester but can't see them because they are close to the River, so he sends Hector to talk to the Riddler. He has a special interest in and wariness of Rosemary.
As Hector leaves, Mr Hand is 'phoned by some colleague for a conference. Hector pases the dead king on his throne: the dial is now at No.
Amos goes outside and observes unusual activity in the Tree. He lets himself into the Ivory Tower and lights a candle by magic, but Nellie catches him and tells him off for taking the risk, as she fears a second Crash. Amos is a former thaumslinger.
Nellie has brought back from the village a large young man called Patrick, the local sheriff. Amos reports to Patrick about Rosemary. Patrick and his colleagues watch the Earl and are aware that Rosemary arrived without seeming to pass through the surorunding area. Amos reassures him she's not from another world. Patrick wants Sylvester to report to him. Amos and Nellie give him a book on wine-making for someone called Saffron in the village, and a Willy the Wendigo book for his son.
11: Loose Ends (Forest Edition) [03/03/2009 - 21/04/2009] Umboz, Vezza, Piu and Nitfol and their Pale escort arrive at the Pale hive, a kind of amorphous but high-tech. (with e.g. gas-lighting), pueblo-type castle. There they meet a Pale called Zpeaker, with two head-spikes, whose job is to project sounds that other species can hear, in order to talk to them. We learn that Nitfol had been rescued from the Spyder by Pales, who presumably killed the Spyder and who took him to Frowgler. Frowgler told him that he had sent the Pales to save him, and now he, Nitfol, had to save Umboz and Vezza.
Nitfol asks to see the Nexus, the Pale leader, but the other three Nomes prefer to go and rest. Frowgler has told the Pales they will benefit by helping these Nomes: Umboz is afraid they want him to open a breach in his village's squid-based defences but Zpeaker says not. What the Pales hope for is a way to breach the barrier which they, and the Nomes, experience as keeping them bound within this local area. We learn that after the Nome/Gnoll war, the Nomes taught the Pales how to tree-warp (opening a Tardis-like space within a tree-trunk): they have used these skills to set up comfortable quarters for their Nome visitors.
Umboz and Piu discuss who should replace Mayor Kayeeb: Nitfol, returning, volunteers. The others reluctantly agree, as the destruction of his home tree by the beaver shark gives him a non-conspiratorial excuse for seeking a new lifestyle. The Nexus and Nitfol have a plan of campaign worked out which will involve the collection of strange and difficult substances from the deep forest.
Meanwhile, the skunk shark is still chewing its way through the bushes, and Comshaw and co. are still roosting on top of the ruined fountain. We see Yasmine Fotheringby waking up dazed and regaining her composure in the ruins where Protus dropped her - in fact, the above-ground bit of the same branch of World o' Pots where Mortimer fell into the underground storage area. She takes off a mask within the hood: we still cannot see her face or species, but she thinks of herself as Human. She belongs to the Weirdoes' Guild. She sets off to rejoin her horse but then hears a sleeping Mortimer coughing inside a building guarded by a not very effective Sneech security device, and goes to investigate.
12: Urwyn and the Elevator [22/04/2009 - 03/08/2009] Shona, Niff (the male) and Folla arrive at Rhid's ex place, where the male Trog Mowder is now the gatekeeper: the gate in question is being constructed by a Helipath called Fosic. Mowder believes that Rhid's former place, under Sina's leadership, will become a new multi-species Hall offering greater opportunities for individuality and personal advancement than the existing Halls, and maybe even start a trend for many new Halls springing up around the fringes of the old ones. Shona wants to see Sina, her sister, but Sina sends her a message telling her to go home. Mowder suggests that she come in anyway and report to Catmorlo to be assigned a job, thus becoming Sina's employee instead of Nevus's, but Shona walks away.
We meet a tiny, diffident mini-Wyrm called Urwyn. He volunteers to help with the new Hall, and Mowder sends a male Gnoll called Satyrsong to carry Urwyn to Catmorlo. Satyrsong has an extreme hairdo which he cultivates for effect. People are milling about carrying out tasks assigned by Catmorlo: Urwyn notices that a new piece of unknown eqipment which has been brough in sends out a trail of energy to another piece, but no-one listens to him when he tries to tell them about it.
Urwyn is assigned to stay out of sight and watch the Elevator. As Skuy carries Urwyn towards the Elevator, Voog examines him to see if he has to "eat" him, which is actually a metaphor for some sexual element of the relationship between the large Deep Wyrms and the little ones. This leads to a conversation in which Skuy says she will never use a Finagler: she was in love with Cully who was exiled to SubShaft 44f by Nevus.
Skuy takes Urwyn to meet Sina, who is in Rhid's laboratory where Sprocket is clearing out the msot dangerous stuff. Wrawa has been left to sleep and a Gnoll Healer named Kottle is assigned to keep an eye on her. Two Trogs called Grik and Grak have appointed themselves as Sina's bodyguards. Sina's sight is returning, and she is kept very busy organising everybody. Hiblehoy is sent to make up beds - we learn that it is difficult, but not impossible, for male and female Motihauls to work together. There is some conversation about Rhid's obligatory stuffed crocagator: someone called Nubby keeps a pool of live ones at the far end of the Basement, but Urwyn has never been to see them because there's no [unspecified secret thing he doesn't want to name]. We learn that Rid used to be a Candle Monk but got thrown out, and that he was trained by a Gnoll wizard (? probably a wizard) called Burtgum who died in some kind of accident.
Urwyn will summon help, if he needs it, by pinging a glass ball. A Gnoll called Finimbrun is to be that help. Finimbrun takes Urwyn to meet somebody called Huff and they all get caught up inside a mechanical Kraken, a Human-made advertising float which Rhid had acquired somewhere.
The kraken's long tentacle is used to transport Urwyn to the Elevator. There he meets another small Wyrm, a friend of his called Zugo, who is doing some kind of foraging work for "the Circle". We learn that Urwyn is some Wyrm equivalent of a pampered aristocrat but he wants to be useful and do work, and Zugo, who is the equivalent of working-class, is unusual in that he will talk to Urwyn. Urwyn asks Zugo to warn "the innerest Ring" that Rhid has been ousted: he expects that if anybody in that Ring notices that he, Urwyn has left, they'll be glad to be rid of him.
Meanwhile, Flange has created a device called a bim toggler with which he has opened a false wall to reveal a sequence of rooms beyond. He believes there may be other large rooms left sealed by the Humans. An alarmingly gungho female Motihaul called Othara, granddaughter of the famous Othar, turns up and volunteers to explore the new space, which Sina hopes will relieve overcrowding in the Halls.
Sina realises she forgot to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, but at that moment the Elevator doors open and Hpobfvfr appears, red-eyed and controlled by the Operator. Urwyn tells Zugo to leave. Hpobfvfr still ahtes the Operator but he has nevertheless convinced her that he is her superior officer: they speak of different levels of passwords in a way that suggests she operates in some artificial way like a Metalmin and her mind can be hacked into. The Operator sends her to fetch Sylvester's cold iron frying pan: although it hurts the Operator to touch it, he holds it and uses it to probe the boundaries of his cage.
He sends her to gather up the remains of Hpthbvtw (Hepthbav), which he thinks he can use: but when he realises that Hpobfvfr has a strong emotional link to Hpthbvtw, and that this is weakening his hold over her (her eyes get noticeably less red), he orders her back into the lift. He tells her that he too had a mate he was fond of, and offspring, and he doesn't know if he will see them again but in the very long term he will "literally move heaven and earth" for the chance to do so.
Finimbrun comes to warn Urwyn about Hpobfvfr, and Urwyn tells him she's already appeared: he goes off again to tell Sina. Meanwhile, the Operator does something to Hpobfvfr's physiology which causes a red flicker around her head, and then tells her to track and kill Rosemary and Sylvester - a task she takes to with enthusiasm. In fact, the Operator is seeking to test Rosemary against a more forceful opponent than Chancy and Edgar, because he has a use for her if she wins.
Ploot, the large Deep Wyrm, comes to speak to Urwyn about what he has seen. In the foreground, a Smyt summons a trundlebug and rides it like a horse. Urwyn comments on the fact that Ploot is the first Deep Wyrm he's met who didn't examine him to see if he needed to "eat" him. Ploot says he's just not very interested in that kind of thing - it's a powerful and necessary drive but a small minority just don't have it. They see an externalised Vision, or what Ploot calls a "Glimpse" (actually celebrating the strip's sixth birthday). Ploot tells Urwyn he stays up high (for a Wyrm) in the Basement because he doesn't want to breed and also because times are changing, as the Vision suggests, and he wants to help people who are trying to smooth the transition and set up a new society etc.. Urwyn mutters that he isn't sure he'd mind if Ploot wanted to Eat him....
Another Shallow Wyrm called Kryt, who has been secretly watching this exchange, goes to some kind of communication station and starts to give a secret report about the Operator to some Wyrm authority. There seems to be a small colony of the little Shallow Wyrms living around this communication point. Meanwhile a large flutterby, dazed by crashing into light globes, flies past them and down into the depths, where it is struck by the radiator of a large lorry or armoured car, being driven deep undergound.
13: The Great Chasm [04/08/2009 - 26/02/2010] On the lorry are two very amusing, characterful Fixits, a male and a female who seem to be working partners, both riding unconscious Gnoll mounts, who mention an engineer called Tix who had been complaining that the "Sneechtaps" were all offline. They come to an underground building which looks a bit like the Mansion of E upside-down and has levitating lifts, where they report to a very bossy female Fixit called Grix. It is mentioned that there is a schedule which Nevus and the Council have pre-empted by attacking each other.
They bear a message saying that Mr Hand wants to see Hax urgently. Grix reveals that Hax has a history of getting into scrapes (nearly as bad as Mortimer) and has just spent almost ten years relegated to the (breeding?) pens in the mountains. Grix summons a female Ichyoid called Igor who brings in boxes of what we later learn is delicate, increasingly-hard-to-obtain material vital for the maintenance of the underpinnings of the River of Fire. The partners are despatched to take these boxes to the Chasmside Covert Observation Station: after they have left, Igor wishes to discuss Rufus, apparently as a replacement for Mr Hand, but this is so secret a matter that Grix tells her they must know nothing about it ever.
The two partners are sent on another long lorry journey to deliver the boxes. With them in the lorry are other consignments, including a cage containing a giant (hamster-sized) Fuzz which sings in notes coloured in the same rainbow colours as the River of Fire, underneath which they pass. The female Fixit expresses moral doubts about what they are doing by controlling their mounts. En route they pass the Quarentine Alcove of Forbidden Objects, which contains strange things such as a statue of an Ichyoid and a giant, broken statue of Kaylu with wires hanging out of it.
When they reach the Chasmside Covert Observation Station they unload in a large, open hangar and then report to Fixits called Apix and Birux. Apix says that Nevus and Preznit (for the Council) have called a cease-fire. He is aware of Sylvester and of Rosemary, whom he calls "regrettably proactive". The male of the two partners then goes up to an observation deck where he talks to a Fixit called Peex (riding on/fused with an Eyebolt) and they discuss Project Y, the same thing Sprocket and Flange were working on earlier. Project Y will give their employers much more effective surveillance but may not be finished in their lifetime. There is a suggestion that their current surveillance system involves the Tree.
The action cuts to Rosemary and Sylvester, who are discussing Rosemary's Poke-Kit, and the E family library in the Ivory Tower, and books they have read about Erewhonian anthropology and night creatures, and the availability of different foods in different areas. We learn that Amos Grubb is the Mansion's librarian and Nellie Grubb is the gardener.
As Rosemary and Sylvester climb the steps leading away from the far side of the River there are no more visions, just an odd smell of marshberries. They reach a lighted area, and Rosemary becomes temporarily hypnotised after looking at a spinning light. She is amazed to discover that the Can Opener fits inside her Poke-Kit, which previously had only been able to hold small objects: Sylvester attributes this to the power of the tricklepoint. Pre-Crash folk heroes named Readman and Billsmith are mentioned, who carried a whole library and an arsenal in Poke-Kits.
Sylvester talks about the Spike (and at least some bits of the Mansion, since e.g. the Panegates have the same characteristic writing on them as the Spike) having been built by Ettins, and about the ancient war between Ettins and Sneeches, which killed all the Ettins and most of the Sneeches. We learn that the Ettins sent a mission to the Moon to investigate artefacts of unknown origin there.
Sylvester says that the Sneeches in the Basement usually allow travellers through their territory if they stick to the main road and don't engage with anybody. They occasionally give travellers gifts, which may be beneficial, dangerous or both: Audra's cost her a hand but she said it was worth it: latterly, Sneech gifts are usually either thrown away or stored in the Quiet Room (a magic-deadening space upstairs in the Mansion). The new Earl has to walk through the Sneech colony alone, but Sylvester saw no Sneeches.
Sylvester talks about the zoo which the Ettins set up in the Basement, before Humans arrived in the area. Most of the local sentient species were exhibits - except the Sneeches, who were prisoners of war and research subjects; the Gnolls, who were free-lance "vermion" living where they chose; and the Gobules and Eyebolts, who were on the staff of the zoo. After the Ettins died the exhibits escaped and set up a mixed society in the Basement, and Humans came into the country across the sea in large numbers from Tiranog via a region called Abalone, and took over the area (there were already older Human colonies in Shiboleth who got there by a different route, but never spread, and who now speak a very different dialect from the rest; and even before them the insular, hostile Human group called Haroons were brought into Alfibay by someone or something). After the Crash the Basement Pales moved out into the vacated ruins of Eetown. This probably has something to do with the presence of a large, ultimately Pale-owned World o' Pots in Eetown.
Sylvester mentions Ilsa Lundquist, who was head housekeeper at the Mansion for years, and whose mother was a Haroon. This must be the same green-haired, Earl-hating Ilsa whom Snerk and Shona met when the HJ42 went PROZ and jumped them back to Eetown shortly before the Crash. Ilsa had a distracted air - probably because the Scary Lady was controlling her in some way - and eventually retired to the village. The Mansion still has a very old, almost mummified butler called Schmedley. They used to have all sorts of servants, including an hereditary string-measurer: the last incumbent choked to death a week and a half before the Crash. Rosemary has plans for reviving the Mansion's fortunes.
We learn that King Yorik III and his children died in the Crash. The current king Yancy II is a figurehead: the Bureaucracy really governs. Sylvester follows the fortunes of various factions in the Times and has plans for playing the stockmarket. There is a long discussion about the politics of the various sub-countries, including a place called Blefusco which is clearly equivalent to France.
As they approach the top of the stairs, the hypnotic lights go out. They talk about the various habitats in the Basement ex-zoo, the death of the Wendigoes in the failed arctic exhibit (no loss, according to Sylvester), and the Willy the Wendigo books, and birth-control failures, and the pointlessness of Rosemary's crush on Baldy because he was "a homguy". We learn that the Helipaths and Ecadems were probably brought in by the Ettins through a Panegate. Sylvester understands the Panegates to open into alternate heres, rather than other planets, although they occasionally spawn portals to further-away places.
We learn that Rosemary's parents drowned in a maritime accident, and that there were terrible Dawn Wars before the Ettins ande Sneeches came along. We aren't told who the combatants were but inimical races called Wilfs/Wifts and Gobblems/Gobble'Ems are mentioned, who are now known in this world only from bone framgments and fairy tales but who still exist beyond one of the Panegates, so it may have been them. For whatever reason, the Panegates only show worlds a long way diverged from this one. The 12th Earl, Lemuel, investigated the Panegates and was probably killed by one: the controls are difficult and dangerous to operate, but there are a few simple ones which do work and part of the rite of passage of the new Earl is to go through one to e.g. the Forest or Charlotte's Cave.
Rosemary and Sylvester reach the Great Chasm. Mr Hand watches them on his monitors, but disclaims all knowledge to somebody on the 'phone. Ludwig installed railings and bridges over the Chasm: there is a gap in the rails opposite the door they emerge from, but no bridge.
Walking along a ledge to get to the actual bridge, they encounter an elderly male Gobule called Theophan the Recluse. Theophan is one of a long series of Theophans who were all famous mentors. Gobule young are self-supporting and non-sentient, like baby guinea-pigs. They scatter in large numbers to grow or die. Those that live, become sentient: some of those become mere scavengers around the fringes but the luckiest are taken on by a mentor and educated. This Theophan was a student of Theophan the Rotund, along with Maw, Bung, Cram and Guttle. We learn that Gobule mentors occasionally mentor other species: Sylvester seems to be considering using one for his own future children. We hear about a Jibjib boss called Flap who runs an expensive ferry service across the Chasm, and learn that Theophan has chosen to stay beside the Chasm because it goes all the way down to the Hot Zone and he feels there's something terribly important down there. He tastes the Can Opener and thinks it is made of Sneech squeezings, or something similar.
We learn that Theophan also stays by the Chasm to provide a sort of counselling service to male Trogs who come to the Chasm to kill themselves at the projecting jetty called the Plunge. After Rosemary and Sylvester have left we see Whisp still trailing them, then two baby Gobules emerge from a hole and talk to Theophan. We learn that those Nomes who still live in the Basement live in Root Hall with the Eyebolts.
Rosemary is aware of Whisp following them. As they approach the Plunge point, trying to lose Whisp, they are passed by Crazy Rhid coming the other way, with Kronk still on his trail some way behind him. Nearby, we see a male Ghast waiting for somebody, and Hpobfvfr passing by behind him, presumably looking for Rosemary and Sylvester: the unknown male glimpses her and seems to realise something is odd about her. A shot is fired (by Camora, with the blunderbuss, under Hax's control, from a high vantage point), striking Rosemary on the helmet and dazing her: Kronk pushes her aside in order to pursue Rhid, and she and Sylvester fall into the Chasm.
Rhid and Kronk pass Whisp, who smells Camora's presence nearby, and then a Trog juggler who we later learn is called Stonwal. Digger Odel rescues Rhid, sort-of, by pulling him in behind a concealed panel. Whisp traces Camora's scent to another concealed panel, then leaves to report back to Upernavik and Knumdrot. Meanwhile we see Hpobfvfr go to the edge of the Plunge and peer over, then turn back.
Behind the second panel, Hax disengages from Camora. He believes he has contained her memory and delayed her awakening, but she wakes instantly, with full memory, and tries to grab him. He escapes down a crack in the rock. We see fissures in the rock containing odd bits of struts and tools and what looks like a Smyt-sized pink racing car, then a bat waking and flying through wider fissures towards the outside.
Part Five: Mechanisms in the Dark [27/02/2010 - 16/07/2013] 01: Sitting in a Tree [27/02/2010 - 04/06/2010] Now that it is getting dark Comshaw, Niddle and Ig finally feel safe to come down from the ruined fountain. Ig is now wearing/carrying Niddle's backpack. Yasmine enters the ruined building where she heard coughing, and discovers Mortimer, still coming round from having been stunned by Eunice. He has a note from Rufus on his chest but we aren't told what it says. He correctly identifies Yasmine as a Weirdo - which she finds amazing, apparently because it suggests a degree of clairvoyance not seen since the Crash. He also identifies the building as Dorian's old hut (presumably the Dorian who now lives in the Spike), but seems confused: when Yasmine mentions Protus as the Willigig currently living in the Mansion, Mortimer recalls being somewhere near the Basement at some point and Skibble, who seems to be a friend of his, turning up and mentioning Protus to him, but he doesn't coherently connect this with the Willigig who gave him the HJ42 after the incident with the tree-squid earlier in the day - although he then refers to Protus as "really grumpy", so he must have made the connection mentally. Yasmine claims she is there to conduct an official Weirdo's Guild review of Arthur's performance. Yasmine sets off again to find her horse, and Mortimer again sets out to find Nitfol and rescue him if still alive. He is briefly distracted by a flutterby and calls it to his finger: Yasmine sees this and is again amazed by his psychic talent. A bearded Gnoll with a spear (who we later learn is Agita's henchman Agorn) overhears them talking, and we see Mortimer's scalpsucker messenger fall asleep, still only halfway up the side of the shaft. Yasmine and Mortimer get along well and he tells her about all the odd things which happen to him. They talk about Mortimer and Sylvester doing their duty and Sylvester still getting scorned by the villagers, about chaos theory and flutterbys, and she tells him to tell Frederick about the odd things which happen to him. Thinking of what Protus showed her, but not saying it, she tells Mortimer she expects to be back some day and when she returns she expects him to have made some progress with his situation. As Yasmine leaves, Mortimer gives her his sack of fleebs. The listening Gnoll wonders whether to follow one or the other, go home and report or go join the Spikefolk, who carry out strange rites. He appears to decide to follow Mortimer. Ig, Comshaw and Niddle are trying to locate Mortimer by smell but they smell something odd as well, metal and skin, wet and burnt - Niddle says this smell was all over the mound that the Fire came out of earlier ("The Pit"). The way they describe the smell, it probably relates to either Frowgler or the Meltalmin or robot which we glimped earlier near The Pit. Again there is mention of a barrier which Humans live beyond, as if there's some sort of cordon keeping the Basement folk in. Niddle is pleased that he was exposed to the Fire and saw visions, as he thinks this will prove to be important. Mortimer encounters Frowgler, Thrash and two other Pales. He recognises Frowgler as a comic-book character but Frowgler says that he is "not THE Frowgler. Just.. A Frowgler", although he claims to be in a similar position to his fictional counterpart, in that he has come to assist the Good Guys against powerful evil forces, much bigger and more powerful than mere demons. Mortimer and Thrash are both Good Guys. Frowgler comments that the local Pales call their fort "The Camp" because they expect it to be temporary, and advises Mortimer on how to find the Spyder web he is looking for. Mortimer asks if Yasmine was right to tell him to talk to Frederick, and Frowgler thinks she probably was. As Frowgler and the Pales leave, Mortimer finds an umbrella. It doesn't belong to anyone in Frowgler's party, so he keeps it. Agorn realises that Comshaw's party are behind him, and hides. He overhears Comshaw sniffing out the fact that the Human, Mortimer, went one way and the Pales and the metal-smelling thing went another. So in this case the metal-smelling thing must be Frowgler. Agorn is impressed, but in a kind of patronising way: he sees Comshaw as a young fellow with potential. The space-suited worker who earlier quit the Hot Zone observation station climbs out of a hatch in one of the ruined buildings, takes off her helmet and reveals herself to be a female Nome called Fizmo. She mentions having been taken below by someone called Fogorner, who she believes was working for the group in the Spike. She forces her way out of the locked building through a crack high in the stonework. She meets Frowgler, whom she knows - he had advised her not to take the subterranean job. Now he says going back down would be the safest thing for her, but not the best thing. Learning that she likes Nitfol, he suggests she go with Thrash to the Pale camp where Nitfol now is, and she agrees. Frowgler gives her a hat, since Nomes hate to be bareheaded, but he warns her to examine hats from other sources carefully. It is clear he is warning her about Fixits, and that Fogorner is controlled by a Fixit. He also warns her that the beaver shark - of which there is only one - is loose nearby, and that he is trying to stop Kayeeb doing something which will destroy the Nome village (presumably, attacking the Gnolls). Frowgler denies being a demon and says he was put on earth to do what he is doing. He goes down the tunnel Fizmo came out of, and she goes off with the Pales, talking at them about a Nome who built a prototype plane which crashed, and her ideas about hot air balloons. We see a flat-topped tower among the ruins, containing a giant glowgem which gives off light. Down below is a lorry in some sort of workshop. The glowgem connects to the lights which channel daylight to the Great Chasm, and we see that Rosemary and Sylvester have landed in a peculiar fluffy outgrowth of the Tree. Rosemary, probably still dazed, identifies Rhid whom they have just seen as one of the people Protus showed to Sylvester, and thinks that the woman he saw her fighting - whom she calls Tansy - is about to show up. Her helmet light is damaged, and Sylvester's helmet is missing, caught in the Tree. He manages with some difficulty to retrieve it, so that they have light and can proceed. 02: Lying in a Hole [05/06/2010 - 16/09/2010] Rosemary tears her skirt - which is stolen - to make ties to keep their helmets on. The pre-existence of Wyverns, a kind of extinct dragon, is mentioned, and the fact that Rosemary has killed people. Sylvester thinks the padded branches below the Plunge point are there to stop Trogs killing themselves, and this is born out when they find a strategically-placed pot of Trog repellant which herds any Trogs who land in the Tree towards a narrow spur bridge over the abyss (made by a very reputable construction firm). The spur ends with a tube-like chute which they are sucked in by, and which takes them to a padded landing-site in a room within the cliff, which contains a broken office cabinet which has "The Threshold" written on it, and which moves about under its own power. They meet a thing called a Lurker - a cave-creature like a blind, bald, sub-sentient Saur. Dog-like, it wants them to follow it: Rosemary thinks it's leading them into an ambush. Following it, they come to a place which looks like the Ettins' artificial Trog habitat, except sterile and dead, without the moss and fresh water etc. of the zoo exhibit. Sylvester feels that he and Rosemary are both acting rather wildly, and that this is due to exposure to vents leading to the Hot Zone. They come to an archway labelled "Serene Cavern of Blissful Relaxation", beside which is a slightly sick poem about the death of Yurd. Within are the people the Lurker, Blinky, was reporting to - two male trogs called Villipend and Hamble. Both are less flat-faced and probably mentally sharper than Kronk, but Villipend is crowned, paranoid and deranged. Hamble tries to calm him but he is sure that Rosemary and Sylvester are the "Tormentors" who keep him trapped there, and it doesn't help that he smells his enemy Kronk (who brushed past them at the Plunge point) on them. When Sylvester says he doesn't know where the exit is, Villipend throws a weapon which Rosemary fends off with the Can-Opener, which Villipend calls a Sneech claw. Rosemary and Villipend fight and Villipend manages to get in a kick which throws her against the wall. Sylvester intervenes, warns him grimly that he is the terrible Earl of E and fires a primitive taser which he has in his backpack - but Villipend dodges and it is Hamble who is struck and apparently killed. The act of firing the taser also throws Squeeb out of the backpack and onto the floor. Villipend is impressed by the taser but annoyed because he wanted to kill Hamble himself. He threatens Sylvester so Rosemary slashes him with the Can-Opener and he hides in the dark. Sylvester finds a door operated by a Herediscan which identifies him as a member of the E family and lets him through. He tells Villipend (now clinging to the ceiling) he will leave the door open. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their weapons training (and we learn that at the bodyguard training-school she went to, the fencing master was a Mr Montoya). She is concerned that she may not be able to stop Villipend if he attacks again, because he's in peak condition and she has no practice with the Can-Opener. As they move away from the Hot Zone vents, Rosemary becomes calmer. Sylvester tells her about the SubShafts, a tangle of tunnels which are greatly affected by the Hot Zone. The Eyebolts who worked for the Ettins lived there, then the mining Nomes as well. After an upheaval (presumably the Gnoll/Nome war) they all moved out, the Eyebolts to elsewhere in the Basement, the Nomes to the Forest, and now it's mainly Gnolls who live in the SubShafts. We seen an outline of Cully, Chunner and Crud, all heavily armed - Cully with a flame-thrower, Chunner with a blunderbuss and Crud with something similar to the Can-Opener. Rosemary and Sylvester come to an area of large engineering works at the start of a walkway or bridge at the edge of the long drop. Villipend jumps them, wrests the Can-Opener from Rosemary and tries to force Sylvester to go back downstairs and close the door to Villipend's domain, so he can continue to trap other Trogs there. Sylvester is willing to jump into the Chasm rather than do so. Meanwhile, Mortimer finds the remains of the dead Spyder. Comshaw's party are still tracking Mortimer, and Agorn is still trailing them. Mortimer comes to the crater caused when Frowgler set off the HJ42, and wrongly assumes Nitfol and the spyder were both blown up. He climbs down into the crater and retrieves the HJ42, then Comshaw, Niddle and Ig arrive at the edge of the crater and engage him in conversation about the goals of Humanity. They all conclude that Comshaw needs to speak to Sylvester (hearing that Sylvester is the Earl, Comshaw assumes he must be very scary). The thing Niddle is carrying, which he found in the tunnel and which is similar to but not the same as a glowgem, starts radiating energy. Niddle says he can almost hear it speak, it's waited a long time and now it's almost time for some unspecified meeting. Snerk appears, pursued by the beaver shark, as Niddle begins to count down from five. Mortimer tells the others to run, while he stands his ground and summons a flock of flutterbys to distract the shark. The two Saurs run but Comshaw and Niddle are still present when Niddle's not-a-glowgem discharges its energy in a huge dome of light. Mortimer and the shark are transported into open underground space by a twistpoint and fall down to where Rosemary and Sylvester are. The letters PZOR appear, suggesting that the not-glowgem and the HJ42 interacted to create the twistpoints, burst of light etc.. The shark bites Villipend and Rosemary retrieves the Can-Opener and pushes both of them off the edge and into the deep. Comshaw and Niddle are jumped through another twistpoint back to their own home, where Camora is brooding. Niddle crashes out, as Telic had warned that he would, burbling about the fact that Mortimer has the same haircut as him, and something about a window. Camora tells Comshaw about Hax. He decides to go back out to warn everyone, leaving her to care for Niddle, but first they have an unspecified erotic session. Ig is twistpointed to outside the home of his ex girlfriend Nerda, the mother of his as-yet unhatched children. He offers her the stuff in Niddle's backpack so she lets him in. Snerk is less lucky. As a result (or cause) of an unspecified backlash he is dumped into the middle of a high-tech. experimental facility of some kind being run by two Ghasts. He is pinned in some uncomfortable scary machinery which may be examining him or may be cleaning and immunising him - it's not clear which - and then confined to an artifical woodland habitat designed especially for Saurs, although he doesn't realise this and believes he has been twistpointed to a real forest far away. He wishes to leave a.s.a.p. in order to report to Frowgler. There are a lot of other Saurs there - he meets a dozy girl called Dizel and a much more sensible, very large female called Zil who tells him that if he can find a way out she's coming with him. We learn that the habitat also contains big, dim, agressive Saur relatives called Sawtooths, and we see that there are Gnolls - who may be there unofficially. Meanwhile, the not-glowgem falls back into the crater, and the HJ42 falls through a crack in the floor of the crater. Agorn investigates and sees that the hole which has opened up contains a ladder. He can smell Sneeches in the depths. 03: Spanner in the Works [17/09/2010 - 15/01/2011] Sylvester identifies their location as the Ettinworks investigated by Krell, Earl Griffington's assistant. Sylvester, Mortimer (smelling peculiar, with umbrella) and Rosemary set out along the walkway: lights, electric crackles and deep rumbling noises come on as they walk. Rosemary has a sense that the Can-Opener may do exciting things around electrical discharges, and puts it in the Poke-Kit. They come to an unusually passive Sneech plant-machine growth which is blocking the walkway, and edge past it. Mortimer insists on taking the lead as he is the most expendable. The other two have been ignoring Mortimer and rather treating him like a small child but they begin to realise their mistake. They are far below the level of the Sneech nest - Mortimer recounts comments by Skibble suggesting the Sneeches are expanding their territory. Having passed the Sneech growth they come in sight of an Ettin underhub - a lighthouse-like tower which stretches from the floor where they are, through the open cavern of the Ettinworks to the ceiling of the cavern, which is the floor of the shallower levels overhead, with a row of windows ringing the tower up near the ceiling. Sylvester talks of a network of underground roads and buildings which was wrecked and sealed off when Audra poked the Hot Zone and caused the Chasm to spread - it is clear this is the system now being opened up and used by the Fixits. They go into the underhub and prepare to climb a spiralling internal ramp, and have a conversation in which Rosemary is amazed to learn that a famous, ancient philosopher named Milo was the 9th Earl of E. They find a signpost written in a Human script and recently annotated in the handwriting of Nirvana Clepe, former Taskmistress of the Mansion, who retired eight years ago when her wife died, and supposedly lives three days' ride away. Mortimer is showing clairvoyance - he knows how old the writing is, and that the Sneeches have never been inside the underhub. There is a discussion about Threnody the local Oracle, whom Sylvester fancies (Dirge is her Guardian). The interior of the underhub is full of concealed twistpoints - as they climb, the interior changes illogically and it's possible to go up and end up lower down. There are a series of signposts to guide them. Talking about twistpoints leads them to realise that they each met Protus today. Mortimer talks about Yasmine, and about ending up in Dorian's old hut. He recalls Dorian as a hermit from his childhood, although Dorian has been working for the group in the Spike for forty-two years. Sylvester is sure Yasmine was lying about being there to review Arthur, unless the Guild have changed the rules without telling him. Employing a Weirdo, we learn, is a requisite part of being an aristocrat. They come to a group of elongated, slope-sided pillars labelled "do not touch". After they have passed on without touching them, we see that they are local Panegates. Windows open in them to show a room with a table set for dinner, two female Gnolls gossiping (one has a flutterby on a string) and two Dornbeasts, large and small. Frowgler, looking rough, emerges from the Dornbeast one although the Dornbeasts cannot pass. He goes back through another, smaller window and we hear a voice comment that he is damaged. Frowgler says he met one of Protus's new friends. The twistpoints in the underhub aren't mentioned in the Mansion's records. Sylvester thinks the Ettins' devices were built to shut down in the event of a Crash, and are now waking again. They discuss the Crash, and what they could do before it - still far less than the Ettins did. They had a high-level tram which took a week to cross the country: the Ettins went to the moon. They come to another pillar labelled "touch". In order to get past a twistpoint and go up again Mortimer touches it with his umbrella, and a ray from the ceiling strikes the other two. Sylvester loses nearly all his memory - although he recalls Nimue - and Rosemary loses some of her intelligence, regresses emotionally and starts acting like an eager-to-please, extremely literal-minded five-year-old with no conversational filters. Rosemary's memory is intact and she realises what has happened and warns Mortimer he will have to tell her what to do. This is a double-edged sword as she is now extremely hypnotically susceptible. Following Mortimer's instincts, they hold the umbrella together and touch the pillar again, and this time a levitating lift called a Woosher arrives. The Woosher carries them up inside the tower, and while they are on it the ramps that were there before disappear. Meanwhile, Nevus's troops are at Comshaw's door, believing he sent Sylvester and Rosemary to spy on Le Tree. Comshaw emerges and duffs them up with his poking stick. He gets one of them, a young male Trog called Skradt, to take him to Nevus. Skradt is interested in learning to be a Poker himself. The Basement is now very quiet - most people are hiding. They go to Le Tree, where Gnoll doorkeepers called Forfind and Frag let them pass. We see that the hamster, plant and ABOL have escaped. Comshaw offers to trade true information for a truce. Nevus agrees and asks him why he and the Council hired Sylvester and Rosemary to come to Le Tree and start a war. Comshaw explains that he did no such thing although he's not sure about the Council. Nevus accepts that Rosemary and Sylvester were lying. Comshaw tells him they are Humans and Sylvester is the Earl (which he learned from Mortimer at the crater), and then suddenly strikes a Fixit from the head of Neilguye, Nevus's Motihaul accountant, where Nevus can see it. A Boogieman, Malcolm, catches the Fixit and it dies - they are very fragile. Comshaw goes to tell the Council about the Humans and the Fixits, and Skradt comes with him. 04: Closing Out an Era (The Ettinworks) [18/01/2011 - 04/06/2011] As they ride the Woosher Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer discuss the fact that there must be "some rich guy with horrible mutant tastebuds" keeping Moe Wines in business (there is, of course - Mr Hand). They discuss the fact that Sylvester is the Earl (which he has forgotten) and the succession. They pass an unknown woman in brown, with blond hair with a pink bow on top - Rosemary calls her Mz Teree - who seems to be the one marking the signs. Hpobfvfr is stil trailing them. When they disembark, higher up, the tower changes again and they find more ramps. It is mentioned that they need never have gone down to look for the Pots Room, because Mortimer knows where there is a supply of seige pots in a disused barracks. Rosemary's bodyguard training is still sharp even if the rest of her isn't. They discuss twistpoints, and confirm that it is possible to walk down a ramp, then back up the same ramp, and end up somewhere different from where they started. The new signpost is decorated with a heart with "N C + A S" written in it: they think this may be Nirvana Clepe and the Mz Teree woman. With more down-and-up twists they arrive at the level of the bank of windows, up against the roof of the cavern where the Ettinworks are, and just under the floor of the upper part of the Basement. At this point they are probably back at about the level of Le Tree, or maybe a storey or two below it. As they walk Rosemary burbles, and starts to speak about Tansy - who she thinks is the woman Sylvester saw her fighting when Protus showed him visions - and a word beginning "Qu". The view from the windows looks as if it is of starry space rather than down into the Ettinworks, but they do not go to look, for fear of triggering more dangerous events. Leading up from the window room is a flight of stone steps going up into the body of the rock above them. There is also an Ettin-style door with a gap about 10" high underneath it. Mortimer peers underneath and sees a corridor of human-type doors, one with a pair of shoes outside it, but a little metal sign saying "KEEP OUT" falls down in front of him, with thye letters cut out of it as holes. Sylvester feels that there are Humans in that corridor, but when he turns his back it's a non-Human-looking hand, possibly Frowgler's, which retrieves the "KEEP OUT" sign. They set off up the stone steps towards the Sneech den. Rosemary and Sylvester are starting to improve. There is some oblique discussion about Sylvester not telling Rosemary the Scary Lady's name, then about Mortimer's friend the Scalpsucker - Mortimer remembers falling down the hole leading to the old World o' Pots storeroom but doesn't seem to recall meeting Rufus. They come to a door opened by number pad, leading to a double-doored Sneech-lock. Emerging, they pass an alcove containing an entrance to the elevator, above the one where they emerged earlier. Past that is a round room at the bottom of a shaft, with a crystal on a stand in the middle, playing a popular song. There are also double metal doors, closed, and stairs leading up and down. Mortimer hopes to use the stairs but finds the ones going up are labelled "Operation Certain Death" and the ones going down, "Slimegrub Breedpits". The down-flight shows signs of recent flooding, but Mortimer retrieves a glowgem from the first landing down, with a mysterious socket just right for fitting it onto the point of his umbrella. Rosemary seems slightly hypnotised by it. They plan to go upstairs, towards Operation Certain Death, but then they hear something big and loud crashing downstairs towards them. Rosemary draws the Can-Opener, which Sylvester calls a Paleslicer. They use the singing crystal thing to levitate them up to a higher floor, but Rosemary is grabbed and held back, floating, by what proves to be an enormous, female relative of Ahz and Skiv, called Tand. Tand can smell that Rosemary has been near Ahz and Skiv and believes, wrongly, that she knows who they are, so after some initial problems adjusting her voice to Human levels, she tells her to tell them to get a move on with their allotted task of growing a garden, a task for which they were all sent here by someone else. Tand says Rosemary is not like any other human she's met, and one of the other two (has to be Mortimer) is sparkly like a lot of humans used to be but haven't been for a while - apparently she is sensing him as a magic-user. Tand has to leave because she is literally over-stretched and her torch is going out. She is afraid to meet, in the dark, a male "horrible mask-thing" who can go anywhere - this may be Frowgler, since the Pales call him Frogmask. Released, Rosemary floats up to the boys. She feels herself to be now entirely back to normal (although later events will show that this isn't quite true). Sylvester recognises the name Tand from his records, but still hasn't wholly regained his memory. Meanwhile, Comshaw and Skradt come to the Council entrance, which is heavily defended. An Eyebolt receptionist called Witherward admits them by dropping them down a shaft. They arrive in the midst of a full meeting, including Twiz, acting for Maw; Snerd, acting for Sina; Commander Chumley (the Council's Chief of Security) for the Boogiemen and a Ghast "Stirrer", some kind of high ceremonial functionary relating to how the Ghasts reproduce (they have to use special breeding pools within their home base and are unable to set up more outside it), who is in some way not physically present. On the Council are Doyen, a female Trog; Gavzada, a female Motihaul; Wunk, a male Gnoll; Aprat, a Helipath and Chairbeing Preznit, a male Eyebolt, although he tries to hide his species behind a mask. Twiz is very interested in the new Hall Sina is setting up. The Council is concerned about Rhid and what he may do next, and whether Sina is a safe person to be a leader. Gavzada is keen on anything which keeps Othara occupied, and they are cautiously positive so long as Sina and her engineer Fosic build walls to keep epople away from the Operator. Comshaw then strikes a Fixit from the head of a femal Gnoll called Widdendreem, who seems to be the Council's record-keeper. He wants to catch it alive but Widdendreem, freed from the Fixit, pounces and kills it. Widdendrem is angry that she now owes Comshaw a debt, and concerned by the fact that she has killed a person. She tells them the name "Fixit" and that the dead one was a female called Snurfix, reporting to a male nicknamed Slinker. Snurfix had crept onto her head while she slept. We learn that young Fixits are raised in cages "beyond the Spikeshield", which must be the barrier others have spoken of. Chumley sends Widdendreem to write down all she recalls about the Fixits, while Comshaw tells the Council what he knows about them - leaving out Camora's name. Chumley decrees that no one in the Council Chamber shall wear a hat - all the Councillors drop their hoods and Preznit, whose brain is in his torso, strips to his socks. The Council agrees to tell all the key players - Maw, Agita etc. - whilst trying to prevent the knowledge of the Fixits from spreading generally for the moment, for fear of what God might do when he learns his spy network has been blown. They want all the leaders warned before God takes any action. Comshaw tells them about the Humans, and Sylvester being the Earl, but he doesn't know if he is the Earl. The Earl "tore the world in two fighting Yurp, the Demon King" - Yurp is not yet identified, unless he is the Operator, but the Earl is evidently Audra, who caused the Chasm to spread. Comshaw plans to go speak to Sylvester tomorrow. Comshaw, Skradt, Snerd and Twiz head for the exit, discussing Ghast reproduction and Trog education (here we learn that Espy is a teacher). They slide down a chute and land in a corridor by the battered-looking Gobule Mingent, who is eating the dead from the battle. Twiz has been chewing a piece of the dead Fixit - they tell Mingent if he smells anything like it, to bite it. Twiz runs off. Comshaw thinks Snerd should work for Sina but Snerd says Shona wouldn't like it, and he loves Shona. Comshaw and Skradt set off together. They encounter a Jibjib called Schrik being ridden by a Fixit, and try and fail to take the Fixit alive. The Fixit has been using Schrik to spy on Flap's ferry across the Great Chasm. An important Boogieman ruler called Crispin is mentioned. Comshaw sends Schrik to take the dead Fixit to Sina and then work for her. Skradt reveals that he joined Nevus hoping for an early death in battle, so he wouldn't have to choose to take the Plunge. But Comshaw has given him a vision of something more useful, plus he wants to learn to fight as well as him. Frowgler, watching through a crack in the wall, thinks they make a good team. 05: Closing Out an Era (The Sneech Den) [06/06/2011 - 16/12/2011] Sylvester, Mortimer and Rosemary pass another large inactive Sneech node and several smaller ones, and some graffitti relating to dragons - although we're not told whether they are a legend or, like wyverns, a real if possibly extinct animal. There is a conversation about Mortimer's history of failed relationships with scary women, in the course of which he tells Rosemary that his relationship with her will be strictly business while she is staring bug-eyed at the hypno-gem, and he reveals that he has the hots for Yasmine. Rosemary is in command over Sylvester because that's part of her job as bodyguard. There is a lot of discussion of Sneech races and technology, living walls etc. and also Rosemary's poor origins on Gnomin. Mortimer takes off his shirt so Rosemary can make them rag boots and mittens so they don't have to touch the Sneech material: he passes his umbrella to Sylvester as he does so and sees the gem glows much less brightly when Sylvester holds the umbrella. Rosemary has absorbed the hypnotic lesson that her relationship with Mortimer is strictly business. Following a trail of fresh air through the tunnels of the Sneech den, they come to a bridge over a moderate drop, guarded on either side by relatives of Fern's. The intelligent plants are wary of Rosemary but agree to disarm her and carry the Can-Opener across the bridge themselves for her to collect on the far side. As they get there the Gnoll Agorn falls while trying to climb down from the crater above, and lands at their feet. Agorn hasn't noticed, but Niddle's apearing and disapearing gem (hereafter the Hitchhiking Gem) is now attached to his spear. As the Human trio prepare to leave, one of the the plants delays them and asks - by spelling with its tongue - that they be given names. Sylvester names them after the Founding Oracles, a group of women who spread the religion of the Brush - Violet, Daisy, Joice, Jenny, Kathryne, Hettie, Evangeline, Vivian and Petunia. Sylvester promises to visit them again: as the Humans leave we see the plants talk amongst themselves by some rapid means. The Humans come to the main corridor through the Sneech den, which is studded with tall, light-bearing tree-like things. Meanwhile Comshaw and Skradt come to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, where Agita (a Motihaul) has her office. They have a complicated system of clearances in which Comshaw ranks quite high. An Eyebolt called Philodox admits them. While waiting to be seen they observe that two of the Eyebolt clerks are wearing Fixit-type hats but they seem to be just hats. An Eyebolt called Giddhom says thay are in fashion because some people claim they help you to think. Weirding is discussed, and the eccentricities of various species - we learn that Helipaths refuse to cross the Great Chasm to Sneech side even though Sneeches get on OK with them. The hatted clerks are Scrutineers, recording everything visitors say - Skradt wishes to be recorded as a would-be Poker. [Around here we have a Labor Day out-take showing local man Arlen and his daughter Juniper, digging a ditch at the back of a hedge near the village of Eetown. The hedge seems to have the rusted remains of a pre-crash vehicle incorporated into it.] Comshaw borrows Giddhom's hat so Fixits will think he's controlled. They are escorted to see Agita by an Eyebolt called Peripatet riding in a special buggy which was damaged during an eventful visit by Strode, the aggressive female Motihaul in the pumpkin-head mask who appears in Sundays in SubShaft 44f. They pass more clerks one of whom, Ogdoad, is wearing a Fixit. We learn that the Eyebolts in Root Hall distrust the GBOLs, and therefore presumably the Tree, and make their own lights. Comshaw and Skradt come to Agita and her Eyebolt clerk Flibbergib, and Agita gives them apples. She has with her her young daughter, Rishathra, and a Gnoll guard called Termagant. Agita and Comshaw catch up on the events of the day (including establishing that it was the young Mortimer who somehow started the Nome War after falling through into a mine), and Comshaw gets her to summon Ogdoad, who insists on a promise of safe conduct before he will come in. He has some involvement with another Eyebolt (?) called Tribblerig and some scheme involving Sneech squeezings. As Ogdoad enters the office Comshaw baps the Fixit, called Endix, off his head and Skradt catches him in a bowl but Endix somehow commits suicide. Ogdoad is terribly distressed, for he and Endix had become at least semi-partners. Comshaw and Skradt leave Root Hall, and are quizzed as they leave by an Eyebolt who assumes it's all to do with Sneech squeezings. As they come away from Root Hall they pass the male Nome called Rezrov, still with his arm in a sling, leading, on a string, a very flirtatious-looking female Trog named Hogminny. Both are smeared with green paint. We are told that some Nomes and some Trogs have a "thing", and learn that Skradt tentatively fancies Maggle. Comshaw 'phones the Council and tells them he has delivered their message to Agita, and he has a message for them from Root Hall saying Ogdoad is involved with a Sneech squeezings scheme but they'll handle it. Comshaw takes Skradt home with him and Camora and Niddle are quite welcoming, although if he's staying they may need to move to a bigger apartment. All sleep, exhausted. Meanwhile, Agita takes Ogdoad with her to see a female Motihaul accountant called Marritza who is wearing a Fixit named Arnix. Agita threatens Arnix with a pointed umbrella ferrule, then tells him that the gaff regarding God and the Fixits is well and truly blown, and offers him the chance to ride on Ogdoad and act as a liason officer between herself and God. Arnix and Ogdoad both agree. Meanwhile. Sprocket is upset to see that Crazy Rhid's ex place connects to large areas of still-working machinery, the only machinery that good outside the SubShafts, and Rhid didn't tell anyone. Sina now has a makeshift office, an Eyebolt receptionist called Nikhedonia and Maggle acting as gopher. Sina and Sprocket decide to marry, right now - Wittol, who will be their Finagler, has already anticipated this and started to make arrangements. We learn that Niddle has had experiences which make him a perfect Finagler - so perfect he may be a whole new thing. We learn that Gnoll marriage customs involve a receptacle called a Tweebowl, a Tool and a Blossom and, at some point before they have whelps, a visit to the Fluffy Foo-Foo Cave, and without a Finagler things go badly wrong for mated pairs. Yet, some couples such as Niff and Folla live unofficially, without a Finagler, and manage fine. Sprocket, Wittol and Sina have a hasty cermeony, with the possibility of a more formal one later. Afterwards Snerd turns up and thinks Nikhedonia's hat is a Fixit, although it's just a hat. As he is explaining, Schrik turns up with an actual dead Fixit. Maggle and Kronk are sent out to show the dead Fixit around and kill any live ones they find, and Snerd returns to his mate Shona and Finagler Wubb. Flange reminds Sprocket of their obligations to their employer Mr Hand, and tells him about Rubrak being killed by Chauncy and Edgar. Sprocket and Flange will probably cease to be partners now. Sprocket talks privately to Sina about Mr Hand and the job - he has realised that the femal Motihaul who put him in touch with Mr Hand was wearing/worn by a Fixit. Mr Hand has had them installing devices called Y-nodes which look like Sneech growths, and produce ultrasonic sound only small creatures can hear. Fleebs in the presence of a Y-node turn to face it and stare. Sprocket sees Mr Hand as ruthless and controlling but constructive rather than destructive in his intentions. They agree to tell Comshaw about it, then get on to the serious business of their wedding night. As a final wrap-up, we see Snoot bitching to Izchak about his bloody awful day; the Super Rock pausing to rest and to talk to another rock which can talk, but not walk; Digger reporting to Frowgler that things are going to plan and he has no questions to ask; and Frederick preparing to serenade the Grubbs on a Fugehorn. 06: Twilight [17/12/2011 - 09/06/2012] Agorn encounters Hpobfvfr, who is trailing the Humans. She addresses him as if he is two people - she senses the sentient Hitchiking Gem which Agorn doesn't know he is carrying. Sylvester and co. enter the main corridor, which is again unnaturally quiet - we learn there should be trilobite-thingies scuttling about trailing organic wires etc.. While discussing local politics and a performing troupe who once came to the local village, Mortimer accidentally causes Rosemary to fixate on the gem in his umbrella, and gives her three hypnotic commands - "Go to sleep, but act like you're still awake!", "Take a note! I am not going to keep making these mistakes with women!" and "Do as you're told! Stay in your place! Speak only when spoken to! The Brush wills it!". They pass a Sneech tower which is at the edge between Human and Sneech territory and is labelled "NO INTERRUPTIONS", then they come to a neon sign saying "OUR TRAJECTORYS DIVERGE PAYMENT FOR YE ASSISTANCE" (although Sylvester doesn't know what assistance is meant). This dissolves, leaving a squat obelisk which moves when it is touched, and which Rosemary names the Dohickey. The Sneeches themselves have gone. The obelisk steers them around a hole in the floor, which proves to be the hole which Chauncy and Edgar left when they exited Izchak's shop looking for the Scary Lady. Matagam the Motihaul soldier and a Boogieman called Geoff climb out of the hole, checking where Chauncy and Edgar went. Heading for the Mansion proper, Rosemary, Mortimer and Sylvester pass the entrance to a tunnel put in by the Council to monitor the Humans. They emerge from an elaborate vesitbule decorated with ornamental fake stalagmites and flaming braziers, into a plain downstairs room containing the entrance to the elevator and a small extension of the Tree, and with "BEWARE MR FLIP" written on the wall. Mr Flip is a character we meet in Sundays in SubShaft 44f, but Mortimer says the graffito has been there his whole life. To get further they need to go through a locked door, the key to which Sylvester dropped while falling into the Great Chasm. Matagam and Geoff head for the Council tunnel and are passed by Hpobfvfr, who corners the humans against the locked door. Mortimer senses that her mind has been tampered with and speaks to her sympathetically, incidentally getting between her and her intended targets. Then we see in flashback that the male Ghast she passed just before Rosemary and Sylvester fell into the Chasm realised that something was wrong and went and fetched help. Hpthva, the officer in charge of a party of Ghast soldiers who have been following behind, orders Hpobfvfr to stand down, and this breaks the Operator's hold over her. Hearing Rosemary address Mortimer by name, Hpthva quries this and he says he is "Mortimer Eman.. because we're going to be all.. formal": in doing so he inadvertently gives Rosemary another hypnotic command. Having confirmed Mortimer's name and that he might be the one who started the Nome War, and having learned that they are Human, Hpthva wants to arrest the trio, but great aunt Scary appears in the doorway (with balloon) and scares them off. Somewhere, she has acquired a flower which she is now wearing tucked into the v-neck of her dress. After the Ghasts leave, the rest go through into the house and Scary cures Sylvester's memory problems. He is very reluctant to ask her to do anything which will put him under an obligation to her. Scary tries to touch the Sneech obelisk, but it fizzes a shock at her. Meanwhile Sylvester realises something is wrong with Rosemary, and when she starts addressing Mortimer as "Mr Eman" because "We are being all formal" Sylvester realises that she is following Mortimer's commands literally. Mortimer tries to snap her out of it by giving her a ridiculous command to "be a dog" but she goes down on all fours and starts growling. Scary is detachedly impressed by his power, and thinks there is a real risk Rosemary will become permanently enthralled. Alarmed, Mortimer tries to order Rosemary to be herself. In the short term it seems to have worked, but it remains to be seen whether she has internalised any of his commands. Mortimer goes off to speak to Frederick. Restored to normal function, Rosemary is introduced to the Scary Lady (whose name we finally learn to bne Myrrh) and the two go off for a private chat in which it is revealed that Rosemary knows the Scary Lady to be not human, and that the Scary Lady loves and protects Frederick to the point of being willing to kill anybody who threatens anybody he cares about, such as his nephews. The same minituarised trundlebug who fell onto Rosemary's helmet earlier in the day is revealed to be still lurking in her broken lamp, and the Scary Lady rescues it, then goes off to see what's happened to the Sneeches. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Scary Lady, and how Frederick summoned her by accident while trying to get a Djinn. He spent his energy on a collar to control her and stop her from running wild and killing bystanders, as Demons had done in the past, but now she wears the collar voluntarily and uses it to assist her own magic in some way. She has been a good partner to Frederick and a good great-aunt to his family, and Sylvester is loyal to her and will protect her if necessary. Sylvester schedules a talk about Rosemary's recent history for the next day but he fears to be overheard, so they must go somewhere secure. They prove to each other that they are human by checking each other's ears (Sylvester's ears are apparently jaw-droppingly strange, but not pointed) and discuss the origins of Demons and Djinn and the possibility that they are, after all, just people. Sylvester realises something about Frederick and why he hid books on Demons which he feels foolish not to have realised before, which leads to a conversation about a duel which Rosemary lost in a way which made her realise her own mortality and how dangerous her job was, and they take the Sneech obelisk towards the Quiet Room. Meanwhile, the Scary Lady enters the Sneech den and speaks to Frowgler, who is crawling out of the top of the shaft created by Chauncy and Edgar. They seem not to have spoken to each other for fifty years, but are on good terms. Mortimer goes to speak to Frederick, who is playing his Fugehorn into some kind of vaguely tree-like amplifier. On the way he meets Nellie, who recognises the umbrella he is carrying and seems shocked by it. She is concerned, generally, for Mortimer's safety and well-being, and for that of her own husband Amos although he is sitting quietly doing some book-binding, and seems to be enjoying Frederick's music. Mortimer believes Rosemary and Sylvester are now an item: Nellie expects him to be jealous but he doesn't seem to be. Frederick tells Mortimer that he's a wizard and that there's a wand built into the umbrella, but he won't help Mortimer to learn magic because he thinks it brings only misery. Meanwhile Sylvester and Rosemary talk as they steer the dohickey towards the Quiet Room, and we learn that Frederick actually plays the Fugehorn very well, that what he is playing is a well-known lament for the victims of the Crash, and that Ernest, the Earl who was an art forger, was also a genuine patron of the arts and built a whole wing of the castle for theatre and other performing arts. As they approach the Quiet Room Rosemary's Poke Kit shrinks and begins to disgorge its contents, so Sylvester goes alone to deposit the Sneech dohickey. The Quiet Room contains the Dark Crystal, a Triforce symbol from the Zelda stories, a clockwork monkey playing cymbals, a statuette of Cthulhu, a flower in a pot and a crescent thing which looks like the head of another Can-Opener-type pike. After Sylvester leaves, all these objects begin to glow with magic and the crescent speaks and greets the dohickey. Sylvester and Rosemary go to find a sword for her and to change the lock on the basement door, since he has lost his key in the basement. They find a powerful taser, much stronger than the one Sylvester tried to use on Villipend: Rosemary says Hack'N'Slash have offered a big reward for a working one, but they leave it where it is because it's probably only its proximity to the Quiet Room which is keeping it from exploding. Sylvester says that the things in the Quiet Room are dangerous, that destroying them in the Great Chasm would lead to earthquakes and that left in the Quiet Room those that are Sneech gifts gradually fade away, and in any case they usually switch off when the recipient dies. The crescent thing is not known to be dangerous - just annoying. They meet up with Mortimer, and Sylvester assures him he hadn't known that he was a wizard. Mortimer is half thinking of going after Yasmine, but he hopes she will return to the Mansion. Sylvester fears this could lead to a division of loyalties, depending on what it is the Weirdos are plotting. He thinks their father may also have been an unknown wizard. Mortimer describes his encounter with Frowgler, who he has realised gave him the umbrella surreptitiously, and Sylvester believes him because the Great Riddler also mentioned Frowgler. They intend to debrief each other the next day but not now, because Rosemary feels they may be overheard. She meanwhile is planning to fetch a seige-pot from the barracks. Mortimer goes off and heads up the North Tower, and Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Weirdos, who are a combination of jester, priest and counsellor. We learn that Oracles (but not Weirdos) carry out midwifery - and euthanasia. We learn that there are seige-engines mounted on the Main Tower and also that Rosemary can't act, as they discuss the plays which used to be put on at the Mansion, and the history of Kaylu - a Hitlerian dictator who introduced a country called Tomania to a crazed, murderous empire-building cult which worshipped a two-tailed monkey god, and was destroyed by the Crash in some way connected with the Infernal Engine. Sylvester feels that he no longer knows what's going on around his home. Having collected the necessary materials they board up the door to the Basement, using a mechanical nail-planter which could be valuable if they can find somebody to replicate it for sale. They leave the door unbarred for the Scary Lady and Syklvester declares their business with the Basement is done for the day, although he will keep his promise to call on the Ferns again, and his plans for the rest of the evening require Rosemary to retain her (Audra's) helmet. We see Frederick return to the suite of rooms he shares with the Scary Lady, and gaze nostalgically at a photograph of his younger self and other youths in wizard gear. 07: Career Paths [11/06/2012 - 16/02/2013] We see Agorn emerge, with relief, from a tunnel mouth partway up a rock-face near a bridge across the Great Chasm. He edges along a narrow ledge, past Furphy who is trying to hatch some eggs, and comes to a bridge with a checkpoint at either end, although this one at the Sneech end is deserted. He crosses and speaks to a Gnoll border guard called Varuna, and an Ichyoid guard, and tells Varuna to warn his "vile employer" (presumably Nevus or Guttle) that if the nobs keep poking in the Sneech den the Sneeches will some day poke back. The entrance to Crescent Hall is right by the bridge, in the line of fire. He talks to another Gnoll guard called Scibile who fills him in on the events of the day, then he walks into a maze of dark, much-graffitoed stone passages and stairs. The Hitchhiking Gem falls from his spear with a clunk and he spots it and posts it down a metal hatch. It clangs down into a chain of pipes, and we see that the pipes pass by an odd kind of sculpture or device consisting of coloured spikes almost like giant coloured pencils, with single letters on them, mainly vowels. This may have to do with the religion of the Brush that coloured in the world. On top of these spikes sits a small red-brown Fuzz, clutching a flaming torch. Agorn, meanwhile, keeps going until he comes to an area where there are lighted windows and street signs. He goes to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, and speaks to a male receptionist called Enchiridon. He is left waiting for a long time while a female Scrutineer called Hypothimia records his every word and action. She is stressed and angry because with all that's been going on - the fire, Chancy and Edgar on the loose etc. - she wants to be with her mate Brimborion and their children but instead she is stuck here in this petty desk job. Peripatet arrives in his wheeled chair to collect Agorn but before Agorn goes he tells Hypothimia that he himself has been parted from his mate (he seems to have only one) and his child has been lost through some sort of mental transformation (he went away but left his body behind), but all you can do is pick yourself up and try to change things for the better. As Agorn and Peripatet proceed through Root Hall we learn that Peripatet has a girlfrind called Glossolalia, and Agorn sniffs out (literally) that Skradt is now with Comshaw. They pass various official messages on the walls but one seems like a religious or political statement - "Remontado decided she had had o nuff shaft folderol so off she went and uprooted us all". As they pass the door to Scritchpod 205 a female Eyebolt in a wheeled chair passes them going the other way, wearing what may be a normal hat or may be a Fixit, and a wave of "weirding" hallucinations emanates from behind the closed door. Peripatet takes Agorn to a door behind which is a dark space containing dark objects, perhaps Ettin machinery, glowing with dull red lights. Agorn refuses to enter. An unseen, probably male presence (Agorn addresses it as "Mr Muckymuck") behind a hatch dismisses Peripatet, who leaves at speed - the presence says that Peripatet does well at clandestine cart-races. It wants to discuss Agorn's boss, and says that "some of us" are aware of, and broadly approve of, what "you all" are doing. Consequently Agorn has been given Class Eight clearance, which means he can now come and go unescorted through most areas of Root Hall. The presence is somebody Agorn has had indirect contact with or knowledge of, but has never spoken to directly before: it asks him to supply any useful information he comes across in return, and Agorn tells him that humans are real. The presence starts to half tell Agorn about Fixits but Agorn appears not to be receptive to the idea of hats being significant, and leaves. Meanwhile the chit for Agorn's new clearance is dropped down a pneumatic pipe system to a clerk who reads it and then eats it and replaces it with another which he writes himself. He is monitoring something on a small screen. Agorn goes to the "Grafted Zone" of Root Hall and speaks to Flibbergib, Agita's Eyebolt receptionist, who again tries to tell him about the Fixits, not very clearly. Agita arrives and we see a flashback to the aftermath of the auction, and Agita sending Agorn to trail Mortimer. Agorn reports the basics of the toing and froing he has seen surrounding Mortimer, Rufus, Eunice and Yasmine. Agita fundamentally misunderstands what Humans are - she knows they are like big Nomes so she thinks they are a local mutation caused by the Spike, and gradually spreading through the local forest. She shows Agorn a written note warning him about the Fixits and telling him to lie low until tomorrow - which suggests she doesn't want to speak out loud in front of Flibbergib, or fears others may be listening. Meanwhile we see various characters sleeping, including the smal Wyrm Squeeb, asleep deep in the chasm, and Bung's friend Faddle the Gnoll, who is very much awake. He is trying to evade somebody, but is rounded up by a hunting party of female Gnolls. Next we see him and four females, all wearing collars with lights on the front, sleeping together in a large nest. As Agorn leaves Root Hall he notices that there are fewer Eyebolt watchers on duty than there usually are. The last one usually hides inside a free-standing stone sign outside the exit, but there is no-one there, and what looks like blood on the spy-hole. The "blood" is a trick to get him to stop and look, and he is narrowly missed by an arrow fired by one of two dark-haired female Gnolls (Fanga and 33333), who had momentarily mistaken him for somebody else. Agorn lets himself into a concealed bedsit room behind a panel out in the Fringes. In the dust on a table, someone has drawn an arrow and written "She thought you were someone else", surrounded by what look like Smyt footprints: we later learn that messages on the table are a regular thing and usually correct, and the marks on the table are referred to as flipper marks, although they look too small to be Frowgler's. Digger comes in - it's his pad - and Agorn addreses him as "Boss". We see that Agorn and Digger have known about the Fixits for some time. Agorn reports the day's activities to Digger, giving him more detail than he told Agita: he feels that something nudged him to get him to go down the hole which led him to the Ferns. We see that they have been watching the humans and giving them descriptive nicknames (e.g. Arthur the Weirdo with his ventriloquist's puppet Fantod is "Snoop two-head"). Agorn would like to bring Conshaw into their conspiracy, or whatever it is, but Digger vetoes the idea. Agorn sets out to see to some personal matters, but as he leaves Digger points out that when "Muckymuck" at Root Hall said that he and others were broadly pleased with what Agorn's boss was doing he may have meant Digger himself and their conspiracy-whatever, not Agita. Agorn is alarmed at this idea. Coming away from Digger's bedsit he meets a Gnoll called Bromir who looks a lot like him and believes himself to be the target of the assassins who were hired by Sooterkin at Root Hall. Bromir refers to Agorn having been given higher clearance by Fuglemin, who is probably Agorn's Mr Muckymuck. Agorn heads back towards the Sneech side of the Great Chasm. At the bridge he tries to chat up the Gnoll guard Termagant and invites her to come fishing with him some time: she turns him down, although the Ichyoid guard Argus thinks she should have said yes. He comes on Furphy and his eggs again and we learn that Furphy is actually Agorn's son. The mother was called Awen and she and Agorn are estranged, though not bitterly so. A Denthir is mentioned who was probably their Finagler but is now dead. Furphy has had some kind of relationship with Dandilli (who went to the SubShafts) and will take no other mate, possibly because she put him off from doing so. He is sitting on the eggs because he is guarding them for two Jibjibs called Snurge and Scumble who are or have recently been conveying a message for him. Father and son talk, and Furphy says that that morning he saw that the physical world had changed but most people can't see it. Agorn is semi-willing to consider this and means to tell Digger about it tomorrow. Two Jibjibs called Ruck (male) and Smew (female) fly overhead in the dark, and we see them enter a hole in a sort of complex, compound stalactite formation, which we will learn is called the Uppermost Spire, and settle on a nest there. Ruck is carrying Urwyn's friend, the comparatlively large small Wyrm Zugo, although the Jibjibs don't know his name. Zugo slithers off into a crack, telling the Jibjibs to wait there for him. These two Jibjibs regularly carry a secretive group of Shallow Wyrms whom they refer to as Clients, transporting them around a widespread netwerk of "rings" whose purpose the Jibjibs don't know. They get snuggly in the nest, although Smew does not wish to have eggs. We see a Shallow Wyrm named Sneckdraw who seems to be spying on a ring, or at least on a tunnel used by a ring. Sneckdraw is detected and chased through the tunnels by helmeted guards named Vim, Crot, Ang and Diet, and escapes by jumping off an underground cliff onto the back of a tame (or sentient?) bat. Ang gets Ruck to fly him in pursuit with a view to killing them: Ruck queries this but when Ang assures him that Sneckdraw is not officially a member of any ring, and therefore not a client, Ruck is OK with it. They follow the bat's scent trail, but Sneckdraw and the bat dodge into a narrow tunnel which Ruck can't fit into. We see another Wyrm behind a kind of wooden screen in this tunnel. They come to a place where there is a graffitoed sign on the wall saying "Ring of the Newborn Word": Sneckdraw, who seems to be a freelance spy, dismounts and is challenged by guards called Conspue and Fream. They pay Sneckdraw with a food item and he or she reports on Zugo's presence at the Uppermost Spire. Fream conveys this message to a female superior whom we don't see, and then goes to speak to a female tuneller or miner called Glink, on whom Fream seems to be sweet. We see Sina giving the cleaning contract for the new hall to Maw and his crew. At Kronk's suggestion, Sina names the new group Leny Hall, although Maggle and Grik seem to know something mildly disreputable about Leny. Still in the same evening, we see a female Fixit named Astex who sits on a rock in a tunnel filled with plants and fungi. She seems to be fishing in a stream which flows alongside her rock. A male called Slix, who has been sent by a female commander called Poinx, comes to speak to her and get her observations - he calls her "our resident". Astex, who seems to have a cynical attitude to her own kind, says that the shield around the Spike was breached for a second or so, causing panic. Slix runs off before she can tell him about the Sneeches leaving. We learn that Astex is acquainted with Frowgler. We see Mortimer speaking about wizardry to Amos Grubb, who is himself a wizard, but who retired pre-Crash, after the incident with the Scary Lady. He says that Sylvester has some magic, although not as much as Mortimer, and their father Willoughby could have been a wizard if he hadn't been so frivolous. He believes there are still some schools of magic in operation somewhere, but he kept the fact of Mortimer's magic from Mortimer as a favour to Frederick and Nellie. Magic tends to run in families and other members of the E family also have at least some magical talent. They discuss the fact that Mortimer got the wand from Frowgler, and the fact that Frederick and Amos were trained by great-uncle Hindenburgh. If Mortimer practises as a magician he may get hassles from the Oracles of the Brush. We learn that wands should preferably be handled only by the owner, and that Mortimer unlocks locks by telekinesis. They discuss the nature of mind-reading and mind-control, wbich is far easier for Sneeches, Demons and Djinn to perform than other races, and Rosemary's susceptibility; magic-users on the other hand are very resistent to mind-control. They set off in search of Rosemary so Amos can get to know her. The scene cuts to the Nomes at the Pale camp. They are discussing the fact that if Nitfol becomes mayor he'll need a wife. He says that the only girl he found tolerable disappeared. Then Fizmo, the Hot Zone worker, appears and she and Nitfol get talking: she may or may not be the girl whom he liked before. Then we cut to The Spike, where Eunice and Rufus are talking. Rufus has recently had a talk with "God", which left him briefly unconscious and rubber-legged. He is behaving in quite a commanding, confident way, and speculating about what "God" and his henchman Dorian plan for Eunice next. After some edgy verbal sparring Eunice more-or-less agrees to be Rufus's assistant and bodyguard. 08: The End of the Day [18/02/2013 - 16/07/2013] We see Rosemary and Sylvester coming out of gender-specific lavatories which are delineated by male and female statues carrying a real spear and shield. They discuss finding Rosemary some better clothes so she can be properly introduced to Nellie and Amos, and she is tested by an Ettin-built electronic panel on the wall which confirms she is compatible with the house and can perform its ceremonies. Sylvester offers formally to employ her. Once they are both respectably dressed they go and introduce Rosemary to Nellie, although Sylvester tells Nellie that Rosemary's surname is Dapple, not Ripley. Nellie has already worked out that Rosemary arrived without passing through the village, and is angry about Mortimer being encouraged/allowed to learn magic. She opens up and talks about the group of magic-users of which she, Amos and Frederick were a part prior to the Crash, and Sylvester warns her about some of the recent developments in the Basement. As he talks we see vignettes of Chumley the Boogieman presiding over a growing collection of dead Fixits; the blonde woman with the pink bow, whom Rosemary called Mz Teree, reporting distressing changes in the Basement to someone who addresses her as Annabelle; and Frowgler telling the Scary Lady about the conversation Rosemary and Sylvester are currently having with Nellie. Sylvester leaves Rosemary and Nellie alone to talk about contraception, and we learn that there is a "Women's Circle" at the local Temple, where such things may be discussed. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester leave together, talking about local leaders - an impromptu lady mayor named Saffron Stout who runs an inn, and Patrick Skragg, the Sheriff. The Earl has warily polite relationships with both. Sylvester formally introduces Rosemary to Frederick. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester agree to conceal her true identity and membership of Hack n' Slash. They meet up with Amos and Mortimer and Amos, as a former wizard, comfirms that Mortimer no longer has psychic influence over Rosemary. Amos and Sylvester exchange news of the day, including some things Sylvester didn't tell Nellie, like about the Sneech gift, and about Tand - Sylvester thinks he has seen Tand mentioned in the records and Amos promises to look her up. Sylvester learns about The Pit flaring. We learn that "Pit" stands for "Pulse-Ignition Thaumnode" and that it was a booster device used to power flying trams. It is like a small version of a thing called the Daynight which seems to have done something catastrophic. After Amos leaves to go home, Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer go to the basement of the barracks, fetch a siege pot and sit it up on the top of the West Tower over the main entrance. Mortimer goes off to find clothes (his shirt having been shredded to make makeshift gloves in the Sneech den) and leaves Sylvester and Rosemary discussing the definition of "mansion" and the aftermath of the Crash - which wasn't nearly as bad in the poor rural area where Rosemary comes from, because hardly anybody there used magic anyway - and the ownership of land and property left vacant after the previous owners died in the disaster. They go off to eat and we see a series of vignettes: the Scary Lady visiting the Sneeches (but so far failing to find one); Amos collecting a package of Dornbeast-liver from the processor and taking it to Nellie, and discussing Rosemary with her; and Mortimer getting cleaned up. En route to a dinner of last night's Dornbeast tendrils, Rosemary and Sylvester pause to looke at a Panegate which leads elsewhere on their own world, although Sylvester says that such local Panegates are especially hard to open. Behind them is a statue of Pratchett's Discworld. Mortimer joins them at table and says he has put the umbrella aside until such time as he may decide to take up magic. They discuss re-opening access to a nearby beach so they can gather fish and seaweed, then they sign Rosemary into the Mansion's official staff record-book, still under the false name Dapple. Sylvester goes off to write up the day's events, and Mortimer goes and tries on clothes. Rosemary gets Amos to show her the library. Coming away with a stack of books on history, anthropology and moral philosophy, she experiences a psychic tweak which calls her to go to the Quiet Room and speak to (apparently) the Sneech dohickey, although she remains outside the locked door. She says that it and she are both protecting Sylvester, and suggests it should watch the Basement door, or the Weirdo. As the new Taskmistress she threatens the devices, saying that if any of them causes trouble she'll chuck them all into the Great Chasm. As she walks away we see Frowgler sitting by the foot of the door - he speaks to the dohickey as if they are old aquaintances. Returning to the Guest Room, Rosemary rearranges the furniture so she can sit facing the door, writes to her aunt and takes a bath. She falls asleep but immediately wakes into a dream which seems to be some kind of objectively real astral projection. She passes Skuy and Spot, who are arguing: Skuy at least seems to be also asleep and also taking part in the astral projection. Rosemary goes to the elevator and whacks the Operator with a mallet, which she then hands over to Skuy: the physically real Operator is aware of and intrigued by what has just happened to his astral equivalent. We see an overview of various people sleeping: Nellie and Amos; Umbuz and Piu (in bed together, so their relationship is progressing fast!); the Gobules Gorp and Phiga; Mortimer lying awake; and Yasmine sitting by a camp fire, staring at a Fleeb. Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, with her balloon in tow, descend to the Ettinworks and go to the same doorway where Sylvester and co. were passed the "KEEP OUT" sign. She is pased a similar cut-out message, this one saying "IN HER" with an extra "E" drawn or painted on to make it "IN HERE". The extra "E" is done in the style of the emblem of the Earls of E. The door opens and she goes through into the corridor of doors we saw before. A distant door is open to receive her but all we see through it is several floating lights - possibly ABOLs. More vignettes: Eunice talking to Cox, in front of Ettin signs or graffiti saying "shake hands" and "onebig onion". Hector talking to Nunsuch (and mentioning another character called Penfold): Nunsuch indicates some Ettin text which appears on a screen beside them and which changes gradually from the old font to the new. This text, which says "remote spike extrusion", triggers Hector to engage a "revised schedule" which he says is twenty years late. Meanwhile the Scary Lady leaves the room of lights and returns to the Mansion, where she bars the Basement door and puts a ward on it telling Basement dwellers to keep out. She opens a Panegate into a lush jungle and sets the balloon floating off into that jungle carrying the rescued Trundlebug, who lands in a bush where it meets a new friend (probably of the opposite sex, if Trundlebugs have sexes). She goes and reassures Frederick that although the magic umbrella is hers she didn't directly give it to Mortimer, and they start flirting. The scene shifts to the Trog holding area where Villipend and Hamble were formerly imprisoned, and we see that Hamble has survived electrocution. The prison seems to have done something to reverse the mental decline which caused him to jump into the Great Chasm in the first place, and he is now very clever and very ambitious. He half rescues, half kidnaps Squeeb, works out how to get out of the habitat and sets off to climb back up the chute with Squeeb strapped to his arm, seeking a new dawn which will be his. We learn on the way that Squeeb belongs to no ring, and despises the idea of doing so. Finally we see two vignettes. In one, a male soldier reports on Rosemary's disappearance to a female commander, the Tansy whom Rosemary saw in a vision. Tansy is working for some outfit or political party whose emblem is a triangle within a circle. She vows to find Rosemary wherever she has gone - and clearly with hostile intent. In the other, we see Sylvester's sister Lilith and their mother, talking in the darkness at the edge of a banquet in a jungle somewhere. The mother would have liked to have stayed, but she has received a psychic impression that they need to start heading back to E. Part Six: On My Way to Town [28/07/2013 - 16/11/2018] Note that from 03/05/2015, the Saturdays in the Basement strips show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with the action above ground. 01: Rise and Shine [28/07/2013 - 26/11/2013] The sun has just risen over the Mansion. The brothers are already awake: Sylvester resumes doing his paperwork, but Mortimer stands gazing out of a window, clutching the umbrella he said he wouldn't take up again unless and until he decided to take up magic, and thinking of himself as having "set out" - and that the world itself has also changed. Rosemary emerges and rings the bell for Schmedley, the butler, attracting Mortimer's attention. He introduces her to Schmedley, who tells her how to find Sylvester. Schmedley is not surprised to hear that Mortimer is a wizard. We see Arthur the Weirdo feeling the worse for wear. Sylvester shows Rosemary her new official quarters and office, which she is quite stunned by, and explains the heirarchy of the Mansion's servants to her. As Taskmistress she stands fairly high. One of her duties is, at least potentially, to find and hire a new sign-writer. Her quarters command a view of the ocean, which leads to a discussion about Panegates and the fact that no known Panegate leads to another continent, although some lead to alternative realities for the location of the Mansion. They move on to discussing why the villagers don't all move into the much-more-comfortable Mansion, and Rosemary's dream about the Operator. Sylvester didn't share it but we see a flashback to what must be his own dream, in which he, Rosemary and Nimue are attending a university lecture given by Protus, accompanied by three frogs, two sitting with the girls in the audience and one sitting with Protus, and Sylvester is aware that his own frog is missing (or has gone to Protus). We see a rusted, land-locked boat which Philbert had been going to convert into a building, and access to which is restricted, and a wizwitch detector which detects Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss security clearances, and local legends relating to a scruffy local folk-hero called Frizzlegarb who might have been a surviving Wilf. Legends say Frizzlegarb swam through a pool and there met what sounds like a Willygig. Sylvester shows Rosemary round her apartment and gives her a mechanical pocket-watch, then they get out Mortimer's Glowgem and test it on a sort of battery-tester: Glowgems can be recharged by dipping them in the River of Fire for a few days. We see an outtake of the Tribbletongued Hamster (in pirate getup), the plant and the ABOL escaping together in a toy boat, sailing along an underground tunnel: a sign in the backgorund points towards the sea. Sylvester mentions that the Mansion used to have a "wizwitch", a magic-wielder, as a regular member of staff and he supposes it now has one again. The scene cuts to Mortimer, who is talking to a strange wall of purple electricity, telling it he is going to go and celebrate the fact that he has grown up and got a job. He goes to Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where there are various amusements and places to eat. Back with Rosemary and Sylvester, he asks her about Hack & Slash's Commandant Spangler (who Rosemary had said was the only person she had previously met who had a private office). This segues into a conversation about their respective grandparents, and Rosemary running through a fake version of her family background, using her new, false surname Dapple. She discusses the remote possibility of using Protus to go back in time and save her parents - for whom she has little feeling - at the cost of giving up her own exciting future and getting stuck as a farm-girl. Meanwhile we see Frederick and Myrrh set out to do something - unspecified but involving hand-holding - "properly". Sylvester tells Rosemary about the demand there used to be for apartments linked to this private corridor for senior administrators, and they discuss the fact that in the past, pre-Luwig, the Earls were at risk of being assasinated just for being Earls. Rosemary goes off at a tangent about a fluffy-seeming female called Miss Gritz who was a traveller on the caravan Rosemary was guarding, and whom she suspects of being her apparent boyfriend's very high-powered personal bodyguard. Sylvester shows Rosemary round the official, ceremonial offices for himself and his secretary (but not his official chambers, which are untidy). The offices are designed to be intimidating. We learn that the mansion holds a throne for use if the king should visit - this nearly happened fifty years ago, but the king ws killed en route when his flagship The Velvet Glove went down during the Crash, and the current king tends to stay in the capital. The offices are designed with security in mind. We learn that the mansion has a High Tower access to which is blocked: Rufus tried to get in there, before he wandered off. Sylvester says Rufus likes to wander but he doesn't go far: Sylvester tried to get him to go to university but Rufus felt that the area around the mansion was where he was going to be. Meanwhile we see Eunice, Rufus's new assistant, emerging into the countryside from a concealed entrance inside a hollow boulder, and Yasmine riding away and thinking that in another hour's riding she will be able to remove her hood. Sylvester shows Rosemary an escape hatch under the desk, leading to a panic-room which used to be well-equippped but is now almost empty. We learn that in the early days the Earldom was passed on by mortal combat. Milo was the last Earl of E officially to kill his predecessor and the first to pass the Earldom on by blood although his grandson, Dorn II, may have been murdered by his daughter in law Charlotte, who then ruled in her husband Lemuel's stead while he got on with his Panegate research. We also learn that in those days the Earldoms of E and S were friends. Sylvester doesn't know as much about his mother's family, the Mundivagants, who are grand and grudging industrialists. His brother Ace works for them. Roisemary's family were all farmers with a long tradition, but they have died out. Rosemary asks about a sign saying "Gargoyle pits" and Sylvester tells her that there are creatures called Gargoyles and Spindizzies which were bred or manufactured by the Ettins to service and repair the buildings in which they live. Gargoyles deal with the exsterior and Spindizzies with the interior, especially service machinery behind the walls and in the basement. The Mansion is a semi-living thing, a sort of colony organism, but it is slowly running down. Sylvester and Rosemary speculate about the possibility of finding still-surviving Ettins who could restore it. They cone to a corridor where an end-wall has moved aside, giving access to a service-space, so Sylvester takes Rosemary to meet the Spindizzies, warning her to get the Can-Opener out first and not tell anybody about the Poke Kit. 02: Fishing Around [27/11/2013 - 22/03/2014] The scene opens with an Ichyoid pootering about under water, wearing some sort of equipment on his chest. We return to Sylvester, telling Rosemary that the core of the Mansion where they are is malleable and in a state of flux. Two Spindizzies appear: they have grey, hairless humanoid upper bodies trailing away into wormy tails, and pterosaur-like wings. They speak like intelligent but literal-minded computers but are friendly and kind, very concerned when they hear that Rosemary is taking over as Taskmistress in case that means Prunella has died. Sylvester agrees to buy in supplies which they request, and ask them if they can tell what the Can Opener is made of, but they can't, although they may be able to duplicate it, or something like it. Sylvester seems to want to make more. Every human (or in Myrrh's case, humanoid) in the Mansion has a designated Spindizzy who communicates with them: Horace and Emily are matched to Sylvester and Rosemary. As taskmistress Rosemary will need to talk to Emily weekly. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the Ettins: Sylvester thinks the Mansion with its Panegates and moving walls wasn't intended as a residence but as some other sort of facility. They wonder whether there are any surviving Ettins - and if so, how they would react to find Humans living in their laboratory, or whatever it is. We learn that the Spindizzies are mortal flesh-and-blood ceatures but they reproduce in a mechanical incubator. The chamber where they are all meeting is a sort of holo-deck, in which the Spindizzies usccessfully produce a useable mock-up of the Can-Opener, a quasi-humanoid sparring-partner for Rosemary to practice with and a chair for Sylvester to sit in and watch. We learn that one of Ludwig's assistants went far enough down into the depth to visit the Spindizzy incubator, and his granddaughter visited the Far=Eastern Shore on the other side of the ocean from the Mansion. There were human colonies there which may or may not have survived the Crash, about which the Spindizzies know nothing. Meanwhile we see vignettes of other characters. Mortimer is breakfasting and the Landing o' Family Fun, and visiting the Fish Museum there. Eunice Kelso is seen leaving the woods and heading for Eetown, wearing a rucksack: a retired Guardian called Mr Flem warns her that the woods are dangerous. Nelly is feeding (non-sentient) Jibjibs while Amos sets what looks like Mortimer's glowgem onto a handle. Arthur the Weirdo is taking a bath, Myrrh is setting out from her and Frederick's flat, and Schmedley is being addressed by somebody off-screen and short (probably Frowgler). The Spindizzies store a template for the Can-Opener and make a copy which is only real in this environment, which functions as a sort of Holo-Deck. They simulater a sparring partner for Rosemary to test her weapon, and some background scenery including a bad, Escheresque reproduction of part of a monument called the Citadel of the Hugging Squirrels, one of the Sculpted Isles in Isdanila. This reproduction was commissioned by Dorn I for his mother Nettana, who came from that area. The Sculted Isles date back to a msyterious Dawn Era. Sylvester dozes in a chair, leaving Rosemary to her sparring, but in fact she talks to the Spindizzies instead of fighting. She elarns that they have patterns for Ettin tools as well as human ones, but most of the Ettin ones are encrypted. She encrypts the pattern for the Can-Opener so only she and Sylvester can see it. It seems that any "productive individual" can come in and encrypt personalized tools. She learns that the Spindizzies could in principle find out what the Can-Opener is made of but their access to data is blocked beyond a certain level. Rufus might be able to fix it. They tell her Rufus is at Semi-Autonomous Research Structure #001. Rosemary doesn't want to spar now because she hasn't the time, but she takes the time to walk up the imaginary sky. She starts to ask Emily the Spindizzy whether she knows that she, Rosemary, is currently... then changes the subject, which may or may not have been important. Then she wakes Sylvester and tells him where Rufus is, which he translates as the Spike. He isn't pleased, and says that the Spike is very dangerous, partly because the machines there have no built-in safety systems. The information about Rufus came from a high-ranking Spindizzy called Tanith who was Nirvana's contact, but they have lost contact with Nirvana. Meanwhile a Valentine's Day out-take shows Sheriff Patrick Skragg giving a flower to his wife Halcyone, while their son Stepehen read a Willy-the-Wendigo book. Sylvester informs the Spindizzies about the departure of the Sneeches, and asks them what they know about Willigigs. They have been aware of Protus's presence for around a month but haven't spoken to him. They are not aware of Frowgler. Sylvester and Rosemary take their leave of them: Sylvester promises to bring them some antimony which they have asked for, and which he has in store. After they leave we see Sprocket the Gnoll engineer, holding a glowgem in a wrench, opening conversation with a male Spindizzy. Rosemary and Sylvester set off to go fishing. They discuss the Mansion's mineral stores, including gold, and Rosemary tells Sylvester what she learned from the Spindizzies while he was asleep, about the data block which Rufus might be able to fix. Sylvester suggests that the same person deliberately planeted the Can-Opener with Izchak for Rosemary to find, and prevented the Spindizzies from investigationg it: he fears he is being too paranoid but Rosemary, being profesionally paranoid, suggests there may be two conflicting secret factions at work. For the moment, Sylvester is not telling the Spindizzies about the return of Nirvana, the previous Taskmistress: he means to return to the Ettinworks once he has researched Tand, and will allow Nirvana and "Mz Teree" (Annabelle) to explain themselves before making a decision about them. They make their way down to a sea-level room where there are storage lockers for fishing gear and for beach leisure gear, and a small boat, and a door to the E family's private - and artifiually-enhanced - fishing beach. They used to have a proper boat-house etc. but much of it has fallen into ruins. Ichyoids don't like large-scale commerical fishing and cut large fishing nets, so before going outside they look though a security spy-hole and see only gulls. Sylvester also talks about what he considers to be the remote possibility of somebody from the Basement making their way up to the beach (suggesting that part of it is below sea-level), and at that we see the hamster and his crew in their miniature pirate ship, approaching the open air. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss boats, and an explorer called Semidemila, and then go outside, where they stand side by side on the beach and agree that their feelings for each other are brother/sisterly rather than romantic (although acknowledging that this could change). They catch fish and gather seaweed and then go inside to cook them. Meanwhile we see a small boat propelled by a magic-powered outboard motor, and piloted by a skinny, elderly male villager whom we saw before when Protus caused Sylvester to have a vision of a selection of villagers (among other things). The hamster and his pirate crew in their tiny wind-up clockwork boat approach and order this man to stand to and prepare to be boarded, and he thinks that all Tribble-Tongued Hamsters are insane. 03: A Change in the Scene [24/03/2014 - 12/07/2014] The scene opens with Nitfol, Fizmo and three Pales (one of whom may be Thrash, as he has the same double head-spike, but he is wearing or carrying a shield and doesn't have the stripe on his chest) about to enter a tangled wood. Nitfol says that Fizmo's presence isn't neccessary to his plans - but she has her own agenda. Then we see Yasmine riding through a wood. She is just pulling up in order to do something, now she is "far enough" from the Mansion, when she feels a vibration in her bag of Fleebs. She opens it and the Fleebs leap out, although they do not appear rabid. Meanwhile we see the E family make breakfast. Amos and Nellie bring Jib-Jib eggs, Sylvester and Rosemary have fish and edible seaweed, and Mortimer brings a bottle of a magically-active drink called Yurple Juice. He won it by playing a game at Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, and feels he may have cheated magically. The Weirdo (seriously hungover) and Fantod arrive and are introduced to Rosemary. Then Myrrh (the Scary Lady) and Frederick arrive, dressed as if for a very fancy trip to a smart restaurant or theatre, and Myrrh announces that they are now retiring from their work to keep the family alive. Myrrh also satisfies the Weirdo's curiosity by dropping her glamour and revealing to him that she is a Demon. Mortimer is now Sylvester's Regent, his understudy - about which he is less than thrilled. Sylvester tells him just to do what Sylvester tells him when Sylvester is present, othrwise what Rosemary tells him. Since the Mansion will now be less secure, Sylvester offers Amos and Nellie the chance to retire to the village, but they refuse. Instead, Amos will teach Mortimer magic. Meanwhile Sylvester, Rpsemary andf Mortimer need to go to the village to update Saffron, the lady mayor, on what's been happening, to sell Dornbeast parts and to attend the Temple. Mortimer wants to light an candle for Nitfol, whom he believes to be dead through his fault. Because the Poke Kit won't work so well away from the Mansion's magic tricklepoint, Rosemary and Sylvester go to the Barrackstack to deposit the Can Opener in a vault and collect other equipment. Meanwhile Mortimer goes to take antimony to the Spindizzies. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Ludwig's machines still work, and why this might be. Rosemary thinks that the Weirdo is ill or hungover but competant, and has had military training. Knowing that the Weirdo is conspiring with Yamine in some way, Sylvester says they should lock their doors at night. The Barrackstack goes down as far below ground as above. Although it contains some Ettin elements it was mainly built by Angus and Audra. There are sealed-off escape tunnels from the barracks which open into places which are now inside Eetown. A sign points to the Party Palace, built by Ernest, and describes the attractions on offer there. They discuss a very complex card-game called Quincunx, and some kind of game which involves magically-powered equipment and is played in an Underwear Arena. Whatever it is long-married couples are especially good at it (which suggests it might involve listing your partner's physical or sexual quirks), and people called Shrouders - the reverse of nudists - cannot play it. All the local villagers are informally Shrouders. Motimer takes the antimony to his Spindizzy contact, Charles. Charles recognizes the umbrella as a "thaumalogical flow enhancer and regulator" and already knew Mortimer had wizard potential. The scene cuts to a female Spindizzy, Clementine, who is talking to Sina, Sprocket and a male Trog, probably either Mowder or Grak. Sina is quizzing Clementine about her claim to have met the Earl. Sylvester opens a weapons-vault to keep the Can Opener in: like military exercises the vaults have random names. This one contains a wide range of good spears and swords. They put the Can-OPener into a safe, then enter Rosemary into the herediscan system. They discuss Griffiongton - his collection of obscene limericks, his management of the Factor E and his possession of three minions, Drowpole, Krell and Strauhatt. Rosemary is now Sylvester's minion, after Nirvana, who was the first. They see a statue which purports to be of an Obsidian Sneech, but is more sinister than accurate. This area of the mansion, which is actually of great military importance, is dotted with signs which suggest that only boring things happen there. Arthur and Fantod are sitting by the counting-down machine. Fantod, who seems to be an actual creature, looks stunned. Arthur says he assumes that "she knew all along" - perhaps a reference to Yasmine - and he plans to take Amos's advice - which was to drink the magically-active Yurple Juice. Sylvester gives Rosemary an instruction manual for the Poke Kit. She reads about secured sub-pockets and has a half memory of the Tree giving her a secret seed, but it slips her mind again. She experiments with taking a Glowgem in and out. Sylvester meanwhile asks Amos for a book on "night beasties" but they don't have a copy - only Rosemary's memory of reading it. Rosemary's Glowgem seems to be attracted to a sort of spiral ornament or mirror on the wall, which she stares at and may be hypnotized by. She finds the whole sub-pocket idea creepy, because there could be anything in there, and without the assistance of an official service engineer she wouldn't know it and might accidentally say a password which would cause something dangerous to erupt. They can't empty it by taking it into the Quiet Room, as that might damage it. Rosemary has written to Aunt Edna but she has described where she is, and Sylvester is concerned that her enemies might get it out of her aunt. Sylvester advises her to send another less specific letter via his lawyer, Mr Ferule. They discuss Tansy's army which is chasing Rosemary, and which is called The Quincunx (which is also the name of a complex game). If The Quincunx finds out where Rosemary is and comes as an army it would take them six months to get to E, but it's possible they could send an assassin, or hire a local one by wire. The cause of Rosemary's quarrel with Tansy seems to have been something bad that Tansy did to a Gnoll (although she doesn't tell Sylvester that) and there's a hint that the thing which Rosemary stole from The Quincunx was whatever she used to travel instantly to the east. Being about to leave to walk to the village, they discuss a thing at the entrance called the Gatestone, believed to have been moved there by Ettric, the 2nd Earl. We see Mortimer waiting for them in an official Assembly Alcove, and being joined there by Arthur the Weirdo and his puppet Fantod, who congratulate him on becoming Regent. Mortimer still smells of sphagnum dust, and this leads to a discussion of Arthur's days at the Weirdo Academy. 04: Barriers and Gates [14/07/2014 - 27/11/2014] We see the Saurs Buzz and Ig meeting by the ruins of a museum in Eetown. Ig has a Glowgem. Buzz wants Ig to tell him about what has become of Snerk. Mortimer and Arthur discuss whether Weirdos are allowed to marry (opinions vary). They discuss a girl named Melba who lives in the village, a friend of Mortimer's sister Lilith's, and quite eccentric, but Arthur says she is too frivolous to make an official Weirdo. Sylvester joins the others at the assembly point. Trailing behind him, Rosemary surreptitiously deposits several items - what may be her original letter to her aunt, plus a lantern and a bottle - in a large urn. It is one of several artistic and archaeological artefacts which grace the hallway. The main door of the mansion is set into a giant Ettin artefact like a huge boulder which manipulates light in some way. It leads to a walled outside area, the main gates of which have been deliberately blocked with rubble to prevent mass invasion. The party discuss the fortifications erected by previous earls, and the early earls themselves, and why the village is called Eetown not Etown. The fortifications are now a bit gappy, and electronic repellers are used to keep out wild animals. These also protect the orchard and the main path to the village. Sylvester and Mortimer, Rosemary, Arthur and Fantod walk towards Eetown, discussing how the area came to be renamed Audravania instead of Northwoods, and the vast lands which Audra had ruled before her fatal decision to poke the Hot Zone. Audra had made a voluntary marriage, albeit a political one, but prior to her many future Earls had been forcibly betrothed as children. Plenty of women at university wanted to marry Sylvester for his title. We learn that while at university Sylvester attended the coronation of the king and queen, Yancy and Fluer. Amos has visited the capital with Frederick, but Nellie has never been outside Audravania, except on her honeymoon. when they went to a fashionable spot called Rowen. This leads to a discussion of an island off Eetown, called Alwin, which belongs to the Earls but which they allow honeymooning couples from the village to use. Mortimer says that this arrangement is important to the villagers, which leads to him telling Sylvester what's going on there at the moment - including a break-in at Genrick's tailor shop, where stuff was taken overnight, but money was left for it. Rufus's friend Eunice is mentioned as one of a number of people who have recently moved into the area: the village is growing and there is a debate as to whether or not to expand it beyond the boundary hedge. They meet and speak to a pig-farmer called Terin Flem, who comes from the same area (Moonin) as Rosemary and who used to be Guardian to a hardline Oracle named Omega, whom Sylvester didn't get on with. Sylvester and Mortimer have an obscure private conversation about change, while Rosemary talks to Arthur and Fantod. Sylvester wants Mortimer not to go public about being a wizard, for the moment. Arthur tries to quiz Rosmary about how she got there but she evades the question and instead asks him about what Weirdos do. They are jesters who "speak truth to power". Arthur, Fantod and Rosemary discuss the new, safer denizens' tunnel from the mansion to the basement, and the disappearance of the Sneeches. Meanwhile the party arrives at the outskirts of the village and Sylvester shows Rosemary the irrigation ditches and other features. They come to the Temple, which was made from the remains of a very grand one which was destroyed in the Crash, and which lies just outside the hedge which surrounds the village, and they discuss it, and the character of Omega, the previous Oracle. We learn that Sylvester and Mortimer's father had been partially responsible for, and died in, some kind of accident involving stampeding elifinos in a nearby town called Noodle. They meet a little girl called Juniper, who is the granddaughter of Amos and Nellie. She has a special friendship with Fantod. The group go through a sensory ritual - watch the flames, smell the blossoms, taste the water, listen to the Brush. The last is done by sitting on a bench made of rare and precious materials. To mark Hallowe'en we see a raiding party of Nomes, including Umboz's brother Frotz who is desperate to get out of it, creeping towards a Gnoll village. They are scared off by a pumpkin-headed spectre which is really Frowgler in costume, using some kind of glowing magic or technology to fly. Rosemary and Juniper discuss where various people come from, and Rosemary manages to give the girl a very strange idea of what a walrus looks like. They talk with Sylvester about Inuit-equivalents called Tunits, and the secretive, hostile Haroons, and the harsh northen shore called Skralland, to the north of Audravania. We learn that there used to be a secretive underground nation called the Polarites, but their society was destroyed in the Crash. They used to have an exit tunnel near Eetown, for trade. There are people in Eetown of Haroon (Miss Lundquist) or Polarite (Peter Nigultrum) ancestry, and they can't ever go home. Meanwhile, Arthur and Mortimer sit on the bench and ask for divine assurance that they are doing the right thing, and both receive it, more or less. Fantod and Juniper talk about her hopes for a more interesting career than agriculture. We see an out-take for Thanksgiving, in which Myrrh and Frederick are about to start on a feast. I have left this in the time-line, as well as putting it with the Christmas cards etc., because it fits with the idea that they have gone on a second honeymoon. 05: Eetown - The Temple [28/11/2014 - 25/08/2015] The party from the Mansion enter the temple, where Sylvester introduces Rosemary to the Oracle Threnody and various town worthies. Sylvester assures the townsfolk in the Temple that Rosemary is human, and fully qualified to be Taskmistress, and tells them that Frederick has retired as Regent and Mortimer will be taking over. Sheriff Patrick Skragg quizzes Rosemary as to whether she is a fugitive from the King's Law. She swears that she isn't, then sends the child Juniper off with the Weirdo and Fantod to show Fantod how she's been practising some skill he's been helping her with. Once they are out of earshot she tells the rest that she is also taking over Myrrh's duties as bodyguard and will be wearing a sword. Threnody is dubious about Rosemary's past use of violent force, but accepts that it may have been necessary. The Sheriff provisionally accepts Rosemary's offer of help with the town militia, but Waldo Weequash, head of the Eetown Guild of Fisherfolk and Octopus Wranglers, thinks Rosewmary is a vagabond who will bring a criminal element into the town, Saffron Stout, innkeeper and impromptu mayor, points out that Rosemary will mainly be at the Mansion and agrees with the sheriff that they should give her a chance, and asks Sylvester to call on her privately later. Threnody - who is emergency backup Taskmistress - quizzes Rosemary about her Temple attendance, and Rosemary promises to make sure Sylvester goes to Temple more often. Outside the Temple, the townsfolk discuss Rosemary privately. The sheriff is planning to check up on her in police records, just in case, but they agree she seems saner than Myrrh. Mortimer and the Weirdo remain at the Temple to light memorial candles to speed the passage of the dead, the Weirdo for his friend Tulip, and Mortimer for Nitfol whom he wrongly believes to be dead. They discuss the fact that there are some Nomes and Motihauls who follow the Brush and have their own Oracles, but most non-humans have their own religions. Sylvester mentions that the Nomes have a male priest, and Threnody is interested in meeting him. While Mortimer and the Weirdo are praying, Rosemary and Sylvester look at the Temple's paintings of the various founding Oracles, and discuss their favourites. Rosemary follows Hettie, who carried a light in the darkness, and Sylvester likes Joice, who stood for inspiration. Mortimer passes on a message to Dirge, the current Guardian, that Finale, the previous Guardian, would like to speak to him. Mortimer wants to ask something, but feels that the time is not yet. The group go and stand by a large boulder outside the town gates ("The Town Rock") where they won't be overheard, and discuss Yasmine and the Weirdos generally. Mortimer is able to pick them out because he can sense their mind shapes. They discuss the fact that Rosemary has not been taught any magical theory, because she was educated at the Hack & Slash Academy whose purpose was to produce effective H&S employees and they very rarely encounter magic-users these days. Also H&S is riddled with factions: they used to have a Wizwitch Brigade and Rosemary suspects it may still exist but is being kept a secret, even from other factions in H&S. We learn that the Weirdo Academy is very ancient. It's in a town called Marksburg, in Fredonia, and is where the E boys' mother came from. Nowadays Marksburg has a stodgy reputation, but it has a lively history. In the past there were several Weirdo schools and they went by several names, such as Tomfool. Milo was the first Earl of E to hire one. The Trio fall to discussing the various worthies they met at the Temple. Sylvester fills Rosemary in on the background to the various people she met at the Temple, and village issues such as the need to bring in a full-time Healer, since at the moment the Oracle, Threnody, is both healer and teacher. Sylvester's only friends in the village are Peter Nigultrum the solicitor, and a fisherman called Captain Tugwart. They discuss who is and isn't local. People who were born in the village are accepted as local even if their parents were foreign, but if Rosemary stays fifty years she'll still be "The Mooninite" because she wasn't born in Eetown. She says she'll earn a more distinctive label than that, thinking of herself as some sinister dark queen with a flaming sword. Rosemary can tell that Dirge is combat-trained and wonders why the High Temple thought Eeetown needed him. This leads to a discussion about how the Spyders and Tree-Squids got into the area, and about things called Raviners or Hill Crabs. Mortimer would like to talk about the events of the previous day but they don't have time. As they approach the entrance to Eetown proper they discuss various Oracles Rosemary has met on her travels. In a brief out-take, we see Schmedley placing a black arm-band on the flipper of a statue of a world-turtle, to commemorate the death of Terry Pratchett. Sylvester and co. discuss the defenses of Eetown, with drawbridges put in after the Crash. The defenses ar enot very good, and post-Crash the town had some trouble with raiders until Myrrh got back. She, Frederick and Quincy had been holidaying in Aruba (a place without magic) when the Crash hit. It was on their way back that Quincy met Agnes, his future wife. Meanwhile the town made a defensive wall out of crashed cars, and then grew a hedge over and through them. We see an ancient wand-tree called an Oakapple (nothing to do with real oak apples) which grows just inside the hedge. Post-Crash, the rallying point for local survivors was a big pub called the Moose and Squirrel. Because it was a cheap outfit which didn't use much magic it survived the Crash relatively intact. The innkeeper, Simon, had acquired the place by dubious means, but he became impromptu mayor and did a good job of coordinating disaster relief. Hpthbvtw's remains will have to be decontaminated in some way because he was killed by an Operator blastm but the contamination is lessened by the fact that it was caused by the Operator's involuntary revival. The two Stirrers discuss this, with reference to Myrrh. the Scary Lady, whom they call the Collared Lurker. Sylvester and co. head for the local administrative offices, but as they pass by the fountain in the main square they become aware that they have an audience. Sylvester lectures Rosemary about the layout of the town, where the bathhopuse is etc., trying to sound confident and impress the watchers. The town has a watch tower, but these days it's mainly used as a love-nest. They speak to the townsfolk who have been watching them, and Rosemary (under the false surname Dapple) is introduced to everybody. Most striking, perhaps, is a young mother called Silence Krenshaw whom Sylvester knows very well, and had considered hiring as Taskmistress. We will learn that she and Sylvester were childhood playmates. They discuss Rosemary's duties, and that Sylvester wants Rosemary to serve as a Mature and Responsible Adult, a formal title which means that she will somehow help him to find a wife. He does not fancy Rosemary herself. Silence says that there is somebody out there for Sylvester. Mortimer meanwhile talks to an adoring fanclub of young girls. They ask him about his unbrella and he says you never know when a storm might blow up. One of them is evidently psychic and she realsies both that he is speaking metaphorically, and that a metaphorical storm is indeed coming. Sylvester and co. head for Government House, followed by a gaggle of children. They discuss the pudding plant, a local cash crop which only grows well in Audravania. Rosemary has never eaten a fresh one. Rosemary wonders why so small a town has a bank. Sulvester explains that it gives them independence from the Noodle Fish-Monger's Association, and lists the conditions required in order for them to have an official bank, and its personnel. It is illegal for an agent of the King's Law, such as the sheriff, officially to work for a bank. The town government is full of bickering and back-biting. The bank manager is Peter Nigultrum, who also helps the sub-literate to write letters. He is engaged to a woman called Ida, whom they meet coming away from the bank. Ida and Rosemary discuss Rosemary's home district of Moonin and the presence there of the Beacons, three offshore monoliths believed to date back to the Dawn Wars. Ida seems unaware that the Mansion is equally interesting and historic. The first Prime Oracle, Daisy, came from Moonin, but Rosemary feels that Daisy was ashamed of her humble origins. They meet Peter the bank manager, who works out that Rosemary is the new Taskmistress from her clothes. They tell Peter that Frederick and Myrrh have retired, and that Mortimer is a wizard. The only bit that surprises Peter is that Myrrh is able to retire. We glimpse Myrrh at some sort of hotel, apparently amusing herself by wrestling robots. Peter predicts that Mortimer's newfound wizard status will lead to trouble. We see Dirge, the current Guardian, and Terin Flem, the previous one, discussing the changes in personnel at the Mansion, and saying that Dirge has a decision to make. Immediately post-Crash, magic was regarded as evil, and Flem should really have told Omega that Mortimer was a wizard, and then somebody would have come and taken the boy away, but Flem liked Mortimer and kept quiet. An officious official named Appleby also failed to report Mortimer - Flem thinks he just never noticed what was going on because he was stuck behind his desk. Dirge will tell Threnody about Mortimer, but won't call someone to collect him unless Mortimer wants him to. Flem tells Dirge about Eunice being out in the woods again. Peter tells Mortimer there may still be a magic school which Threnody could help him find if Amos turns out not to be a good teacher. They discuss Polarite technology and social structures: Peter's father was in security, relatively low-status but with access to information. Peter had thought of contacting the surviving Polarites in the captal, but Sylvester says they would scorn him for having facial hair. The Symmites, the Polarite sub-group to which Peter's father belonged, were allowed to open a trade gate in the same country as Eetown, where they to some extent went native and became more open and sociable than most Polarites. That was why Peter's father was able to be wandering around on the surface without any magical machinery when the Crash hit, and so survived. ` Sylvester and Rosemary give Peter a highly edited version of Rosemary's life story. Peter knows the Mansion and its dangers well - he even has his own Spindizzy, Alfred. [An out-take at this point celebrates the legalization of gay mariage in the US by showing Baldy with a slightly younger - and much hairier - boyfriend, looking at rainbow flutterbys.] Peter tells Sylvester they have some paperwork to go over [Ipcress files!], so Sylvester asks Mortimer to take Rosemary away and introduce her to Shadrik. Sylvester and Peter then discuss Peter's upcoming marriage to Ida. Peter says Sylvester will never marry a local girl because they aren't academically stimulating enough - not even Ida or Silence - whereas he himself was looking for somebody who was restful to be with. Sylvester will be his best man. Sylvester trusts Peter so much that he tells him at least the gist of Rosemary's true story, including that Dapple isn't her real surname (although not what is). Peter will look out for people looking out for Rosemary. Sylvester doesn't want to marry Rosemary because she's not intellectual or educated, but she's a perfect Taskmistress - so perfect he suspects somebody is interfering in his life, and sent her to him. [Out-take: to celebrate the strip's twelfth anniverary: we briefly see the pirate hamster and his crew approaching an island which has a sentient tree.] We see that Eunice works in the pub, apparently as a cook. Rosemary and Mortimer are given free sausages by the town's Sausage Stroller. Mortimer is feeling very guilty about having accidentally magically hypnotised Rosemary the day before, so she punishes and absolves him by giving him a light bonk on the head. They talk about the fact that he has only left the area a few times, and comes across as rather sheltered, but now responsibility has been thrust on him and he will meet it. Rosemary talks about the relatively safe life she left to become a bodyguard, and the fact that her home village had an ancient ruined tower built by Gobblems, and which she used to climb. She later travelled to most of the places she could see from up there, but many of the towns were a bit same-y because they were rebuilt at the same time, after Unification. Talking about education and the E-family tutor causes Mortimer to realise there's something about Rufus and Eunice which he is forgetting. They look at Shadrik, which/who is a haulage Metalmin who is fairly bright but doesn't speak, and lives in a former stable. Dorian Ingersoll the hermit used to live in it. Dorian's history is confusing: we've been told he's lived in the Spike for forty-two years, but here we're told he lived in the forest when Mortimer was a child, and we've seen the ruins of his hut when Yasmine came across them. Shadrik's battery is flat but Rufus is working on recharging it. Rosemary works out that Sylvester just wanted her and Mortimer out of the way so he could speak to Peter privately. To kill time she suggests they climb the local watchtower, so she can survey the terrain. To get to it they go through a warehouse used to store apples, which has been altered and added to till it's almost as complex as the Mansion. They are passed by some sort of functionary (beginning with a B) who wears false Nome ears and costume wings. It's possible the B stands for Batgirl, especially as she lives in the Belfry "like usual". 06: Eetown - The State [26/08/2015 - 20/11/2015] From the tower they look down on the village square, which doubles as a fuzzball court. Mortimer points out various districts of the town, and they see Old Man Larssen's place outside the town hedge, although he has a hedge of his own. Rosemary is pleased to be able to see the Specific Ocean, which was on her To-Do List. They discuss a range of wonders Rosemary hopes to see, many of which have already beebn visited by Mortimer's mother and sister, although they were unable to get into a place called Sybola where there is some kind of secret Rosemary wishes to solve. A "really creepy" region called Mechana is mentioned. Rosemary thinks the main thing on Mortimer's To-Do List right now should be to learn how to use the wand-umbrella. A Labour Day out-take shows various kinds of labour in Eetown, including the Batgirl who is writing or drawing at an easel. Rosemary and Mortimer meet Sylvester outside the bank and he refers to the Batgirl as "our Flittermouse". Sylvester takes them to meet Sherman P Gray, the new(ish) government Clerk of Eetown. He has a telegraph machine run off batteries re-charged by a hand-turned charger, and many duties, one of which is to register new arrivals like Rosemary. He is also postman and tax-collector, and has a form for Mortimer to register as the new Regent of E. [In a brief out-take, we see the pirates (hamster and co.) arrive at Piratestash Island and recruit a resident gull to the crew. A stunted tree on the island implies that the Plant is being punished by being required to stay with the crew.] We learn about the unofficial but influential Tome of Royal Succession, a kind of Debrett's Peerage. The Keepers of the Tome will want to know not only about Mortimer becoming Regent, but about Rosemary becoming Taskmistress. We are reminded of the fact that this is a post-apocalyptic setup by the fact that Rosemary is impressed that the Post Office pigeon-holes have doors - and by the fact that those doors are post-Crash architectural salvage. Sherman sees from her form that Rosemary comes from an island called Dyngusmyles, which has a reputation for having wild, backwoods people, and has strange weather because it's close to the Beacons. Sherman himself comes from a mining area in Thull. They compare weather. Sylvester warns Sherman that Rosemary is a fighter and will be wearing a sword as part of her duties. Sherman OKs this but says that while they are in his government office weapons must be deposited in a special receptable, and Mortimer promptly puts his umbrella in it. Sherman fills Sylvester in on various items of news, including the fact that a ship from a far-off region named Coradine has visited a port called Woldercan. Coradine is part of the same continent as the Mansion but it's an island as far west as it gets, quite reclusive, and many of its inhabitants are Motihauls. To get to Woldercan the Coradine ship would have had to sail round the edge of a region called Kadath, which is inhabited by Wendigoes, and past an island called Honaly (as in Puff the Magic Dragon) where there are [human?] Viking-type sea-raiders whom we see sailing a ship whose sail bears the image of the hamster pirate captain. It's possible they came for Yurple Juice, a wildly popular and expensive drink with magical properties. The party take leave of Sherman, promising to return later to set up a post-box for Rosemary and collect the newspaper. There is a mention of the previous day's magical pit-flare being a reoccurring event, and of the recent finding of a dead Ichyoid washed into the harbour. Sylvester says that Myrrh is listed in the Official Threats Compendium, but since she hasn't killed anybody it's not worth anyone's while to go to the trouble of trying to banish her. Behind them, in his office, Sherman looks up Mortimer's umbrella in the Official Threats Compendium, and finds it. We elarn that there's a series of Government departments with harmless-sounding names - Redundancy, Secondary Overlap, Tertiary Retainment - which process information and look for interesting connections. They discuss rural pubs and Rosemary tells them about Rory Vinsmith, an innkeeper in Moonin who murdered some of his customers. In the west he is famous, but now they are so far from her home that nobody's heard of him. Saffron, the local innkeeper at the Moose and Squirrel, may have heard of him, and Sylvester quietly warns Rosemary that Saffron may have heard of her Aunt Eva, the gambler. Eunice Kelso is one of her barmaids. They enter the Moose and Squirrel and meet Sharona, Saffron's neice, who is evidently an old gitrlfriend of Mortimer's. She is overcome by the smell of sphagnum dust coming off Mortimer. They meet Mavis, one of the barmaids, and then Saffron. Saffron takes a bottle of Pudding Liquor, just uncorked that day, from a shelf: something grey is glimpsed poking out from behind an adjacent bottle. They drink from it, and Sylvester immediately passes out, while Rosemary begins seeing imaginary glowing flutterbies. Mortimer seems unaffected. 07: Revelations [30/11/2015 - 27/05/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for the next chapter I decided to include them. Rosemary and Sylvester wake, very groggy, to find themselves lying on a jetty on Alwin Island, the honeymoon destination, accompanied by a grey cat who had been outside the pub. The island will prove to be littered with large stone sculptures, mostly of non-human animals. They agree that they must have been drugged, not just drunk, and discuss possible culprits. Neither of them really thinks it was Saffron, and this is confirmed by a brief view of Mavis the barmaid discovering Saffron herself collapsed behind the bar. Sylvester's main suspect is Old Man Larssen, the town vet, who is very educated but also obsessive and secretive, a bit like Crazy Rhid - even so Sylvester doesn't really think he did it. He half suspects Eunice, who comes from Noodle and could be an agent of his enemies the Noodle Fishmongers' Association. No other visitors are expected - nobody comes there except newlyweds, or about-to-be-weds preparing the venue. There is however a rowing boat concealed on the island. They manage to stagger to their feet in order to go find the boat, but Rosemary thinks they are still both too stoned to steer and suggests that since they were planning to have a private talk anyway, now is a good time and place. About here we also see seasonal Christmas 2015 and New Year 2016 scenes featuring Smyts. Originally I included these Smyt outtakes in the Saturdays in the Basement section, since most of them take place underground, but then Rob decided to make one of them a chapter header which clearly belonged in the main story-line, so I moved them here. The Christmas scene just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but the New Year one is quite information-rich, which is why I've included it here as a regular strip. It shows a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. Sylvester shows Rosemary some of the sights of the island, since as Taskmistress she will be expected to oversee the team of respectable village matrons who prepare the honeymoon cabin for weddings. They return to the dock (and the cat) to sit and talk, on the far side of the island from the village. Further out they can see Scraggy Island, which holds a lighthouse and the town graveyard. The lighthouse keeper is Dougal Izzard. His wife Selene Perkins left but their daughter Shelby stayed, married Grumby the carpenter and had a son Edson who is apprentice lighthouse-keeper. Here there is an outtake scene showing Frederick and Myrrh playing chess with two men called Jebediah and Jones, who are wearing formal dinner suits. These are based on Angus Scrimm and David Bowie, who died that week, and a poster of Grabthar's Hammer on the wall commemorates Alan Rickman, also lost. The next day we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. Sylvester talks Rosemary through the history of the area, beginning with creation by the Brush and the first civilization, the Wilfs and Gobbblems (Dreamers and Builders), who erected wonderful buildings and even had colonies on the moon before destroying each other in the Dawn War. Sylvester has glimpsed what seemed to be a Wilf and a Gobblem through a Panegate, so it may be that there are survivors on other continents. Then the Ettins and Sneeches built up another high-tech civilization and then again destroyed it in war, after which Humans and Nomes moved in, spreading from jungles in the south. Before that destruction, the Ettins built the main towers of the mansions of E and S. The Tower of S was so-called because of an S-shaped mark on the walls, but the Mansion of E is a corruption of the Tower of Ett(in)s - their names were later changed from Tower to Mansion for some beaurocratic reason. Stitched through the main story-line we see more Smyt vignettes. We see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-sized lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). We see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis, and Super Smyt rescuing two other Smyts from a prison, and a Smyt St Patrick driving out serpents, and Smyts partying in a tree for Arbor Day. We learn that nomadic humans who didn't even have agriculture reached the Towers late in the human diaspora, at a time when the country of Ackbar, in the south, already had quite an advanced human civilization along the banks of the Refutation (De Nial). The name of the first Earl isn't known but he led his tribe into the valley and died while storming the Tower. Legend says he fought and defeated living Ettins but this is unlikely given their advanced technology. A lone Ettin skull was later found in the Tower. The first Earl's descendants avoided the interior of the Tower for generations afterwards but they set up camp and built new buildings around its foot. The area was rich in resources and they had to fight off would-be invaders. Sylvester gives Rosemary a detailed run-down of the various Earls, which you can find summarised on the background page. The most salient points are that many of the early Earls were villains and slave-traders who came to power by murdering their predecessors, until they got to the brilliant philosopher and strategist Milo, the Ninth Earl, who severed the family's links to the slave trade, converted to the new religion of the Brush, moved into the Ettin-built Tower and made contact with the Spindizzies. Milo's mother, Persafone, was a slave who deliberately trained Milo up to be a successful warrior who would murder Milo's father, Frake, at her urging, knowing Milo would help her to survive her intended coup against Frake. But Milo's heart was more in intellectual learning than bloodshed and after his wife died he abdicated in favour of his son, and sailed away to explore new lands. Milo's son Dorn I was scientifically-minded and bred the Dornbeasts for use as living siege engines. After he was killed by one his wife Aimee became regent for their son Dorn II, who unfortunately was a shallow sports jock. Dorn II was mostly gay and apart from getting an heir with his wife Olivia his sexual partnership was with a guy named Heffston, who was a much better strategist and ruler than Dorn. In an aside, we see Arthur and Fantod talking to village children. They seem to believe Rosemary and Sylvester are still in the inn with Saffron. Dorn II was killed, possibly by his daughter in law Charlotte, who had a loving but quarrelsome relationship with Dorn's son Lemuel, the Panegate expert. Lemuel eventually abdicated in favour of his daughter Wilhelmina, who was aided by her step-grandfather Heffston. Wilhelmina just called herself W for most purposes and was considered ceremonailly male, to the point of wearing a false beard. She had some magic, restricted to manipulating stone, and was a prolific sculptor who turned Alwin Island into a shrine to her dead husband Alwin. One of her younger sisters became a famous and scary witch called Arianya of the Bracken. W committed suicide by allowing a large block of stone to fall on her, and was succeeded by her son Linus, the combat botanist. He went on an expefition to the jungle and married a Zanduan woman named Padma who was his intellectual equal and they explored the Basement (at a time when most of the species down there were still shut into enclosed habitats) and put in lights. Linus it was who bred The Tree which made Basement society possible. 08: Naming Names [30/05/2016 - 23/12/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for this chapter I decided to include them. The chapter opens with a group of above-ground Smyts celebrating their version of Memorial Day. Sylvester continues to talk about his ancestors, and how Linus took the Seed of the Tree deep into the Basement and never came home. He talks about Griffington, the fifteenth Earl, who was very intelligent but only interested in making money, at which he was very successful. Griffington went on an expedition to the Infernal Engine, which was smaller in those days (so it's still growing), and to Mechana to look at their technology. He and other techs of the period managed to make their own basic robots and restore some of the much better Ettin ones - one of the latter, Akillhees, works in mathematics at the university. Griffington had a lot of commercial enemies and rivals, including the Scion of S. He died in an industrial accident (or maybe not an accident). [Out-take: eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub.] Griffington was succeeded by his son Angus and Angus's loyal and more cunning brother Cyrus. Angus went on a tour, like his ancestors, but he took an army with him and conquered S and other neighbouring states although some of them, such as Rowen, gave as good as they got. [Out-takes - a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch, and the next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise.] When Angus and Cyrus were young, Cyrus married Cassandra Grayflint and they had a son Artston. Griffington sent Angus to visit the Infernal Engine to broaden his mind, and as a result he fell for a very wild, rough but playful female techie named Syn who somewhat resembled Myrrh, who refused to marry him but became his consort, and who died in childbirth giving birth to Audra. Audra grew up at loggerheads with Cyrus, who had d1strusted her mother. In later life Angus's conquests ground to a halt and he died peacefully in bed - and Cyrus promptly tried to seize the earldom for himself and his son. [Fourth of July out-take - a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake.] Audra thrashed Cyrus in combat and convinced him to become her loyal follower. Together they conquered Rowen and then consolidated their holdings and formed the Northwoods Alliance. Audra contracted a loveless political marriage with the intellectually brilliant John Harfang, with whom she had a son, Ludwig. [Out-take - two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake to mark the strip's thirteenth birthday.] The Northwoods Alliance stood against the advancing army of Yorik Yurp, later Yorick I, and lost, despite the best efforts of John Harfang who, under the alias "The Frost Fox", served as a secret agent and was killed while on a mission (and later became the subject of a series of lurid spy thrillers). Audra protected Ludwig by hiding him away as a child and then sending him to the university under an assumed name, while getting one of Cyrus's grandchildren (so Ludwig's second cousin) to pretend to be Ludwig in order to draw Yorik's fire. The Northwoods Alliance eventually lost the war, in part because Wirtwam decided that Yorik was the lesser of two evils and Hyacinth of Wirtwam married him. But the war was long and bloody and forced the pace of technological development. Audra and Cyrus were probably looking for a technological edge when they poked the Hot Zone and were killed, but their deaths really finished the Alliance. Yorik crushed their last resistance by destroying the town of Glome (and incidentally probably killing the fake Ludwig), then re-built it, and any local nobles who were willing to swear allegiance were grafted into the new Yurpsland heirarchy. The real Ludwig was one of them - the Yurpsland troops didn't know who he was, and in any case had known Audra as the head of the Northwoods Alliance, not as the Earl of E. Ludwig's politically astute partner Penelope Orrery from Gilad (a temple-administered neutral state) coached him on how to do this. [Out-take - a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell.] Sylvester isn't sure whether Yorik was really fooled over Ludwig, or knew who he was but decided to spare him. Ludwig was a super-genius who enjoyed university and made many friends there; he was very popular with the girls and could have had his pick of the local beauties, but preferred the slightly plain Penelope for her brains. Ludwig didn't graduate because he went home to help his mother with the war affort; Penelope worked out his real identity somehow, and followed him (and reached E before he did). It was because Ludwig never graduated that the fund set up to pay for his tuition was never wound up, and remained available to pay future heirs' university fees. Ludwig tried to stop his mother from poking the Hot Zone but she did it anyway, and died, and he and Penelope were left holding the reins. They actually did very well, since Ludwig was able to sell his inventions - materially assisted by Yorik's conquest of the whole area, which had resulted in a unified trading and patent system. [Out-take for Labor Day - a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks.] It is mentioned that vamphyrs don't really exisa but zombies do (but only briefly as they tend to explode), that many of Ludwig's devices were one-off prototypes and that Yorik I wrote his own memoirs. These memoirs are little known because his son wasn't that interested in promoting them, and besides they weren't very well-written. But they deal extensively with Audra, whom Yorik rather admired - it was he who re-named the province where E is situated Audravania. [Out-take for Talk Like a Pirate Day - Captain Hamster, the crew of the Pretty Lady and a gull are all getting drunk on grog.] Ludwig died of pneumonia after getting soaked while walking in the rain. His son Ernest, hedonist, (consensual) philanderer and forger, took over. His parents were disappointed because he wasn't interested in science, or all that bright, but he was very interested in plays and a reasonably good actor himself, when he could be bothered. He married Lucidia Penderghast, gold-digger and amateur actress, and they nearly deserved each other. At university Ernest discovered that he was good at maths, history and a proficient if uninspired kind of art. He did a certain amount of commercial graphics work and a lot of art forgery, although the latter was really just a hobby. He was a fairly successful playwright, although not good at dialogue, and very good at improving other people's scripts. He and Lucidia fought a lot but seemed to enjoy it, and they had three sons, Philbert, Hindenburgh the wizard, and Valentin, who was the one to whom the Djinnoscope gave a clean death. Ernest was fatally stabbed by, or over, one of his lovers. [Out-take for Columbus Day - a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt.] Philbert married the artist Hepzibah Kelly and founded a chain of "Lovelace" orphanages, using Kelly's mother's maiden name. He helped preserve the Forest of Burzee as a public park instead of letting it be carved up into private estates. He supported many smaller charities and was a faithful husband. But Sylvester believes he did these things to rebuild the family's post-Ernest reputation, not because he really cared. Philbert was killed in a motor-racing accident a month before the Crash and was succeeded by his son Quincy. Quincy was not very bright, but he was genuinely caring and scraped through university by hard work. His Hall of Achievement entry just says that he tied his own shoes, but this turns out to be fairly serious: he kept walking, kept trying, and held the Mansion area together after the Crash. He survived the Crash because he, his brother Frederick and Myrrh were in Aruba, which uses no magic. Afterwards they had to walk hundreds of miles home - hence the importance of the shoes. On their way they picked up another survivor, Agnes Bloggett, who married Quincy. Hepzibah, who had stayed home because of health problems, died in the Crash. Quincy eventually died after falling from one of the Mansion's towers. [Out-takes - a Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en. Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. A Smyt nurse gives soup to a patient in bed. Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives.] Willoughby attended university where he met his future wife, Dorothea Mundivagant. Both were very vague but possibly magically gifted. Sylvester thinks that it was wrong of Frederick not to tell Mortimer that he, Mortimer, was a wizard - but it was probably a good decision not to tell Willoughby that he was. They had six children - Sylvester, Ace, Mortimer, the twins Lilith and Lenore, and Rufus. Rufus was conceived because the local contraceptive Stiflebloom plant had failed. [Out-take for Armistice Day - two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war.] Because Willoughby was so lazy and detached it was really Frederick and Myrrh who ran the earldom. After Willoughby died in the notorious Noodle Incident, Frederick became official Regent until Sylvester finished at university. [Thanksgiving out-take - two Smyts eat until they are insensible.] Sylvester did well at university and made friends, especially Bertrum W Skinknottle (who fell for and married Honoria Clemens) and Nimue Fayling. The students were divided into Houses. Nimue was in training to take over the family business, growing oranges. She and Sylvester dated, but split up because neither would give up their family responsibility. Sylvester went home alone and took over the Earl's duties. He found a job for Ace. His mother Dorothea inherited cash from her mother, and she and Lil went travelling. Mortimer and Rufus stayed around, and Mortimer started bringing home strange women, most notably Olga Q Bonmarrow, a drifter with mental health issues who was in love with Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Basement society has come along tremendously during Sylvester's lifetime (so post-Crash), and the idea that the Sneeches might be behind this. Sylvester forgot to ask Myrrh what she saw in the Sneech den, and now they don't even know where she is. We see that she is in a cat café, talking to the cats as if they understand each other. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss whether the Dohickey thank-you gift was for Sylvester or for his whole family, and Rosemary points out that the first Earls were meant to have killed off the Ettins who were holding the Sneeches prisoner. Whether they did or not, the Sneeches may believe they did. They discuss the fact that Sneeches do have childen, and whether or not they have intelligible emotions. Finally, Rosemary says that eveything else can wait, and that she will follow Sylvester's plans. He says he can't make plans until he knows what it is that Rosemary stole. She agrees to show it to him, but tells him to cover his eyes and ears while she gets it out of the Poke-Kit, so he doesn't learn any codes which he might later be forced to reveal. 09: Wreaking Havoc [26/12/2016 - 07/07/2017] Rosemary produces from the Poke Kit an oval object which she says is called the HJ42 but she thinks it's also a mythological object called the Chaos Key. This is clearly the same item which has been being passed around among the Basement folk - not just another of the same model but this actual one, becausae HJ42 is the designation of a specific instance of this gadget which was collected by an anthropological expedition. Either it's looped through time to appear twice in the same area at the same time, or when Rosemary thinks it's safely tucked away in her Poke Kit, it isn't. As the Chaos Key it has been used to open various kinds of metaphorical and literal doors, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Rosemary studied its semi-legendary history in the libraries of Hack'n'Slash. It may have been implicated in the Thricklefork Demon Massacre. It caused strange events - including a giant man-eating flower - at a place called Bellona. It was passed around the clans of Erewhon, trailing odd happenings. It was used to rob a bank, then disappeared from view, only to reappear among the artefacts brought back by the Hendrick-Joost Expedition. At this point Rosemary puts it back in the Poke Kit and she and Sylvester agree not to mention the name "Chaos Key" again if they can avoid it, but just to refer to it as the HJ42. The Hendrick-Joost Expedition came from the High University of Azimuth and visited the Infernal Engine, among other places. Many of the items they "collected" were really looted. Eventually Azimuth returned some of them to Yurpsland, including "HJ-42". These returned items were parcelled out between various Yurpsland museums and collectors, and #42 went to an Erewhonian noble named Cuddlup, who passed it on to an Erewhonian sect called the Chromans. The Chromans were great collectors and displayers of curios which demonstrated the wonders of the world - some of which were magically active. The most dangerous were kept in an offshore fortress which went into meltdown during the Crash. The HJ42 was put on display in various places but it made people nervous, so it was moved to a medium-level facility in a place called Gowplace at the tip of the Lawnrock Peninsula. After the Crash, Gowplace was re-named Chroma and became the Chromans' capital, and the HJ42 dropped out of sight again for several decades. About ten years ago, or forty years after the Crash, it resurfaced as part of a travelling Chroman display for which H&S provided security, and eventually it caused some alarming effect, although Rosemary's security clearance wasn't high enough to find out what. It was put back into storage, but at this point rumours about it began to be passed around. It was at this point that Rosemary first heard about it and began to research it - and so, unfortunately, did Tansy Rugan, the leader of the Quincunx, a kind of sinister private army. Rosemary started to suspect the Quincunx were searching for the HJ42, and knew it would be a seriously Bad Thing if they found it. She couldn't get H&S to take her concerns seriously enough, so she went AWOL, rode all the way to Chroma and stole the HJ42 herself. Two hours later the Quincunx arrived and started hunting her. She did her best to evade them but eventually Tansy cornered her. One of the buttons on the device was glowing so in desperation Rosemary pressed it, thinking that it might cause an explosion which would take out Tansy and her 2inC Nathan Holn along with Rosemary herself. Instead, it teleported her to the forest near Eetown. At first she wasn't sure whether she'd been moved through time or space, but then she met Mortimer and realised from his accent that she had shifted a long way to the east. She was very dazed and disoriented and just followed Mortimer home. They talk for a while about how Rosemary ended up with Hack'n'Slash in the first place. Bored with farming muckroots and lobster-fishing, she became a crew-woman on a boat called the Oshinoxtra. From there she went to the mainland and worked on a large farm, and even served as a minion on a Saur hunt. Once she'd saved up enough money she went to see the nearest city, Jonetown. Everything there was far more expensive than she'd expected but as luck would have it she was in the right place to rescue Edwird Soloman, a retired bureaucrat who was being harrassed by louts. She and Edwird hit it off and became firm friends, and he gave her a place to stay. She became his bodyguard and housekeeper, read his books and reached an uneasy accommodation with his girlfriend, Mrs Rumble. Sometime later, Rosemary and some friends were scavenging in a scrapyard when they encountered the demon Scratch, and Rosemary managed to overcome him to the point where he was willing to discuss his situation and behave reasonably. This caused unpleasantness between the neighbours and Edwird, and brought Rosemary to the attention of Hack'nSlash, who recruited her. While they are tidying up conversational loose ends, Rosemary tells Sylvester about a hermit she met in the SAR (where there are many hermits, but this one is The Hermit), and who was probably a wizard (or just possibly a demon). They establish that demons can communicate over long distances via leylines, hence Edgar learned Rosemary's name from Scratch, and Myrrh could arrange visits from friends. Rosemary is reluctant to ask Myrrh to pass along messages. Sylvester assures her Myrrh can keep a secret. They discuss Ilsa, who has a very able illegitimate daughter, Druscilla, who works for the big bank in the capital. Ilsa writes to her wih local gossip, so news of Rosemary's presence will soon reach the capital. Ilsa is half Haroon, and the Haroons do not worship the Brush, much, or care what the Oracles think about having children out of wedlock. Sylvester is trying to modernise the village, with some cooperation from the current Oracle, Threnody, who is a great improvement over her predecessor Omega. It is mentioned that opposite Frederick and Myrrh's old room there is a door labelled "Gwen's stuff", but neither of them knows who Gwen is or was. Sylvesgter has never investigated it, but assumes Myrrh will have done so. They discuss the fact that when Sylvester met with Protus he saw visions of Rhid and Villipend, whom they then met, so evidently he was seeing the future. He also saw Rosemary fighting a woman with a glowing glove, and that may be a true vision too. Rosemary thinks from the description that it is Tansy Rugan, so they will have to meet and fight some time soon. At least she'll probably have the Can-Opener, but she doesn't have it with her now. Sylvester wants them to have regular conferences, but he's not going to say where the next one is, in case of eavesdroppers. They discuss Rosemary's old teachers, and whether Myrrh and Frederick are gone for good: Rosemary hopes they are, Sylvester misses them. We glimpse Frederick being given an Ides of March cake by a waitress wearing antennae - or deely-boppers. Olaf Larrsen, the village vet, turns up in a motorboat and is introduced to Rosemary, who he is glad to see is not a "demon, Bonmarrow or Flibbler". Flibblers, whatever they are, are everywhere. Olaf agrees to give them a lift in return for information and a discount on the organs of the Dornbeast Rosemary killed the night she arrived (less than two days ago). He takes the couple and the cat back to the mainland. En route they discuss the reorganisation at the manor, and the Crash - Olaf used to build thaumtools, before the Crash, and has been able to measure the fact that magic is very slowly returning. He thinks the local Ichyoids are up to something. He tells them about the hamster pirate captain, who has now ceased to be an out-take and become part of main canon, and that he has met Protus, who was talking about someone named Winnifred. Sylvester warns Olaf that Nirvana Clepe may be back in the area. Sylvester asks Olaf whether he has seen Frowgler - he hasn't - but we cut away to see Frowgler talking to the village Flittermouse in her tower. She tells him that her name is Vyon Ward Parkin, an orphan who was taken in by the Flittermice after she was shunned because her family had died in a "Spew" from the Infernal Engine, and peoople feared she might be contaminated. We see that the Flittermice have a universal presence, at least in Yurpsland, and use actual bats as messengers. The Flittermice are an Order, whose job is to "flit into the dark places and do the mucky jobs that need to be done" - which they agree is also Frowgler's job. Vyon herself was literally posted to her new position in Eetown, in a box. It's a lonely job and she appreciates Frowgler's company, but she could have left if she wanted to, and did not. He gives her a "laughter marble" and says that some day everyone will know who he is behind the mask, then he leaves via an artificial tunnel which looks as if it was made for the purpose, and which takes him to water. As Frowgler swims away, we see him pass a tank containing an octopus named Aloysius. Violet Hopkirk lures Aloysius to the surface and milks him of ink. She overhears people gossipping about Frederick's retirement. We overhear two of her employers talking about her and how she has the talent to work on a "Wrangrig", but it isn't safe for girls. Cut to Sylvester and co. in the boat, discussing Wrangling Rigs, aka octopus inkpull platforms, and the fact that it's "not safe" for girls because it's thought to be bad luck, locally, to have a woman on board. Violet, who has a reputation for not talking, overhears more gossip, quizzes a local boy and learns about Sylvester's party going into The Moose and Squirrel and not coming out. She goes to the inn to talk to Eunice Kelso about it. Eunice doesn't know where the party went, and shoos Violet away. Violet returns to her mother, Helena, and they gossip about Rosemary. Sylvester greets a trapper in another boat, name of Rod, and his young son Ash. Ash is very interested in Rosemary. Mention is made of a Mobile Confectioners' Guild, whose members include salesmen called Lollipop Perambulators. Sylvester finds Ash refreshing - too many people treat him either with scorn or fear because of his position. Olaf tells Ash to tell his friend Aloysius (not the octopus!) to stay out of his garden, because it's magic. Sylvester tells him to spread the word that there is going to be a meeting at the Temple to formally introduce Rosemary. Rod and Ash in their boat sail past an islet with a distance marker on it, then we see a gull try to land on the islet, and be scared away by a green, snakey-looking thing which says "Boo" in Ichyoid runes. This is one of the same tentacled things (perhaps the same individual) which we saw in the Basement, rescuing Shabash from a reservoir. Rob and Ash come to shore and we see Ash gossipping with Aloysius on the dockside - both boys look about ten years old. A gull - perhaps the same one that was chased off by the tentacled thing - is sitting near Aloysius. Ash passes on Olaf's message about the magic garden, and Sylvester's about the Temple meeting. As they walk past the Spewing Wall - a forum for graffiti - the Flitttermouse's laughter marble hits the ground behind them, and Aloysius picks it up, hides it and tells Ash it's just a rock. The gull flits in and out of shot near them. They pass Fantod and the Weirdo having an adult conversation with Melba Corrigan and her whimp-pig Wilbur. Ash and Aloysius tell Fantod that they are planning to go to a haunted ruin tomorrow, and he warns them it might fall down, then Fantod warns Aloysius, specifically, to be careful with"whatever it is yer doin' all of a sudden". We then see the Oracle Threnody, in a medical office listening to a man's chest with a stethoscope; Mayoress Saffron Stout sitting behind her desk - and the Flittermouse, scoring things off a list on a notice board. Written on the corner of the board (not part of the list) is a note saying "Tell truth". She has a sort of umbrella stand which has various sorts of pole in it, including a Sneech stick. 10: Into the Woods [10/07/2017 - 03/11/2017] To start with we see Myrrh, who seems not to need to breathe, strolling through an undersea forest before rising to the surface; Frederick still being served food by the waitress in deely-boppers; and a female Eyebolt named Shmelcathy working at her desk. Other women in deely-boppers (all this culture wear them) are monitoring Frederick on a screen, under the command of an older woman with fluffy white hair, and are expressing amazement at how much he has eaten without passing out. They talk about his herediscan - he is related to a previous test subject - and how he must be a thaumaturgre to stay conscious, yet he isn't setting off their magic-detectors. The waitress, Svetlana Rostova, is told to tail him, and we learn that they are in the Zamyatin Spire, a very high-tech-looking place. Zamyatin Spire residents are all women, but other spires are for men only, or mixed. They discuss Yurpsland politics, which involve a ceremonial, hereditary king and a separate political ruler who seems to be self-appointed rather than elected. Also the fact that Frederick is a demithaumaturge, and that the Spires are on a major tricklepoint, so were not much affected by the Crash and still have working pre-Crash technology, which involves some enornmous gears which were built by an unknown society from before the Ettins. Svetlana is impressed to learn that Frederick's family have their own library, in which he read about the Spires. When Myrrh is mentioned, Svetlana surmises that Myrrh is Frederick's wife, because he wouldn't have been allowed into Zamyatin Spire if he didn't have a wife. They discuss the arrangements for straight women like Svetlana who wish to find a mate when they live in an all-female Spire, and see an agent of sorts, holding a giant needle like a dagger and trying to arrest somebody for smuggling Fuzz jars. Singing Fuzzes are a big fad in the Spires and are bred for size, intelligence and voice, which suggests that this could be the past of Frizzlegarb's future world of Hollows and Fuzz communities. Special barriers prevent Fuzzes from being moved from one Spire to another, except in jars. Myrrh, meanwhile, arises from a water-filled tube into a sort of domed cockpit, in which there is a plant-covered floor dotted with flowers and one of the little mini-Trog-like creatures which we saw Rosemary chasing out of the Mansion at the start of the story. She presses a button and then climbs up some sort of stair or ladder - with the little critter riding on her head - to a room where there is a naked male musician named Jones (who is clearly based on David Bowie/Jones, and is either a fellow demon or a large nome, as he has pointed ears), who plays the flute for her. Finally we see her pressing her claws into a set of holes on a control that opens a round purple door, and then standing in a place where there are striped, rugby-ball-shaped lights, and an enormous bust of a bearded, humanoid male demon wearing a medal. It's not clear whether this last image is part of the canonical sequence or just a Hallowe'en special. Frederick and Svetlana end up on a balcony which Svetlana calls a Bubble-viweing Recreation Platform, overlooking a hall where large coloured bubbles with blurry images inside well up, but Frederick says it's a Spindizzy interface chamber. We learn that the Spire community has a low birthrate and takes in orphans from elsewhere, but Svetlana was born there and heard her parents mention legless, truthful flying beings who could have been either Spindizzies or Helipaths. She is not sure whether the Spire city belonged to the Ettins or the Sneeches, originally - only that it was contested between two species. Frederick describes ancient weaponry - the Ettins used city-smashing Doombombs and the Sneeches used Tangles, giant vines which could infitrate and wreck Ettin machinery. Frederick has worked out that something was meant to happen to him in the restaurant where Svetlana works, but she assures him he wasn't intended to die. Solzhenitsyn Spire is about death, but Zamyatin is all about collecting and hoarding information. Frederick wants to go ask the nearest archivist about Spindizzies. Svetlana is unnerved by this, as asking questions is discouraged. They discuss the fact that Frederick is still collecting information which may be useful to his family, even though he is retired, and that Myrrh may or may not decide she has retired, and we see the woman with fluffy white hair monitoring their converation. Fredrick says he is filling in time until Myrrh gets back from "whatever you all have her doing", and it is at this point that we see Myrrh opening the purple door. Cutting back to Eetown, we see Olaf's boat pulling in to his private dock, and Captain Hamster's crew sleeping off a binge-drinking session, and Mortimer, with umbrella, waking in the woods (to which he was evidently transported from the pub, in the same way that his brother and Rosemary were transported to the island) with the sense that some sort of revelation has slipped away from him, and then encountering Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party in the woods. Once on shore, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Olaf knew Mortimer was a wizard, but didn't tell him. We see that Olaf has a fenced-off telegraph pole topped with magical gadgets. Mortimer is very relieved to see that Nitfol survived the Spyder, but ashamed that he had accidentally led the beavcer-shark to destroy Nitfol's home tree. Fizmo realises that Mortimer owes Nitfol a favour and can take them beyond the "Edge of the World", but Mortimer doesn't know what she means. At this point we get some portraits of various characters - Ilsa's and Saffron's parents, characters from the Willy the Wendigo books, some past E Weirdos, and one of Sylvester's university lecturers. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, discussing Olaf's thaum measurements. Sylvester thinks he has a second agenda - perhaps an attempt to bring back magic, which even the High University of Azimuth has been unable to do. Sylvester thinks this is a good idea, because he wants humanity to explore the other planets in the system, and doesn't see much future in steam power. Mortimer, Nitfol and Fizmo establish their frames of reference. The Nomes' world can be walked across in a day or two, and is bounded by a wall of mist you can't push through, and centred on the Spike - Fizmo's father Foblub was an exlporer, but even he didn't manage to walk all the way around the edge. Mortimer remembers a Spindizzy called Charles telling him about a solid haze. Sylvester shows Rosemary a road which leads south to a place called Eisles where there is a ferry across the River E, but no city because the nearby shore is too rocky for a port, and then on to Obtown. He points out Olaf Larrsen's house and then they head back towards the woods - as they do so they pass Aloysius hiding behind a bush, with the gull next to him. 11: New Openings [06/11/2017 - 02/02/2018] Rosemary tells Sylvester there was a kid hiding behind the bush they just passed, and Sylvester identifies him as Aloysius Culpepper, an orphan who lives with his uncle and aunt. We see Aloysius and the gull sneak into Olaf Larrsen's place and poke about in the fields, before using an upturned bucket to climb through a shed window, after testing that a magic-emitting plant on a shelf inside is safe by throwing a stick at it. He winds up a clockwork figure of a running man (later referred to as the Flailer, so probably its feet are meant to pound grain), and the noise attracts Olaf, who is carrying a fishing net with a hole in the bottom. He tells Aloysius to follow him or go home, so Aloysius and the gull follow him. They go to the main house where they are greeted by Olaf's housekeeper - we see Sylvester telling Rosemary that this is Ilsa, who used to work at the Mansion. Ilsa asks Aloysius what the gull's name is, but Aloysius says gulls only have names when they are flying. We see a scene of three gulls by the seashore, including one wearing a hat, who is part of the pirate hamster's crew, and still looks hungover. We return to Mortimer, talking to the Nomes. Nitfol doesn't know what Spindizzies are but he does know about the Mansion, because his father was a scholar who owned two and a half books. We see Nitfol's father with two books, one labelled "Socks", the other "Cookiedice", which is the name of one of the Hollows where we see Fuzzes living in the future. Mortimer mentions the library at the Mansion - Fizmo doesn't believe such a thing is possible, but Nitfol has heard stories of large book collections. We see a shadowy image of a female Nome filing scrolls on big racks. Mortimer describes the library as being in the Ivory Tower, which leads to a long digression about behemoth teeth (if behemoths are really elephants, Mortimer has a very confused idea of what they look like), and he mentions that there is an apartment at the top, with a pool, but nobody lives in it now, "most of the time". He mentions that the tower was built by Ludwig, which leads to a very muddled conversation, because the Nomes know Ludwig as a cult figure worshipped by some people in the Basement. Mortimer manages to explain about the Spindizzies and how literal they are, and how he once told Charles he felt trapped and Charles told him about the mist barrier. Mortimer thinks the Spindizzies might know how to bring the barrier down: Fizmo thinks this is fantasy, but Nitfol wants to meet them. Nitfol and Fizmo go off to confer, while the Pale who may be Thrash seeks to attract Mortimer's attention to something, and Mortimer wonders aloud whether this is the same Pale (Thrash) he met yesterday with Frowgler. We return to Zamyatin Spire, where Svetlana is disturbed by Frederick's whistling, because music is discouraged except in the gym and at culture festivals. She takes him to a stern-lloking senior archivist, who wasn't expecting them - Frederick tells this woman his name, but says she doesn't need to know Svetlana's. In Eetown, Ilsa brings cocoa (which he has never had before) for Aloysius, herb tea for Olaf and tripewater for the gull. Olaf says he's an old man and he has had to keep his books locked away because Omega didn't want people to see them, but now she's gone and her influence is waning, he has been hoping for someone like Aloysius to come along. He told Ash to tell Aloysius to stay away from the magic because he knew it would lure him in. Aloysius correctly surmises that Olaf wants him as an apprentice. Olaf says his wife Mamie, after whom his boat is named, died fifty years ago(by implication, in the Crash), so if Aloysius comes every day he can, and learns magic and veterinary medicine, when Olaf dies he will leave his house and all his money to Aloysius, aside from a bit for Ilsa. Olaf tells Aloysius that no wizwitch could channel all the forms of magic, but some were generalists who could do a little of a lot, and some, known as Hedgewizwitches, could do only one thing but did it very well. Mamie was one, because all she could do was heal, but very well. Aloysius is another - an "Animal Empathist", hence his link with the gull. Mortimer is still talking to the Pale who may or may not be Thrash, and shows him his umbrella. He tells the Pale that he is a wizard and asks if that's the problem, and the Pale shakes his head. Meanwhile Nitfol tells Fizmo he isn't going to go off with Mortimer immediately, but he will at some point, because Zpeaker also thought the barrier could be brought down, and if Nitfol's political plan fails they will at least have a means of leaving. The Pale draws Mortimer's attention to the fact that Spyders are creeping up on them. Frederick speaks to Senior Archivix Anushka Zhdanov. She tells him he is allowed to access archives up to Level Three, but won't say how many levels there are above that. He asks for information on Spindizzies. She asks if he is a Yurpslander, and when he says he is, she calls for someone named Snegurka and sends her to fetch a file. Olaf tells Aloysius that neither of them is a full wizard, but that in theory if you make the right thaum machine you can mimic any power. However, there isn't enough energy around post-Crash, so animal empathy is impossible to mimic and no one will be "horning in" on Aloysius's skill. There are no other empaths in the area, but there are a few other wizwitches of other kinds - some who know what they are (we see Myrrh, Amos Grubb and Mortimer) and some who don't (we see a teenage boy in a soft baggy hat, and a short teenage girl with a lot of long, bushy hair) and who he doesn't think could handle being told. 12: The New Level [05/02/2018 - 01/05/2016] At the start of the chapter we see Melba Corrigan's blobwart-vending cart and her pet pig Wilbur sitting in front of a large bush. Her hat is lying on the bush, and two butterflies (not flutterbys) fly up from behind it. Probably they represent sex and/or kisses, and she is behind the bush with Arthur the Weirdo. Faint words on the hedge appear to spell out "Nutella weather person" - I've no idea why. Rosemary and Sylvester arrive back at Eetown's South Road Gate. Sylvester would rather go home, but Rosemary reminds him that he needs to collect the post, and says that it probably wasn't a villager in a boat that took them to Alwin. They both think it was probably Mortimer, by magic, which means he has immense innate power and the potential to be "quite something". Meanwhile, Mortimer's party start to back away from a Spyder, which begins to spew thick ropes of web at them, while another one boxes them in from behind. But Thrash (Rob's notes seem to confirm that it is Thrash, so the stripe he had on his chest before must have been painted on) slashes their web-ropes with his sickle and beats down the one in front of Mortimer. It's not clear whether he has killed it or not, but he probably has, as later they will pass a dead one in that direction. Meanwhile, Senior Archivix Anushka offers Frederick a chair and a cup of tea while he waits for his file. Svetlana is impressed and concerned, as teachairs are only offered to important guests, and she isn't authorised to associate with important guests, but doesn't wish to leave. The Archivix gives Frederick permission for Svetlana to stay and have tea too, but Svetlana says it's not Anushka's decision to make. Olaf thinks Aloysius can handle being told he has magic, but also that an empathist can't do much harm. He warns him not to tell anyone else about his magic, because there are people - the picture implies it's official, government people - looking to capture functioning wizwitches. It's possible that Aloysius may have other, minor talents as well as his main one - Mamie did - and there are tests for this, but Olaf can't administer them. Amos and Frederick both could, but Frederick won't. Rosemary suggests that if Mortimer is going to be "something" so will Sylvester, since Mortimer obeys him. As they talk, a Flutterby - a creature with which Mortimer has a strong affinity - comes to them with a scrap of cloth tied around it, bearing a message apparently written in blood. Back to Mortimer's party. The Pales are fighting off the Spyders, and kill at least one behind Mortimer, but the Spyders keep coming. Mortimer has a moment of crisis where he decides he will no longer be either a follower or a causer of problems, and he shoots magical force from his umbrella-wand, declaring that there will be no more killing or dying (and gives himself an electric shock). The surviving Spyders run off, and we see two Spyders discussing the fact that they had thought all human wizwitches had been killed in the Crash, and that this raises the possibility that there may still be humans who are able to "talk" (I'm guessing this means Aloysius's animal empathy) and they must call a conclave to discuss this. Svetlana confirms to Frederick that it is her boss (or at least, the person who told her to watch Frederick) who decides whether she may stay and drink tea or not. She has a number as well as a name. Frederick addresses the security bugs in the walls and asks for Svetlana to be made his guide, stating her name and number, and since nobody answers with an objection, Svetlana is officially promoted to that role. She isn't sure what she thinks about this, as she had enjoyed being a waitress, but she does quite like her cup of tea. Olaf tells Aloysius that Amos gave up being an active wizard before the Crash - the pictures imply this had something to do with Myrrh, but Olaf will only tell Aloysius about it if Aloysius agrees to be trained. Amos has already asked Olaf to come to the Mansion to discuss something, so he will take Aloysius with him, but Aloysius shouldn't mention his possible apprenticeship etc. to Amos's wife Nellie. They have a complex misunderstanding about what "having views" means, which leads to mention of an apparently blind woman called Gretta Weed, who in the metaphorical sense sees further than Nellie. Gretta is brighter than Nellie, and Saffron brighter than Gretta, but Olaf is more concerned with their open-mindedness to new possibilities. They discuss the fact that once he is trained, Aloysius will have the choice to stay in Eetown or to move elsewhere. Once they have found a private spot, Sylvester reads his message, which says "Open Training Gate. Urgent." This refers to one of the Panegates at the Mansion. Sylvester still has to complete buisness in town but will rush through it. We see him ask a sausage vendor named Claudia what people are talking about - which is really all the news from the Mansion. She has been selling a lot of sausages because people are anxious/excited about the changes. Fizmo and Nitfol are surprised and impressed that Mortimer is a wizard, and reveal in conversation that Fizmo works for Frowgler, and Nitfol sort-of does too. We see Frowgler underground, talking to a Shallow Wyrm named Parkin who is guarding the Circle at the World's End. Fizmo says Frowgler can see the future (which Mortimer cannot), and warned her about a job she took. We see her underground in her hazmat suit, looking at a little creature similar to a Shallow Wyrm but not one, which is growling at her. Mortimer says Frowgler gave him good advice, but he works for his brother Sylvester, not for Frowgler. He tells them Sylvester is a sort of mayor, avoiding the charged word "Earl" by chance or design. Svetlana reveals that she prefers kvass to tea, although this is against her culture. The Spire folk drink actual tea, but tea in Yurpsland is usually brewed from other plants. Frederick himself drinks - cautiously - things brewed by Myrrh. They get onto discussing Yurplejuice - neither Svetlana nor Anoshka has tasted it, because it's restricted, and even in Yurpsland it's regulated. Olaf tells Aloysius about the other half of his business - the first half is treating sick animals, the second half is making and selling thaum-powered gadgets. He has always refused to make magical weapons - Zap-Tridents - partly out of morality and partly in case someone buys one and then kills him to prevent him making any for anyone else. In any case they only work at Tricklepoints, such as the one under the Mansion. To make his own gadgets work away from a Tricklepoint he has built big, cumbersome energy collectors. Aloysius shows Olaf the laughter marble, and Olaf says it does party tricks, which he will show him in the workshop. 13: Thicket [02/05/2018 - 16/11/2018] Sylvester says Claudia will be selling a lot more sausages, because more changes are coming, because he is planning to be more pro-active. He and Rosemary discuss Mayor Saffron's temper. Mortimer says he arrived here (in the woods) by accident, but now he's here he will help the Nomes. He asks why they are there and Fizmo says they are going to "that Crystal Thicket". Nitfol is initially angry, but Fizmo says that if Mortimer (with his evident magical power) is working for Mayor Koyeeb they're all dead anyway. Nitfol discusses good and bad leaders with Mortimer, and Mortimer correctly concludes that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb. He is still willing to help, on the understanding that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb for an ethical reason (i.e. because he is very bad at his job) and that he isn't planning to kill him. He knows where the Crystal Thicket is. Frederick tells Svetlana and Anoshka about Yurplejuice, which he hasn't had since the funeral of Mariah, the Mansion's groom, when they still had horses. It's made in Wirtvale, and the stuff which Yurpsland exports is second-rate, but the best brands are wonderful. This leads to a conversation about funerals: the Spire folk file their dead on shelves in a catacomb, but they do have a ceremony. They talk about the fact that Spire folk are trained for their jobs, but Frederick had to muddle through as both wizard and regent, and didn't do a terrific job. We see Myrrh emerging from a hole in a rocky floor, into a cavern where there are many pink stalactites and stalagmites. She is preceded by a butterfly - perhaps signifying that she and Jones have had sex. In the cavern is a giant Metalmin who knows what she is - it addresses her as "zarkette" - and challenges her to a game of chess. We see a woman with puffy white hair watching Myrrh and the Metalmin on a screen: this is the same woman who was earlier seen overseeing the team who were discussing the fact that Frederick wasn't being knocked out by what they had fed him. She is probably Svetlana's boss. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, still discussing Saffron Stout, and Saffron's father, who died when Sylvester was five, and her mother, who kept small yappy dogs. Neither was at all communicative about their past. Mortimer tells the Nomes there may be a magical way of getting where they're going. He tries to compare Panegates with the treewarping the Nomes do, which requires planning and equipment. Nitfol knows about twistpoints, but Mortimer says Panegates are safer, and there's one that leads to the edge of the Thicket. He has to explain that it's Panegate, not Paingate. Mention is made of Fizmo's married sister Fweep. Meanwhile, Frederick says that Spire folk who do badly at their jobs get sacked. Yurpsland is a young, recently unified country which hasn't worked out how to do things yet, whereas the Spire regime is 400 years old. He speaks about a Yurpslander named Owen Gregiry, who wrote a study on the Spires, and about various Spire monarchs, including the famous Ivana III, who fought off the Wendigoes. Frederick is more interested in Vasily II, who wanted to introduce changes. We flash to Violet Hopkirk, telling her mother she's going out but will be back in time to help with supper. Young Ash is her brother. We see the Flittermouse in her tower, watching Violet through a telescope as she sets out. Then we see Eunice calling two lads called Ricky and Wendell to come out from a wooden structure, because Saffron needs them. Then we see the old man and former Guardian Terin Flem, sitting on a rock talking to his grandchildren Stephan and Sparrow. He is going to wait at the rock until he sees the Mansion party come by on their way out of the village. We see Rosemary and Sylvester discussing the mayor of her home town, how as an orphan she was a problem for him, and how her Aunt Eva came to take her in. Eva was also seen as a problem because she had run off to the city, picked up foreign ways and then returned rich. There are things Rosemary wonders about Eva's return, but she's not going to talk about it in town where there are potential eavesdroppers. Mortimer and the Nomes agree that it would be as tedious to trek to the Mansion to find the Panegate as it would be to go to the Thicket on foot, and as far as Mortimer knows they won't be able to locate the Panegate at the Thicket end. He assumes they are going there to find a particular flower. He tells them not to tell him their plans, so he can't inadvertently give the game away. We cut to Sylvester's brother Ace, with spear and rucksack, walking through an unknown town in the west of Yurpsland and meeting up with a blonde Nome woman wearing a long skirt and a hat with a flower in it. He shows her a similar flower - which he was reluctant to wear in his hat. As he is Ace, she takes the nom de guerre Diamond (Ace suggests Joker). As they walk through the town, in the background we see a very odd face, or maybe a mask, with slanted oval eyes, watching them from some sort of battlement, and they pass a poster with a kind of alien face on it. Other, more human faces peer round corners at them wherever they walk. Ace comments on the fact that they are being followed, and asks if they are friends of Diamond's, or at least allies. Cut to the Mansion's butler Schmedley, standing in front of a large, open book and holding a cake with candles, to celebrate fifteen years since the strip began. There are eleven candles on the cake, three Flutterbys flying inside the house, and a Fuzz peering at the lighted window from outside. Frederick and Anushka discuss rules of succession. In the Spires the rulers are of alternating sex and bear a mystic Gear. Vasily II the would-be change-maker died young (as did Yorik II), and Frederick suggests that his death was suspiciously convenient. The village fishermen are deeply interested in Rosemary's hat. Coming from where she does, she is able to discuss fishing with them. One called Tom even invites them for a drink, but she and Sylvester have too much to do, and Sylvester says late in private that having the Earl in the inn would be a buzz-kill - nearly as bad as an Oracle in the pub. Fizmo is curious about the smell of sphagnum dust which still hangs around Mortimer. She and Nitfol discuss the birth of Fizmo's niece Faft, in a way which implies that Nomes can choose the gender of their foetus - although Nitfol denies it when Mortimer asks. Fizmo remembers she needs to ask the village healer Piu for Stiflebloom. Nitfol is an onlly child. Diamond says that Ace is an object of great local interest, which is why people are spying on them. He comments on her dyed-blonde hair. for some reason, she says that here she had no other option (even though we see a male Nome with brown hair watching them). Ace says there are always options, but sometimes all of them are bad, and he learned that from "you people" - some organisation to which Diamond belongs. The boundary between "here" (later described as "Out West"), where Ace has been for a while, and "Back East" where Ace comes from is a place called Nye. Diamond came there from somewhere "much, much worse" than here, which makes Ace say he questions her Nomishness. This may be related to this Hanukkah strip, which shows Nomes onducting a cultural celebration somewhere where they are a persecuted minority living in hiding. Ace and Diamond come to a plain, unmarked door in a wall, which Ace says people must only come to if they are already welcome there. It opens before them. Frederick tells Anushka that he ended up taking over running his "Spire" and training his successor (Sylvester) because the official leader (Willoughby) was no good at it. Willoughby died in the Noodle Incident, which the Spire folk haven't heard about. Frederick says he would have thought everyone to the ends of the known world would have heard of it, and this leads to a discussion of an island called Solla Sollew, which Svetlana says is the island at the farthest edge of the Revealed World, and which Frederick says an explorer described as "alive and burning". Anushka says that Solla Sollew isn't the farthest place from the Spires, just hard to reach because of magic-storms from the Glow Confection mountain range: the farthest point is the Biloka Penninsula on the far side of the Deep Southeastern Jungles. Frederick does not know why the town of Noodle is called Noodle, but the Noodle Incident is the most interesting thing that ever happened there. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the local fishermen. Tom is unmarried but has a thing going with Gretta Weed. It's OK for Mansionites other than the Earl to hang out in the local pub. Sylvester goes to collect post from Mr Gray. Mortimer's party, discussing Stiflebloom, pass what looks like a dead Spyder. Fizmo left their village because Nome girls were being encouraged to get pregnant instead of taking Stiflebloom. She and Kulkad went down into the Hot Zone in suits. She couldn't see much through the helmet, and can't really describe what they were monitoring. Mortimer says Sylvester will want to know, and Nitfol should want to know too if he's going to be a leader, so Fizmo says the thing they were watching was a sort of stone growth. Ace and Diamond pass two guards, and climb stairs to visit a Mr Shadwell. Ace fusses about the lack of a handrail, and Diamond says he reminds her of Algernon Jones, the hero of Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. At the top of the stairs, they find Mr Shadwell seated dead at his desk, with some kind of wound on his chest. Frederick wasn't present at the Noodle Incident and didn't hear about it till days later, because they didn't have a Sparkwire - a telegraph system. Sparkwire operators seem to be all women, who wear antennae like the ones the Spire people wear, although in the Spires they signify citizenship. The Spire ones seem to be implants - at least, they're not just attached to a band like the ones worn by Sparkwire operatives. In Noodle there is a museum about the Incident. In the Spires, Solovyov Spire is all museums, but some can only be visited by people with a high security clearance. While Sylvester is talking to Mr Gray, some village children ask Rosemary how she, Sylvester and Mortimer got out of the inn without anybody seeing them go. She says they used a one-time magic door. [Cut to Cap'n Hamster, talking to a sentient sea plant about the fact that his parents told him that somewhere across the waves there would by a pirate girl for him, and he will search till he finds her.] Fizmo tells Mortimer that when she was down in the Hot Zone, she had a button to push (and then run away) if the thing she was watching started to move. Technology doesn't work well down there, which was why they needed live watchers, but the button was shielded. Fizmo says she saw a rock grow legs and walk. Nitfol asked if it talked - she says no. Nitfol is not surprised, because he has heard stories from when Nomes used to mine down close to the Hot Zone. Diamond says she will pay Ace (who seems to be some kind of bodyguard, like Rosemary) to help her get away from the town, as she was Shadwell's "little mascot" and probably won't surive him for long if she stays. Ace agrees on condition that she doesn't lie to him, and that she tells him where the thing he came to collect is. She opens a wall safe and gives Ace sort of snow globe thing with a figure in it - a long-robed figure juggling the letter 007. Frederick has never been to the Noodle museum, but has heard testimony he trusts. Svetlana is worried about something, tells him "Negative", then looks warily at the walls and says it's nothing. Frederick says Willoughby set off some kind of chain reaction which badly damaged much of Noodle, but no-one except Willoughby died. The incident happened in part because of poor maintenance in Noodle, but that part of the story was hushed up. Mr Gray is concerned that there may be things which, unofficially, Sylvester should tell him about. They have a verbal skirmish in which Sylvester avoids telling him anything. He collects his post, rejoins Rosemary and says it may have been a tactical error for Mortimer to let people see that his umbrellla could be used as a weapon - which suggests Mr Gray is a government agent. Nitfol says that one of his ancestors, Nikmo, found a talking rock in the deeps, although most of the records of what it said were lost. Nikmo brought the rock home to the surface, but it stopped talking and he was ridiculed for saying it had. Family history says Nikmo later snuck the rock back into the deeps and it came back to life. He told his daughter Margi about it. Margi became a famous adventuress and had a son, Jindak. Margi told Jindakk that she thought Nikmo went back later to visit the rock, but she herself could never find it. Mortimer asks about the surviving records of what the rock said, and Nitfol says that the rock said it had been broken off from a larger boulder during a natural upheaval. We see Violet sneaking past behind Terin Flem, who is still keeping a lookout. She walks to the Mansion's gardens, where she startles Nellie Grubb, the gardener. Ace tells Diamond to place another globe, called a Zoinkglobe, into the safe. He had arranged to give Mr Shadwell this one in return for the one with the juggler, and now Shadwell's heirs can have it. He tells Diamond not to steal stuff from the safe unless they need it to survive, so she takes a small plaque with Shadwell's sigil on it, used to show that the bearer is in his favour. Ace comments that Louis and Buddy, the security guards, had let him up there with a spear, and may be part of whatever is going on. We return to the Spires, with a detour to a Smyt version of Spiderman - Spyder Smyt - to commemorate the death of Stan Lee. Frederick is talking about the official enquiry into the Noodle Incident. The Spires have official enquiries too - Svetlana says "Except when conditioned by circumstances", Frederick replies "Like when a gal happens to be carrying a big needle?" and Anushka says they don't talk about that here. Frederick says that what he has said came from his own experience, not from Svetlana. He says that Willoughby was scapegoated (although he really was somewhat to blame) - then a woman named Snegurka arrives with a file which was requested earlier (presumably the one on Spindizzies). Part Seven: Seats of Power [19/11/2018 - present] 01: Flight [19/11/2018 - 04/02/2019] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Eetown, discussing whether or not Mortimer will do anything illegal with his umbrella, for a given value of "illegal". Some countries encourage magic, some ban it, but Yurpsland has no unified policy. Mortimer and his party come to a barrier of webbing which marks the edge of Spyder territory. They cut through but are left rather gummed up: Fizmo wants Nitfol to ban Spyders when he is mayor. They begin to pass scattered fragments of ruined stone walls. Nitfol and Fizmo have not been this way before - their parents' and previous generations sometimes journeyed to the Thicket to collect special plants, but the mortality rate was high. Nitfol has more confidence in their safety now because they have the three Pales with them - but suddenly, somebody in the trees starts to throw rocks at them. Nellie tells Violet that being there, at the Mansion, isn't safe. Violet tells her her mother wants to marry her to someone called Tim Tonbee who is above her social status, in order to advance her. Violet thinks this is foolish, both because Tim will want to marry a girl of his own class, and because the life of an aristocratic housewife is not much better than that of a working class one. She's an expert inkwrangler, but girls aren't allowed to work on the rigs because it's thought they'll bring bad luck, and they aren't allowed to work in The Barn (where she currently inkwrangles) after they marry. She doesn't want to join the Navy because she doesn't want to kill people, and she can't be an Oracle because she doesn't hear the Brush in her heart. She doesn't fancy clerking. Ace and Diamond walk out past the guards Louis and Buddy, telling them Mr Shadwell deos not wish to be disturbed. Louis and Buddy wonder why Ace (a professional guard) gave them a disappointed look as he left. On their way out Ace and Diamond are accosted by two more serious-looking men, called Mr Stirscrim and Trymund, who ask who Ace is. Trymund says he's probably the Mundiv rep. Ace (whose mother is a Mundivagant) says that Dalton Mundivagant sent him. Snegurka hands the file to Anushka, and seems disturbed by the fact that Frederick thanks her. Anushka hands the file to Frederick, but won't tell him who authorised her to give it to anyone who asked about Spindizzies. Frederick and Svetlana prepare to leave, but he pauses and asks Anushka if she is married and has children (yes to both). Mortimer's party are being bombarded with rocks by a group of Tree Squids. Mortimer and the Nomes take cover in the long grass, but Nitfol says the Pales can take care of themselves. One of the Nomes, unspecified, says they need Umboz, the Squid-Coaxer, but Nitfol says these are different from the village squids. We see a brief scene of Umboz, Vezza and Piu getting on very well with the Pales at their hive. Piu seems to be learning new techniques from a Pale doctor, and Vezza and Zpeaker are looking at a device which looks like an organic version of an Ettin tool. The rocks stop coming because Thrash has knocked the Tree Squids out of their trees. Violet tells Nellie she wants to be her apprentice gardener. Nellie is dumbstruck. She tells Violet that she isn't getting paid because she is officially retired, but Violet says the next one will be paid. She listens out for news, and knows Sylvester has been making money on stocks and will soon need new staff, as the old guard get ever older. Nellie warns Violet again that the Mansion isn't safe and her parents would never agree to her working there, but Violet says she will leave home when she comes of age. Mr Stirscrim and Trymund wonder why Shadwell sent them to Rowade if the swap was happening today (sounds like somebody got them out of the way). Ace and Diamond say they made the swap and "didn't hear any complaints". Diamond shows Stirscrim the pass with Shadwell's sigil and he lets them pass, but he is still uneasy. Diamond tells Ace privately that Shadwell's habit was to foster rivalry among his troops, but when Stirscrim and Trymund do work together they have a fair amount of clout. She doesn't know which would come out on top if they fought. Ace asks her to show him the subtlest way out. Anushka says her kids turned out OK "for the most part". Frederick regrets not having children of his own. His nephew Willoughby became his foster son but he died. He tried again with Willoughby's children and they too mostly turned out OK (we see that he is doubtful about Mortimer and Lenore) and with other kids who came around (we see a girl with long curly hair looking at his Fugehorn). He tells Anushka to tell her kids she loves them and give them the advice she wants to give them, because there might not be a next time. Svetlana looks stressed. She and Frederick leave and we see Snegurka come to make sure Anushka has heard an urgent debriefing summons. Anushka says she has, and calls Snegurka "ninnyhammer". Thrash jumps down from the trees to rejoin the other two Pales. A hail of rocks follows but it begins to die down and the Pales look puzzled. 02: Entangled [05/02/2018 - 03/05/2019] Mortimer and the two Nomes wonder nervously what will happen if the Pales don't return from squid-chasing. The scene switches to the Pale camp, where Zpeaker is telling Vezza how the Pales grow their tools. [Out-take - we see Nimue in her orchard, alive and well and growing oranges, but the scene is partly greyed out because there is so little magic in Abalone. After this Rob provided a whole sequence of four strips on Rosemary going on a blind date, and said that it was canonical, but as it is set at some indefinite time in the future I've left it in the Supplementary Art section. It does show us that the Mansion has a set Portal Point for people to teleport through.] Nellie tells Violet to go home for now, not to wander off the path, and she will discuss with Amos and "His Grace" the possibility of taking her on as an apprentice. Ace and Diamond go through a small door marked "Nome" into an underground complex (with rats) where Ace has to walk bent over. They are briefly accosted by a male Nome, a sort of steeplejack named Uffer whjo works in "The Heights", but they ignore him. Svetlana still looks stressed. She starts to tell Frederick he must do something, when another woman named Idita comes to re-dress Svetlana in clothing suited to a higher rank, if she is going to escort Frederick. Svetlana looks even less happy. She is taken to a booth, where an ironic-looking woman named Alena whom she knows from school or college is assisting. The Pales rejoin Mortimer and the Nomes, but the Tree-Squid are still throwing stones at them. Mortimer doesn't want to use magic again and Nitfol agrees, so they set off into the brambles under Nitfol's command, using the Pales' sickles to cut through. Nitfol is looking more and more like a leader. Eventually they come to a giant, pink, glowing, three-pronged crystal set in a base: Mortimer says it marks the start of the Thicket. We cut to Rosemary and Sylvester, walking away from the town at a dignified pace they have to maintain until they pass Terin. Rosemary asks why the provincial flag is the E symbol, given that Audra played down her history. It may have had something to do with taxes, and been picked because goods with the E stamp were so widespread in the area - we see that they sold self-sealing stem bolts. Ace and Diamond run into more Nomes, led by a very hostile older man called Roquat. He tells Ace to get out - Ace moves Diamond aside and says he'll get out when Roquat gets out of the way. Roquat draws a knife, so Ace knocks him and his companions down. As Ace and Diamond leave, one of the downed Nomes warns Ace that Diamond will stab him in the back. Svetlana and Idita enter the booth, while Alena, who has a weapon with a rotating blade, stands guard. She and Frederick engage in mild banter, although she says he's a disruptive influence. Fizmo asks Mortimer why humans built the Thicket, and he says the Ettins built it. Fizmo has never heard of them. Mortimer asks if the others have. Nitfol has heard stories of The Earl fighting a two-headed giant called Ettin (real Ettins had one head but two brains). Thrash indicates that this is untrue and that he knows about real Ettins. Sylvester gives them a brief history lesson and says he doesn't know why they built the Thicket, and that they are probably already too close to it - in the distance we can see a jumble of the giant glowy pink shards. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the flag of Moonin, which shows the ancient towers called the Beacons, but some people would prefer a lobster. The islands in that area have always fought, but a leader named Wirtanen who had a lobster flag briefly united the islands, but he didn't rule the deep landsiders who have their own flags. Rosemary agrees that the current, Beacon flag is boring, but doens't care otherwise. They reach Terin. Diamond is glad Ace didn't kill anyone, even though she's willing to kill if necessary. She has something she needs to do which she says will be fine so long as there isn't a Backwash. This is a wave of magical power which surges out from the Infernal Engine, which extends underground and moves at a rate of a few centimetres a year. Where they are, it used to be, and it has left part of itself in place as it moved on, so they are still to some extent inside it. The Heights are jumbles of high beams left behind by the Engine, which occasionally generate magical items, which Highscalers like Uffer collect. Frederick and Alena discuss the fact that clothes in the Spires are designed by a committee, while in Yurpsland they are mostly designed by a particular married couple. 03: No Turning Back [06/05/2018 - present] Mortimer's party progress, keeping together. Mortimer, being taller, can see a large, distant rock which he thinks is near the Panegate. Nitfol says one direction is as good as another, and Mortimer says the direction of the Thicket (the jumble of crystals) is bad. Saturdays in the Basement [03/05/2014 - present] These strips run every Saturday and show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with what's happening above ground to Rosemary and co.. I decided to split them off onto a separate page to make the action easier to follow. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nests [03/05/2014 - 08/08/2015] The scene opens with a cavern on the wall of which is a cross between a set of bunk-beds and two layers of miniature, open-fronted rooms, made from wooden beams. These are labelled with the names of a group of female Gnoll warren-mates - Hiltsa, Lanwja, Piranom, Pergola, Skuy, Islupis, Ambri and Irnissa. Islupis is not present, or at least not visible, and Ambri is off-stage except for her hand. All we can see of Piranom is her feet (wearing shoes, in odd colours) and the ends of long hair. Hiltsa, who looks very bad-tempered, is throwing stones at the board behind Lawnja's head. Irnissa reports that Skuy and Pergola didn't come home last night. We see Skuy telling Irnissa and Piranom that she is moving to Leny Hall, and that she'll never take a mate because she has a proper job as Sina's assistant. Irnissa intends to stay at home where it's safe. We then see Skuy carrying her belongings past a memorial to the Nome War, and passing the Gnoll security guards Forfind and Findfor and the Ghast soldier Dpxbfo. [Meanwhile in an outtake a female Gnoll named Carmal delivers a pie-in-the-face to Dap, ordered by Tuft to celebrate "their" anniversary - actually the strip's eleventh anniversary. Carmal evidently is some kind of courier or perhaps a Kissogram girl.] Hamble and Squeeb discuss Othara. Hamble has thought of killing her to discourage explorers, but decides she is more useful alive: he's waiting for somebody else. ` Meanwhile, we see Wrawa (female Trog) wake from her exhausted sleep. Kottle the (Gnoll) Healer tries to speak to her but she runs off and he sends Maggle (another female Trog) to follow her and keep an eye on her. Maggle is alarmed to see that Wrawa appears to be heading for the Great Chasm, but when Wrawa reaches The Plunge and stands hovering at the edge, and Maggle calls out to her not to do it, Wrawa replies "Don't do what?" and seems not to know where she is. We see that the gap in the fence at the plunge-point originally led not to a sheer fall but to an extensible bridge, which is now tucked in under the lip of the drop. Wrawa says that she can smell something on the breeze and she is the second person to do something, and then says that she is going to prepare something for the people who will follow her and then jumps off the Plunge point in a calm, abstracted way that suggests she knows there's a soft landing below. She lands in the bushes down in the Chasm. She avoids being sucked into the chute, and instead walks along the top of it to the Trog habitat on the far side of the Chasm, where she meets Hamble and Squeeb, who have evidently gone back down there to live even though they may venture elsewhere. Wrawa remembers and likes Hamble from her childhood, and tells him how she has been affected by Rhid's chemicals and by the death of Leny. We see that Rhid himself has ended up in a hospital called the Humane Zone. Hamble warns Wrawa that this place, the deep-down Trog habitat, has an effect on people, but Wrawa seems quite keen on the idea and wants to absorb the atmosphere. She is aware of Hamble's ambitions to return to the world and make his mark; she doesn't intend to oppose him, nor to assist him at this point (and secretly feels that it will make little difference if she does). She goes to sleep, hanging uipside down from the ceiling. We see Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr awake in her sleeping pool, called by a voice of unknown origin. Ploot arrives to check on Urwyn, who has nothing to report, as there has been no activity around the Elevator. Unnoticed by them, a Smyt Sherlock Holems and Watson pass by, stalked or followed by another Smyt. Ploot fills Urwyn on with what's been going on with Sina and the new hall, and two Ghast medics, Vptwbotw and Vpfbotw, arrive with a Porta-Pool to collect their dead. Ploot prepares to drag the dead Gobule, whom he recognizes as one of Guttle's servants, away to Maw. Urwyn thanks Ploot for watching out for him and we are shown that Urwyn's friend Zugo, wearing armour, is also watching from a crack in the wall. Meanwhile the Ghasts wheel their Porta-Pool past various characters in and around Leny Hall. We see the Gnoll Muscod giving a heart-shaped flower to Folla, and two Gobules from Maw's household pushing some kind of large wheel. We see Catmorlo talking to Furphy, Satyrsong peeking at Krink, a Helipath sign-writer, Voog and an unknown female Motihaul. They pass a well where an Ichyoid is drawing water, a male Trog being led on a lead by a female Nome, a JibJib, Frag guarding the entrance to Le Tree and a female Motihaul pushing her eggs in a pram. On the walls are posters warning people about Fixits. In Time Hall they pass an Ooze, a Trog whom we saw before in Bowel Hall, and Pizzle talking to a male Motihaul Candle Monk named Crumpton. Then another Ichyoid at another well, a female Gnoll water-seller named Bujold, and a Fixit information desk, manned by a Boogieman. At the desk are a Gnoll with a flower in his hair whom we have seen before, and an unknown Gobule and male Trog, the Gobule with a bump on his head which suggests that a Fixit has been struck off him, and the Trog carrying a battered hat (not a Fixit, from the look of it). The two Ghast medics take the Porta-Pool to Amorph Hall. The area is still under lockdown, so there is nobody to meet the funeral party except Stirrer Hptwfvth and Apprentice Stirrer Hpthfvx, and a chap called Septwbfn, who pushes a handcart labelled Tangible Karma, and gives the medics a free fungus to compensate them for having had to go near the Operator. The two Stirrers place the Porta-Pool on a mark on the floor and a strange, elaborate machine, acquired directly from the SubShafts (not from the SubShaft manager Egrote) and normally cloaked from any notice, descends from the ceiling to hover over the pool and probe or stir the contents and decontaminate the contents. It seems that the SubShafts themselves are sentient but nobody knows for sure: there is a Ghast team studying them. The two Ghast Stirrers Hptwfvth and Hpthfvx bring the Porta-Poll containing the remains of Hpthbvtw - a.k.a. High Pool Third of Batch Three Hundred and Fifty Two - to the pool whence he came, and prepare to stir him back into it, with a ceremonial speech about his memories and dreams being added back into the common pool and into the Official Record. We see this happening. We go back to Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr sleeping in her pool again, and being called again to wake up. It can't be Hpthbvtw who is calling her, since we saw her being called before he was added back into the pool, but it does seem like it's probably the same pool. Some essence of the pool speaks to Hpobfvfr, taking on Hpthbvtw's form, but she objects to that so it becomes her mother Hpobvo instead. The pool, the collective consciousness, approves of Hpobfvfr's willingness to go against convention, and wants the Ghasts to go out and "engage the world", especially now with humans reappearing and the Sneeches leaving. The pool consciouisness explains to Hpobfvfr that their world, the Basement, runs on machinery behind the walls which is powered by Sneech squeezings, and without the Sneeches it's already beginning to fail. It wants Hpobfvfr to go talk to the humans, who may have useful information. She is quite keen to talk to Mortimer again. Saturdays in the Basement :: Tests [15/08/2015 - 26/03/2016] We see Shabash, one of the female Gnolls who shot at Agorn by mistake for Boromir, walking nervously through a dark place, scaring away a Doom Bee and a sort of miniature, non-sentient Saur called a Lizhopper. She passes a gap in the wall through which we see Maggle the Trog running across a lighted space, then Shabash surprises Faddle in the dark. She can smell that Faddle has been in The Place No-One Talks About, which turns out to be the cave where he was taken by and to the female Gnolls in collars, whom he refers to as Placettes. Along with "the usual phizz" they told him that the world was ending in some sense, and gave him a task to perform. Following their accidental attack on Agorn, Fanga and Shabash have split up in order to go to ground: Faddle suspects the Placettes of having engineered this to leave Shabash free to be recruited. They are joined by Carmal, who has been instructed in a vision to come and meet the Placettes' Assigned One. We see the vision in black-and-white flashback, and it looks suspiciously like Frowgler wearing the pumpkin-head costume in which he scared the Nomes. The Placettes have given Faddle three glowgem shapes which have to be inserted into sockets on some important mechanism on an upper level. The three shapes have to be inserted all at the same time into slots which are too far apart for one person to reach them simultaneously, presumably as a safety measure. They are dangerous in some way - possibly radioactive - but Faddle is better able to handle them than "normal" people (perhaps because as a Finagler he's not likely to reproduce), and has been given a backpack with a protective lining to carry them in. On their way, they pass through a "Wintergate" cave which is basically a permanent Hallowe'en display. They have to wear seasonal hats while in the Wintergate cave, and this prompts Carmal to tell Faddle about Fixits. As they reach the edge of the area inhabited by organized Basement society, they meet a Queen Snake named Marsslina, who is an aquaintance of Faddle's. We learn that the Queen Snakes and the Ecadems have some sort of secretive joint society and have their own underground greenhouse for growing food (although Queen Snakes mainly eat tunnel-rats), but their garden has been raided by Biters and so Marsslina is having to forage for a pudding-gourd for their own version of Thanksgiving. After Marsslina has moved on, Faddle says that Queen Snakes prefer to be called Empress Snakes and the three Gnolls discuss the terms Queen, Empress and Emperor. We learn that some Basement dwellers have traditional folklore about an all-powerful ancient Emperor named Ett, who is a fusion/confusion of the Ettins with the three early Earls named Ettric. The Placettes seem to have some kind of government status, since Gnolls just do as they say even if it's dangerous. Faddle reckons he and Shabash and Carmal have been chosen for this particular mission to and beyond the risky Fringes because they're expendable, whereas people like Mimsy and Piranom are too valuable to the Placettes to be risked. Faddle and co. pass through outgrowths of The Tree to reach a chamber full of Ettin machines. They drop the objects they've been carrying into slots on the machines. A human male named Mr Norton (who is really in the Spike with the Fixits, and who might be Rufus under another name) speaks to them through the machines and tells them that these machines are being activated because the technology which depended on Sneech Squeezings will soon fail. Shabash leaves, but Carmal and Faddle agree to perform other tasks for Norton, in exchange for Glowgems. Saturdays in the Basement :: Shabash and Rowbynn [02/04/2016 - 01/07/2017] Shabash gets lost and falls down a shaft at the fringes of the Basement. She lands in a reservoir, whence she is fished out and dumped into a dry service area by a green creature with a lot of tentacles and a long thin neck terminating in just eyes. It appears to be intelligent, since we see it start to fill in the hole in the ceiling through which Shabash fell, and it's using sophisticated tools. It's also holding a frog - who doesn't seem to be Frowgler. A maintenance bot then trundles up behind Shabash and first bonks and then tases her in an effort to get her to leave, seeing her as an intruder. She gets up to go, sees what she has been talking to and is amazed, because she can see it's a Metalmin and she thought all the Metalmins were long dead. The bot tells her it is the property of the Eman family and she doesn't like the idea that something sentient(ish) can be property. She names it Sparky. Sparky tells her to take her queries to "Facilities Manager Elizabeth Merrill" and the sound of the name, combined with the fact that Sparky is good at maths, makes Shabash think the Emans are Eyebolts. Shabash sets off to explore, believing that she can smell Eyebolts, but what she finds is a container garden under artificial lights. Beyond that, she finds Telic the Helipath Healer's surgery, and Crazy Rhid, heavily bandaged and strapped into a hospital bed. Telic turns out to be rather sinister. S/he injects Shabash with a paralysing agent in case she is there to murder hir - a reasonable precaution given her profession - but once she is helpless s/he starts to ruminate out loud about using her as a test subject, a clinical guinea pig. Rhid however talks hir out of it (and incidentally acknowledges both that he is a murderer himself, and that he has some well-intentioned long-term goal) so Telic dumps Shabash out in a corridor and locks the door behind her. Rhid gives Telic permission to experiment on him instead, since he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but cautions hir not to damage him too much - because Digger Odel still has a use for him. Shabash is very collapsed. As she lies on her back, trying to recover from the drug Telic gave her, a male Shallow Wyrm named Rowbynn drops down from somewhere high up and lands on her snout. Rowbynn is studying the quasi-sexual Wyrm process of "Eating", which turns out to be a kind of fusion. The Shallow Wyrm attaches to "Hooks and Trenches" on the skull of a Deep Wyrm - both male, apparently, so perhaps also female to female - and becomes permanently bound in place. The two then form a mental and physical gestalt organism which returns to the Hot Zone and stays there. Rowbynn finds that Shabash too has Hooks and Trenches, of a sort - which, as he acknowledges, raises interesting biological questions - and he is able to form a temporary bond with her which enables them to speak mind to mind, rather as we saw Hax speaking to Camora mind to mind before he took her over. Rowbynn is a member of the inner circle of the Ring of Clear Air, and as such his official rôle is to lie around being pampered and building up his strength in order to compete in some official contest to do with Eating rituals. But he had a lively mind and wanted something more, so he began investigating Shallow Wyrm society and mapping the extent of it through information he could glean while remaining with his own ring, and was surprised by how many and how different the rings were. We see vignettes of Vim, captain of the guard to the hostile Ring of the Uppermost Spire, stalking Sneckdraw the spy, and also of Kryt the observer, observing. Eventually that wasn't enough to satisfy Rowbynn's need for knowledge so he escaped from his minders and went exploring. He suspects that many others have done the same, and we see a vignette of Urwyn. Rowbynn tells Shabash that she will be able to break the link with him if she wants to, but if she lets him stay he can help her with her current lifestyle, and has "advantageous secrets to share". He knows where there are caches of human artefacts and knowledge, located by himself or by other Wyrms, and in return he wants her help in learning more about Fixits. He is very interested in them because the way they take over their "mounts'" minds seems similar to the Eating process. Shabash explains that she has a problem, related to the fact that she and Fanga were retained to assassinate Bromir. Rowbynn is aware of Bromir, who is "the hero of the Tubish Vat incident". Instead they attacked the very similar-looking Agorn, who is on a list of Gnolls who mustn't be killed. The list also includes Agorn's son Furphy, Comshaw, Mimsy, Niddle, Wittol, Swodswal and Catmorlo among others. Rowbynn hadn't known about the list but says something odd is going on with the Gnolls. Shabash went into hiding because she feared Agorn would report her to "some nob" but admits she isn't sure any of them know they are protected, although she expects Agorn to know. Rowbynn says a social facade is being maintained, and we see part of a pair of giant jaws depositing an apple for Agita. He says that an unknown nob or nobs is pushing society, especially the Gnolls, in a particular direction, but he doesn't know what or why. He is investigating out of curiosity rather than a desire to expose the truth. Shabash is hungry so they end the psychic conversation. It took less time than it felt like, but even so a hopeful slime grub is about to bite her ear. Slime grubs are not edible unless fricaseed, so Rowbynn directs her to a branch of the Tree. She has had a tiring and perplexing day, so after she has eaten Rowbynn directs her to a sleeping niche. They establish silent communication and then both fall asleep, and find themselves in a shared dream. Above them they can see the famous Skibble (although we cannot), although he doesn't look as Rowbynn imagined him - Shabash says he wears disguises. The dream becomes ever more bizarre - Rowbynn says Skibble is juggling feral ABOLs. Shabash wants to challenge Skibble with a tesselator, which appears in her hand, but Rowbynn says the Grumpy Pincher ate all the tesselators, twice. Shabash charges, Rowbynn goes to her aid, and Skibble confines them to a tight space for a zillion years "or 'til we bowbing wake up". They flibble. Saturdays in the Basement :: Leny Hall [08/07/2017 - 24/02/2018] We see Pergola the Gnoll, neart Leny Hall, looking at light spilling down from a gap in the ceiling and supporting a tiny fir tree. She has never seen a single tree on its own before, not part of The Tree, and tells Maggle the Trog that a woman called Swinthin had told her about free-standing trees, after she and some others had gone outside to the forest to capture Raviners for breeding, so they could extract Raviner ichor (we see a female Motihaul named Swidnica selling it), but the Raviners got loose and became a pest. Pergola has never dared to above ground herself, even after the tunnel was put in, because of the scary stories (in her imagination Nomes seem as scary as Spyders and Tree-Squids) and because it all seemed overwhelming. She loves plants and manages to nurture a few with artificial light, but she thinks if she saw plants growing freely in the sun and rain she would stay up there and never come home. Maggle has been to the doorway and only saw clouds and rain and too much light which hurt her eyes, but she is willing to go out with Pergola and guide her back. Pergola asks Maggle to tell Sina about the tree and the gap to the outside which they could work on to make their own exit - and which forest creatures can enter through. Maggle says Sina is very busy - we see Maggle talking to a female Eyebolt secretary - and that Sina and Sprocket are busy talking to Spindizzies. Maggle hasn't been to see the Spindizzies because she has no particular questions to ask them, even though she spends a lot of time exploring. She does it for fun, and often gets into trouble - she's not driven like Pergola. Pergola grew up on a fungus farm but became more interested in the weeds. Maggle works on a farm at times, to earn money when she gets bored with eating fungi and slime grubs. Most people can't eat them, but Maggle is a darkpelter Trog and is special. Darkpelters only crop up occasionally and randomly. They are resistant to poisons, and more likely to pair up with Nomes (although Maggle has her eye on a fellow Trog). Because of her resistance to toxins she helped to eradicate a dangerous plant called a jab-bramble which has harmful uses - we see a flash of Rhid doing something sinister with a ball of something. They meet up with Finimbrun, who is carrying a large domino, maybe 10" long. Rhid had left a set scattered around, and Finimbrun doesn't know what they are or whether they are dangerous or not. Pergola is wary of devices but Finimbrun thinks she's a hypocrite, because plants are just as dangerous and she was involved with the Crudbean, or at least knew Crud. She and Crud had neigbouring plots. He was sad after the death of his wife, and had a lot of equipment which was being funded by somebody else. She was nearby when the Crudbean erupted, but so were many other people. Comshaw interviewed her and then killed the Crudbean with one of Rhid's devices, and Pergola profited because souvenir hunters bought all her plants in the hope that they had been contaminated with traces of Crudbean, although it still wasn't enough for her to get her own place. Finimbrun lives with Kashkavala, who is an animal expert and food technician. We see her talking to a tunnel-rat called Snert. Timf calls Pergola to come and sort out some blorp plants, so she goes off, leaving Maggle looking warily at a flickering light. There is an odd little scene where Tuft the Gobule and Dap the Gnoll are agreeing that some large-scale thing has gone wrong, but Dap can't be arsed to find out what. Of to the side of them we see a machine that seems to be flaring off gas. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nitid the Helipath [03/03/2018 - present] We see Nitid the artist and Flange the engineer, both Helipaths, talking. Flange, who is working on a junction box, is on his own because Sprocket the Gnoll has gone off courting with Sina, which Helipaths consider very inefficient. There are a lot of wiring problems at the moment - Nitid wonders if this is to do with the previous day, which the Observatory staff say was The Day That Changed Everything, but Flange is skeptical. S/he and Sprocket did some work at the Observatory and were not impressed by their record-keeping. [Out-take: we see an elderly male Gnoll named Skritch fishing, to commemorate the death of Patrick McManus.] Nitid asks Flange if s/he recognises a particular symbol. Flange says if it were rotated it would become a symbol important to Humans (it's a fancy capital E). Flange is inclined to believe that Humans still exist. Flange goes off to do more engineering work, and Nitid goes to the Time Hall, where s/he talks to a female Ecadem named Fyke. Fyke is sad because yesterday a male Ecadem named Smyth, who was working as a bouncer, died in the fight at Le Tree, without ever having found a mate, and there are so few Ecadems left. His friends had tried to talk him out of taking such a dangerous job, as Ecadems are fragile. Fyke has her name painted on her side, which Nitid refreshes for her for free. It has something to do with the worship of the Brush and bearing witness in some way. The sect to which Fyke, who is a bit of a fanatic, belongs believe that there are holy Emissaries living behind the sun, and that the sun turns into the moon at night, covered with mysterious runes. The moon must not be breached but the sun should be, and a Jibjib named Speedy tried to fly to the sun to do this, but fell back exhausted. Fyke thinks they should build a tower to reach the sun, using the Mansion as a base. She thinks the Council will do this sort of thing; Nitid supported the sending of a Helipath named Aprat to join the Council but believes it won't achieve much because Agita, Nevus and Guttle will thwart it. A Boogieman named Trevor summons Fyke away to help deal with a situation. Nitid enters the Hall of the Brush, monitored by a female Eyebolt named Evulgate, who reports to a male ditto named Fremescent. Evulgate is collecting credits awarded to her for sharp observation, but needs another 23 credits before she will even be told what events are credit-worthy. In the Hall of the Brush, Nitid speaks to an elderly-looking Gobule priest named Kalon. Nitid isn't really sure why s/he came: Kalon goes through a list of possibilities and they decide that Nitid feels alienated from hir community. S/he does not want to talk to Nefast, a Helipath who is an Ear of the Brush, so Kalon suggests s/he should talk to Febrifuge. Febrifuge is somebody who keeps a record of favours owed, as a kind of currency, but that's not why Kalon thinks Nitid should speak to him or her. The Hall of the Brush is full of different sects. We see a male Trog holding a flower in a pot, wearing a flower on his head and declaring that "The Bloom is Eternal" to a Gnoll Doomsayer who says that "The End if Nigh", and a male Motihaul in a hooded robe debating theology with a Gnoll Beebler. At Febrifuge's door Nitid meets Shona, who has come to deposit a favour to return the one done her by Comshaw and Niddle the day before. A male Gnoll, a Spelling Guild member, OKs Nitid's spelling of hir own name on hir own forehad. The Guildsman then goes and shouts at two Doomsayers who have spelled their placards wrong. Meanwhile Pizzle turns up and asks Nitid to exchange one seed for another, which Nitid does. Tiny flags pass by low down in the frame, and the Gnoll Irnissa appears with two plants in a pot, and says that the League of Short People are on the march. Irnissa is just there to deliver plants, and assumes Nitid is also there as a professional. They discuss Leny Hall - Irnissa thinks anyone going near Crazy Rhid's old place is crazy themselves - and a male Motihaul in a lurid superhero costume passes them, carrying a alrge grasshopper impaled on a fork. Shone is in with Febrifuge, depositing favours she owes to Comshaw and Niddle. Irnissa considers Niddle far more impressive than Comshaw and says he's changing the world through his Finagling, although she herself only "fools around" and doesn't mate (only couples with a Finagler have young). She thinks Comshaw married Camora for her money. Sundays in the SubShafts [03/09/2006 - present] The timeline of the SubShaft 44f strips is confusing. The series is used as a foil for seasonal gags about e.g. Hallowe'en but given how short-lived Gnolls are, the jokes for a given season are certainly not taking place annually within the story, and the strip for 25th March 2012 and comments by Rob confirm that these events are happening roughly parallel with events in the main strip, meaning that up until 16th July 2013 they take place during the course of a single day. This means that one has to explain how come Cully ends up in possession of a device called the Zorper which is also being passed around among the characters in the main story. Because the SubShafts series is so long that it causes loading problems if displayed on a single page, I have split it into sections, but these are mine rather than Rob's. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors. A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle. Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God. We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out). We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights. While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm. Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets. A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully. A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant. Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie. Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders. They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out. We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere). They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire. The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional. Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus. They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for. The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie. Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate. We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit. While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there. Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears. Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it. Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus. Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do. The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now. In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature. Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God. She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too. Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it. Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function. Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts. Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future. Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute. Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires. Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come. Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage. Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports. The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself. We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one. Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer. As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe. Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected. Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded. The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life. It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side. Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit. Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance. Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator. Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct. The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room. They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch. Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used. We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind. We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf. We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly. In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings. Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears. Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor. Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar. They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt. Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free. The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did. They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation. We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow. Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers. Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower. A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off. We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva. Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood. As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things. They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting. 3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question. They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up. Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it. Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride. They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station". Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive. First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it. The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls. Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches. I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva. Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong. She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake. Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches. Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does. Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list. They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come. Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight. Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure. They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger. They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about. She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately. Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying. SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based. Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed. Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth. Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend.. For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair. At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner. Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world. To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep. On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub. For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise. For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell. For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt. A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives. On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible. Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet". Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion. A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page. Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else. If you are seeing this text, your browser does not support inline frames
01: Sitting in a Tree [27/02/2010 - 04/06/2010] Now that it is getting dark Comshaw, Niddle and Ig finally feel safe to come down from the ruined fountain. Ig is now wearing/carrying Niddle's backpack.
Yasmine enters the ruined building where she heard coughing, and discovers Mortimer, still coming round from having been stunned by Eunice. He has a note from Rufus on his chest but we aren't told what it says. He correctly identifies Yasmine as a Weirdo - which she finds amazing, apparently because it suggests a degree of clairvoyance not seen since the Crash. He also identifies the building as Dorian's old hut (presumably the Dorian who now lives in the Spike), but seems confused: when Yasmine mentions Protus as the Willigig currently living in the Mansion, Mortimer recalls being somewhere near the Basement at some point and Skibble, who seems to be a friend of his, turning up and mentioning Protus to him, but he doesn't coherently connect this with the Willigig who gave him the HJ42 after the incident with the tree-squid earlier in the day - although he then refers to Protus as "really grumpy", so he must have made the connection mentally. Yasmine claims she is there to conduct an official Weirdo's Guild review of Arthur's performance.
Yasmine sets off again to find her horse, and Mortimer again sets out to find Nitfol and rescue him if still alive. He is briefly distracted by a flutterby and calls it to his finger: Yasmine sees this and is again amazed by his psychic talent. A bearded Gnoll with a spear (who we later learn is Agita's henchman Agorn) overhears them talking, and we see Mortimer's scalpsucker messenger fall asleep, still only halfway up the side of the shaft. Yasmine and Mortimer get along well and he tells her about all the odd things which happen to him. They talk about Mortimer and Sylvester doing their duty and Sylvester still getting scorned by the villagers, about chaos theory and flutterbys, and she tells him to tell Frederick about the odd things which happen to him. Thinking of what Protus showed her, but not saying it, she tells Mortimer she expects to be back some day and when she returns she expects him to have made some progress with his situation. As Yasmine leaves, Mortimer gives her his sack of fleebs.
The listening Gnoll wonders whether to follow one or the other, go home and report or go join the Spikefolk, who carry out strange rites. He appears to decide to follow Mortimer.
Ig, Comshaw and Niddle are trying to locate Mortimer by smell but they smell something odd as well, metal and skin, wet and burnt - Niddle says this smell was all over the mound that the Fire came out of earlier ("The Pit"). The way they describe the smell, it probably relates to either Frowgler or the Meltalmin or robot which we glimped earlier near The Pit. Again there is mention of a barrier which Humans live beyond, as if there's some sort of cordon keeping the Basement folk in. Niddle is pleased that he was exposed to the Fire and saw visions, as he thinks this will prove to be important.
Mortimer encounters Frowgler, Thrash and two other Pales. He recognises Frowgler as a comic-book character but Frowgler says that he is "not THE Frowgler. Just.. A Frowgler", although he claims to be in a similar position to his fictional counterpart, in that he has come to assist the Good Guys against powerful evil forces, much bigger and more powerful than mere demons. Mortimer and Thrash are both Good Guys. Frowgler comments that the local Pales call their fort "The Camp" because they expect it to be temporary, and advises Mortimer on how to find the Spyder web he is looking for. Mortimer asks if Yasmine was right to tell him to talk to Frederick, and Frowgler thinks she probably was.
As Frowgler and the Pales leave, Mortimer finds an umbrella. It doesn't belong to anyone in Frowgler's party, so he keeps it.
Agorn realises that Comshaw's party are behind him, and hides. He overhears Comshaw sniffing out the fact that the Human, Mortimer, went one way and the Pales and the metal-smelling thing went another. So in this case the metal-smelling thing must be Frowgler. Agorn is impressed, but in a kind of patronising way: he sees Comshaw as a young fellow with potential.
The space-suited worker who earlier quit the Hot Zone observation station climbs out of a hatch in one of the ruined buildings, takes off her helmet and reveals herself to be a female Nome called Fizmo. She mentions having been taken below by someone called Fogorner, who she believes was working for the group in the Spike. She forces her way out of the locked building through a crack high in the stonework.
She meets Frowgler, whom she knows - he had advised her not to take the subterranean job. Now he says going back down would be the safest thing for her, but not the best thing. Learning that she likes Nitfol, he suggests she go with Thrash to the Pale camp where Nitfol now is, and she agrees. Frowgler gives her a hat, since Nomes hate to be bareheaded, but he warns her to examine hats from other sources carefully. It is clear he is warning her about Fixits, and that Fogorner is controlled by a Fixit. He also warns her that the beaver shark - of which there is only one - is loose nearby, and that he is trying to stop Kayeeb doing something which will destroy the Nome village (presumably, attacking the Gnolls).
Frowgler denies being a demon and says he was put on earth to do what he is doing. He goes down the tunnel Fizmo came out of, and she goes off with the Pales, talking at them about a Nome who built a prototype plane which crashed, and her ideas about hot air balloons.
We see a flat-topped tower among the ruins, containing a giant glowgem which gives off light. Down below is a lorry in some sort of workshop. The glowgem connects to the lights which channel daylight to the Great Chasm, and we see that Rosemary and Sylvester have landed in a peculiar fluffy outgrowth of the Tree. Rosemary, probably still dazed, identifies Rhid whom they have just seen as one of the people Protus showed to Sylvester, and thinks that the woman he saw her fighting - whom she calls Tansy - is about to show up. Her helmet light is damaged, and Sylvester's helmet is missing, caught in the Tree. He manages with some difficulty to retrieve it, so that they have light and can proceed.
02: Lying in a Hole [05/06/2010 - 16/09/2010] Rosemary tears her skirt - which is stolen - to make ties to keep their helmets on. The pre-existence of Wyverns, a kind of extinct dragon, is mentioned, and the fact that Rosemary has killed people. Sylvester thinks the padded branches below the Plunge point are there to stop Trogs killing themselves, and this is born out when they find a strategically-placed pot of Trog repellant which herds any Trogs who land in the Tree towards a narrow spur bridge over the abyss (made by a very reputable construction firm). The spur ends with a tube-like chute which they are sucked in by, and which takes them to a padded landing-site in a room within the cliff, which contains a broken office cabinet which has "The Threshold" written on it, and which moves about under its own power.
They meet a thing called a Lurker - a cave-creature like a blind, bald, sub-sentient Saur. Dog-like, it wants them to follow it: Rosemary thinks it's leading them into an ambush. Following it, they come to a place which looks like the Ettins' artificial Trog habitat, except sterile and dead, without the moss and fresh water etc. of the zoo exhibit. Sylvester feels that he and Rosemary are both acting rather wildly, and that this is due to exposure to vents leading to the Hot Zone.
They come to an archway labelled "Serene Cavern of Blissful Relaxation", beside which is a slightly sick poem about the death of Yurd. Within are the people the Lurker, Blinky, was reporting to - two male trogs called Villipend and Hamble. Both are less flat-faced and probably mentally sharper than Kronk, but Villipend is crowned, paranoid and deranged. Hamble tries to calm him but he is sure that Rosemary and Sylvester are the "Tormentors" who keep him trapped there, and it doesn't help that he smells his enemy Kronk (who brushed past them at the Plunge point) on them.
When Sylvester says he doesn't know where the exit is, Villipend throws a weapon which Rosemary fends off with the Can-Opener, which Villipend calls a Sneech claw. Rosemary and Villipend fight and Villipend manages to get in a kick which throws her against the wall. Sylvester intervenes, warns him grimly that he is the terrible Earl of E and fires a primitive taser which he has in his backpack - but Villipend dodges and it is Hamble who is struck and apparently killed. The act of firing the taser also throws Squeeb out of the backpack and onto the floor.
Villipend is impressed by the taser but annoyed because he wanted to kill Hamble himself. He threatens Sylvester so Rosemary slashes him with the Can-Opener and he hides in the dark. Sylvester finds a door operated by a Herediscan which identifies him as a member of the E family and lets him through. He tells Villipend (now clinging to the ceiling) he will leave the door open.
Rosemary and Sylvester discuss their weapons training (and we learn that at the bodyguard training-school she went to, the fencing master was a Mr Montoya). She is concerned that she may not be able to stop Villipend if he attacks again, because he's in peak condition and she has no practice with the Can-Opener.
As they move away from the Hot Zone vents, Rosemary becomes calmer. Sylvester tells her about the SubShafts, a tangle of tunnels which are greatly affected by the Hot Zone. The Eyebolts who worked for the Ettins lived there, then the mining Nomes as well. After an upheaval (presumably the Gnoll/Nome war) they all moved out, the Eyebolts to elsewhere in the Basement, the Nomes to the Forest, and now it's mainly Gnolls who live in the SubShafts. We seen an outline of Cully, Chunner and Crud, all heavily armed - Cully with a flame-thrower, Chunner with a blunderbuss and Crud with something similar to the Can-Opener.
Rosemary and Sylvester come to an area of large engineering works at the start of a walkway or bridge at the edge of the long drop. Villipend jumps them, wrests the Can-Opener from Rosemary and tries to force Sylvester to go back downstairs and close the door to Villipend's domain, so he can continue to trap other Trogs there. Sylvester is willing to jump into the Chasm rather than do so.
Meanwhile, Mortimer finds the remains of the dead Spyder. Comshaw's party are still tracking Mortimer, and Agorn is still trailing them. Mortimer comes to the crater caused when Frowgler set off the HJ42, and wrongly assumes Nitfol and the spyder were both blown up. He climbs down into the crater and retrieves the HJ42, then Comshaw, Niddle and Ig arrive at the edge of the crater and engage him in conversation about the goals of Humanity. They all conclude that Comshaw needs to speak to Sylvester (hearing that Sylvester is the Earl, Comshaw assumes he must be very scary).
The thing Niddle is carrying, which he found in the tunnel and which is similar to but not the same as a glowgem, starts radiating energy. Niddle says he can almost hear it speak, it's waited a long time and now it's almost time for some unspecified meeting.
Snerk appears, pursued by the beaver shark, as Niddle begins to count down from five. Mortimer tells the others to run, while he stands his ground and summons a flock of flutterbys to distract the shark. The two Saurs run but Comshaw and Niddle are still present when Niddle's not-a-glowgem discharges its energy in a huge dome of light.
Mortimer and the shark are transported into open underground space by a twistpoint and fall down to where Rosemary and Sylvester are. The letters PZOR appear, suggesting that the not-glowgem and the HJ42 interacted to create the twistpoints, burst of light etc.. The shark bites Villipend and Rosemary retrieves the Can-Opener and pushes both of them off the edge and into the deep.
Comshaw and Niddle are jumped through another twistpoint back to their own home, where Camora is brooding. Niddle crashes out, as Telic had warned that he would, burbling about the fact that Mortimer has the same haircut as him, and something about a window. Camora tells Comshaw about Hax. He decides to go back out to warn everyone, leaving her to care for Niddle, but first they have an unspecified erotic session.
Ig is twistpointed to outside the home of his ex girlfriend Nerda, the mother of his as-yet unhatched children. He offers her the stuff in Niddle's backpack so she lets him in.
Snerk is less lucky. As a result (or cause) of an unspecified backlash he is dumped into the middle of a high-tech. experimental facility of some kind being run by two Ghasts. He is pinned in some uncomfortable scary machinery which may be examining him or may be cleaning and immunising him - it's not clear which - and then confined to an artifical woodland habitat designed especially for Saurs, although he doesn't realise this and believes he has been twistpointed to a real forest far away. He wishes to leave a.s.a.p. in order to report to Frowgler. There are a lot of other Saurs there - he meets a dozy girl called Dizel and a much more sensible, very large female called Zil who tells him that if he can find a way out she's coming with him. We learn that the habitat also contains big, dim, agressive Saur relatives called Sawtooths, and we see that there are Gnolls - who may be there unofficially.
Meanwhile, the not-glowgem falls back into the crater, and the HJ42 falls through a crack in the floor of the crater. Agorn investigates and sees that the hole which has opened up contains a ladder. He can smell Sneeches in the depths.
03: Spanner in the Works [17/09/2010 - 15/01/2011] Sylvester identifies their location as the Ettinworks investigated by Krell, Earl Griffington's assistant. Sylvester, Mortimer (smelling peculiar, with umbrella) and Rosemary set out along the walkway: lights, electric crackles and deep rumbling noises come on as they walk. Rosemary has a sense that the Can-Opener may do exciting things around electrical discharges, and puts it in the Poke-Kit.
They come to an unusually passive Sneech plant-machine growth which is blocking the walkway, and edge past it. Mortimer insists on taking the lead as he is the most expendable. The other two have been ignoring Mortimer and rather treating him like a small child but they begin to realise their mistake. They are far below the level of the Sneech nest - Mortimer recounts comments by Skibble suggesting the Sneeches are expanding their territory.
Having passed the Sneech growth they come in sight of an Ettin underhub - a lighthouse-like tower which stretches from the floor where they are, through the open cavern of the Ettinworks to the ceiling of the cavern, which is the floor of the shallower levels overhead, with a row of windows ringing the tower up near the ceiling. Sylvester talks of a network of underground roads and buildings which was wrecked and sealed off when Audra poked the Hot Zone and caused the Chasm to spread - it is clear this is the system now being opened up and used by the Fixits.
They go into the underhub and prepare to climb a spiralling internal ramp, and have a conversation in which Rosemary is amazed to learn that a famous, ancient philosopher named Milo was the 9th Earl of E. They find a signpost written in a Human script and recently annotated in the handwriting of Nirvana Clepe, former Taskmistress of the Mansion, who retired eight years ago when her wife died, and supposedly lives three days' ride away. Mortimer is showing clairvoyance - he knows how old the writing is, and that the Sneeches have never been inside the underhub. There is a discussion about Threnody the local Oracle, whom Sylvester fancies (Dirge is her Guardian).
The interior of the underhub is full of concealed twistpoints - as they climb, the interior changes illogically and it's possible to go up and end up lower down. There are a series of signposts to guide them. Talking about twistpoints leads them to realise that they each met Protus today. Mortimer talks about Yasmine, and about ending up in Dorian's old hut. He recalls Dorian as a hermit from his childhood, although Dorian has been working for the group in the Spike for forty-two years. Sylvester is sure Yasmine was lying about being there to review Arthur, unless the Guild have changed the rules without telling him. Employing a Weirdo, we learn, is a requisite part of being an aristocrat.
They come to a group of elongated, slope-sided pillars labelled "do not touch". After they have passed on without touching them, we see that they are local Panegates. Windows open in them to show a room with a table set for dinner, two female Gnolls gossiping (one has a flutterby on a string) and two Dornbeasts, large and small. Frowgler, looking rough, emerges from the Dornbeast one although the Dornbeasts cannot pass. He goes back through another, smaller window and we hear a voice comment that he is damaged. Frowgler says he met one of Protus's new friends.
The twistpoints in the underhub aren't mentioned in the Mansion's records. Sylvester thinks the Ettins' devices were built to shut down in the event of a Crash, and are now waking again. They discuss the Crash, and what they could do before it - still far less than the Ettins did. They had a high-level tram which took a week to cross the country: the Ettins went to the moon.
They come to another pillar labelled "touch". In order to get past a twistpoint and go up again Mortimer touches it with his umbrella, and a ray from the ceiling strikes the other two. Sylvester loses nearly all his memory - although he recalls Nimue - and Rosemary loses some of her intelligence, regresses emotionally and starts acting like an eager-to-please, extremely literal-minded five-year-old with no conversational filters. Rosemary's memory is intact and she realises what has happened and warns Mortimer he will have to tell her what to do. This is a double-edged sword as she is now extremely hypnotically susceptible.
Following Mortimer's instincts, they hold the umbrella together and touch the pillar again, and this time a levitating lift called a Woosher arrives. The Woosher carries them up inside the tower, and while they are on it the ramps that were there before disappear.
Meanwhile, Nevus's troops are at Comshaw's door, believing he sent Sylvester and Rosemary to spy on Le Tree. Comshaw emerges and duffs them up with his poking stick. He gets one of them, a young male Trog called Skradt, to take him to Nevus. Skradt is interested in learning to be a Poker himself. The Basement is now very quiet - most people are hiding. They go to Le Tree, where Gnoll doorkeepers called Forfind and Frag let them pass. We see that the hamster, plant and ABOL have escaped.
Comshaw offers to trade true information for a truce. Nevus agrees and asks him why he and the Council hired Sylvester and Rosemary to come to Le Tree and start a war. Comshaw explains that he did no such thing although he's not sure about the Council. Nevus accepts that Rosemary and Sylvester were lying. Comshaw tells him they are Humans and Sylvester is the Earl (which he learned from Mortimer at the crater), and then suddenly strikes a Fixit from the head of Neilguye, Nevus's Motihaul accountant, where Nevus can see it. A Boogieman, Malcolm, catches the Fixit and it dies - they are very fragile. Comshaw goes to tell the Council about the Humans and the Fixits, and Skradt comes with him.
04: Closing Out an Era (The Ettinworks) [18/01/2011 - 04/06/2011] As they ride the Woosher Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer discuss the fact that there must be "some rich guy with horrible mutant tastebuds" keeping Moe Wines in business (there is, of course - Mr Hand). They discuss the fact that Sylvester is the Earl (which he has forgotten) and the succession. They pass an unknown woman in brown, with blond hair with a pink bow on top - Rosemary calls her Mz Teree - who seems to be the one marking the signs. Hpobfvfr is stil trailing them.
When they disembark, higher up, the tower changes again and they find more ramps. It is mentioned that they need never have gone down to look for the Pots Room, because Mortimer knows where there is a supply of seige pots in a disused barracks. Rosemary's bodyguard training is still sharp even if the rest of her isn't. They discuss twistpoints, and confirm that it is possible to walk down a ramp, then back up the same ramp, and end up somewhere different from where they started. The new signpost is decorated with a heart with "N C + A S" written in it: they think this may be Nirvana Clepe and the Mz Teree woman.
With more down-and-up twists they arrive at the level of the bank of windows, up against the roof of the cavern where the Ettinworks are, and just under the floor of the upper part of the Basement. At this point they are probably back at about the level of Le Tree, or maybe a storey or two below it. As they walk Rosemary burbles, and starts to speak about Tansy - who she thinks is the woman Sylvester saw her fighting when Protus showed him visions - and a word beginning "Qu". The view from the windows looks as if it is of starry space rather than down into the Ettinworks, but they do not go to look, for fear of triggering more dangerous events.
Leading up from the window room is a flight of stone steps going up into the body of the rock above them. There is also an Ettin-style door with a gap about 10" high underneath it. Mortimer peers underneath and sees a corridor of human-type doors, one with a pair of shoes outside it, but a little metal sign saying "KEEP OUT" falls down in front of him, with thye letters cut out of it as holes. Sylvester feels that there are Humans in that corridor, but when he turns his back it's a non-Human-looking hand, possibly Frowgler's, which retrieves the "KEEP OUT" sign.
They set off up the stone steps towards the Sneech den. Rosemary and Sylvester are starting to improve. There is some oblique discussion about Sylvester not telling Rosemary the Scary Lady's name, then about Mortimer's friend the Scalpsucker - Mortimer remembers falling down the hole leading to the old World o' Pots storeroom but doesn't seem to recall meeting Rufus. They come to a door opened by number pad, leading to a double-doored Sneech-lock. Emerging, they pass an alcove containing an entrance to the elevator, above the one where they emerged earlier. Past that is a round room at the bottom of a shaft, with a crystal on a stand in the middle, playing a popular song. There are also double metal doors, closed, and stairs leading up and down.
Mortimer hopes to use the stairs but finds the ones going up are labelled "Operation Certain Death" and the ones going down, "Slimegrub Breedpits". The down-flight shows signs of recent flooding, but Mortimer retrieves a glowgem from the first landing down, with a mysterious socket just right for fitting it onto the point of his umbrella. Rosemary seems slightly hypnotised by it.
They plan to go upstairs, towards Operation Certain Death, but then they hear something big and loud crashing downstairs towards them. Rosemary draws the Can-Opener, which Sylvester calls a Paleslicer. They use the singing crystal thing to levitate them up to a higher floor, but Rosemary is grabbed and held back, floating, by what proves to be an enormous, female relative of Ahz and Skiv, called Tand. Tand can smell that Rosemary has been near Ahz and Skiv and believes, wrongly, that she knows who they are, so after some initial problems adjusting her voice to Human levels, she tells her to tell them to get a move on with their allotted task of growing a garden, a task for which they were all sent here by someone else. Tand says Rosemary is not like any other human she's met, and one of the other two (has to be Mortimer) is sparkly like a lot of humans used to be but haven't been for a while - apparently she is sensing him as a magic-user.
Tand has to leave because she is literally over-stretched and her torch is going out. She is afraid to meet, in the dark, a male "horrible mask-thing" who can go anywhere - this may be Frowgler, since the Pales call him Frogmask. Released, Rosemary floats up to the boys. She feels herself to be now entirely back to normal (although later events will show that this isn't quite true). Sylvester recognises the name Tand from his records, but still hasn't wholly regained his memory.
Meanwhile, Comshaw and Skradt come to the Council entrance, which is heavily defended. An Eyebolt receptionist called Witherward admits them by dropping them down a shaft. They arrive in the midst of a full meeting, including Twiz, acting for Maw; Snerd, acting for Sina; Commander Chumley (the Council's Chief of Security) for the Boogiemen and a Ghast "Stirrer", some kind of high ceremonial functionary relating to how the Ghasts reproduce (they have to use special breeding pools within their home base and are unable to set up more outside it), who is in some way not physically present. On the Council are Doyen, a female Trog; Gavzada, a female Motihaul; Wunk, a male Gnoll; Aprat, a Helipath and Chairbeing Preznit, a male Eyebolt, although he tries to hide his species behind a mask.
Twiz is very interested in the new Hall Sina is setting up. The Council is concerned about Rhid and what he may do next, and whether Sina is a safe person to be a leader. Gavzada is keen on anything which keeps Othara occupied, and they are cautiously positive so long as Sina and her engineer Fosic build walls to keep epople away from the Operator.
Comshaw then strikes a Fixit from the head of a femal Gnoll called Widdendreem, who seems to be the Council's record-keeper. He wants to catch it alive but Widdendreem, freed from the Fixit, pounces and kills it. Widdendrem is angry that she now owes Comshaw a debt, and concerned by the fact that she has killed a person. She tells them the name "Fixit" and that the dead one was a female called Snurfix, reporting to a male nicknamed Slinker. Snurfix had crept onto her head while she slept. We learn that young Fixits are raised in cages "beyond the Spikeshield", which must be the barrier others have spoken of. Chumley sends Widdendreem to write down all she recalls about the Fixits, while Comshaw tells the Council what he knows about them - leaving out Camora's name. Chumley decrees that no one in the Council Chamber shall wear a hat - all the Councillors drop their hoods and Preznit, whose brain is in his torso, strips to his socks.
The Council agrees to tell all the key players - Maw, Agita etc. - whilst trying to prevent the knowledge of the Fixits from spreading generally for the moment, for fear of what God might do when he learns his spy network has been blown. They want all the leaders warned before God takes any action.
Comshaw tells them about the Humans, and Sylvester being the Earl, but he doesn't know if he is the Earl. The Earl "tore the world in two fighting Yurp, the Demon King" - Yurp is not yet identified, unless he is the Operator, but the Earl is evidently Audra, who caused the Chasm to spread. Comshaw plans to go speak to Sylvester tomorrow.
Comshaw, Skradt, Snerd and Twiz head for the exit, discussing Ghast reproduction and Trog education (here we learn that Espy is a teacher). They slide down a chute and land in a corridor by the battered-looking Gobule Mingent, who is eating the dead from the battle. Twiz has been chewing a piece of the dead Fixit - they tell Mingent if he smells anything like it, to bite it. Twiz runs off. Comshaw thinks Snerd should work for Sina but Snerd says Shona wouldn't like it, and he loves Shona.
Comshaw and Skradt set off together. They encounter a Jibjib called Schrik being ridden by a Fixit, and try and fail to take the Fixit alive. The Fixit has been using Schrik to spy on Flap's ferry across the Great Chasm. An important Boogieman ruler called Crispin is mentioned. Comshaw sends Schrik to take the dead Fixit to Sina and then work for her.
Skradt reveals that he joined Nevus hoping for an early death in battle, so he wouldn't have to choose to take the Plunge. But Comshaw has given him a vision of something more useful, plus he wants to learn to fight as well as him. Frowgler, watching through a crack in the wall, thinks they make a good team.
05: Closing Out an Era (The Sneech Den) [06/06/2011 - 16/12/2011] Sylvester, Mortimer and Rosemary pass another large inactive Sneech node and several smaller ones, and some graffitti relating to dragons - although we're not told whether they are a legend or, like wyverns, a real if possibly extinct animal. There is a conversation about Mortimer's history of failed relationships with scary women, in the course of which he tells Rosemary that his relationship with her will be strictly business while she is staring bug-eyed at the hypno-gem, and he reveals that he has the hots for Yasmine.
Rosemary is in command over Sylvester because that's part of her job as bodyguard. There is a lot of discussion of Sneech races and technology, living walls etc. and also Rosemary's poor origins on Gnomin. Mortimer takes off his shirt so Rosemary can make them rag boots and mittens so they don't have to touch the Sneech material: he passes his umbrella to Sylvester as he does so and sees the gem glows much less brightly when Sylvester holds the umbrella. Rosemary has absorbed the hypnotic lesson that her relationship with Mortimer is strictly business.
Following a trail of fresh air through the tunnels of the Sneech den, they come to a bridge over a moderate drop, guarded on either side by relatives of Fern's. The intelligent plants are wary of Rosemary but agree to disarm her and carry the Can-Opener across the bridge themselves for her to collect on the far side. As they get there the Gnoll Agorn falls while trying to climb down from the crater above, and lands at their feet. Agorn hasn't noticed, but Niddle's apearing and disapearing gem (hereafter the Hitchhiking Gem) is now attached to his spear.
As the Human trio prepare to leave, one of the the plants delays them and asks - by spelling with its tongue - that they be given names. Sylvester names them after the Founding Oracles, a group of women who spread the religion of the Brush - Violet, Daisy, Joice, Jenny, Kathryne, Hettie, Evangeline, Vivian and Petunia. Sylvester promises to visit them again: as the Humans leave we see the plants talk amongst themselves by some rapid means. The Humans come to the main corridor through the Sneech den, which is studded with tall, light-bearing tree-like things.
Meanwhile Comshaw and Skradt come to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, where Agita (a Motihaul) has her office. They have a complicated system of clearances in which Comshaw ranks quite high. An Eyebolt called Philodox admits them. While waiting to be seen they observe that two of the Eyebolt clerks are wearing Fixit-type hats but they seem to be just hats. An Eyebolt called Giddhom says thay are in fashion because some people claim they help you to think. Weirding is discussed, and the eccentricities of various species - we learn that Helipaths refuse to cross the Great Chasm to Sneech side even though Sneeches get on OK with them. The hatted clerks are Scrutineers, recording everything visitors say - Skradt wishes to be recorded as a would-be Poker.
[Around here we have a Labor Day out-take showing local man Arlen and his daughter Juniper, digging a ditch at the back of a hedge near the village of Eetown. The hedge seems to have the rusted remains of a pre-crash vehicle incorporated into it.]
Comshaw borrows Giddhom's hat so Fixits will think he's controlled. They are escorted to see Agita by an Eyebolt called Peripatet riding in a special buggy which was damaged during an eventful visit by Strode, the aggressive female Motihaul in the pumpkin-head mask who appears in Sundays in SubShaft 44f. They pass more clerks one of whom, Ogdoad, is wearing a Fixit.
We learn that the Eyebolts in Root Hall distrust the GBOLs, and therefore presumably the Tree, and make their own lights. Comshaw and Skradt come to Agita and her Eyebolt clerk Flibbergib, and Agita gives them apples. She has with her her young daughter, Rishathra, and a Gnoll guard called Termagant. Agita and Comshaw catch up on the events of the day (including establishing that it was the young Mortimer who somehow started the Nome War after falling through into a mine), and Comshaw gets her to summon Ogdoad, who insists on a promise of safe conduct before he will come in. He has some involvement with another Eyebolt (?) called Tribblerig and some scheme involving Sneech squeezings. As Ogdoad enters the office Comshaw baps the Fixit, called Endix, off his head and Skradt catches him in a bowl but Endix somehow commits suicide. Ogdoad is terribly distressed, for he and Endix had become at least semi-partners.
Comshaw and Skradt leave Root Hall, and are quizzed as they leave by an Eyebolt who assumes it's all to do with Sneech squeezings. As they come away from Root Hall they pass the male Nome called Rezrov, still with his arm in a sling, leading, on a string, a very flirtatious-looking female Trog named Hogminny. Both are smeared with green paint. We are told that some Nomes and some Trogs have a "thing", and learn that Skradt tentatively fancies Maggle. Comshaw 'phones the Council and tells them he has delivered their message to Agita, and he has a message for them from Root Hall saying Ogdoad is involved with a Sneech squeezings scheme but they'll handle it. Comshaw takes Skradt home with him and Camora and Niddle are quite welcoming, although if he's staying they may need to move to a bigger apartment. All sleep, exhausted.
Meanwhile, Agita takes Ogdoad with her to see a female Motihaul accountant called Marritza who is wearing a Fixit named Arnix. Agita threatens Arnix with a pointed umbrella ferrule, then tells him that the gaff regarding God and the Fixits is well and truly blown, and offers him the chance to ride on Ogdoad and act as a liason officer between herself and God. Arnix and Ogdoad both agree.
Meanwhile. Sprocket is upset to see that Crazy Rhid's ex place connects to large areas of still-working machinery, the only machinery that good outside the SubShafts, and Rhid didn't tell anyone. Sina now has a makeshift office, an Eyebolt receptionist called Nikhedonia and Maggle acting as gopher. Sina and Sprocket decide to marry, right now - Wittol, who will be their Finagler, has already anticipated this and started to make arrangements. We learn that Niddle has had experiences which make him a perfect Finagler - so perfect he may be a whole new thing.
We learn that Gnoll marriage customs involve a receptacle called a Tweebowl, a Tool and a Blossom and, at some point before they have whelps, a visit to the Fluffy Foo-Foo Cave, and without a Finagler things go badly wrong for mated pairs. Yet, some couples such as Niff and Folla live unofficially, without a Finagler, and manage fine. Sprocket, Wittol and Sina have a hasty cermeony, with the possibility of a more formal one later. Afterwards Snerd turns up and thinks Nikhedonia's hat is a Fixit, although it's just a hat. As he is explaining, Schrik turns up with an actual dead Fixit. Maggle and Kronk are sent out to show the dead Fixit around and kill any live ones they find, and Snerd returns to his mate Shona and Finagler Wubb.
Flange reminds Sprocket of their obligations to their employer Mr Hand, and tells him about Rubrak being killed by Chauncy and Edgar. Sprocket and Flange will probably cease to be partners now. Sprocket talks privately to Sina about Mr Hand and the job - he has realised that the femal Motihaul who put him in touch with Mr Hand was wearing/worn by a Fixit. Mr Hand has had them installing devices called Y-nodes which look like Sneech growths, and produce ultrasonic sound only small creatures can hear. Fleebs in the presence of a Y-node turn to face it and stare. Sprocket sees Mr Hand as ruthless and controlling but constructive rather than destructive in his intentions. They agree to tell Comshaw about it, then get on to the serious business of their wedding night.
As a final wrap-up, we see Snoot bitching to Izchak about his bloody awful day; the Super Rock pausing to rest and to talk to another rock which can talk, but not walk; Digger reporting to Frowgler that things are going to plan and he has no questions to ask; and Frederick preparing to serenade the Grubbs on a Fugehorn.
06: Twilight [17/12/2011 - 09/06/2012] Agorn encounters Hpobfvfr, who is trailing the Humans. She addresses him as if he is two people - she senses the sentient Hitchiking Gem which Agorn doesn't know he is carrying.
Sylvester and co. enter the main corridor, which is again unnaturally quiet - we learn there should be trilobite-thingies scuttling about trailing organic wires etc.. While discussing local politics and a performing troupe who once came to the local village, Mortimer accidentally causes Rosemary to fixate on the gem in his umbrella, and gives her three hypnotic commands - "Go to sleep, but act like you're still awake!", "Take a note! I am not going to keep making these mistakes with women!" and "Do as you're told! Stay in your place! Speak only when spoken to! The Brush wills it!".
They pass a Sneech tower which is at the edge between Human and Sneech territory and is labelled "NO INTERRUPTIONS", then they come to a neon sign saying "OUR TRAJECTORYS DIVERGE PAYMENT FOR YE ASSISTANCE" (although Sylvester doesn't know what assistance is meant). This dissolves, leaving a squat obelisk which moves when it is touched, and which Rosemary names the Dohickey. The Sneeches themselves have gone.
The obelisk steers them around a hole in the floor, which proves to be the hole which Chauncy and Edgar left when they exited Izchak's shop looking for the Scary Lady. Matagam the Motihaul soldier and a Boogieman called Geoff climb out of the hole, checking where Chauncy and Edgar went.
Heading for the Mansion proper, Rosemary, Mortimer and Sylvester pass the entrance to a tunnel put in by the Council to monitor the Humans. They emerge from an elaborate vesitbule decorated with ornamental fake stalagmites and flaming braziers, into a plain downstairs room containing the entrance to the elevator and a small extension of the Tree, and with "BEWARE MR FLIP" written on the wall. Mr Flip is a character we meet in Sundays in SubShaft 44f, but Mortimer says the graffito has been there his whole life. To get further they need to go through a locked door, the key to which Sylvester dropped while falling into the Great Chasm.
Matagam and Geoff head for the Council tunnel and are passed by Hpobfvfr, who corners the humans against the locked door. Mortimer senses that her mind has been tampered with and speaks to her sympathetically, incidentally getting between her and her intended targets. Then we see in flashback that the male Ghast she passed just before Rosemary and Sylvester fell into the Chasm realised that something was wrong and went and fetched help. Hpthva, the officer in charge of a party of Ghast soldiers who have been following behind, orders Hpobfvfr to stand down, and this breaks the Operator's hold over her. Hearing Rosemary address Mortimer by name, Hpthva quries this and he says he is "Mortimer Eman.. because we're going to be all.. formal": in doing so he inadvertently gives Rosemary another hypnotic command. Having confirmed Mortimer's name and that he might be the one who started the Nome War, and having learned that they are Human, Hpthva wants to arrest the trio, but great aunt Scary appears in the doorway (with balloon) and scares them off. Somewhere, she has acquired a flower which she is now wearing tucked into the v-neck of her dress.
After the Ghasts leave, the rest go through into the house and Scary cures Sylvester's memory problems. He is very reluctant to ask her to do anything which will put him under an obligation to her. Scary tries to touch the Sneech obelisk, but it fizzes a shock at her. Meanwhile Sylvester realises something is wrong with Rosemary, and when she starts addressing Mortimer as "Mr Eman" because "We are being all formal" Sylvester realises that she is following Mortimer's commands literally. Mortimer tries to snap her out of it by giving her a ridiculous command to "be a dog" but she goes down on all fours and starts growling. Scary is detachedly impressed by his power, and thinks there is a real risk Rosemary will become permanently enthralled.
Alarmed, Mortimer tries to order Rosemary to be herself. In the short term it seems to have worked, but it remains to be seen whether she has internalised any of his commands. Mortimer goes off to speak to Frederick. Restored to normal function, Rosemary is introduced to the Scary Lady (whose name we finally learn to bne Myrrh) and the two go off for a private chat in which it is revealed that Rosemary knows the Scary Lady to be not human, and that the Scary Lady loves and protects Frederick to the point of being willing to kill anybody who threatens anybody he cares about, such as his nephews. The same minituarised trundlebug who fell onto Rosemary's helmet earlier in the day is revealed to be still lurking in her broken lamp, and the Scary Lady rescues it, then goes off to see what's happened to the Sneeches.
Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Scary Lady, and how Frederick summoned her by accident while trying to get a Djinn. He spent his energy on a collar to control her and stop her from running wild and killing bystanders, as Demons had done in the past, but now she wears the collar voluntarily and uses it to assist her own magic in some way. She has been a good partner to Frederick and a good great-aunt to his family, and Sylvester is loyal to her and will protect her if necessary.
Sylvester schedules a talk about Rosemary's recent history for the next day but he fears to be overheard, so they must go somewhere secure. They prove to each other that they are human by checking each other's ears (Sylvester's ears are apparently jaw-droppingly strange, but not pointed) and discuss the origins of Demons and Djinn and the possibility that they are, after all, just people. Sylvester realises something about Frederick and why he hid books on Demons which he feels foolish not to have realised before, which leads to a conversation about a duel which Rosemary lost in a way which made her realise her own mortality and how dangerous her job was, and they take the Sneech obelisk towards the Quiet Room.
Meanwhile, the Scary Lady enters the Sneech den and speaks to Frowgler, who is crawling out of the top of the shaft created by Chauncy and Edgar. They seem not to have spoken to each other for fifty years, but are on good terms. Mortimer goes to speak to Frederick, who is playing his Fugehorn into some kind of vaguely tree-like amplifier. On the way he meets Nellie, who recognises the umbrella he is carrying and seems shocked by it. She is concerned, generally, for Mortimer's safety and well-being, and for that of her own husband Amos although he is sitting quietly doing some book-binding, and seems to be enjoying Frederick's music. Mortimer believes Rosemary and Sylvester are now an item: Nellie expects him to be jealous but he doesn't seem to be.
Frederick tells Mortimer that he's a wizard and that there's a wand built into the umbrella, but he won't help Mortimer to learn magic because he thinks it brings only misery. Meanwhile Sylvester and Rosemary talk as they steer the dohickey towards the Quiet Room, and we learn that Frederick actually plays the Fugehorn very well, that what he is playing is a well-known lament for the victims of the Crash, and that Ernest, the Earl who was an art forger, was also a genuine patron of the arts and built a whole wing of the castle for theatre and other performing arts.
As they approach the Quiet Room Rosemary's Poke Kit shrinks and begins to disgorge its contents, so Sylvester goes alone to deposit the Sneech dohickey. The Quiet Room contains the Dark Crystal, a Triforce symbol from the Zelda stories, a clockwork monkey playing cymbals, a statuette of Cthulhu, a flower in a pot and a crescent thing which looks like the head of another Can-Opener-type pike. After Sylvester leaves, all these objects begin to glow with magic and the crescent speaks and greets the dohickey.
Sylvester and Rosemary go to find a sword for her and to change the lock on the basement door, since he has lost his key in the basement. They find a powerful taser, much stronger than the one Sylvester tried to use on Villipend: Rosemary says Hack'N'Slash have offered a big reward for a working one, but they leave it where it is because it's probably only its proximity to the Quiet Room which is keeping it from exploding. Sylvester says that the things in the Quiet Room are dangerous, that destroying them in the Great Chasm would lead to earthquakes and that left in the Quiet Room those that are Sneech gifts gradually fade away, and in any case they usually switch off when the recipient dies. The crescent thing is not known to be dangerous - just annoying.
They meet up with Mortimer, and Sylvester assures him he hadn't known that he was a wizard. Mortimer is half thinking of going after Yasmine, but he hopes she will return to the Mansion. Sylvester fears this could lead to a division of loyalties, depending on what it is the Weirdos are plotting. He thinks their father may also have been an unknown wizard.
Mortimer describes his encounter with Frowgler, who he has realised gave him the umbrella surreptitiously, and Sylvester believes him because the Great Riddler also mentioned Frowgler. They intend to debrief each other the next day but not now, because Rosemary feels they may be overheard. She meanwhile is planning to fetch a seige-pot from the barracks. Mortimer goes off and heads up the North Tower, and Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the Weirdos, who are a combination of jester, priest and counsellor. We learn that Oracles (but not Weirdos) carry out midwifery - and euthanasia. We learn that there are seige-engines mounted on the Main Tower and also that Rosemary can't act, as they discuss the plays which used to be put on at the Mansion, and the history of Kaylu - a Hitlerian dictator who introduced a country called Tomania to a crazed, murderous empire-building cult which worshipped a two-tailed monkey god, and was destroyed by the Crash in some way connected with the Infernal Engine. Sylvester feels that he no longer knows what's going on around his home.
Having collected the necessary materials they board up the door to the Basement, using a mechanical nail-planter which could be valuable if they can find somebody to replicate it for sale. They leave the door unbarred for the Scary Lady and Syklvester declares their business with the Basement is done for the day, although he will keep his promise to call on the Ferns again, and his plans for the rest of the evening require Rosemary to retain her (Audra's) helmet.
We see Frederick return to the suite of rooms he shares with the Scary Lady, and gaze nostalgically at a photograph of his younger self and other youths in wizard gear.
07: Career Paths [11/06/2012 - 16/02/2013] We see Agorn emerge, with relief, from a tunnel mouth partway up a rock-face near a bridge across the Great Chasm. He edges along a narrow ledge, past Furphy who is trying to hatch some eggs, and comes to a bridge with a checkpoint at either end, although this one at the Sneech end is deserted. He crosses and speaks to a Gnoll border guard called Varuna, and an Ichyoid guard, and tells Varuna to warn his "vile employer" (presumably Nevus or Guttle) that if the nobs keep poking in the Sneech den the Sneeches will some day poke back. The entrance to Crescent Hall is right by the bridge, in the line of fire.
He talks to another Gnoll guard called Scibile who fills him in on the events of the day, then he walks into a maze of dark, much-graffitoed stone passages and stairs. The Hitchhiking Gem falls from his spear with a clunk and he spots it and posts it down a metal hatch. It clangs down into a chain of pipes, and we see that the pipes pass by an odd kind of sculpture or device consisting of coloured spikes almost like giant coloured pencils, with single letters on them, mainly vowels. This may have to do with the religion of the Brush that coloured in the world. On top of these spikes sits a small red-brown Fuzz, clutching a flaming torch.
Agorn, meanwhile, keeps going until he comes to an area where there are lighted windows and street signs. He goes to Root Hall, the Eyebolt home base, and speaks to a male receptionist called Enchiridon. He is left waiting for a long time while a female Scrutineer called Hypothimia records his every word and action. She is stressed and angry because with all that's been going on - the fire, Chancy and Edgar on the loose etc. - she wants to be with her mate Brimborion and their children but instead she is stuck here in this petty desk job. Peripatet arrives in his wheeled chair to collect Agorn but before Agorn goes he tells Hypothimia that he himself has been parted from his mate (he seems to have only one) and his child has been lost through some sort of mental transformation (he went away but left his body behind), but all you can do is pick yourself up and try to change things for the better.
As Agorn and Peripatet proceed through Root Hall we learn that Peripatet has a girlfrind called Glossolalia, and Agorn sniffs out (literally) that Skradt is now with Comshaw. They pass various official messages on the walls but one seems like a religious or political statement - "Remontado decided she had had o nuff shaft folderol so off she went and uprooted us all". As they pass the door to Scritchpod 205 a female Eyebolt in a wheeled chair passes them going the other way, wearing what may be a normal hat or may be a Fixit, and a wave of "weirding" hallucinations emanates from behind the closed door.
Peripatet takes Agorn to a door behind which is a dark space containing dark objects, perhaps Ettin machinery, glowing with dull red lights. Agorn refuses to enter. An unseen, probably male presence (Agorn addresses it as "Mr Muckymuck") behind a hatch dismisses Peripatet, who leaves at speed - the presence says that Peripatet does well at clandestine cart-races. It wants to discuss Agorn's boss, and says that "some of us" are aware of, and broadly approve of, what "you all" are doing. Consequently Agorn has been given Class Eight clearance, which means he can now come and go unescorted through most areas of Root Hall. The presence is somebody Agorn has had indirect contact with or knowledge of, but has never spoken to directly before: it asks him to supply any useful information he comes across in return, and Agorn tells him that humans are real. The presence starts to half tell Agorn about Fixits but Agorn appears not to be receptive to the idea of hats being significant, and leaves.
Meanwhile the chit for Agorn's new clearance is dropped down a pneumatic pipe system to a clerk who reads it and then eats it and replaces it with another which he writes himself. He is monitoring something on a small screen.
Agorn goes to the "Grafted Zone" of Root Hall and speaks to Flibbergib, Agita's Eyebolt receptionist, who again tries to tell him about the Fixits, not very clearly. Agita arrives and we see a flashback to the aftermath of the auction, and Agita sending Agorn to trail Mortimer. Agorn reports the basics of the toing and froing he has seen surrounding Mortimer, Rufus, Eunice and Yasmine. Agita fundamentally misunderstands what Humans are - she knows they are like big Nomes so she thinks they are a local mutation caused by the Spike, and gradually spreading through the local forest. She shows Agorn a written note warning him about the Fixits and telling him to lie low until tomorrow - which suggests she doesn't want to speak out loud in front of Flibbergib, or fears others may be listening.
Meanwhile we see various characters sleeping, including the smal Wyrm Squeeb, asleep deep in the chasm, and Bung's friend Faddle the Gnoll, who is very much awake. He is trying to evade somebody, but is rounded up by a hunting party of female Gnolls. Next we see him and four females, all wearing collars with lights on the front, sleeping together in a large nest.
As Agorn leaves Root Hall he notices that there are fewer Eyebolt watchers on duty than there usually are. The last one usually hides inside a free-standing stone sign outside the exit, but there is no-one there, and what looks like blood on the spy-hole. The "blood" is a trick to get him to stop and look, and he is narrowly missed by an arrow fired by one of two dark-haired female Gnolls (Fanga and 33333), who had momentarily mistaken him for somebody else.
Agorn lets himself into a concealed bedsit room behind a panel out in the Fringes. In the dust on a table, someone has drawn an arrow and written "She thought you were someone else", surrounded by what look like Smyt footprints: we later learn that messages on the table are a regular thing and usually correct, and the marks on the table are referred to as flipper marks, although they look too small to be Frowgler's. Digger comes in - it's his pad - and Agorn addreses him as "Boss". We see that Agorn and Digger have known about the Fixits for some time. Agorn reports the day's activities to Digger, giving him more detail than he told Agita: he feels that something nudged him to get him to go down the hole which led him to the Ferns. We see that they have been watching the humans and giving them descriptive nicknames (e.g. Arthur the Weirdo with his ventriloquist's puppet Fantod is "Snoop two-head"). Agorn would like to bring Conshaw into their conspiracy, or whatever it is, but Digger vetoes the idea.
Agorn sets out to see to some personal matters, but as he leaves Digger points out that when "Muckymuck" at Root Hall said that he and others were broadly pleased with what Agorn's boss was doing he may have meant Digger himself and their conspiracy-whatever, not Agita. Agorn is alarmed at this idea. Coming away from Digger's bedsit he meets a Gnoll called Bromir who looks a lot like him and believes himself to be the target of the assassins who were hired by Sooterkin at Root Hall. Bromir refers to Agorn having been given higher clearance by Fuglemin, who is probably Agorn's Mr Muckymuck.
Agorn heads back towards the Sneech side of the Great Chasm. At the bridge he tries to chat up the Gnoll guard Termagant and invites her to come fishing with him some time: she turns him down, although the Ichyoid guard Argus thinks she should have said yes.
He comes on Furphy and his eggs again and we learn that Furphy is actually Agorn's son. The mother was called Awen and she and Agorn are estranged, though not bitterly so. A Denthir is mentioned who was probably their Finagler but is now dead. Furphy has had some kind of relationship with Dandilli (who went to the SubShafts) and will take no other mate, possibly because she put him off from doing so. He is sitting on the eggs because he is guarding them for two Jibjibs called Snurge and Scumble who are or have recently been conveying a message for him. Father and son talk, and Furphy says that that morning he saw that the physical world had changed but most people can't see it. Agorn is semi-willing to consider this and means to tell Digger about it tomorrow.
Two Jibjibs called Ruck (male) and Smew (female) fly overhead in the dark, and we see them enter a hole in a sort of complex, compound stalactite formation, which we will learn is called the Uppermost Spire, and settle on a nest there. Ruck is carrying Urwyn's friend, the comparatlively large small Wyrm Zugo, although the Jibjibs don't know his name. Zugo slithers off into a crack, telling the Jibjibs to wait there for him. These two Jibjibs regularly carry a secretive group of Shallow Wyrms whom they refer to as Clients, transporting them around a widespread netwerk of "rings" whose purpose the Jibjibs don't know. They get snuggly in the nest, although Smew does not wish to have eggs.
We see a Shallow Wyrm named Sneckdraw who seems to be spying on a ring, or at least on a tunnel used by a ring. Sneckdraw is detected and chased through the tunnels by helmeted guards named Vim, Crot, Ang and Diet, and escapes by jumping off an underground cliff onto the back of a tame (or sentient?) bat. Ang gets Ruck to fly him in pursuit with a view to killing them: Ruck queries this but when Ang assures him that Sneckdraw is not officially a member of any ring, and therefore not a client, Ruck is OK with it. They follow the bat's scent trail, but Sneckdraw and the bat dodge into a narrow tunnel which Ruck can't fit into. We see another Wyrm behind a kind of wooden screen in this tunnel. They come to a place where there is a graffitoed sign on the wall saying "Ring of the Newborn Word": Sneckdraw, who seems to be a freelance spy, dismounts and is challenged by guards called Conspue and Fream. They pay Sneckdraw with a food item and he or she reports on Zugo's presence at the Uppermost Spire. Fream conveys this message to a female superior whom we don't see, and then goes to speak to a female tuneller or miner called Glink, on whom Fream seems to be sweet.
We see Sina giving the cleaning contract for the new hall to Maw and his crew. At Kronk's suggestion, Sina names the new group Leny Hall, although Maggle and Grik seem to know something mildly disreputable about Leny.
Still in the same evening, we see a female Fixit named Astex who sits on a rock in a tunnel filled with plants and fungi. She seems to be fishing in a stream which flows alongside her rock. A male called Slix, who has been sent by a female commander called Poinx, comes to speak to her and get her observations - he calls her "our resident". Astex, who seems to have a cynical attitude to her own kind, says that the shield around the Spike was breached for a second or so, causing panic. Slix runs off before she can tell him about the Sneeches leaving. We learn that Astex is acquainted with Frowgler.
We see Mortimer speaking about wizardry to Amos Grubb, who is himself a wizard, but who retired pre-Crash, after the incident with the Scary Lady. He says that Sylvester has some magic, although not as much as Mortimer, and their father Willoughby could have been a wizard if he hadn't been so frivolous. He believes there are still some schools of magic in operation somewhere, but he kept the fact of Mortimer's magic from Mortimer as a favour to Frederick and Nellie. Magic tends to run in families and other members of the E family also have at least some magical talent.
They discuss the fact that Mortimer got the wand from Frowgler, and the fact that Frederick and Amos were trained by great-uncle Hindenburgh. If Mortimer practises as a magician he may get hassles from the Oracles of the Brush. We learn that wands should preferably be handled only by the owner, and that Mortimer unlocks locks by telekinesis. They discuss the nature of mind-reading and mind-control, wbich is far easier for Sneeches, Demons and Djinn to perform than other races, and Rosemary's susceptibility; magic-users on the other hand are very resistent to mind-control. They set off in search of Rosemary so Amos can get to know her.
The scene cuts to the Nomes at the Pale camp. They are discussing the fact that if Nitfol becomes mayor he'll need a wife. He says that the only girl he found tolerable disappeared. Then Fizmo, the Hot Zone worker, appears and she and Nitfol get talking: she may or may not be the girl whom he liked before.
Then we cut to The Spike, where Eunice and Rufus are talking. Rufus has recently had a talk with "God", which left him briefly unconscious and rubber-legged. He is behaving in quite a commanding, confident way, and speculating about what "God" and his henchman Dorian plan for Eunice next. After some edgy verbal sparring Eunice more-or-less agrees to be Rufus's assistant and bodyguard.
08: The End of the Day [18/02/2013 - 16/07/2013] We see Rosemary and Sylvester coming out of gender-specific lavatories which are delineated by male and female statues carrying a real spear and shield. They discuss finding Rosemary some better clothes so she can be properly introduced to Nellie and Amos, and she is tested by an Ettin-built electronic panel on the wall which confirms she is compatible with the house and can perform its ceremonies. Sylvester offers formally to employ her. Once they are both respectably dressed they go and introduce Rosemary to Nellie, although Sylvester tells Nellie that Rosemary's surname is Dapple, not Ripley.
Nellie has already worked out that Rosemary arrived without passing through the village, and is angry about Mortimer being encouraged/allowed to learn magic. She opens up and talks about the group of magic-users of which she, Amos and Frederick were a part prior to the Crash, and Sylvester warns her about some of the recent developments in the Basement. As he talks we see vignettes of Chumley the Boogieman presiding over a growing collection of dead Fixits; the blonde woman with the pink bow, whom Rosemary called Mz Teree, reporting distressing changes in the Basement to someone who addresses her as Annabelle; and Frowgler telling the Scary Lady about the conversation Rosemary and Sylvester are currently having with Nellie.
Sylvester leaves Rosemary and Nellie alone to talk about contraception, and we learn that there is a "Women's Circle" at the local Temple, where such things may be discussed. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester leave together, talking about local leaders - an impromptu lady mayor named Saffron Stout who runs an inn, and Patrick Skragg, the Sheriff. The Earl has warily polite relationships with both.
Sylvester formally introduces Rosemary to Frederick. Afterwards Rosemary and Sylvester agree to conceal her true identity and membership of Hack n' Slash. They meet up with Amos and Mortimer and Amos, as a former wizard, comfirms that Mortimer no longer has psychic influence over Rosemary. Amos and Sylvester exchange news of the day, including some things Sylvester didn't tell Nellie, like about the Sneech gift, and about Tand - Sylvester thinks he has seen Tand mentioned in the records and Amos promises to look her up. Sylvester learns about The Pit flaring. We learn that "Pit" stands for "Pulse-Ignition Thaumnode" and that it was a booster device used to power flying trams. It is like a small version of a thing called the Daynight which seems to have done something catastrophic.
After Amos leaves to go home, Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer go to the basement of the barracks, fetch a siege pot and sit it up on the top of the West Tower over the main entrance. Mortimer goes off to find clothes (his shirt having been shredded to make makeshift gloves in the Sneech den) and leaves Sylvester and Rosemary discussing the definition of "mansion" and the aftermath of the Crash - which wasn't nearly as bad in the poor rural area where Rosemary comes from, because hardly anybody there used magic anyway - and the ownership of land and property left vacant after the previous owners died in the disaster.
They go off to eat and we see a series of vignettes: the Scary Lady visiting the Sneeches (but so far failing to find one); Amos collecting a package of Dornbeast-liver from the processor and taking it to Nellie, and discussing Rosemary with her; and Mortimer getting cleaned up. En route to a dinner of last night's Dornbeast tendrils, Rosemary and Sylvester pause to looke at a Panegate which leads elsewhere on their own world, although Sylvester says that such local Panegates are especially hard to open. Behind them is a statue of Pratchett's Discworld.
Mortimer joins them at table and says he has put the umbrella aside until such time as he may decide to take up magic. They discuss re-opening access to a nearby beach so they can gather fish and seaweed, then they sign Rosemary into the Mansion's official staff record-book, still under the false name Dapple.
Sylvester goes off to write up the day's events, and Mortimer goes and tries on clothes. Rosemary gets Amos to show her the library. Coming away with a stack of books on history, anthropology and moral philosophy, she experiences a psychic tweak which calls her to go to the Quiet Room and speak to (apparently) the Sneech dohickey, although she remains outside the locked door. She says that it and she are both protecting Sylvester, and suggests it should watch the Basement door, or the Weirdo. As the new Taskmistress she threatens the devices, saying that if any of them causes trouble she'll chuck them all into the Great Chasm. As she walks away we see Frowgler sitting by the foot of the door - he speaks to the dohickey as if they are old aquaintances.
Returning to the Guest Room, Rosemary rearranges the furniture so she can sit facing the door, writes to her aunt and takes a bath. She falls asleep but immediately wakes into a dream which seems to be some kind of objectively real astral projection. She passes Skuy and Spot, who are arguing: Skuy at least seems to be also asleep and also taking part in the astral projection. Rosemary goes to the elevator and whacks the Operator with a mallet, which she then hands over to Skuy: the physically real Operator is aware of and intrigued by what has just happened to his astral equivalent.
We see an overview of various people sleeping: Nellie and Amos; Umbuz and Piu (in bed together, so their relationship is progressing fast!); the Gobules Gorp and Phiga; Mortimer lying awake; and Yasmine sitting by a camp fire, staring at a Fleeb.
Meanwhile we see the Scary Lady, with her balloon in tow, descend to the Ettinworks and go to the same doorway where Sylvester and co. were passed the "KEEP OUT" sign. She is pased a similar cut-out message, this one saying "IN HER" with an extra "E" drawn or painted on to make it "IN HERE". The extra "E" is done in the style of the emblem of the Earls of E. The door opens and she goes through into the corridor of doors we saw before. A distant door is open to receive her but all we see through it is several floating lights - possibly ABOLs.
More vignettes: Eunice talking to Cox, in front of Ettin signs or graffiti saying "shake hands" and "onebig onion". Hector talking to Nunsuch (and mentioning another character called Penfold): Nunsuch indicates some Ettin text which appears on a screen beside them and which changes gradually from the old font to the new. This text, which says "remote spike extrusion", triggers Hector to engage a "revised schedule" which he says is twenty years late.
Meanwhile the Scary Lady leaves the room of lights and returns to the Mansion, where she bars the Basement door and puts a ward on it telling Basement dwellers to keep out. She opens a Panegate into a lush jungle and sets the balloon floating off into that jungle carrying the rescued Trundlebug, who lands in a bush where it meets a new friend (probably of the opposite sex, if Trundlebugs have sexes). She goes and reassures Frederick that although the magic umbrella is hers she didn't directly give it to Mortimer, and they start flirting.
The scene shifts to the Trog holding area where Villipend and Hamble were formerly imprisoned, and we see that Hamble has survived electrocution. The prison seems to have done something to reverse the mental decline which caused him to jump into the Great Chasm in the first place, and he is now very clever and very ambitious. He half rescues, half kidnaps Squeeb, works out how to get out of the habitat and sets off to climb back up the chute with Squeeb strapped to his arm, seeking a new dawn which will be his. We learn on the way that Squeeb belongs to no ring, and despises the idea of doing so.
Finally we see two vignettes. In one, a male soldier reports on Rosemary's disappearance to a female commander, the Tansy whom Rosemary saw in a vision. Tansy is working for some outfit or political party whose emblem is a triangle within a circle. She vows to find Rosemary wherever she has gone - and clearly with hostile intent.
In the other, we see Sylvester's sister Lilith and their mother, talking in the darkness at the edge of a banquet in a jungle somewhere. The mother would have liked to have stayed, but she has received a psychic impression that they need to start heading back to E.
Part Six: On My Way to Town [28/07/2013 - 16/11/2018]
Note that from 03/05/2015, the Saturdays in the Basement strips show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with the action above ground. 01: Rise and Shine [28/07/2013 - 26/11/2013] The sun has just risen over the Mansion. The brothers are already awake: Sylvester resumes doing his paperwork, but Mortimer stands gazing out of a window, clutching the umbrella he said he wouldn't take up again unless and until he decided to take up magic, and thinking of himself as having "set out" - and that the world itself has also changed. Rosemary emerges and rings the bell for Schmedley, the butler, attracting Mortimer's attention. He introduces her to Schmedley, who tells her how to find Sylvester. Schmedley is not surprised to hear that Mortimer is a wizard. We see Arthur the Weirdo feeling the worse for wear. Sylvester shows Rosemary her new official quarters and office, which she is quite stunned by, and explains the heirarchy of the Mansion's servants to her. As Taskmistress she stands fairly high. One of her duties is, at least potentially, to find and hire a new sign-writer. Her quarters command a view of the ocean, which leads to a discussion about Panegates and the fact that no known Panegate leads to another continent, although some lead to alternative realities for the location of the Mansion. They move on to discussing why the villagers don't all move into the much-more-comfortable Mansion, and Rosemary's dream about the Operator. Sylvester didn't share it but we see a flashback to what must be his own dream, in which he, Rosemary and Nimue are attending a university lecture given by Protus, accompanied by three frogs, two sitting with the girls in the audience and one sitting with Protus, and Sylvester is aware that his own frog is missing (or has gone to Protus). We see a rusted, land-locked boat which Philbert had been going to convert into a building, and access to which is restricted, and a wizwitch detector which detects Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss security clearances, and local legends relating to a scruffy local folk-hero called Frizzlegarb who might have been a surviving Wilf. Legends say Frizzlegarb swam through a pool and there met what sounds like a Willygig. Sylvester shows Rosemary round her apartment and gives her a mechanical pocket-watch, then they get out Mortimer's Glowgem and test it on a sort of battery-tester: Glowgems can be recharged by dipping them in the River of Fire for a few days. We see an outtake of the Tribbletongued Hamster (in pirate getup), the plant and the ABOL escaping together in a toy boat, sailing along an underground tunnel: a sign in the backgorund points towards the sea. Sylvester mentions that the Mansion used to have a "wizwitch", a magic-wielder, as a regular member of staff and he supposes it now has one again. The scene cuts to Mortimer, who is talking to a strange wall of purple electricity, telling it he is going to go and celebrate the fact that he has grown up and got a job. He goes to Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where there are various amusements and places to eat. Back with Rosemary and Sylvester, he asks her about Hack & Slash's Commandant Spangler (who Rosemary had said was the only person she had previously met who had a private office). This segues into a conversation about their respective grandparents, and Rosemary running through a fake version of her family background, using her new, false surname Dapple. She discusses the remote possibility of using Protus to go back in time and save her parents - for whom she has little feeling - at the cost of giving up her own exciting future and getting stuck as a farm-girl. Meanwhile we see Frederick and Myrrh set out to do something - unspecified but involving hand-holding - "properly". Sylvester tells Rosemary about the demand there used to be for apartments linked to this private corridor for senior administrators, and they discuss the fact that in the past, pre-Luwig, the Earls were at risk of being assasinated just for being Earls. Rosemary goes off at a tangent about a fluffy-seeming female called Miss Gritz who was a traveller on the caravan Rosemary was guarding, and whom she suspects of being her apparent boyfriend's very high-powered personal bodyguard. Sylvester shows Rosemary round the official, ceremonial offices for himself and his secretary (but not his official chambers, which are untidy). The offices are designed to be intimidating. We learn that the mansion holds a throne for use if the king should visit - this nearly happened fifty years ago, but the king ws killed en route when his flagship The Velvet Glove went down during the Crash, and the current king tends to stay in the capital. The offices are designed with security in mind. We learn that the mansion has a High Tower access to which is blocked: Rufus tried to get in there, before he wandered off. Sylvester says Rufus likes to wander but he doesn't go far: Sylvester tried to get him to go to university but Rufus felt that the area around the mansion was where he was going to be. Meanwhile we see Eunice, Rufus's new assistant, emerging into the countryside from a concealed entrance inside a hollow boulder, and Yasmine riding away and thinking that in another hour's riding she will be able to remove her hood. Sylvester shows Rosemary an escape hatch under the desk, leading to a panic-room which used to be well-equippped but is now almost empty. We learn that in the early days the Earldom was passed on by mortal combat. Milo was the last Earl of E officially to kill his predecessor and the first to pass the Earldom on by blood although his grandson, Dorn II, may have been murdered by his daughter in law Charlotte, who then ruled in her husband Lemuel's stead while he got on with his Panegate research. We also learn that in those days the Earldoms of E and S were friends. Sylvester doesn't know as much about his mother's family, the Mundivagants, who are grand and grudging industrialists. His brother Ace works for them. Roisemary's family were all farmers with a long tradition, but they have died out. Rosemary asks about a sign saying "Gargoyle pits" and Sylvester tells her that there are creatures called Gargoyles and Spindizzies which were bred or manufactured by the Ettins to service and repair the buildings in which they live. Gargoyles deal with the exsterior and Spindizzies with the interior, especially service machinery behind the walls and in the basement. The Mansion is a semi-living thing, a sort of colony organism, but it is slowly running down. Sylvester and Rosemary speculate about the possibility of finding still-surviving Ettins who could restore it. They cone to a corridor where an end-wall has moved aside, giving access to a service-space, so Sylvester takes Rosemary to meet the Spindizzies, warning her to get the Can-Opener out first and not tell anybody about the Poke Kit. 02: Fishing Around [27/11/2013 - 22/03/2014] The scene opens with an Ichyoid pootering about under water, wearing some sort of equipment on his chest. We return to Sylvester, telling Rosemary that the core of the Mansion where they are is malleable and in a state of flux. Two Spindizzies appear: they have grey, hairless humanoid upper bodies trailing away into wormy tails, and pterosaur-like wings. They speak like intelligent but literal-minded computers but are friendly and kind, very concerned when they hear that Rosemary is taking over as Taskmistress in case that means Prunella has died. Sylvester agrees to buy in supplies which they request, and ask them if they can tell what the Can Opener is made of, but they can't, although they may be able to duplicate it, or something like it. Sylvester seems to want to make more. Every human (or in Myrrh's case, humanoid) in the Mansion has a designated Spindizzy who communicates with them: Horace and Emily are matched to Sylvester and Rosemary. As taskmistress Rosemary will need to talk to Emily weekly. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the Ettins: Sylvester thinks the Mansion with its Panegates and moving walls wasn't intended as a residence but as some other sort of facility. They wonder whether there are any surviving Ettins - and if so, how they would react to find Humans living in their laboratory, or whatever it is. We learn that the Spindizzies are mortal flesh-and-blood ceatures but they reproduce in a mechanical incubator. The chamber where they are all meeting is a sort of holo-deck, in which the Spindizzies usccessfully produce a useable mock-up of the Can-Opener, a quasi-humanoid sparring-partner for Rosemary to practice with and a chair for Sylvester to sit in and watch. We learn that one of Ludwig's assistants went far enough down into the depth to visit the Spindizzy incubator, and his granddaughter visited the Far=Eastern Shore on the other side of the ocean from the Mansion. There were human colonies there which may or may not have survived the Crash, about which the Spindizzies know nothing. Meanwhile we see vignettes of other characters. Mortimer is breakfasting and the Landing o' Family Fun, and visiting the Fish Museum there. Eunice Kelso is seen leaving the woods and heading for Eetown, wearing a rucksack: a retired Guardian called Mr Flem warns her that the woods are dangerous. Nelly is feeding (non-sentient) Jibjibs while Amos sets what looks like Mortimer's glowgem onto a handle. Arthur the Weirdo is taking a bath, Myrrh is setting out from her and Frederick's flat, and Schmedley is being addressed by somebody off-screen and short (probably Frowgler). The Spindizzies store a template for the Can-Opener and make a copy which is only real in this environment, which functions as a sort of Holo-Deck. They simulater a sparring partner for Rosemary to test her weapon, and some background scenery including a bad, Escheresque reproduction of part of a monument called the Citadel of the Hugging Squirrels, one of the Sculpted Isles in Isdanila. This reproduction was commissioned by Dorn I for his mother Nettana, who came from that area. The Sculted Isles date back to a msyterious Dawn Era. Sylvester dozes in a chair, leaving Rosemary to her sparring, but in fact she talks to the Spindizzies instead of fighting. She elarns that they have patterns for Ettin tools as well as human ones, but most of the Ettin ones are encrypted. She encrypts the pattern for the Can-Opener so only she and Sylvester can see it. It seems that any "productive individual" can come in and encrypt personalized tools. She learns that the Spindizzies could in principle find out what the Can-Opener is made of but their access to data is blocked beyond a certain level. Rufus might be able to fix it. They tell her Rufus is at Semi-Autonomous Research Structure #001. Rosemary doesn't want to spar now because she hasn't the time, but she takes the time to walk up the imaginary sky. She starts to ask Emily the Spindizzy whether she knows that she, Rosemary, is currently... then changes the subject, which may or may not have been important. Then she wakes Sylvester and tells him where Rufus is, which he translates as the Spike. He isn't pleased, and says that the Spike is very dangerous, partly because the machines there have no built-in safety systems. The information about Rufus came from a high-ranking Spindizzy called Tanith who was Nirvana's contact, but they have lost contact with Nirvana. Meanwhile a Valentine's Day out-take shows Sheriff Patrick Skragg giving a flower to his wife Halcyone, while their son Stepehen read a Willy-the-Wendigo book. Sylvester informs the Spindizzies about the departure of the Sneeches, and asks them what they know about Willigigs. They have been aware of Protus's presence for around a month but haven't spoken to him. They are not aware of Frowgler. Sylvester and Rosemary take their leave of them: Sylvester promises to bring them some antimony which they have asked for, and which he has in store. After they leave we see Sprocket the Gnoll engineer, holding a glowgem in a wrench, opening conversation with a male Spindizzy. Rosemary and Sylvester set off to go fishing. They discuss the Mansion's mineral stores, including gold, and Rosemary tells Sylvester what she learned from the Spindizzies while he was asleep, about the data block which Rufus might be able to fix. Sylvester suggests that the same person deliberately planeted the Can-Opener with Izchak for Rosemary to find, and prevented the Spindizzies from investigationg it: he fears he is being too paranoid but Rosemary, being profesionally paranoid, suggests there may be two conflicting secret factions at work. For the moment, Sylvester is not telling the Spindizzies about the return of Nirvana, the previous Taskmistress: he means to return to the Ettinworks once he has researched Tand, and will allow Nirvana and "Mz Teree" (Annabelle) to explain themselves before making a decision about them. They make their way down to a sea-level room where there are storage lockers for fishing gear and for beach leisure gear, and a small boat, and a door to the E family's private - and artifiually-enhanced - fishing beach. They used to have a proper boat-house etc. but much of it has fallen into ruins. Ichyoids don't like large-scale commerical fishing and cut large fishing nets, so before going outside they look though a security spy-hole and see only gulls. Sylvester also talks about what he considers to be the remote possibility of somebody from the Basement making their way up to the beach (suggesting that part of it is below sea-level), and at that we see the hamster and his crew in their miniature pirate ship, approaching the open air. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss boats, and an explorer called Semidemila, and then go outside, where they stand side by side on the beach and agree that their feelings for each other are brother/sisterly rather than romantic (although acknowledging that this could change). They catch fish and gather seaweed and then go inside to cook them. Meanwhile we see a small boat propelled by a magic-powered outboard motor, and piloted by a skinny, elderly male villager whom we saw before when Protus caused Sylvester to have a vision of a selection of villagers (among other things). The hamster and his pirate crew in their tiny wind-up clockwork boat approach and order this man to stand to and prepare to be boarded, and he thinks that all Tribble-Tongued Hamsters are insane. 03: A Change in the Scene [24/03/2014 - 12/07/2014] The scene opens with Nitfol, Fizmo and three Pales (one of whom may be Thrash, as he has the same double head-spike, but he is wearing or carrying a shield and doesn't have the stripe on his chest) about to enter a tangled wood. Nitfol says that Fizmo's presence isn't neccessary to his plans - but she has her own agenda. Then we see Yasmine riding through a wood. She is just pulling up in order to do something, now she is "far enough" from the Mansion, when she feels a vibration in her bag of Fleebs. She opens it and the Fleebs leap out, although they do not appear rabid. Meanwhile we see the E family make breakfast. Amos and Nellie bring Jib-Jib eggs, Sylvester and Rosemary have fish and edible seaweed, and Mortimer brings a bottle of a magically-active drink called Yurple Juice. He won it by playing a game at Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, and feels he may have cheated magically. The Weirdo (seriously hungover) and Fantod arrive and are introduced to Rosemary. Then Myrrh (the Scary Lady) and Frederick arrive, dressed as if for a very fancy trip to a smart restaurant or theatre, and Myrrh announces that they are now retiring from their work to keep the family alive. Myrrh also satisfies the Weirdo's curiosity by dropping her glamour and revealing to him that she is a Demon. Mortimer is now Sylvester's Regent, his understudy - about which he is less than thrilled. Sylvester tells him just to do what Sylvester tells him when Sylvester is present, othrwise what Rosemary tells him. Since the Mansion will now be less secure, Sylvester offers Amos and Nellie the chance to retire to the village, but they refuse. Instead, Amos will teach Mortimer magic. Meanwhile Sylvester, Rpsemary andf Mortimer need to go to the village to update Saffron, the lady mayor, on what's been happening, to sell Dornbeast parts and to attend the Temple. Mortimer wants to light an candle for Nitfol, whom he believes to be dead through his fault. Because the Poke Kit won't work so well away from the Mansion's magic tricklepoint, Rosemary and Sylvester go to the Barrackstack to deposit the Can Opener in a vault and collect other equipment. Meanwhile Mortimer goes to take antimony to the Spindizzies. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Ludwig's machines still work, and why this might be. Rosemary thinks that the Weirdo is ill or hungover but competant, and has had military training. Knowing that the Weirdo is conspiring with Yamine in some way, Sylvester says they should lock their doors at night. The Barrackstack goes down as far below ground as above. Although it contains some Ettin elements it was mainly built by Angus and Audra. There are sealed-off escape tunnels from the barracks which open into places which are now inside Eetown. A sign points to the Party Palace, built by Ernest, and describes the attractions on offer there. They discuss a very complex card-game called Quincunx, and some kind of game which involves magically-powered equipment and is played in an Underwear Arena. Whatever it is long-married couples are especially good at it (which suggests it might involve listing your partner's physical or sexual quirks), and people called Shrouders - the reverse of nudists - cannot play it. All the local villagers are informally Shrouders. Motimer takes the antimony to his Spindizzy contact, Charles. Charles recognizes the umbrella as a "thaumalogical flow enhancer and regulator" and already knew Mortimer had wizard potential. The scene cuts to a female Spindizzy, Clementine, who is talking to Sina, Sprocket and a male Trog, probably either Mowder or Grak. Sina is quizzing Clementine about her claim to have met the Earl. Sylvester opens a weapons-vault to keep the Can Opener in: like military exercises the vaults have random names. This one contains a wide range of good spears and swords. They put the Can-OPener into a safe, then enter Rosemary into the herediscan system. They discuss Griffiongton - his collection of obscene limericks, his management of the Factor E and his possession of three minions, Drowpole, Krell and Strauhatt. Rosemary is now Sylvester's minion, after Nirvana, who was the first. They see a statue which purports to be of an Obsidian Sneech, but is more sinister than accurate. This area of the mansion, which is actually of great military importance, is dotted with signs which suggest that only boring things happen there. Arthur and Fantod are sitting by the counting-down machine. Fantod, who seems to be an actual creature, looks stunned. Arthur says he assumes that "she knew all along" - perhaps a reference to Yasmine - and he plans to take Amos's advice - which was to drink the magically-active Yurple Juice. Sylvester gives Rosemary an instruction manual for the Poke Kit. She reads about secured sub-pockets and has a half memory of the Tree giving her a secret seed, but it slips her mind again. She experiments with taking a Glowgem in and out. Sylvester meanwhile asks Amos for a book on "night beasties" but they don't have a copy - only Rosemary's memory of reading it. Rosemary's Glowgem seems to be attracted to a sort of spiral ornament or mirror on the wall, which she stares at and may be hypnotized by. She finds the whole sub-pocket idea creepy, because there could be anything in there, and without the assistance of an official service engineer she wouldn't know it and might accidentally say a password which would cause something dangerous to erupt. They can't empty it by taking it into the Quiet Room, as that might damage it. Rosemary has written to Aunt Edna but she has described where she is, and Sylvester is concerned that her enemies might get it out of her aunt. Sylvester advises her to send another less specific letter via his lawyer, Mr Ferule. They discuss Tansy's army which is chasing Rosemary, and which is called The Quincunx (which is also the name of a complex game). If The Quincunx finds out where Rosemary is and comes as an army it would take them six months to get to E, but it's possible they could send an assassin, or hire a local one by wire. The cause of Rosemary's quarrel with Tansy seems to have been something bad that Tansy did to a Gnoll (although she doesn't tell Sylvester that) and there's a hint that the thing which Rosemary stole from The Quincunx was whatever she used to travel instantly to the east. Being about to leave to walk to the village, they discuss a thing at the entrance called the Gatestone, believed to have been moved there by Ettric, the 2nd Earl. We see Mortimer waiting for them in an official Assembly Alcove, and being joined there by Arthur the Weirdo and his puppet Fantod, who congratulate him on becoming Regent. Mortimer still smells of sphagnum dust, and this leads to a discussion of Arthur's days at the Weirdo Academy. 04: Barriers and Gates [14/07/2014 - 27/11/2014] We see the Saurs Buzz and Ig meeting by the ruins of a museum in Eetown. Ig has a Glowgem. Buzz wants Ig to tell him about what has become of Snerk. Mortimer and Arthur discuss whether Weirdos are allowed to marry (opinions vary). They discuss a girl named Melba who lives in the village, a friend of Mortimer's sister Lilith's, and quite eccentric, but Arthur says she is too frivolous to make an official Weirdo. Sylvester joins the others at the assembly point. Trailing behind him, Rosemary surreptitiously deposits several items - what may be her original letter to her aunt, plus a lantern and a bottle - in a large urn. It is one of several artistic and archaeological artefacts which grace the hallway. The main door of the mansion is set into a giant Ettin artefact like a huge boulder which manipulates light in some way. It leads to a walled outside area, the main gates of which have been deliberately blocked with rubble to prevent mass invasion. The party discuss the fortifications erected by previous earls, and the early earls themselves, and why the village is called Eetown not Etown. The fortifications are now a bit gappy, and electronic repellers are used to keep out wild animals. These also protect the orchard and the main path to the village. Sylvester and Mortimer, Rosemary, Arthur and Fantod walk towards Eetown, discussing how the area came to be renamed Audravania instead of Northwoods, and the vast lands which Audra had ruled before her fatal decision to poke the Hot Zone. Audra had made a voluntary marriage, albeit a political one, but prior to her many future Earls had been forcibly betrothed as children. Plenty of women at university wanted to marry Sylvester for his title. We learn that while at university Sylvester attended the coronation of the king and queen, Yancy and Fluer. Amos has visited the capital with Frederick, but Nellie has never been outside Audravania, except on her honeymoon. when they went to a fashionable spot called Rowen. This leads to a discussion of an island off Eetown, called Alwin, which belongs to the Earls but which they allow honeymooning couples from the village to use. Mortimer says that this arrangement is important to the villagers, which leads to him telling Sylvester what's going on there at the moment - including a break-in at Genrick's tailor shop, where stuff was taken overnight, but money was left for it. Rufus's friend Eunice is mentioned as one of a number of people who have recently moved into the area: the village is growing and there is a debate as to whether or not to expand it beyond the boundary hedge. They meet and speak to a pig-farmer called Terin Flem, who comes from the same area (Moonin) as Rosemary and who used to be Guardian to a hardline Oracle named Omega, whom Sylvester didn't get on with. Sylvester and Mortimer have an obscure private conversation about change, while Rosemary talks to Arthur and Fantod. Sylvester wants Mortimer not to go public about being a wizard, for the moment. Arthur tries to quiz Rosmary about how she got there but she evades the question and instead asks him about what Weirdos do. They are jesters who "speak truth to power". Arthur, Fantod and Rosemary discuss the new, safer denizens' tunnel from the mansion to the basement, and the disappearance of the Sneeches. Meanwhile the party arrives at the outskirts of the village and Sylvester shows Rosemary the irrigation ditches and other features. They come to the Temple, which was made from the remains of a very grand one which was destroyed in the Crash, and which lies just outside the hedge which surrounds the village, and they discuss it, and the character of Omega, the previous Oracle. We learn that Sylvester and Mortimer's father had been partially responsible for, and died in, some kind of accident involving stampeding elifinos in a nearby town called Noodle. They meet a little girl called Juniper, who is the granddaughter of Amos and Nellie. She has a special friendship with Fantod. The group go through a sensory ritual - watch the flames, smell the blossoms, taste the water, listen to the Brush. The last is done by sitting on a bench made of rare and precious materials. To mark Hallowe'en we see a raiding party of Nomes, including Umboz's brother Frotz who is desperate to get out of it, creeping towards a Gnoll village. They are scared off by a pumpkin-headed spectre which is really Frowgler in costume, using some kind of glowing magic or technology to fly. Rosemary and Juniper discuss where various people come from, and Rosemary manages to give the girl a very strange idea of what a walrus looks like. They talk with Sylvester about Inuit-equivalents called Tunits, and the secretive, hostile Haroons, and the harsh northen shore called Skralland, to the north of Audravania. We learn that there used to be a secretive underground nation called the Polarites, but their society was destroyed in the Crash. They used to have an exit tunnel near Eetown, for trade. There are people in Eetown of Haroon (Miss Lundquist) or Polarite (Peter Nigultrum) ancestry, and they can't ever go home. Meanwhile, Arthur and Mortimer sit on the bench and ask for divine assurance that they are doing the right thing, and both receive it, more or less. Fantod and Juniper talk about her hopes for a more interesting career than agriculture. We see an out-take for Thanksgiving, in which Myrrh and Frederick are about to start on a feast. I have left this in the time-line, as well as putting it with the Christmas cards etc., because it fits with the idea that they have gone on a second honeymoon. 05: Eetown - The Temple [28/11/2014 - 25/08/2015] The party from the Mansion enter the temple, where Sylvester introduces Rosemary to the Oracle Threnody and various town worthies. Sylvester assures the townsfolk in the Temple that Rosemary is human, and fully qualified to be Taskmistress, and tells them that Frederick has retired as Regent and Mortimer will be taking over. Sheriff Patrick Skragg quizzes Rosemary as to whether she is a fugitive from the King's Law. She swears that she isn't, then sends the child Juniper off with the Weirdo and Fantod to show Fantod how she's been practising some skill he's been helping her with. Once they are out of earshot she tells the rest that she is also taking over Myrrh's duties as bodyguard and will be wearing a sword. Threnody is dubious about Rosemary's past use of violent force, but accepts that it may have been necessary. The Sheriff provisionally accepts Rosemary's offer of help with the town militia, but Waldo Weequash, head of the Eetown Guild of Fisherfolk and Octopus Wranglers, thinks Rosewmary is a vagabond who will bring a criminal element into the town, Saffron Stout, innkeeper and impromptu mayor, points out that Rosemary will mainly be at the Mansion and agrees with the sheriff that they should give her a chance, and asks Sylvester to call on her privately later. Threnody - who is emergency backup Taskmistress - quizzes Rosemary about her Temple attendance, and Rosemary promises to make sure Sylvester goes to Temple more often. Outside the Temple, the townsfolk discuss Rosemary privately. The sheriff is planning to check up on her in police records, just in case, but they agree she seems saner than Myrrh. Mortimer and the Weirdo remain at the Temple to light memorial candles to speed the passage of the dead, the Weirdo for his friend Tulip, and Mortimer for Nitfol whom he wrongly believes to be dead. They discuss the fact that there are some Nomes and Motihauls who follow the Brush and have their own Oracles, but most non-humans have their own religions. Sylvester mentions that the Nomes have a male priest, and Threnody is interested in meeting him. While Mortimer and the Weirdo are praying, Rosemary and Sylvester look at the Temple's paintings of the various founding Oracles, and discuss their favourites. Rosemary follows Hettie, who carried a light in the darkness, and Sylvester likes Joice, who stood for inspiration. Mortimer passes on a message to Dirge, the current Guardian, that Finale, the previous Guardian, would like to speak to him. Mortimer wants to ask something, but feels that the time is not yet. The group go and stand by a large boulder outside the town gates ("The Town Rock") where they won't be overheard, and discuss Yasmine and the Weirdos generally. Mortimer is able to pick them out because he can sense their mind shapes. They discuss the fact that Rosemary has not been taught any magical theory, because she was educated at the Hack & Slash Academy whose purpose was to produce effective H&S employees and they very rarely encounter magic-users these days. Also H&S is riddled with factions: they used to have a Wizwitch Brigade and Rosemary suspects it may still exist but is being kept a secret, even from other factions in H&S. We learn that the Weirdo Academy is very ancient. It's in a town called Marksburg, in Fredonia, and is where the E boys' mother came from. Nowadays Marksburg has a stodgy reputation, but it has a lively history. In the past there were several Weirdo schools and they went by several names, such as Tomfool. Milo was the first Earl of E to hire one. The Trio fall to discussing the various worthies they met at the Temple. Sylvester fills Rosemary in on the background to the various people she met at the Temple, and village issues such as the need to bring in a full-time Healer, since at the moment the Oracle, Threnody, is both healer and teacher. Sylvester's only friends in the village are Peter Nigultrum the solicitor, and a fisherman called Captain Tugwart. They discuss who is and isn't local. People who were born in the village are accepted as local even if their parents were foreign, but if Rosemary stays fifty years she'll still be "The Mooninite" because she wasn't born in Eetown. She says she'll earn a more distinctive label than that, thinking of herself as some sinister dark queen with a flaming sword. Rosemary can tell that Dirge is combat-trained and wonders why the High Temple thought Eeetown needed him. This leads to a discussion about how the Spyders and Tree-Squids got into the area, and about things called Raviners or Hill Crabs. Mortimer would like to talk about the events of the previous day but they don't have time. As they approach the entrance to Eetown proper they discuss various Oracles Rosemary has met on her travels. In a brief out-take, we see Schmedley placing a black arm-band on the flipper of a statue of a world-turtle, to commemorate the death of Terry Pratchett. Sylvester and co. discuss the defenses of Eetown, with drawbridges put in after the Crash. The defenses ar enot very good, and post-Crash the town had some trouble with raiders until Myrrh got back. She, Frederick and Quincy had been holidaying in Aruba (a place without magic) when the Crash hit. It was on their way back that Quincy met Agnes, his future wife. Meanwhile the town made a defensive wall out of crashed cars, and then grew a hedge over and through them. We see an ancient wand-tree called an Oakapple (nothing to do with real oak apples) which grows just inside the hedge. Post-Crash, the rallying point for local survivors was a big pub called the Moose and Squirrel. Because it was a cheap outfit which didn't use much magic it survived the Crash relatively intact. The innkeeper, Simon, had acquired the place by dubious means, but he became impromptu mayor and did a good job of coordinating disaster relief. Hpthbvtw's remains will have to be decontaminated in some way because he was killed by an Operator blastm but the contamination is lessened by the fact that it was caused by the Operator's involuntary revival. The two Stirrers discuss this, with reference to Myrrh. the Scary Lady, whom they call the Collared Lurker. Sylvester and co. head for the local administrative offices, but as they pass by the fountain in the main square they become aware that they have an audience. Sylvester lectures Rosemary about the layout of the town, where the bathhopuse is etc., trying to sound confident and impress the watchers. The town has a watch tower, but these days it's mainly used as a love-nest. They speak to the townsfolk who have been watching them, and Rosemary (under the false surname Dapple) is introduced to everybody. Most striking, perhaps, is a young mother called Silence Krenshaw whom Sylvester knows very well, and had considered hiring as Taskmistress. We will learn that she and Sylvester were childhood playmates. They discuss Rosemary's duties, and that Sylvester wants Rosemary to serve as a Mature and Responsible Adult, a formal title which means that she will somehow help him to find a wife. He does not fancy Rosemary herself. Silence says that there is somebody out there for Sylvester. Mortimer meanwhile talks to an adoring fanclub of young girls. They ask him about his unbrella and he says you never know when a storm might blow up. One of them is evidently psychic and she realsies both that he is speaking metaphorically, and that a metaphorical storm is indeed coming. Sylvester and co. head for Government House, followed by a gaggle of children. They discuss the pudding plant, a local cash crop which only grows well in Audravania. Rosemary has never eaten a fresh one. Rosemary wonders why so small a town has a bank. Sulvester explains that it gives them independence from the Noodle Fish-Monger's Association, and lists the conditions required in order for them to have an official bank, and its personnel. It is illegal for an agent of the King's Law, such as the sheriff, officially to work for a bank. The town government is full of bickering and back-biting. The bank manager is Peter Nigultrum, who also helps the sub-literate to write letters. He is engaged to a woman called Ida, whom they meet coming away from the bank. Ida and Rosemary discuss Rosemary's home district of Moonin and the presence there of the Beacons, three offshore monoliths believed to date back to the Dawn Wars. Ida seems unaware that the Mansion is equally interesting and historic. The first Prime Oracle, Daisy, came from Moonin, but Rosemary feels that Daisy was ashamed of her humble origins. They meet Peter the bank manager, who works out that Rosemary is the new Taskmistress from her clothes. They tell Peter that Frederick and Myrrh have retired, and that Mortimer is a wizard. The only bit that surprises Peter is that Myrrh is able to retire. We glimpse Myrrh at some sort of hotel, apparently amusing herself by wrestling robots. Peter predicts that Mortimer's newfound wizard status will lead to trouble. We see Dirge, the current Guardian, and Terin Flem, the previous one, discussing the changes in personnel at the Mansion, and saying that Dirge has a decision to make. Immediately post-Crash, magic was regarded as evil, and Flem should really have told Omega that Mortimer was a wizard, and then somebody would have come and taken the boy away, but Flem liked Mortimer and kept quiet. An officious official named Appleby also failed to report Mortimer - Flem thinks he just never noticed what was going on because he was stuck behind his desk. Dirge will tell Threnody about Mortimer, but won't call someone to collect him unless Mortimer wants him to. Flem tells Dirge about Eunice being out in the woods again. Peter tells Mortimer there may still be a magic school which Threnody could help him find if Amos turns out not to be a good teacher. They discuss Polarite technology and social structures: Peter's father was in security, relatively low-status but with access to information. Peter had thought of contacting the surviving Polarites in the captal, but Sylvester says they would scorn him for having facial hair. The Symmites, the Polarite sub-group to which Peter's father belonged, were allowed to open a trade gate in the same country as Eetown, where they to some extent went native and became more open and sociable than most Polarites. That was why Peter's father was able to be wandering around on the surface without any magical machinery when the Crash hit, and so survived. ` Sylvester and Rosemary give Peter a highly edited version of Rosemary's life story. Peter knows the Mansion and its dangers well - he even has his own Spindizzy, Alfred. [An out-take at this point celebrates the legalization of gay mariage in the US by showing Baldy with a slightly younger - and much hairier - boyfriend, looking at rainbow flutterbys.] Peter tells Sylvester they have some paperwork to go over [Ipcress files!], so Sylvester asks Mortimer to take Rosemary away and introduce her to Shadrik. Sylvester and Peter then discuss Peter's upcoming marriage to Ida. Peter says Sylvester will never marry a local girl because they aren't academically stimulating enough - not even Ida or Silence - whereas he himself was looking for somebody who was restful to be with. Sylvester will be his best man. Sylvester trusts Peter so much that he tells him at least the gist of Rosemary's true story, including that Dapple isn't her real surname (although not what is). Peter will look out for people looking out for Rosemary. Sylvester doesn't want to marry Rosemary because she's not intellectual or educated, but she's a perfect Taskmistress - so perfect he suspects somebody is interfering in his life, and sent her to him. [Out-take: to celebrate the strip's twelfth anniverary: we briefly see the pirate hamster and his crew approaching an island which has a sentient tree.] We see that Eunice works in the pub, apparently as a cook. Rosemary and Mortimer are given free sausages by the town's Sausage Stroller. Mortimer is feeling very guilty about having accidentally magically hypnotised Rosemary the day before, so she punishes and absolves him by giving him a light bonk on the head. They talk about the fact that he has only left the area a few times, and comes across as rather sheltered, but now responsibility has been thrust on him and he will meet it. Rosemary talks about the relatively safe life she left to become a bodyguard, and the fact that her home village had an ancient ruined tower built by Gobblems, and which she used to climb. She later travelled to most of the places she could see from up there, but many of the towns were a bit same-y because they were rebuilt at the same time, after Unification. Talking about education and the E-family tutor causes Mortimer to realise there's something about Rufus and Eunice which he is forgetting. They look at Shadrik, which/who is a haulage Metalmin who is fairly bright but doesn't speak, and lives in a former stable. Dorian Ingersoll the hermit used to live in it. Dorian's history is confusing: we've been told he's lived in the Spike for forty-two years, but here we're told he lived in the forest when Mortimer was a child, and we've seen the ruins of his hut when Yasmine came across them. Shadrik's battery is flat but Rufus is working on recharging it. Rosemary works out that Sylvester just wanted her and Mortimer out of the way so he could speak to Peter privately. To kill time she suggests they climb the local watchtower, so she can survey the terrain. To get to it they go through a warehouse used to store apples, which has been altered and added to till it's almost as complex as the Mansion. They are passed by some sort of functionary (beginning with a B) who wears false Nome ears and costume wings. It's possible the B stands for Batgirl, especially as she lives in the Belfry "like usual". 06: Eetown - The State [26/08/2015 - 20/11/2015] From the tower they look down on the village square, which doubles as a fuzzball court. Mortimer points out various districts of the town, and they see Old Man Larssen's place outside the town hedge, although he has a hedge of his own. Rosemary is pleased to be able to see the Specific Ocean, which was on her To-Do List. They discuss a range of wonders Rosemary hopes to see, many of which have already beebn visited by Mortimer's mother and sister, although they were unable to get into a place called Sybola where there is some kind of secret Rosemary wishes to solve. A "really creepy" region called Mechana is mentioned. Rosemary thinks the main thing on Mortimer's To-Do List right now should be to learn how to use the wand-umbrella. A Labour Day out-take shows various kinds of labour in Eetown, including the Batgirl who is writing or drawing at an easel. Rosemary and Mortimer meet Sylvester outside the bank and he refers to the Batgirl as "our Flittermouse". Sylvester takes them to meet Sherman P Gray, the new(ish) government Clerk of Eetown. He has a telegraph machine run off batteries re-charged by a hand-turned charger, and many duties, one of which is to register new arrivals like Rosemary. He is also postman and tax-collector, and has a form for Mortimer to register as the new Regent of E. [In a brief out-take, we see the pirates (hamster and co.) arrive at Piratestash Island and recruit a resident gull to the crew. A stunted tree on the island implies that the Plant is being punished by being required to stay with the crew.] We learn about the unofficial but influential Tome of Royal Succession, a kind of Debrett's Peerage. The Keepers of the Tome will want to know not only about Mortimer becoming Regent, but about Rosemary becoming Taskmistress. We are reminded of the fact that this is a post-apocalyptic setup by the fact that Rosemary is impressed that the Post Office pigeon-holes have doors - and by the fact that those doors are post-Crash architectural salvage. Sherman sees from her form that Rosemary comes from an island called Dyngusmyles, which has a reputation for having wild, backwoods people, and has strange weather because it's close to the Beacons. Sherman himself comes from a mining area in Thull. They compare weather. Sylvester warns Sherman that Rosemary is a fighter and will be wearing a sword as part of her duties. Sherman OKs this but says that while they are in his government office weapons must be deposited in a special receptable, and Mortimer promptly puts his umbrella in it. Sherman fills Sylvester in on various items of news, including the fact that a ship from a far-off region named Coradine has visited a port called Woldercan. Coradine is part of the same continent as the Mansion but it's an island as far west as it gets, quite reclusive, and many of its inhabitants are Motihauls. To get to Woldercan the Coradine ship would have had to sail round the edge of a region called Kadath, which is inhabited by Wendigoes, and past an island called Honaly (as in Puff the Magic Dragon) where there are [human?] Viking-type sea-raiders whom we see sailing a ship whose sail bears the image of the hamster pirate captain. It's possible they came for Yurple Juice, a wildly popular and expensive drink with magical properties. The party take leave of Sherman, promising to return later to set up a post-box for Rosemary and collect the newspaper. There is a mention of the previous day's magical pit-flare being a reoccurring event, and of the recent finding of a dead Ichyoid washed into the harbour. Sylvester says that Myrrh is listed in the Official Threats Compendium, but since she hasn't killed anybody it's not worth anyone's while to go to the trouble of trying to banish her. Behind them, in his office, Sherman looks up Mortimer's umbrella in the Official Threats Compendium, and finds it. We elarn that there's a series of Government departments with harmless-sounding names - Redundancy, Secondary Overlap, Tertiary Retainment - which process information and look for interesting connections. They discuss rural pubs and Rosemary tells them about Rory Vinsmith, an innkeeper in Moonin who murdered some of his customers. In the west he is famous, but now they are so far from her home that nobody's heard of him. Saffron, the local innkeeper at the Moose and Squirrel, may have heard of him, and Sylvester quietly warns Rosemary that Saffron may have heard of her Aunt Eva, the gambler. Eunice Kelso is one of her barmaids. They enter the Moose and Squirrel and meet Sharona, Saffron's neice, who is evidently an old gitrlfriend of Mortimer's. She is overcome by the smell of sphagnum dust coming off Mortimer. They meet Mavis, one of the barmaids, and then Saffron. Saffron takes a bottle of Pudding Liquor, just uncorked that day, from a shelf: something grey is glimpsed poking out from behind an adjacent bottle. They drink from it, and Sylvester immediately passes out, while Rosemary begins seeing imaginary glowing flutterbies. Mortimer seems unaffected. 07: Revelations [30/11/2015 - 27/05/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for the next chapter I decided to include them. Rosemary and Sylvester wake, very groggy, to find themselves lying on a jetty on Alwin Island, the honeymoon destination, accompanied by a grey cat who had been outside the pub. The island will prove to be littered with large stone sculptures, mostly of non-human animals. They agree that they must have been drugged, not just drunk, and discuss possible culprits. Neither of them really thinks it was Saffron, and this is confirmed by a brief view of Mavis the barmaid discovering Saffron herself collapsed behind the bar. Sylvester's main suspect is Old Man Larssen, the town vet, who is very educated but also obsessive and secretive, a bit like Crazy Rhid - even so Sylvester doesn't really think he did it. He half suspects Eunice, who comes from Noodle and could be an agent of his enemies the Noodle Fishmongers' Association. No other visitors are expected - nobody comes there except newlyweds, or about-to-be-weds preparing the venue. There is however a rowing boat concealed on the island. They manage to stagger to their feet in order to go find the boat, but Rosemary thinks they are still both too stoned to steer and suggests that since they were planning to have a private talk anyway, now is a good time and place. About here we also see seasonal Christmas 2015 and New Year 2016 scenes featuring Smyts. Originally I included these Smyt outtakes in the Saturdays in the Basement section, since most of them take place underground, but then Rob decided to make one of them a chapter header which clearly belonged in the main story-line, so I moved them here. The Christmas scene just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but the New Year one is quite information-rich, which is why I've included it here as a regular strip. It shows a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. Sylvester shows Rosemary some of the sights of the island, since as Taskmistress she will be expected to oversee the team of respectable village matrons who prepare the honeymoon cabin for weddings. They return to the dock (and the cat) to sit and talk, on the far side of the island from the village. Further out they can see Scraggy Island, which holds a lighthouse and the town graveyard. The lighthouse keeper is Dougal Izzard. His wife Selene Perkins left but their daughter Shelby stayed, married Grumby the carpenter and had a son Edson who is apprentice lighthouse-keeper. Here there is an outtake scene showing Frederick and Myrrh playing chess with two men called Jebediah and Jones, who are wearing formal dinner suits. These are based on Angus Scrimm and David Bowie, who died that week, and a poster of Grabthar's Hammer on the wall commemorates Alan Rickman, also lost. The next day we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. Sylvester talks Rosemary through the history of the area, beginning with creation by the Brush and the first civilization, the Wilfs and Gobbblems (Dreamers and Builders), who erected wonderful buildings and even had colonies on the moon before destroying each other in the Dawn War. Sylvester has glimpsed what seemed to be a Wilf and a Gobblem through a Panegate, so it may be that there are survivors on other continents. Then the Ettins and Sneeches built up another high-tech civilization and then again destroyed it in war, after which Humans and Nomes moved in, spreading from jungles in the south. Before that destruction, the Ettins built the main towers of the mansions of E and S. The Tower of S was so-called because of an S-shaped mark on the walls, but the Mansion of E is a corruption of the Tower of Ett(in)s - their names were later changed from Tower to Mansion for some beaurocratic reason. Stitched through the main story-line we see more Smyt vignettes. We see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-sized lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). We see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis, and Super Smyt rescuing two other Smyts from a prison, and a Smyt St Patrick driving out serpents, and Smyts partying in a tree for Arbor Day. We learn that nomadic humans who didn't even have agriculture reached the Towers late in the human diaspora, at a time when the country of Ackbar, in the south, already had quite an advanced human civilization along the banks of the Refutation (De Nial). The name of the first Earl isn't known but he led his tribe into the valley and died while storming the Tower. Legend says he fought and defeated living Ettins but this is unlikely given their advanced technology. A lone Ettin skull was later found in the Tower. The first Earl's descendants avoided the interior of the Tower for generations afterwards but they set up camp and built new buildings around its foot. The area was rich in resources and they had to fight off would-be invaders. Sylvester gives Rosemary a detailed run-down of the various Earls, which you can find summarised on the background page. The most salient points are that many of the early Earls were villains and slave-traders who came to power by murdering their predecessors, until they got to the brilliant philosopher and strategist Milo, the Ninth Earl, who severed the family's links to the slave trade, converted to the new religion of the Brush, moved into the Ettin-built Tower and made contact with the Spindizzies. Milo's mother, Persafone, was a slave who deliberately trained Milo up to be a successful warrior who would murder Milo's father, Frake, at her urging, knowing Milo would help her to survive her intended coup against Frake. But Milo's heart was more in intellectual learning than bloodshed and after his wife died he abdicated in favour of his son, and sailed away to explore new lands. Milo's son Dorn I was scientifically-minded and bred the Dornbeasts for use as living siege engines. After he was killed by one his wife Aimee became regent for their son Dorn II, who unfortunately was a shallow sports jock. Dorn II was mostly gay and apart from getting an heir with his wife Olivia his sexual partnership was with a guy named Heffston, who was a much better strategist and ruler than Dorn. In an aside, we see Arthur and Fantod talking to village children. They seem to believe Rosemary and Sylvester are still in the inn with Saffron. Dorn II was killed, possibly by his daughter in law Charlotte, who had a loving but quarrelsome relationship with Dorn's son Lemuel, the Panegate expert. Lemuel eventually abdicated in favour of his daughter Wilhelmina, who was aided by her step-grandfather Heffston. Wilhelmina just called herself W for most purposes and was considered ceremonailly male, to the point of wearing a false beard. She had some magic, restricted to manipulating stone, and was a prolific sculptor who turned Alwin Island into a shrine to her dead husband Alwin. One of her younger sisters became a famous and scary witch called Arianya of the Bracken. W committed suicide by allowing a large block of stone to fall on her, and was succeeded by her son Linus, the combat botanist. He went on an expefition to the jungle and married a Zanduan woman named Padma who was his intellectual equal and they explored the Basement (at a time when most of the species down there were still shut into enclosed habitats) and put in lights. Linus it was who bred The Tree which made Basement society possible. 08: Naming Names [30/05/2016 - 23/12/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for this chapter I decided to include them. The chapter opens with a group of above-ground Smyts celebrating their version of Memorial Day. Sylvester continues to talk about his ancestors, and how Linus took the Seed of the Tree deep into the Basement and never came home. He talks about Griffington, the fifteenth Earl, who was very intelligent but only interested in making money, at which he was very successful. Griffington went on an expedition to the Infernal Engine, which was smaller in those days (so it's still growing), and to Mechana to look at their technology. He and other techs of the period managed to make their own basic robots and restore some of the much better Ettin ones - one of the latter, Akillhees, works in mathematics at the university. Griffington had a lot of commercial enemies and rivals, including the Scion of S. He died in an industrial accident (or maybe not an accident). [Out-take: eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub.] Griffington was succeeded by his son Angus and Angus's loyal and more cunning brother Cyrus. Angus went on a tour, like his ancestors, but he took an army with him and conquered S and other neighbouring states although some of them, such as Rowen, gave as good as they got. [Out-takes - a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch, and the next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise.] When Angus and Cyrus were young, Cyrus married Cassandra Grayflint and they had a son Artston. Griffington sent Angus to visit the Infernal Engine to broaden his mind, and as a result he fell for a very wild, rough but playful female techie named Syn who somewhat resembled Myrrh, who refused to marry him but became his consort, and who died in childbirth giving birth to Audra. Audra grew up at loggerheads with Cyrus, who had d1strusted her mother. In later life Angus's conquests ground to a halt and he died peacefully in bed - and Cyrus promptly tried to seize the earldom for himself and his son. [Fourth of July out-take - a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake.] Audra thrashed Cyrus in combat and convinced him to become her loyal follower. Together they conquered Rowen and then consolidated their holdings and formed the Northwoods Alliance. Audra contracted a loveless political marriage with the intellectually brilliant John Harfang, with whom she had a son, Ludwig. [Out-take - two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake to mark the strip's thirteenth birthday.] The Northwoods Alliance stood against the advancing army of Yorik Yurp, later Yorick I, and lost, despite the best efforts of John Harfang who, under the alias "The Frost Fox", served as a secret agent and was killed while on a mission (and later became the subject of a series of lurid spy thrillers). Audra protected Ludwig by hiding him away as a child and then sending him to the university under an assumed name, while getting one of Cyrus's grandchildren (so Ludwig's second cousin) to pretend to be Ludwig in order to draw Yorik's fire. The Northwoods Alliance eventually lost the war, in part because Wirtwam decided that Yorik was the lesser of two evils and Hyacinth of Wirtwam married him. But the war was long and bloody and forced the pace of technological development. Audra and Cyrus were probably looking for a technological edge when they poked the Hot Zone and were killed, but their deaths really finished the Alliance. Yorik crushed their last resistance by destroying the town of Glome (and incidentally probably killing the fake Ludwig), then re-built it, and any local nobles who were willing to swear allegiance were grafted into the new Yurpsland heirarchy. The real Ludwig was one of them - the Yurpsland troops didn't know who he was, and in any case had known Audra as the head of the Northwoods Alliance, not as the Earl of E. Ludwig's politically astute partner Penelope Orrery from Gilad (a temple-administered neutral state) coached him on how to do this. [Out-take - a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell.] Sylvester isn't sure whether Yorik was really fooled over Ludwig, or knew who he was but decided to spare him. Ludwig was a super-genius who enjoyed university and made many friends there; he was very popular with the girls and could have had his pick of the local beauties, but preferred the slightly plain Penelope for her brains. Ludwig didn't graduate because he went home to help his mother with the war affort; Penelope worked out his real identity somehow, and followed him (and reached E before he did). It was because Ludwig never graduated that the fund set up to pay for his tuition was never wound up, and remained available to pay future heirs' university fees. Ludwig tried to stop his mother from poking the Hot Zone but she did it anyway, and died, and he and Penelope were left holding the reins. They actually did very well, since Ludwig was able to sell his inventions - materially assisted by Yorik's conquest of the whole area, which had resulted in a unified trading and patent system. [Out-take for Labor Day - a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks.] It is mentioned that vamphyrs don't really exisa but zombies do (but only briefly as they tend to explode), that many of Ludwig's devices were one-off prototypes and that Yorik I wrote his own memoirs. These memoirs are little known because his son wasn't that interested in promoting them, and besides they weren't very well-written. But they deal extensively with Audra, whom Yorik rather admired - it was he who re-named the province where E is situated Audravania. [Out-take for Talk Like a Pirate Day - Captain Hamster, the crew of the Pretty Lady and a gull are all getting drunk on grog.] Ludwig died of pneumonia after getting soaked while walking in the rain. His son Ernest, hedonist, (consensual) philanderer and forger, took over. His parents were disappointed because he wasn't interested in science, or all that bright, but he was very interested in plays and a reasonably good actor himself, when he could be bothered. He married Lucidia Penderghast, gold-digger and amateur actress, and they nearly deserved each other. At university Ernest discovered that he was good at maths, history and a proficient if uninspired kind of art. He did a certain amount of commercial graphics work and a lot of art forgery, although the latter was really just a hobby. He was a fairly successful playwright, although not good at dialogue, and very good at improving other people's scripts. He and Lucidia fought a lot but seemed to enjoy it, and they had three sons, Philbert, Hindenburgh the wizard, and Valentin, who was the one to whom the Djinnoscope gave a clean death. Ernest was fatally stabbed by, or over, one of his lovers. [Out-take for Columbus Day - a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt.] Philbert married the artist Hepzibah Kelly and founded a chain of "Lovelace" orphanages, using Kelly's mother's maiden name. He helped preserve the Forest of Burzee as a public park instead of letting it be carved up into private estates. He supported many smaller charities and was a faithful husband. But Sylvester believes he did these things to rebuild the family's post-Ernest reputation, not because he really cared. Philbert was killed in a motor-racing accident a month before the Crash and was succeeded by his son Quincy. Quincy was not very bright, but he was genuinely caring and scraped through university by hard work. His Hall of Achievement entry just says that he tied his own shoes, but this turns out to be fairly serious: he kept walking, kept trying, and held the Mansion area together after the Crash. He survived the Crash because he, his brother Frederick and Myrrh were in Aruba, which uses no magic. Afterwards they had to walk hundreds of miles home - hence the importance of the shoes. On their way they picked up another survivor, Agnes Bloggett, who married Quincy. Hepzibah, who had stayed home because of health problems, died in the Crash. Quincy eventually died after falling from one of the Mansion's towers. [Out-takes - a Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en. Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. A Smyt nurse gives soup to a patient in bed. Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives.] Willoughby attended university where he met his future wife, Dorothea Mundivagant. Both were very vague but possibly magically gifted. Sylvester thinks that it was wrong of Frederick not to tell Mortimer that he, Mortimer, was a wizard - but it was probably a good decision not to tell Willoughby that he was. They had six children - Sylvester, Ace, Mortimer, the twins Lilith and Lenore, and Rufus. Rufus was conceived because the local contraceptive Stiflebloom plant had failed. [Out-take for Armistice Day - two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war.] Because Willoughby was so lazy and detached it was really Frederick and Myrrh who ran the earldom. After Willoughby died in the notorious Noodle Incident, Frederick became official Regent until Sylvester finished at university. [Thanksgiving out-take - two Smyts eat until they are insensible.] Sylvester did well at university and made friends, especially Bertrum W Skinknottle (who fell for and married Honoria Clemens) and Nimue Fayling. The students were divided into Houses. Nimue was in training to take over the family business, growing oranges. She and Sylvester dated, but split up because neither would give up their family responsibility. Sylvester went home alone and took over the Earl's duties. He found a job for Ace. His mother Dorothea inherited cash from her mother, and she and Lil went travelling. Mortimer and Rufus stayed around, and Mortimer started bringing home strange women, most notably Olga Q Bonmarrow, a drifter with mental health issues who was in love with Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Basement society has come along tremendously during Sylvester's lifetime (so post-Crash), and the idea that the Sneeches might be behind this. Sylvester forgot to ask Myrrh what she saw in the Sneech den, and now they don't even know where she is. We see that she is in a cat café, talking to the cats as if they understand each other. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss whether the Dohickey thank-you gift was for Sylvester or for his whole family, and Rosemary points out that the first Earls were meant to have killed off the Ettins who were holding the Sneeches prisoner. Whether they did or not, the Sneeches may believe they did. They discuss the fact that Sneeches do have childen, and whether or not they have intelligible emotions. Finally, Rosemary says that eveything else can wait, and that she will follow Sylvester's plans. He says he can't make plans until he knows what it is that Rosemary stole. She agrees to show it to him, but tells him to cover his eyes and ears while she gets it out of the Poke-Kit, so he doesn't learn any codes which he might later be forced to reveal. 09: Wreaking Havoc [26/12/2016 - 07/07/2017] Rosemary produces from the Poke Kit an oval object which she says is called the HJ42 but she thinks it's also a mythological object called the Chaos Key. This is clearly the same item which has been being passed around among the Basement folk - not just another of the same model but this actual one, becausae HJ42 is the designation of a specific instance of this gadget which was collected by an anthropological expedition. Either it's looped through time to appear twice in the same area at the same time, or when Rosemary thinks it's safely tucked away in her Poke Kit, it isn't. As the Chaos Key it has been used to open various kinds of metaphorical and literal doors, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Rosemary studied its semi-legendary history in the libraries of Hack'n'Slash. It may have been implicated in the Thricklefork Demon Massacre. It caused strange events - including a giant man-eating flower - at a place called Bellona. It was passed around the clans of Erewhon, trailing odd happenings. It was used to rob a bank, then disappeared from view, only to reappear among the artefacts brought back by the Hendrick-Joost Expedition. At this point Rosemary puts it back in the Poke Kit and she and Sylvester agree not to mention the name "Chaos Key" again if they can avoid it, but just to refer to it as the HJ42. The Hendrick-Joost Expedition came from the High University of Azimuth and visited the Infernal Engine, among other places. Many of the items they "collected" were really looted. Eventually Azimuth returned some of them to Yurpsland, including "HJ-42". These returned items were parcelled out between various Yurpsland museums and collectors, and #42 went to an Erewhonian noble named Cuddlup, who passed it on to an Erewhonian sect called the Chromans. The Chromans were great collectors and displayers of curios which demonstrated the wonders of the world - some of which were magically active. The most dangerous were kept in an offshore fortress which went into meltdown during the Crash. The HJ42 was put on display in various places but it made people nervous, so it was moved to a medium-level facility in a place called Gowplace at the tip of the Lawnrock Peninsula. After the Crash, Gowplace was re-named Chroma and became the Chromans' capital, and the HJ42 dropped out of sight again for several decades. About ten years ago, or forty years after the Crash, it resurfaced as part of a travelling Chroman display for which H&S provided security, and eventually it caused some alarming effect, although Rosemary's security clearance wasn't high enough to find out what. It was put back into storage, but at this point rumours about it began to be passed around. It was at this point that Rosemary first heard about it and began to research it - and so, unfortunately, did Tansy Rugan, the leader of the Quincunx, a kind of sinister private army. Rosemary started to suspect the Quincunx were searching for the HJ42, and knew it would be a seriously Bad Thing if they found it. She couldn't get H&S to take her concerns seriously enough, so she went AWOL, rode all the way to Chroma and stole the HJ42 herself. Two hours later the Quincunx arrived and started hunting her. She did her best to evade them but eventually Tansy cornered her. One of the buttons on the device was glowing so in desperation Rosemary pressed it, thinking that it might cause an explosion which would take out Tansy and her 2inC Nathan Holn along with Rosemary herself. Instead, it teleported her to the forest near Eetown. At first she wasn't sure whether she'd been moved through time or space, but then she met Mortimer and realised from his accent that she had shifted a long way to the east. She was very dazed and disoriented and just followed Mortimer home. They talk for a while about how Rosemary ended up with Hack'n'Slash in the first place. Bored with farming muckroots and lobster-fishing, she became a crew-woman on a boat called the Oshinoxtra. From there she went to the mainland and worked on a large farm, and even served as a minion on a Saur hunt. Once she'd saved up enough money she went to see the nearest city, Jonetown. Everything there was far more expensive than she'd expected but as luck would have it she was in the right place to rescue Edwird Soloman, a retired bureaucrat who was being harrassed by louts. She and Edwird hit it off and became firm friends, and he gave her a place to stay. She became his bodyguard and housekeeper, read his books and reached an uneasy accommodation with his girlfriend, Mrs Rumble. Sometime later, Rosemary and some friends were scavenging in a scrapyard when they encountered the demon Scratch, and Rosemary managed to overcome him to the point where he was willing to discuss his situation and behave reasonably. This caused unpleasantness between the neighbours and Edwird, and brought Rosemary to the attention of Hack'nSlash, who recruited her. While they are tidying up conversational loose ends, Rosemary tells Sylvester about a hermit she met in the SAR (where there are many hermits, but this one is The Hermit), and who was probably a wizard (or just possibly a demon). They establish that demons can communicate over long distances via leylines, hence Edgar learned Rosemary's name from Scratch, and Myrrh could arrange visits from friends. Rosemary is reluctant to ask Myrrh to pass along messages. Sylvester assures her Myrrh can keep a secret. They discuss Ilsa, who has a very able illegitimate daughter, Druscilla, who works for the big bank in the capital. Ilsa writes to her wih local gossip, so news of Rosemary's presence will soon reach the capital. Ilsa is half Haroon, and the Haroons do not worship the Brush, much, or care what the Oracles think about having children out of wedlock. Sylvester is trying to modernise the village, with some cooperation from the current Oracle, Threnody, who is a great improvement over her predecessor Omega. It is mentioned that opposite Frederick and Myrrh's old room there is a door labelled "Gwen's stuff", but neither of them knows who Gwen is or was. Sylvesgter has never investigated it, but assumes Myrrh will have done so. They discuss the fact that when Sylvester met with Protus he saw visions of Rhid and Villipend, whom they then met, so evidently he was seeing the future. He also saw Rosemary fighting a woman with a glowing glove, and that may be a true vision too. Rosemary thinks from the description that it is Tansy Rugan, so they will have to meet and fight some time soon. At least she'll probably have the Can-Opener, but she doesn't have it with her now. Sylvester wants them to have regular conferences, but he's not going to say where the next one is, in case of eavesdroppers. They discuss Rosemary's old teachers, and whether Myrrh and Frederick are gone for good: Rosemary hopes they are, Sylvester misses them. We glimpse Frederick being given an Ides of March cake by a waitress wearing antennae - or deely-boppers. Olaf Larrsen, the village vet, turns up in a motorboat and is introduced to Rosemary, who he is glad to see is not a "demon, Bonmarrow or Flibbler". Flibblers, whatever they are, are everywhere. Olaf agrees to give them a lift in return for information and a discount on the organs of the Dornbeast Rosemary killed the night she arrived (less than two days ago). He takes the couple and the cat back to the mainland. En route they discuss the reorganisation at the manor, and the Crash - Olaf used to build thaumtools, before the Crash, and has been able to measure the fact that magic is very slowly returning. He thinks the local Ichyoids are up to something. He tells them about the hamster pirate captain, who has now ceased to be an out-take and become part of main canon, and that he has met Protus, who was talking about someone named Winnifred. Sylvester warns Olaf that Nirvana Clepe may be back in the area. Sylvester asks Olaf whether he has seen Frowgler - he hasn't - but we cut away to see Frowgler talking to the village Flittermouse in her tower. She tells him that her name is Vyon Ward Parkin, an orphan who was taken in by the Flittermice after she was shunned because her family had died in a "Spew" from the Infernal Engine, and peoople feared she might be contaminated. We see that the Flittermice have a universal presence, at least in Yurpsland, and use actual bats as messengers. The Flittermice are an Order, whose job is to "flit into the dark places and do the mucky jobs that need to be done" - which they agree is also Frowgler's job. Vyon herself was literally posted to her new position in Eetown, in a box. It's a lonely job and she appreciates Frowgler's company, but she could have left if she wanted to, and did not. He gives her a "laughter marble" and says that some day everyone will know who he is behind the mask, then he leaves via an artificial tunnel which looks as if it was made for the purpose, and which takes him to water. As Frowgler swims away, we see him pass a tank containing an octopus named Aloysius. Violet Hopkirk lures Aloysius to the surface and milks him of ink. She overhears people gossipping about Frederick's retirement. We overhear two of her employers talking about her and how she has the talent to work on a "Wrangrig", but it isn't safe for girls. Cut to Sylvester and co. in the boat, discussing Wrangling Rigs, aka octopus inkpull platforms, and the fact that it's "not safe" for girls because it's thought to be bad luck, locally, to have a woman on board. Violet, who has a reputation for not talking, overhears more gossip, quizzes a local boy and learns about Sylvester's party going into The Moose and Squirrel and not coming out. She goes to the inn to talk to Eunice Kelso about it. Eunice doesn't know where the party went, and shoos Violet away. Violet returns to her mother, Helena, and they gossip about Rosemary. Sylvester greets a trapper in another boat, name of Rod, and his young son Ash. Ash is very interested in Rosemary. Mention is made of a Mobile Confectioners' Guild, whose members include salesmen called Lollipop Perambulators. Sylvester finds Ash refreshing - too many people treat him either with scorn or fear because of his position. Olaf tells Ash to tell his friend Aloysius (not the octopus!) to stay out of his garden, because it's magic. Sylvester tells him to spread the word that there is going to be a meeting at the Temple to formally introduce Rosemary. Rod and Ash in their boat sail past an islet with a distance marker on it, then we see a gull try to land on the islet, and be scared away by a green, snakey-looking thing which says "Boo" in Ichyoid runes. This is one of the same tentacled things (perhaps the same individual) which we saw in the Basement, rescuing Shabash from a reservoir. Rob and Ash come to shore and we see Ash gossipping with Aloysius on the dockside - both boys look about ten years old. A gull - perhaps the same one that was chased off by the tentacled thing - is sitting near Aloysius. Ash passes on Olaf's message about the magic garden, and Sylvester's about the Temple meeting. As they walk past the Spewing Wall - a forum for graffiti - the Flitttermouse's laughter marble hits the ground behind them, and Aloysius picks it up, hides it and tells Ash it's just a rock. The gull flits in and out of shot near them. They pass Fantod and the Weirdo having an adult conversation with Melba Corrigan and her whimp-pig Wilbur. Ash and Aloysius tell Fantod that they are planning to go to a haunted ruin tomorrow, and he warns them it might fall down, then Fantod warns Aloysius, specifically, to be careful with"whatever it is yer doin' all of a sudden". We then see the Oracle Threnody, in a medical office listening to a man's chest with a stethoscope; Mayoress Saffron Stout sitting behind her desk - and the Flittermouse, scoring things off a list on a notice board. Written on the corner of the board (not part of the list) is a note saying "Tell truth". She has a sort of umbrella stand which has various sorts of pole in it, including a Sneech stick. 10: Into the Woods [10/07/2017 - 03/11/2017] To start with we see Myrrh, who seems not to need to breathe, strolling through an undersea forest before rising to the surface; Frederick still being served food by the waitress in deely-boppers; and a female Eyebolt named Shmelcathy working at her desk. Other women in deely-boppers (all this culture wear them) are monitoring Frederick on a screen, under the command of an older woman with fluffy white hair, and are expressing amazement at how much he has eaten without passing out. They talk about his herediscan - he is related to a previous test subject - and how he must be a thaumaturgre to stay conscious, yet he isn't setting off their magic-detectors. The waitress, Svetlana Rostova, is told to tail him, and we learn that they are in the Zamyatin Spire, a very high-tech-looking place. Zamyatin Spire residents are all women, but other spires are for men only, or mixed. They discuss Yurpsland politics, which involve a ceremonial, hereditary king and a separate political ruler who seems to be self-appointed rather than elected. Also the fact that Frederick is a demithaumaturge, and that the Spires are on a major tricklepoint, so were not much affected by the Crash and still have working pre-Crash technology, which involves some enornmous gears which were built by an unknown society from before the Ettins. Svetlana is impressed to learn that Frederick's family have their own library, in which he read about the Spires. When Myrrh is mentioned, Svetlana surmises that Myrrh is Frederick's wife, because he wouldn't have been allowed into Zamyatin Spire if he didn't have a wife. They discuss the arrangements for straight women like Svetlana who wish to find a mate when they live in an all-female Spire, and see an agent of sorts, holding a giant needle like a dagger and trying to arrest somebody for smuggling Fuzz jars. Singing Fuzzes are a big fad in the Spires and are bred for size, intelligence and voice, which suggests that this could be the past of Frizzlegarb's future world of Hollows and Fuzz communities. Special barriers prevent Fuzzes from being moved from one Spire to another, except in jars. Myrrh, meanwhile, arises from a water-filled tube into a sort of domed cockpit, in which there is a plant-covered floor dotted with flowers and one of the little mini-Trog-like creatures which we saw Rosemary chasing out of the Mansion at the start of the story. She presses a button and then climbs up some sort of stair or ladder - with the little critter riding on her head - to a room where there is a naked male musician named Jones (who is clearly based on David Bowie/Jones, and is either a fellow demon or a large nome, as he has pointed ears), who plays the flute for her. Finally we see her pressing her claws into a set of holes on a control that opens a round purple door, and then standing in a place where there are striped, rugby-ball-shaped lights, and an enormous bust of a bearded, humanoid male demon wearing a medal. It's not clear whether this last image is part of the canonical sequence or just a Hallowe'en special. Frederick and Svetlana end up on a balcony which Svetlana calls a Bubble-viweing Recreation Platform, overlooking a hall where large coloured bubbles with blurry images inside well up, but Frederick says it's a Spindizzy interface chamber. We learn that the Spire community has a low birthrate and takes in orphans from elsewhere, but Svetlana was born there and heard her parents mention legless, truthful flying beings who could have been either Spindizzies or Helipaths. She is not sure whether the Spire city belonged to the Ettins or the Sneeches, originally - only that it was contested between two species. Frederick describes ancient weaponry - the Ettins used city-smashing Doombombs and the Sneeches used Tangles, giant vines which could infitrate and wreck Ettin machinery. Frederick has worked out that something was meant to happen to him in the restaurant where Svetlana works, but she assures him he wasn't intended to die. Solzhenitsyn Spire is about death, but Zamyatin is all about collecting and hoarding information. Frederick wants to go ask the nearest archivist about Spindizzies. Svetlana is unnerved by this, as asking questions is discouraged. They discuss the fact that Frederick is still collecting information which may be useful to his family, even though he is retired, and that Myrrh may or may not decide she has retired, and we see the woman with fluffy white hair monitoring their converation. Fredrick says he is filling in time until Myrrh gets back from "whatever you all have her doing", and it is at this point that we see Myrrh opening the purple door. Cutting back to Eetown, we see Olaf's boat pulling in to his private dock, and Captain Hamster's crew sleeping off a binge-drinking session, and Mortimer, with umbrella, waking in the woods (to which he was evidently transported from the pub, in the same way that his brother and Rosemary were transported to the island) with the sense that some sort of revelation has slipped away from him, and then encountering Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party in the woods. Once on shore, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Olaf knew Mortimer was a wizard, but didn't tell him. We see that Olaf has a fenced-off telegraph pole topped with magical gadgets. Mortimer is very relieved to see that Nitfol survived the Spyder, but ashamed that he had accidentally led the beavcer-shark to destroy Nitfol's home tree. Fizmo realises that Mortimer owes Nitfol a favour and can take them beyond the "Edge of the World", but Mortimer doesn't know what she means. At this point we get some portraits of various characters - Ilsa's and Saffron's parents, characters from the Willy the Wendigo books, some past E Weirdos, and one of Sylvester's university lecturers. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, discussing Olaf's thaum measurements. Sylvester thinks he has a second agenda - perhaps an attempt to bring back magic, which even the High University of Azimuth has been unable to do. Sylvester thinks this is a good idea, because he wants humanity to explore the other planets in the system, and doesn't see much future in steam power. Mortimer, Nitfol and Fizmo establish their frames of reference. The Nomes' world can be walked across in a day or two, and is bounded by a wall of mist you can't push through, and centred on the Spike - Fizmo's father Foblub was an exlporer, but even he didn't manage to walk all the way around the edge. Mortimer remembers a Spindizzy called Charles telling him about a solid haze. Sylvester shows Rosemary a road which leads south to a place called Eisles where there is a ferry across the River E, but no city because the nearby shore is too rocky for a port, and then on to Obtown. He points out Olaf Larrsen's house and then they head back towards the woods - as they do so they pass Aloysius hiding behind a bush, with the gull next to him. 11: New Openings [06/11/2017 - 02/02/2018] Rosemary tells Sylvester there was a kid hiding behind the bush they just passed, and Sylvester identifies him as Aloysius Culpepper, an orphan who lives with his uncle and aunt. We see Aloysius and the gull sneak into Olaf Larrsen's place and poke about in the fields, before using an upturned bucket to climb through a shed window, after testing that a magic-emitting plant on a shelf inside is safe by throwing a stick at it. He winds up a clockwork figure of a running man (later referred to as the Flailer, so probably its feet are meant to pound grain), and the noise attracts Olaf, who is carrying a fishing net with a hole in the bottom. He tells Aloysius to follow him or go home, so Aloysius and the gull follow him. They go to the main house where they are greeted by Olaf's housekeeper - we see Sylvester telling Rosemary that this is Ilsa, who used to work at the Mansion. Ilsa asks Aloysius what the gull's name is, but Aloysius says gulls only have names when they are flying. We see a scene of three gulls by the seashore, including one wearing a hat, who is part of the pirate hamster's crew, and still looks hungover. We return to Mortimer, talking to the Nomes. Nitfol doesn't know what Spindizzies are but he does know about the Mansion, because his father was a scholar who owned two and a half books. We see Nitfol's father with two books, one labelled "Socks", the other "Cookiedice", which is the name of one of the Hollows where we see Fuzzes living in the future. Mortimer mentions the library at the Mansion - Fizmo doesn't believe such a thing is possible, but Nitfol has heard stories of large book collections. We see a shadowy image of a female Nome filing scrolls on big racks. Mortimer describes the library as being in the Ivory Tower, which leads to a long digression about behemoth teeth (if behemoths are really elephants, Mortimer has a very confused idea of what they look like), and he mentions that there is an apartment at the top, with a pool, but nobody lives in it now, "most of the time". He mentions that the tower was built by Ludwig, which leads to a very muddled conversation, because the Nomes know Ludwig as a cult figure worshipped by some people in the Basement. Mortimer manages to explain about the Spindizzies and how literal they are, and how he once told Charles he felt trapped and Charles told him about the mist barrier. Mortimer thinks the Spindizzies might know how to bring the barrier down: Fizmo thinks this is fantasy, but Nitfol wants to meet them. Nitfol and Fizmo go off to confer, while the Pale who may be Thrash seeks to attract Mortimer's attention to something, and Mortimer wonders aloud whether this is the same Pale (Thrash) he met yesterday with Frowgler. We return to Zamyatin Spire, where Svetlana is disturbed by Frederick's whistling, because music is discouraged except in the gym and at culture festivals. She takes him to a stern-lloking senior archivist, who wasn't expecting them - Frederick tells this woman his name, but says she doesn't need to know Svetlana's. In Eetown, Ilsa brings cocoa (which he has never had before) for Aloysius, herb tea for Olaf and tripewater for the gull. Olaf says he's an old man and he has had to keep his books locked away because Omega didn't want people to see them, but now she's gone and her influence is waning, he has been hoping for someone like Aloysius to come along. He told Ash to tell Aloysius to stay away from the magic because he knew it would lure him in. Aloysius correctly surmises that Olaf wants him as an apprentice. Olaf says his wife Mamie, after whom his boat is named, died fifty years ago(by implication, in the Crash), so if Aloysius comes every day he can, and learns magic and veterinary medicine, when Olaf dies he will leave his house and all his money to Aloysius, aside from a bit for Ilsa. Olaf tells Aloysius that no wizwitch could channel all the forms of magic, but some were generalists who could do a little of a lot, and some, known as Hedgewizwitches, could do only one thing but did it very well. Mamie was one, because all she could do was heal, but very well. Aloysius is another - an "Animal Empathist", hence his link with the gull. Mortimer is still talking to the Pale who may or may not be Thrash, and shows him his umbrella. He tells the Pale that he is a wizard and asks if that's the problem, and the Pale shakes his head. Meanwhile Nitfol tells Fizmo he isn't going to go off with Mortimer immediately, but he will at some point, because Zpeaker also thought the barrier could be brought down, and if Nitfol's political plan fails they will at least have a means of leaving. The Pale draws Mortimer's attention to the fact that Spyders are creeping up on them. Frederick speaks to Senior Archivix Anushka Zhdanov. She tells him he is allowed to access archives up to Level Three, but won't say how many levels there are above that. He asks for information on Spindizzies. She asks if he is a Yurpslander, and when he says he is, she calls for someone named Snegurka and sends her to fetch a file. Olaf tells Aloysius that neither of them is a full wizard, but that in theory if you make the right thaum machine you can mimic any power. However, there isn't enough energy around post-Crash, so animal empathy is impossible to mimic and no one will be "horning in" on Aloysius's skill. There are no other empaths in the area, but there are a few other wizwitches of other kinds - some who know what they are (we see Myrrh, Amos Grubb and Mortimer) and some who don't (we see a teenage boy in a soft baggy hat, and a short teenage girl with a lot of long, bushy hair) and who he doesn't think could handle being told. 12: The New Level [05/02/2018 - 01/05/2016] At the start of the chapter we see Melba Corrigan's blobwart-vending cart and her pet pig Wilbur sitting in front of a large bush. Her hat is lying on the bush, and two butterflies (not flutterbys) fly up from behind it. Probably they represent sex and/or kisses, and she is behind the bush with Arthur the Weirdo. Faint words on the hedge appear to spell out "Nutella weather person" - I've no idea why. Rosemary and Sylvester arrive back at Eetown's South Road Gate. Sylvester would rather go home, but Rosemary reminds him that he needs to collect the post, and says that it probably wasn't a villager in a boat that took them to Alwin. They both think it was probably Mortimer, by magic, which means he has immense innate power and the potential to be "quite something". Meanwhile, Mortimer's party start to back away from a Spyder, which begins to spew thick ropes of web at them, while another one boxes them in from behind. But Thrash (Rob's notes seem to confirm that it is Thrash, so the stripe he had on his chest before must have been painted on) slashes their web-ropes with his sickle and beats down the one in front of Mortimer. It's not clear whether he has killed it or not, but he probably has, as later they will pass a dead one in that direction. Meanwhile, Senior Archivix Anushka offers Frederick a chair and a cup of tea while he waits for his file. Svetlana is impressed and concerned, as teachairs are only offered to important guests, and she isn't authorised to associate with important guests, but doesn't wish to leave. The Archivix gives Frederick permission for Svetlana to stay and have tea too, but Svetlana says it's not Anushka's decision to make. Olaf thinks Aloysius can handle being told he has magic, but also that an empathist can't do much harm. He warns him not to tell anyone else about his magic, because there are people - the picture implies it's official, government people - looking to capture functioning wizwitches. It's possible that Aloysius may have other, minor talents as well as his main one - Mamie did - and there are tests for this, but Olaf can't administer them. Amos and Frederick both could, but Frederick won't. Rosemary suggests that if Mortimer is going to be "something" so will Sylvester, since Mortimer obeys him. As they talk, a Flutterby - a creature with which Mortimer has a strong affinity - comes to them with a scrap of cloth tied around it, bearing a message apparently written in blood. Back to Mortimer's party. The Pales are fighting off the Spyders, and kill at least one behind Mortimer, but the Spyders keep coming. Mortimer has a moment of crisis where he decides he will no longer be either a follower or a causer of problems, and he shoots magical force from his umbrella-wand, declaring that there will be no more killing or dying (and gives himself an electric shock). The surviving Spyders run off, and we see two Spyders discussing the fact that they had thought all human wizwitches had been killed in the Crash, and that this raises the possibility that there may still be humans who are able to "talk" (I'm guessing this means Aloysius's animal empathy) and they must call a conclave to discuss this. Svetlana confirms to Frederick that it is her boss (or at least, the person who told her to watch Frederick) who decides whether she may stay and drink tea or not. She has a number as well as a name. Frederick addresses the security bugs in the walls and asks for Svetlana to be made his guide, stating her name and number, and since nobody answers with an objection, Svetlana is officially promoted to that role. She isn't sure what she thinks about this, as she had enjoyed being a waitress, but she does quite like her cup of tea. Olaf tells Aloysius that Amos gave up being an active wizard before the Crash - the pictures imply this had something to do with Myrrh, but Olaf will only tell Aloysius about it if Aloysius agrees to be trained. Amos has already asked Olaf to come to the Mansion to discuss something, so he will take Aloysius with him, but Aloysius shouldn't mention his possible apprenticeship etc. to Amos's wife Nellie. They have a complex misunderstanding about what "having views" means, which leads to mention of an apparently blind woman called Gretta Weed, who in the metaphorical sense sees further than Nellie. Gretta is brighter than Nellie, and Saffron brighter than Gretta, but Olaf is more concerned with their open-mindedness to new possibilities. They discuss the fact that once he is trained, Aloysius will have the choice to stay in Eetown or to move elsewhere. Once they have found a private spot, Sylvester reads his message, which says "Open Training Gate. Urgent." This refers to one of the Panegates at the Mansion. Sylvester still has to complete buisness in town but will rush through it. We see him ask a sausage vendor named Claudia what people are talking about - which is really all the news from the Mansion. She has been selling a lot of sausages because people are anxious/excited about the changes. Fizmo and Nitfol are surprised and impressed that Mortimer is a wizard, and reveal in conversation that Fizmo works for Frowgler, and Nitfol sort-of does too. We see Frowgler underground, talking to a Shallow Wyrm named Parkin who is guarding the Circle at the World's End. Fizmo says Frowgler can see the future (which Mortimer cannot), and warned her about a job she took. We see her underground in her hazmat suit, looking at a little creature similar to a Shallow Wyrm but not one, which is growling at her. Mortimer says Frowgler gave him good advice, but he works for his brother Sylvester, not for Frowgler. He tells them Sylvester is a sort of mayor, avoiding the charged word "Earl" by chance or design. Svetlana reveals that she prefers kvass to tea, although this is against her culture. The Spire folk drink actual tea, but tea in Yurpsland is usually brewed from other plants. Frederick himself drinks - cautiously - things brewed by Myrrh. They get onto discussing Yurplejuice - neither Svetlana nor Anoshka has tasted it, because it's restricted, and even in Yurpsland it's regulated. Olaf tells Aloysius about the other half of his business - the first half is treating sick animals, the second half is making and selling thaum-powered gadgets. He has always refused to make magical weapons - Zap-Tridents - partly out of morality and partly in case someone buys one and then kills him to prevent him making any for anyone else. In any case they only work at Tricklepoints, such as the one under the Mansion. To make his own gadgets work away from a Tricklepoint he has built big, cumbersome energy collectors. Aloysius shows Olaf the laughter marble, and Olaf says it does party tricks, which he will show him in the workshop. 13: Thicket [02/05/2018 - 16/11/2018] Sylvester says Claudia will be selling a lot more sausages, because more changes are coming, because he is planning to be more pro-active. He and Rosemary discuss Mayor Saffron's temper. Mortimer says he arrived here (in the woods) by accident, but now he's here he will help the Nomes. He asks why they are there and Fizmo says they are going to "that Crystal Thicket". Nitfol is initially angry, but Fizmo says that if Mortimer (with his evident magical power) is working for Mayor Koyeeb they're all dead anyway. Nitfol discusses good and bad leaders with Mortimer, and Mortimer correctly concludes that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb. He is still willing to help, on the understanding that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb for an ethical reason (i.e. because he is very bad at his job) and that he isn't planning to kill him. He knows where the Crystal Thicket is. Frederick tells Svetlana and Anoshka about Yurplejuice, which he hasn't had since the funeral of Mariah, the Mansion's groom, when they still had horses. It's made in Wirtvale, and the stuff which Yurpsland exports is second-rate, but the best brands are wonderful. This leads to a conversation about funerals: the Spire folk file their dead on shelves in a catacomb, but they do have a ceremony. They talk about the fact that Spire folk are trained for their jobs, but Frederick had to muddle through as both wizard and regent, and didn't do a terrific job. We see Myrrh emerging from a hole in a rocky floor, into a cavern where there are many pink stalactites and stalagmites. She is preceded by a butterfly - perhaps signifying that she and Jones have had sex. In the cavern is a giant Metalmin who knows what she is - it addresses her as "zarkette" - and challenges her to a game of chess. We see a woman with puffy white hair watching Myrrh and the Metalmin on a screen: this is the same woman who was earlier seen overseeing the team who were discussing the fact that Frederick wasn't being knocked out by what they had fed him. She is probably Svetlana's boss. Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, still discussing Saffron Stout, and Saffron's father, who died when Sylvester was five, and her mother, who kept small yappy dogs. Neither was at all communicative about their past. Mortimer tells the Nomes there may be a magical way of getting where they're going. He tries to compare Panegates with the treewarping the Nomes do, which requires planning and equipment. Nitfol knows about twistpoints, but Mortimer says Panegates are safer, and there's one that leads to the edge of the Thicket. He has to explain that it's Panegate, not Paingate. Mention is made of Fizmo's married sister Fweep. Meanwhile, Frederick says that Spire folk who do badly at their jobs get sacked. Yurpsland is a young, recently unified country which hasn't worked out how to do things yet, whereas the Spire regime is 400 years old. He speaks about a Yurpslander named Owen Gregiry, who wrote a study on the Spires, and about various Spire monarchs, including the famous Ivana III, who fought off the Wendigoes. Frederick is more interested in Vasily II, who wanted to introduce changes. We flash to Violet Hopkirk, telling her mother she's going out but will be back in time to help with supper. Young Ash is her brother. We see the Flittermouse in her tower, watching Violet through a telescope as she sets out. Then we see Eunice calling two lads called Ricky and Wendell to come out from a wooden structure, because Saffron needs them. Then we see the old man and former Guardian Terin Flem, sitting on a rock talking to his grandchildren Stephan and Sparrow. He is going to wait at the rock until he sees the Mansion party come by on their way out of the village. We see Rosemary and Sylvester discussing the mayor of her home town, how as an orphan she was a problem for him, and how her Aunt Eva came to take her in. Eva was also seen as a problem because she had run off to the city, picked up foreign ways and then returned rich. There are things Rosemary wonders about Eva's return, but she's not going to talk about it in town where there are potential eavesdroppers. Mortimer and the Nomes agree that it would be as tedious to trek to the Mansion to find the Panegate as it would be to go to the Thicket on foot, and as far as Mortimer knows they won't be able to locate the Panegate at the Thicket end. He assumes they are going there to find a particular flower. He tells them not to tell him their plans, so he can't inadvertently give the game away. We cut to Sylvester's brother Ace, with spear and rucksack, walking through an unknown town in the west of Yurpsland and meeting up with a blonde Nome woman wearing a long skirt and a hat with a flower in it. He shows her a similar flower - which he was reluctant to wear in his hat. As he is Ace, she takes the nom de guerre Diamond (Ace suggests Joker). As they walk through the town, in the background we see a very odd face, or maybe a mask, with slanted oval eyes, watching them from some sort of battlement, and they pass a poster with a kind of alien face on it. Other, more human faces peer round corners at them wherever they walk. Ace comments on the fact that they are being followed, and asks if they are friends of Diamond's, or at least allies. Cut to the Mansion's butler Schmedley, standing in front of a large, open book and holding a cake with candles, to celebrate fifteen years since the strip began. There are eleven candles on the cake, three Flutterbys flying inside the house, and a Fuzz peering at the lighted window from outside. Frederick and Anushka discuss rules of succession. In the Spires the rulers are of alternating sex and bear a mystic Gear. Vasily II the would-be change-maker died young (as did Yorik II), and Frederick suggests that his death was suspiciously convenient. The village fishermen are deeply interested in Rosemary's hat. Coming from where she does, she is able to discuss fishing with them. One called Tom even invites them for a drink, but she and Sylvester have too much to do, and Sylvester says late in private that having the Earl in the inn would be a buzz-kill - nearly as bad as an Oracle in the pub. Fizmo is curious about the smell of sphagnum dust which still hangs around Mortimer. She and Nitfol discuss the birth of Fizmo's niece Faft, in a way which implies that Nomes can choose the gender of their foetus - although Nitfol denies it when Mortimer asks. Fizmo remembers she needs to ask the village healer Piu for Stiflebloom. Nitfol is an onlly child. Diamond says that Ace is an object of great local interest, which is why people are spying on them. He comments on her dyed-blonde hair. for some reason, she says that here she had no other option (even though we see a male Nome with brown hair watching them). Ace says there are always options, but sometimes all of them are bad, and he learned that from "you people" - some organisation to which Diamond belongs. The boundary between "here" (later described as "Out West"), where Ace has been for a while, and "Back East" where Ace comes from is a place called Nye. Diamond came there from somewhere "much, much worse" than here, which makes Ace say he questions her Nomishness. This may be related to this Hanukkah strip, which shows Nomes onducting a cultural celebration somewhere where they are a persecuted minority living in hiding. Ace and Diamond come to a plain, unmarked door in a wall, which Ace says people must only come to if they are already welcome there. It opens before them. Frederick tells Anushka that he ended up taking over running his "Spire" and training his successor (Sylvester) because the official leader (Willoughby) was no good at it. Willoughby died in the Noodle Incident, which the Spire folk haven't heard about. Frederick says he would have thought everyone to the ends of the known world would have heard of it, and this leads to a discussion of an island called Solla Sollew, which Svetlana says is the island at the farthest edge of the Revealed World, and which Frederick says an explorer described as "alive and burning". Anushka says that Solla Sollew isn't the farthest place from the Spires, just hard to reach because of magic-storms from the Glow Confection mountain range: the farthest point is the Biloka Penninsula on the far side of the Deep Southeastern Jungles. Frederick does not know why the town of Noodle is called Noodle, but the Noodle Incident is the most interesting thing that ever happened there. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the local fishermen. Tom is unmarried but has a thing going with Gretta Weed. It's OK for Mansionites other than the Earl to hang out in the local pub. Sylvester goes to collect post from Mr Gray. Mortimer's party, discussing Stiflebloom, pass what looks like a dead Spyder. Fizmo left their village because Nome girls were being encouraged to get pregnant instead of taking Stiflebloom. She and Kulkad went down into the Hot Zone in suits. She couldn't see much through the helmet, and can't really describe what they were monitoring. Mortimer says Sylvester will want to know, and Nitfol should want to know too if he's going to be a leader, so Fizmo says the thing they were watching was a sort of stone growth. Ace and Diamond pass two guards, and climb stairs to visit a Mr Shadwell. Ace fusses about the lack of a handrail, and Diamond says he reminds her of Algernon Jones, the hero of Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. At the top of the stairs, they find Mr Shadwell seated dead at his desk, with some kind of wound on his chest. Frederick wasn't present at the Noodle Incident and didn't hear about it till days later, because they didn't have a Sparkwire - a telegraph system. Sparkwire operators seem to be all women, who wear antennae like the ones the Spire people wear, although in the Spires they signify citizenship. The Spire ones seem to be implants - at least, they're not just attached to a band like the ones worn by Sparkwire operatives. In Noodle there is a museum about the Incident. In the Spires, Solovyov Spire is all museums, but some can only be visited by people with a high security clearance. While Sylvester is talking to Mr Gray, some village children ask Rosemary how she, Sylvester and Mortimer got out of the inn without anybody seeing them go. She says they used a one-time magic door. [Cut to Cap'n Hamster, talking to a sentient sea plant about the fact that his parents told him that somewhere across the waves there would by a pirate girl for him, and he will search till he finds her.] Fizmo tells Mortimer that when she was down in the Hot Zone, she had a button to push (and then run away) if the thing she was watching started to move. Technology doesn't work well down there, which was why they needed live watchers, but the button was shielded. Fizmo says she saw a rock grow legs and walk. Nitfol asked if it talked - she says no. Nitfol is not surprised, because he has heard stories from when Nomes used to mine down close to the Hot Zone. Diamond says she will pay Ace (who seems to be some kind of bodyguard, like Rosemary) to help her get away from the town, as she was Shadwell's "little mascot" and probably won't surive him for long if she stays. Ace agrees on condition that she doesn't lie to him, and that she tells him where the thing he came to collect is. She opens a wall safe and gives Ace sort of snow globe thing with a figure in it - a long-robed figure juggling the letter 007. Frederick has never been to the Noodle museum, but has heard testimony he trusts. Svetlana is worried about something, tells him "Negative", then looks warily at the walls and says it's nothing. Frederick says Willoughby set off some kind of chain reaction which badly damaged much of Noodle, but no-one except Willoughby died. The incident happened in part because of poor maintenance in Noodle, but that part of the story was hushed up. Mr Gray is concerned that there may be things which, unofficially, Sylvester should tell him about. They have a verbal skirmish in which Sylvester avoids telling him anything. He collects his post, rejoins Rosemary and says it may have been a tactical error for Mortimer to let people see that his umbrellla could be used as a weapon - which suggests Mr Gray is a government agent. Nitfol says that one of his ancestors, Nikmo, found a talking rock in the deeps, although most of the records of what it said were lost. Nikmo brought the rock home to the surface, but it stopped talking and he was ridiculed for saying it had. Family history says Nikmo later snuck the rock back into the deeps and it came back to life. He told his daughter Margi about it. Margi became a famous adventuress and had a son, Jindak. Margi told Jindakk that she thought Nikmo went back later to visit the rock, but she herself could never find it. Mortimer asks about the surviving records of what the rock said, and Nitfol says that the rock said it had been broken off from a larger boulder during a natural upheaval. We see Violet sneaking past behind Terin Flem, who is still keeping a lookout. She walks to the Mansion's gardens, where she startles Nellie Grubb, the gardener. Ace tells Diamond to place another globe, called a Zoinkglobe, into the safe. He had arranged to give Mr Shadwell this one in return for the one with the juggler, and now Shadwell's heirs can have it. He tells Diamond not to steal stuff from the safe unless they need it to survive, so she takes a small plaque with Shadwell's sigil on it, used to show that the bearer is in his favour. Ace comments that Louis and Buddy, the security guards, had let him up there with a spear, and may be part of whatever is going on. We return to the Spires, with a detour to a Smyt version of Spiderman - Spyder Smyt - to commemorate the death of Stan Lee. Frederick is talking about the official enquiry into the Noodle Incident. The Spires have official enquiries too - Svetlana says "Except when conditioned by circumstances", Frederick replies "Like when a gal happens to be carrying a big needle?" and Anushka says they don't talk about that here. Frederick says that what he has said came from his own experience, not from Svetlana. He says that Willoughby was scapegoated (although he really was somewhat to blame) - then a woman named Snegurka arrives with a file which was requested earlier (presumably the one on Spindizzies). Part Seven: Seats of Power [19/11/2018 - present] 01: Flight [19/11/2018 - 04/02/2019] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Eetown, discussing whether or not Mortimer will do anything illegal with his umbrella, for a given value of "illegal". Some countries encourage magic, some ban it, but Yurpsland has no unified policy. Mortimer and his party come to a barrier of webbing which marks the edge of Spyder territory. They cut through but are left rather gummed up: Fizmo wants Nitfol to ban Spyders when he is mayor. They begin to pass scattered fragments of ruined stone walls. Nitfol and Fizmo have not been this way before - their parents' and previous generations sometimes journeyed to the Thicket to collect special plants, but the mortality rate was high. Nitfol has more confidence in their safety now because they have the three Pales with them - but suddenly, somebody in the trees starts to throw rocks at them. Nellie tells Violet that being there, at the Mansion, isn't safe. Violet tells her her mother wants to marry her to someone called Tim Tonbee who is above her social status, in order to advance her. Violet thinks this is foolish, both because Tim will want to marry a girl of his own class, and because the life of an aristocratic housewife is not much better than that of a working class one. She's an expert inkwrangler, but girls aren't allowed to work on the rigs because it's thought they'll bring bad luck, and they aren't allowed to work in The Barn (where she currently inkwrangles) after they marry. She doesn't want to join the Navy because she doesn't want to kill people, and she can't be an Oracle because she doesn't hear the Brush in her heart. She doesn't fancy clerking. Ace and Diamond walk out past the guards Louis and Buddy, telling them Mr Shadwell deos not wish to be disturbed. Louis and Buddy wonder why Ace (a professional guard) gave them a disappointed look as he left. On their way out Ace and Diamond are accosted by two more serious-looking men, called Mr Stirscrim and Trymund, who ask who Ace is. Trymund says he's probably the Mundiv rep. Ace (whose mother is a Mundivagant) says that Dalton Mundivagant sent him. Snegurka hands the file to Anushka, and seems disturbed by the fact that Frederick thanks her. Anushka hands the file to Frederick, but won't tell him who authorised her to give it to anyone who asked about Spindizzies. Frederick and Svetlana prepare to leave, but he pauses and asks Anushka if she is married and has children (yes to both). Mortimer's party are being bombarded with rocks by a group of Tree Squids. Mortimer and the Nomes take cover in the long grass, but Nitfol says the Pales can take care of themselves. One of the Nomes, unspecified, says they need Umboz, the Squid-Coaxer, but Nitfol says these are different from the village squids. We see a brief scene of Umboz, Vezza and Piu getting on very well with the Pales at their hive. Piu seems to be learning new techniques from a Pale doctor, and Vezza and Zpeaker are looking at a device which looks like an organic version of an Ettin tool. The rocks stop coming because Thrash has knocked the Tree Squids out of their trees. Violet tells Nellie she wants to be her apprentice gardener. Nellie is dumbstruck. She tells Violet that she isn't getting paid because she is officially retired, but Violet says the next one will be paid. She listens out for news, and knows Sylvester has been making money on stocks and will soon need new staff, as the old guard get ever older. Nellie warns Violet again that the Mansion isn't safe and her parents would never agree to her working there, but Violet says she will leave home when she comes of age. Mr Stirscrim and Trymund wonder why Shadwell sent them to Rowade if the swap was happening today (sounds like somebody got them out of the way). Ace and Diamond say they made the swap and "didn't hear any complaints". Diamond shows Stirscrim the pass with Shadwell's sigil and he lets them pass, but he is still uneasy. Diamond tells Ace privately that Shadwell's habit was to foster rivalry among his troops, but when Stirscrim and Trymund do work together they have a fair amount of clout. She doesn't know which would come out on top if they fought. Ace asks her to show him the subtlest way out. Anushka says her kids turned out OK "for the most part". Frederick regrets not having children of his own. His nephew Willoughby became his foster son but he died. He tried again with Willoughby's children and they too mostly turned out OK (we see that he is doubtful about Mortimer and Lenore) and with other kids who came around (we see a girl with long curly hair looking at his Fugehorn). He tells Anushka to tell her kids she loves them and give them the advice she wants to give them, because there might not be a next time. Svetlana looks stressed. She and Frederick leave and we see Snegurka come to make sure Anushka has heard an urgent debriefing summons. Anushka says she has, and calls Snegurka "ninnyhammer". Thrash jumps down from the trees to rejoin the other two Pales. A hail of rocks follows but it begins to die down and the Pales look puzzled. 02: Entangled [05/02/2018 - 03/05/2019] Mortimer and the two Nomes wonder nervously what will happen if the Pales don't return from squid-chasing. The scene switches to the Pale camp, where Zpeaker is telling Vezza how the Pales grow their tools. [Out-take - we see Nimue in her orchard, alive and well and growing oranges, but the scene is partly greyed out because there is so little magic in Abalone. After this Rob provided a whole sequence of four strips on Rosemary going on a blind date, and said that it was canonical, but as it is set at some indefinite time in the future I've left it in the Supplementary Art section. It does show us that the Mansion has a set Portal Point for people to teleport through.] Nellie tells Violet to go home for now, not to wander off the path, and she will discuss with Amos and "His Grace" the possibility of taking her on as an apprentice. Ace and Diamond go through a small door marked "Nome" into an underground complex (with rats) where Ace has to walk bent over. They are briefly accosted by a male Nome, a sort of steeplejack named Uffer whjo works in "The Heights", but they ignore him. Svetlana still looks stressed. She starts to tell Frederick he must do something, when another woman named Idita comes to re-dress Svetlana in clothing suited to a higher rank, if she is going to escort Frederick. Svetlana looks even less happy. She is taken to a booth, where an ironic-looking woman named Alena whom she knows from school or college is assisting. The Pales rejoin Mortimer and the Nomes, but the Tree-Squid are still throwing stones at them. Mortimer doesn't want to use magic again and Nitfol agrees, so they set off into the brambles under Nitfol's command, using the Pales' sickles to cut through. Nitfol is looking more and more like a leader. Eventually they come to a giant, pink, glowing, three-pronged crystal set in a base: Mortimer says it marks the start of the Thicket. We cut to Rosemary and Sylvester, walking away from the town at a dignified pace they have to maintain until they pass Terin. Rosemary asks why the provincial flag is the E symbol, given that Audra played down her history. It may have had something to do with taxes, and been picked because goods with the E stamp were so widespread in the area - we see that they sold self-sealing stem bolts. Ace and Diamond run into more Nomes, led by a very hostile older man called Roquat. He tells Ace to get out - Ace moves Diamond aside and says he'll get out when Roquat gets out of the way. Roquat draws a knife, so Ace knocks him and his companions down. As Ace and Diamond leave, one of the downed Nomes warns Ace that Diamond will stab him in the back. Svetlana and Idita enter the booth, while Alena, who has a weapon with a rotating blade, stands guard. She and Frederick engage in mild banter, although she says he's a disruptive influence. Fizmo asks Mortimer why humans built the Thicket, and he says the Ettins built it. Fizmo has never heard of them. Mortimer asks if the others have. Nitfol has heard stories of The Earl fighting a two-headed giant called Ettin (real Ettins had one head but two brains). Thrash indicates that this is untrue and that he knows about real Ettins. Sylvester gives them a brief history lesson and says he doesn't know why they built the Thicket, and that they are probably already too close to it - in the distance we can see a jumble of the giant glowy pink shards. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the flag of Moonin, which shows the ancient towers called the Beacons, but some people would prefer a lobster. The islands in that area have always fought, but a leader named Wirtanen who had a lobster flag briefly united the islands, but he didn't rule the deep landsiders who have their own flags. Rosemary agrees that the current, Beacon flag is boring, but doens't care otherwise. They reach Terin. Diamond is glad Ace didn't kill anyone, even though she's willing to kill if necessary. She has something she needs to do which she says will be fine so long as there isn't a Backwash. This is a wave of magical power which surges out from the Infernal Engine, which extends underground and moves at a rate of a few centimetres a year. Where they are, it used to be, and it has left part of itself in place as it moved on, so they are still to some extent inside it. The Heights are jumbles of high beams left behind by the Engine, which occasionally generate magical items, which Highscalers like Uffer collect. Frederick and Alena discuss the fact that clothes in the Spires are designed by a committee, while in Yurpsland they are mostly designed by a particular married couple. 03: No Turning Back [06/05/2018 - present] Mortimer's party progress, keeping together. Mortimer, being taller, can see a large, distant rock which he thinks is near the Panegate. Nitfol says one direction is as good as another, and Mortimer says the direction of the Thicket (the jumble of crystals) is bad. Saturdays in the Basement [03/05/2014 - present] These strips run every Saturday and show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with what's happening above ground to Rosemary and co.. I decided to split them off onto a separate page to make the action easier to follow. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nests [03/05/2014 - 08/08/2015] The scene opens with a cavern on the wall of which is a cross between a set of bunk-beds and two layers of miniature, open-fronted rooms, made from wooden beams. These are labelled with the names of a group of female Gnoll warren-mates - Hiltsa, Lanwja, Piranom, Pergola, Skuy, Islupis, Ambri and Irnissa. Islupis is not present, or at least not visible, and Ambri is off-stage except for her hand. All we can see of Piranom is her feet (wearing shoes, in odd colours) and the ends of long hair. Hiltsa, who looks very bad-tempered, is throwing stones at the board behind Lawnja's head. Irnissa reports that Skuy and Pergola didn't come home last night. We see Skuy telling Irnissa and Piranom that she is moving to Leny Hall, and that she'll never take a mate because she has a proper job as Sina's assistant. Irnissa intends to stay at home where it's safe. We then see Skuy carrying her belongings past a memorial to the Nome War, and passing the Gnoll security guards Forfind and Findfor and the Ghast soldier Dpxbfo. [Meanwhile in an outtake a female Gnoll named Carmal delivers a pie-in-the-face to Dap, ordered by Tuft to celebrate "their" anniversary - actually the strip's eleventh anniversary. Carmal evidently is some kind of courier or perhaps a Kissogram girl.] Hamble and Squeeb discuss Othara. Hamble has thought of killing her to discourage explorers, but decides she is more useful alive: he's waiting for somebody else. ` Meanwhile, we see Wrawa (female Trog) wake from her exhausted sleep. Kottle the (Gnoll) Healer tries to speak to her but she runs off and he sends Maggle (another female Trog) to follow her and keep an eye on her. Maggle is alarmed to see that Wrawa appears to be heading for the Great Chasm, but when Wrawa reaches The Plunge and stands hovering at the edge, and Maggle calls out to her not to do it, Wrawa replies "Don't do what?" and seems not to know where she is. We see that the gap in the fence at the plunge-point originally led not to a sheer fall but to an extensible bridge, which is now tucked in under the lip of the drop. Wrawa says that she can smell something on the breeze and she is the second person to do something, and then says that she is going to prepare something for the people who will follow her and then jumps off the Plunge point in a calm, abstracted way that suggests she knows there's a soft landing below. She lands in the bushes down in the Chasm. She avoids being sucked into the chute, and instead walks along the top of it to the Trog habitat on the far side of the Chasm, where she meets Hamble and Squeeb, who have evidently gone back down there to live even though they may venture elsewhere. Wrawa remembers and likes Hamble from her childhood, and tells him how she has been affected by Rhid's chemicals and by the death of Leny. We see that Rhid himself has ended up in a hospital called the Humane Zone. Hamble warns Wrawa that this place, the deep-down Trog habitat, has an effect on people, but Wrawa seems quite keen on the idea and wants to absorb the atmosphere. She is aware of Hamble's ambitions to return to the world and make his mark; she doesn't intend to oppose him, nor to assist him at this point (and secretly feels that it will make little difference if she does). She goes to sleep, hanging uipside down from the ceiling. We see Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr awake in her sleeping pool, called by a voice of unknown origin. Ploot arrives to check on Urwyn, who has nothing to report, as there has been no activity around the Elevator. Unnoticed by them, a Smyt Sherlock Holems and Watson pass by, stalked or followed by another Smyt. Ploot fills Urwyn on with what's been going on with Sina and the new hall, and two Ghast medics, Vptwbotw and Vpfbotw, arrive with a Porta-Pool to collect their dead. Ploot prepares to drag the dead Gobule, whom he recognizes as one of Guttle's servants, away to Maw. Urwyn thanks Ploot for watching out for him and we are shown that Urwyn's friend Zugo, wearing armour, is also watching from a crack in the wall. Meanwhile the Ghasts wheel their Porta-Pool past various characters in and around Leny Hall. We see the Gnoll Muscod giving a heart-shaped flower to Folla, and two Gobules from Maw's household pushing some kind of large wheel. We see Catmorlo talking to Furphy, Satyrsong peeking at Krink, a Helipath sign-writer, Voog and an unknown female Motihaul. They pass a well where an Ichyoid is drawing water, a male Trog being led on a lead by a female Nome, a JibJib, Frag guarding the entrance to Le Tree and a female Motihaul pushing her eggs in a pram. On the walls are posters warning people about Fixits. In Time Hall they pass an Ooze, a Trog whom we saw before in Bowel Hall, and Pizzle talking to a male Motihaul Candle Monk named Crumpton. Then another Ichyoid at another well, a female Gnoll water-seller named Bujold, and a Fixit information desk, manned by a Boogieman. At the desk are a Gnoll with a flower in his hair whom we have seen before, and an unknown Gobule and male Trog, the Gobule with a bump on his head which suggests that a Fixit has been struck off him, and the Trog carrying a battered hat (not a Fixit, from the look of it). The two Ghast medics take the Porta-Pool to Amorph Hall. The area is still under lockdown, so there is nobody to meet the funeral party except Stirrer Hptwfvth and Apprentice Stirrer Hpthfvx, and a chap called Septwbfn, who pushes a handcart labelled Tangible Karma, and gives the medics a free fungus to compensate them for having had to go near the Operator. The two Stirrers place the Porta-Pool on a mark on the floor and a strange, elaborate machine, acquired directly from the SubShafts (not from the SubShaft manager Egrote) and normally cloaked from any notice, descends from the ceiling to hover over the pool and probe or stir the contents and decontaminate the contents. It seems that the SubShafts themselves are sentient but nobody knows for sure: there is a Ghast team studying them. The two Ghast Stirrers Hptwfvth and Hpthfvx bring the Porta-Poll containing the remains of Hpthbvtw - a.k.a. High Pool Third of Batch Three Hundred and Fifty Two - to the pool whence he came, and prepare to stir him back into it, with a ceremonial speech about his memories and dreams being added back into the common pool and into the Official Record. We see this happening. We go back to Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr sleeping in her pool again, and being called again to wake up. It can't be Hpthbvtw who is calling her, since we saw her being called before he was added back into the pool, but it does seem like it's probably the same pool. Some essence of the pool speaks to Hpobfvfr, taking on Hpthbvtw's form, but she objects to that so it becomes her mother Hpobvo instead. The pool, the collective consciousness, approves of Hpobfvfr's willingness to go against convention, and wants the Ghasts to go out and "engage the world", especially now with humans reappearing and the Sneeches leaving. The pool consciouisness explains to Hpobfvfr that their world, the Basement, runs on machinery behind the walls which is powered by Sneech squeezings, and without the Sneeches it's already beginning to fail. It wants Hpobfvfr to go talk to the humans, who may have useful information. She is quite keen to talk to Mortimer again. Saturdays in the Basement :: Tests [15/08/2015 - 26/03/2016] We see Shabash, one of the female Gnolls who shot at Agorn by mistake for Boromir, walking nervously through a dark place, scaring away a Doom Bee and a sort of miniature, non-sentient Saur called a Lizhopper. She passes a gap in the wall through which we see Maggle the Trog running across a lighted space, then Shabash surprises Faddle in the dark. She can smell that Faddle has been in The Place No-One Talks About, which turns out to be the cave where he was taken by and to the female Gnolls in collars, whom he refers to as Placettes. Along with "the usual phizz" they told him that the world was ending in some sense, and gave him a task to perform. Following their accidental attack on Agorn, Fanga and Shabash have split up in order to go to ground: Faddle suspects the Placettes of having engineered this to leave Shabash free to be recruited. They are joined by Carmal, who has been instructed in a vision to come and meet the Placettes' Assigned One. We see the vision in black-and-white flashback, and it looks suspiciously like Frowgler wearing the pumpkin-head costume in which he scared the Nomes. The Placettes have given Faddle three glowgem shapes which have to be inserted into sockets on some important mechanism on an upper level. The three shapes have to be inserted all at the same time into slots which are too far apart for one person to reach them simultaneously, presumably as a safety measure. They are dangerous in some way - possibly radioactive - but Faddle is better able to handle them than "normal" people (perhaps because as a Finagler he's not likely to reproduce), and has been given a backpack with a protective lining to carry them in. On their way, they pass through a "Wintergate" cave which is basically a permanent Hallowe'en display. They have to wear seasonal hats while in the Wintergate cave, and this prompts Carmal to tell Faddle about Fixits. As they reach the edge of the area inhabited by organized Basement society, they meet a Queen Snake named Marsslina, who is an aquaintance of Faddle's. We learn that the Queen Snakes and the Ecadems have some sort of secretive joint society and have their own underground greenhouse for growing food (although Queen Snakes mainly eat tunnel-rats), but their garden has been raided by Biters and so Marsslina is having to forage for a pudding-gourd for their own version of Thanksgiving. After Marsslina has moved on, Faddle says that Queen Snakes prefer to be called Empress Snakes and the three Gnolls discuss the terms Queen, Empress and Emperor. We learn that some Basement dwellers have traditional folklore about an all-powerful ancient Emperor named Ett, who is a fusion/confusion of the Ettins with the three early Earls named Ettric. The Placettes seem to have some kind of government status, since Gnolls just do as they say even if it's dangerous. Faddle reckons he and Shabash and Carmal have been chosen for this particular mission to and beyond the risky Fringes because they're expendable, whereas people like Mimsy and Piranom are too valuable to the Placettes to be risked. Faddle and co. pass through outgrowths of The Tree to reach a chamber full of Ettin machines. They drop the objects they've been carrying into slots on the machines. A human male named Mr Norton (who is really in the Spike with the Fixits, and who might be Rufus under another name) speaks to them through the machines and tells them that these machines are being activated because the technology which depended on Sneech Squeezings will soon fail. Shabash leaves, but Carmal and Faddle agree to perform other tasks for Norton, in exchange for Glowgems. Saturdays in the Basement :: Shabash and Rowbynn [02/04/2016 - 01/07/2017] Shabash gets lost and falls down a shaft at the fringes of the Basement. She lands in a reservoir, whence she is fished out and dumped into a dry service area by a green creature with a lot of tentacles and a long thin neck terminating in just eyes. It appears to be intelligent, since we see it start to fill in the hole in the ceiling through which Shabash fell, and it's using sophisticated tools. It's also holding a frog - who doesn't seem to be Frowgler. A maintenance bot then trundles up behind Shabash and first bonks and then tases her in an effort to get her to leave, seeing her as an intruder. She gets up to go, sees what she has been talking to and is amazed, because she can see it's a Metalmin and she thought all the Metalmins were long dead. The bot tells her it is the property of the Eman family and she doesn't like the idea that something sentient(ish) can be property. She names it Sparky. Sparky tells her to take her queries to "Facilities Manager Elizabeth Merrill" and the sound of the name, combined with the fact that Sparky is good at maths, makes Shabash think the Emans are Eyebolts. Shabash sets off to explore, believing that she can smell Eyebolts, but what she finds is a container garden under artificial lights. Beyond that, she finds Telic the Helipath Healer's surgery, and Crazy Rhid, heavily bandaged and strapped into a hospital bed. Telic turns out to be rather sinister. S/he injects Shabash with a paralysing agent in case she is there to murder hir - a reasonable precaution given her profession - but once she is helpless s/he starts to ruminate out loud about using her as a test subject, a clinical guinea pig. Rhid however talks hir out of it (and incidentally acknowledges both that he is a murderer himself, and that he has some well-intentioned long-term goal) so Telic dumps Shabash out in a corridor and locks the door behind her. Rhid gives Telic permission to experiment on him instead, since he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but cautions hir not to damage him too much - because Digger Odel still has a use for him. Shabash is very collapsed. As she lies on her back, trying to recover from the drug Telic gave her, a male Shallow Wyrm named Rowbynn drops down from somewhere high up and lands on her snout. Rowbynn is studying the quasi-sexual Wyrm process of "Eating", which turns out to be a kind of fusion. The Shallow Wyrm attaches to "Hooks and Trenches" on the skull of a Deep Wyrm - both male, apparently, so perhaps also female to female - and becomes permanently bound in place. The two then form a mental and physical gestalt organism which returns to the Hot Zone and stays there. Rowbynn finds that Shabash too has Hooks and Trenches, of a sort - which, as he acknowledges, raises interesting biological questions - and he is able to form a temporary bond with her which enables them to speak mind to mind, rather as we saw Hax speaking to Camora mind to mind before he took her over. Rowbynn is a member of the inner circle of the Ring of Clear Air, and as such his official rôle is to lie around being pampered and building up his strength in order to compete in some official contest to do with Eating rituals. But he had a lively mind and wanted something more, so he began investigating Shallow Wyrm society and mapping the extent of it through information he could glean while remaining with his own ring, and was surprised by how many and how different the rings were. We see vignettes of Vim, captain of the guard to the hostile Ring of the Uppermost Spire, stalking Sneckdraw the spy, and also of Kryt the observer, observing. Eventually that wasn't enough to satisfy Rowbynn's need for knowledge so he escaped from his minders and went exploring. He suspects that many others have done the same, and we see a vignette of Urwyn. Rowbynn tells Shabash that she will be able to break the link with him if she wants to, but if she lets him stay he can help her with her current lifestyle, and has "advantageous secrets to share". He knows where there are caches of human artefacts and knowledge, located by himself or by other Wyrms, and in return he wants her help in learning more about Fixits. He is very interested in them because the way they take over their "mounts'" minds seems similar to the Eating process. Shabash explains that she has a problem, related to the fact that she and Fanga were retained to assassinate Bromir. Rowbynn is aware of Bromir, who is "the hero of the Tubish Vat incident". Instead they attacked the very similar-looking Agorn, who is on a list of Gnolls who mustn't be killed. The list also includes Agorn's son Furphy, Comshaw, Mimsy, Niddle, Wittol, Swodswal and Catmorlo among others. Rowbynn hadn't known about the list but says something odd is going on with the Gnolls. Shabash went into hiding because she feared Agorn would report her to "some nob" but admits she isn't sure any of them know they are protected, although she expects Agorn to know. Rowbynn says a social facade is being maintained, and we see part of a pair of giant jaws depositing an apple for Agita. He says that an unknown nob or nobs is pushing society, especially the Gnolls, in a particular direction, but he doesn't know what or why. He is investigating out of curiosity rather than a desire to expose the truth. Shabash is hungry so they end the psychic conversation. It took less time than it felt like, but even so a hopeful slime grub is about to bite her ear. Slime grubs are not edible unless fricaseed, so Rowbynn directs her to a branch of the Tree. She has had a tiring and perplexing day, so after she has eaten Rowbynn directs her to a sleeping niche. They establish silent communication and then both fall asleep, and find themselves in a shared dream. Above them they can see the famous Skibble (although we cannot), although he doesn't look as Rowbynn imagined him - Shabash says he wears disguises. The dream becomes ever more bizarre - Rowbynn says Skibble is juggling feral ABOLs. Shabash wants to challenge Skibble with a tesselator, which appears in her hand, but Rowbynn says the Grumpy Pincher ate all the tesselators, twice. Shabash charges, Rowbynn goes to her aid, and Skibble confines them to a tight space for a zillion years "or 'til we bowbing wake up". They flibble. Saturdays in the Basement :: Leny Hall [08/07/2017 - 24/02/2018] We see Pergola the Gnoll, neart Leny Hall, looking at light spilling down from a gap in the ceiling and supporting a tiny fir tree. She has never seen a single tree on its own before, not part of The Tree, and tells Maggle the Trog that a woman called Swinthin had told her about free-standing trees, after she and some others had gone outside to the forest to capture Raviners for breeding, so they could extract Raviner ichor (we see a female Motihaul named Swidnica selling it), but the Raviners got loose and became a pest. Pergola has never dared to above ground herself, even after the tunnel was put in, because of the scary stories (in her imagination Nomes seem as scary as Spyders and Tree-Squids) and because it all seemed overwhelming. She loves plants and manages to nurture a few with artificial light, but she thinks if she saw plants growing freely in the sun and rain she would stay up there and never come home. Maggle has been to the doorway and only saw clouds and rain and too much light which hurt her eyes, but she is willing to go out with Pergola and guide her back. Pergola asks Maggle to tell Sina about the tree and the gap to the outside which they could work on to make their own exit - and which forest creatures can enter through. Maggle says Sina is very busy - we see Maggle talking to a female Eyebolt secretary - and that Sina and Sprocket are busy talking to Spindizzies. Maggle hasn't been to see the Spindizzies because she has no particular questions to ask them, even though she spends a lot of time exploring. She does it for fun, and often gets into trouble - she's not driven like Pergola. Pergola grew up on a fungus farm but became more interested in the weeds. Maggle works on a farm at times, to earn money when she gets bored with eating fungi and slime grubs. Most people can't eat them, but Maggle is a darkpelter Trog and is special. Darkpelters only crop up occasionally and randomly. They are resistant to poisons, and more likely to pair up with Nomes (although Maggle has her eye on a fellow Trog). Because of her resistance to toxins she helped to eradicate a dangerous plant called a jab-bramble which has harmful uses - we see a flash of Rhid doing something sinister with a ball of something. They meet up with Finimbrun, who is carrying a large domino, maybe 10" long. Rhid had left a set scattered around, and Finimbrun doesn't know what they are or whether they are dangerous or not. Pergola is wary of devices but Finimbrun thinks she's a hypocrite, because plants are just as dangerous and she was involved with the Crudbean, or at least knew Crud. She and Crud had neigbouring plots. He was sad after the death of his wife, and had a lot of equipment which was being funded by somebody else. She was nearby when the Crudbean erupted, but so were many other people. Comshaw interviewed her and then killed the Crudbean with one of Rhid's devices, and Pergola profited because souvenir hunters bought all her plants in the hope that they had been contaminated with traces of Crudbean, although it still wasn't enough for her to get her own place. Finimbrun lives with Kashkavala, who is an animal expert and food technician. We see her talking to a tunnel-rat called Snert. Timf calls Pergola to come and sort out some blorp plants, so she goes off, leaving Maggle looking warily at a flickering light. There is an odd little scene where Tuft the Gobule and Dap the Gnoll are agreeing that some large-scale thing has gone wrong, but Dap can't be arsed to find out what. Of to the side of them we see a machine that seems to be flaring off gas. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nitid the Helipath [03/03/2018 - present] We see Nitid the artist and Flange the engineer, both Helipaths, talking. Flange, who is working on a junction box, is on his own because Sprocket the Gnoll has gone off courting with Sina, which Helipaths consider very inefficient. There are a lot of wiring problems at the moment - Nitid wonders if this is to do with the previous day, which the Observatory staff say was The Day That Changed Everything, but Flange is skeptical. S/he and Sprocket did some work at the Observatory and were not impressed by their record-keeping. [Out-take: we see an elderly male Gnoll named Skritch fishing, to commemorate the death of Patrick McManus.] Nitid asks Flange if s/he recognises a particular symbol. Flange says if it were rotated it would become a symbol important to Humans (it's a fancy capital E). Flange is inclined to believe that Humans still exist. Flange goes off to do more engineering work, and Nitid goes to the Time Hall, where s/he talks to a female Ecadem named Fyke. Fyke is sad because yesterday a male Ecadem named Smyth, who was working as a bouncer, died in the fight at Le Tree, without ever having found a mate, and there are so few Ecadems left. His friends had tried to talk him out of taking such a dangerous job, as Ecadems are fragile. Fyke has her name painted on her side, which Nitid refreshes for her for free. It has something to do with the worship of the Brush and bearing witness in some way. The sect to which Fyke, who is a bit of a fanatic, belongs believe that there are holy Emissaries living behind the sun, and that the sun turns into the moon at night, covered with mysterious runes. The moon must not be breached but the sun should be, and a Jibjib named Speedy tried to fly to the sun to do this, but fell back exhausted. Fyke thinks they should build a tower to reach the sun, using the Mansion as a base. She thinks the Council will do this sort of thing; Nitid supported the sending of a Helipath named Aprat to join the Council but believes it won't achieve much because Agita, Nevus and Guttle will thwart it. A Boogieman named Trevor summons Fyke away to help deal with a situation. Nitid enters the Hall of the Brush, monitored by a female Eyebolt named Evulgate, who reports to a male ditto named Fremescent. Evulgate is collecting credits awarded to her for sharp observation, but needs another 23 credits before she will even be told what events are credit-worthy. In the Hall of the Brush, Nitid speaks to an elderly-looking Gobule priest named Kalon. Nitid isn't really sure why s/he came: Kalon goes through a list of possibilities and they decide that Nitid feels alienated from hir community. S/he does not want to talk to Nefast, a Helipath who is an Ear of the Brush, so Kalon suggests s/he should talk to Febrifuge. Febrifuge is somebody who keeps a record of favours owed, as a kind of currency, but that's not why Kalon thinks Nitid should speak to him or her. The Hall of the Brush is full of different sects. We see a male Trog holding a flower in a pot, wearing a flower on his head and declaring that "The Bloom is Eternal" to a Gnoll Doomsayer who says that "The End if Nigh", and a male Motihaul in a hooded robe debating theology with a Gnoll Beebler. At Febrifuge's door Nitid meets Shona, who has come to deposit a favour to return the one done her by Comshaw and Niddle the day before. A male Gnoll, a Spelling Guild member, OKs Nitid's spelling of hir own name on hir own forehad. The Guildsman then goes and shouts at two Doomsayers who have spelled their placards wrong. Meanwhile Pizzle turns up and asks Nitid to exchange one seed for another, which Nitid does. Tiny flags pass by low down in the frame, and the Gnoll Irnissa appears with two plants in a pot, and says that the League of Short People are on the march. Irnissa is just there to deliver plants, and assumes Nitid is also there as a professional. They discuss Leny Hall - Irnissa thinks anyone going near Crazy Rhid's old place is crazy themselves - and a male Motihaul in a lurid superhero costume passes them, carrying a alrge grasshopper impaled on a fork. Shone is in with Febrifuge, depositing favours she owes to Comshaw and Niddle. Irnissa considers Niddle far more impressive than Comshaw and says he's changing the world through his Finagling, although she herself only "fools around" and doesn't mate (only couples with a Finagler have young). She thinks Comshaw married Camora for her money. Sundays in the SubShafts [03/09/2006 - present] The timeline of the SubShaft 44f strips is confusing. The series is used as a foil for seasonal gags about e.g. Hallowe'en but given how short-lived Gnolls are, the jokes for a given season are certainly not taking place annually within the story, and the strip for 25th March 2012 and comments by Rob confirm that these events are happening roughly parallel with events in the main strip, meaning that up until 16th July 2013 they take place during the course of a single day. This means that one has to explain how come Cully ends up in possession of a device called the Zorper which is also being passed around among the characters in the main story. Because the SubShafts series is so long that it causes loading problems if displayed on a single page, I have split it into sections, but these are mine rather than Rob's. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors. A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle. Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God. We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out). We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights. While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm. Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets. A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully. A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant. Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie. Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders. They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out. We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere). They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire. The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional. Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus. They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for. The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie. Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate. We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit. While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there. Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears. Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it. Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus. Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do. The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now. In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature. Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God. She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too. Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it. Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function. Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts. Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future. Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute. Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires. Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come. Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage. Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports. The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself. We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one. Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer. As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe. Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected. Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded. The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life. It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side. Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit. Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance. Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator. Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct. The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room. They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch. Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used. We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind. We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf. We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly. In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings. Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears. Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor. Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar. They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt. Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free. The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did. They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation. We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow. Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers. Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower. A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off. We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva. Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood. As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things. They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting. 3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question. They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up. Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it. Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride. They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station". Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive. First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it. The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls. Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches. I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva. Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong. She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake. Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches. Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does. Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list. They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come. Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight. Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure. They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger. They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about. She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately. Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying. SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based. Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed. Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth. Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend.. For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair. At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner. Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world. To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep. On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub. For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise. For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell. For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt. A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives. On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible. Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet". Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion. A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page. Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else. If you are seeing this text, your browser does not support inline frames
01: Rise and Shine [28/07/2013 - 26/11/2013] The sun has just risen over the Mansion. The brothers are already awake: Sylvester resumes doing his paperwork, but Mortimer stands gazing out of a window, clutching the umbrella he said he wouldn't take up again unless and until he decided to take up magic, and thinking of himself as having "set out" - and that the world itself has also changed. Rosemary emerges and rings the bell for Schmedley, the butler, attracting Mortimer's attention. He introduces her to Schmedley, who tells her how to find Sylvester. Schmedley is not surprised to hear that Mortimer is a wizard. We see Arthur the Weirdo feeling the worse for wear.
Sylvester shows Rosemary her new official quarters and office, which she is quite stunned by, and explains the heirarchy of the Mansion's servants to her. As Taskmistress she stands fairly high. One of her duties is, at least potentially, to find and hire a new sign-writer. Her quarters command a view of the ocean, which leads to a discussion about Panegates and the fact that no known Panegate leads to another continent, although some lead to alternative realities for the location of the Mansion.
They move on to discussing why the villagers don't all move into the much-more-comfortable Mansion, and Rosemary's dream about the Operator. Sylvester didn't share it but we see a flashback to what must be his own dream, in which he, Rosemary and Nimue are attending a university lecture given by Protus, accompanied by three frogs, two sitting with the girls in the audience and one sitting with Protus, and Sylvester is aware that his own frog is missing (or has gone to Protus).
We see a rusted, land-locked boat which Philbert had been going to convert into a building, and access to which is restricted, and a wizwitch detector which detects Mortimer. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss security clearances, and local legends relating to a scruffy local folk-hero called Frizzlegarb who might have been a surviving Wilf. Legends say Frizzlegarb swam through a pool and there met what sounds like a Willygig. Sylvester shows Rosemary round her apartment and gives her a mechanical pocket-watch, then they get out Mortimer's Glowgem and test it on a sort of battery-tester: Glowgems can be recharged by dipping them in the River of Fire for a few days. We see an outtake of the Tribbletongued Hamster (in pirate getup), the plant and the ABOL escaping together in a toy boat, sailing along an underground tunnel: a sign in the backgorund points towards the sea.
Sylvester mentions that the Mansion used to have a "wizwitch", a magic-wielder, as a regular member of staff and he supposes it now has one again. The scene cuts to Mortimer, who is talking to a strange wall of purple electricity, telling it he is going to go and celebrate the fact that he has grown up and got a job. He goes to Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, where there are various amusements and places to eat.
Back with Rosemary and Sylvester, he asks her about Hack & Slash's Commandant Spangler (who Rosemary had said was the only person she had previously met who had a private office). This segues into a conversation about their respective grandparents, and Rosemary running through a fake version of her family background, using her new, false surname Dapple. She discusses the remote possibility of using Protus to go back in time and save her parents - for whom she has little feeling - at the cost of giving up her own exciting future and getting stuck as a farm-girl. Meanwhile we see Frederick and Myrrh set out to do something - unspecified but involving hand-holding - "properly".
Sylvester tells Rosemary about the demand there used to be for apartments linked to this private corridor for senior administrators, and they discuss the fact that in the past, pre-Luwig, the Earls were at risk of being assasinated just for being Earls. Rosemary goes off at a tangent about a fluffy-seeming female called Miss Gritz who was a traveller on the caravan Rosemary was guarding, and whom she suspects of being her apparent boyfriend's very high-powered personal bodyguard. Sylvester shows Rosemary round the official, ceremonial offices for himself and his secretary (but not his official chambers, which are untidy). The offices are designed to be intimidating. We learn that the mansion holds a throne for use if the king should visit - this nearly happened fifty years ago, but the king ws killed en route when his flagship The Velvet Glove went down during the Crash, and the current king tends to stay in the capital. The offices are designed with security in mind.
We learn that the mansion has a High Tower access to which is blocked: Rufus tried to get in there, before he wandered off. Sylvester says Rufus likes to wander but he doesn't go far: Sylvester tried to get him to go to university but Rufus felt that the area around the mansion was where he was going to be. Meanwhile we see Eunice, Rufus's new assistant, emerging into the countryside from a concealed entrance inside a hollow boulder, and Yasmine riding away and thinking that in another hour's riding she will be able to remove her hood.
Sylvester shows Rosemary an escape hatch under the desk, leading to a panic-room which used to be well-equippped but is now almost empty. We learn that in the early days the Earldom was passed on by mortal combat. Milo was the last Earl of E officially to kill his predecessor and the first to pass the Earldom on by blood although his grandson, Dorn II, may have been murdered by his daughter in law Charlotte, who then ruled in her husband Lemuel's stead while he got on with his Panegate research. We also learn that in those days the Earldoms of E and S were friends.
Sylvester doesn't know as much about his mother's family, the Mundivagants, who are grand and grudging industrialists. His brother Ace works for them. Roisemary's family were all farmers with a long tradition, but they have died out.
Rosemary asks about a sign saying "Gargoyle pits" and Sylvester tells her that there are creatures called Gargoyles and Spindizzies which were bred or manufactured by the Ettins to service and repair the buildings in which they live. Gargoyles deal with the exsterior and Spindizzies with the interior, especially service machinery behind the walls and in the basement. The Mansion is a semi-living thing, a sort of colony organism, but it is slowly running down. Sylvester and Rosemary speculate about the possibility of finding still-surviving Ettins who could restore it. They cone to a corridor where an end-wall has moved aside, giving access to a service-space, so Sylvester takes Rosemary to meet the Spindizzies, warning her to get the Can-Opener out first and not tell anybody about the Poke Kit.
02: Fishing Around [27/11/2013 - 22/03/2014] The scene opens with an Ichyoid pootering about under water, wearing some sort of equipment on his chest. We return to Sylvester, telling Rosemary that the core of the Mansion where they are is malleable and in a state of flux. Two Spindizzies appear: they have grey, hairless humanoid upper bodies trailing away into wormy tails, and pterosaur-like wings. They speak like intelligent but literal-minded computers but are friendly and kind, very concerned when they hear that Rosemary is taking over as Taskmistress in case that means Prunella has died. Sylvester agrees to buy in supplies which they request, and ask them if they can tell what the Can Opener is made of, but they can't, although they may be able to duplicate it, or something like it. Sylvester seems to want to make more. Every human (or in Myrrh's case, humanoid) in the Mansion has a designated Spindizzy who communicates with them: Horace and Emily are matched to Sylvester and Rosemary. As taskmistress Rosemary will need to talk to Emily weekly.
Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the Ettins: Sylvester thinks the Mansion with its Panegates and moving walls wasn't intended as a residence but as some other sort of facility. They wonder whether there are any surviving Ettins - and if so, how they would react to find Humans living in their laboratory, or whatever it is.
We learn that the Spindizzies are mortal flesh-and-blood ceatures but they reproduce in a mechanical incubator. The chamber where they are all meeting is a sort of holo-deck, in which the Spindizzies usccessfully produce a useable mock-up of the Can-Opener, a quasi-humanoid sparring-partner for Rosemary to practice with and a chair for Sylvester to sit in and watch. We learn that one of Ludwig's assistants went far enough down into the depth to visit the Spindizzy incubator, and his granddaughter visited the Far=Eastern Shore on the other side of the ocean from the Mansion. There were human colonies there which may or may not have survived the Crash, about which the Spindizzies know nothing.
Meanwhile we see vignettes of other characters. Mortimer is breakfasting and the Landing o' Family Fun, and visiting the Fish Museum there. Eunice Kelso is seen leaving the woods and heading for Eetown, wearing a rucksack: a retired Guardian called Mr Flem warns her that the woods are dangerous. Nelly is feeding (non-sentient) Jibjibs while Amos sets what looks like Mortimer's glowgem onto a handle. Arthur the Weirdo is taking a bath, Myrrh is setting out from her and Frederick's flat, and Schmedley is being addressed by somebody off-screen and short (probably Frowgler).
The Spindizzies store a template for the Can-Opener and make a copy which is only real in this environment, which functions as a sort of Holo-Deck. They simulater a sparring partner for Rosemary to test her weapon, and some background scenery including a bad, Escheresque reproduction of part of a monument called the Citadel of the Hugging Squirrels, one of the Sculpted Isles in Isdanila. This reproduction was commissioned by Dorn I for his mother Nettana, who came from that area. The Sculted Isles date back to a msyterious Dawn Era.
Sylvester dozes in a chair, leaving Rosemary to her sparring, but in fact she talks to the Spindizzies instead of fighting. She elarns that they have patterns for Ettin tools as well as human ones, but most of the Ettin ones are encrypted. She encrypts the pattern for the Can-Opener so only she and Sylvester can see it. It seems that any "productive individual" can come in and encrypt personalized tools. She learns that the Spindizzies could in principle find out what the Can-Opener is made of but their access to data is blocked beyond a certain level. Rufus might be able to fix it. They tell her Rufus is at Semi-Autonomous Research Structure #001.
Rosemary doesn't want to spar now because she hasn't the time, but she takes the time to walk up the imaginary sky. She starts to ask Emily the Spindizzy whether she knows that she, Rosemary, is currently... then changes the subject, which may or may not have been important. Then she wakes Sylvester and tells him where Rufus is, which he translates as the Spike. He isn't pleased, and says that the Spike is very dangerous, partly because the machines there have no built-in safety systems. The information about Rufus came from a high-ranking Spindizzy called Tanith who was Nirvana's contact, but they have lost contact with Nirvana. Meanwhile a Valentine's Day out-take shows Sheriff Patrick Skragg giving a flower to his wife Halcyone, while their son Stepehen read a Willy-the-Wendigo book.
Sylvester informs the Spindizzies about the departure of the Sneeches, and asks them what they know about Willigigs. They have been aware of Protus's presence for around a month but haven't spoken to him. They are not aware of Frowgler. Sylvester and Rosemary take their leave of them: Sylvester promises to bring them some antimony which they have asked for, and which he has in store. After they leave we see Sprocket the Gnoll engineer, holding a glowgem in a wrench, opening conversation with a male Spindizzy.
Rosemary and Sylvester set off to go fishing. They discuss the Mansion's mineral stores, including gold, and Rosemary tells Sylvester what she learned from the Spindizzies while he was asleep, about the data block which Rufus might be able to fix. Sylvester suggests that the same person deliberately planeted the Can-Opener with Izchak for Rosemary to find, and prevented the Spindizzies from investigationg it: he fears he is being too paranoid but Rosemary, being profesionally paranoid, suggests there may be two conflicting secret factions at work. For the moment, Sylvester is not telling the Spindizzies about the return of Nirvana, the previous Taskmistress: he means to return to the Ettinworks once he has researched Tand, and will allow Nirvana and "Mz Teree" (Annabelle) to explain themselves before making a decision about them.
They make their way down to a sea-level room where there are storage lockers for fishing gear and for beach leisure gear, and a small boat, and a door to the E family's private - and artifiually-enhanced - fishing beach. They used to have a proper boat-house etc. but much of it has fallen into ruins. Ichyoids don't like large-scale commerical fishing and cut large fishing nets, so before going outside they look though a security spy-hole and see only gulls. Sylvester also talks about what he considers to be the remote possibility of somebody from the Basement making their way up to the beach (suggesting that part of it is below sea-level), and at that we see the hamster and his crew in their miniature pirate ship, approaching the open air. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss boats, and an explorer called Semidemila, and then go outside, where they stand side by side on the beach and agree that their feelings for each other are brother/sisterly rather than romantic (although acknowledging that this could change). They catch fish and gather seaweed and then go inside to cook them.
Meanwhile we see a small boat propelled by a magic-powered outboard motor, and piloted by a skinny, elderly male villager whom we saw before when Protus caused Sylvester to have a vision of a selection of villagers (among other things). The hamster and his pirate crew in their tiny wind-up clockwork boat approach and order this man to stand to and prepare to be boarded, and he thinks that all Tribble-Tongued Hamsters are insane.
03: A Change in the Scene [24/03/2014 - 12/07/2014] The scene opens with Nitfol, Fizmo and three Pales (one of whom may be Thrash, as he has the same double head-spike, but he is wearing or carrying a shield and doesn't have the stripe on his chest) about to enter a tangled wood. Nitfol says that Fizmo's presence isn't neccessary to his plans - but she has her own agenda. Then we see Yasmine riding through a wood. She is just pulling up in order to do something, now she is "far enough" from the Mansion, when she feels a vibration in her bag of Fleebs. She opens it and the Fleebs leap out, although they do not appear rabid.
Meanwhile we see the E family make breakfast. Amos and Nellie bring Jib-Jib eggs, Sylvester and Rosemary have fish and edible seaweed, and Mortimer brings a bottle of a magically-active drink called Yurple Juice. He won it by playing a game at Uncle Bob's Landing o' Family Fun, and feels he may have cheated magically. The Weirdo (seriously hungover) and Fantod arrive and are introduced to Rosemary.
Then Myrrh (the Scary Lady) and Frederick arrive, dressed as if for a very fancy trip to a smart restaurant or theatre, and Myrrh announces that they are now retiring from their work to keep the family alive. Myrrh also satisfies the Weirdo's curiosity by dropping her glamour and revealing to him that she is a Demon. Mortimer is now Sylvester's Regent, his understudy - about which he is less than thrilled. Sylvester tells him just to do what Sylvester tells him when Sylvester is present, othrwise what Rosemary tells him. Since the Mansion will now be less secure, Sylvester offers Amos and Nellie the chance to retire to the village, but they refuse. Instead, Amos will teach Mortimer magic. Meanwhile Sylvester, Rpsemary andf Mortimer need to go to the village to update Saffron, the lady mayor, on what's been happening, to sell Dornbeast parts and to attend the Temple. Mortimer wants to light an candle for Nitfol, whom he believes to be dead through his fault.
Because the Poke Kit won't work so well away from the Mansion's magic tricklepoint, Rosemary and Sylvester go to the Barrackstack to deposit the Can Opener in a vault and collect other equipment. Meanwhile Mortimer goes to take antimony to the Spindizzies. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Ludwig's machines still work, and why this might be. Rosemary thinks that the Weirdo is ill or hungover but competant, and has had military training. Knowing that the Weirdo is conspiring with Yamine in some way, Sylvester says they should lock their doors at night.
The Barrackstack goes down as far below ground as above. Although it contains some Ettin elements it was mainly built by Angus and Audra. There are sealed-off escape tunnels from the barracks which open into places which are now inside Eetown. A sign points to the Party Palace, built by Ernest, and describes the attractions on offer there. They discuss a very complex card-game called Quincunx, and some kind of game which involves magically-powered equipment and is played in an Underwear Arena. Whatever it is long-married couples are especially good at it (which suggests it might involve listing your partner's physical or sexual quirks), and people called Shrouders - the reverse of nudists - cannot play it. All the local villagers are informally Shrouders.
Motimer takes the antimony to his Spindizzy contact, Charles. Charles recognizes the umbrella as a "thaumalogical flow enhancer and regulator" and already knew Mortimer had wizard potential. The scene cuts to a female Spindizzy, Clementine, who is talking to Sina, Sprocket and a male Trog, probably either Mowder or Grak. Sina is quizzing Clementine about her claim to have met the Earl.
Sylvester opens a weapons-vault to keep the Can Opener in: like military exercises the vaults have random names. This one contains a wide range of good spears and swords. They put the Can-OPener into a safe, then enter Rosemary into the herediscan system. They discuss Griffiongton - his collection of obscene limericks, his management of the Factor E and his possession of three minions, Drowpole, Krell and Strauhatt. Rosemary is now Sylvester's minion, after Nirvana, who was the first. They see a statue which purports to be of an Obsidian Sneech, but is more sinister than accurate. This area of the mansion, which is actually of great military importance, is dotted with signs which suggest that only boring things happen there.
Arthur and Fantod are sitting by the counting-down machine. Fantod, who seems to be an actual creature, looks stunned. Arthur says he assumes that "she knew all along" - perhaps a reference to Yasmine - and he plans to take Amos's advice - which was to drink the magically-active Yurple Juice.
Sylvester gives Rosemary an instruction manual for the Poke Kit. She reads about secured sub-pockets and has a half memory of the Tree giving her a secret seed, but it slips her mind again. She experiments with taking a Glowgem in and out. Sylvester meanwhile asks Amos for a book on "night beasties" but they don't have a copy - only Rosemary's memory of reading it. Rosemary's Glowgem seems to be attracted to a sort of spiral ornament or mirror on the wall, which she stares at and may be hypnotized by. She finds the whole sub-pocket idea creepy, because there could be anything in there, and without the assistance of an official service engineer she wouldn't know it and might accidentally say a password which would cause something dangerous to erupt. They can't empty it by taking it into the Quiet Room, as that might damage it.
Rosemary has written to Aunt Edna but she has described where she is, and Sylvester is concerned that her enemies might get it out of her aunt. Sylvester advises her to send another less specific letter via his lawyer, Mr Ferule. They discuss Tansy's army which is chasing Rosemary, and which is called The Quincunx (which is also the name of a complex game). If The Quincunx finds out where Rosemary is and comes as an army it would take them six months to get to E, but it's possible they could send an assassin, or hire a local one by wire. The cause of Rosemary's quarrel with Tansy seems to have been something bad that Tansy did to a Gnoll (although she doesn't tell Sylvester that) and there's a hint that the thing which Rosemary stole from The Quincunx was whatever she used to travel instantly to the east.
Being about to leave to walk to the village, they discuss a thing at the entrance called the Gatestone, believed to have been moved there by Ettric, the 2nd Earl. We see Mortimer waiting for them in an official Assembly Alcove, and being joined there by Arthur the Weirdo and his puppet Fantod, who congratulate him on becoming Regent. Mortimer still smells of sphagnum dust, and this leads to a discussion of Arthur's days at the Weirdo Academy.
04: Barriers and Gates [14/07/2014 - 27/11/2014] We see the Saurs Buzz and Ig meeting by the ruins of a museum in Eetown. Ig has a Glowgem. Buzz wants Ig to tell him about what has become of Snerk.
Mortimer and Arthur discuss whether Weirdos are allowed to marry (opinions vary). They discuss a girl named Melba who lives in the village, a friend of Mortimer's sister Lilith's, and quite eccentric, but Arthur says she is too frivolous to make an official Weirdo.
Sylvester joins the others at the assembly point. Trailing behind him, Rosemary surreptitiously deposits several items - what may be her original letter to her aunt, plus a lantern and a bottle - in a large urn. It is one of several artistic and archaeological artefacts which grace the hallway. The main door of the mansion is set into a giant Ettin artefact like a huge boulder which manipulates light in some way. It leads to a walled outside area, the main gates of which have been deliberately blocked with rubble to prevent mass invasion. The party discuss the fortifications erected by previous earls, and the early earls themselves, and why the village is called Eetown not Etown. The fortifications are now a bit gappy, and electronic repellers are used to keep out wild animals. These also protect the orchard and the main path to the village.
Sylvester and Mortimer, Rosemary, Arthur and Fantod walk towards Eetown, discussing how the area came to be renamed Audravania instead of Northwoods, and the vast lands which Audra had ruled before her fatal decision to poke the Hot Zone. Audra had made a voluntary marriage, albeit a political one, but prior to her many future Earls had been forcibly betrothed as children. Plenty of women at university wanted to marry Sylvester for his title.
We learn that while at university Sylvester attended the coronation of the king and queen, Yancy and Fluer. Amos has visited the capital with Frederick, but Nellie has never been outside Audravania, except on her honeymoon. when they went to a fashionable spot called Rowen. This leads to a discussion of an island off Eetown, called Alwin, which belongs to the Earls but which they allow honeymooning couples from the village to use. Mortimer says that this arrangement is important to the villagers, which leads to him telling Sylvester what's going on there at the moment - including a break-in at Genrick's tailor shop, where stuff was taken overnight, but money was left for it. Rufus's friend Eunice is mentioned as one of a number of people who have recently moved into the area: the village is growing and there is a debate as to whether or not to expand it beyond the boundary hedge. They meet and speak to a pig-farmer called Terin Flem, who comes from the same area (Moonin) as Rosemary and who used to be Guardian to a hardline Oracle named Omega, whom Sylvester didn't get on with.
Sylvester and Mortimer have an obscure private conversation about change, while Rosemary talks to Arthur and Fantod. Sylvester wants Mortimer not to go public about being a wizard, for the moment. Arthur tries to quiz Rosmary about how she got there but she evades the question and instead asks him about what Weirdos do. They are jesters who "speak truth to power".
Arthur, Fantod and Rosemary discuss the new, safer denizens' tunnel from the mansion to the basement, and the disappearance of the Sneeches. Meanwhile the party arrives at the outskirts of the village and Sylvester shows Rosemary the irrigation ditches and other features. They come to the Temple, which was made from the remains of a very grand one which was destroyed in the Crash, and which lies just outside the hedge which surrounds the village, and they discuss it, and the character of Omega, the previous Oracle. We learn that Sylvester and Mortimer's father had been partially responsible for, and died in, some kind of accident involving stampeding elifinos in a nearby town called Noodle.
They meet a little girl called Juniper, who is the granddaughter of Amos and Nellie. She has a special friendship with Fantod. The group go through a sensory ritual - watch the flames, smell the blossoms, taste the water, listen to the Brush. The last is done by sitting on a bench made of rare and precious materials.
To mark Hallowe'en we see a raiding party of Nomes, including Umboz's brother Frotz who is desperate to get out of it, creeping towards a Gnoll village. They are scared off by a pumpkin-headed spectre which is really Frowgler in costume, using some kind of glowing magic or technology to fly.
Rosemary and Juniper discuss where various people come from, and Rosemary manages to give the girl a very strange idea of what a walrus looks like. They talk with Sylvester about Inuit-equivalents called Tunits, and the secretive, hostile Haroons, and the harsh northen shore called Skralland, to the north of Audravania. We learn that there used to be a secretive underground nation called the Polarites, but their society was destroyed in the Crash. They used to have an exit tunnel near Eetown, for trade. There are people in Eetown of Haroon (Miss Lundquist) or Polarite (Peter Nigultrum) ancestry, and they can't ever go home.
Meanwhile, Arthur and Mortimer sit on the bench and ask for divine assurance that they are doing the right thing, and both receive it, more or less. Fantod and Juniper talk about her hopes for a more interesting career than agriculture.
We see an out-take for Thanksgiving, in which Myrrh and Frederick are about to start on a feast. I have left this in the time-line, as well as putting it with the Christmas cards etc., because it fits with the idea that they have gone on a second honeymoon.
05: Eetown - The Temple [28/11/2014 - 25/08/2015] The party from the Mansion enter the temple, where Sylvester introduces Rosemary to the Oracle Threnody and various town worthies. Sylvester assures the townsfolk in the Temple that Rosemary is human, and fully qualified to be Taskmistress, and tells them that Frederick has retired as Regent and Mortimer will be taking over. Sheriff Patrick Skragg quizzes Rosemary as to whether she is a fugitive from the King's Law. She swears that she isn't, then sends the child Juniper off with the Weirdo and Fantod to show Fantod how she's been practising some skill he's been helping her with. Once they are out of earshot she tells the rest that she is also taking over Myrrh's duties as bodyguard and will be wearing a sword. Threnody is dubious about Rosemary's past use of violent force, but accepts that it may have been necessary. The Sheriff provisionally accepts Rosemary's offer of help with the town militia, but Waldo Weequash, head of the Eetown Guild of Fisherfolk and Octopus Wranglers, thinks Rosewmary is a vagabond who will bring a criminal element into the town, Saffron Stout, innkeeper and impromptu mayor, points out that Rosemary will mainly be at the Mansion and agrees with the sheriff that they should give her a chance, and asks Sylvester to call on her privately later. Threnody - who is emergency backup Taskmistress - quizzes Rosemary about her Temple attendance, and Rosemary promises to make sure Sylvester goes to Temple more often.
Outside the Temple, the townsfolk discuss Rosemary privately. The sheriff is planning to check up on her in police records, just in case, but they agree she seems saner than Myrrh. Mortimer and the Weirdo remain at the Temple to light memorial candles to speed the passage of the dead, the Weirdo for his friend Tulip, and Mortimer for Nitfol whom he wrongly believes to be dead. They discuss the fact that there are some Nomes and Motihauls who follow the Brush and have their own Oracles, but most non-humans have their own religions. Sylvester mentions that the Nomes have a male priest, and Threnody is interested in meeting him.
While Mortimer and the Weirdo are praying, Rosemary and Sylvester look at the Temple's paintings of the various founding Oracles, and discuss their favourites. Rosemary follows Hettie, who carried a light in the darkness, and Sylvester likes Joice, who stood for inspiration. Mortimer passes on a message to Dirge, the current Guardian, that Finale, the previous Guardian, would like to speak to him. Mortimer wants to ask something, but feels that the time is not yet. The group go and stand by a large boulder outside the town gates ("The Town Rock") where they won't be overheard, and discuss Yasmine and the Weirdos generally. Mortimer is able to pick them out because he can sense their mind shapes.
They discuss the fact that Rosemary has not been taught any magical theory, because she was educated at the Hack & Slash Academy whose purpose was to produce effective H&S employees and they very rarely encounter magic-users these days. Also H&S is riddled with factions: they used to have a Wizwitch Brigade and Rosemary suspects it may still exist but is being kept a secret, even from other factions in H&S.
We learn that the Weirdo Academy is very ancient. It's in a town called Marksburg, in Fredonia, and is where the E boys' mother came from. Nowadays Marksburg has a stodgy reputation, but it has a lively history. In the past there were several Weirdo schools and they went by several names, such as Tomfool. Milo was the first Earl of E to hire one.
The Trio fall to discussing the various worthies they met at the Temple. Sylvester fills Rosemary in on the background to the various people she met at the Temple, and village issues such as the need to bring in a full-time Healer, since at the moment the Oracle, Threnody, is both healer and teacher. Sylvester's only friends in the village are Peter Nigultrum the solicitor, and a fisherman called Captain Tugwart.
They discuss who is and isn't local. People who were born in the village are accepted as local even if their parents were foreign, but if Rosemary stays fifty years she'll still be "The Mooninite" because she wasn't born in Eetown. She says she'll earn a more distinctive label than that, thinking of herself as some sinister dark queen with a flaming sword.
Rosemary can tell that Dirge is combat-trained and wonders why the High Temple thought Eeetown needed him. This leads to a discussion about how the Spyders and Tree-Squids got into the area, and about things called Raviners or Hill Crabs. Mortimer would like to talk about the events of the previous day but they don't have time. As they approach the entrance to Eetown proper they discuss various Oracles Rosemary has met on her travels.
In a brief out-take, we see Schmedley placing a black arm-band on the flipper of a statue of a world-turtle, to commemorate the death of Terry Pratchett.
Sylvester and co. discuss the defenses of Eetown, with drawbridges put in after the Crash. The defenses ar enot very good, and post-Crash the town had some trouble with raiders until Myrrh got back. She, Frederick and Quincy had been holidaying in Aruba (a place without magic) when the Crash hit. It was on their way back that Quincy met Agnes, his future wife. Meanwhile the town made a defensive wall out of crashed cars, and then grew a hedge over and through them. We see an ancient wand-tree called an Oakapple (nothing to do with real oak apples) which grows just inside the hedge.
Post-Crash, the rallying point for local survivors was a big pub called the Moose and Squirrel. Because it was a cheap outfit which didn't use much magic it survived the Crash relatively intact. The innkeeper, Simon, had acquired the place by dubious means, but he became impromptu mayor and did a good job of coordinating disaster relief. Hpthbvtw's remains will have to be decontaminated in some way because he was killed by an Operator blastm but the contamination is lessened by the fact that it was caused by the Operator's involuntary revival. The two Stirrers discuss this, with reference to Myrrh. the Scary Lady, whom they call the Collared Lurker.
Sylvester and co. head for the local administrative offices, but as they pass by the fountain in the main square they become aware that they have an audience. Sylvester lectures Rosemary about the layout of the town, where the bathhopuse is etc., trying to sound confident and impress the watchers. The town has a watch tower, but these days it's mainly used as a love-nest.
They speak to the townsfolk who have been watching them, and Rosemary (under the false surname Dapple) is introduced to everybody. Most striking, perhaps, is a young mother called Silence Krenshaw whom Sylvester knows very well, and had considered hiring as Taskmistress. We will learn that she and Sylvester were childhood playmates. They discuss Rosemary's duties, and that Sylvester wants Rosemary to serve as a Mature and Responsible Adult, a formal title which means that she will somehow help him to find a wife. He does not fancy Rosemary herself. Silence says that there is somebody out there for Sylvester.
Mortimer meanwhile talks to an adoring fanclub of young girls. They ask him about his unbrella and he says you never know when a storm might blow up. One of them is evidently psychic and she realsies both that he is speaking metaphorically, and that a metaphorical storm is indeed coming.
Sylvester and co. head for Government House, followed by a gaggle of children. They discuss the pudding plant, a local cash crop which only grows well in Audravania. Rosemary has never eaten a fresh one.
Rosemary wonders why so small a town has a bank. Sulvester explains that it gives them independence from the Noodle Fish-Monger's Association, and lists the conditions required in order for them to have an official bank, and its personnel. It is illegal for an agent of the King's Law, such as the sheriff, officially to work for a bank. The town government is full of bickering and back-biting. The bank manager is Peter Nigultrum, who also helps the sub-literate to write letters. He is engaged to a woman called Ida, whom they meet coming away from the bank.
Ida and Rosemary discuss Rosemary's home district of Moonin and the presence there of the Beacons, three offshore monoliths believed to date back to the Dawn Wars. Ida seems unaware that the Mansion is equally interesting and historic. The first Prime Oracle, Daisy, came from Moonin, but Rosemary feels that Daisy was ashamed of her humble origins.
They meet Peter the bank manager, who works out that Rosemary is the new Taskmistress from her clothes. They tell Peter that Frederick and Myrrh have retired, and that Mortimer is a wizard. The only bit that surprises Peter is that Myrrh is able to retire. We glimpse Myrrh at some sort of hotel, apparently amusing herself by wrestling robots.
Peter predicts that Mortimer's newfound wizard status will lead to trouble. We see Dirge, the current Guardian, and Terin Flem, the previous one, discussing the changes in personnel at the Mansion, and saying that Dirge has a decision to make. Immediately post-Crash, magic was regarded as evil, and Flem should really have told Omega that Mortimer was a wizard, and then somebody would have come and taken the boy away, but Flem liked Mortimer and kept quiet. An officious official named Appleby also failed to report Mortimer - Flem thinks he just never noticed what was going on because he was stuck behind his desk. Dirge will tell Threnody about Mortimer, but won't call someone to collect him unless Mortimer wants him to. Flem tells Dirge about Eunice being out in the woods again.
Peter tells Mortimer there may still be a magic school which Threnody could help him find if Amos turns out not to be a good teacher. They discuss Polarite technology and social structures: Peter's father was in security, relatively low-status but with access to information. Peter had thought of contacting the surviving Polarites in the captal, but Sylvester says they would scorn him for having facial hair. The Symmites, the Polarite sub-group to which Peter's father belonged, were allowed to open a trade gate in the same country as Eetown, where they to some extent went native and became more open and sociable than most Polarites. That was why Peter's father was able to be wandering around on the surface without any magical machinery when the Crash hit, and so survived. `
Sylvester and Rosemary give Peter a highly edited version of Rosemary's life story. Peter knows the Mansion and its dangers well - he even has his own Spindizzy, Alfred. [An out-take at this point celebrates the legalization of gay mariage in the US by showing Baldy with a slightly younger - and much hairier - boyfriend, looking at rainbow flutterbys.] Peter tells Sylvester they have some paperwork to go over [Ipcress files!], so Sylvester asks Mortimer to take Rosemary away and introduce her to Shadrik.
Sylvester and Peter then discuss Peter's upcoming marriage to Ida. Peter says Sylvester will never marry a local girl because they aren't academically stimulating enough - not even Ida or Silence - whereas he himself was looking for somebody who was restful to be with. Sylvester will be his best man. Sylvester trusts Peter so much that he tells him at least the gist of Rosemary's true story, including that Dapple isn't her real surname (although not what is). Peter will look out for people looking out for Rosemary. Sylvester doesn't want to marry Rosemary because she's not intellectual or educated, but she's a perfect Taskmistress - so perfect he suspects somebody is interfering in his life, and sent her to him.
[Out-take: to celebrate the strip's twelfth anniverary: we briefly see the pirate hamster and his crew approaching an island which has a sentient tree.]
We see that Eunice works in the pub, apparently as a cook. Rosemary and Mortimer are given free sausages by the town's Sausage Stroller. Mortimer is feeling very guilty about having accidentally magically hypnotised Rosemary the day before, so she punishes and absolves him by giving him a light bonk on the head. They talk about the fact that he has only left the area a few times, and comes across as rather sheltered, but now responsibility has been thrust on him and he will meet it. Rosemary talks about the relatively safe life she left to become a bodyguard, and the fact that her home village had an ancient ruined tower built by Gobblems, and which she used to climb. She later travelled to most of the places she could see from up there, but many of the towns were a bit same-y because they were rebuilt at the same time, after Unification.
Talking about education and the E-family tutor causes Mortimer to realise there's something about Rufus and Eunice which he is forgetting. They look at Shadrik, which/who is a haulage Metalmin who is fairly bright but doesn't speak, and lives in a former stable. Dorian Ingersoll the hermit used to live in it. Dorian's history is confusing: we've been told he's lived in the Spike for forty-two years, but here we're told he lived in the forest when Mortimer was a child, and we've seen the ruins of his hut when Yasmine came across them. Shadrik's battery is flat but Rufus is working on recharging it.
Rosemary works out that Sylvester just wanted her and Mortimer out of the way so he could speak to Peter privately. To kill time she suggests they climb the local watchtower, so she can survey the terrain. To get to it they go through a warehouse used to store apples, which has been altered and added to till it's almost as complex as the Mansion. They are passed by some sort of functionary (beginning with a B) who wears false Nome ears and costume wings. It's possible the B stands for Batgirl, especially as she lives in the Belfry "like usual".
06: Eetown - The State [26/08/2015 - 20/11/2015] From the tower they look down on the village square, which doubles as a fuzzball court. Mortimer points out various districts of the town, and they see Old Man Larssen's place outside the town hedge, although he has a hedge of his own. Rosemary is pleased to be able to see the Specific Ocean, which was on her To-Do List. They discuss a range of wonders Rosemary hopes to see, many of which have already beebn visited by Mortimer's mother and sister, although they were unable to get into a place called Sybola where there is some kind of secret Rosemary wishes to solve. A "really creepy" region called Mechana is mentioned. Rosemary thinks the main thing on Mortimer's To-Do List right now should be to learn how to use the wand-umbrella.
A Labour Day out-take shows various kinds of labour in Eetown, including the Batgirl who is writing or drawing at an easel. Rosemary and Mortimer meet Sylvester outside the bank and he refers to the Batgirl as "our Flittermouse". Sylvester takes them to meet Sherman P Gray, the new(ish) government Clerk of Eetown. He has a telegraph machine run off batteries re-charged by a hand-turned charger, and many duties, one of which is to register new arrivals like Rosemary. He is also postman and tax-collector, and has a form for Mortimer to register as the new Regent of E.
[In a brief out-take, we see the pirates (hamster and co.) arrive at Piratestash Island and recruit a resident gull to the crew. A stunted tree on the island implies that the Plant is being punished by being required to stay with the crew.]
We learn about the unofficial but influential Tome of Royal Succession, a kind of Debrett's Peerage. The Keepers of the Tome will want to know not only about Mortimer becoming Regent, but about Rosemary becoming Taskmistress. We are reminded of the fact that this is a post-apocalyptic setup by the fact that Rosemary is impressed that the Post Office pigeon-holes have doors - and by the fact that those doors are post-Crash architectural salvage.
Sherman sees from her form that Rosemary comes from an island called Dyngusmyles, which has a reputation for having wild, backwoods people, and has strange weather because it's close to the Beacons. Sherman himself comes from a mining area in Thull. They compare weather. Sylvester warns Sherman that Rosemary is a fighter and will be wearing a sword as part of her duties. Sherman OKs this but says that while they are in his government office weapons must be deposited in a special receptable, and Mortimer promptly puts his umbrella in it.
Sherman fills Sylvester in on various items of news, including the fact that a ship from a far-off region named Coradine has visited a port called Woldercan. Coradine is part of the same continent as the Mansion but it's an island as far west as it gets, quite reclusive, and many of its inhabitants are Motihauls. To get to Woldercan the Coradine ship would have had to sail round the edge of a region called Kadath, which is inhabited by Wendigoes, and past an island called Honaly (as in Puff the Magic Dragon) where there are [human?] Viking-type sea-raiders whom we see sailing a ship whose sail bears the image of the hamster pirate captain. It's possible they came for Yurple Juice, a wildly popular and expensive drink with magical properties.
The party take leave of Sherman, promising to return later to set up a post-box for Rosemary and collect the newspaper. There is a mention of the previous day's magical pit-flare being a reoccurring event, and of the recent finding of a dead Ichyoid washed into the harbour.
Sylvester says that Myrrh is listed in the Official Threats Compendium, but since she hasn't killed anybody it's not worth anyone's while to go to the trouble of trying to banish her. Behind them, in his office, Sherman looks up Mortimer's umbrella in the Official Threats Compendium, and finds it. We elarn that there's a series of Government departments with harmless-sounding names - Redundancy, Secondary Overlap, Tertiary Retainment - which process information and look for interesting connections.
They discuss rural pubs and Rosemary tells them about Rory Vinsmith, an innkeeper in Moonin who murdered some of his customers. In the west he is famous, but now they are so far from her home that nobody's heard of him. Saffron, the local innkeeper at the Moose and Squirrel, may have heard of him, and Sylvester quietly warns Rosemary that Saffron may have heard of her Aunt Eva, the gambler. Eunice Kelso is one of her barmaids.
They enter the Moose and Squirrel and meet Sharona, Saffron's neice, who is evidently an old gitrlfriend of Mortimer's. She is overcome by the smell of sphagnum dust coming off Mortimer. They meet Mavis, one of the barmaids, and then Saffron. Saffron takes a bottle of Pudding Liquor, just uncorked that day, from a shelf: something grey is glimpsed poking out from behind an adjacent bottle. They drink from it, and Sylvester immediately passes out, while Rosemary begins seeing imaginary glowing flutterbies. Mortimer seems unaffected.
07: Revelations [30/11/2015 - 27/05/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for the next chapter I decided to include them.
Rosemary and Sylvester wake, very groggy, to find themselves lying on a jetty on Alwin Island, the honeymoon destination, accompanied by a grey cat who had been outside the pub. The island will prove to be littered with large stone sculptures, mostly of non-human animals.
They agree that they must have been drugged, not just drunk, and discuss possible culprits. Neither of them really thinks it was Saffron, and this is confirmed by a brief view of Mavis the barmaid discovering Saffron herself collapsed behind the bar. Sylvester's main suspect is Old Man Larssen, the town vet, who is very educated but also obsessive and secretive, a bit like Crazy Rhid - even so Sylvester doesn't really think he did it. He half suspects Eunice, who comes from Noodle and could be an agent of his enemies the Noodle Fishmongers' Association.
No other visitors are expected - nobody comes there except newlyweds, or about-to-be-weds preparing the venue. There is however a rowing boat concealed on the island. They manage to stagger to their feet in order to go find the boat, but Rosemary thinks they are still both too stoned to steer and suggests that since they were planning to have a private talk anyway, now is a good time and place.
About here we also see seasonal Christmas 2015 and New Year 2016 scenes featuring Smyts. Originally I included these Smyt outtakes in the Saturdays in the Basement section, since most of them take place underground, but then Rob decided to make one of them a chapter header which clearly belonged in the main story-line, so I moved them here. The Christmas scene just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but the New Year one is quite information-rich, which is why I've included it here as a regular strip. It shows a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society.
Sylvester shows Rosemary some of the sights of the island, since as Taskmistress she will be expected to oversee the team of respectable village matrons who prepare the honeymoon cabin for weddings. They return to the dock (and the cat) to sit and talk, on the far side of the island from the village. Further out they can see Scraggy Island, which holds a lighthouse and the town graveyard. The lighthouse keeper is Dougal Izzard. His wife Selene Perkins left but their daughter Shelby stayed, married Grumby the carpenter and had a son Edson who is apprentice lighthouse-keeper.
Here there is an outtake scene showing Frederick and Myrrh playing chess with two men called Jebediah and Jones, who are wearing formal dinner suits. These are based on Angus Scrimm and David Bowie, who died that week, and a poster of Grabthar's Hammer on the wall commemorates Alan Rickman, also lost. The next day we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers.
Sylvester talks Rosemary through the history of the area, beginning with creation by the Brush and the first civilization, the Wilfs and Gobbblems (Dreamers and Builders), who erected wonderful buildings and even had colonies on the moon before destroying each other in the Dawn War. Sylvester has glimpsed what seemed to be a Wilf and a Gobblem through a Panegate, so it may be that there are survivors on other continents. Then the Ettins and Sneeches built up another high-tech civilization and then again destroyed it in war, after which Humans and Nomes moved in, spreading from jungles in the south. Before that destruction, the Ettins built the main towers of the mansions of E and S. The Tower of S was so-called because of an S-shaped mark on the walls, but the Mansion of E is a corruption of the Tower of Ett(in)s - their names were later changed from Tower to Mansion for some beaurocratic reason.
Stitched through the main story-line we see more Smyt vignettes. We see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-sized lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). We see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis, and Super Smyt rescuing two other Smyts from a prison, and a Smyt St Patrick driving out serpents, and Smyts partying in a tree for Arbor Day.
We learn that nomadic humans who didn't even have agriculture reached the Towers late in the human diaspora, at a time when the country of Ackbar, in the south, already had quite an advanced human civilization along the banks of the Refutation (De Nial). The name of the first Earl isn't known but he led his tribe into the valley and died while storming the Tower. Legend says he fought and defeated living Ettins but this is unlikely given their advanced technology. A lone Ettin skull was later found in the Tower. The first Earl's descendants avoided the interior of the Tower for generations afterwards but they set up camp and built new buildings around its foot. The area was rich in resources and they had to fight off would-be invaders.
Sylvester gives Rosemary a detailed run-down of the various Earls, which you can find summarised on the background page. The most salient points are that many of the early Earls were villains and slave-traders who came to power by murdering their predecessors, until they got to the brilliant philosopher and strategist Milo, the Ninth Earl, who severed the family's links to the slave trade, converted to the new religion of the Brush, moved into the Ettin-built Tower and made contact with the Spindizzies. Milo's mother, Persafone, was a slave who deliberately trained Milo up to be a successful warrior who would murder Milo's father, Frake, at her urging, knowing Milo would help her to survive her intended coup against Frake. But Milo's heart was more in intellectual learning than bloodshed and after his wife died he abdicated in favour of his son, and sailed away to explore new lands.
Milo's son Dorn I was scientifically-minded and bred the Dornbeasts for use as living siege engines. After he was killed by one his wife Aimee became regent for their son Dorn II, who unfortunately was a shallow sports jock. Dorn II was mostly gay and apart from getting an heir with his wife Olivia his sexual partnership was with a guy named Heffston, who was a much better strategist and ruler than Dorn.
In an aside, we see Arthur and Fantod talking to village children. They seem to believe Rosemary and Sylvester are still in the inn with Saffron.
Dorn II was killed, possibly by his daughter in law Charlotte, who had a loving but quarrelsome relationship with Dorn's son Lemuel, the Panegate expert. Lemuel eventually abdicated in favour of his daughter Wilhelmina, who was aided by her step-grandfather Heffston. Wilhelmina just called herself W for most purposes and was considered ceremonailly male, to the point of wearing a false beard. She had some magic, restricted to manipulating stone, and was a prolific sculptor who turned Alwin Island into a shrine to her dead husband Alwin. One of her younger sisters became a famous and scary witch called Arianya of the Bracken. W committed suicide by allowing a large block of stone to fall on her, and was succeeded by her son Linus, the combat botanist. He went on an expefition to the jungle and married a Zanduan woman named Padma who was his intellectual equal and they explored the Basement (at a time when most of the species down there were still shut into enclosed habitats) and put in lights. Linus it was who bred The Tree which made Basement society possible.
08: Naming Names [30/05/2016 - 23/12/2016] N.B.: I was in two minds whether to display the Smyt special-occasion scenes in with the main story as well as on their own page, or not, but since the first one is also the title-page for this chapter I decided to include them.
The chapter opens with a group of above-ground Smyts celebrating their version of Memorial Day. Sylvester continues to talk about his ancestors, and how Linus took the Seed of the Tree deep into the Basement and never came home.
He talks about Griffington, the fifteenth Earl, who was very intelligent but only interested in making money, at which he was very successful. Griffington went on an expedition to the Infernal Engine, which was smaller in those days (so it's still growing), and to Mechana to look at their technology. He and other techs of the period managed to make their own basic robots and restore some of the much better Ettin ones - one of the latter, Akillhees, works in mathematics at the university. Griffington had a lot of commercial enemies and rivals, including the Scion of S. He died in an industrial accident (or maybe not an accident).
[Out-take: eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub.]
Griffington was succeeded by his son Angus and Angus's loyal and more cunning brother Cyrus. Angus went on a tour, like his ancestors, but he took an army with him and conquered S and other neighbouring states although some of them, such as Rowen, gave as good as they got.
[Out-takes - a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch, and the next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise.]
When Angus and Cyrus were young, Cyrus married Cassandra Grayflint and they had a son Artston. Griffington sent Angus to visit the Infernal Engine to broaden his mind, and as a result he fell for a very wild, rough but playful female techie named Syn who somewhat resembled Myrrh, who refused to marry him but became his consort, and who died in childbirth giving birth to Audra. Audra grew up at loggerheads with Cyrus, who had d1strusted her mother. In later life Angus's conquests ground to a halt and he died peacefully in bed - and Cyrus promptly tried to seize the earldom for himself and his son.
[Fourth of July out-take - a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake.]
Audra thrashed Cyrus in combat and convinced him to become her loyal follower. Together they conquered Rowen and then consolidated their holdings and formed the Northwoods Alliance. Audra contracted a loveless political marriage with the intellectually brilliant John Harfang, with whom she had a son, Ludwig.
[Out-take - two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake to mark the strip's thirteenth birthday.]
The Northwoods Alliance stood against the advancing army of Yorik Yurp, later Yorick I, and lost, despite the best efforts of John Harfang who, under the alias "The Frost Fox", served as a secret agent and was killed while on a mission (and later became the subject of a series of lurid spy thrillers). Audra protected Ludwig by hiding him away as a child and then sending him to the university under an assumed name, while getting one of Cyrus's grandchildren (so Ludwig's second cousin) to pretend to be Ludwig in order to draw Yorik's fire.
The Northwoods Alliance eventually lost the war, in part because Wirtwam decided that Yorik was the lesser of two evils and Hyacinth of Wirtwam married him. But the war was long and bloody and forced the pace of technological development. Audra and Cyrus were probably looking for a technological edge when they poked the Hot Zone and were killed, but their deaths really finished the Alliance. Yorik crushed their last resistance by destroying the town of Glome (and incidentally probably killing the fake Ludwig), then re-built it, and any local nobles who were willing to swear allegiance were grafted into the new Yurpsland heirarchy. The real Ludwig was one of them - the Yurpsland troops didn't know who he was, and in any case had known Audra as the head of the Northwoods Alliance, not as the Earl of E. Ludwig's politically astute partner Penelope Orrery from Gilad (a temple-administered neutral state) coached him on how to do this.
[Out-take - a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell.]
Sylvester isn't sure whether Yorik was really fooled over Ludwig, or knew who he was but decided to spare him. Ludwig was a super-genius who enjoyed university and made many friends there; he was very popular with the girls and could have had his pick of the local beauties, but preferred the slightly plain Penelope for her brains. Ludwig didn't graduate because he went home to help his mother with the war affort; Penelope worked out his real identity somehow, and followed him (and reached E before he did). It was because Ludwig never graduated that the fund set up to pay for his tuition was never wound up, and remained available to pay future heirs' university fees. Ludwig tried to stop his mother from poking the Hot Zone but she did it anyway, and died, and he and Penelope were left holding the reins. They actually did very well, since Ludwig was able to sell his inventions - materially assisted by Yorik's conquest of the whole area, which had resulted in a unified trading and patent system.
[Out-take for Labor Day - a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks.]
It is mentioned that vamphyrs don't really exisa but zombies do (but only briefly as they tend to explode), that many of Ludwig's devices were one-off prototypes and that Yorik I wrote his own memoirs. These memoirs are little known because his son wasn't that interested in promoting them, and besides they weren't very well-written. But they deal extensively with Audra, whom Yorik rather admired - it was he who re-named the province where E is situated Audravania.
[Out-take for Talk Like a Pirate Day - Captain Hamster, the crew of the Pretty Lady and a gull are all getting drunk on grog.]
Ludwig died of pneumonia after getting soaked while walking in the rain. His son Ernest, hedonist, (consensual) philanderer and forger, took over. His parents were disappointed because he wasn't interested in science, or all that bright, but he was very interested in plays and a reasonably good actor himself, when he could be bothered. He married Lucidia Penderghast, gold-digger and amateur actress, and they nearly deserved each other.
At university Ernest discovered that he was good at maths, history and a proficient if uninspired kind of art. He did a certain amount of commercial graphics work and a lot of art forgery, although the latter was really just a hobby. He was a fairly successful playwright, although not good at dialogue, and very good at improving other people's scripts. He and Lucidia fought a lot but seemed to enjoy it, and they had three sons, Philbert, Hindenburgh the wizard, and Valentin, who was the one to whom the Djinnoscope gave a clean death. Ernest was fatally stabbed by, or over, one of his lovers.
[Out-take for Columbus Day - a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt.]
Philbert married the artist Hepzibah Kelly and founded a chain of "Lovelace" orphanages, using Kelly's mother's maiden name. He helped preserve the Forest of Burzee as a public park instead of letting it be carved up into private estates. He supported many smaller charities and was a faithful husband. But Sylvester believes he did these things to rebuild the family's post-Ernest reputation, not because he really cared.
Philbert was killed in a motor-racing accident a month before the Crash and was succeeded by his son Quincy. Quincy was not very bright, but he was genuinely caring and scraped through university by hard work. His Hall of Achievement entry just says that he tied his own shoes, but this turns out to be fairly serious: he kept walking, kept trying, and held the Mansion area together after the Crash. He survived the Crash because he, his brother Frederick and Myrrh were in Aruba, which uses no magic. Afterwards they had to walk hundreds of miles home - hence the importance of the shoes. On their way they picked up another survivor, Agnes Bloggett, who married Quincy. Hepzibah, who had stayed home because of health problems, died in the Crash. Quincy eventually died after falling from one of the Mansion's towers.
[Out-takes - a Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en. Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. A Smyt nurse gives soup to a patient in bed. Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives.]
Willoughby attended university where he met his future wife, Dorothea Mundivagant. Both were very vague but possibly magically gifted. Sylvester thinks that it was wrong of Frederick not to tell Mortimer that he, Mortimer, was a wizard - but it was probably a good decision not to tell Willoughby that he was. They had six children - Sylvester, Ace, Mortimer, the twins Lilith and Lenore, and Rufus. Rufus was conceived because the local contraceptive Stiflebloom plant had failed.
[Out-take for Armistice Day - two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war.]
Because Willoughby was so lazy and detached it was really Frederick and Myrrh who ran the earldom. After Willoughby died in the notorious Noodle Incident, Frederick became official Regent until Sylvester finished at university.
[Thanksgiving out-take - two Smyts eat until they are insensible.]
Sylvester did well at university and made friends, especially Bertrum W Skinknottle (who fell for and married Honoria Clemens) and Nimue Fayling. The students were divided into Houses. Nimue was in training to take over the family business, growing oranges. She and Sylvester dated, but split up because neither would give up their family responsibility. Sylvester went home alone and took over the Earl's duties. He found a job for Ace. His mother Dorothea inherited cash from her mother, and she and Lil went travelling. Mortimer and Rufus stayed around, and Mortimer started bringing home strange women, most notably Olga Q Bonmarrow, a drifter with mental health issues who was in love with Mortimer.
Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Basement society has come along tremendously during Sylvester's lifetime (so post-Crash), and the idea that the Sneeches might be behind this. Sylvester forgot to ask Myrrh what she saw in the Sneech den, and now they don't even know where she is. We see that she is in a cat café, talking to the cats as if they understand each other. Rosemary and Sylvester discuss whether the Dohickey thank-you gift was for Sylvester or for his whole family, and Rosemary points out that the first Earls were meant to have killed off the Ettins who were holding the Sneeches prisoner. Whether they did or not, the Sneeches may believe they did. They discuss the fact that Sneeches do have childen, and whether or not they have intelligible emotions.
Finally, Rosemary says that eveything else can wait, and that she will follow Sylvester's plans. He says he can't make plans until he knows what it is that Rosemary stole. She agrees to show it to him, but tells him to cover his eyes and ears while she gets it out of the Poke-Kit, so he doesn't learn any codes which he might later be forced to reveal.
09: Wreaking Havoc [26/12/2016 - 07/07/2017] Rosemary produces from the Poke Kit an oval object which she says is called the HJ42 but she thinks it's also a mythological object called the Chaos Key. This is clearly the same item which has been being passed around among the Basement folk - not just another of the same model but this actual one, becausae HJ42 is the designation of a specific instance of this gadget which was collected by an anthropological expedition. Either it's looped through time to appear twice in the same area at the same time, or when Rosemary thinks it's safely tucked away in her Poke Kit, it isn't.
As the Chaos Key it has been used to open various kinds of metaphorical and literal doors, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Rosemary studied its semi-legendary history in the libraries of Hack'n'Slash. It may have been implicated in the Thricklefork Demon Massacre. It caused strange events - including a giant man-eating flower - at a place called Bellona. It was passed around the clans of Erewhon, trailing odd happenings. It was used to rob a bank, then disappeared from view, only to reappear among the artefacts brought back by the Hendrick-Joost Expedition. At this point Rosemary puts it back in the Poke Kit and she and Sylvester agree not to mention the name "Chaos Key" again if they can avoid it, but just to refer to it as the HJ42.
The Hendrick-Joost Expedition came from the High University of Azimuth and visited the Infernal Engine, among other places. Many of the items they "collected" were really looted. Eventually Azimuth returned some of them to Yurpsland, including "HJ-42". These returned items were parcelled out between various Yurpsland museums and collectors, and #42 went to an Erewhonian noble named Cuddlup, who passed it on to an Erewhonian sect called the Chromans.
The Chromans were great collectors and displayers of curios which demonstrated the wonders of the world - some of which were magically active. The most dangerous were kept in an offshore fortress which went into meltdown during the Crash. The HJ42 was put on display in various places but it made people nervous, so it was moved to a medium-level facility in a place called Gowplace at the tip of the Lawnrock Peninsula. After the Crash, Gowplace was re-named Chroma and became the Chromans' capital, and the HJ42 dropped out of sight again for several decades.
About ten years ago, or forty years after the Crash, it resurfaced as part of a travelling Chroman display for which H&S provided security, and eventually it caused some alarming effect, although Rosemary's security clearance wasn't high enough to find out what. It was put back into storage, but at this point rumours about it began to be passed around. It was at this point that Rosemary first heard about it and began to research it - and so, unfortunately, did Tansy Rugan, the leader of the Quincunx, a kind of sinister private army.
Rosemary started to suspect the Quincunx were searching for the HJ42, and knew it would be a seriously Bad Thing if they found it. She couldn't get H&S to take her concerns seriously enough, so she went AWOL, rode all the way to Chroma and stole the HJ42 herself. Two hours later the Quincunx arrived and started hunting her. She did her best to evade them but eventually Tansy cornered her. One of the buttons on the device was glowing so in desperation Rosemary pressed it, thinking that it might cause an explosion which would take out Tansy and her 2inC Nathan Holn along with Rosemary herself. Instead, it teleported her to the forest near Eetown. At first she wasn't sure whether she'd been moved through time or space, but then she met Mortimer and realised from his accent that she had shifted a long way to the east. She was very dazed and disoriented and just followed Mortimer home.
They talk for a while about how Rosemary ended up with Hack'n'Slash in the first place. Bored with farming muckroots and lobster-fishing, she became a crew-woman on a boat called the Oshinoxtra. From there she went to the mainland and worked on a large farm, and even served as a minion on a Saur hunt. Once she'd saved up enough money she went to see the nearest city, Jonetown. Everything there was far more expensive than she'd expected but as luck would have it she was in the right place to rescue Edwird Soloman, a retired bureaucrat who was being harrassed by louts. She and Edwird hit it off and became firm friends, and he gave her a place to stay. She became his bodyguard and housekeeper, read his books and reached an uneasy accommodation with his girlfriend, Mrs Rumble.
Sometime later, Rosemary and some friends were scavenging in a scrapyard when they encountered the demon Scratch, and Rosemary managed to overcome him to the point where he was willing to discuss his situation and behave reasonably. This caused unpleasantness between the neighbours and Edwird, and brought Rosemary to the attention of Hack'nSlash, who recruited her.
While they are tidying up conversational loose ends, Rosemary tells Sylvester about a hermit she met in the SAR (where there are many hermits, but this one is The Hermit), and who was probably a wizard (or just possibly a demon). They establish that demons can communicate over long distances via leylines, hence Edgar learned Rosemary's name from Scratch, and Myrrh could arrange visits from friends. Rosemary is reluctant to ask Myrrh to pass along messages. Sylvester assures her Myrrh can keep a secret.
They discuss Ilsa, who has a very able illegitimate daughter, Druscilla, who works for the big bank in the capital. Ilsa writes to her wih local gossip, so news of Rosemary's presence will soon reach the capital. Ilsa is half Haroon, and the Haroons do not worship the Brush, much, or care what the Oracles think about having children out of wedlock. Sylvester is trying to modernise the village, with some cooperation from the current Oracle, Threnody, who is a great improvement over her predecessor Omega.
It is mentioned that opposite Frederick and Myrrh's old room there is a door labelled "Gwen's stuff", but neither of them knows who Gwen is or was. Sylvesgter has never investigated it, but assumes Myrrh will have done so.
They discuss the fact that when Sylvester met with Protus he saw visions of Rhid and Villipend, whom they then met, so evidently he was seeing the future. He also saw Rosemary fighting a woman with a glowing glove, and that may be a true vision too. Rosemary thinks from the description that it is Tansy Rugan, so they will have to meet and fight some time soon. At least she'll probably have the Can-Opener, but she doesn't have it with her now.
Sylvester wants them to have regular conferences, but he's not going to say where the next one is, in case of eavesdroppers. They discuss Rosemary's old teachers, and whether Myrrh and Frederick are gone for good: Rosemary hopes they are, Sylvester misses them. We glimpse Frederick being given an Ides of March cake by a waitress wearing antennae - or deely-boppers.
Olaf Larrsen, the village vet, turns up in a motorboat and is introduced to Rosemary, who he is glad to see is not a "demon, Bonmarrow or Flibbler". Flibblers, whatever they are, are everywhere. Olaf agrees to give them a lift in return for information and a discount on the organs of the Dornbeast Rosemary killed the night she arrived (less than two days ago). He takes the couple and the cat back to the mainland. En route they discuss the reorganisation at the manor, and the Crash - Olaf used to build thaumtools, before the Crash, and has been able to measure the fact that magic is very slowly returning. He thinks the local Ichyoids are up to something. He tells them about the hamster pirate captain, who has now ceased to be an out-take and become part of main canon, and that he has met Protus, who was talking about someone named Winnifred. Sylvester warns Olaf that Nirvana Clepe may be back in the area.
Sylvester asks Olaf whether he has seen Frowgler - he hasn't - but we cut away to see Frowgler talking to the village Flittermouse in her tower. She tells him that her name is Vyon Ward Parkin, an orphan who was taken in by the Flittermice after she was shunned because her family had died in a "Spew" from the Infernal Engine, and peoople feared she might be contaminated. We see that the Flittermice have a universal presence, at least in Yurpsland, and use actual bats as messengers. The Flittermice are an Order, whose job is to "flit into the dark places and do the mucky jobs that need to be done" - which they agree is also Frowgler's job. Vyon herself was literally posted to her new position in Eetown, in a box. It's a lonely job and she appreciates Frowgler's company, but she could have left if she wanted to, and did not. He gives her a "laughter marble" and says that some day everyone will know who he is behind the mask, then he leaves via an artificial tunnel which looks as if it was made for the purpose, and which takes him to water.
As Frowgler swims away, we see him pass a tank containing an octopus named Aloysius. Violet Hopkirk lures Aloysius to the surface and milks him of ink. She overhears people gossipping about Frederick's retirement. We overhear two of her employers talking about her and how she has the talent to work on a "Wrangrig", but it isn't safe for girls. Cut to Sylvester and co. in the boat, discussing Wrangling Rigs, aka octopus inkpull platforms, and the fact that it's "not safe" for girls because it's thought to be bad luck, locally, to have a woman on board.
Violet, who has a reputation for not talking, overhears more gossip, quizzes a local boy and learns about Sylvester's party going into The Moose and Squirrel and not coming out. She goes to the inn to talk to Eunice Kelso about it. Eunice doesn't know where the party went, and shoos Violet away. Violet returns to her mother, Helena, and they gossip about Rosemary.
Sylvester greets a trapper in another boat, name of Rod, and his young son Ash. Ash is very interested in Rosemary. Mention is made of a Mobile Confectioners' Guild, whose members include salesmen called Lollipop Perambulators. Sylvester finds Ash refreshing - too many people treat him either with scorn or fear because of his position. Olaf tells Ash to tell his friend Aloysius (not the octopus!) to stay out of his garden, because it's magic. Sylvester tells him to spread the word that there is going to be a meeting at the Temple to formally introduce Rosemary.
Rod and Ash in their boat sail past an islet with a distance marker on it, then we see a gull try to land on the islet, and be scared away by a green, snakey-looking thing which says "Boo" in Ichyoid runes. This is one of the same tentacled things (perhaps the same individual) which we saw in the Basement, rescuing Shabash from a reservoir.
Rob and Ash come to shore and we see Ash gossipping with Aloysius on the dockside - both boys look about ten years old. A gull - perhaps the same one that was chased off by the tentacled thing - is sitting near Aloysius. Ash passes on Olaf's message about the magic garden, and Sylvester's about the Temple meeting. As they walk past the Spewing Wall - a forum for graffiti - the Flitttermouse's laughter marble hits the ground behind them, and Aloysius picks it up, hides it and tells Ash it's just a rock. The gull flits in and out of shot near them. They pass Fantod and the Weirdo having an adult conversation with Melba Corrigan and her whimp-pig Wilbur. Ash and Aloysius tell Fantod that they are planning to go to a haunted ruin tomorrow, and he warns them it might fall down, then Fantod warns Aloysius, specifically, to be careful with"whatever it is yer doin' all of a sudden".
We then see the Oracle Threnody, in a medical office listening to a man's chest with a stethoscope; Mayoress Saffron Stout sitting behind her desk - and the Flittermouse, scoring things off a list on a notice board. Written on the corner of the board (not part of the list) is a note saying "Tell truth". She has a sort of umbrella stand which has various sorts of pole in it, including a Sneech stick.
10: Into the Woods [10/07/2017 - 03/11/2017] To start with we see Myrrh, who seems not to need to breathe, strolling through an undersea forest before rising to the surface; Frederick still being served food by the waitress in deely-boppers; and a female Eyebolt named Shmelcathy working at her desk. Other women in deely-boppers (all this culture wear them) are monitoring Frederick on a screen, under the command of an older woman with fluffy white hair, and are expressing amazement at how much he has eaten without passing out. They talk about his herediscan - he is related to a previous test subject - and how he must be a thaumaturgre to stay conscious, yet he isn't setting off their magic-detectors. The waitress, Svetlana Rostova, is told to tail him, and we learn that they are in the Zamyatin Spire, a very high-tech-looking place. Zamyatin Spire residents are all women, but other spires are for men only, or mixed.
They discuss Yurpsland politics, which involve a ceremonial, hereditary king and a separate political ruler who seems to be self-appointed rather than elected. Also the fact that Frederick is a demithaumaturge, and that the Spires are on a major tricklepoint, so were not much affected by the Crash and still have working pre-Crash technology, which involves some enornmous gears which were built by an unknown society from before the Ettins.
Svetlana is impressed to learn that Frederick's family have their own library, in which he read about the Spires. When Myrrh is mentioned, Svetlana surmises that Myrrh is Frederick's wife, because he wouldn't have been allowed into Zamyatin Spire if he didn't have a wife. They discuss the arrangements for straight women like Svetlana who wish to find a mate when they live in an all-female Spire, and see an agent of sorts, holding a giant needle like a dagger and trying to arrest somebody for smuggling Fuzz jars. Singing Fuzzes are a big fad in the Spires and are bred for size, intelligence and voice, which suggests that this could be the past of Frizzlegarb's future world of Hollows and Fuzz communities. Special barriers prevent Fuzzes from being moved from one Spire to another, except in jars.
Myrrh, meanwhile, arises from a water-filled tube into a sort of domed cockpit, in which there is a plant-covered floor dotted with flowers and one of the little mini-Trog-like creatures which we saw Rosemary chasing out of the Mansion at the start of the story. She presses a button and then climbs up some sort of stair or ladder - with the little critter riding on her head - to a room where there is a naked male musician named Jones (who is clearly based on David Bowie/Jones, and is either a fellow demon or a large nome, as he has pointed ears), who plays the flute for her. Finally we see her pressing her claws into a set of holes on a control that opens a round purple door, and then standing in a place where there are striped, rugby-ball-shaped lights, and an enormous bust of a bearded, humanoid male demon wearing a medal. It's not clear whether this last image is part of the canonical sequence or just a Hallowe'en special.
Frederick and Svetlana end up on a balcony which Svetlana calls a Bubble-viweing Recreation Platform, overlooking a hall where large coloured bubbles with blurry images inside well up, but Frederick says it's a Spindizzy interface chamber. We learn that the Spire community has a low birthrate and takes in orphans from elsewhere, but Svetlana was born there and heard her parents mention legless, truthful flying beings who could have been either Spindizzies or Helipaths. She is not sure whether the Spire city belonged to the Ettins or the Sneeches, originally - only that it was contested between two species. Frederick describes ancient weaponry - the Ettins used city-smashing Doombombs and the Sneeches used Tangles, giant vines which could infitrate and wreck Ettin machinery.
Frederick has worked out that something was meant to happen to him in the restaurant where Svetlana works, but she assures him he wasn't intended to die. Solzhenitsyn Spire is about death, but Zamyatin is all about collecting and hoarding information. Frederick wants to go ask the nearest archivist about Spindizzies. Svetlana is unnerved by this, as asking questions is discouraged. They discuss the fact that Frederick is still collecting information which may be useful to his family, even though he is retired, and that Myrrh may or may not decide she has retired, and we see the woman with fluffy white hair monitoring their converation. Fredrick says he is filling in time until Myrrh gets back from "whatever you all have her doing", and it is at this point that we see Myrrh opening the purple door.
Cutting back to Eetown, we see Olaf's boat pulling in to his private dock, and Captain Hamster's crew sleeping off a binge-drinking session, and Mortimer, with umbrella, waking in the woods (to which he was evidently transported from the pub, in the same way that his brother and Rosemary were transported to the island) with the sense that some sort of revelation has slipped away from him, and then encountering Nitfol's mixed Nome and Pale party in the woods.
Once on shore, Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the fact that Olaf knew Mortimer was a wizard, but didn't tell him. We see that Olaf has a fenced-off telegraph pole topped with magical gadgets.
Mortimer is very relieved to see that Nitfol survived the Spyder, but ashamed that he had accidentally led the beavcer-shark to destroy Nitfol's home tree. Fizmo realises that Mortimer owes Nitfol a favour and can take them beyond the "Edge of the World", but Mortimer doesn't know what she means.
At this point we get some portraits of various characters - Ilsa's and Saffron's parents, characters from the Willy the Wendigo books, some past E Weirdos, and one of Sylvester's university lecturers.
Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, discussing Olaf's thaum measurements. Sylvester thinks he has a second agenda - perhaps an attempt to bring back magic, which even the High University of Azimuth has been unable to do. Sylvester thinks this is a good idea, because he wants humanity to explore the other planets in the system, and doesn't see much future in steam power.
Mortimer, Nitfol and Fizmo establish their frames of reference. The Nomes' world can be walked across in a day or two, and is bounded by a wall of mist you can't push through, and centred on the Spike - Fizmo's father Foblub was an exlporer, but even he didn't manage to walk all the way around the edge. Mortimer remembers a Spindizzy called Charles telling him about a solid haze.
Sylvester shows Rosemary a road which leads south to a place called Eisles where there is a ferry across the River E, but no city because the nearby shore is too rocky for a port, and then on to Obtown. He points out Olaf Larrsen's house and then they head back towards the woods - as they do so they pass Aloysius hiding behind a bush, with the gull next to him.
11: New Openings [06/11/2017 - 02/02/2018] Rosemary tells Sylvester there was a kid hiding behind the bush they just passed, and Sylvester identifies him as Aloysius Culpepper, an orphan who lives with his uncle and aunt. We see Aloysius and the gull sneak into Olaf Larrsen's place and poke about in the fields, before using an upturned bucket to climb through a shed window, after testing that a magic-emitting plant on a shelf inside is safe by throwing a stick at it. He winds up a clockwork figure of a running man (later referred to as the Flailer, so probably its feet are meant to pound grain), and the noise attracts Olaf, who is carrying a fishing net with a hole in the bottom. He tells Aloysius to follow him or go home, so Aloysius and the gull follow him.
They go to the main house where they are greeted by Olaf's housekeeper - we see Sylvester telling Rosemary that this is Ilsa, who used to work at the Mansion. Ilsa asks Aloysius what the gull's name is, but Aloysius says gulls only have names when they are flying. We see a scene of three gulls by the seashore, including one wearing a hat, who is part of the pirate hamster's crew, and still looks hungover.
We return to Mortimer, talking to the Nomes. Nitfol doesn't know what Spindizzies are but he does know about the Mansion, because his father was a scholar who owned two and a half books. We see Nitfol's father with two books, one labelled "Socks", the other "Cookiedice", which is the name of one of the Hollows where we see Fuzzes living in the future. Mortimer mentions the library at the Mansion - Fizmo doesn't believe such a thing is possible, but Nitfol has heard stories of large book collections. We see a shadowy image of a female Nome filing scrolls on big racks. Mortimer describes the library as being in the Ivory Tower, which leads to a long digression about behemoth teeth (if behemoths are really elephants, Mortimer has a very confused idea of what they look like), and he mentions that there is an apartment at the top, with a pool, but nobody lives in it now, "most of the time". He mentions that the tower was built by Ludwig, which leads to a very muddled conversation, because the Nomes know Ludwig as a cult figure worshipped by some people in the Basement. Mortimer manages to explain about the Spindizzies and how literal they are, and how he once told Charles he felt trapped and Charles told him about the mist barrier. Mortimer thinks the Spindizzies might know how to bring the barrier down: Fizmo thinks this is fantasy, but Nitfol wants to meet them. Nitfol and Fizmo go off to confer, while the Pale who may be Thrash seeks to attract Mortimer's attention to something, and Mortimer wonders aloud whether this is the same Pale (Thrash) he met yesterday with Frowgler.
We return to Zamyatin Spire, where Svetlana is disturbed by Frederick's whistling, because music is discouraged except in the gym and at culture festivals. She takes him to a stern-lloking senior archivist, who wasn't expecting them - Frederick tells this woman his name, but says she doesn't need to know Svetlana's.
In Eetown, Ilsa brings cocoa (which he has never had before) for Aloysius, herb tea for Olaf and tripewater for the gull. Olaf says he's an old man and he has had to keep his books locked away because Omega didn't want people to see them, but now she's gone and her influence is waning, he has been hoping for someone like Aloysius to come along. He told Ash to tell Aloysius to stay away from the magic because he knew it would lure him in. Aloysius correctly surmises that Olaf wants him as an apprentice. Olaf says his wife Mamie, after whom his boat is named, died fifty years ago(by implication, in the Crash), so if Aloysius comes every day he can, and learns magic and veterinary medicine, when Olaf dies he will leave his house and all his money to Aloysius, aside from a bit for Ilsa.
Olaf tells Aloysius that no wizwitch could channel all the forms of magic, but some were generalists who could do a little of a lot, and some, known as Hedgewizwitches, could do only one thing but did it very well. Mamie was one, because all she could do was heal, but very well. Aloysius is another - an "Animal Empathist", hence his link with the gull.
Mortimer is still talking to the Pale who may or may not be Thrash, and shows him his umbrella. He tells the Pale that he is a wizard and asks if that's the problem, and the Pale shakes his head. Meanwhile Nitfol tells Fizmo he isn't going to go off with Mortimer immediately, but he will at some point, because Zpeaker also thought the barrier could be brought down, and if Nitfol's political plan fails they will at least have a means of leaving. The Pale draws Mortimer's attention to the fact that Spyders are creeping up on them.
Frederick speaks to Senior Archivix Anushka Zhdanov. She tells him he is allowed to access archives up to Level Three, but won't say how many levels there are above that. He asks for information on Spindizzies. She asks if he is a Yurpslander, and when he says he is, she calls for someone named Snegurka and sends her to fetch a file.
Olaf tells Aloysius that neither of them is a full wizard, but that in theory if you make the right thaum machine you can mimic any power. However, there isn't enough energy around post-Crash, so animal empathy is impossible to mimic and no one will be "horning in" on Aloysius's skill. There are no other empaths in the area, but there are a few other wizwitches of other kinds - some who know what they are (we see Myrrh, Amos Grubb and Mortimer) and some who don't (we see a teenage boy in a soft baggy hat, and a short teenage girl with a lot of long, bushy hair) and who he doesn't think could handle being told.
12: The New Level [05/02/2018 - 01/05/2016] At the start of the chapter we see Melba Corrigan's blobwart-vending cart and her pet pig Wilbur sitting in front of a large bush. Her hat is lying on the bush, and two butterflies (not flutterbys) fly up from behind it. Probably they represent sex and/or kisses, and she is behind the bush with Arthur the Weirdo. Faint words on the hedge appear to spell out "Nutella weather person" - I've no idea why.
Rosemary and Sylvester arrive back at Eetown's South Road Gate. Sylvester would rather go home, but Rosemary reminds him that he needs to collect the post, and says that it probably wasn't a villager in a boat that took them to Alwin. They both think it was probably Mortimer, by magic, which means he has immense innate power and the potential to be "quite something".
Meanwhile, Mortimer's party start to back away from a Spyder, which begins to spew thick ropes of web at them, while another one boxes them in from behind. But Thrash (Rob's notes seem to confirm that it is Thrash, so the stripe he had on his chest before must have been painted on) slashes their web-ropes with his sickle and beats down the one in front of Mortimer. It's not clear whether he has killed it or not, but he probably has, as later they will pass a dead one in that direction.
Meanwhile, Senior Archivix Anushka offers Frederick a chair and a cup of tea while he waits for his file. Svetlana is impressed and concerned, as teachairs are only offered to important guests, and she isn't authorised to associate with important guests, but doesn't wish to leave. The Archivix gives Frederick permission for Svetlana to stay and have tea too, but Svetlana says it's not Anushka's decision to make.
Olaf thinks Aloysius can handle being told he has magic, but also that an empathist can't do much harm. He warns him not to tell anyone else about his magic, because there are people - the picture implies it's official, government people - looking to capture functioning wizwitches. It's possible that Aloysius may have other, minor talents as well as his main one - Mamie did - and there are tests for this, but Olaf can't administer them. Amos and Frederick both could, but Frederick won't.
Rosemary suggests that if Mortimer is going to be "something" so will Sylvester, since Mortimer obeys him. As they talk, a Flutterby - a creature with which Mortimer has a strong affinity - comes to them with a scrap of cloth tied around it, bearing a message apparently written in blood.
Back to Mortimer's party. The Pales are fighting off the Spyders, and kill at least one behind Mortimer, but the Spyders keep coming. Mortimer has a moment of crisis where he decides he will no longer be either a follower or a causer of problems, and he shoots magical force from his umbrella-wand, declaring that there will be no more killing or dying (and gives himself an electric shock). The surviving Spyders run off, and we see two Spyders discussing the fact that they had thought all human wizwitches had been killed in the Crash, and that this raises the possibility that there may still be humans who are able to "talk" (I'm guessing this means Aloysius's animal empathy) and they must call a conclave to discuss this.
Svetlana confirms to Frederick that it is her boss (or at least, the person who told her to watch Frederick) who decides whether she may stay and drink tea or not. She has a number as well as a name. Frederick addresses the security bugs in the walls and asks for Svetlana to be made his guide, stating her name and number, and since nobody answers with an objection, Svetlana is officially promoted to that role. She isn't sure what she thinks about this, as she had enjoyed being a waitress, but she does quite like her cup of tea.
Olaf tells Aloysius that Amos gave up being an active wizard before the Crash - the pictures imply this had something to do with Myrrh, but Olaf will only tell Aloysius about it if Aloysius agrees to be trained. Amos has already asked Olaf to come to the Mansion to discuss something, so he will take Aloysius with him, but Aloysius shouldn't mention his possible apprenticeship etc. to Amos's wife Nellie. They have a complex misunderstanding about what "having views" means, which leads to mention of an apparently blind woman called Gretta Weed, who in the metaphorical sense sees further than Nellie. Gretta is brighter than Nellie, and Saffron brighter than Gretta, but Olaf is more concerned with their open-mindedness to new possibilities. They discuss the fact that once he is trained, Aloysius will have the choice to stay in Eetown or to move elsewhere.
Once they have found a private spot, Sylvester reads his message, which says "Open Training Gate. Urgent." This refers to one of the Panegates at the Mansion. Sylvester still has to complete buisness in town but will rush through it. We see him ask a sausage vendor named Claudia what people are talking about - which is really all the news from the Mansion. She has been selling a lot of sausages because people are anxious/excited about the changes.
Fizmo and Nitfol are surprised and impressed that Mortimer is a wizard, and reveal in conversation that Fizmo works for Frowgler, and Nitfol sort-of does too. We see Frowgler underground, talking to a Shallow Wyrm named Parkin who is guarding the Circle at the World's End. Fizmo says Frowgler can see the future (which Mortimer cannot), and warned her about a job she took. We see her underground in her hazmat suit, looking at a little creature similar to a Shallow Wyrm but not one, which is growling at her. Mortimer says Frowgler gave him good advice, but he works for his brother Sylvester, not for Frowgler. He tells them Sylvester is a sort of mayor, avoiding the charged word "Earl" by chance or design.
Svetlana reveals that she prefers kvass to tea, although this is against her culture. The Spire folk drink actual tea, but tea in Yurpsland is usually brewed from other plants. Frederick himself drinks - cautiously - things brewed by Myrrh. They get onto discussing Yurplejuice - neither Svetlana nor Anoshka has tasted it, because it's restricted, and even in Yurpsland it's regulated.
Olaf tells Aloysius about the other half of his business - the first half is treating sick animals, the second half is making and selling thaum-powered gadgets. He has always refused to make magical weapons - Zap-Tridents - partly out of morality and partly in case someone buys one and then kills him to prevent him making any for anyone else. In any case they only work at Tricklepoints, such as the one under the Mansion. To make his own gadgets work away from a Tricklepoint he has built big, cumbersome energy collectors. Aloysius shows Olaf the laughter marble, and Olaf says it does party tricks, which he will show him in the workshop.
13: Thicket [02/05/2018 - 16/11/2018] Sylvester says Claudia will be selling a lot more sausages, because more changes are coming, because he is planning to be more pro-active. He and Rosemary discuss Mayor Saffron's temper.
Mortimer says he arrived here (in the woods) by accident, but now he's here he will help the Nomes. He asks why they are there and Fizmo says they are going to "that Crystal Thicket". Nitfol is initially angry, but Fizmo says that if Mortimer (with his evident magical power) is working for Mayor Koyeeb they're all dead anyway. Nitfol discusses good and bad leaders with Mortimer, and Mortimer correctly concludes that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb. He is still willing to help, on the understanding that Nitfol wants to remove Koyeeb for an ethical reason (i.e. because he is very bad at his job) and that he isn't planning to kill him. He knows where the Crystal Thicket is.
Frederick tells Svetlana and Anoshka about Yurplejuice, which he hasn't had since the funeral of Mariah, the Mansion's groom, when they still had horses. It's made in Wirtvale, and the stuff which Yurpsland exports is second-rate, but the best brands are wonderful. This leads to a conversation about funerals: the Spire folk file their dead on shelves in a catacomb, but they do have a ceremony. They talk about the fact that Spire folk are trained for their jobs, but Frederick had to muddle through as both wizard and regent, and didn't do a terrific job.
We see Myrrh emerging from a hole in a rocky floor, into a cavern where there are many pink stalactites and stalagmites. She is preceded by a butterfly - perhaps signifying that she and Jones have had sex. In the cavern is a giant Metalmin who knows what she is - it addresses her as "zarkette" - and challenges her to a game of chess. We see a woman with puffy white hair watching Myrrh and the Metalmin on a screen: this is the same woman who was earlier seen overseeing the team who were discussing the fact that Frederick wasn't being knocked out by what they had fed him. She is probably Svetlana's boss.
Back to Rosemary and Sylvester, still discussing Saffron Stout, and Saffron's father, who died when Sylvester was five, and her mother, who kept small yappy dogs. Neither was at all communicative about their past.
Mortimer tells the Nomes there may be a magical way of getting where they're going. He tries to compare Panegates with the treewarping the Nomes do, which requires planning and equipment. Nitfol knows about twistpoints, but Mortimer says Panegates are safer, and there's one that leads to the edge of the Thicket. He has to explain that it's Panegate, not Paingate. Mention is made of Fizmo's married sister Fweep.
Meanwhile, Frederick says that Spire folk who do badly at their jobs get sacked. Yurpsland is a young, recently unified country which hasn't worked out how to do things yet, whereas the Spire regime is 400 years old. He speaks about a Yurpslander named Owen Gregiry, who wrote a study on the Spires, and about various Spire monarchs, including the famous Ivana III, who fought off the Wendigoes. Frederick is more interested in Vasily II, who wanted to introduce changes.
We flash to Violet Hopkirk, telling her mother she's going out but will be back in time to help with supper. Young Ash is her brother. We see the Flittermouse in her tower, watching Violet through a telescope as she sets out. Then we see Eunice calling two lads called Ricky and Wendell to come out from a wooden structure, because Saffron needs them. Then we see the old man and former Guardian Terin Flem, sitting on a rock talking to his grandchildren Stephan and Sparrow. He is going to wait at the rock until he sees the Mansion party come by on their way out of the village.
We see Rosemary and Sylvester discussing the mayor of her home town, how as an orphan she was a problem for him, and how her Aunt Eva came to take her in. Eva was also seen as a problem because she had run off to the city, picked up foreign ways and then returned rich. There are things Rosemary wonders about Eva's return, but she's not going to talk about it in town where there are potential eavesdroppers.
Mortimer and the Nomes agree that it would be as tedious to trek to the Mansion to find the Panegate as it would be to go to the Thicket on foot, and as far as Mortimer knows they won't be able to locate the Panegate at the Thicket end. He assumes they are going there to find a particular flower. He tells them not to tell him their plans, so he can't inadvertently give the game away.
We cut to Sylvester's brother Ace, with spear and rucksack, walking through an unknown town in the west of Yurpsland and meeting up with a blonde Nome woman wearing a long skirt and a hat with a flower in it. He shows her a similar flower - which he was reluctant to wear in his hat. As he is Ace, she takes the nom de guerre Diamond (Ace suggests Joker). As they walk through the town, in the background we see a very odd face, or maybe a mask, with slanted oval eyes, watching them from some sort of battlement, and they pass a poster with a kind of alien face on it. Other, more human faces peer round corners at them wherever they walk. Ace comments on the fact that they are being followed, and asks if they are friends of Diamond's, or at least allies.
Cut to the Mansion's butler Schmedley, standing in front of a large, open book and holding a cake with candles, to celebrate fifteen years since the strip began. There are eleven candles on the cake, three Flutterbys flying inside the house, and a Fuzz peering at the lighted window from outside.
Frederick and Anushka discuss rules of succession. In the Spires the rulers are of alternating sex and bear a mystic Gear. Vasily II the would-be change-maker died young (as did Yorik II), and Frederick suggests that his death was suspiciously convenient.
The village fishermen are deeply interested in Rosemary's hat. Coming from where she does, she is able to discuss fishing with them. One called Tom even invites them for a drink, but she and Sylvester have too much to do, and Sylvester says late in private that having the Earl in the inn would be a buzz-kill - nearly as bad as an Oracle in the pub.
Fizmo is curious about the smell of sphagnum dust which still hangs around Mortimer. She and Nitfol discuss the birth of Fizmo's niece Faft, in a way which implies that Nomes can choose the gender of their foetus - although Nitfol denies it when Mortimer asks. Fizmo remembers she needs to ask the village healer Piu for Stiflebloom. Nitfol is an onlly child.
Diamond says that Ace is an object of great local interest, which is why people are spying on them. He comments on her dyed-blonde hair. for some reason, she says that here she had no other option (even though we see a male Nome with brown hair watching them). Ace says there are always options, but sometimes all of them are bad, and he learned that from "you people" - some organisation to which Diamond belongs. The boundary between "here" (later described as "Out West"), where Ace has been for a while, and "Back East" where Ace comes from is a place called Nye. Diamond came there from somewhere "much, much worse" than here, which makes Ace say he questions her Nomishness. This may be related to this Hanukkah strip, which shows Nomes onducting a cultural celebration somewhere where they are a persecuted minority living in hiding. Ace and Diamond come to a plain, unmarked door in a wall, which Ace says people must only come to if they are already welcome there. It opens before them.
Frederick tells Anushka that he ended up taking over running his "Spire" and training his successor (Sylvester) because the official leader (Willoughby) was no good at it. Willoughby died in the Noodle Incident, which the Spire folk haven't heard about. Frederick says he would have thought everyone to the ends of the known world would have heard of it, and this leads to a discussion of an island called Solla Sollew, which Svetlana says is the island at the farthest edge of the Revealed World, and which Frederick says an explorer described as "alive and burning". Anushka says that Solla Sollew isn't the farthest place from the Spires, just hard to reach because of magic-storms from the Glow Confection mountain range: the farthest point is the Biloka Penninsula on the far side of the Deep Southeastern Jungles. Frederick does not know why the town of Noodle is called Noodle, but the Noodle Incident is the most interesting thing that ever happened there.
Rosemary and Sylvester discuss the local fishermen. Tom is unmarried but has a thing going with Gretta Weed. It's OK for Mansionites other than the Earl to hang out in the local pub. Sylvester goes to collect post from Mr Gray.
Mortimer's party, discussing Stiflebloom, pass what looks like a dead Spyder. Fizmo left their village because Nome girls were being encouraged to get pregnant instead of taking Stiflebloom. She and Kulkad went down into the Hot Zone in suits. She couldn't see much through the helmet, and can't really describe what they were monitoring. Mortimer says Sylvester will want to know, and Nitfol should want to know too if he's going to be a leader, so Fizmo says the thing they were watching was a sort of stone growth.
Ace and Diamond pass two guards, and climb stairs to visit a Mr Shadwell. Ace fusses about the lack of a handrail, and Diamond says he reminds her of Algernon Jones, the hero of Lo the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption. At the top of the stairs, they find Mr Shadwell seated dead at his desk, with some kind of wound on his chest.
Frederick wasn't present at the Noodle Incident and didn't hear about it till days later, because they didn't have a Sparkwire - a telegraph system. Sparkwire operators seem to be all women, who wear antennae like the ones the Spire people wear, although in the Spires they signify citizenship. The Spire ones seem to be implants - at least, they're not just attached to a band like the ones worn by Sparkwire operatives.
In Noodle there is a museum about the Incident. In the Spires, Solovyov Spire is all museums, but some can only be visited by people with a high security clearance.
While Sylvester is talking to Mr Gray, some village children ask Rosemary how she, Sylvester and Mortimer got out of the inn without anybody seeing them go. She says they used a one-time magic door.
[Cut to Cap'n Hamster, talking to a sentient sea plant about the fact that his parents told him that somewhere across the waves there would by a pirate girl for him, and he will search till he finds her.]
Fizmo tells Mortimer that when she was down in the Hot Zone, she had a button to push (and then run away) if the thing she was watching started to move. Technology doesn't work well down there, which was why they needed live watchers, but the button was shielded. Fizmo says she saw a rock grow legs and walk. Nitfol asked if it talked - she says no. Nitfol is not surprised, because he has heard stories from when Nomes used to mine down close to the Hot Zone.
Diamond says she will pay Ace (who seems to be some kind of bodyguard, like Rosemary) to help her get away from the town, as she was Shadwell's "little mascot" and probably won't surive him for long if she stays. Ace agrees on condition that she doesn't lie to him, and that she tells him where the thing he came to collect is. She opens a wall safe and gives Ace sort of snow globe thing with a figure in it - a long-robed figure juggling the letter 007.
Frederick has never been to the Noodle museum, but has heard testimony he trusts. Svetlana is worried about something, tells him "Negative", then looks warily at the walls and says it's nothing. Frederick says Willoughby set off some kind of chain reaction which badly damaged much of Noodle, but no-one except Willoughby died. The incident happened in part because of poor maintenance in Noodle, but that part of the story was hushed up.
Mr Gray is concerned that there may be things which, unofficially, Sylvester should tell him about. They have a verbal skirmish in which Sylvester avoids telling him anything. He collects his post, rejoins Rosemary and says it may have been a tactical error for Mortimer to let people see that his umbrellla could be used as a weapon - which suggests Mr Gray is a government agent.
Nitfol says that one of his ancestors, Nikmo, found a talking rock in the deeps, although most of the records of what it said were lost. Nikmo brought the rock home to the surface, but it stopped talking and he was ridiculed for saying it had. Family history says Nikmo later snuck the rock back into the deeps and it came back to life. He told his daughter Margi about it. Margi became a famous adventuress and had a son, Jindak. Margi told Jindakk that she thought Nikmo went back later to visit the rock, but she herself could never find it. Mortimer asks about the surviving records of what the rock said, and Nitfol says that the rock said it had been broken off from a larger boulder during a natural upheaval.
We see Violet sneaking past behind Terin Flem, who is still keeping a lookout. She walks to the Mansion's gardens, where she startles Nellie Grubb, the gardener.
Ace tells Diamond to place another globe, called a Zoinkglobe, into the safe. He had arranged to give Mr Shadwell this one in return for the one with the juggler, and now Shadwell's heirs can have it. He tells Diamond not to steal stuff from the safe unless they need it to survive, so she takes a small plaque with Shadwell's sigil on it, used to show that the bearer is in his favour. Ace comments that Louis and Buddy, the security guards, had let him up there with a spear, and may be part of whatever is going on.
We return to the Spires, with a detour to a Smyt version of Spiderman - Spyder Smyt - to commemorate the death of Stan Lee. Frederick is talking about the official enquiry into the Noodle Incident. The Spires have official enquiries too - Svetlana says "Except when conditioned by circumstances", Frederick replies "Like when a gal happens to be carrying a big needle?" and Anushka says they don't talk about that here. Frederick says that what he has said came from his own experience, not from Svetlana. He says that Willoughby was scapegoated (although he really was somewhat to blame) - then a woman named Snegurka arrives with a file which was requested earlier (presumably the one on Spindizzies).
Part Seven: Seats of Power [19/11/2018 - present] 01: Flight [19/11/2018 - 04/02/2019] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Eetown, discussing whether or not Mortimer will do anything illegal with his umbrella, for a given value of "illegal". Some countries encourage magic, some ban it, but Yurpsland has no unified policy. Mortimer and his party come to a barrier of webbing which marks the edge of Spyder territory. They cut through but are left rather gummed up: Fizmo wants Nitfol to ban Spyders when he is mayor. They begin to pass scattered fragments of ruined stone walls. Nitfol and Fizmo have not been this way before - their parents' and previous generations sometimes journeyed to the Thicket to collect special plants, but the mortality rate was high. Nitfol has more confidence in their safety now because they have the three Pales with them - but suddenly, somebody in the trees starts to throw rocks at them. Nellie tells Violet that being there, at the Mansion, isn't safe. Violet tells her her mother wants to marry her to someone called Tim Tonbee who is above her social status, in order to advance her. Violet thinks this is foolish, both because Tim will want to marry a girl of his own class, and because the life of an aristocratic housewife is not much better than that of a working class one. She's an expert inkwrangler, but girls aren't allowed to work on the rigs because it's thought they'll bring bad luck, and they aren't allowed to work in The Barn (where she currently inkwrangles) after they marry. She doesn't want to join the Navy because she doesn't want to kill people, and she can't be an Oracle because she doesn't hear the Brush in her heart. She doesn't fancy clerking. Ace and Diamond walk out past the guards Louis and Buddy, telling them Mr Shadwell deos not wish to be disturbed. Louis and Buddy wonder why Ace (a professional guard) gave them a disappointed look as he left. On their way out Ace and Diamond are accosted by two more serious-looking men, called Mr Stirscrim and Trymund, who ask who Ace is. Trymund says he's probably the Mundiv rep. Ace (whose mother is a Mundivagant) says that Dalton Mundivagant sent him. Snegurka hands the file to Anushka, and seems disturbed by the fact that Frederick thanks her. Anushka hands the file to Frederick, but won't tell him who authorised her to give it to anyone who asked about Spindizzies. Frederick and Svetlana prepare to leave, but he pauses and asks Anushka if she is married and has children (yes to both). Mortimer's party are being bombarded with rocks by a group of Tree Squids. Mortimer and the Nomes take cover in the long grass, but Nitfol says the Pales can take care of themselves. One of the Nomes, unspecified, says they need Umboz, the Squid-Coaxer, but Nitfol says these are different from the village squids. We see a brief scene of Umboz, Vezza and Piu getting on very well with the Pales at their hive. Piu seems to be learning new techniques from a Pale doctor, and Vezza and Zpeaker are looking at a device which looks like an organic version of an Ettin tool. The rocks stop coming because Thrash has knocked the Tree Squids out of their trees. Violet tells Nellie she wants to be her apprentice gardener. Nellie is dumbstruck. She tells Violet that she isn't getting paid because she is officially retired, but Violet says the next one will be paid. She listens out for news, and knows Sylvester has been making money on stocks and will soon need new staff, as the old guard get ever older. Nellie warns Violet again that the Mansion isn't safe and her parents would never agree to her working there, but Violet says she will leave home when she comes of age. Mr Stirscrim and Trymund wonder why Shadwell sent them to Rowade if the swap was happening today (sounds like somebody got them out of the way). Ace and Diamond say they made the swap and "didn't hear any complaints". Diamond shows Stirscrim the pass with Shadwell's sigil and he lets them pass, but he is still uneasy. Diamond tells Ace privately that Shadwell's habit was to foster rivalry among his troops, but when Stirscrim and Trymund do work together they have a fair amount of clout. She doesn't know which would come out on top if they fought. Ace asks her to show him the subtlest way out. Anushka says her kids turned out OK "for the most part". Frederick regrets not having children of his own. His nephew Willoughby became his foster son but he died. He tried again with Willoughby's children and they too mostly turned out OK (we see that he is doubtful about Mortimer and Lenore) and with other kids who came around (we see a girl with long curly hair looking at his Fugehorn). He tells Anushka to tell her kids she loves them and give them the advice she wants to give them, because there might not be a next time. Svetlana looks stressed. She and Frederick leave and we see Snegurka come to make sure Anushka has heard an urgent debriefing summons. Anushka says she has, and calls Snegurka "ninnyhammer". Thrash jumps down from the trees to rejoin the other two Pales. A hail of rocks follows but it begins to die down and the Pales look puzzled. 02: Entangled [05/02/2018 - 03/05/2019] Mortimer and the two Nomes wonder nervously what will happen if the Pales don't return from squid-chasing. The scene switches to the Pale camp, where Zpeaker is telling Vezza how the Pales grow their tools. [Out-take - we see Nimue in her orchard, alive and well and growing oranges, but the scene is partly greyed out because there is so little magic in Abalone. After this Rob provided a whole sequence of four strips on Rosemary going on a blind date, and said that it was canonical, but as it is set at some indefinite time in the future I've left it in the Supplementary Art section. It does show us that the Mansion has a set Portal Point for people to teleport through.] Nellie tells Violet to go home for now, not to wander off the path, and she will discuss with Amos and "His Grace" the possibility of taking her on as an apprentice. Ace and Diamond go through a small door marked "Nome" into an underground complex (with rats) where Ace has to walk bent over. They are briefly accosted by a male Nome, a sort of steeplejack named Uffer whjo works in "The Heights", but they ignore him. Svetlana still looks stressed. She starts to tell Frederick he must do something, when another woman named Idita comes to re-dress Svetlana in clothing suited to a higher rank, if she is going to escort Frederick. Svetlana looks even less happy. She is taken to a booth, where an ironic-looking woman named Alena whom she knows from school or college is assisting. The Pales rejoin Mortimer and the Nomes, but the Tree-Squid are still throwing stones at them. Mortimer doesn't want to use magic again and Nitfol agrees, so they set off into the brambles under Nitfol's command, using the Pales' sickles to cut through. Nitfol is looking more and more like a leader. Eventually they come to a giant, pink, glowing, three-pronged crystal set in a base: Mortimer says it marks the start of the Thicket. We cut to Rosemary and Sylvester, walking away from the town at a dignified pace they have to maintain until they pass Terin. Rosemary asks why the provincial flag is the E symbol, given that Audra played down her history. It may have had something to do with taxes, and been picked because goods with the E stamp were so widespread in the area - we see that they sold self-sealing stem bolts. Ace and Diamond run into more Nomes, led by a very hostile older man called Roquat. He tells Ace to get out - Ace moves Diamond aside and says he'll get out when Roquat gets out of the way. Roquat draws a knife, so Ace knocks him and his companions down. As Ace and Diamond leave, one of the downed Nomes warns Ace that Diamond will stab him in the back. Svetlana and Idita enter the booth, while Alena, who has a weapon with a rotating blade, stands guard. She and Frederick engage in mild banter, although she says he's a disruptive influence. Fizmo asks Mortimer why humans built the Thicket, and he says the Ettins built it. Fizmo has never heard of them. Mortimer asks if the others have. Nitfol has heard stories of The Earl fighting a two-headed giant called Ettin (real Ettins had one head but two brains). Thrash indicates that this is untrue and that he knows about real Ettins. Sylvester gives them a brief history lesson and says he doesn't know why they built the Thicket, and that they are probably already too close to it - in the distance we can see a jumble of the giant glowy pink shards. Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the flag of Moonin, which shows the ancient towers called the Beacons, but some people would prefer a lobster. The islands in that area have always fought, but a leader named Wirtanen who had a lobster flag briefly united the islands, but he didn't rule the deep landsiders who have their own flags. Rosemary agrees that the current, Beacon flag is boring, but doens't care otherwise. They reach Terin. Diamond is glad Ace didn't kill anyone, even though she's willing to kill if necessary. She has something she needs to do which she says will be fine so long as there isn't a Backwash. This is a wave of magical power which surges out from the Infernal Engine, which extends underground and moves at a rate of a few centimetres a year. Where they are, it used to be, and it has left part of itself in place as it moved on, so they are still to some extent inside it. The Heights are jumbles of high beams left behind by the Engine, which occasionally generate magical items, which Highscalers like Uffer collect. Frederick and Alena discuss the fact that clothes in the Spires are designed by a committee, while in Yurpsland they are mostly designed by a particular married couple. 03: No Turning Back [06/05/2018 - present] Mortimer's party progress, keeping together. Mortimer, being taller, can see a large, distant rock which he thinks is near the Panegate. Nitfol says one direction is as good as another, and Mortimer says the direction of the Thicket (the jumble of crystals) is bad. Saturdays in the Basement [03/05/2014 - present] These strips run every Saturday and show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with what's happening above ground to Rosemary and co.. I decided to split them off onto a separate page to make the action easier to follow. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nests [03/05/2014 - 08/08/2015] The scene opens with a cavern on the wall of which is a cross between a set of bunk-beds and two layers of miniature, open-fronted rooms, made from wooden beams. These are labelled with the names of a group of female Gnoll warren-mates - Hiltsa, Lanwja, Piranom, Pergola, Skuy, Islupis, Ambri and Irnissa. Islupis is not present, or at least not visible, and Ambri is off-stage except for her hand. All we can see of Piranom is her feet (wearing shoes, in odd colours) and the ends of long hair. Hiltsa, who looks very bad-tempered, is throwing stones at the board behind Lawnja's head. Irnissa reports that Skuy and Pergola didn't come home last night. We see Skuy telling Irnissa and Piranom that she is moving to Leny Hall, and that she'll never take a mate because she has a proper job as Sina's assistant. Irnissa intends to stay at home where it's safe. We then see Skuy carrying her belongings past a memorial to the Nome War, and passing the Gnoll security guards Forfind and Findfor and the Ghast soldier Dpxbfo. [Meanwhile in an outtake a female Gnoll named Carmal delivers a pie-in-the-face to Dap, ordered by Tuft to celebrate "their" anniversary - actually the strip's eleventh anniversary. Carmal evidently is some kind of courier or perhaps a Kissogram girl.] Hamble and Squeeb discuss Othara. Hamble has thought of killing her to discourage explorers, but decides she is more useful alive: he's waiting for somebody else. ` Meanwhile, we see Wrawa (female Trog) wake from her exhausted sleep. Kottle the (Gnoll) Healer tries to speak to her but she runs off and he sends Maggle (another female Trog) to follow her and keep an eye on her. Maggle is alarmed to see that Wrawa appears to be heading for the Great Chasm, but when Wrawa reaches The Plunge and stands hovering at the edge, and Maggle calls out to her not to do it, Wrawa replies "Don't do what?" and seems not to know where she is. We see that the gap in the fence at the plunge-point originally led not to a sheer fall but to an extensible bridge, which is now tucked in under the lip of the drop. Wrawa says that she can smell something on the breeze and she is the second person to do something, and then says that she is going to prepare something for the people who will follow her and then jumps off the Plunge point in a calm, abstracted way that suggests she knows there's a soft landing below. She lands in the bushes down in the Chasm. She avoids being sucked into the chute, and instead walks along the top of it to the Trog habitat on the far side of the Chasm, where she meets Hamble and Squeeb, who have evidently gone back down there to live even though they may venture elsewhere. Wrawa remembers and likes Hamble from her childhood, and tells him how she has been affected by Rhid's chemicals and by the death of Leny. We see that Rhid himself has ended up in a hospital called the Humane Zone. Hamble warns Wrawa that this place, the deep-down Trog habitat, has an effect on people, but Wrawa seems quite keen on the idea and wants to absorb the atmosphere. She is aware of Hamble's ambitions to return to the world and make his mark; she doesn't intend to oppose him, nor to assist him at this point (and secretly feels that it will make little difference if she does). She goes to sleep, hanging uipside down from the ceiling. We see Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr awake in her sleeping pool, called by a voice of unknown origin. Ploot arrives to check on Urwyn, who has nothing to report, as there has been no activity around the Elevator. Unnoticed by them, a Smyt Sherlock Holems and Watson pass by, stalked or followed by another Smyt. Ploot fills Urwyn on with what's been going on with Sina and the new hall, and two Ghast medics, Vptwbotw and Vpfbotw, arrive with a Porta-Pool to collect their dead. Ploot prepares to drag the dead Gobule, whom he recognizes as one of Guttle's servants, away to Maw. Urwyn thanks Ploot for watching out for him and we are shown that Urwyn's friend Zugo, wearing armour, is also watching from a crack in the wall. Meanwhile the Ghasts wheel their Porta-Pool past various characters in and around Leny Hall. We see the Gnoll Muscod giving a heart-shaped flower to Folla, and two Gobules from Maw's household pushing some kind of large wheel. We see Catmorlo talking to Furphy, Satyrsong peeking at Krink, a Helipath sign-writer, Voog and an unknown female Motihaul. They pass a well where an Ichyoid is drawing water, a male Trog being led on a lead by a female Nome, a JibJib, Frag guarding the entrance to Le Tree and a female Motihaul pushing her eggs in a pram. On the walls are posters warning people about Fixits. In Time Hall they pass an Ooze, a Trog whom we saw before in Bowel Hall, and Pizzle talking to a male Motihaul Candle Monk named Crumpton. Then another Ichyoid at another well, a female Gnoll water-seller named Bujold, and a Fixit information desk, manned by a Boogieman. At the desk are a Gnoll with a flower in his hair whom we have seen before, and an unknown Gobule and male Trog, the Gobule with a bump on his head which suggests that a Fixit has been struck off him, and the Trog carrying a battered hat (not a Fixit, from the look of it). The two Ghast medics take the Porta-Pool to Amorph Hall. The area is still under lockdown, so there is nobody to meet the funeral party except Stirrer Hptwfvth and Apprentice Stirrer Hpthfvx, and a chap called Septwbfn, who pushes a handcart labelled Tangible Karma, and gives the medics a free fungus to compensate them for having had to go near the Operator. The two Stirrers place the Porta-Pool on a mark on the floor and a strange, elaborate machine, acquired directly from the SubShafts (not from the SubShaft manager Egrote) and normally cloaked from any notice, descends from the ceiling to hover over the pool and probe or stir the contents and decontaminate the contents. It seems that the SubShafts themselves are sentient but nobody knows for sure: there is a Ghast team studying them. The two Ghast Stirrers Hptwfvth and Hpthfvx bring the Porta-Poll containing the remains of Hpthbvtw - a.k.a. High Pool Third of Batch Three Hundred and Fifty Two - to the pool whence he came, and prepare to stir him back into it, with a ceremonial speech about his memories and dreams being added back into the common pool and into the Official Record. We see this happening. We go back to Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr sleeping in her pool again, and being called again to wake up. It can't be Hpthbvtw who is calling her, since we saw her being called before he was added back into the pool, but it does seem like it's probably the same pool. Some essence of the pool speaks to Hpobfvfr, taking on Hpthbvtw's form, but she objects to that so it becomes her mother Hpobvo instead. The pool, the collective consciousness, approves of Hpobfvfr's willingness to go against convention, and wants the Ghasts to go out and "engage the world", especially now with humans reappearing and the Sneeches leaving. The pool consciouisness explains to Hpobfvfr that their world, the Basement, runs on machinery behind the walls which is powered by Sneech squeezings, and without the Sneeches it's already beginning to fail. It wants Hpobfvfr to go talk to the humans, who may have useful information. She is quite keen to talk to Mortimer again. Saturdays in the Basement :: Tests [15/08/2015 - 26/03/2016] We see Shabash, one of the female Gnolls who shot at Agorn by mistake for Boromir, walking nervously through a dark place, scaring away a Doom Bee and a sort of miniature, non-sentient Saur called a Lizhopper. She passes a gap in the wall through which we see Maggle the Trog running across a lighted space, then Shabash surprises Faddle in the dark. She can smell that Faddle has been in The Place No-One Talks About, which turns out to be the cave where he was taken by and to the female Gnolls in collars, whom he refers to as Placettes. Along with "the usual phizz" they told him that the world was ending in some sense, and gave him a task to perform. Following their accidental attack on Agorn, Fanga and Shabash have split up in order to go to ground: Faddle suspects the Placettes of having engineered this to leave Shabash free to be recruited. They are joined by Carmal, who has been instructed in a vision to come and meet the Placettes' Assigned One. We see the vision in black-and-white flashback, and it looks suspiciously like Frowgler wearing the pumpkin-head costume in which he scared the Nomes. The Placettes have given Faddle three glowgem shapes which have to be inserted into sockets on some important mechanism on an upper level. The three shapes have to be inserted all at the same time into slots which are too far apart for one person to reach them simultaneously, presumably as a safety measure. They are dangerous in some way - possibly radioactive - but Faddle is better able to handle them than "normal" people (perhaps because as a Finagler he's not likely to reproduce), and has been given a backpack with a protective lining to carry them in. On their way, they pass through a "Wintergate" cave which is basically a permanent Hallowe'en display. They have to wear seasonal hats while in the Wintergate cave, and this prompts Carmal to tell Faddle about Fixits. As they reach the edge of the area inhabited by organized Basement society, they meet a Queen Snake named Marsslina, who is an aquaintance of Faddle's. We learn that the Queen Snakes and the Ecadems have some sort of secretive joint society and have their own underground greenhouse for growing food (although Queen Snakes mainly eat tunnel-rats), but their garden has been raided by Biters and so Marsslina is having to forage for a pudding-gourd for their own version of Thanksgiving. After Marsslina has moved on, Faddle says that Queen Snakes prefer to be called Empress Snakes and the three Gnolls discuss the terms Queen, Empress and Emperor. We learn that some Basement dwellers have traditional folklore about an all-powerful ancient Emperor named Ett, who is a fusion/confusion of the Ettins with the three early Earls named Ettric. The Placettes seem to have some kind of government status, since Gnolls just do as they say even if it's dangerous. Faddle reckons he and Shabash and Carmal have been chosen for this particular mission to and beyond the risky Fringes because they're expendable, whereas people like Mimsy and Piranom are too valuable to the Placettes to be risked. Faddle and co. pass through outgrowths of The Tree to reach a chamber full of Ettin machines. They drop the objects they've been carrying into slots on the machines. A human male named Mr Norton (who is really in the Spike with the Fixits, and who might be Rufus under another name) speaks to them through the machines and tells them that these machines are being activated because the technology which depended on Sneech Squeezings will soon fail. Shabash leaves, but Carmal and Faddle agree to perform other tasks for Norton, in exchange for Glowgems. Saturdays in the Basement :: Shabash and Rowbynn [02/04/2016 - 01/07/2017] Shabash gets lost and falls down a shaft at the fringes of the Basement. She lands in a reservoir, whence she is fished out and dumped into a dry service area by a green creature with a lot of tentacles and a long thin neck terminating in just eyes. It appears to be intelligent, since we see it start to fill in the hole in the ceiling through which Shabash fell, and it's using sophisticated tools. It's also holding a frog - who doesn't seem to be Frowgler. A maintenance bot then trundles up behind Shabash and first bonks and then tases her in an effort to get her to leave, seeing her as an intruder. She gets up to go, sees what she has been talking to and is amazed, because she can see it's a Metalmin and she thought all the Metalmins were long dead. The bot tells her it is the property of the Eman family and she doesn't like the idea that something sentient(ish) can be property. She names it Sparky. Sparky tells her to take her queries to "Facilities Manager Elizabeth Merrill" and the sound of the name, combined with the fact that Sparky is good at maths, makes Shabash think the Emans are Eyebolts. Shabash sets off to explore, believing that she can smell Eyebolts, but what she finds is a container garden under artificial lights. Beyond that, she finds Telic the Helipath Healer's surgery, and Crazy Rhid, heavily bandaged and strapped into a hospital bed. Telic turns out to be rather sinister. S/he injects Shabash with a paralysing agent in case she is there to murder hir - a reasonable precaution given her profession - but once she is helpless s/he starts to ruminate out loud about using her as a test subject, a clinical guinea pig. Rhid however talks hir out of it (and incidentally acknowledges both that he is a murderer himself, and that he has some well-intentioned long-term goal) so Telic dumps Shabash out in a corridor and locks the door behind her. Rhid gives Telic permission to experiment on him instead, since he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but cautions hir not to damage him too much - because Digger Odel still has a use for him. Shabash is very collapsed. As she lies on her back, trying to recover from the drug Telic gave her, a male Shallow Wyrm named Rowbynn drops down from somewhere high up and lands on her snout. Rowbynn is studying the quasi-sexual Wyrm process of "Eating", which turns out to be a kind of fusion. The Shallow Wyrm attaches to "Hooks and Trenches" on the skull of a Deep Wyrm - both male, apparently, so perhaps also female to female - and becomes permanently bound in place. The two then form a mental and physical gestalt organism which returns to the Hot Zone and stays there. Rowbynn finds that Shabash too has Hooks and Trenches, of a sort - which, as he acknowledges, raises interesting biological questions - and he is able to form a temporary bond with her which enables them to speak mind to mind, rather as we saw Hax speaking to Camora mind to mind before he took her over. Rowbynn is a member of the inner circle of the Ring of Clear Air, and as such his official rôle is to lie around being pampered and building up his strength in order to compete in some official contest to do with Eating rituals. But he had a lively mind and wanted something more, so he began investigating Shallow Wyrm society and mapping the extent of it through information he could glean while remaining with his own ring, and was surprised by how many and how different the rings were. We see vignettes of Vim, captain of the guard to the hostile Ring of the Uppermost Spire, stalking Sneckdraw the spy, and also of Kryt the observer, observing. Eventually that wasn't enough to satisfy Rowbynn's need for knowledge so he escaped from his minders and went exploring. He suspects that many others have done the same, and we see a vignette of Urwyn. Rowbynn tells Shabash that she will be able to break the link with him if she wants to, but if she lets him stay he can help her with her current lifestyle, and has "advantageous secrets to share". He knows where there are caches of human artefacts and knowledge, located by himself or by other Wyrms, and in return he wants her help in learning more about Fixits. He is very interested in them because the way they take over their "mounts'" minds seems similar to the Eating process. Shabash explains that she has a problem, related to the fact that she and Fanga were retained to assassinate Bromir. Rowbynn is aware of Bromir, who is "the hero of the Tubish Vat incident". Instead they attacked the very similar-looking Agorn, who is on a list of Gnolls who mustn't be killed. The list also includes Agorn's son Furphy, Comshaw, Mimsy, Niddle, Wittol, Swodswal and Catmorlo among others. Rowbynn hadn't known about the list but says something odd is going on with the Gnolls. Shabash went into hiding because she feared Agorn would report her to "some nob" but admits she isn't sure any of them know they are protected, although she expects Agorn to know. Rowbynn says a social facade is being maintained, and we see part of a pair of giant jaws depositing an apple for Agita. He says that an unknown nob or nobs is pushing society, especially the Gnolls, in a particular direction, but he doesn't know what or why. He is investigating out of curiosity rather than a desire to expose the truth. Shabash is hungry so they end the psychic conversation. It took less time than it felt like, but even so a hopeful slime grub is about to bite her ear. Slime grubs are not edible unless fricaseed, so Rowbynn directs her to a branch of the Tree. She has had a tiring and perplexing day, so after she has eaten Rowbynn directs her to a sleeping niche. They establish silent communication and then both fall asleep, and find themselves in a shared dream. Above them they can see the famous Skibble (although we cannot), although he doesn't look as Rowbynn imagined him - Shabash says he wears disguises. The dream becomes ever more bizarre - Rowbynn says Skibble is juggling feral ABOLs. Shabash wants to challenge Skibble with a tesselator, which appears in her hand, but Rowbynn says the Grumpy Pincher ate all the tesselators, twice. Shabash charges, Rowbynn goes to her aid, and Skibble confines them to a tight space for a zillion years "or 'til we bowbing wake up". They flibble. Saturdays in the Basement :: Leny Hall [08/07/2017 - 24/02/2018] We see Pergola the Gnoll, neart Leny Hall, looking at light spilling down from a gap in the ceiling and supporting a tiny fir tree. She has never seen a single tree on its own before, not part of The Tree, and tells Maggle the Trog that a woman called Swinthin had told her about free-standing trees, after she and some others had gone outside to the forest to capture Raviners for breeding, so they could extract Raviner ichor (we see a female Motihaul named Swidnica selling it), but the Raviners got loose and became a pest. Pergola has never dared to above ground herself, even after the tunnel was put in, because of the scary stories (in her imagination Nomes seem as scary as Spyders and Tree-Squids) and because it all seemed overwhelming. She loves plants and manages to nurture a few with artificial light, but she thinks if she saw plants growing freely in the sun and rain she would stay up there and never come home. Maggle has been to the doorway and only saw clouds and rain and too much light which hurt her eyes, but she is willing to go out with Pergola and guide her back. Pergola asks Maggle to tell Sina about the tree and the gap to the outside which they could work on to make their own exit - and which forest creatures can enter through. Maggle says Sina is very busy - we see Maggle talking to a female Eyebolt secretary - and that Sina and Sprocket are busy talking to Spindizzies. Maggle hasn't been to see the Spindizzies because she has no particular questions to ask them, even though she spends a lot of time exploring. She does it for fun, and often gets into trouble - she's not driven like Pergola. Pergola grew up on a fungus farm but became more interested in the weeds. Maggle works on a farm at times, to earn money when she gets bored with eating fungi and slime grubs. Most people can't eat them, but Maggle is a darkpelter Trog and is special. Darkpelters only crop up occasionally and randomly. They are resistant to poisons, and more likely to pair up with Nomes (although Maggle has her eye on a fellow Trog). Because of her resistance to toxins she helped to eradicate a dangerous plant called a jab-bramble which has harmful uses - we see a flash of Rhid doing something sinister with a ball of something. They meet up with Finimbrun, who is carrying a large domino, maybe 10" long. Rhid had left a set scattered around, and Finimbrun doesn't know what they are or whether they are dangerous or not. Pergola is wary of devices but Finimbrun thinks she's a hypocrite, because plants are just as dangerous and she was involved with the Crudbean, or at least knew Crud. She and Crud had neigbouring plots. He was sad after the death of his wife, and had a lot of equipment which was being funded by somebody else. She was nearby when the Crudbean erupted, but so were many other people. Comshaw interviewed her and then killed the Crudbean with one of Rhid's devices, and Pergola profited because souvenir hunters bought all her plants in the hope that they had been contaminated with traces of Crudbean, although it still wasn't enough for her to get her own place. Finimbrun lives with Kashkavala, who is an animal expert and food technician. We see her talking to a tunnel-rat called Snert. Timf calls Pergola to come and sort out some blorp plants, so she goes off, leaving Maggle looking warily at a flickering light. There is an odd little scene where Tuft the Gobule and Dap the Gnoll are agreeing that some large-scale thing has gone wrong, but Dap can't be arsed to find out what. Of to the side of them we see a machine that seems to be flaring off gas. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nitid the Helipath [03/03/2018 - present] We see Nitid the artist and Flange the engineer, both Helipaths, talking. Flange, who is working on a junction box, is on his own because Sprocket the Gnoll has gone off courting with Sina, which Helipaths consider very inefficient. There are a lot of wiring problems at the moment - Nitid wonders if this is to do with the previous day, which the Observatory staff say was The Day That Changed Everything, but Flange is skeptical. S/he and Sprocket did some work at the Observatory and were not impressed by their record-keeping. [Out-take: we see an elderly male Gnoll named Skritch fishing, to commemorate the death of Patrick McManus.] Nitid asks Flange if s/he recognises a particular symbol. Flange says if it were rotated it would become a symbol important to Humans (it's a fancy capital E). Flange is inclined to believe that Humans still exist. Flange goes off to do more engineering work, and Nitid goes to the Time Hall, where s/he talks to a female Ecadem named Fyke. Fyke is sad because yesterday a male Ecadem named Smyth, who was working as a bouncer, died in the fight at Le Tree, without ever having found a mate, and there are so few Ecadems left. His friends had tried to talk him out of taking such a dangerous job, as Ecadems are fragile. Fyke has her name painted on her side, which Nitid refreshes for her for free. It has something to do with the worship of the Brush and bearing witness in some way. The sect to which Fyke, who is a bit of a fanatic, belongs believe that there are holy Emissaries living behind the sun, and that the sun turns into the moon at night, covered with mysterious runes. The moon must not be breached but the sun should be, and a Jibjib named Speedy tried to fly to the sun to do this, but fell back exhausted. Fyke thinks they should build a tower to reach the sun, using the Mansion as a base. She thinks the Council will do this sort of thing; Nitid supported the sending of a Helipath named Aprat to join the Council but believes it won't achieve much because Agita, Nevus and Guttle will thwart it. A Boogieman named Trevor summons Fyke away to help deal with a situation. Nitid enters the Hall of the Brush, monitored by a female Eyebolt named Evulgate, who reports to a male ditto named Fremescent. Evulgate is collecting credits awarded to her for sharp observation, but needs another 23 credits before she will even be told what events are credit-worthy. In the Hall of the Brush, Nitid speaks to an elderly-looking Gobule priest named Kalon. Nitid isn't really sure why s/he came: Kalon goes through a list of possibilities and they decide that Nitid feels alienated from hir community. S/he does not want to talk to Nefast, a Helipath who is an Ear of the Brush, so Kalon suggests s/he should talk to Febrifuge. Febrifuge is somebody who keeps a record of favours owed, as a kind of currency, but that's not why Kalon thinks Nitid should speak to him or her. The Hall of the Brush is full of different sects. We see a male Trog holding a flower in a pot, wearing a flower on his head and declaring that "The Bloom is Eternal" to a Gnoll Doomsayer who says that "The End if Nigh", and a male Motihaul in a hooded robe debating theology with a Gnoll Beebler. At Febrifuge's door Nitid meets Shona, who has come to deposit a favour to return the one done her by Comshaw and Niddle the day before. A male Gnoll, a Spelling Guild member, OKs Nitid's spelling of hir own name on hir own forehad. The Guildsman then goes and shouts at two Doomsayers who have spelled their placards wrong. Meanwhile Pizzle turns up and asks Nitid to exchange one seed for another, which Nitid does. Tiny flags pass by low down in the frame, and the Gnoll Irnissa appears with two plants in a pot, and says that the League of Short People are on the march. Irnissa is just there to deliver plants, and assumes Nitid is also there as a professional. They discuss Leny Hall - Irnissa thinks anyone going near Crazy Rhid's old place is crazy themselves - and a male Motihaul in a lurid superhero costume passes them, carrying a alrge grasshopper impaled on a fork. Shone is in with Febrifuge, depositing favours she owes to Comshaw and Niddle. Irnissa considers Niddle far more impressive than Comshaw and says he's changing the world through his Finagling, although she herself only "fools around" and doesn't mate (only couples with a Finagler have young). She thinks Comshaw married Camora for her money. Sundays in the SubShafts [03/09/2006 - present] The timeline of the SubShaft 44f strips is confusing. The series is used as a foil for seasonal gags about e.g. Hallowe'en but given how short-lived Gnolls are, the jokes for a given season are certainly not taking place annually within the story, and the strip for 25th March 2012 and comments by Rob confirm that these events are happening roughly parallel with events in the main strip, meaning that up until 16th July 2013 they take place during the course of a single day. This means that one has to explain how come Cully ends up in possession of a device called the Zorper which is also being passed around among the characters in the main story. Because the SubShafts series is so long that it causes loading problems if displayed on a single page, I have split it into sections, but these are mine rather than Rob's. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors. A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle. Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God. We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out). We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights. While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm. Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets. A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully. A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant. Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie. Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders. They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out. We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere). They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire. The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional. Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus. They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for. The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie. Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate. We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit. While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there. Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears. Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it. Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus. Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do. The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now. In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature. Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God. She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too. Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it. Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function. Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts. Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future. Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute. Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires. Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come. Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage. Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports. The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself. We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one. Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer. As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe. Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected. Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded. The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life. It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side. Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit. Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance. Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator. Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct. The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room. They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch. Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used. We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind. We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf. We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly. In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings. Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears. Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor. Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar. They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt. Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free. The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did. They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation. We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow. Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers. Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower. A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off. We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva. Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood. As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things. They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting. 3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question. They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up. Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it. Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride. They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station". Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive. First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it. The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls. Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches. I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva. Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong. She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake. Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches. Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does. Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list. They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come. Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight. Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure. They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger. They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about. She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately. Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying. SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based. Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed. Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth. Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend.. For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair. At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner. Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world. To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep. On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub. For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise. For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell. For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt. A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives. On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible. Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet". Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion. A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page. Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else. If you are seeing this text, your browser does not support inline frames
01: Flight [19/11/2018 - 04/02/2019] Rosemary and Sylvester leave Eetown, discussing whether or not Mortimer will do anything illegal with his umbrella, for a given value of "illegal". Some countries encourage magic, some ban it, but Yurpsland has no unified policy.
Mortimer and his party come to a barrier of webbing which marks the edge of Spyder territory. They cut through but are left rather gummed up: Fizmo wants Nitfol to ban Spyders when he is mayor. They begin to pass scattered fragments of ruined stone walls. Nitfol and Fizmo have not been this way before - their parents' and previous generations sometimes journeyed to the Thicket to collect special plants, but the mortality rate was high. Nitfol has more confidence in their safety now because they have the three Pales with them - but suddenly, somebody in the trees starts to throw rocks at them.
Nellie tells Violet that being there, at the Mansion, isn't safe. Violet tells her her mother wants to marry her to someone called Tim Tonbee who is above her social status, in order to advance her. Violet thinks this is foolish, both because Tim will want to marry a girl of his own class, and because the life of an aristocratic housewife is not much better than that of a working class one. She's an expert inkwrangler, but girls aren't allowed to work on the rigs because it's thought they'll bring bad luck, and they aren't allowed to work in The Barn (where she currently inkwrangles) after they marry. She doesn't want to join the Navy because she doesn't want to kill people, and she can't be an Oracle because she doesn't hear the Brush in her heart. She doesn't fancy clerking.
Ace and Diamond walk out past the guards Louis and Buddy, telling them Mr Shadwell deos not wish to be disturbed. Louis and Buddy wonder why Ace (a professional guard) gave them a disappointed look as he left. On their way out Ace and Diamond are accosted by two more serious-looking men, called Mr Stirscrim and Trymund, who ask who Ace is. Trymund says he's probably the Mundiv rep. Ace (whose mother is a Mundivagant) says that Dalton Mundivagant sent him.
Snegurka hands the file to Anushka, and seems disturbed by the fact that Frederick thanks her. Anushka hands the file to Frederick, but won't tell him who authorised her to give it to anyone who asked about Spindizzies. Frederick and Svetlana prepare to leave, but he pauses and asks Anushka if she is married and has children (yes to both).
Mortimer's party are being bombarded with rocks by a group of Tree Squids. Mortimer and the Nomes take cover in the long grass, but Nitfol says the Pales can take care of themselves. One of the Nomes, unspecified, says they need Umboz, the Squid-Coaxer, but Nitfol says these are different from the village squids. We see a brief scene of Umboz, Vezza and Piu getting on very well with the Pales at their hive. Piu seems to be learning new techniques from a Pale doctor, and Vezza and Zpeaker are looking at a device which looks like an organic version of an Ettin tool. The rocks stop coming because Thrash has knocked the Tree Squids out of their trees.
Violet tells Nellie she wants to be her apprentice gardener. Nellie is dumbstruck. She tells Violet that she isn't getting paid because she is officially retired, but Violet says the next one will be paid. She listens out for news, and knows Sylvester has been making money on stocks and will soon need new staff, as the old guard get ever older. Nellie warns Violet again that the Mansion isn't safe and her parents would never agree to her working there, but Violet says she will leave home when she comes of age.
Mr Stirscrim and Trymund wonder why Shadwell sent them to Rowade if the swap was happening today (sounds like somebody got them out of the way). Ace and Diamond say they made the swap and "didn't hear any complaints". Diamond shows Stirscrim the pass with Shadwell's sigil and he lets them pass, but he is still uneasy. Diamond tells Ace privately that Shadwell's habit was to foster rivalry among his troops, but when Stirscrim and Trymund do work together they have a fair amount of clout. She doesn't know which would come out on top if they fought. Ace asks her to show him the subtlest way out.
Anushka says her kids turned out OK "for the most part". Frederick regrets not having children of his own. His nephew Willoughby became his foster son but he died. He tried again with Willoughby's children and they too mostly turned out OK (we see that he is doubtful about Mortimer and Lenore) and with other kids who came around (we see a girl with long curly hair looking at his Fugehorn). He tells Anushka to tell her kids she loves them and give them the advice she wants to give them, because there might not be a next time. Svetlana looks stressed. She and Frederick leave and we see Snegurka come to make sure Anushka has heard an urgent debriefing summons. Anushka says she has, and calls Snegurka "ninnyhammer".
Thrash jumps down from the trees to rejoin the other two Pales. A hail of rocks follows but it begins to die down and the Pales look puzzled.
[Out-take - we see Nimue in her orchard, alive and well and growing oranges, but the scene is partly greyed out because there is so little magic in Abalone. After this Rob provided a whole sequence of four strips on Rosemary going on a blind date, and said that it was canonical, but as it is set at some indefinite time in the future I've left it in the Supplementary Art section. It does show us that the Mansion has a set Portal Point for people to teleport through.]
Nellie tells Violet to go home for now, not to wander off the path, and she will discuss with Amos and "His Grace" the possibility of taking her on as an apprentice.
Ace and Diamond go through a small door marked "Nome" into an underground complex (with rats) where Ace has to walk bent over. They are briefly accosted by a male Nome, a sort of steeplejack named Uffer whjo works in "The Heights", but they ignore him.
Svetlana still looks stressed. She starts to tell Frederick he must do something, when another woman named Idita comes to re-dress Svetlana in clothing suited to a higher rank, if she is going to escort Frederick. Svetlana looks even less happy. She is taken to a booth, where an ironic-looking woman named Alena whom she knows from school or college is assisting.
The Pales rejoin Mortimer and the Nomes, but the Tree-Squid are still throwing stones at them. Mortimer doesn't want to use magic again and Nitfol agrees, so they set off into the brambles under Nitfol's command, using the Pales' sickles to cut through. Nitfol is looking more and more like a leader. Eventually they come to a giant, pink, glowing, three-pronged crystal set in a base: Mortimer says it marks the start of the Thicket.
We cut to Rosemary and Sylvester, walking away from the town at a dignified pace they have to maintain until they pass Terin. Rosemary asks why the provincial flag is the E symbol, given that Audra played down her history. It may have had something to do with taxes, and been picked because goods with the E stamp were so widespread in the area - we see that they sold self-sealing stem bolts.
Ace and Diamond run into more Nomes, led by a very hostile older man called Roquat. He tells Ace to get out - Ace moves Diamond aside and says he'll get out when Roquat gets out of the way. Roquat draws a knife, so Ace knocks him and his companions down. As Ace and Diamond leave, one of the downed Nomes warns Ace that Diamond will stab him in the back.
Svetlana and Idita enter the booth, while Alena, who has a weapon with a rotating blade, stands guard. She and Frederick engage in mild banter, although she says he's a disruptive influence.
Fizmo asks Mortimer why humans built the Thicket, and he says the Ettins built it. Fizmo has never heard of them. Mortimer asks if the others have. Nitfol has heard stories of The Earl fighting a two-headed giant called Ettin (real Ettins had one head but two brains). Thrash indicates that this is untrue and that he knows about real Ettins. Sylvester gives them a brief history lesson and says he doesn't know why they built the Thicket, and that they are probably already too close to it - in the distance we can see a jumble of the giant glowy pink shards.
Sylvester and Rosemary discuss the flag of Moonin, which shows the ancient towers called the Beacons, but some people would prefer a lobster. The islands in that area have always fought, but a leader named Wirtanen who had a lobster flag briefly united the islands, but he didn't rule the deep landsiders who have their own flags. Rosemary agrees that the current, Beacon flag is boring, but doens't care otherwise. They reach Terin.
Diamond is glad Ace didn't kill anyone, even though she's willing to kill if necessary. She has something she needs to do which she says will be fine so long as there isn't a Backwash. This is a wave of magical power which surges out from the Infernal Engine, which extends underground and moves at a rate of a few centimetres a year. Where they are, it used to be, and it has left part of itself in place as it moved on, so they are still to some extent inside it. The Heights are jumbles of high beams left behind by the Engine, which occasionally generate magical items, which Highscalers like Uffer collect.
Frederick and Alena discuss the fact that clothes in the Spires are designed by a committee, while in Yurpsland they are mostly designed by a particular married couple.
Saturdays in the Basement [03/05/2014 - present] These strips run every Saturday and show what is going on in the Basement, parallel with what's happening above ground to Rosemary and co.. I decided to split them off onto a separate page to make the action easier to follow. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nests [03/05/2014 - 08/08/2015] The scene opens with a cavern on the wall of which is a cross between a set of bunk-beds and two layers of miniature, open-fronted rooms, made from wooden beams. These are labelled with the names of a group of female Gnoll warren-mates - Hiltsa, Lanwja, Piranom, Pergola, Skuy, Islupis, Ambri and Irnissa. Islupis is not present, or at least not visible, and Ambri is off-stage except for her hand. All we can see of Piranom is her feet (wearing shoes, in odd colours) and the ends of long hair. Hiltsa, who looks very bad-tempered, is throwing stones at the board behind Lawnja's head. Irnissa reports that Skuy and Pergola didn't come home last night. We see Skuy telling Irnissa and Piranom that she is moving to Leny Hall, and that she'll never take a mate because she has a proper job as Sina's assistant. Irnissa intends to stay at home where it's safe. We then see Skuy carrying her belongings past a memorial to the Nome War, and passing the Gnoll security guards Forfind and Findfor and the Ghast soldier Dpxbfo. [Meanwhile in an outtake a female Gnoll named Carmal delivers a pie-in-the-face to Dap, ordered by Tuft to celebrate "their" anniversary - actually the strip's eleventh anniversary. Carmal evidently is some kind of courier or perhaps a Kissogram girl.] Hamble and Squeeb discuss Othara. Hamble has thought of killing her to discourage explorers, but decides she is more useful alive: he's waiting for somebody else. ` Meanwhile, we see Wrawa (female Trog) wake from her exhausted sleep. Kottle the (Gnoll) Healer tries to speak to her but she runs off and he sends Maggle (another female Trog) to follow her and keep an eye on her. Maggle is alarmed to see that Wrawa appears to be heading for the Great Chasm, but when Wrawa reaches The Plunge and stands hovering at the edge, and Maggle calls out to her not to do it, Wrawa replies "Don't do what?" and seems not to know where she is. We see that the gap in the fence at the plunge-point originally led not to a sheer fall but to an extensible bridge, which is now tucked in under the lip of the drop. Wrawa says that she can smell something on the breeze and she is the second person to do something, and then says that she is going to prepare something for the people who will follow her and then jumps off the Plunge point in a calm, abstracted way that suggests she knows there's a soft landing below. She lands in the bushes down in the Chasm. She avoids being sucked into the chute, and instead walks along the top of it to the Trog habitat on the far side of the Chasm, where she meets Hamble and Squeeb, who have evidently gone back down there to live even though they may venture elsewhere. Wrawa remembers and likes Hamble from her childhood, and tells him how she has been affected by Rhid's chemicals and by the death of Leny. We see that Rhid himself has ended up in a hospital called the Humane Zone. Hamble warns Wrawa that this place, the deep-down Trog habitat, has an effect on people, but Wrawa seems quite keen on the idea and wants to absorb the atmosphere. She is aware of Hamble's ambitions to return to the world and make his mark; she doesn't intend to oppose him, nor to assist him at this point (and secretly feels that it will make little difference if she does). She goes to sleep, hanging uipside down from the ceiling. We see Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr awake in her sleeping pool, called by a voice of unknown origin. Ploot arrives to check on Urwyn, who has nothing to report, as there has been no activity around the Elevator. Unnoticed by them, a Smyt Sherlock Holems and Watson pass by, stalked or followed by another Smyt. Ploot fills Urwyn on with what's been going on with Sina and the new hall, and two Ghast medics, Vptwbotw and Vpfbotw, arrive with a Porta-Pool to collect their dead. Ploot prepares to drag the dead Gobule, whom he recognizes as one of Guttle's servants, away to Maw. Urwyn thanks Ploot for watching out for him and we are shown that Urwyn's friend Zugo, wearing armour, is also watching from a crack in the wall. Meanwhile the Ghasts wheel their Porta-Pool past various characters in and around Leny Hall. We see the Gnoll Muscod giving a heart-shaped flower to Folla, and two Gobules from Maw's household pushing some kind of large wheel. We see Catmorlo talking to Furphy, Satyrsong peeking at Krink, a Helipath sign-writer, Voog and an unknown female Motihaul. They pass a well where an Ichyoid is drawing water, a male Trog being led on a lead by a female Nome, a JibJib, Frag guarding the entrance to Le Tree and a female Motihaul pushing her eggs in a pram. On the walls are posters warning people about Fixits. In Time Hall they pass an Ooze, a Trog whom we saw before in Bowel Hall, and Pizzle talking to a male Motihaul Candle Monk named Crumpton. Then another Ichyoid at another well, a female Gnoll water-seller named Bujold, and a Fixit information desk, manned by a Boogieman. At the desk are a Gnoll with a flower in his hair whom we have seen before, and an unknown Gobule and male Trog, the Gobule with a bump on his head which suggests that a Fixit has been struck off him, and the Trog carrying a battered hat (not a Fixit, from the look of it). The two Ghast medics take the Porta-Pool to Amorph Hall. The area is still under lockdown, so there is nobody to meet the funeral party except Stirrer Hptwfvth and Apprentice Stirrer Hpthfvx, and a chap called Septwbfn, who pushes a handcart labelled Tangible Karma, and gives the medics a free fungus to compensate them for having had to go near the Operator. The two Stirrers place the Porta-Pool on a mark on the floor and a strange, elaborate machine, acquired directly from the SubShafts (not from the SubShaft manager Egrote) and normally cloaked from any notice, descends from the ceiling to hover over the pool and probe or stir the contents and decontaminate the contents. It seems that the SubShafts themselves are sentient but nobody knows for sure: there is a Ghast team studying them. The two Ghast Stirrers Hptwfvth and Hpthfvx bring the Porta-Poll containing the remains of Hpthbvtw - a.k.a. High Pool Third of Batch Three Hundred and Fifty Two - to the pool whence he came, and prepare to stir him back into it, with a ceremonial speech about his memories and dreams being added back into the common pool and into the Official Record. We see this happening. We go back to Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr sleeping in her pool again, and being called again to wake up. It can't be Hpthbvtw who is calling her, since we saw her being called before he was added back into the pool, but it does seem like it's probably the same pool. Some essence of the pool speaks to Hpobfvfr, taking on Hpthbvtw's form, but she objects to that so it becomes her mother Hpobvo instead. The pool, the collective consciousness, approves of Hpobfvfr's willingness to go against convention, and wants the Ghasts to go out and "engage the world", especially now with humans reappearing and the Sneeches leaving. The pool consciouisness explains to Hpobfvfr that their world, the Basement, runs on machinery behind the walls which is powered by Sneech squeezings, and without the Sneeches it's already beginning to fail. It wants Hpobfvfr to go talk to the humans, who may have useful information. She is quite keen to talk to Mortimer again. Saturdays in the Basement :: Tests [15/08/2015 - 26/03/2016] We see Shabash, one of the female Gnolls who shot at Agorn by mistake for Boromir, walking nervously through a dark place, scaring away a Doom Bee and a sort of miniature, non-sentient Saur called a Lizhopper. She passes a gap in the wall through which we see Maggle the Trog running across a lighted space, then Shabash surprises Faddle in the dark. She can smell that Faddle has been in The Place No-One Talks About, which turns out to be the cave where he was taken by and to the female Gnolls in collars, whom he refers to as Placettes. Along with "the usual phizz" they told him that the world was ending in some sense, and gave him a task to perform. Following their accidental attack on Agorn, Fanga and Shabash have split up in order to go to ground: Faddle suspects the Placettes of having engineered this to leave Shabash free to be recruited. They are joined by Carmal, who has been instructed in a vision to come and meet the Placettes' Assigned One. We see the vision in black-and-white flashback, and it looks suspiciously like Frowgler wearing the pumpkin-head costume in which he scared the Nomes. The Placettes have given Faddle three glowgem shapes which have to be inserted into sockets on some important mechanism on an upper level. The three shapes have to be inserted all at the same time into slots which are too far apart for one person to reach them simultaneously, presumably as a safety measure. They are dangerous in some way - possibly radioactive - but Faddle is better able to handle them than "normal" people (perhaps because as a Finagler he's not likely to reproduce), and has been given a backpack with a protective lining to carry them in. On their way, they pass through a "Wintergate" cave which is basically a permanent Hallowe'en display. They have to wear seasonal hats while in the Wintergate cave, and this prompts Carmal to tell Faddle about Fixits. As they reach the edge of the area inhabited by organized Basement society, they meet a Queen Snake named Marsslina, who is an aquaintance of Faddle's. We learn that the Queen Snakes and the Ecadems have some sort of secretive joint society and have their own underground greenhouse for growing food (although Queen Snakes mainly eat tunnel-rats), but their garden has been raided by Biters and so Marsslina is having to forage for a pudding-gourd for their own version of Thanksgiving. After Marsslina has moved on, Faddle says that Queen Snakes prefer to be called Empress Snakes and the three Gnolls discuss the terms Queen, Empress and Emperor. We learn that some Basement dwellers have traditional folklore about an all-powerful ancient Emperor named Ett, who is a fusion/confusion of the Ettins with the three early Earls named Ettric. The Placettes seem to have some kind of government status, since Gnolls just do as they say even if it's dangerous. Faddle reckons he and Shabash and Carmal have been chosen for this particular mission to and beyond the risky Fringes because they're expendable, whereas people like Mimsy and Piranom are too valuable to the Placettes to be risked. Faddle and co. pass through outgrowths of The Tree to reach a chamber full of Ettin machines. They drop the objects they've been carrying into slots on the machines. A human male named Mr Norton (who is really in the Spike with the Fixits, and who might be Rufus under another name) speaks to them through the machines and tells them that these machines are being activated because the technology which depended on Sneech Squeezings will soon fail. Shabash leaves, but Carmal and Faddle agree to perform other tasks for Norton, in exchange for Glowgems. Saturdays in the Basement :: Shabash and Rowbynn [02/04/2016 - 01/07/2017] Shabash gets lost and falls down a shaft at the fringes of the Basement. She lands in a reservoir, whence she is fished out and dumped into a dry service area by a green creature with a lot of tentacles and a long thin neck terminating in just eyes. It appears to be intelligent, since we see it start to fill in the hole in the ceiling through which Shabash fell, and it's using sophisticated tools. It's also holding a frog - who doesn't seem to be Frowgler. A maintenance bot then trundles up behind Shabash and first bonks and then tases her in an effort to get her to leave, seeing her as an intruder. She gets up to go, sees what she has been talking to and is amazed, because she can see it's a Metalmin and she thought all the Metalmins were long dead. The bot tells her it is the property of the Eman family and she doesn't like the idea that something sentient(ish) can be property. She names it Sparky. Sparky tells her to take her queries to "Facilities Manager Elizabeth Merrill" and the sound of the name, combined with the fact that Sparky is good at maths, makes Shabash think the Emans are Eyebolts. Shabash sets off to explore, believing that she can smell Eyebolts, but what she finds is a container garden under artificial lights. Beyond that, she finds Telic the Helipath Healer's surgery, and Crazy Rhid, heavily bandaged and strapped into a hospital bed. Telic turns out to be rather sinister. S/he injects Shabash with a paralysing agent in case she is there to murder hir - a reasonable precaution given her profession - but once she is helpless s/he starts to ruminate out loud about using her as a test subject, a clinical guinea pig. Rhid however talks hir out of it (and incidentally acknowledges both that he is a murderer himself, and that he has some well-intentioned long-term goal) so Telic dumps Shabash out in a corridor and locks the door behind her. Rhid gives Telic permission to experiment on him instead, since he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but cautions hir not to damage him too much - because Digger Odel still has a use for him. Shabash is very collapsed. As she lies on her back, trying to recover from the drug Telic gave her, a male Shallow Wyrm named Rowbynn drops down from somewhere high up and lands on her snout. Rowbynn is studying the quasi-sexual Wyrm process of "Eating", which turns out to be a kind of fusion. The Shallow Wyrm attaches to "Hooks and Trenches" on the skull of a Deep Wyrm - both male, apparently, so perhaps also female to female - and becomes permanently bound in place. The two then form a mental and physical gestalt organism which returns to the Hot Zone and stays there. Rowbynn finds that Shabash too has Hooks and Trenches, of a sort - which, as he acknowledges, raises interesting biological questions - and he is able to form a temporary bond with her which enables them to speak mind to mind, rather as we saw Hax speaking to Camora mind to mind before he took her over. Rowbynn is a member of the inner circle of the Ring of Clear Air, and as such his official rôle is to lie around being pampered and building up his strength in order to compete in some official contest to do with Eating rituals. But he had a lively mind and wanted something more, so he began investigating Shallow Wyrm society and mapping the extent of it through information he could glean while remaining with his own ring, and was surprised by how many and how different the rings were. We see vignettes of Vim, captain of the guard to the hostile Ring of the Uppermost Spire, stalking Sneckdraw the spy, and also of Kryt the observer, observing. Eventually that wasn't enough to satisfy Rowbynn's need for knowledge so he escaped from his minders and went exploring. He suspects that many others have done the same, and we see a vignette of Urwyn. Rowbynn tells Shabash that she will be able to break the link with him if she wants to, but if she lets him stay he can help her with her current lifestyle, and has "advantageous secrets to share". He knows where there are caches of human artefacts and knowledge, located by himself or by other Wyrms, and in return he wants her help in learning more about Fixits. He is very interested in them because the way they take over their "mounts'" minds seems similar to the Eating process. Shabash explains that she has a problem, related to the fact that she and Fanga were retained to assassinate Bromir. Rowbynn is aware of Bromir, who is "the hero of the Tubish Vat incident". Instead they attacked the very similar-looking Agorn, who is on a list of Gnolls who mustn't be killed. The list also includes Agorn's son Furphy, Comshaw, Mimsy, Niddle, Wittol, Swodswal and Catmorlo among others. Rowbynn hadn't known about the list but says something odd is going on with the Gnolls. Shabash went into hiding because she feared Agorn would report her to "some nob" but admits she isn't sure any of them know they are protected, although she expects Agorn to know. Rowbynn says a social facade is being maintained, and we see part of a pair of giant jaws depositing an apple for Agita. He says that an unknown nob or nobs is pushing society, especially the Gnolls, in a particular direction, but he doesn't know what or why. He is investigating out of curiosity rather than a desire to expose the truth. Shabash is hungry so they end the psychic conversation. It took less time than it felt like, but even so a hopeful slime grub is about to bite her ear. Slime grubs are not edible unless fricaseed, so Rowbynn directs her to a branch of the Tree. She has had a tiring and perplexing day, so after she has eaten Rowbynn directs her to a sleeping niche. They establish silent communication and then both fall asleep, and find themselves in a shared dream. Above them they can see the famous Skibble (although we cannot), although he doesn't look as Rowbynn imagined him - Shabash says he wears disguises. The dream becomes ever more bizarre - Rowbynn says Skibble is juggling feral ABOLs. Shabash wants to challenge Skibble with a tesselator, which appears in her hand, but Rowbynn says the Grumpy Pincher ate all the tesselators, twice. Shabash charges, Rowbynn goes to her aid, and Skibble confines them to a tight space for a zillion years "or 'til we bowbing wake up". They flibble. Saturdays in the Basement :: Leny Hall [08/07/2017 - 24/02/2018] We see Pergola the Gnoll, neart Leny Hall, looking at light spilling down from a gap in the ceiling and supporting a tiny fir tree. She has never seen a single tree on its own before, not part of The Tree, and tells Maggle the Trog that a woman called Swinthin had told her about free-standing trees, after she and some others had gone outside to the forest to capture Raviners for breeding, so they could extract Raviner ichor (we see a female Motihaul named Swidnica selling it), but the Raviners got loose and became a pest. Pergola has never dared to above ground herself, even after the tunnel was put in, because of the scary stories (in her imagination Nomes seem as scary as Spyders and Tree-Squids) and because it all seemed overwhelming. She loves plants and manages to nurture a few with artificial light, but she thinks if she saw plants growing freely in the sun and rain she would stay up there and never come home. Maggle has been to the doorway and only saw clouds and rain and too much light which hurt her eyes, but she is willing to go out with Pergola and guide her back. Pergola asks Maggle to tell Sina about the tree and the gap to the outside which they could work on to make their own exit - and which forest creatures can enter through. Maggle says Sina is very busy - we see Maggle talking to a female Eyebolt secretary - and that Sina and Sprocket are busy talking to Spindizzies. Maggle hasn't been to see the Spindizzies because she has no particular questions to ask them, even though she spends a lot of time exploring. She does it for fun, and often gets into trouble - she's not driven like Pergola. Pergola grew up on a fungus farm but became more interested in the weeds. Maggle works on a farm at times, to earn money when she gets bored with eating fungi and slime grubs. Most people can't eat them, but Maggle is a darkpelter Trog and is special. Darkpelters only crop up occasionally and randomly. They are resistant to poisons, and more likely to pair up with Nomes (although Maggle has her eye on a fellow Trog). Because of her resistance to toxins she helped to eradicate a dangerous plant called a jab-bramble which has harmful uses - we see a flash of Rhid doing something sinister with a ball of something. They meet up with Finimbrun, who is carrying a large domino, maybe 10" long. Rhid had left a set scattered around, and Finimbrun doesn't know what they are or whether they are dangerous or not. Pergola is wary of devices but Finimbrun thinks she's a hypocrite, because plants are just as dangerous and she was involved with the Crudbean, or at least knew Crud. She and Crud had neigbouring plots. He was sad after the death of his wife, and had a lot of equipment which was being funded by somebody else. She was nearby when the Crudbean erupted, but so were many other people. Comshaw interviewed her and then killed the Crudbean with one of Rhid's devices, and Pergola profited because souvenir hunters bought all her plants in the hope that they had been contaminated with traces of Crudbean, although it still wasn't enough for her to get her own place. Finimbrun lives with Kashkavala, who is an animal expert and food technician. We see her talking to a tunnel-rat called Snert. Timf calls Pergola to come and sort out some blorp plants, so she goes off, leaving Maggle looking warily at a flickering light. There is an odd little scene where Tuft the Gobule and Dap the Gnoll are agreeing that some large-scale thing has gone wrong, but Dap can't be arsed to find out what. Of to the side of them we see a machine that seems to be flaring off gas. Saturdays in the Basement :: Nitid the Helipath [03/03/2018 - present] We see Nitid the artist and Flange the engineer, both Helipaths, talking. Flange, who is working on a junction box, is on his own because Sprocket the Gnoll has gone off courting with Sina, which Helipaths consider very inefficient. There are a lot of wiring problems at the moment - Nitid wonders if this is to do with the previous day, which the Observatory staff say was The Day That Changed Everything, but Flange is skeptical. S/he and Sprocket did some work at the Observatory and were not impressed by their record-keeping. [Out-take: we see an elderly male Gnoll named Skritch fishing, to commemorate the death of Patrick McManus.] Nitid asks Flange if s/he recognises a particular symbol. Flange says if it were rotated it would become a symbol important to Humans (it's a fancy capital E). Flange is inclined to believe that Humans still exist. Flange goes off to do more engineering work, and Nitid goes to the Time Hall, where s/he talks to a female Ecadem named Fyke. Fyke is sad because yesterday a male Ecadem named Smyth, who was working as a bouncer, died in the fight at Le Tree, without ever having found a mate, and there are so few Ecadems left. His friends had tried to talk him out of taking such a dangerous job, as Ecadems are fragile. Fyke has her name painted on her side, which Nitid refreshes for her for free. It has something to do with the worship of the Brush and bearing witness in some way. The sect to which Fyke, who is a bit of a fanatic, belongs believe that there are holy Emissaries living behind the sun, and that the sun turns into the moon at night, covered with mysterious runes. The moon must not be breached but the sun should be, and a Jibjib named Speedy tried to fly to the sun to do this, but fell back exhausted. Fyke thinks they should build a tower to reach the sun, using the Mansion as a base. She thinks the Council will do this sort of thing; Nitid supported the sending of a Helipath named Aprat to join the Council but believes it won't achieve much because Agita, Nevus and Guttle will thwart it. A Boogieman named Trevor summons Fyke away to help deal with a situation. Nitid enters the Hall of the Brush, monitored by a female Eyebolt named Evulgate, who reports to a male ditto named Fremescent. Evulgate is collecting credits awarded to her for sharp observation, but needs another 23 credits before she will even be told what events are credit-worthy. In the Hall of the Brush, Nitid speaks to an elderly-looking Gobule priest named Kalon. Nitid isn't really sure why s/he came: Kalon goes through a list of possibilities and they decide that Nitid feels alienated from hir community. S/he does not want to talk to Nefast, a Helipath who is an Ear of the Brush, so Kalon suggests s/he should talk to Febrifuge. Febrifuge is somebody who keeps a record of favours owed, as a kind of currency, but that's not why Kalon thinks Nitid should speak to him or her. The Hall of the Brush is full of different sects. We see a male Trog holding a flower in a pot, wearing a flower on his head and declaring that "The Bloom is Eternal" to a Gnoll Doomsayer who says that "The End if Nigh", and a male Motihaul in a hooded robe debating theology with a Gnoll Beebler. At Febrifuge's door Nitid meets Shona, who has come to deposit a favour to return the one done her by Comshaw and Niddle the day before. A male Gnoll, a Spelling Guild member, OKs Nitid's spelling of hir own name on hir own forehad. The Guildsman then goes and shouts at two Doomsayers who have spelled their placards wrong. Meanwhile Pizzle turns up and asks Nitid to exchange one seed for another, which Nitid does. Tiny flags pass by low down in the frame, and the Gnoll Irnissa appears with two plants in a pot, and says that the League of Short People are on the march. Irnissa is just there to deliver plants, and assumes Nitid is also there as a professional. They discuss Leny Hall - Irnissa thinks anyone going near Crazy Rhid's old place is crazy themselves - and a male Motihaul in a lurid superhero costume passes them, carrying a alrge grasshopper impaled on a fork. Shone is in with Febrifuge, depositing favours she owes to Comshaw and Niddle. Irnissa considers Niddle far more impressive than Comshaw and says he's changing the world through his Finagling, although she herself only "fools around" and doesn't mate (only couples with a Finagler have young). She thinks Comshaw married Camora for her money. Sundays in the SubShafts [03/09/2006 - present] The timeline of the SubShaft 44f strips is confusing. The series is used as a foil for seasonal gags about e.g. Hallowe'en but given how short-lived Gnolls are, the jokes for a given season are certainly not taking place annually within the story, and the strip for 25th March 2012 and comments by Rob confirm that these events are happening roughly parallel with events in the main strip, meaning that up until 16th July 2013 they take place during the course of a single day. This means that one has to explain how come Cully ends up in possession of a device called the Zorper which is also being passed around among the characters in the main story. Because the SubShafts series is so long that it causes loading problems if displayed on a single page, I have split it into sections, but these are mine rather than Rob's. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors. A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle. Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God. We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out). We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights. While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm. Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets. A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully. A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant. Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie. Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders. They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out. We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere). They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire. The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional. Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus. They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for. The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie. Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate. We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit. While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there. Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears. Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it. Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus. Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do. The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now. In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature. Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God. She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too. Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it. Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function. Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts. Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future. Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute. Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires. Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come. Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage. Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports. The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself. We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one. Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer. As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe. Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected. Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded. The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life. It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side. Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit. Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance. Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator. Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct. The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room. They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch. Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used. We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind. We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf. We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly. In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings. Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears. Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor. Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar. They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt. Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free. The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did. They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation. We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow. Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers. Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower. A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off. We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva. Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood. As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things. They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting. 3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question. They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up. Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it. Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride. They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station". Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive. First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it. The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls. Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches. I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva. Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong. She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake. Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches. Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does. Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list. They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come. Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight. Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure. They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger. They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about. She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately. Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying. SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based. Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed. Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth. Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend.. For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair. At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner. Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world. To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep. On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub. For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise. For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell. For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt. A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives. On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible. Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet". Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion. A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page. Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else. If you are seeing this text, your browser does not support inline frames
Saturdays in the Basement :: Nests [03/05/2014 - 08/08/2015] The scene opens with a cavern on the wall of which is a cross between a set of bunk-beds and two layers of miniature, open-fronted rooms, made from wooden beams. These are labelled with the names of a group of female Gnoll warren-mates - Hiltsa, Lanwja, Piranom, Pergola, Skuy, Islupis, Ambri and Irnissa. Islupis is not present, or at least not visible, and Ambri is off-stage except for her hand. All we can see of Piranom is her feet (wearing shoes, in odd colours) and the ends of long hair. Hiltsa, who looks very bad-tempered, is throwing stones at the board behind Lawnja's head. Irnissa reports that Skuy and Pergola didn't come home last night. We see Skuy telling Irnissa and Piranom that she is moving to Leny Hall, and that she'll never take a mate because she has a proper job as Sina's assistant. Irnissa intends to stay at home where it's safe. We then see Skuy carrying her belongings past a memorial to the Nome War, and passing the Gnoll security guards Forfind and Findfor and the Ghast soldier Dpxbfo.
[Meanwhile in an outtake a female Gnoll named Carmal delivers a pie-in-the-face to Dap, ordered by Tuft to celebrate "their" anniversary - actually the strip's eleventh anniversary. Carmal evidently is some kind of courier or perhaps a Kissogram girl.]
Hamble and Squeeb discuss Othara. Hamble has thought of killing her to discourage explorers, but decides she is more useful alive: he's waiting for somebody else. `
Meanwhile, we see Wrawa (female Trog) wake from her exhausted sleep. Kottle the (Gnoll) Healer tries to speak to her but she runs off and he sends Maggle (another female Trog) to follow her and keep an eye on her. Maggle is alarmed to see that Wrawa appears to be heading for the Great Chasm, but when Wrawa reaches The Plunge and stands hovering at the edge, and Maggle calls out to her not to do it, Wrawa replies "Don't do what?" and seems not to know where she is. We see that the gap in the fence at the plunge-point originally led not to a sheer fall but to an extensible bridge, which is now tucked in under the lip of the drop.
Wrawa says that she can smell something on the breeze and she is the second person to do something, and then says that she is going to prepare something for the people who will follow her and then jumps off the Plunge point in a calm, abstracted way that suggests she knows there's a soft landing below. She lands in the bushes down in the Chasm. She avoids being sucked into the chute, and instead walks along the top of it to the Trog habitat on the far side of the Chasm, where she meets Hamble and Squeeb, who have evidently gone back down there to live even though they may venture elsewhere. Wrawa remembers and likes Hamble from her childhood, and tells him how she has been affected by Rhid's chemicals and by the death of Leny. We see that Rhid himself has ended up in a hospital called the Humane Zone.
Hamble warns Wrawa that this place, the deep-down Trog habitat, has an effect on people, but Wrawa seems quite keen on the idea and wants to absorb the atmosphere. She is aware of Hamble's ambitions to return to the world and make his mark; she doesn't intend to oppose him, nor to assist him at this point (and secretly feels that it will make little difference if she does). She goes to sleep, hanging uipside down from the ceiling.
We see Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr awake in her sleeping pool, called by a voice of unknown origin.
Ploot arrives to check on Urwyn, who has nothing to report, as there has been no activity around the Elevator. Unnoticed by them, a Smyt Sherlock Holems and Watson pass by, stalked or followed by another Smyt. Ploot fills Urwyn on with what's been going on with Sina and the new hall, and two Ghast medics, Vptwbotw and Vpfbotw, arrive with a Porta-Pool to collect their dead. Ploot prepares to drag the dead Gobule, whom he recognizes as one of Guttle's servants, away to Maw. Urwyn thanks Ploot for watching out for him and we are shown that Urwyn's friend Zugo, wearing armour, is also watching from a crack in the wall.
Meanwhile the Ghasts wheel their Porta-Pool past various characters in and around Leny Hall. We see the Gnoll Muscod giving a heart-shaped flower to Folla, and two Gobules from Maw's household pushing some kind of large wheel. We see Catmorlo talking to Furphy, Satyrsong peeking at Krink, a Helipath sign-writer, Voog and an unknown female Motihaul. They pass a well where an Ichyoid is drawing water, a male Trog being led on a lead by a female Nome, a JibJib, Frag guarding the entrance to Le Tree and a female Motihaul pushing her eggs in a pram. On the walls are posters warning people about Fixits. In Time Hall they pass an Ooze, a Trog whom we saw before in Bowel Hall, and Pizzle talking to a male Motihaul Candle Monk named Crumpton. Then another Ichyoid at another well, a female Gnoll water-seller named Bujold, and a Fixit information desk, manned by a Boogieman. At the desk are a Gnoll with a flower in his hair whom we have seen before, and an unknown Gobule and male Trog, the Gobule with a bump on his head which suggests that a Fixit has been struck off him, and the Trog carrying a battered hat (not a Fixit, from the look of it).
The two Ghast medics take the Porta-Pool to Amorph Hall. The area is still under lockdown, so there is nobody to meet the funeral party except Stirrer Hptwfvth and Apprentice Stirrer Hpthfvx, and a chap called Septwbfn, who pushes a handcart labelled Tangible Karma, and gives the medics a free fungus to compensate them for having had to go near the Operator. The two Stirrers place the Porta-Pool on a mark on the floor and a strange, elaborate machine, acquired directly from the SubShafts (not from the SubShaft manager Egrote) and normally cloaked from any notice, descends from the ceiling to hover over the pool and probe or stir the contents and decontaminate the contents. It seems that the SubShafts themselves are sentient but nobody knows for sure: there is a Ghast team studying them.
The two Ghast Stirrers Hptwfvth and Hpthfvx bring the Porta-Poll containing the remains of Hpthbvtw - a.k.a. High Pool Third of Batch Three Hundred and Fifty Two - to the pool whence he came, and prepare to stir him back into it, with a ceremonial speech about his memories and dreams being added back into the common pool and into the Official Record. We see this happening.
We go back to Squadron Leader Hpobfvfr sleeping in her pool again, and being called again to wake up. It can't be Hpthbvtw who is calling her, since we saw her being called before he was added back into the pool, but it does seem like it's probably the same pool. Some essence of the pool speaks to Hpobfvfr, taking on Hpthbvtw's form, but she objects to that so it becomes her mother Hpobvo instead. The pool, the collective consciousness, approves of Hpobfvfr's willingness to go against convention, and wants the Ghasts to go out and "engage the world", especially now with humans reappearing and the Sneeches leaving. The pool consciouisness explains to Hpobfvfr that their world, the Basement, runs on machinery behind the walls which is powered by Sneech squeezings, and without the Sneeches it's already beginning to fail. It wants Hpobfvfr to go talk to the humans, who may have useful information. She is quite keen to talk to Mortimer again.
Saturdays in the Basement :: Tests [15/08/2015 - 26/03/2016] We see Shabash, one of the female Gnolls who shot at Agorn by mistake for Boromir, walking nervously through a dark place, scaring away a Doom Bee and a sort of miniature, non-sentient Saur called a Lizhopper. She passes a gap in the wall through which we see Maggle the Trog running across a lighted space, then Shabash surprises Faddle in the dark. She can smell that Faddle has been in The Place No-One Talks About, which turns out to be the cave where he was taken by and to the female Gnolls in collars, whom he refers to as Placettes. Along with "the usual phizz" they told him that the world was ending in some sense, and gave him a task to perform. Following their accidental attack on Agorn, Fanga and Shabash have split up in order to go to ground: Faddle suspects the Placettes of having engineered this to leave Shabash free to be recruited.
They are joined by Carmal, who has been instructed in a vision to come and meet the Placettes' Assigned One. We see the vision in black-and-white flashback, and it looks suspiciously like Frowgler wearing the pumpkin-head costume in which he scared the Nomes.
The Placettes have given Faddle three glowgem shapes which have to be inserted into sockets on some important mechanism on an upper level. The three shapes have to be inserted all at the same time into slots which are too far apart for one person to reach them simultaneously, presumably as a safety measure. They are dangerous in some way - possibly radioactive - but Faddle is better able to handle them than "normal" people (perhaps because as a Finagler he's not likely to reproduce), and has been given a backpack with a protective lining to carry them in.
On their way, they pass through a "Wintergate" cave which is basically a permanent Hallowe'en display. They have to wear seasonal hats while in the Wintergate cave, and this prompts Carmal to tell Faddle about Fixits.
As they reach the edge of the area inhabited by organized Basement society, they meet a Queen Snake named Marsslina, who is an aquaintance of Faddle's. We learn that the Queen Snakes and the Ecadems have some sort of secretive joint society and have their own underground greenhouse for growing food (although Queen Snakes mainly eat tunnel-rats), but their garden has been raided by Biters and so Marsslina is having to forage for a pudding-gourd for their own version of Thanksgiving. After Marsslina has moved on, Faddle says that Queen Snakes prefer to be called Empress Snakes and the three Gnolls discuss the terms Queen, Empress and Emperor. We learn that some Basement dwellers have traditional folklore about an all-powerful ancient Emperor named Ett, who is a fusion/confusion of the Ettins with the three early Earls named Ettric.
The Placettes seem to have some kind of government status, since Gnolls just do as they say even if it's dangerous. Faddle reckons he and Shabash and Carmal have been chosen for this particular mission to and beyond the risky Fringes because they're expendable, whereas people like Mimsy and Piranom are too valuable to the Placettes to be risked.
Faddle and co. pass through outgrowths of The Tree to reach a chamber full of Ettin machines. They drop the objects they've been carrying into slots on the machines. A human male named Mr Norton (who is really in the Spike with the Fixits, and who might be Rufus under another name) speaks to them through the machines and tells them that these machines are being activated because the technology which depended on Sneech Squeezings will soon fail. Shabash leaves, but Carmal and Faddle agree to perform other tasks for Norton, in exchange for Glowgems.
Saturdays in the Basement :: Shabash and Rowbynn [02/04/2016 - 01/07/2017] Shabash gets lost and falls down a shaft at the fringes of the Basement. She lands in a reservoir, whence she is fished out and dumped into a dry service area by a green creature with a lot of tentacles and a long thin neck terminating in just eyes. It appears to be intelligent, since we see it start to fill in the hole in the ceiling through which Shabash fell, and it's using sophisticated tools. It's also holding a frog - who doesn't seem to be Frowgler.
A maintenance bot then trundles up behind Shabash and first bonks and then tases her in an effort to get her to leave, seeing her as an intruder. She gets up to go, sees what she has been talking to and is amazed, because she can see it's a Metalmin and she thought all the Metalmins were long dead. The bot tells her it is the property of the Eman family and she doesn't like the idea that something sentient(ish) can be property. She names it Sparky. Sparky tells her to take her queries to "Facilities Manager Elizabeth Merrill" and the sound of the name, combined with the fact that Sparky is good at maths, makes Shabash think the Emans are Eyebolts.
Shabash sets off to explore, believing that she can smell Eyebolts, but what she finds is a container garden under artificial lights. Beyond that, she finds Telic the Helipath Healer's surgery, and Crazy Rhid, heavily bandaged and strapped into a hospital bed. Telic turns out to be rather sinister. S/he injects Shabash with a paralysing agent in case she is there to murder hir - a reasonable precaution given her profession - but once she is helpless s/he starts to ruminate out loud about using her as a test subject, a clinical guinea pig. Rhid however talks hir out of it (and incidentally acknowledges both that he is a murderer himself, and that he has some well-intentioned long-term goal) so Telic dumps Shabash out in a corridor and locks the door behind her. Rhid gives Telic permission to experiment on him instead, since he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but cautions hir not to damage him too much - because Digger Odel still has a use for him.
Shabash is very collapsed. As she lies on her back, trying to recover from the drug Telic gave her, a male Shallow Wyrm named Rowbynn drops down from somewhere high up and lands on her snout. Rowbynn is studying the quasi-sexual Wyrm process of "Eating", which turns out to be a kind of fusion. The Shallow Wyrm attaches to "Hooks and Trenches" on the skull of a Deep Wyrm - both male, apparently, so perhaps also female to female - and becomes permanently bound in place. The two then form a mental and physical gestalt organism which returns to the Hot Zone and stays there. Rowbynn finds that Shabash too has Hooks and Trenches, of a sort - which, as he acknowledges, raises interesting biological questions - and he is able to form a temporary bond with her which enables them to speak mind to mind, rather as we saw Hax speaking to Camora mind to mind before he took her over.
Rowbynn is a member of the inner circle of the Ring of Clear Air, and as such his official rôle is to lie around being pampered and building up his strength in order to compete in some official contest to do with Eating rituals. But he had a lively mind and wanted something more, so he began investigating Shallow Wyrm society and mapping the extent of it through information he could glean while remaining with his own ring, and was surprised by how many and how different the rings were. We see vignettes of Vim, captain of the guard to the hostile Ring of the Uppermost Spire, stalking Sneckdraw the spy, and also of Kryt the observer, observing. Eventually that wasn't enough to satisfy Rowbynn's need for knowledge so he escaped from his minders and went exploring. He suspects that many others have done the same, and we see a vignette of Urwyn.
Rowbynn tells Shabash that she will be able to break the link with him if she wants to, but if she lets him stay he can help her with her current lifestyle, and has "advantageous secrets to share". He knows where there are caches of human artefacts and knowledge, located by himself or by other Wyrms, and in return he wants her help in learning more about Fixits. He is very interested in them because the way they take over their "mounts'" minds seems similar to the Eating process.
Shabash explains that she has a problem, related to the fact that she and Fanga were retained to assassinate Bromir. Rowbynn is aware of Bromir, who is "the hero of the Tubish Vat incident". Instead they attacked the very similar-looking Agorn, who is on a list of Gnolls who mustn't be killed. The list also includes Agorn's son Furphy, Comshaw, Mimsy, Niddle, Wittol, Swodswal and Catmorlo among others. Rowbynn hadn't known about the list but says something odd is going on with the Gnolls. Shabash went into hiding because she feared Agorn would report her to "some nob" but admits she isn't sure any of them know they are protected, although she expects Agorn to know. Rowbynn says a social facade is being maintained, and we see part of a pair of giant jaws depositing an apple for Agita. He says that an unknown nob or nobs is pushing society, especially the Gnolls, in a particular direction, but he doesn't know what or why. He is investigating out of curiosity rather than a desire to expose the truth.
Shabash is hungry so they end the psychic conversation. It took less time than it felt like, but even so a hopeful slime grub is about to bite her ear. Slime grubs are not edible unless fricaseed, so Rowbynn directs her to a branch of the Tree. She has had a tiring and perplexing day, so after she has eaten Rowbynn directs her to a sleeping niche. They establish silent communication and then both fall asleep, and find themselves in a shared dream. Above them they can see the famous Skibble (although we cannot), although he doesn't look as Rowbynn imagined him - Shabash says he wears disguises. The dream becomes ever more bizarre - Rowbynn says Skibble is juggling feral ABOLs. Shabash wants to challenge Skibble with a tesselator, which appears in her hand, but Rowbynn says the Grumpy Pincher ate all the tesselators, twice. Shabash charges, Rowbynn goes to her aid, and Skibble confines them to a tight space for a zillion years "or 'til we bowbing wake up". They flibble.
Saturdays in the Basement :: Leny Hall [08/07/2017 - 24/02/2018] We see Pergola the Gnoll, neart Leny Hall, looking at light spilling down from a gap in the ceiling and supporting a tiny fir tree. She has never seen a single tree on its own before, not part of The Tree, and tells Maggle the Trog that a woman called Swinthin had told her about free-standing trees, after she and some others had gone outside to the forest to capture Raviners for breeding, so they could extract Raviner ichor (we see a female Motihaul named Swidnica selling it), but the Raviners got loose and became a pest. Pergola has never dared to above ground herself, even after the tunnel was put in, because of the scary stories (in her imagination Nomes seem as scary as Spyders and Tree-Squids) and because it all seemed overwhelming. She loves plants and manages to nurture a few with artificial light, but she thinks if she saw plants growing freely in the sun and rain she would stay up there and never come home. Maggle has been to the doorway and only saw clouds and rain and too much light which hurt her eyes, but she is willing to go out with Pergola and guide her back. Pergola asks Maggle to tell Sina about the tree and the gap to the outside which they could work on to make their own exit - and which forest creatures can enter through.
Maggle says Sina is very busy - we see Maggle talking to a female Eyebolt secretary - and that Sina and Sprocket are busy talking to Spindizzies. Maggle hasn't been to see the Spindizzies because she has no particular questions to ask them, even though she spends a lot of time exploring. She does it for fun, and often gets into trouble - she's not driven like Pergola. Pergola grew up on a fungus farm but became more interested in the weeds. Maggle works on a farm at times, to earn money when she gets bored with eating fungi and slime grubs. Most people can't eat them, but Maggle is a darkpelter Trog and is special. Darkpelters only crop up occasionally and randomly. They are resistant to poisons, and more likely to pair up with Nomes (although Maggle has her eye on a fellow Trog). Because of her resistance to toxins she helped to eradicate a dangerous plant called a jab-bramble which has harmful uses - we see a flash of Rhid doing something sinister with a ball of something.
They meet up with Finimbrun, who is carrying a large domino, maybe 10" long. Rhid had left a set scattered around, and Finimbrun doesn't know what they are or whether they are dangerous or not. Pergola is wary of devices but Finimbrun thinks she's a hypocrite, because plants are just as dangerous and she was involved with the Crudbean, or at least knew Crud. She and Crud had neigbouring plots. He was sad after the death of his wife, and had a lot of equipment which was being funded by somebody else. She was nearby when the Crudbean erupted, but so were many other people. Comshaw interviewed her and then killed the Crudbean with one of Rhid's devices, and Pergola profited because souvenir hunters bought all her plants in the hope that they had been contaminated with traces of Crudbean, although it still wasn't enough for her to get her own place. Finimbrun lives with Kashkavala, who is an animal expert and food technician. We see her talking to a tunnel-rat called Snert.
Timf calls Pergola to come and sort out some blorp plants, so she goes off, leaving Maggle looking warily at a flickering light. There is an odd little scene where Tuft the Gobule and Dap the Gnoll are agreeing that some large-scale thing has gone wrong, but Dap can't be arsed to find out what. Of to the side of them we see a machine that seems to be flaring off gas.
Saturdays in the Basement :: Nitid the Helipath [03/03/2018 - present] We see Nitid the artist and Flange the engineer, both Helipaths, talking. Flange, who is working on a junction box, is on his own because Sprocket the Gnoll has gone off courting with Sina, which Helipaths consider very inefficient. There are a lot of wiring problems at the moment - Nitid wonders if this is to do with the previous day, which the Observatory staff say was The Day That Changed Everything, but Flange is skeptical. S/he and Sprocket did some work at the Observatory and were not impressed by their record-keeping.
[Out-take: we see an elderly male Gnoll named Skritch fishing, to commemorate the death of Patrick McManus.]
Nitid asks Flange if s/he recognises a particular symbol. Flange says if it were rotated it would become a symbol important to Humans (it's a fancy capital E). Flange is inclined to believe that Humans still exist.
Flange goes off to do more engineering work, and Nitid goes to the Time Hall, where s/he talks to a female Ecadem named Fyke. Fyke is sad because yesterday a male Ecadem named Smyth, who was working as a bouncer, died in the fight at Le Tree, without ever having found a mate, and there are so few Ecadems left. His friends had tried to talk him out of taking such a dangerous job, as Ecadems are fragile. Fyke has her name painted on her side, which Nitid refreshes for her for free. It has something to do with the worship of the Brush and bearing witness in some way. The sect to which Fyke, who is a bit of a fanatic, belongs believe that there are holy Emissaries living behind the sun, and that the sun turns into the moon at night, covered with mysterious runes. The moon must not be breached but the sun should be, and a Jibjib named Speedy tried to fly to the sun to do this, but fell back exhausted. Fyke thinks they should build a tower to reach the sun, using the Mansion as a base. She thinks the Council will do this sort of thing; Nitid supported the sending of a Helipath named Aprat to join the Council but believes it won't achieve much because Agita, Nevus and Guttle will thwart it.
A Boogieman named Trevor summons Fyke away to help deal with a situation. Nitid enters the Hall of the Brush, monitored by a female Eyebolt named Evulgate, who reports to a male ditto named Fremescent. Evulgate is collecting credits awarded to her for sharp observation, but needs another 23 credits before she will even be told what events are credit-worthy.
In the Hall of the Brush, Nitid speaks to an elderly-looking Gobule priest named Kalon. Nitid isn't really sure why s/he came: Kalon goes through a list of possibilities and they decide that Nitid feels alienated from hir community. S/he does not want to talk to Nefast, a Helipath who is an Ear of the Brush, so Kalon suggests s/he should talk to Febrifuge. Febrifuge is somebody who keeps a record of favours owed, as a kind of currency, but that's not why Kalon thinks Nitid should speak to him or her.
The Hall of the Brush is full of different sects. We see a male Trog holding a flower in a pot, wearing a flower on his head and declaring that "The Bloom is Eternal" to a Gnoll Doomsayer who says that "The End if Nigh", and a male Motihaul in a hooded robe debating theology with a Gnoll Beebler. At Febrifuge's door Nitid meets Shona, who has come to deposit a favour to return the one done her by Comshaw and Niddle the day before. A male Gnoll, a Spelling Guild member, OKs Nitid's spelling of hir own name on hir own forehad. The Guildsman then goes and shouts at two Doomsayers who have spelled their placards wrong. Meanwhile Pizzle turns up and asks Nitid to exchange one seed for another, which Nitid does. Tiny flags pass by low down in the frame, and the Gnoll Irnissa appears with two plants in a pot, and says that the League of Short People are on the march.
Irnissa is just there to deliver plants, and assumes Nitid is also there as a professional. They discuss Leny Hall - Irnissa thinks anyone going near Crazy Rhid's old place is crazy themselves - and a male Motihaul in a lurid superhero costume passes them, carrying a alrge grasshopper impaled on a fork. Shone is in with Febrifuge, depositing favours she owes to Comshaw and Niddle. Irnissa considers Niddle far more impressive than Comshaw and says he's changing the world through his Finagling, although she herself only "fools around" and doesn't mate (only couples with a Finagler have young). She thinks Comshaw married Camora for her money.
Sundays in the SubShafts [03/09/2006 - present] The timeline of the SubShaft 44f strips is confusing. The series is used as a foil for seasonal gags about e.g. Hallowe'en but given how short-lived Gnolls are, the jokes for a given season are certainly not taking place annually within the story, and the strip for 25th March 2012 and comments by Rob confirm that these events are happening roughly parallel with events in the main strip, meaning that up until 16th July 2013 they take place during the course of a single day. This means that one has to explain how come Cully ends up in possession of a device called the Zorper which is also being passed around among the characters in the main story.
Because the SubShafts series is so long that it causes loading problems if displayed on a single page, I have split it into sections, but these are mine rather than Rob's. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors. A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle. Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God. We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out). We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights. While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm. Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets. A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully. A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant. Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie. Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders. They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out. We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere). They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire. The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional. Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus. They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for. The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie. Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate. We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit. While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there. Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears. Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it. Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus. Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do. The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now. In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature. Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God. She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too. Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it. Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function. Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts. Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future. Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute. Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires. Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come. Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage. Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports. The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself. We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one. Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer. As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe. Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected. Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded. The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life. It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side. Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far. Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit. Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance. Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator. Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct. The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room. They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch. Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used. We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind. We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf. We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly. In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings. Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears. Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor. Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar. They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt. Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free. The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did. They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation. We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow. Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers. Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower. A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off. We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva. Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood. As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things. They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting. 3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question. They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up. Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it. Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride. They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station". Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive. First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it. The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls. Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches. I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva. Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong. She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake. Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches. Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does. Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list. They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come. Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight. Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure. They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger. They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about. She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately. Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying. SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based. Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed. Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth. Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend.. For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair. At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner. Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world. To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers. After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep. On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub. For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise. For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell. For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt. A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives. On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible. Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet". Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion. A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page. Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else. If you are seeing this text, your browser does not support inline frames
Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 1 :: Distractions [03/09/2006 - 11/10/2009] The story begins with Skuy's boyfriend Cully moving to the tangle of little machinery-filled tunnels called the SubShafts to get away from trouble with Nevus; a trouble which probably occurred not more than a couple of months or less than a couple of weeks before the start of the main story. Cully, directed there by somebody called Coprolite, arrives in SubShaft 44f and meets his new Gnoll room-mates, Chunner and Crud. Crud is the botanist who grew the Crudbean (with some assistance from Crazy Rhid), and is very touchy and excitable about it, and about Mugwumps. Cully is replacing someone called Cunskite who came to some sort of bad end (we later learn he probably had a heart attack after a wild sex-session with their female neighbours). Their being there is seen as a punishment detail, even for their supervisors.
A chute sends down tokens which warn of an event about to happen. The first event is that their tunnel fills with Sneech squeezings, which we learn are illegal but commercially valuable (and that Crescent Hall is where the society bigwigs live). As they get close to drowning in the electric-green liquid Cully shouts out about the Crudbean and the Mugwumps and Crud goes into a frenzy and disperses it. Exposure to the squeezings causes magical effects - they are briefly dressed as leprechauns in green hats, and Crud says that "old Patick" wore a hat like this, only black - presumably a Fixit. After a series of magical changes Cully is left holding an egg with an "E" on it, and Crud finds a string belonging to Bokonon (the friend of Digger, Anathama and Clochard who was actually compiling a report on Crud), and plays cat's cradle.
Cully's egg hatches into an aggressive, abusive life-form which Cully eats, causing him to develop hiccups which are cured with a weird cure developed by a mad genius called Loomboggle. Chunner, we learn, is Bokonon's replacement, after Bokonon left, he said, to climb to the top of the world and thumb his nose at God.
We learn that Rhid is an expert on Sneeches, often goes to talk to them, and says (in contrast with Umboz) that they are people like anybody else. Crud used Sneech squeezings from Rhid to make the Crudbean (which he can now discuss without freaking out).
We learn that nearly all the SubShafts are occupied and some are much worse to live in. 44h has a machine that spits out holiday fireworks. A machine in their own shaft spits out Sploo, a kind of mousse in various flavours, and also turns the lights off at a handclap. Crud turns the lights off and can't turn them on again, and something in the dark takes him. A thing like a pincer holding a charging-up laser weapon appears and gives some light, but it zaps Cully and Chunner while they are trying to turn the regular lights back on by throwing rocks at a switch. They knock out the zapper and hit the switch, which tells someone elsewhere to turn on the lights.
While they are waiting, holiday illuminations come on, and we learn that they call Hallowe'en "Wintergate", and that Cully at least tries to read old human books, and that Chunner used to be an athlete of some kind (a snout balancer). Crud returns, saying that "they" let him go because he told them there was a new guy. "They" carry Cully away and turn out to be two randy female Gnolls (who we later learn are called Dandilli and Dipsoma, and they have a third called Difonia whom we don't see at this point) about whose attentions Cully has mixed feelings. Cunskite died after being carried off by them, but he was old and infirm.
Meanwhile a Boogieman named Clive turns up at 44f and washes the purple Sploo off Chunner and Crud, just before the pipe spews out yellow paint. Cully returns with Treefruit given him by the girls - it tastes bad, but the fruit in the Fluffy Foofoo Cave is worse, and there is a place no-one talks about, deep below, where it's worse still. Crud used to be engaged to Cacocala. Crud snaps his fingers and the machine sends them Dornbeast-wart Sploo pie, which attracts flutterbys, which they eat, except one who steals Cully's earwax. The pie tins make good helmets.
A thing like a WW2 mine lands on Crud, counts down in Ettin then fires off rockets most of which fly off to other SubShafts. Crud gets stuck inside it and presses a button which causes a magical event in which the other two are decolourised. The pincer/laser-zapper thing reappears, speaking in Ettin script, and Crud talks to it, or to whoever is operating it, and says that Cully may be more suitable than Chunner to take his, Crud's place. The zapper and Bokonon told Crud things about what's going on which may or may not be true, and which he will gradually tell to Cully.
A glove on an expanding gantry thing, called the Taphand, taps Crud on the shoulder and draws his attention to Cully and Chunner, so he sends it to get a thing to summon a thing to recolourise them. This involves Crud inflating a balloon, and another sort of zapping pincer, and a box which spits out green dye which Crud catches in his pie-dish helmet and then spits in, causing a sort of magical flare. Pellets of dye called Chromabits are poured on Cully, reviving him, but the experience is unpleasant.
Crud tells Cully that their being there is a job, of sorts - the SubShafts need people in them in order to function. But it needs to be people with some kind of open eccentricity, not closed cynics like Chunner. Crud shows Cully how to repigment Chunner - this is speeded up by the arrival of a celebratory banner generator which is sent to get the repigmenter summoner thingie.
Once Chunner is revived, the machine sends them three objects one of which is a seed for a plant called a Framebreaker, because one of them broke Swartwouter's Great Frame, which Chunner says was a public service. The Framebreaker turns into a flowering bush and then dies away again, showering the area with more seeds. Slimegrubs bite into the seeds and set off magical images similar to those seen/generated by Eyebolt weirders.
They are visited by a mad Gnoll called Pliskin, whom Cully had believed dead, and who lives in 45f with Plotz and Pelf. The further down, the worse the SubShafts get - Crud tells a legend of there being an 86p down in the Hot Zone. Chunner dismisses this as a tall tale but Crud as we will later learn has been to the Hot Zone (even though not to 86p) and his description of it is not unreasonable. He speaks of creatures called Squirms, similar to Wyrms but much bigger and not sentient. We learn about a religious figure called Father Groat, now dead but known to Crud and Chunner in their youth - Groat had a dead Squirm on display. Groat fought Sachem, last of the High Schemers, and threw him into the chasm after Sachem tried to stab him with a shivblade - that is, a knife which had belonged to Shiv, Compline and Caytid's Schemer, during the Nome War. We learn that the Riddler, God, D[igger] and the Pale Nexus were all around during the Nome War and it was thanks to the Nexus that the Nomes weren't wiped out.
We also learn that when he was designing his Bean, Crud used Nome blobwarts purchased for him by Boffin, who had huge feet and a wooden Poking stick. Open-air, forest blobwarts are twice as large and twice as thick as Basement ones (many things in the Basement are brighter than elsewhere).
They are buried first by pink bubbles, then by green "antibubbles" which reverse the effects of the pink bubbles.
Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 2 :: Upheavals [18/10/2006 - 05/08/2012] While they are discussing the wearing of pie-dish helmets, enormous egg-shaped Individual Emergency Shelter Pods arrive which provide some protection. Cunskite had mentioned these: their presence suggests imminent severe trouble, and the last time they appeared was when Altholen triggered a Breach in the River of Fire.
The same gadget which puts up holiday messages starts displaying relevant quotes. These inspire conversation in which we learn that Chunner used to date, casually, a prominent Gnoll woman called Buccula (Camora's mother) who now owns a fungus farm along with Choller (Camora's father). Cully believes that Buccula sealed the Breach, but the others agree with Anathama that it was the Trogs Kronk and Yurd who did so. It was considered politically inconvenient that it should be two Trogs and their "scruffy friends" who did it - Crud mentions Digger in this context but Chunner pulls him up, and Crud pretends Digger is fictional.
Crud has seen strange stories grow around Groat and Yurd, whom he knew in life (and he clearly knows Digger is real though he's pretending he doesn't), so he believes that the Earl and Yurp the demon king and Ludwig were also probably all real. The Nexus and the Riddler are old enough to know. We learn that Crud is an Ear of the Brush (and his fiancée Cacocala was a Beebler), Chunner used to be in the Doomsayers' Guild, Cully is a Ludwigite and most Basement people now assume Ludwig was a Gnoll. Crud says all they now know for sure about Humans is that they were probably bipeds. Cully says if he ever gets out of the SubShafts he will go and ask the Nexus.
They see a tunnel rat got up as an Easter Bunny and Crud says it must be spring. If it is that means the whole of the story so far must be taking place in spring or early summer (and indeed there is a suggestion in the very first chapter that the day Rosemary arrives is in mid April). The tunnelrat leaves a square egg which hatches into a sort of magical firework called a foomer - first flower shapes and then a rain of coloured sparks and a "foom" noise which causes everything they say afterwards to sound like foom. Protus arrives, not in the normal world but in another dimension where they are partially present. He talks about taking advantage of the fact that their bodies are in the SubShafts, then he briefly shows them an outside view of a galaxy. He says that this is the goal of all of them, and worth striving for.
The trio snap back to the SubShaft and Crud says that's not how he remembers Protus looking, but Chunner steers him away from talking about what Protus is doing, as he did with any mention of Digger. Cully says Protus told Skibble, who told Shilpit, who told him, that Protus is working on a ring of pylons. Cully had never seen Protus before this time, but his father Cozen did. His mother's name was Shangie.
Crud mentions that Cozen nearly killed Chunner, and Chunner threatens to muzzle him with Mr Snoutclamp. It was apparently some sort of accident while Cozen and Chunner were both young and among a group working on an unspecified project together. Cozen went on to become a beetle rancher but Chunner became a snout-balancer (a kind of athlete). Crud also knew Cozen and Shangie, their Finagler Mulct and their whelps, Cully and his sister, who now runs the ranch with her mate.
We learn something about the Wyrm lifecycle: Chunner thinks the SubShafts would be improved if some Deep Wyrm were to eat Nevus, but Crud, who visited the Hot Zone (obviously in the same kind of protective suit Fizmo wears) while designing his Bean (advised by a male Deep Wyrm called Syntch), knows that this "eating" isn't literal but some part of their breeding cycle, and says it won't happen because Nevus has Tainted himself. Crud speaks of fields of crystals where the Wyrms graze, and police types called Cousins who hurried him away, and who answer to an official called Mother-Something (possibly the Mother Byng who was mentioned before) who may be their actual mother. Nevus is Tainted because he is too materialistic and because he has mated with Zanoola, another small Wyrm. Crud's informant was a female Deep Wyrm - the females rarely come as high as the Basement nowadays but one called Olywa used to be a well-known character, a friend of Theophan the Rotund. Skibble also went down to the Hot Zone but he broke the faceplate of the suit.
While they are discussing Wyrms, a blue cloud covers them, then breaks into little pompoms and drifts away, leaving behind a tiny blue dart, self-propelled by a green flame (this first appears on 19th September 2010, just above and behind Chunner's head, as one of the blue pompoms reforms into a triangle). They end by discussing the Crudbean and find that Crud still reacts violently to the name Comshaw (and that Comshaw used one of Rhid's bombs to destroy the Crudbean). Crud attacks first Chunner and then Cully, who fends him off with Chunner's pie-dish helmet. Crud then heads off to the right, screaming. He passes Vonbrawn in 44h, then through the Shimmerstacks in 44i before crashing into a big brass bell in 44j, half-deafening Cully and Chunner and wakening Strode in 45d. Strode is a very aggressive female Motihaul, carrying a big mallet and wearing a pumpkin mask, famous for having smashed her way into the Hall of the Brush and done something unspecified there.
Cully and Chunner run away, pursued by Strode: the little blue and green dart flies after them. While they are away, flutterbys and flowers and a machine like a four-limbed mechanical starfish and little multicoloured animals with their eyes on stalks appear, and the back wall of the SubShaft opens like a door and the face of an enormous, sinister-looking Metalmin (not one we've seen before, and Robert has said it doesn't have a full-length humanoid body) peers in through the gap, like a man peering into a fishtank. Then Crud is heard returning and the back wall closes and all the wildlife disappears.
Crud, now on his own, is passed by two tiny robots, one chasing another (the subject of a bad pun) then by two more tiny robots dragging a machine (ditto). A voice instructs him to pull a lever on this machine. He refuses, so a dalek-thing appears and threatens to shoot him. He still refuses, considering his life of no worth, so it threatens to shoot a mechanical cat. He pulls the lever and all the machines leave except the cat. Crud pats it and talks about a real cat he met once near the Hall of Death (a.k.a. the Eman Hall of Achievement): he knew what it was because he saw a cat in a book belonging to Crispin the Boogieman. A mechanical mouse appears, and the mechanical cat goes off after it.
Crud still fears that the presence of the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods means that a major upheaval is coming, and that he may have triggered it by pulling the lever. Cully reappears, fired down a chute, but Chunner isn't with him. Cully has been with the almost-mythical female Gnoll Tuttle, who gave him the HJ42. If it isn't in two places at once, then this scene must be either before Frowgler gives the HJ42 to Mortimer in the morning of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer's long day, or after the HJ42 falls through the floor of the crater and Mortimer and the beaver shark get Twisted into the Ettinworks. Crud recognises it, in that he has seen it or something like it with Protus.
Chunner reappears. Chunner and Cully tell their story - they ran off pursued by Strode, and through two people Crud calls Snitchers, a Trog and a Gnoll, both wearing Fixits. Strode attacked the Snitchers instead. Chunner and Cully passed through an area of lethal spikes which mustn't be touched, then 44d where the people lived on the ceiling and they had to touch Palptat's Touchpiles. Then 44c where the staff wore helmets and offered them a choice between a flower, a snake and a stone and they chose the flower, then 44a where they met Callithump, a female Gnoll who has a SubShaft to herself, and used to be some sort of item with Rhid. She's been in the SubShafts longer than anyone except Coprolite (who stays in his office) and she understands them best of anyone. She seemed to be expecting them - or at least, expecting somebody, and they'll do.
The scene shifts to flashback. Callithump asked where Cully's little friend was - he doesn't know who is meant. The little blue and green dart flies into view. Callithump pushes Cully into a mechanical portal and places the flower in a pot in the mechanism, and the machine zaps and vanishes both Cully and the flower. Strode appears and Chunner bolts, leaving Callithump muttering about a "flippered menace" being happy now.
In the present time, Cully (who still has the blue dart with him) says the portal wasn't a Twistpoint, and we learn that there is a "secret" Twistpoint in Helignoll Hall which comes out near the Mansion, and that using Twistpoints affects Gnolls (Cully, anyway) badly and causes a temporary change of mental state. Crud speaks about filtering devices in the Basement machinery which "swoomp" small pests away to another location, and thinks Callithump has scaled this effect up. In the background the blue dart appears to catch (and eat?) some small brightly-coloured flying creature.
Flashback again. Having been swoomped, Cully arrives in front of some machinery being operated by Tuttle, who speaks like a Communist revolutionary and welcomes him to "Behind the Scenes" (we will learn that this place is very deep down). Tuttle wears an eyepatch so she has one dark- and one light-adapted eye. The blue dart has come with Cully - Tuttle speaks as if it is a person, telling them "both" to come with her. Tuttle is a friend of Cully's late mother Shangie and praises him for standing up to Nevus. They walk past a large machine which contains either a big fishtank or a window/Panegate into the sea, and a wall of constantly changing Manglish letters and numbers. We learn that Coprolite, Draffsack and Egrote decide who goes to the SubShafts, but Tuttle came there off her own bat. Callithump and Chunner, she says, came to the SubShafts more or less on a whim but she was recruited to come here by a "he" she won't name who's been around a long time and realised they were being lied to about the nature of the world. They are going up against God.
She refers to a "sage" who showed up recently and is "hopping around" being helpful, which is probably Frowgler. The Sage wanted Cully brought in to carry something. Tuttle persuaded the SubShafts to help her set it up - they are semi-alive, and fond of her. They like Cully, too.
Back in the present, Cully says Tuttle told him Dandilli and her friends get a Tree branch etc because the SubShafts like them, but Chunner and Crud aren't what they want - Crud is too disturbed and Chunner too closed. In the background, the blue dart is dragging some sort of small party hat behind it.
Fading back to flashback, Tuttle takes Cully to what looks like the Ettinworks and out along a bridge to a doughnut-shaped portal which calls itself the Remnent [sic] and is the last of the original function of the SubShafts. We learn about a mediator called Febrifuge who watches over the Favours Repository, and Tuttle says this thing serves a similar function.
Cully asks where is the thing he is to take back to 44f, and the machine speaks to him and tells him the thing is inside itself, and "I contain multitudes". It seems to be, or include, an adjustable Panegate with many outlets. It shows them a space Tuttle says is "the Highest Room" - that is, the highest point in the SubShafts.
Cully asks the machine who is the "boss" he is agreeing to work for by doing this, and the machine says it's Rodolph the Boogieman - which seems to surprise Tuttle, or at least the name Rodolph does. The thing he is to carry is the HJ42 which the machine says stands for "The 42nd noteworthy item collected by the Henrick-Joost Expedition" and is a remote-viewing device. Cully asks what the SubShafts are and the machine gives a variety of answers all of which confirm that they are special in both past and future.
Cully and Tuttle step through the portal into the Highest Room of the SubShafts, where chutes leading down from higher still disgorge their contents into a tub of sand. Items in the tub include the HJ42, a magical gun with which Tuttle shoots the blue dart, injecting it with extra power, and a fleeb which seems to be sending electrical signals with its antennae. Cully is to take the HJ42 to SubShaft 44f and hang on to it till tomorrow, doing nothing at all with it. Someone will come to collect it. Tuttle greases Cully and sends him back to 44f by chute.
Back in the present, Cully, Chunner and Crud agree to go on pretending Tuttle is a myth, to protect her. Crud asks whether the Infinity Pit and the Blorgons are also real? With that, the Taphand appears and presses a button on the HJ42, which goes ZORP. Callithump hears them - we see she has Strode hooked up to wires.
Cully is taken forwards to a time after his own future death, when the SubShafts (the 44s, at least) are now SubShrines. He meets a female Gnoll with green hair, named LizShella, wearing clothes and speaking in a different dialect. She takes him to meet an elderly male Human, Mr Flip, who comments that Humans aren't allowed in the shrines. He is sitting next to an Ettin-style control. Mr Flip tells Cully Gnolls are special and will help to make the SubShafts and other things better. Just before Cully snaps back to his own time, Mr Flip tells him to remember the numbers on the control panel, and that if he says them aloud at a time of great need, help will come.
Cully snaps back to his own time in the same place where Mr Flip was, and the blue dart meets him there. He walks back to 44f and tells Crud and Chunner the HJ42 is just a Twistpoint generator which dumped him in the corridor - he leaves out the time-travel bit. He asks what the Infinity Pit is and establishes that it's the same thing that Ludwigites call the Earlbreak. It is clear that Ludwigite doctrine contains a genuine if confused memory of the deep experimental shaft which Audra dug and which set off the Great Chasm, and Ludwig dedicating himself to repairing the damage.
Difonia rushes past, shouting about a dangerous thing which is coming, and acompanied by what seems to be her own flying dart - only hers is magenta, and more rounded in shape than Cully's one. Cully's blue dart disappears in apparent pursuit of this magenta one Emergency shutters clang down up and down the SubShafts to either side of them, as the blue dart returns with a new magenta spot on it. They are just preparing to release one of the shutters, which they can do after an interval, when the Individual Emergency Shelter Pods deploy fully and clamp down, locking them all in individual steel eggs which are comfortable and well-provided enough to stay in for a long time, and from which they can still talk back and forth. Water or other liquid gradually fills the SubShaft, which they see from pop-up viewing ports.
The water seems to be fresh - it has freshwater fish in it - so no Ichyoids will be able to reach them: Cully says that the Zorper (only he doesn't call it that, just "this thing") is very safe here. While they are discussing this the dart reappears (assuming it's the same one), but now it's entirely magenta. They don't know if all the SubShafts are flooded, but in case they are Crud mentions the possibility of Master System Controls way down in 86p, which we know is in the Hot Zone. Chunner realises that Cully is thinking of sending his magical dart (which has been swimming around them) to operate the controls: he thinks this is a daft idea but the magenta dart dives down out of sight without being instructed. Crud goes to sleep, but Chunner and Cully discuss experimenting with the knobs and buttons in the pods, should the dart fail to free them, and as a last resort Chunner gives Cully permission to use the Zorper to save himself.
We learn that Chunner's father died when Chunner was a whelp, possibly eaten by a Dornbeast: Chunner remembers him telling stories about the Nome War, but doesn't know what his job was. His mother worked for Nevus's predecessor Fizywug, who was more pleasant than Nevus. He has a sister who may still be alive but if so she's in a mysterious place he's not going to go to. According to Chunner, Crud's parents were respectable fungi-farmers - but Rhid's performed some strange experiment on him which possibly explains the way he is now. There must have been something odd going on with Crud's parents, however, for them to have named him Crud. Chunner goes to sleep, after first reassuring Cully that not all days in the SubShafts are as busy as this one.
Before Cully himself can go to sleep, Crud wakes and asks him about where the Zorper took him. Cully tells him a little bit about it, and Crud tells him not to tell him any more, nor to tell anyone else - and implies that something similar happened to Othar, the Motihaul explorer.
As the three sleep, a sort of bright yellow worm swims past them and "looks" (if it has eyes) at some complex controls guarding the mouth of a pipe-width tunnel. This sets off some sort of alarm and the worm is sucked into a metal pipe.
Sundays in the SubShafts :: Backstage [12/08/2012 - 30/06/2013] The action shifts away from 44f for the moment. We see that the pipe into which the yellow worm disappeared is connected to a gadget called Ludwig's Automatic Flotsam/Jetsam Sorting Machine. Near the machine is a robotic left hand labelled "Sinister", and a strange mechanical creature like a tiny three-legged dog with a single glowing yellow eye and either a wide blue tail or a blue creature sitting on its backside. The yellow worm is teleported into a small transparent tank/bottle next to a Gnoll called Impavid in SubShaft 32g. The tank has a light which pings and changes colour when the worm arrives, suggesting that it is expected.
Amidst much complex machinery Impavid takes the worm-thing to another Gnoll, Imbosk, who says it is a "fish-strand", shed by a Dreamfish but "sort of alive" in its own right. Their third member, Ignavia, would know more, but is sleeping. The presence of the fish-strand tells Imbosk the SubShafts must be flooded.
The fish-strand is sucked up a tube towards someone on a higher level: we see the pipe it goes through passing various items, including a battered-looking Fixit. It is piped into a machine called a mule-dispenser which sheds a little blue thing like a cross between a toy car and a plastic rhino, about the size of a hamster and containing the fish-strand which can be a glimpsed through a window on the side. This then rolls down a slope and moves a box of electronics by head-butting it along, and the box sends out some sort of signal and then drops into a square slot designed to hold it. The "mule" interacts with other machinery which it clears out of its path by extending an arm with which to push buttons and manipulate keys, thereby opening a long sequence of puzzle doors beyond which it is met by a female Shallow Wyrm named Grump, who tells it that it has passed the test, and welcomes it to life.
It seems that the fish-strand and the Metalmin mule between them are now a composite, self-aware being fit to act as a servitor maintaining the SubShaft mechanisms. Grump speaks of the SubShafts themselves as being a similar sort of composite entity, aware and growing. The new composite life-form is assessed by a machine and laser-branded with a name, which turns out to be a number (the number of that day's strip), 3375. The machine extrudes a sucker-pad on a spring, which attaches to 3375 and downloads education into it, after which 3375 can communicate by means of the fish-strand, still visible through the window on its side, forming itself into letters. The newly-educated 3375 is sent to be assessed and assigned a task by a giant Metalmin (similar to but probably not the same as the one we saw peering in through a door in the back of SubShaft 44f when the Gnolls ran away from Strode - it has different "ears"). 3375 is placed on a platform supported on a jointed arm extending from the back of a thing like a lorry about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, which drives away, and transports it to a new location where it is met by a Smyt named Graf who is operating a control console, and tells it it is just in time. Another mule Metalmin, 3438, stands at the side.
Graf is supervising a chute down which comes the Hitchking Gem which we saw Agorn deposit: Graf dislikes it and it is moved away by a mechanical grabber, then transferred into the grasp of the two mules, who carry it away and place it onto a lift platform which descends a shaft labelled "40". It disappears down the shaft and there is a vigorous splash, suggesting it has reached the flooded level of the SubShafts. Water then pours out of the shaft and washes 3375 past 3438 and bowls it along a tunnel, before dumping it and the water out into a deep shaft, at the top of which is a cut-out sign saying "NOW" in the same solid font as the cut-out letters we've seen being passed as messages. A few strange coloured things which may be flowers grow out of the sides of the shaft: one looks as though it might be the embryonic beginnings of a sessile snake-thing like Ahz and Skiv and Tand. 3375 falls towards a red glow which probably indicates the Hot Zone: there is a flash of light or electricity as or just before it gets that far.
Sundays in SubShaft 44f part 3 :: Awakenings [04/08/2013 - 04/05/2014] First Cully and then Crud awake, still in their pods, as more odd things continue to drift past through the water. As Chunner sleeps, Crud expands on his previous remarks about Othar, who he says genuinely did interesting, daring things but who also wasn't that concerned with describing his experiences accurately. Othar claimed to have swum through a mysterious "Serendipity Pool" which only appears when you're not looking for it, and there met a talking frog who said they were having the conversation in the future. Othar is meant to have disappeared, but Crud says he died. Crud knew Otharson, son of Othar and father of Othara: Otharson met with some memorable, widely-known death. He was bred to reproduce his father's talents but the experiment failed. Crud himself threw himself into his own failed experiment with the Bean after Cacocala died: he hopes to be of use here in the SubShafts, and suspects that Bokonon knew more about them than he let on. As they speak, various objects drift past, including children's toys, a ballot box and a dead Fixit.
Cully asks what he should do with the Zorper in an emergency, where he should use it to escape to. Crud talks about Heart, Head and Spleen Ladders and tells Cully to go to Ignavia in SubShaft 32g - this is the same SubShaft where the fish-strand was processed, that became the mule-bot. Ignavia was banished for talking about something called the V.F.W.. Head Ladders are always safe to use, Heart Laders are safe only down to level 45 and Spleen Ladders are never safe. A female called Temmy who tends to fall into holes and currently lives in the SubShafts suffered some kind of damage from a Spleen Ladder, although it clearly wasn't fatal. For whatever reason, she is not a happy person. A thing called a sankofit is mentioned as something you should touch if you get the chance.
Temmy would be suited to living in a mysterious Place No One Talks About which is not the true Hot Zone (and not the place where Fizmo was working), and which Crud once briefly visited. Temmy is compared to Bung's friend Faddle, a failed Finagler who is "insanely lucky" in an odd way, and Crud says that could be said of all Finaglers but they mustn't talk about it. They talk about places Crud has been - he visited the Grotto of the Jellyfish, which is in Ichyoid territory and which since the Breach has been guarded by Diwali and her Lights and by the Zero Task Cavern, but this was before that. Crud says that Chunner had a distressing experience when the Breach - which affected even the Ichyoid Grottos - happened, but his and Cacocala's experience was "cryptic". They saw a vision of vast half-formed structures or organisms, which he likens to the half-finished machinery at the end of the "Long Path", the Ettin particle accelerator.
Cully starts to ask Crud about Cacocala's death, then decides not to in case Crud has one of his mad fits and damages his pod whilst still underwater. Chunner wakes up, swearing. Cully and Crud avoid telling him what they've been discussing; Cully starts to speculate about using the Zorper to escape when there is a parping noise offstage. Simultaneously, the back wall of the chamber opens like a door, as it did before when the giant Metalmin peered in, and the water drains away. They discuss whether this was arranged by the little dart thing or whether it happened automatically, and Chunner predicts that if the SubShafts are doing something helpful like that they'll soon be doing much worse. A grabbing gadget appears above Crud's pod, and then generates a burning light between its claws, which says "tick tock" in Ettin. They are wondering whether to open their pods when Difonia comes by (without her dart), looking a bit damp and bedraggled but urging everyone to rejoice. Cully - who looks very stunned and bedraggled - manages to open his pod, while the claw-light continues to chunter seemingly random words in Ettin, and the back of the chamber is still open onto darkness and dripping water. Cully has just noticed this and started to tell the others when when Protus appears and reclaims the Zorper, telling Cully to tell Temmy that her suspicions concerning the Remnent are correct.
The Hitchhiking Gem then falls out of the delivery chute, glowing, and bonks Cully. They discuss it, mentioning an Almind who had some diamonds, and Crud starts to say it looks like ones he saw in the Place No One Talks About - at this the gem shuts off its glow with an audible "blip", and when Chunner says Cully should ditch it it disappears from Cully's hand, as it did from Niddle's. First Crud and then Chunner open their pods, and Chunner then asks Cully what he'd been going to say before Protus arrived. Cully points to the open back of the room.
They all peer down into what to them is a pitch-black descending shaft. Cully has a psychic sense of some sort of presence or power down there. They discuss finding some kind of light-source which they could lower into the hole, using Bokonon's string, and Cully suggests using the pods. Cully and Crud close their pods and begin testing buttons, while Chunner keeps watch.
Sunday in the SubShafts :: Meanwhile.... [11/05/2014 - 28/09/2014] We see Agita the Motihaul in Root Hall, talking to her young daughter Rishathra, who is reading human books. She finds the alphabet easy to master but doesn't recognise some of the terms used.
We then see a series of snapshots of what's going on in other SubShafts. Dandilli and Dipsoma comment on the fact that Difonia never came back after running about telling people to rejoice. We see that Difonia is with Callithump, who has herself, Difonia and Strode the mad Motihaul linked up by electronic sensors of some kind.
We see Imbosk and Impavid processing a rabid Fleeb, while Ignavia, offstage left, shouts comments which suggest he may be a little deaf.
We see Palptat, Proda and their third partner, Pok, hanging from the ceiling in 44d and wondering about a butterfly which is flitting by their Touchpiles, and the three helmeted characters in 44c, still holding snake, flower and stone and talking unintelligibly.
In 44j, an unknown male Gnoll stands ready to ring a Big Brass Bell. In 45d, which is probably directly below Palptat, an unknown female with a spear stands looking through a door into a chamber containing stasis pods labelled Strode, Vlada and Upsy - Strode's pod has been broken open from the inside. In 44h, a cross-looking male named Vonbrawn wears luminous lime-green bandages forming an eye-patch and an arm-sling, the legacy of an earlier mad-fit by Crud. An Ettin machine lowers itself from a hatch in the roof and offers him a choice between onion rings or chocolate eclairs - he chooses onion rings.
Instead of onion rings, however, a pillar-shaped object called the blooper extrudes a cone-shaped thing from its top, which alarms Vonbrawn enough that he calls his shaft-mate Oppen to come and have a look. Meanwhile, the thing which had offered him onion-rings spits out a grey metal dart. It flies through 44f next door - where Cully and Crud close their pods in alarm, and Chunner just stands and watches it - and then out through the open gap at the back of their shaft, and down into the depths. It passes the giant Metalmin whom we earlier saw peering into 44f, and flies on down and down into the Hot Zone, where it descends through a glowing blue artificial shaft, which protects it. At the bottom it shouts "Hey you" to attract the attention of an entity we haven't seen yet. This entity greets the dart, and we see that various pieces of mechanical debris are floating weightlessly above it - including the mini-Metalmin 3375, who seems to be still in working order, since its lights are still on. The voice says that it's too late to send 3375 back so it will send it on "for that... change". 3375 is enveloped in a flash of light, and disappears.
Sunday in Summerfather Hollow [05/10/2014 - 27/11/2016] We see that 3375 is now buried under soil or sand in the middle of a dry plain or arena dotted with dead trees and aloe-like plants, and surrounded by stone slabs. The strip's label says it has been "Sent on Ahead", suggesting the scene may be set in the future relative to the main action. 3375 digs itself out, and we see that it has been re-modelled into a more manlike (or, given its small size, Smyt-like) bipedal shape. A large Fuzz named Frizzlegarb (who may or may not be the Frizzlegarb of legend, whom Rosemary and Sylvester thought might be a surviving Wilf), wearing a hat and a rucksack, comes and talks to 3375 while it is digging itself out, saying that the Zerotasker itself gave him the job of assisting newcomers. Frizzlegarb refers to 3375 having been sent "up here, like the others" and says that somebody named Dada will help it to talk. He(?) warns 3375 to hurry and dig itself out before a "Crackle-Crunching-Crisp-Cruster" crunches the hole. Once 3375 has got the hang of walking on two legs it ambles off after Frizzlegarb, and a metal plunger descends from the ceiling, attached to some sort of hose, and crushes the area around the hole. Frizzlegarb leads 3375 past a toy Dalek with the Brush drawn on it, and tells him there are a series of Hollows. This one is the Arrival Hollow, and fairly safe, but the Fogg Hollow and Yalda Hollow are dangerous.
Frizzlegarb leads 3375 to a sort of cone-shaped transporter or lift, which is a speaking machine which tries to drive them away with threats and flailing metal arms. But Frizzlegarb knows which buttons to press and the pair enter a chamber inside the cone, which shuts behind them. After the door closes, another metal plunger slams down to the ground where they had been standing. This one has two pilots inside it - possibly small Gnolls, although we only get to see the eyes, or more large Fuzzes. They are annoyed that the "new guy" is already gone, curse Frizzlegarb and expect that their master will be angry. After this second plunger has retracted back into the sky/ceiling, a plant standing at the side is seen to think that it had better report all of this - it looks like the same plant which was with the pirate hamster. It sends up some sort of bud or bubble on a long stem to carry information to the roots of a plant on a higher floor.
Frizzlegarb and 3375 emerge from the machine in a different hollow with another plant (possibly this is a higher floor and the plant which received the message), and several statues of (apparently) humans. These are so old and information about them has drifted so much that Frizzlegarb describes a statue of a King Archibald as "Kinger Chybald". They include a bust of Spock, to mark the death of Leonard Nimoy, a vulture representing mortality, and symbolic abstract shapes representing fire and water, and smoke and mirrirs. Frizzlegarb mentions a real Hollow of the Smoking Mirror, and says that the mirror there is a liar.
They come to a giant painted Easter egg, which cracks open to reveal a snaky-looking machine called a Boonbot, which gives them gifts. Frizzlegarb is given a Keystaff, a mechanism all of which were believed to have been destroyed during a revolt by a group called Winnifites (Protus weas talking about Winnifred to Olaf). The next boon, given to both of them, is that they are zapped by the Boonbot - and by a second bot, or maybe an extension of the Boonbot, which semes to be inside a model cake - and vanished to somewhere else just before the plunger with the two probably-Gnoll pilots crashes down where they'd been standing. We learn that the pilots are called Matachin and Mirador. They serve a master whose sanity they doubt.
Frizzlegarb and 3375 arrive, dazed, at a new location in between two hand-shaped sculptures which contain some kind of transporter machinery, and seem to be the hands of a stylized face drawn in thin lines on the wall. Frizzlegarb says they are in Summerfather Hollow, where they shouldn't have arrived for some time, or together. He had expected just to show 3375 around until he/it found something to do. Frizzlegarb will stick with 3375 because the Zero-Tasker told him to: we learn that this is some mortal being who communicates through bots, and buys services with information. The Winnifites wanted this knowledge to be free.
The Keystaff opens special doors and performs other significant tasks which were fought over in the past. 3375 reamins 3375 for the moment but will eventually choose a significant name, as someone called Flitch did.
They meet another Fuzz, called Takapeny. She is surprised to see a bot like 3375 in Summerfather, and even more surprised to learn that he can't talk. They need to get a hat from a hat tree for 3375 - Summerfather does have a hat tree, although not a very good one. Takapeny won't tell them what she was doing in this area - she starts to say she came to speak to someone starting with Gr, then changes her mind and says it's none of their business and not important, and she will take them to the hat tree. We see that she was in fact going to speak to three of the sessile snake creatures, growing out of a plant or anenome-like structure similar to the one at Le Tree. The snakes fear that her non-appearance may jeopardize something called the Summerfather Operation.
We learn that Summerfather Hollow is well-equipped with gadgets, and that all or at least many hollows have a top-secret zone where they each work on some mysterious Central Device, and a locked, human-sized cupboard which they are trying to open. Frizzlegarb has to kep moving because he has no home hollow - it is hinted that his home hollow was destroyed while he was on one of his journeys. Eventually he may apply for membership of another occupied hollow, or find an unoccupied one and set up a new colony. Takapeny and Frizzlegarb discuss other hollows he has visited, including the Purple Zone, which is quite extreme and hostile, and the Steps of the Dead, and the Central Hollow, and a terrible place called Bundtmoc Hollow. There are friendly monks in Humsoc Hollow.
Frizzlegarb has had two marital partners, one male, one female, but neither marriage worked out. The female partner did a lot of travelling with him (we will later learn that her name is Jordsullva). The male partner lived in a fortified settlement called a Bailiwick and Takapeny wants to know how come Frizzlegarb was allowed in when the Bailiwicks are usually sealed to strangers, and how it happens that he seems to go everywhere and be admitted anywhere so casually. Frizzlegarb says that people tend to just label something impossible without trying it, so he does try it and sometimes it really is impossible, and sometimes it isn't. The three things he considers truly impossible are reaching the inner Central Hollow, sailing the Snapperchomp Sea and meeting a living Smyt. They seem to be extinct, or at least the Fuzzes have no access to them: the only sentients Takapeny knows of, now or in the past, are other Fuzzes, and bots. Her religion tells her that Fuzzes were promised that they would be the only talkers.
Takapeny takes them to the Hat Tree, where hats grow like fruits, and 3375 chooses one. Frizzlegarb and 3375 head off, looking for someone who will teach 3375 to speak. On the way 3375 confirms, by gesture, that he has seen a live Smyt. The usual voice trainer Dada is a long hard journey away, so Frizzlegarb instead intends to take 3375 to his aunt Haravmilca. Meanwhile Takapeny procedes to a meeting with a Ms Twed, who is a sessile-snake thing growing out of a flower.
A cone-shaped mechanism refuses to speak to Frizzlegarb and 3375, but is later seen talking to the plant (the one from Station V3 and later the hamster's pirate ship). 3375 and Frizzlegarb meet Struhaitta, Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, who doesn't like the idea of enlisting her biological sister Haravmilca to teach 3375 to speak, because Haravmilca will be smug about it. Mention is made of a male named Okapple who is responsible in some way for minding their technology, and for whom Struhaitta is responsible in a way she isn't for her sister. Okapple seems to be Struhaitta's unofficial partner, so he may be Frizzlegarb's father or stepfather. He usually works in another area but has taken over minding the tech in Summerfather Hollow because the regular guy, Apeltu, has sloped off.
We see an out-take of a female Fuzz in a red and cream hat, with a pick and a backpack, climbing among tall purple spires ringed with beige plants in Nestcrowd Hollow. This, we will learn, is Frizzlegarb's former wife Jordsullva.
Frizzlegarb's sister, not named, is with the Undersiders, and his some-time wife Jordsullva whom he isn't supposed to mention is "in NestCrowd, collecting nesttext". Struhaitta warns him against contacting this woman and says that she's dangerous, not just to him but to everybody, because she meddles with things Struhaitta thinks shouldn't be meddled with. They discuss the fact that Frizzlegarb and 3375 haven't been to see "our hosts in the central Hollow", which seems to be a good decision, and that Struhaitta is there to speak to an Oracle. Frizzlegarb and 3375 will also need to speak to the Oracle, but Struhaitta warns them she's in a bad mood.
As Frizzlegarb and 3375 walk along, Frizzlegarb explains that Struhaitta isn't his biolgical mother (who he thinks is probably dead) but his "official" mother, who raised him. The sister who is with the Undersiders (who live down in a dark zone) is Struhaitta's biological daughter. Most inhabited Hollows have an Oracle, and Oracles are chosen as children and trained in Spuman Hollow. Okaple's tech skills are passed down from generation to generation - he is training a male called Crakovkey. Struhaitta is disappointed because either Frizzlegarb or his sister should have been the tech trainee, but they both did other things.
They come to the Oracle Hocrosbin, who is wearing a magical pointed hat and who demands to know why Frizzlegarb has a Keystaff, and when he says it was a gift she mutters about the boonbots handing them out. She mentions Sentinals, who contriol the bnoonbots - they are supposed to be mythical but she tells Frizzlegard they're real and he'll be finding out a lot about them. She is concerned about the fact that 3375 is going to be processed by Haravmilca, because Haravmilca is "an intellectual trouble-maker and a stirrer of pots". She prophesies that they will nevertheless go to Haravmilca, she will train 3375 and the results will be exciting.
3375 asks by gesture how Hocrosbin's magical hat works and she says she doesn't know. It clarifies her thoughts, but to know how they would have to ask a "Hooman". She assures Frizzlegarb that humans are or were real, and looked like the statues they passed earlier. Humans died or left after a catastrophe which might be the Crash, or the Poking of the Hot Zone, or something else. She assures him that Smyts are real too, and Frizzlegarb says he'll have to get a boat and cross the Sanpperchomp Sea to find them. Hocrosbin says she'll expect a full report - if he survives. As for the hat, a Fuzz explorer named Capistran found a "skulk", a hiding place, where there were drawings of how to make the wizard hats. A tech named Avgrado recreated and tested one. She tells Frizzlegarb to go experiment with the Keystaff - and compliments 3375 on his hat. After they have left, Hocrosbin "communes" mentally with another Oracle named Nacha, in order to pass on news. Frizzlegarb tells 3375 that Oracles share information with each other but not always with other people, and then only if you ask the right question.
They reach the edge of Summerfather Hollow where they choose to use a thing called a Hugrunner to shift them to the next Hollow, instead of going by the stairs. The Hugrunner is a big funnel-like thing which shoots out tentacles and picks them up.
Sunday in Cookiedice Hollow [04/12/2016 - 21/01/2018] The Hugrunner transfers Frizzlegarb and 3375 to the far side of a wall which is probably both high and wide. Frizzlegarb says that in some places it's possible to climb to the top of the wall, but that it isn't worth it because it is "all jagged 'n jumbled up there". It sounds like their hollows are recesses in some kind of ruin - perhaps human or Ettin rooms which have lost their roof. There are two hollows which can be accessed only by going over the wall: one, called Noodlering, is inhabited and the other is just called "Keep Out", and seems to be full of flames. Now they are in Cookiedice Hollow, which is almost uninhabited but has been claimed by Summerfather as space into which to expand if they need to. It contains statues of a giant biscuit and two dice (each about 10" across), hence the name. There is a hollow called Joygerm, also named after something which is in it.
Suddenly a big (by their standards) metal cylinder on the end of a flexible arm/tube slams down in front of them. Frizzlegarb calls it an Armored Insertion Station. Inside it is someone named Anskatkwet, who has borrowed it without asking, in order to come and warn Frizzlegarb he is in danger of death - or even if he would survive, it's imperative to get 3375 processed, soon, by Haravmilca, and to keep him away from Dada, the usual vpoice-trainer/bot-processor. The AIS opens up and extrudes a ramp, and Anskatkwet tells them to get onboard. She will take them to Haravmilca, who lives some distance away: to get there the pod will take them "Abovesides", which Frizzlegarb says is a place no-one goes. Frizzlegarb gives 3375 the choice whether to go with Anskatkwet or not, and 3375 chooses to accept the offer of a ride.
They climb into the AIS, Frizzlegarb going first to make sure he isn't left behind. Anskatkwet has disabled the important buttons, but still tells them not to touch anything. The AIS moves upwards out of shot, and then we see an irregular crack in the wall open up to reveal floodlights and a medium-sized Metalmin, who releases a Flutterby from a container, points at it as it flies away, and says something too small to read. Higher up, a net emerges from an alcove and tries and fails to catch the Flutterby, and a mechanical voice announces "Flutterby netting attempt failed. Flutterby still tracking Armored Insertion Station".
Frizzlegarb and 3375 are shut in a compartment lit only by the lights from display panels, while Anskatkwet (aka Anskat) is in a control room above them. The hatch between them is locked, but 3375 points to the key Frizzlegarb carries. The compartment begins to fill with Walpur Gas (this was a May Eve/Walpurgisnacht strip) - Anskat sounds apologetic about it and says that "it won't -" something and that she'll make sure they get to Haravmilca, but Frizzlegarb uses his keystaff to open the hatch between them and climb up into the control section. He tells Anskat he's resistant to the gas, but she refuses to shut it off, telling him that if he's still conscious when they arrive on the other side, he'll be killed, but if they're both unconscious he might live. He goes back down, closes the hatch and falls asleep, while Anskat vents the gas from her half so she can stay at the controls. She tells 3375, who is now effectively alone, to act aloof and let her do the talking when they arrive.
First a largeish red and yellow bot and then a smaller grey one stick their heads into the compartment to look at 3375, as Frizzlegarb sleeps in the corner. The grey one is a BureaucratBot which quizzes 3375 (who still cannot talk) about the fact that the AIS is listed as stolen. Anskat says she is 3375's Official Spokesbeing and that the AIS isn't stolen, because 3375 made an Emergency Requisition, and now he requests that it be shifted to Hollow 5C-28. His requisition rights are not unlimited but they do cover that. The bot asks why he needs to go there and Anskat says 3375's cargo must be taken there - the cargo being Frizzlegarb. It agrees, but says Frizzlegarb must remain dormant, and places a small, kettle-shaped bot to watch them (it is red with three zigzag yellow prongs which spit magic). Before leaving, the BureaucratBot tells Anskat to tell 3375 that it likes his hat. Anskat tells 3375 to grab a rail as they are about to move: as they do so the unconscious Frizzlegarb's hat falls over his eyes, and 3375 adjusts it.
The movement of the AIS involves a lot of clanking and banging. It travels through an Inversion Zone where all colours become their opposite (3375 becomes khaki and Frizzlegarb cyan), then the Twisfer [sic] Zone where they are shaken to a blur. Then they join onto an unseen Coupling Station from which they are meant to drop down into the new Hollow, although there is an unscheduled pause before they start moving. No sooner have they started moving than something unseen but loud clamps onto them, and Anskat compains that she has been unexpectedly locked out of the controls.
Another largeish red and yellow bot sticks its head in to look at 3375, spitting magic, and accuses him of trespassing under false pretenses. The kettle-bot sparks magic as well, but then the power shuts down, switching off both bots and leaving 3375 in almost complete darkness. Anskat asks if 3375 is still active and he knocks on the wall. She says she doesn't know why he is still active, but maybe it's because he hasn't been processed yet. She starts to say something about not all of "you" popping out of the ground the way 3375 did, when the AIS lurches.
I have no idea why, since the date was 10th December 2017 and I can't see anything significant which happened that day or the day before, but suddenly we get a snapshot from Nestcrowd Hollow. We see three of the tall narrow purple spires, each with a flat top ringed by beige plants. On top of one in the background is a springy wire attached to what looks like a stick of dynamite. On top of the one in the foreground a Fuzz of unknown gender (but probably male as very flat-chested) is lying on his or her back on a mattress, eyes covered by a towel, being scolded by Jordsullva.
Anskat doesn't know why the power is out, but at least the AIS is still descending. She says there are important people "up there" who argue about how the Hollows should go. She works for one, although she's never seen them in the flesh, and they may be the one who has shut off the power. She is fond of Frizzlegarb but hasn't told him about this. She says that 3375 hasn't shut off because he hasn't been processed yet, and that Dada, the usual voice trainer, must be doing something to bots like him when he processes them. Whoever shut the power off must agree with her that whatever Dada is doing is wrong.
She speculates that 3375 must be important, and mabe if Haravmilca processes him and gives him a voice he will tell them that what they have been told about the "robot before-place" is all lies (although clearly not all of it is, because Frizzlegarb at one point mentioned 3375 being generated from a fish-strand). Then she sees a light outside, so she knows not everything has powered down, and Frizzlegarb begins to wake.
Sunday in Datuhkazu Hollow [28/01/2018 - present] Anskat tells 3375 they are arriving in Datuhkazu Hollow, which has a distinctive smell and is filled with abstract blue shapes, and to wake Frizzlegarb and prepare to run. They touch down and Frizzlegarb uses his blue keystaff to open the hatches.
Literally running isn't possible because there are many holes in the ground, but they move away from the AIS as fast as possible. It retracts upwards into the air and then explodes behind them. Anskat thinks it was sabotaged rather than shot down, but doesn't know whether it was done by an enemy seeking to prevent 3375 from reaching Haravmilca, or a friend covering their tracks. They do have friends, some with an interest in Frizzlegarb, but more who are protecting 3375. Frizzlegarb was hired to be there when 3375 emerged from the ground, even before anyone knew it would be that bot in particular who emerged: he works out from this that Dada is doing more to the new bots than giving them voices, and someone wants a clean unmodified bot to get a voice from Haravmilca instead, to avoid whatever Dada does.
Anskat says that the "nobs" who regulate the Hollows (including the Guardians and the Zero Tasker) are arguing with unusual intensity about how best to do it. Her employer wants change. Frizzlegarb likes things the way they are, but says if Dada is messing weith the bots without their permission that isn't right, so he'll help with getting 3375 to Haravmilca. He is concerned that the pro-Dada nobs will drop another AIS and use it to kill Haravmilca, but Anskat says both sides of nobs agree there are certain individuals who are important and must not be killed - echoing Shabash's list of unkillable Gnolla. Haravmilca is on that list.
They come to a group of stylised golden statues like giant chess pieces, maybe human-sized or a little under, which are believed to be "Chybald"'s Minions. One of them is a kind of winged totem pole with a stack of heads carved on it, the top one being a Ghast - Anskat called it the Wing-ed Ter-roar and says it was Chybald's enforcer. The others are believed by the Fuzzes to represent characters called Vicious, who forged Chybald's shovel; Violent, who bred killer-plants; Verminal, who bred Droolbeasts; Vim, who stirred up a vast explosion; and two officers or managers called Volar and Vex. It's pretty clear Verminal is Dorn I of E; Violent is Linus the combat-botanist; Vicious is possibly Griffington or Ludwig; and Vim could be the Gnoll Altholen who caused the Breach, or could be Sylvester causing an explosion which in the main timeline is yet to come.
Anskat says Chybald restored order in a time of crisis, but at the cost of many lives. Now there are new troubles - people disppearing, an eruption in Bundtmoc, and the Ostrealites attacking the Bailiwick where Frizzlegarb's ex husband lives. She doesn't know if the ex survived or not. Frizzlegarb says he doesn't hate his ex - Anskat says he doesn't hate or love anybody and should never marry again. He still likes and trusts Anskat even now he knows she works for a nob, but expects to come twelfth in her priorities - she says he's in the top eight.
Just as they come to a marker at the edge of Haravmilca's home ground, they hear another explosion behind them. They cross into her territory and the Fuzzes tell 3375 not to touch anything because it isn't safe. They pass a violent-looking teddy bear called the growlbear. It and many other odd statues around the place were commissioned by Haravmilca. One of them is a gorilla-sized thing which is labelled "Taurus" but looks nothing like a bull - more like a cross betweem a blue dragon and an ape, with random tufts of orange fur, and a red devil sitting on its shoulder. One of them appears to be a Fuzz religious figure.
They come to a weird, jumbled sort of metal building, and state their business. We see a Flutterby being sent out with a message. As they wait to be let in, Frizzlegarb says Anskat has always been working for her boss and asks if it's the Zero-Tasker, the one he works for - she won't say - and they reminisce about a fun holiday in an amusement spot called Plushanim Hollow. They are allowed inside, into a passage whose ceiling is hung with odd objects, including what looks like a very small Ecadem tail-stinger.
They come to a designated waiting area, and establish that 3375 can read the signs. Frizzlegarb says not all bots can read, and maybe Dada knows why. They discuss how Anskat found them with the AIS, and how Frizzlegarb and 3375 got from the Arrival Hollow to Cookiedice in the first place. Somebody arranged it, but if it was Anskat's boss she doesn't know. There are many questions she would like answered, and one is why Frizzlegarb is carrying his keystaff, which she calls a fake Winnifrite Induction Slotter. It might work as an induction key, or it might do something dangerous. She tells him to sell it to someone she doesn't care about.
She knows the keystaff is fake because it's cyan, and a real Winnifrite keystaff would be periwinkle blue, like all their gear. This suggests that the giant blue-clad Gnoll nun Lizshella whom Cully met when the HJ42 bounced him into the future was a Winnifrite (as well as being a play on Blue Nun wine). Anskat wil neither confirm nor deny that they are working for the same boss, but either way wants to report separately.
Anskat is starting to say she doesn't thjink she and Frizzlegard... when a bubbly meet-and-greet girl called Chexyabatree brings them snacks - Frizzlegarb has met her before, on his travels, along with some rather hostile peasant types, in a place called Trazgenvis. 3375 mustn't eat (or whatever bots do) as he is about to have work done. She checks that he is willing to go ahead and leads him away, while the other two go to an Extended Waiting Area, which is very comfortable. Anskat is havering about finishing what she'd been saying.
SubShaft Celebrations [30/06/2018 - present] To start with we see the Remnent [sic], in the eye of which a "Tick-Tock Gnoll" cries "Repent, Harlequin" while pointing to what we later learn is Tuttle, wearing a jester's hat, while two other Gnolls (one male, one female, otherwise unidentifiable) look on. This was to commemorate the death of Harlan Ellison, who was partly responsible for Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time gateway on which The Remnent is based.
Later we see Tuttle, still in the jester's cap, go to a complex mechanical doorway or framed screen labelled "do not touch", and touch it. Tuttle leaves, as power lashes out across the doorway. Callithump and Strode come along. Callithump says someone has disobeyed her "do not touch" sign, which is "Ex-cellent!", and now a surge has been blasted through the SubShafts and could do anything. She calls Strode to her, addressing her as "minion", and says they must go and prepare. Amazingly, Strode is nervous. Meanwhile Tuttle goes to a sort of desk decorated with an ammonite-shaped colour-whirl, and is pleased to see a burst of energy which flashes "surge detected". She throws the jester's hat into the energy, where it is destroyed.
Next we see Tuttle climbing a stack of what look like brightly-coloured packing boxes. She passes a group of vaguely humanoid sculptures in various shades of beige and brown, joined together to point to a bright light, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Next she comes to a man-sized mechanical marmot to celebrate Groundhog Day. It is looking back nervously at a shadow cast not by itself but by a second, much more predatory figure, similar to the first but with jagged teeth.
Shabash is crowded to the side of a rocky shaft by giant letters spelling "Filler", forming the first of a week of oddments because Rob had had a rough weekend..
For President's Day we see Tuttle in a place where there are giant coins with the faces of rulers embossed on them. For St Patrick's Day we see Imbosk in SubShaft 32g, watching a shamrock pop into being in a glass dome at the side of his chair.
At Easter, we see Vonbrawn, Oppen and a Gnoll woman called Ghodird in SubShaft 44h, receiving a painted egg and putting it with others, apparently to hatch. On May Day Tuttle carries a lamp past a maypole; in the foreground are a bell and a giant Metalmin hand, clutching a spanner.
Smyt Celebrations [30/11/2015 - 04/05/2019] We see a variety of scenes from the lives of Smyts and other small sentient species, concentrating on celebrations and rituals which match up with human ones in our world.
To begin with we see a group of small creatures at least some of whom are Smyts (their outlines are lost in bright light, but you can just see the beaks) being dazzled by the light from what looks like the tip of a flaming sword. Next we see a Christmas scene which just shows a Smyt in a green bobble-hat, looking at a Christmas tree, but this is followed by an elaborate New Year scene showing a large, multi-coloured group of Smyts having a party. A Smyt woman in a chef's hat is stirring a large bowl of some kind of hot drink or soup and distributing it in tiny white mugs, and behind her is what seems to be one end of a laden buffet table. Super Smyt is present, and a Trundle-bug rider. Most intriguingly, the party-goers that we can see are nineteen Smyts, one Trundle-bug, two small round Fuzzes and a Shallow Wyrm. Despite the combat between Smyts and Fuzzes which we have seen on other occasions, the small fry evidently have their own version of a multi-species Basement society. On 18th January, Martin Luther King Day, we see the Christmas Smyt using the Christmas Tree as a stage in a climb up to the open air, sun and flowers.
After that we see several disconnected vignettes. On Groundhog Day/Candlemas we see two female Smyts playing with an artificial, human-scale lamp which makes their shadows big and impressive (and for some reason red-eyed). On Valentine's Day the two small Fuzzes from the New Year party hold hands. Next, for reasons I don't know, we see a Smyt official wondering whether to push a big red button in a time of crisis. On Leap Day Super Smyt leaps to the rescue of two other Smyts who are in a cage on the roof of a prison, and on St Patrick's Day a green Smyt in a floor-length robe herds snakes away using a simple shepherd's crook. For Arbor Day, nine Smyts are seen partying in a tree, while a fruit-bat tries to sleep.
On U.S. Memorial Day we see a miniature graveyard in which the graves are marked by twigs thrust upright into the ground and ringed with small stones. Two Smyts are barbequing sausages, while the green, robed Smyt from the St Patrick's Day strip explains the ceremony to a teenage boy. Next is another solemn strip in which eight variously-coloured Smyts and two of the small round Fuzzes are seen gazing at a rainbow flag, to commemorate those killed in the mass-shooting at Pulse, the Orlando gay nightclub.
For Father's Day, a male Smyt with striped horns picks coloured fruits which spell out "Happy Paday" while his son and daughter watch. The father and son were previously seen in the Bad Penny out-take early in the series. The next day a group of underground Smyts celebrate the Summer Solstice by dancing around a miniature dolmen and a model of a stylised sun which they no longer recognise.
For the Fourth of July a large group of Smyts and Fuzzes watch a Smyt in a crash-helmet, carrying flaming coloured fireworks, being flung from a mangonel to land (if he's lucky) in an underground lake. For the strip's thirteenth birthday on 16th July two Smyts climb to the top of a giant cake, and on 13th August 2016 a Smyt cook makes extra-hot salsa to commemorate the sudden death of Rob's cousin Darrell.
For Labor Day a cross-section through a tunnel system shows Smyts at work on various tasks, and for Columbus Day a would-be settler Smyt in a boat is discouraged from landing on a foreign shore by a native Smyt.
A Fuzz dresses up as a Smyt and a Smyt as a Fuzz for Hallowe'en, and over the next two days Smyts parade in skull masks for the Day of the Dead, then lay them on the graves of loved ones. The rest of that week is all Smyts, not all for specific holidays. A Smyt male nurse gives soup to a female patient in bed. To celebrate a victory by the Chicago Cubs, Smyts play baseball, watched by an audience including two monks who think it's a harmless expression of tribalism, preferable to war. On Guy Fawkes Night Smyts gather round a bonfire, and one of them daydreams about explosives.
On Armistice Day two Smyts, a veteran and a youngster, discuss war. To round off the year, a pair of Thanksgiving strips show two Smyts eating until they are insensible.
Finally, the death of comics artist Stan Lee is marked by a strip featuring Spyder Smyt who "Does whatever a Spyder might" - except maths. The death of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is marked by a scene of a spaceship piloted by a roguish-looking male Smyt (with a mouth, and human arms), whose actions are being questioned by an anxious male Fuzz (mini-Wookie) - one of the ones with antennae - who speaks excellent, upper-class English. The Smyt is saying, in a sort of scrambled cod-runic script, "Relax pal we ain't dead yet".
Mansionverse Gazeteer [25/07/2013 - 30/12/2018] The gazeteer shows snapshots of a variety of countries and cities around the Mansionverse, beginning with a sequence which Rob drew earlier and which shows a zoom in from the whole solar system right down to an aerial view of the Mansion.
A Far Distant Place [23/03/2015 - 25/12/2017] A series of visual and verbal gags involving truncated-cone-shaped creatures glimpsed through a Panegate. It began as a one-week out-take in November 2015 and then continued as a series of special holiday shots: I have also included other cartoons about these creatures which Rob has uploaded at other times and places, such as on the MoE Facebook page.
Guest art, fanart and supplementary illustrations by the author Includes holiday specials and voting rewards by Rob which don't really fit in anywhere else.