November 20, 2017 :: Today's Words: 3,494 :: Total Words: 21,439

Lila made a face. “That’s weird.”

“Yeah.” Timothy sighed. “Mom’s been acting weird lately too.”

“Parents are weird, though.”

“Yeah, but this is weirder than usual.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

A new character arrives, wearing an orange peel piece of clothing, and carrying a stuffed unicorn.

Mark Masterson finished typing the e-mail and hit “Send.” Then he went to the closet door and put on his beige trench coat.

On his way out of the building, he nodded at several employees and smiled reassuringly where possible. He wasn’t sure why people reacted to him the way they did, but he was glad that his position in the company meant that he wasn’t bullied or anything. His childhood had been disastrous.

The blue Subaru was waiting for him by the curb. He opened the front passenger side door and slid into the seat. His brother, Matthew, turned and smiled at him. “Have a good day?”

Mark shrugged. “It was okay. The fridge is missing.”

Matthew rolled his eyes and started the car. “I told you not to do that project.”

“We need to find out if this… thing… is fatal.”

They pulled into traffic and Matthew wiped his palm on his pants. Mark looked down. “Something new, I see.”

Matthew grinned. “Of course. I had to try it as soon as Chine showed it to me.”

Mark sighed and settled back into his seat resignedly. “Tell me.”

Matthew launched into an explanation of how the fabric the pants were made of was created from a unique method of fibre creation that used flax and orange peels to make the thread.

“That’s why the car reeks,” was Mark’s response to this news. Matthew glared at his brother and Mark waved his hand in acquiescence. “Go on,” he said.

As they pulled into the long driveway at the house, Mark happened to glance in the back seat of the car. “What the—Matthew, you didn’t!”

Matthew looked at him innocently. “What do you mean?”

“It’s huge. Where are you going to put it?”

“I’ll find space. I couldn’t leave it behind, once I spotted it on the shelf at the store.”

Mark just shook his head. His brother’s collection of unicorns had filled two rooms in their home already, and he’d recently started on a third. This new one was easily five feet long, practically life-sized, and it had a blue, green, and purple mane and tail, a crystalline horn, large white wings, and huge, soulful purple eyes. There was a gold sun on its withers and it was wearing a gold crown and torc with a purple stone in each.

“It looks like a My Little Pony,” Mark said.

“I believe that you are correct,” Matthew replied. “It’s Celestia.”

Introduce a character who worships Liza.

Sophie threw herself dramatically into the chair in the living room. “My life is over!” she exclaimed.

Her mother looked up briefly from the sock she was darning but didn’t say anything.

Sophie flipped around so that she was lying half in the chair and half off of it. “It’s just never going to happen!” she continued.

Her mother stifled a sigh. “What’s never going to happen, dear?” she asked, though she knew exactly what her daughter was talking about.

Sophie stood up and flung her hands into the air. “Why, my acting career, of course!” She dropped her hands to her sides and launched back into the chair. “It’s just never going to happen!”

“You have lots of time to become an actress, Sophie.”

“But I don’t! Mother, Liza was in her first film when she was three years old!”

Her mother set the sock down in her lap. “Liza Minnelli’s mother was Judy Garland, who was also an actress. If I recall correctly, that first film appearance consisted of exactly one scene, in which she played the child of her own mother. Not much acting required for that.”

Sophie sighed dramatically. “But, mother.”

“But, Sophie,” replied her mother. “Go outside, I don’t have time to deal with this today.”

Sophie stood up and stomped to the door. “You’ll be sorry you didn’t encourage my acting career when I’m famous and my tell-all memoir comes out.”

“You don’t have an acting career, and any tell-all memoir will simply describe what a loving family you had as a child, so I’m not exactly concerned.”

Sophie grumbled as she left the house and headed for the park. Maybe Timothy would be there. He was usually willing to help her run lines, at least.

Introduce a character who worships Athtart.

Robin arrived in Eritrea and set about finding a place to stay. She had no contacts with CSIS anymore; it was obvious that Bob had been compromised, and she needed to ensure that her whereabouts remained as secret as possible to ensure her safety.

She finally located a hotel in the capital city, Asmara, and registered under an alias, Lisette Pinta. Once settled into her hotel room, she changed from her traveling clothes into something more formal, did her hair and makeup, and brought her purse down to the hotel’s restaurant.

Sitting at a table perusing her menu, she couldn’t help but notice two women at a nearby table. They were a little older than she was, and she was certain she recognized one of them.

Suddenly it hit her: Alaina Martlett.

She took her wine glass over to the women’s table and cleared her throat. They looked up. Recognition swept across Alaina’s face, replaced immediately by a blank look of curiosity.

“I was just thinking that it would be lovely to have a friend along on this trip,” she said in character. “Since I haven’t got that, I was wondering if you might like to have a third?”

Alaina reached toward her empty table. “Oh, of course! Please join us!”

Robin was about to bring over a chair when her server appeared. “Oh, yes, I am going to join these ladies.”

The server looked at the three and then suggested a larger table. Enthusiastically, the three women agreed.

Once they were ensconced in a booth, Alaina leaned across the table and hissed, “What are you doing here?”

Robin leaned forward as well. “Following a lead. You?”

“Doing as I was told.”

“Bob was compromised.”

Alaina’s eyes widened. “What?”

“My contact was killed and I had to kill another agent to get away. I’m here following something that agent said.”

“Holy…”

Their server returned to take their orders just then, so they each ordered something to eat and some more wine. Then Robin explained her alias and Alaina introduced Paula.

When the server returned, he had a bottle of wine and a note for them. Paula looked at the note and shook her head.

“Some dork paid for the wine, wants us to go meet him.”

Alaina rolled her eyes. “Which one?”

Paula pointed.

The man was black, well-built, and dressed in white silk. He was sitting at the bar and raised his glass to them when he noticed them looking at him.

Paula shoved Alaina. “Let me go over.”

Alaina let her out. “Fine, go for it. We’ll keep an eye out for mischief.”

Paula sauntered over to the man and Robin and Alaina discussed the events of their respective missions thus far, while also keeping an eye on Paula.

A few minutes later, Paula returned to their table with the man in tow. He was taller than she was, probably about six feet.

“Everyone, this is Isaias.”

He smiled, and his teeth were the same white as his shirt. Paula slid into the booth next to Alaina, and Robin slid over to allow Isaias to sit down next to her.

“Ladies, it is lovely to make your acquaintance,” he said, bowing his head briefly. “Athtart bid me come tonight and I can see why. Obviously she wished for me to meet you.”

Robin frowned. “Athtart?”

“Ah, perhaps you would know her by another name… Ashtoreth, perhaps?”

Robin shook her head.

“No matter. She is the goddess of fertility and war.”

“War?” asked Alaina.

He nodded. “Indeed, war. I have a message for you.” He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a flash drive. “You will need this information.”

With that, Isaias rose from their table. Alaina slipped the flash drive into her purse as the server returned with their meals.

Introduce a character who worships Khepri.

Up in Alaina’s room, Robin and Paula waited while Alaina booted up her laptop. “This is the weirdest crap I’ve ever been involved with, you guys,” she said.

Paula raised an eyebrow. “Weirder than that time you—?”

Alaina broke in with an emphatic “YES.”

Paula giggled and whispered to Robin, “She doesn’t like to admit to a lot of the stuff we did way back when.”

Robin smiled uncomfortably. She wasn’t totally sure what their relationship was, but at least it seemed that Paula was also an agent.

Alaina made sure her computer was disconnected from the internet and plugged the new flash drive into it. Once it was loaded, she clicked through to the file listings and scanned the titles.

“They’re numbered,” she announced. “I’m going to guess that we’re supposed to open them in order.”

“Good guess,” said Paula, shifting to get a better view of the screen. “Let’s go for it.”

Alaina opened the first file, which was a series of sketches and plans for some kind of device. “Not the nuclear plant,” she said. “Not sure what that is.”

They continued through the files. There were more plans and several e-mail exchanges. There was one in particular that seemed very strange. It was between two people who were talking about whatever the plans were for, but one of them kept talking about Khepri.

“Who’s Khepri, anyway?” asked Paula finally.

Robin pulled out her tablet and connected to the wi-fi. She did a quick search on Wikipedia. “It’s an Egyptian god. So either someone is named after a god, or these people are talking about the god.”

They kept reading and found a section where the person talked about praying to Khepri. “Definitely the god,” said Robin.

The last file was a series of mug shots with basic information about each person. “This could be useful,” said Alaina, “But only if we can figure out why that guy gave us this information.”

Robin pointed at one of the pictures. “Isn’t that the guy who was talking about Khepri?”

Alaina squinted at the name. “Yes, it is.”

“Okay, so I’m going to guess that these are all people we don’t want to deal with.”

Paula nodded. “I agree. And now the big question is, what do we do next?”

Your character enters Zuben Elakrab. There see a can of soda. How do they react?

Hours after the women had concluded that they needed more information and should probably talk to Apollo and Travis before doing anything else, Alaina lay awake in her bed, listening to Paula snore across the room.

She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, and whispered, “Kraz, chariot, draw me in.”

When she opened her eyes she was in a bright red room that had black gridlines on all of the walls. She frowned. This wasn’t Kraz.

She got up from the bed she was lying on and walked towards a strange brown structure that looked like it could be a door, though it was curvier than she would expect a door to be. It slid open as she approached, and she stood in the doorway and looked around.

There was a sign directly in front of her that announced “Welcome to Zuben Elakrab!” and a table underneath that which held a can of orange Fanta.

Alaina frowned and stepped back into the room. She retraced her steps and lay back down on the bed. She needed to stop traveling to stars.

Obviously.

Did your character just see Venusaur? Or was it something else?

Sophie didn’t see Timothy at first, but she wandered around the park anyway because she knew her mother would be angry if she went home too soon.

She finally spotted Timothy over by some bushes. He was crouching down next to that new girl, Lila. Well, maybe Lila would like to help run lines too. They could do a scene from Cabaret or something.

Sophie joined the other two. “Hey, whatcha doing?” she asked.

Timothy pointed toward the bushes. “Look in there,” he whispered.

Sophie leaned forward and looked through the leaves. She saw an odd, dinosaur-like creature with a pink flower growing out of its back. She leaned backward. “What is that?”

Lila gave her an annoyed look. “It’s a Venusaur, you ninny. And whisper, please. We don’t want to scare it away.”

Sophie looked again. “A… Venusaur? What’s that?”

“It’s a type of Pokémon,” said Timothy.

“Pokémon?”

Timothy nodded once. “Yes, Pokémon. Now hush and watch.”

Sophie stayed silent and watched with the other two as the Venusaur wandered around the small clearing, eating grass and pulling leaves off the bushes. After a few minutes, it looked up and locked eyes with her. Then it turned around and ambled off through the bushes.

Timothy and Lila stood up and started talking excitedly about the Venusaur. Apparently they’d been watching Pokémon for a few days, and hadn’t seen one until now.

Sophie stood up. “Wait, you’ve been watching these things? For days? I thought Pokémon were imaginary!”

“Yeah, so did we,” said Timothy. “But I guess we were wrong.”

“This is nuts.”

Lila shrugged. “Timothy’s life is weird right now. At least it’s interesting.”

Sophie’s mouth dropped open. “Interesting? Um, yeah, interesting.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” asked Timothy. “Did your mom get mad at you again?”

Sophie kicked at the ground. “I was just telling her that Liza Minnelli was three when she was in her first film and I’m already eight, and she told me to go play outside.”

Timothy nodded. Lila frowned and looked from one to the other. “Liza… Minnelli? Who’s that?”

“You mean you don’t know? Oh, Liza is just the best entertainer ever! Her mother was Judy Garland, and—”

“Judy Garland? You mean, like, Somewhere Over the Rainbow?”

Sophie licked her lips impatiently. “Yes, that’s her.”

“Cool. But why do you care about when she was in movies and stuff? Isn’t she old?”

“Well, yeah… but I want to be an actress too!”

Lila looked at Timothy. Timothy shrugged. Lila looked back at Sophie. “Well, I don’t know anything about acting, but if you want to help us try to figure out what’s going on with the Pokémon and stuff, you can.”

Sophie considered her options. On the one hand, she could try to find something to do by herself. Running lines was boring without at least one partner. On the other hand, she could just hang out with Timothy and Lila, and possibly help solve a mystery. Given that having actual experience solving mysteries could be useful to mention on a resume and help her get a part someday, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to help the other two. She shrugged. “I can try and help. What have you figured out so far?”

Your character has a sudden craving for dark chocolate and parmesan ice-cream.

Robin, Alaina, and Paula were sitting in the restaurant again when the next craving hit. Robin sighed.

“You’re going to think this is ridiculous, but I’m having a craving. I don’t want to look nuts to the server, so can one of you order something like spaghetti with parmesan cheese?”

Alaina frowned. “Why would that look weird?”

“Because I’m going to put the parmesan cheese on the ice cream I’m about to order.”

Paula wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”

Robin sighed. “I know, but there it is. I’ve been having these weird cravings for weeks now, and I don’t know why!”

“Well, I had weird cravings when I was pregnant,” said Paula.

“That’s not a possibility,” said Robin, shaking her head. “Also, I’m pretty sure you never had a craving for orange tuna ice cream. Or Popplers ice cream.”

“What are Popplers?” asked Alaina.

“Baby aliens from Futurama. The cartoon.”

The other two nodded. “Okay, I’ll order the pasta,” said Paula.

Alaina looked at her. “Wait, did you say you were pregnant?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a kid. Two, actually.”

“No way! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because they’re done high school and I never think about them as being news to anyone anymore.”

The server arrived and they all ordered, then Alaina and Paula continued their conversation about Paula’s children. Apparently she also had a husband who didn’t know anything about her status as a CSIS operative. “I told him it was a work trip,” she said. “It wasn’t really a lie, it’s just… not the job he thinks it’s for.”

Robin spun her fork around on the table. She couldn’t wait for the dark chocolate ice cream to arrive. She hoped it would have chunks of chocolate in it.

Thoughts of the dessert she was craving soon drowned out the others’ conversation.

Your character dreams about some hot tea and some magic beans.

Their last night in the hotel, Alaina dreamed that she was back at her cabin in the woods. She was making some tea on the stove when there was a knock at the door.

She opened the door to see an old man leading an emaciated cow by a rope tied around its neck. “Can I help you?” she asked.

The man held out his hand and opened it. There were five green beans that looked kind of like lima beans. “I would like to give these to you,” he replied, “in thanks for this cow.”

Alaina looked at the cow. “But that’s not my cow,” she said.

The man set his feet and shoved his hand at her. “I would like to give these to you,” he said firmly, “in thanks for this cow.”

Alaina scooped up the beans. “Okay, okay,” she said. “What do I use them for?”

The man smiled a toothy grin that had many gaps in it where teeth had fallen out. “You will know when the time comes,” he said, and turned away. *The cow followed him dejectedly into the trees.

Alaina looked down at the beans in her hand. “I wonder what these are for?” she muttered, then closed the door and returned to her whistling kettle.

She poured the water over the tea leaves in her china teapot, and then suddenly had the urge to drop in the beans.

As soon as they hit the water, they started sizzling. Then they began to grow, long tendrils and vines curling out over the edges of the pot. One of them wrapped itself around Alaina’s wrist, and she pulled away. Another lunged for her ankle—when had it grown over the edge of the table?—and she backed away. It was growing so fast that she barely had time to get out the door and slam it closed before they hit the wood.

And then she saw tiny tendrils poking out under the door.

She turned and ran, pelting for the hot spring and her goddess for protection.

She awoke just as she reached the spring.

Your character enters Martinique. There see tea, black, 3 sugars. How do they react?

Aaron and his archaeology team left the Aztec settlement and travelled back to civilization. Aaron then boarded a plane for Martinique. He wasn’t sure what Chalchiuhtlicue wanted him to do there, but he was sure that it was the place she wanted him to go.

His plane landed and he emerged into the hot sun. He put on his straw hat and lightly patted the pouch that contained the small carving of Chalchiuhtlicue, which he had hung around his neck on a leather thong. He found a taxi and travelled to a hotel, where he checked in and found his room satisfactory.

He went out of the hotel and wandered toward the beach. He found a seaside café and sat at an outside table to watch the surf.

Then the waiter brought him a cup of black tea and a small bowl that contained three sugar cubes.

Aaron stared at the tea and the sugar. Then he slowly, deliberately, added the cubes to the tea and stirred it until the sugar had dissolved.

He drank the tea quickly, in one breath, ignoring the burn from the steaming tea. Then he stood up and dropped some bills on the table before taking off running for the ocean.

The waiter watched him go. As Aaron’s feet hit the water, he turned back to the café. “Got another one!” he called.

The cook sighed and picked up the house phone to call the Maritime Gendarmerie. Sometimes people just couldn’t take the heat.