(no subject)

[enhancomancer]

The ghosts don't know as much history as the Castle Roogna ghosts, but they're more coherent. Are we going to get zombies too? I've never gone so long without seeing any zombies! Lacuna and Hiatus let me play with their zombie moat monster with them, but I never play with the zombie dragons so Stanley won't get jealous.

He's already a very pretty green!! He's the best dragon! He has six legs, vestigial wings that can even almost fly, and he's a steamer! Oh, and he's the Gap Dragon, that's very important in Xanth.

Xanth has lots of dragons. Fire dragons, water dragons, land dragons, air dragons, I'd have to ask the Good Magician how many, but they like to eat virgins. [ 8| ] In the past, a bunch were sacrificed to dragons who rescued them and decided they should be saved from their abusive villages instead, and there's a famous story of a human and dragon that ran away to the Isle of View to be unicorns instead! Isn't that sweet? [ 8| ]

So tell me all about your favorite ghosts, zombies, and dragons! And if your realm doesn't have any of those -- that's really sad, and I feel bad for you, but you can tell me your favorite story about a couple that proved true love is stronger than even a dragon's jaws! And dragon jaws are really strong. Stanley chomps rocks and swords!

'Kay!!!

Oh!!! And I'm Ivy! Hello!!

Comments

[trashylittlesecret]

[Richie's trying to make some sense of the pamphlet about magic when this comes over his mirror and nearly scares him out of his chair, because he really wasn't expecting it to just turn on. it looked like a phone, and usually phones let you decide if you want to take the transmission or not. no such luck here. he stares at the small girl as she rambles on about dragons and virgins and unicorns ... and then he remembers a conversation he had with Eleanor at the party]

Hi, Ivy. I'm Richie, and I've never seen a real dragon. But my friends and I ... we used to pretend they were real. And all kinds of other monsters, too. We made a game out of it.

[maybe talking about them will help him miss them less]

[enhancomancer]

You pretended they were real? Why?

[trashylittlesecret]

Because it was fun, and we were bored out of our heads, and there was nothing good on TV. I mean - we were kids, we couldn't really do much else on rainy days.

[a pause]

... Besides, sometimes we needed to pretend we were other people, for a while. Sometimes it was just more fun to think we were heroes. That we were important. Not just four dumb kids kicking around a tiny town in Maine that most of the world hadn't even heard of.

[enhancomancer]

What's TV?

And Maine? Is that the name of your world?

But Dragons ARE real? So why did you have to pretend? Or do you just mean you pretended to fight fake ones?

[trashylittlesecret]

TV is a magic box that shows you things - like, uhhh ... [he dug deep into his memory for fantasy stuff, the kind of stuff Bill used to weave into his settings and all those stories he told with so much ease that you really could believe they were real for a few hours] .... Like a crystal ball. Only with more than one thing to look at, so if you didn't like what it showed you, you could find something better. Some of the stuff was real, and some of it was just other people pretending.

Maine's the name of a piece of my world. We just called the whole thing "Earth", which is really boring, but most people from it are boring, so. There you go. And dragons aren't real on Earth, so we pretended to fight fake ones.

[enhancomancer]

Neat.

Mundania. Do you believe in magic now?

[trashylittlesecret]

I like your name better. ... And yeah, given how things went at the party, I kinda have to. I don't wanna go into details, but let's just say I've ... seen some shit.

[enhancomancer]

[:O Giant face!] You said a bad word, the Adult Conspiracy is gonna get you in trouble!!

[trashylittlesecret]

Don't see how, since for some reason, most people seem convinced I'm an adult, myself.

[enhancomancer]

There's like rules and laws they enforce on each other about saying the forbidden curse words in front of anyone under eighteen, though.

[trashylittlesecret]

News for them: I've been cussing up a blue streak since I was about your age. It's why my friends called me Trashmouth.

[enhancomancer]

You were never worried it might get stuck like that?

I've heard harpies and goblins are really good at cusses, but they have to follow the Adult Conspiracy too usually.

[trashylittlesecret]

Nah. I changed my voice too much. [a wink]

This Conspiracy must mean business if they even make monsters stick to it. What about the dragons, them, too?

[enhancomancer]

And that works??

I don't know! Probably. But only if it was in front of a baby that could understand the language of dragons.

The censors are very strict, and nobody much likes them, but everyone is forced to obey. I don't know what happens if they don't, that's part of the conspiracy.

[trashylittlesecret]

I don't know if it works, but the FCC - who are probably as close as my world gets to your Conspiracy - haven't come banging on my door, so maybe I'm on to something.

[enhancomancer]

What's the FCC stand for? Friendly Community Conspiracy?

[trashylittlesecret]

No, but I like yours better. I think it's "Federal Communications Commmission" or some dried up piece of crap like that.

[a pause, as she realized he's not delivering on the dragon stories]

Okay, so maybe you don't want to hear about our fake dragons, but I can tell you about the time we really did fight, The very first time we fought something together and won. The Great Derry Rock War of 1988.

[enhancomancer]

I don't get it.

You fought with rocks? Not against them, because rocs are magic, same as dragons. Goblins are too... so... [It's impolite to point out that mundane invaders always had metal weapons at least, not literal rocks, which is kind of pathetic even by Xanth standards, but she's downgrading Derry from even Mundania. Seriously the only people who use rocks as weapons are goblins, because goblins are dumber than the rocks!] Okay, I'm listening.

[trashylittlesecret]

It was what we had. Way back when I was a kid - same age as you. There were these four older kids: Victor Criss, Belch Huggins, Patrick Hockstetter, and the worst of them, Henry Bowers. We just called him Bowers, because "Henry" made him sound like an actual person, and he was way too mean for that. The other three were his best friends, and the four of them used to beat us up, call us names, stuff us in our lockers, steal our lunch or our arcade money. Anything mean you could think of, these guys would do it, and then they'd think of more mean stuff.

[he pauses in case she has questions about what a locker is, or an arcade, or whatever]

[enhancomancer]

Oh no!!

[Surprisingly, she knows what lockers are, AND ARCADES!!! And jukeboxes. Because her father brought some back from Mundania and her friend Hiatus and Lacuna played lots of rock'n'roll on the jukebox, much to the older folks' chagrin. And arcades are where all the cool people hang out, and money is solely for Mundania, Hell, and the hypnogourd, but if the arcade requires money to make it work, that's terrible and sad!!!] And the blue demons -- I mean... Oh shoot! What's the mundane word for them? Poet-lice? No wait!! I remember!!! Coppers!! Couldn't they help? Or are they just like red-demons and never help anyone but themselves? [Xanth demons are nearly always reddish. And act exactly like what little Ivy has seen of/read of/heard of Mundane police / law enforcement. Now you know!]

Although, I guess even bullies are weak to rocks, huh?

[Again, she's reminded of the time she, Stanley, and Hugo beat up the Cyclops: Bronte, with a stick, but again, this would be impolite to point out that even STICKS are a little more advanced. Moving right along:]