Short for My Convenience

I really hesitate to call this a game, at least in the traditional sense, but go play it anyway. It'll only take a few minutes.

~Paul

Why I Love RPGs

No, not Rocket Propelled Grenade. Role-Playing Game. I only have five physical RPG books (three of which are addon books) and printed rules for less than a half dozen more systems, but I have a ridiculous amount of information about RPGs on my computer, including many other sourcebooks not quite the collection of a gamer who has had a few decades and a steady cash flow, but it still represents a strange amount of interest for someone who doesn't actually play RPGs. No one to play with. The village I live in is very boring, you see, and doesn't even have a proper gaming store that I'm aware of. I've played a tiny bit of D&D and a fan system called Final Fantasy RPG with other people in the past, and I've soloed a few more times on a few more systems. But why do I still spend time reading mass quantities of RPG rulebooks for so little actual play?

The stories.

I can still hope that I'll be able to set up regular RPG gaming, and I have my eye on a D&D supplement that creates rules for balanced random dungeons that can be played without a Dungeon Master. But until then, I stick around for the stories. The game mechanics lay down ground rules on how to proceed, but an RPG is about the story. Open up an RPG book, and unless it's the most cut-down universal system available, there will be a campaign setting--a proposed world in which to romp. Some of these can be very interesting, and they spark my imagination--almost in the same way a novel does, but asking me to fill in the blanks and imagine the stories myself.

To demonstrate, my favorite campaign setting is from JAGS-Wonderland, a surreal horror game based around Lewis Carroll's Wonderland novels. It sets up a universe where Wonderland--a twisted reality just below ours--is seeping upward, loosening the rules and trying to consume us. Sometimes, people slip through the cracks and go down--they don't lose their grip on reality, but reality loses its grip on them. When I'm reading all the details in this book, I hit a point where I stop seeing all the game mechanics and rules and instead see something like this:
(please note, as random trivia, that this was written months before I got my job)
(also note that the peculiar spelling is intentional)

A Page from Examining the Looking-Glass
by Paul

I walked toward the front desk, trying to move softly and hoping my footsteps weren’t too loud on the marble tile. But then, I usually walk quietly, and I’m used to libraries. Behind me, Parker wasn’t making an effort as concentrated as mine. You’d think he’d never spent time anyplace peaceful. Actually, come to think of it, that was a distinct possibility. Fortunately, he was probably busy gawking at the endless, twisting rows of shelves, the ceiling so high it the view simply faded into blackness, and the animated stone gargoyles that prowled the walls. Quietly, of course. The Liebrarian wouldn’t allow them to creak or crack like standard stone, not her Liebrary. So long as Parker remained enraptured by the sight and overawed by yet another alien (to him) landscape taken to its superlative, it was likely he would be disturbed enough to let me do the talking. I prayed for this.

I’m not sure why he was so overwhelmed, though; a library where you could have two people walk down parallel aisles and find more aisles cropping up between them was fun, but we’ve seen things more mind-bending than that in other parts of Wonderland.

And then, the Front Desk. Up to my chest in height, deep brown wood, trimmed in what I believe were fractal patterns. Tall stacks of books at either edge of the desktop, forming a portrait frame around the Liebrarian.

She was short; I could tell this immediately even though she sat at a tall desk and was almost certainly in a tall chair. Petite. Inquisitive, deep brown eyes, the sort you see in innocent children who love learning but haven’t yet learned enough to be scared. Maybe she had no need to be afraid where the angels dared not go. Her eyes were, of course, framed by glasses—thin-framed rectangles. She was dressed in a conservative white dress shirt and simple navy blue dress jacket; it reminded me of a university uniform. She’d ponytailed her hair, probably to keep it out of the way while she read. Her shoulders were squared—not in aggression, it seemed, but simple unconscious confidence. A small stack of books sat just to her left, a small stack just to her right, and on the desk in front of her a thick tome, open, in which she was completely absorbed. Her left hand absently cradled a thick darkwood stamp, as though she had been checking books in and suddenly ran across a one too good to simply process without exploring just a little bit. That could have happened moments ago; it could have happened decades ago.

She was, all in all, surprisingly normal. No one had told me what to expect, but after the murderous Queen of Hearts, the nervous talking rabbit, the grumpy omelet, the playful cat’s grin with a dark sense of humor, and the slew of others, I expected something more... Wonderlandish.

And yet, she was setting off all sorts of alarms in my head. Not the sort the others get from Wonderland, the “This isn’t real this isn’t real please don’t let this be real wakeupwakeupwakeup” sort. Nor was it the “that thing is about to rip my spine out” danger sense I start to feel when a trip down the rabbit’s hole is about to turn violent. I had to remind myself that she was potentially dangerous, an inhuman manifestation of universal principles beyond my grasp, and, no matter how collected she might seem in the upcoming conversation, she was what my friends would call “completely nuts.” Despite these reminders, I was very aware that this was exactly the sort of woman for whom I go head over heels. Parker keeps trying to figure out what sort of woman I’d like, if any. Insane, nearly all-powerful librarians, apparently.

She looked up.

I felt Parker take shelter behind me.

Her mouth curved into a friendly smile, but equally warm eyes pierced me, roamed all over me in a brief examination and summary. I somehow knew she had just written a narrated description of me, complete with mention of the large quivering man in a red shirt trying to hide behind me. Without taking her eyes off me, she flipped her book to the last page, stamped it in, and slid it off to the side. “May I help you?” She sounded mildly interested, but definitely distracted.

I was careful to speak softly, as I had been instructed. “We would like to use the Liebrary, Miss Liebrarian.”

“May I ask your purpose?”

The Cat had told me the Liebrarian was eager to be involved in Big Things with Big People. If there was a time to drop names, this was it. “The Queen of Hearts and Humpty Dumpty have asked us to find a certain piece of information for a project, and the Cheshire Cat has told us of a book in which we’d find it.” Bam bam bam! The quintessential Caretaker and the founding Deconstructionist working together, aided and abetted by Chaos incarnate. Beat that.

The Liebrarian blinked and, eyes half-lidded, re-examined me. I could almost hear her mentally scratching out my introductory paragraph and writing a new one. She smiled again. She produced two sheets of paper, a blue pen, and a red pen from somewhere on her desk; had I been watching her hands, I probably would’ve blinked the moment she picked them up. “Very well, then. You will, of course, require Liebrary cards. Read these and sign, please.” I took the papers and pens and passed a paper and the red pen back to Parker, who quickly snatched it and hunched behind me again.

The sheet was a list of rules; most were to be expected in a library. No speaking above a quiet voice, turn books in undamaged and on time, et cetera. Others involved bringing Jabberwocks into restricted sections, non-disclosure agreements for certain sections until certain dates or while wearing certain outfits, and one concerning mullets that made me nearly burst out laughing.

“Eh, Miss Liebrarian, we will be able to read the rules again after we have our cards, won’t we?” She nodded; assured that I wouldn’t have to memorize the entire list right now, I made sure there weren’t any “special” rules that would interfere with our mission today and signed it. The paper began rustling on its own—crinkles appeared all over the sheet—the paper crumpled itself, folded tightly, and I was holding a brown Liebrary card, my signature at the bottom, a black book logo in the corner next to the title, and the motto “The opposite of a lie is a truth; the opposite of a truth is also a truth” in small print underneath. I flipped the card over; printed in large font was the entirety of the rules list. Looking at it didn’t hurt as much as it probably should’ve; I guess I was getting used to Wonderland by that point.

“Now, then.” I looked up to see the Liebrarian slide the blue pen behind her ear and return the red one to somewhere on her desk. “You said you knew the book you wish to checkout?”

I reached into my sleeve and into the hole the Cat had shown me how to make and withdrew the paper the Cat had given me. “The First, Second, and Fourth Lies, Third Edition, by Nisse Elseworth, call number three six seven theta Q negative six I and seven-fifths.”

The Liebrarian smiled, with approval, I was sure. Of which feat, though? Cutting straight through an impossible filing system, or pulling the solution out of a dimensional hole in my sleeve? “Well then, Johnathan, follow me.” With that, she was standing at the head of an aisle; it looked like she moved to it and skipped the intervening space, but I was pretty sure she’d been waiting there before I gave her the call number and she had simply drawn our attention to the fact. She beckoned us, turned, and walked into the aisle, sending folds and ripples through the air as she slowly sped down the rows of books. That’s the best I can describe it to someone who hasn’t been to Wonderland—when I tried to look in a straight line down the aisle, I followed bends and folds in the air and found myself staring at six different places on the shelves. She was bending space, quickly traveling long distances at a leisurely walk.

Parker put a hand on my shoulder, stopping me from following. “Hey, John, you sure ‘bout this? This whole place feels wrong. Just kinda scary, you know?” He sounded spooked. He was usually the first of us to sense wrongness—the twists of Wonderland—though try telling him that he was sensing things and he’d get defiant and sulky.

“Yes, I am. We need that book, right?”

He wouldn’t meet my eye. “Well, yeah, but this place is going to make it hurt.”

I closed my eyes. I could see the faintest afterimage of the Liebrary, the whole immensity of the Liebrary, right there under my eyelids. It was just out of reach. “Everything in Wonderland hurts if you aren’t ready for it.” I opened my eyes, and all I could see again was the little bit of the Liebrary we were in. “It’s just knowledge you’re sensing, Parker. If you’re not ready yet, don’t look—but we have to go in.”

Parker shuddered just a bit; his face turned just a bit thundercloudy. “Stop with the mumbo jumbo. Look, she is dangerous. Didn’t you see how she was looking at you? Like you’re a slab of meat for sale!”

My mouth twitch into a smile. “More like an interesting book, actually.”

“Dude, stop joking. I’m serious. She has it in for you.”

I sighed. “Parker, I know. I know this place is dangerous. I know she is dangerous, and I know that it’ll be worse for me than most others who come into the Liebrary. Now, come on.”

I slipped out of his grasp and turned back to the aisle. The ripples and folds made a perfect half-sphere, the flat edge opening toward me. I stepped through it; my footsteps sounded like chimes through the bends and folds. I heard Parker follow me; his footsteps shattering glass. The bookshelves, floor, and ceiling all folded around me, forming a thousand diamond facets in a complete sphere. I walked on without feeling motion; the warped world around me dissolved and formed with every crystal-chime step I took, reshaping itself around me dozens of times.

The sphere finally shattered and the world righted itself. The Liebrarian crouched next to me, calmly removing a book from the lowest shelf. I looked to the side to see Parker, stiff and eyes wide in shock. I often wonder what Wonderland is like for those who simply cannot believe the impossible, whether before breakfast or after.

The Liebrarian straightened up, faced me, and held out the book. “Here. When you want to check it out, or if you need help, just come to the front desk.” She added a smile and a nod as she spoke.

I took it and thanked her. Parker leaned over my shoulder to look at it; while we weren’t looking, I felt the Liebrarian disappear through the aisles, or possible into the shelves. The book was large, as tall as my elbow to my fingertip and several thousand pages deep. It was bound in red leather, and stylized gold lettering adorned the cover.

I closed my eyes, once again seeing an afterimage of the entire Liebrary—stronger this time. I looked around for the nearest reading table. I grabbed Parker by the arm, stepped toward the table, opened my eyes, and sat down.

“What—how did you—John, what?”

“Wonderland’s different, Parker. Have a seat.”

He collapsed into a chair, head in hands and trying to ignore what had happened. “Okay. So we got the book. Does it have what we need?”

I began flipping. “Give it some time. The Caretakers aren’t likely to put anything in the open.”

“What?”

I skimmed through the table of contents. “Ramifications of the Fourth Lie.” “Hot Dog Buns and Apples.” “The First Cover-up of Something Everyone Knew But No One Wanted to Admit.” That sort of thing.

“Have you noticed that the Caretakers and Deconstructionists deal with knowledge differently?” I asked.

Parker shrugged. “Yeah, the Deconstructionists babble more.”

I allowed myself a smile before going on. “Not quite. They both know things. Things, capital T, as in Things Man Ought Not. I think the difference is how they handle it. The Deconstructionists have the Black Rose. When you go to ask it a question, you learn things you don’t want to know, things that hurt. It throws you as far as it can into your soul, or the universe, or whatever, and makes you look at what’s there when it cuts everything away. Break the nutshells and see what’s left. But how much of the nut gets smashed too, and what’ll eating the mixed bits do to you? The Caretakers, though, they back up and let you see everything. Like the Liebrary. Did you see how big it is? It’s even larger than it looks. The Cat told me that literally everything is recorded here. The thing is, the Caretakers make you look for it yourself, draw the patterns in the dots, and arrive at a conclusion... even then, you’re probably just seeing faces in the clouds.”

If it was possible, Parker slumped further. “Great, just great. One set tells you the worst part, and the other set makes you make it all up yourself. What are we doing here?”

I began flipping to a promising page. “Beating the odds, hopefully. It’s not that different than the rest of ‘reality’.” I reached the page; the air was instantly alive with roaring, the book flattened against the table, and a vortex of wind surged through it, pushing my hair back and stinging my eyes. I heard a dim crash as Parker’s chair fell backward. The paper bulged, the ink skittered across the page, and something raised itself from the book, something enormous and bulbous that carried its own deep shadows around it. The thing towered above us, hanging poised in the air.

Parker rolled to his feet and fell into an instinctive fighting stance. “John—what is that?!” The panic shredded through his voice, left his terror bare for the world.

I looked around. I hadn’t even noticed when an endless starfield moved into the Liebrary. Or had the Liebrary moved into an endless starfield? Regardless, we were alone with this thing. “What we came for.”

fin.

~Paul

Because.

~Paul

Got a job.

Well, some of you know this already, but I finally got a job. I'll be working as a circulation clerk at the Centerville and Farmington libraries. I start next Wednesday. I went to the Personnel office in Farmington to fill out paperwork and get my ID card today... it was raining when I went, so my hair is messed up on my photo. :P

I'm working for the government now. Me. And the government. Zaa?

Here's a tip: before heading onto the freeway, during a lot of rain, make sure you actually know how to set your car's air circulation devices such that it gets rid of the fog in the windows.

~Paul

Weirdar Alert

So. I was wasting time watching a cartoon tonight, as usual, and I found a scene over which I had to freak fully. Who can spot why I freaked?

~Paul

Pirates Trailer

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/piratesofthecaribbeanatworldsend.html

I've sent this off to BOC42 already, with results that might involve a hostpital trip. Anyway. Behold and rejoice. Jack is Back.

~Paul

...and now a word from our sponsors

All my readers (both of you) know that I'm working on a big ol' Rescue Rangers fanfic, right? Well, I'm currently taking a short break from it so as to regain my sanity. Instead, I'll post this little scene from a story that's probably the sequel to the sequel of the story I'm actually working on. XD Man, that's just begging to be hit in the face by a trout.

Anyway, there's so much background context going on that neither of you will really know why the three characters are acting so... out of character. Well, Emmett won't know for a different reason, namely, he doesn't know what they'd act like in the first place. But yeah. Context.

Chip burst into the hut, slammed the door behind him, and stalked over to the couch. He threw his hat across the room, grabbed a pillow off the couch and growled as he punched it over and over.

"Well, something's got you riled up, Chipper."

He turned. Lawhinie stood in the kitchen doorway. He dropped the pillow onto the couch. "It's nothing. And don't call me Chipper."

"Oh, that's right." She smiled. "I forget. You can't share case details or familiarity with the bad mouse."

Chip collapsed onto the couch and stiffly folded his arms, determined to remain controlled in front of Lawhinie. "It's nothing you need to worry about."

Lawhinie crossed the room and sat on the couch next to Chip. "You push yourself so hard, Chip. Why do you overwork yourself like this?"

"It's part of my job, part of being a Rescue Ranger. You can't understand it."

"It's not just being a Rescue Ranger. The others don't stress as much as you do. You haven't taken a moment off for rest since you showed up. Monty and Zipper find time to enjoy the surf. Gadget somehow finds time for her own projects. And Dale, well, we both know how he is."

Chip narrowed his eyes slightly and tightened his jaw.

Lawhinie arched one eybrow. "Oh--so it's Dale that has you burning?"

Chip threw his hands in the air. "Isn't it always?" He glared at the wall across the room.

"I guess so." Lawhinie's hands twitched once, then moved slowly to Chip's arm and shoulder nearest her.

Chip turned at her touch. "What are you doing?" He was surprised, and felt an instinctive urge to shy away from her.

"Helping you relax, because you need it. If I'm stuck living with you Rangers, I might as well help you a little." She began gently kneading his muscles.

"Ow!" Chip started to move away. "That hurts."

Lawhinie grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "That's because you're so tense. I told you, relax." She started massaging again.

Chip squirmed. "Really, it'd be better if you didn't--"

"Golly, Chip," she interrupted. She looked him in the eye and smiled--warm and guileless. "Are you always this nervous? I won't hurt you."

The family resemblance hit Chip now as it never had. Lawhinie and Gadget looked almost identical, sure, but even when Lawhinie had been masquerading as Gadget, there was something different in their bearing, their faces, their eyes. Now, they were identical. Chip let himself fall back into the couch, silent.

"That's better. Now, relax." Lawhinie continued her massage, letting her paws range over Chip's arm and shoulder. "What's it like being a Rescue Ranger?"

"Huh?"

"Just... what's being a Rescue Ranger like?"

"Oh. Well... I'm not sure. I've never thought about it."

"So think about it." She gently pushed at him, turning him so his back was to her.

Chip, lost in thought, absently swung his hindpaws onto the couch as Lawhinie's paws began spreading a gentle warmth through his other side and his back as she worked out the knots in his muscles. "We're always moving. Always, even when we don't have a case. We're always looking for more cases, because there's always more work to do. Even when we do try to take a rest, something happens and we end up rushing into it."

"Sounds exhausting."

"It is." Chip unconsciously leaned into into Lawhinie's ministrations.

"What keeps you going?"

"At first? I needed to settle some debts to animials who had helped me and their fellow beasts... and to some animals who had hurt me. Later, because it was right, and I wanted to make a difference."

"Have you made difference, Chip?"

His shoulders slumped; Lawhinie's paws followed, still spreading a pleasant warmth as they worked. "I'm... not sure. If you'd asked me a few months ago, I'd have said yes. But now, I don't know."

"Chip, you're... golly, I wouldn't wish that kind of doubt on anyone." She pulled gently on his shoulders, and he found himself drifting backwards. His head sunk into Lawhinie's lap. "That was one of the worst times in my life."

Chip blinked, coming out of his reverie, and looked upward at Lawhinie's upside-down smiling face. "You went through that?"

She nodded; a strand of hair slipped and dangled over Chip. She giggled shortly and tucked it behind her ear again. She lowered a paw to Chip's head and began running it through the short fur of his scalp. "Right after I met you last time. It's not easy to look back on your life and realize everything that was wrong with it, but that's what happened to me--and here I am with my new life. Live and let live. I guess sometimes this sort of doubt is necessary to get to something new."

He let his eyes slip half closed and nodded slightly, relaxing further as he did so. "Yeah... I guess so."

The hut door opened again. "Okay Chip, Monty finally got Dale to calm down and--Chip?" Chip sat up sharply and saw Gadget standing in the doorway, looking thunderstruck. "Chip, what's going on here?"

"Erm, nothing, Gadget." He glanced back at Lawhinie and--now realizing the full extent of what had just happened--scooted to the other side of the couch. He wasn't exactly sure why he was so embarassed--after all, it wasn't as if he and Gadget were an item. Nevertheless, he knew he was in trouble.

Gadget's ears went back and she crossed her arms. "Nothing? I came in here to see if you're alright after that fight and I find you enjoying yourself like nothing happened!"

Lawhinie smirked at Gadget--no longer the warm, pleasant smile that made her look her sister, but the calculating and shrewd one that separated them. "I was just helping him relax a little, sis, that's all."

"If Chip needs to deal with stress, then I'll help him." She stalked over to the couch and decisively put herself where Lawhinie quickly vacated. "He's *my* teammate, Lawhinie. Chip, give me your back."

"Um--Gadget--"

"Just be quiet, Chip." Gadget began digging ferociously into his back muscles.

"Ow! That hurts!"

She kept at him. "That's because you're tense. Be quiet and relax."

Lawhinie--now standing--crossed the room to the doorway she'd entered from. "I leave him in your capable hands, Gadget." She bent down and picked up Chip's hat from where it had landed when he threw it. She flipped it onto her own head and winked at Chip. She then slipped through the door, leaving a very frustrated mouse and a very distraught chipmunk in her wake.

Yeah, I got nothin' else.

~Paul