Lynet - When I think of you creating this story, I imagine you as a sort of independent movie producer with a vision and a story to tell. You've written the script, scouted the locations, hired the actors, rounded up the costumes, props and sets, and have plotted out your special effects. You direct your cast to get the kind of shots you have in your mind, and what we see in the pictures is amazing. But we do not see all of the hard work, tricks and special effects - the "movie magic," if you will, that goes into each shot. I remember that one scene in "I, Sim" where your little cast of characters had been treking along, and then you sat them down to a feast in the middle of nowhere. I think that you said something about how they had all worked so hard, you thought you'd give them a little break. I always pictured that as a the cast and crew having a kind of cast party to celebrate a particularly tricky bit of bit of shooting! We salute you, Lynet. Really amazing work!
Thanks, Sacha I do play with my little actors, poor things, because I also make them work hard, even making them walk through a scene more than once, until they've got it right, even yelling at them. Although I am following the plot of a story I wrote a long time ago (must be 25 years now) there are some parts I can't do, because I've grown too attached to my little people. I resist anything that hurts them. And because of some cheats I've found, I can undo some things, or not save the game. I admit I killed a couple in Ironsides but it was hard, and only because they were irritating and quarreled with everyone anyway. And they make (or made, I should say, because one destroyed the other when I wasn't looking) interesting ghosts. (I admit here that Ironsides himself did not die, but another Servo did. Don't know if I should confess that, but I couldn't kill that robot. I was way too attached. So a stunt double lost his life.) Hugo's acolytes died in the original story, rather horribly. But he saved them this time, and they all went back to the big temple and had a big dinner and watched TV. Also, I create all my actors as knowledge sims who are very happy to sit and read most of the time when I'm busy with someone else. They're biggest wants revolve around gaining skills, which I encourage, and seeing someone as a vampire, which I don't allow. (I should share pictures of the private lives of Lynet's actors.)
what SBW said earlier, I have to repeat... Are we even playing the same game? (genuflects a dozen times and bursts into spontantious applause.)
I haven't expressed my awe in a while, so here it is: OH MY GOSH THIS IS SO AWESOME! I hope that made my feelings clear.
That would be FUN! A kind of "Behind the Scenes" or "Making of Andromeda Rose" thread! I suppose then your Sims would want more money...Or maybe you could just write it into their little contracts as part of their Promotional Obligations!
Good idea, Sacha, because I love telling everyone how I set things up. How about interviews by columnist Bone "can we talk" Slivers, for the Simstar Tattler, or some such? This slight delay in the story is because I had to complete the tax returns (which were on extension) for my son. It was tricky because of income from a non-US company overseas that doesn't give its staff forms W-2 or any other of our standard Federal/State paperwork. Anyway, the returns are done and in the mail. Whew! Playtime! (Except I'm at work now. ) See ya
It snowed during the night. Cory had awakened long enough to pull one of our capes out of my backpack and spread it across the two of us. Then he went back to sleep, but only for a little while. He woke me up before dawn. Rise and shine, Seville. Weve got a long way to go before we can make camp. Im freezing! Whats going on? I looked around at the snow. Whats this? Guess, he said, tying his cape at the neck. I mean, why? I got up stiffly, every muscle hurting. Higher elevation, I presume. Better than getting rained on, dont you think? He climbed off the ledge and reached up to help me, but I was on my hands and knees, scraping snow from the rock, starting to panic. Wheres the knife? I cant find the knife! I packed it. Hurry up. Lets go. He lowered his hands, turned away and started walking. I pulled open my backpack and found the knife on top, safe. Then I climbed down off the ledge and hurried after him while pulling my own cape over my shoulders. Walking was now a lot more difficult because of the snow. Although it was only an inch or two deep, it was powdery and easily blown around by the light wind, and it obscured the rocks and crevices that would snag at our boots. It was also slippery. We ate as we walked, gnawing on pieces of salty, dried meat. It was horrible, but I was starving. When I had swallowed the last of it, I said, Weve been two nights and two days in this pass. How much longer, do you think? He didnt answer me at first, just kept walking, looking grim. Then he said, I want to be out of this pass before it gets dark again. I want to be out in the open, and as far ahead of that wizard and his weasels as possible. Weve got that knife and a few arrows. But I bet his arsenal is a lot bigger and meaner than ours.
“Then you’re going to leave with me? And go back to the lander?” “I’m not leaving Meara.” “Maybe it’s not up to you. We’re being used, both of us, by Am…” “You and I have a deal, Andy. You will not talk about that cretin.” He walked faster. I curled my fingers into angry fists and stopped talking. He was being stupid. Real or unreal, this wasn’t his world. Hadn’t he realized that last night? Hadn’t he felt it? Every time I thought about the attack of those creatures, and Hugo’s green tower of magic, my hands started shaking. I lowered my eyes to watch the icy-white ground in front of my feet. I was so tired and sore and miserable that I didn’t see anything except one foot in front of the other, over and over again, hypnotic, ticking like an ancient clock, measuring the day. A long while later Cory said something I didn‘t hear. I glanced at him, and looked up. We had come to the end of the pass. The valley was straight ahead, a vast and frozen landscape of light and shadow. Storm clouds stretched their purple folds across the sky and I saw one long arc of lightening reach to the ground. It was so far away that several seconds passed before we heard a faint rumble of thunder roll over our heads. Then I realized that the valley was bare of anything except ice and snow. There was no city.
Oh no, I said. Its not here. The city is not here! Andy, I know my stuff. We landed in this valley and that city is here somewhere. I think those crags block our line of sight. But I do see pine trees. We can make camp and I can try to do a little hunting. Hunting? For what? With what? This. he pointed at the bow. Im serious. Our foods running low, and youd better hope I can catch something. You can put up the tent and get the fire going. I wasnt sure I had the strength for it. We still had some walking to do, just to get to the pine trees in the distance. Eventually, though, as the sun sank behind the mountains and the storm clouds rumbled and moved away from us, we reached the small grove of pine. Cory disappeared through the trees. I struggled with the tent, finally got it set up, then gathered fallen wood and started a fire. To my surprise, Cory returned with something that looked like a large rat. It was very dead. I didnt watch him skin and clean the thing, and I insisted that he carry the offal into the woods, assuming that other animals would be happy to make a meal of those bits. Cory ate most of the creature, pulling off pieces as it smoked and hissed over the fire. He hardly waited for it to cook completely through. I ate a little while he talked about stalking it. It slowly occurred to me, as I listened to him, that maybe he did belong to this world after all. He had always seemed clumsy and awkward on our ship, constantly bumping his head and tripping over his own feet. Hed been careless, too, breaking things almost daily. And rash! He was the one who had insisted on investigating the cellars of the abandoned city. But the man sitting by the fire with me now was not the same man. He saw me staring at him and smiled big. Want to go to bed now? Then he laughed and scratched at the hair on his chin. You get such a look on your face when I say stuff like that, Andy. Its a kick to see it, no kidding. Of course, in some ways, I corrected myself, he hadnt changed at all.
I almost forgot to get the knife out again that night. Fortunately, I did remember, because we found the tracks again the next morning. But we found more than the long three-toed tracks of the creatures wed escaped in the pass. What is it? I said, crouching over the footprints. Looks like the same prints I found around my farm the other night. You remember, the night I heard something that sounded like a dying cat. I stared at the tracks, thinking of Egans fight with the beast. I had hoped the Medruzz had given up on me, but it hadnt. It had followed us. I stood up. Lets find that city. You think its just beyond those cliffs? Yup. It was the middle of the day when we came over a rise in the ground and saw the city ahead of us. I almost fell to my knees in relief. Cory sensed what I was thinking. Andy, youre putting all your hopes in that city and you might be wrong. You might not find your escape there. Its got to be there. I refused to believe that it wasnt. Somewhere down in the cellars beneath the city was the temple of Amathaon. It was the head and heart of the telepath who had sent us here. I couldnt tell Cory that. He didnt believe it. The time machine you mentioned, I said. Where else could it be but here? The question isnt about where it is. The question is about when it is. So its been here, and will be here, but may not be here now. I waved my hand impatiently and started down the other side of the embankment.
There was no escape from the wind. The moment we left the canyon for the valley, it was as if we had walked into a different world, a world ruled by the wind. It tore at our clothes and tangled the cloaks around our legs. It wrapped us in white clouds of icy dust that cut like fire across unprotected flesh. The wind was a living thing, and it was the breath and voice of the wasteland, the moaning of a desperate landscape, sometimes reaching a pitch so high and fierce that I covered my ears to block the sound. It was unnatural and malevolent, and yet I knew that this was not the Rashida Wind, the killing blizzard that would kiss the sleeping Hadrea and awaken her. I struggled to stay close to Cory, but my eyelids grew heavy from the stinging ice, and my legs grew weaker from pushing through the drifts. The snow moved against me, changing between blinding white and shadowy blue, drawing my aching eye toward its secret depths. I staggered and fell, and for a moment I lay there below the reach of the wind, sinking toward the darkness. Then a few seconds of sanity stirred me to move and get up. Cory had stopped and come back to my side. He grabbed my elbow. You cant rest here, and Im not going to carry you. Move! Move! Leftrightleft! Im fine, I said, and pulled my arm free. But he stayed behind me after that, occasionally pushing. I got angry and shoved him away. He laughed, This is fun, Saville. Im sure glad I came with you. Its that smile of yours, like sunshine on a rainy day. He wouldnt shut up. He taunted me with sarcastic comments about everything that mattered to me, and it was only when the ancient walls of the city rose up in front of us that he finally stopped talking. I leaned against the frozen stone, hot and angry, and then grabbed at the scarf that covered my face. Cory said, Leave it alone. We should find shelter out of the wind first. He waved toward a narrow alley between the buildings. Lets try that route.
I didn’t recognize this area of the city but I didn’t expect to, since we had walked into it from a different side of the valley. And yet all the uneasy feelings it had aroused in me the first time I saw it came back. My chest tightened, and I fought the urge to run back into the storm. “Who built this place?” I said. “No way to know. It was ancient when we first saw it. It looks the same now. Ancestors of the Brydians, I suppose.” He looked up at the mountain behind the city. “They barely mention the sorcerers. They don‘t mention this place at all.” A few minutes later we saw an opening in one of the walls and stepped through to a small room where we sank down immediately to the rough stone floor. I found the candle in my backpack and used Cory’s flint lighter on it. He said, “It’s getting late. We should get some sleep and then go look for the cellars in the morning.” He lay back with his hand behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. I hesitated for a few minutes, then said, “You got a lot off your chest a little while ago, out there. I didn’t know some of that stuff mattered to you so much, about the supplies on the lander, for instance. About reporting to Arkin. About my interference with your…” “Get over it, Andy. I said a lot of things out there for only one reason, to make you mad enough to fight the storm. That’s all.” “You mean, it’s not true? What you said about the way I ran the ship?” “Believe me, it’s true! But it is absolutely not important. Not to me. Aargh!” He sat up. “My back is killing me. Maybe we can find someplace else to sleep besides this lumpy stone floor.”
We searched the building and found a small room furnished with stone benches. I set the candle down between two of them and curled up on one of the hard stone seats. Cory spent several minutes trying to get all of himself crammed into one of the others. He managed somehow, complaining the entire time that his back would be completely broken by morning. Then, almost immediately, he was snoring. I lay awake for a little while, listening to him, and to the wind on the other side of the wall. I wondered if Hugo and his acolytes were out in that storm. And the Medruzz. Was it out there, too? I closed my eyes and slept. I was so deeply asleep that I had trouble waking up to the awful noise of growling and shouting. The shouting was Cory. The growling was the beast that he was fighting--the Medruzz. I jumped to my feet and searched frantically for my backpack. I had forgotten about the knife and cursed myself for that. As the grunting, screaming fight boiled behind me, I dragged the pack out from under the bench and tugged at the knots with shaking fingers. When they were finally loose enough for me to get my hand inside, I pulled the knife free, rose to my feet and held it up, expecting the flash of blinding light to end the struggle, to send the beast running. The light had no effect, not immediately. The creature was too intent on trying to get his teeth into Corys throat. I moved closer, intending to drive the blade into the monsters back, when it suddenly gave up the fight, snarled in my direction and ran off. Cory turned his face away from the knife. I dropped it on the floor and grabbed his hand. Cory! Are you OK? Answer me, Cory. Please answer me. He shook himself, squinted at me, and said, What the **** was that?!
Thats the Medruzz thats been following me ever since I got to this planet. Its a miracle you woke up in time to fight it. Im so sorry. I forgot to get the knife out of my backpack. You mean thats the thing that scared my chickens? He sat down on the bench. I sat down next to him, Yes. It was no miracle, he said. I woke up because the thing stinks. I smelled it as soon as it came into the room. Then it just stood there, slobbering. Then it went straight for you. Thats when I jumped it. Cory Relax. Were OK, for now. I want to get out of here. I want to go find those cellars and get away from this place as soon as possible. I want you to leave, too. Im tired. Im not looking for anything right now. Im going to sleep. Go back to your own bench. He pushed me off his bench and lay down. I went over to mine and sat down, wide awake, staring at the wall across the room, waiting for sunrise. The knife had almost not worked. It had lit up the room with all the light it had always had, but the Medruzz had endured it, at least for a little while. The beast was growing stronger, or more desperate. Cory had almost died, or worse. I found it hard to look at him sleeping on the next bench. I found it hard to breathe.
Eep. I think they should forget about destiny and go back to the farm! Why does no one ever do that in these stories? So glad Cory's all right ...
