Previous Post Saving the Future – Part 9: The Land That Common Sense Forgot Previously: The Lair Mansion and all its occupants have vanished, along with the SPUD helicarrier and a thousand SPUD agents. Liu XI Xian and Dancer have been taken away by fake FMRC operatives. Lara Night is visiting with Lisa and the Shoggoth. One mystery has been solved. Another now unfolds. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s five forty-five on a drizzly afternoon here over Paradopolis on the WPOG traffic and weather copter. From here I can see the start of a buildup on the Sheldon Bay Bridge, but apart from that accident at Byrnewood and Liefield we warned you about earlier the streets are looking pretty good. Around Off-Centre Park there’s a few roadworks blocking westbound traffic past…”     And suddenly the bright flash lit up the sky from horizon to horizon.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Holy crap, what was that! Dave, get the chopper round towards… I mean, hold on folks, something’s happening out over the ocean. I can’t see what caused that bright flash that just lit up the whole city but I…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wait! I see now. Folks, I don’t believe this! I don’t know how, I don’t know why but the Lair Island’s gone! All of it, as if it was never there!” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aakkkk!” gasped the Shoggoth, staggering.     Lisa and Lara turned to the loathsome elder being with concern. “What is it? What’s wrong?” demanded Lara.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh dear,” said Lisa.     The Shoggoth evaporated. ***     Parody Island dropped through the transdimensional vortex like a brick and then was caught by an unseen force. A massive intelligence washed over the Lair Mansion, searching. “Not here?” it thought, with some irritation. It sifted through the occupants of the building, rejecting each one in turn. Then the island was discarded like a forgotten toy, no longer of interest.     And it fell. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, you want to fill me in on where we are?” Hatman demanded as he landed beside a jungle pool to get out of the shade of the old red sun. “Preferably without boxing my ears?”     Silicone Sally stretched out of his arms and folded her own arms across her ample chest. “Well I never asked you to save me from the dino that was supposed to be my lunch. The Dirt People will be pretty pissed that all that wood-gathering for the big cookout was for nothing!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The what?”     Sally tutted. “I fell down a big hole in Canada. Instead of rabbits with pocketwatches I got Jurassic Park. It’s been six weeks now and I was starting to get a bit worried. I’m lodging with the Dirt People, who give me board and beads and the occasional dance night in exchange for me hunting up dinner for them. They live in the caves over that way and they hide out from the Iguana People who tend to take them away to experiment upon.”     Hatman rubbed his head. “But where are we? I was on the SPUD helicarrier when I got transported here somehow. I’m not even sure this is a real place, not some kind of illusion or virtual reality.”     Sally smoothed her hands over her bikini-clad form. “So you’re imagining me, are you? You do that a lot?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No,” said Jay, quickly. “I’m just trying to get a handle on the situation.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I felt that when you grabbed me and flew off with me,” noted Sally.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“On the where-on-Earth-are-we situation,” Hatman clarified firmly.     A lazy pteranadon winged overhead.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or where-not-on-Earth are we,” the capped crusader allowed. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And the breaking news story at the top of the hour is that Parody Island and the Lair Legion have vanished. There’s no official word yet about what may have happened to our heroes, although newspaper editor J Jonah Jerkson is claiming credit for, quote, ‘his crusading article exposing these phoneys for what they truly are’. We’ll be covering the story in full, with Professor Brock P. Lyedekker speculating on the similarities with the alleged transportation of Paradopolis to an alien world a few years back. Meanwhile here’s Sonia Sonning over at the First Church of the Apostate interviewing Mother Bartok who has announced that this is a punishment from heaven. More news after these messages…” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmph,” said Sir Mumphrey Wilton as he looked around. He was in some kind of tropical forest, near a pile of ancient ruins. He pulled out his pocketwatch and checked it.     His brow furrowed. The Chronometer of Infinity’s temporal energy had been almost exhausted reversing a nuclear explosion a short while ago. And it wasn’t recharging.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not good,” muttered the eccentric Englishman, pocketing his timepiece and looking around for his grand-daughter. He had a vague impression of being inspected then cast aside. There was no sign of Samantha Featherstone.     He turned and examined the ancient stones behind him. They were weathered and broken but it was clear that they had once been a large and important building.     Mumph was busy studying them so he almost didn’t notice the arrival of the squid-headed men in the purple robes. They glided over the ground and disturbed no vegetation on the forest floor.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah, good afternoon, chaps,” the keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity bade them as they came to his attention. “Was wondering if you chaps could direct me to the nearest telephone box, what?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Gath grazzt nith k’theel mordroth,” one of the squid-heads hissed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hmm, possibly,” allowed the eccentric Englishman. He raised his voice and spoke in clear, slow words. “Me no speak the lingo, old boy. Parlez-vous Froggie? Sprechen zie Jerry? Amions humani generis? Do. You. Know. The. Way. To. The. British. Embassy?”     The squid-headed beings glided to flank him on three sides. Their tentacles twitched and their purple eyes narrowed as they took control of the human’s mind.     Or tried to. “Psionic domination?” scowled Sir Mumphrey. “Not at my time of life, cullies. Now direct me to the phone box or get out of my way, because I’m not in any mood fool around with three blasted bipedal cephalopods.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tash kar grazzt von s’teth k’sool!” The three creatures lashed out, their tentacles growing to immense lengths and coiling to capture the new specimen.     Sir Mumphrey Wilton ducked low, planted a punch into a squashy squid-face, then swung his heavy fob-watch on its chain. “Right then,” he growled. “Not a big fan of sushi, but am willing to make an exception today.”     In the conflict that followed the eccentric Englishman failed to notice the ancient carving on the ancient stones he’d been examining earlier. On a fallen lintel were the faded words: “NEW PARODY CITY CENTRAL POST OFFICE”. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Call in every cop on the books,” Police Commissioner Graham told Assistant Commissioner Hogglet. “I want uniforms out on the street. I want law and order. I want any panic damped down right now. And I want some answers. Any word from Miss Framlicker at EEE?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“All the lines are busy, Commish.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then get a car over there. And get me a car, too. People need to see me on the front lines tonight. It’s going to be a rough one.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s quite simple,” explained Al B. Harper. “You see, the Parody Island defences were weakened by the damage done by Liu Xi or a simulacrum thereof. That allowed for the seeding of those silico-organic dimensional transfer nodes which grew around the island. When they’d reached a sufficient maturity someone initiated a cross-planar shift, shunting us through the Vortex to a pre-prepared scanning array then shifting us on to these co-ordinates with a random scatter effect causing minor variations in the time and place of our arrival. What we need to do now is determine the dimensional vectors for our current location, calculate a specific interface trajectory to open a portal to Earth, locate a suitable power source to energise the vortice-node n-point generator, and get back home.”     The Wallaby People didn’t seem to take any notice. They just kept stacking up the cords of wood so the fire would burn good and bright.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um, maybe you want to untie me and let me go get on with that?” Al B. asked hopefully, as they brought a torch to start the pyre around him. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a simple enough deal,” said Baroness von Zemo, holding the phone to her ear as she flicked across the news channels. “You parole me, give me the appropriate authorisations, dig into that federal emergency budget for some operating costs, and I provide a team of metahumans to act as Earth’s first line of defence when word gets out to those people who aren’t very fond of humanity that the dreaded Lair Legion has run away. I’ll fax over the details for your people to look at, but hurry. This is a one-time offer and it comes with an expiry time.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I thought you’d see it like that, Mister President.” ***     Samantha Featherstone took an orientation from the sun, picked up the collection of useful objects shed gathered on her journey so far, then continued to follow the trail of the dried watercourse. She reasoned that eventually it would have to lead to a river, and in a rainforest that would be the primary route for traffic.     It was almost dark so she also kept an eye out for a good defensive place to camp.     Mostly she didn’t encounter trouble. She skirted round a large reptilian herbivore, noting that it seemed rather territorial, and she avoided some strange mud columns that looked like giant ants nests. As the light began to fail she found a wet streambed and trailed that until it became a low waterfall trickling into a pool below.     That was where she was someone moving.     Samantha bellied forward, ignoring the grass stains on her school pinafore (but not in the way that Clarice Bullstrode did; these stains were on the front of her dress). She peered over the embankment to spy on the person by the water’s edge.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh dear,” said the person. “Oh dear oh dear oh dear.”     Samantha recognised the coat and bandages, and dropped down to join him. “I never thought I’d be so glad to find a loathsome elder being,” she told him. “Have you any idea where we are or what’s going on?”     The Shoggoth looked up from contemplating himself in the reflection from the pool. “Oh dear,” he said again. “Hello, Samantha. No, I do not know what transpires. I have a little bit of a problem.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What problem?” Sam asked, advancing cautiously.     The Shoggoth unwound the bandages around his head, the ones he used to keep his gelatine form in a semblance of human shape. A human face peered back at her.     The Shoggoth had a face. And hands. And feet. In fact the Shoggoth was currently in the form of a human. “I seem to have had a bit of a mishap,” he said.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh,” said Samantha. “Yes.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s very confusing,” the Shoggoth confessed. “I feel like I’m blind, deaf, dumb, and lame. I’m caught in four dimensions and it’s very embarrassing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, it would be. How did this happen?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Also, I feel a strange pressure in my lower torso, causing stabbing pains. My body seems to have a mind of its own.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or a full bladder,” shuddered Samantha. “Listen very carefully to these instructions…” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kerry! Turn on the TV!” called Fashion Accessory.     The probability arsonist carefully set aside Lisa’s ginger cat and reached for the remote. “What’s the story? Something blow up good? I was having this great dream about the SPUD helicarrier…”     Harlagaz burst in. “Yon tides hath changed, taking this lighthouse back to yon Parody Island. But yon Parody Island art not there!”     The TV clicked to life. “…experts are playing down the disappearance of the Lair Mansion and our superheroes, but already there are reports of metahuman crime sprees in Gothametropolis, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, and Miami. Join us later for our special broadcast: Lair Legion – Lost or Gone Forever…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What?” gasped Kerry. “They can’t just all disappear and the island as well. Vizh was supposed to cook me lasagne tonight.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What fell deed hath befallen them?” Harlagaz frowned. “We needs must smite something until we doth understand.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s a lot of smiting, big guy,” FA pointed out. “What do we do, Kare?”     Kerry thought hard for a moment. “Get on the phone, call in Ham-Boy. Try and get Glitch and the others as well. Whoever we can reach.” She leaned her head to one side. “And see who’s knocking at the door.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The door?” Gaz puzzled. “But we art on a rock in the midst of the ocean.”     Fashion Accessory skipped over to the doorway and peered through the glass beside the door. “Okay. It’s tall, wet, and rebellious and I guess it belongs to you, Kerry,” she called as she opened the door to a dripping-wet Danny Lyle.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hi,” he said. “Has anybody any idea what’s going on.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wert you not mysteriously vanished, dudeth?” asked Harlagaz. “I recall smiting people to tell us where you’d gone.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Short version, Magweed and Griffin hid me away so the government didn’t execute me,” Danny answered. “Your plot summary?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Lair Legion’s gone AWOL and suddenly everything’s going to pot,” Kerry replied.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But?” FA prompted, knowing that look on her best friend’s face.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But that leaves us,” Kerry Shepherdson answered. “We have to step up.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Juniors?” Danny asked, a little sceptically.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No,” said Kerry, her expression set and determined. “The new Lair Legion.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That is nae the way tae try and ambush a lone traveller!” Sergeant MacHarridan shouted at the Ur-Trolls. “That net wouldna hold a hippo e’en if he couldnae explode as I did tae get loose fra’it! Ah’ve ne’eer seen such a sorry bunch o’ waylayers in my whole life. Now smarten yerse’en up and try again, and this time let’s see some thought an’ effort put into this, ye clarty scunners!”     The Ur-Trolls grovelled apologetically, hurried to reset their ambush, and wondered if they’d actually found their new god. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“People of the world, do not panic,” announced Beth von Zemo. “Our heroes have failed us, but a new generation, a new breed of heroes arise. I give you VirtueValkyrie, Anvil Angel, Helping Hands, Shiny Simian, Thunderballs, The Living Beach, the Fragrance, Dr Warmglow, Sharp Performance, Black Magic Woman, and Hard Data. More members to be announced as soon as we’ve thought of their names. I give you… the new Lair Legion!” ***          Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch!” complained Grace O’Mercy as she scuttled out of the sunlight into the shadowed safety beneath the trees. Vampires don’t do well in sunlight, although Grace had to admit that the red sun here felt… old. And weak.     She waited while her body dealt with the serious sunburn she’d just had, then closed her eyes and extended her senses. She had no idea where she was or how she’d got there. She needed to know.     There was only one thing her vampire flesh could tell her just now. There, a quarter mile behind her, back through the bushes… the scent of human blood.     The village was built of wattle and daub, and a high wooden palisade surrounded it to keep out wild animals. The settlement sheltered under the lee of a high cliff, where a shingle shore led down to a shallow river. There were some dugout canoes up on the bank. The gates of the compound were shut.     When the evening shadows were long enough Grace levitated over the wall and dropped down inside the village.     The people here were brown-skinned and they dressed in homespun linen and bits of animal skin. They seemed thin and weak.     A young boy skipped round the corner, chasing a stone he was kicking. He came up short when he saw Grace.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hi!” she smiled at him. “Are your folks around?”     He stood transfixed, like a rabbit in headlights.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m Grace O’Mercy,” the Night Nurse said, pointing to herself. “Who are you?”     Suddenly a woman came round the corner and grabbed the boy, then fell to her knees pleading. A man followed her and went pale when he saw Grace. More villagers followed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s okay,” the Night Nurse assured them. They seemed very agitated, but she couldn’t understand their language. The mother seemed to be pleading for her son.     Something in their faces chilled Grace to the bone.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Alright. I’m sorry about this,” she said. She turned to one of the men of the village. “Come here,” she willed him. When he stepped forward the entire population fell to the floor, wailing.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This won’t hurt,” she promised, taking his wrist and pricking him with a fingernail to squeeze out a single drop of blood. One taste was all she needed.     Even though she wanted more, much more.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Please don’t take him…” the boy’s mother was moaning. “Oh please, we sacrificed only two moons past. It can’t be time for another. And he’s so young…” One drop was all it took for Grace to know their language.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” the Night Nurse told them. “I’m not here to take anyone, or to harm anyone. I’m a healer.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, mistress,” the boy’s father grovelled miserably. “It is as you say. The Bloodwalkers and the Plaguemasters are always right.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bloodwalkers? Plaguemasters?” Grace said sharply. “What do you mean?”     Now she saw them, the half-healed scabs on the villagers’ necks and arms, the fever glow in some of their eyes, the anaemic paleness beneath the brown-grey skin. “Tell me about these Bloodwalkers and Plaguemasters.”     The Night Nurse was in. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This… isn’t looking like FMRC headquarters,” noted Dancer, as she followed Liu Xi through the door into a carefully-tended bonsai garden. Clear waterways ran through the extensive lawns and no leaf was out of place. Wind chimes tinkled in the breeze. A pagoda rose at the centre where all paths met.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ve just shifted dimensions,” Liu Xi warned. She turned to confront the agents who’d led them here, but they were gone. Even the doorway was gone.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m starting to suspect those weren’t actual FMRC agents,” Dancer confessed. “My comm-card’s still getting a busy signal as if I was calling up last night’s date.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can sense the elements again,” Liu Xi assured her. “Whatever was blocking me before has gone. Except…” she furrowed her brow. “There is no void here. None.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well,” Dancer suggested, “I’m thinking that maybe we should go an talk to that little old man sitting in the bandstand there?”     Liu Xi saw the wizened ancient. He seemed as old as the hills, almost bald with a long white beard and moustaches. He sat perfectly still, his legs crossed. Waiting.     Dancer and Liu Xi approached him slowly. “Hi!” called out Sarah Shepherdson. “We were just passing and we wondered if you knew what the heck was going on?”     The old man looked up. “You should not be here,” he replied in Chinese.     And suddenly Dancer was not there.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What did you do?” demanded Liu Xi. “Where is she? I’m warning you…”     The elements she was calling up suddenly became calm again as the old man looked up. “She is not required here,” the ancient said. “It is you I summoned. You I wish to speak to.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is she safe?” demanded Liu Xi, trying to figure out how her elemental calls had been reversed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There are many things we have to speak of,” the old man told her, “grand-daughter.” ***     Marie Murcheson was glad that her headache was gone. Perhaps the long hike in the pretty jungle had helped her get over her earlier malaise. She wasn’t quite clear on how she’d got there, and the stroll had been quite pleasant even if she hadn’t got her watercolours with her, but now she felt she wanted to get home.     And home was over that way. She could feel it.     She struggled a little getting through the thick undergrowth with her full-length skirts, so she was happy when she came upon a forest track. She was less happy when someone held a barbarian broadsword to her neck.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hold, wench!” said a huge man in rather smelly furs. “Who are you, and what do you here?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well I’m not a wench for one,” Marie answered rather hotly. “And I don’t answer questions to people who are holding sharp objects at my throat, so there.”     The musclebound man grinned. “Ah, a feisty one!” He lowered his blade. “Very well – damsel? – why are you hear in the haunted jungle?”     Marie allowed herself a moment to correct her hair. “We haven’t been introduced,” she pointed out primly.     That surprised the barbarian. “Glumkeep!” he hollered over his shoulder. “Come here and introduce me to the toothsome maiden.”     A small thin ferret of a man hurried back along the path. “Another one? If I knew how you keep finding them I’d write a book.” He trotted up to Marie and bowed. “Mistress, may I present the mighty Thungore, hero of Everwold, saviour of Slurm, champion of the Juurgul Keeps, conqueror of the G’t’sh’l and the Sl!Tok, master-swordsman and the greatest adventurer in the thirty-two worlds?”     Marie offered a small courtesy. “Delighted, I’m sure. I’m Marie Murcheson, from Parodiopolis, America.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And I’m Glumkeep, companion of heroes,” added the ferrety man. He paused thoughtfully. “Are you going to thank Thungore for rescuing you right now? Only if you are I’ll go cut some fronds for you to lie back on and then get the supper going.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Rescue me? I was walking along the path when your friend drew a sword without so much as a warning and…” A red flush covered Marie’s face as she realised what Glumkeep was implying. “How dare you, sir? I can assure you that there will be no thanking of that kind going on. The idea of it!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You did not even realise how great your danger was,” Thungore told her, flexing his pectorals. “You had stumbled onto the ghost path to the haunted manse, and there you would have been destroyed.”     Marie shook her head. “I have no idea what you are talking about. I just want to be on my way before it gets too dark to see. I have places to be.”     Thungore and Glumkeep exchanged looks.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’s fallen under the siren spell of the Evil Enchantress,” opined Glumkeep.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s probably it,” agreed Thungore. “Do you think I could roger it out of her? That usually distracts the damsels.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m going along this road now,” Marie told them determinedly. “I don’t even know anyone called Roger.”     Barbarian and retainer hurried to catch up with her. “That way lies doom,” Thongore told her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s why we’re here,” Glumkeep explained. “We came all the way from Far Blemayre, through nine stitch-gates, because the villagers here are plagued with an Evil Enchantress and her haunted manse. We’ve come to destroy her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I may have to sleep with her first,” admitted Thungore, “but that’s fairly standard. They say she is fair, this ghost witch, although of a somewhat green hue. Her demesne is filled with traps and illusions, but I will prevail.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s probably lots of treasure there too,” Glumkeep confided. “I get ten percent.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s nothing wrong with being a ghost girl,” Marie insisted. “It’s the sort of thing that could happen to anyone. But this mansion you’re heading towards… it wouldn’t have just appeared very recently, would it?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mere weeks ago,” agreed Thungore. “The villagers were rather upset that it occupied some of their best fields. They would have burned it to the ground but the Vile Enchantress set monsters and horrors upon them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Standard Vile Enchantress package, really,” Glumkeep added. “So the villagers called in Thungore. The usual contract, all the loot he finds and the pick of the village maidens. And I get ten percent.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well,” breathed Marie, “I think we’d better go find the Green Enchantress then. I imagine she’ll be glad of my company.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We shall slay her and then you shall yield to me,” Thungore promised.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If you are lucky, Mr Thungore, we might let you have a bath,” answered Marie Murcheson as they set off down the ghost path. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You want to explain what’s going on?” Lara Night asked Lisa Waltz as she looked down at the spot where the Manga Shoggoth had stood a few moments earlier.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Want to, yes,” answered the Destroyer of Tales. “Able to no.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because you don’t know or because you won’t tell.”     Lisa gestured the steward over and ordered a couple of drinks. “Some I don’t know. Some I can’t tell. But I’ll at least explain what I can.”     Lara accepted the fruit punch and joined Lisa at a table under a beach umbrella beside the pool overlooking the Bermuda beachfront. “That’s more than the Chronicler of Stories did,” she noted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah well, Greg is always a bit grumpy before his morning brew,” Lisa admitted. “Especially if he’s been drinking the night before. He should really find other ways of forgetting the job. I keep sending him suggestions but then he hides in a cupboard.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He seemed very unstable,” Lara observed.     Lisa sipped her Sex On the Beach. “What you have to understand is that knowledge is power. Especially here in the Parodyverse. There are some secrets of the Parodyverse which are known only to the cosmic office holders appointed to certain roles.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Every job comes with it’s specialist knowledge,” accepted Lara.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So important is this cosmic knowledge that if an office holder steps down they are stripped of it. It’s burned from his or her mind. There have been two exceptions, but those are other stories. The point is, the Shaper, the Chronicler and I have a perspective, have access to information and insights, that nobody else in the Parodyverse has.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And that insight tells you that Danny Lyle has to die, and that your supposed friends the Lair Legion have to murder him?”     Lisa took another sip. “Mmmaybe,” she answered. “Let’s say I have access to the same information Greg did and I came to the same conclusion and endorse his actions.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So we should go along with murder because you say so?”     Lisa snorted. “Oh, good grief, no. You should make full use of that free will you have, and every brain cell you possess. Make your own choices. Greg just warned you about things, about threats and consequences. Don’t go making him into the bad guy. He doesn’t want the Earth destroyed. That’s where he drinks his coffee.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So what is going on?” Lara persisted. “What happened to the Shoggoth?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, that was unexpected,” agreed Lisa. “It looks like the Lair Legion has been abducted. That evidently includes all the Shoggoth. They’re gone where you can’t find them, Lara. You’re welcome to try but you’ll be wasting your time. There are other things for you to do.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Such as what?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Such as using your free will and your brain. Things are going to get bad on Earth. You might want to take a look at what HERPES are doing, for example. You could look at the plans of the Brotherhood of the Blackadder.” Lisa sucked a cherry off her cocktail stick. “Or you could go back home and avoid a lot of unpleasantness. Your choice.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There were strange things happening at the Lair Mansion,” Lara noted. “Damage to the Celestian defences.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” agreed Lisa. “Normally there are measures in place to stop Parody Island being stolen. That’s why somebody had to slip in and cause that damage and seed those dimensional dolmens.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Madame Symmetry of Synchronicity?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No. Symmetry’s limited in what she can do to interfere, bound by the same rules as the rest of the Triumvirate. She sent in the Purveyors, of course, but by then somebody had already arranged an end to Danny’s imprisonment.” And the first lady of the Lair Legion, Destroyer of Tales, responsible for conclusions, looked totally innocent.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There were some very convenient timings,” Lara recalled.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Were there?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If one of the Triumvirate interferes, presumably the others are allowed a similar intervention?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now there’s a thought.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But who took the Legion? Where are they now? Can they get back?”     Lisa spat out the cherry stalk, tied into a neat bow. “All these questions and more will be answered in next week’s exciting episode.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nice job on getting rid of the heroes,” Doorman said, accepting a beer from the anxiously-hovering Space Fandom. “It’s going to be chaos back on Earth for a while. Good times.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not yet,” answered Doorman’s patron. “Despite all my efforts I haven’t actually managed to get hold of Denial. He slipped away even when I took the Lair Mansion. All that effort to provoke a catastrophe that would force the hands of the Triumvirate and would exhaust the Celestian protections shielding Parody Island, all for nothing! He’s still on Earth, running free.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You want me to get him for you?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe later, if other measures fail. This has to be handled carefully if I am to become what I must be.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In that case I’ll get back to exploiting the situation on Earth then,” shrugged the alternate-reality Jay Boaz. “I’m going to have a ball.”     But the Void Scholar had already forgotten his existence and had returned to his studies. His plan had to be without flaw if he was to save the Parodyverse from the Lair Legion. *** Coming next: Things by other people, I hope. Here’s where I hope to go with this: We have a major plot by the Void Scholar who is behind the vanishing of Parody Island. He needs Danny for his schemes. Best we leave this plot fallow for a while. We have a situation back on Earth, where most of the main heroes and go-to good guys have vanished. There’s got to be some story mileage in that. I expect it’ll be a few weeks before our heroes return to deal with business. We have most of our cast dumped individually across the “thirty-two worlds”, actually a bunch of stolen lands joined together by “stitch-gates”. The general theme of the worlds is 50’s pulp SF and fantasy. If it was in a 50s fantasy mag it’s here: underground races, sinister aliens, rampaging dinosaurs, evil undead, kangaroo-people, deathless necromancers, the works. There’s some particular features of these lands to note: They’re not connected to the Interdimensional Vortex so teleportation and plane-shifting don't work. There’s no way home right now. Some of the cast may have arrived a few weeks earlier than others. And Legion comm-cards will only operate at short range because there’s no satellite system to reflect signals over the horizon. As you may note from this chapter only Hallie remains at the Lair Mansion right now, although there’s no reason other people couldn’t find their way back there. If folks want to contribute an adventure featuring their character that would be great. Even better, if they hooked up with some of the other lost characters that would make life a whole lot simpler. To prevent narrative difficulties it would be best if you “called” the characters you intend to use. In four or five days’ time I’ll post something to check we’ve got whatever chapters people are doing and I’ll throw in another issue to push the plot along a bit and gather back the characters no-one’s wanted to write about. Lost in the Land That Common Sense Forgot Are: Hatman, CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Visionary, Al B. Harper, Yuki Shiro, the Manga Shoggoth, the Librarian, Hallie, Parody Island with the Lair Mansion, Glory, Flapjack, Amber St Clare, Anna, Sergeant MacHarridan, Magweed, Griffin, Marie Murcheson, Herbert P. Garrick, Grace O’Mercy, Killer Shrike, Champagne, Chad, Ronnie, Dan Drury, 1000 SPUD agents, and a helicarrier. *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.