if you need me, me and Neil'll be hanging out with the Dream King

Sometimes I feel like a wraith, drifting in and out of lives, giving all I have to those I love for a season, for a handful of weeks, for a handful of years...only until the alchemical processes I bring have brought them up, those I care for, healed them, made them better, brighter, stronger...

Strong enough to leave me.

It's a pattern I've lived out over and over, and it never seems to change. Love; passion; devotion; discarded.

Over and over. Only recently has this ever changed for me, and the only drawback to being sure of love, love that will not leave, is my heart is still used to being left. Some part of me waits for leaving, is sure it's coming.

This time out...the rest of me doesn't think it's that likely. And this is new territory indeed.

New territory of a different direction, now: back under the Caledon Moors.



(Anyone speak Alien Stone Creature in Caledon? And what happened to Dr. Cavor, anyway?)

The caverns in the Moors are becoming more dangerous. Several times this night we noticed smaller stone creatures, seemingly also fueled by, or powered by, cavorite's green-glowing ore, follow and surround us, sometimes floating, sometimes hopping forward on their stumps of limbs. On the ground they seem like stone, but the curved pointed protrusions on the featureless fronts seem quite capable of doing some unwary explorer a deep injury.



(My first glimpse of Anansite. To date, only found in Winterfell Mithras. We know nothing about this glowing lilac ore, but the supposition is that it may be good in strengthening love potions. Also, librarians might be especially sensitive to its radiance.)

There are rumors of a lost Twelfth Mineral, but we do not know who or what yet. We band together in small groups, or hunt alone, pooling our knowledge with our findings. Under trees and by rivers and underground and surrounded by the glow of pink, blue and green fungi, green, lilac and white stone. We are diligent, and curious.

This is both good and bad.



(Cavorite is tricksky, tricksy stuph--it seems the less of it there is, the higher it floats. So the small chunks we arduously mine from the Moors we've had to find creative ways to pry off the ceilings.)

I remain eternally thankful to the fellow "mycoCaledonians" who've provided digging tools, collection baskets, cavorite-catching nets, and support, in our mutual journey towards understanding. I can always rely on their advice, helpful tips, and sense of humor as we journey together towards understanding.



(Sometimes, entirely by accident, we get a glimpse of the Wizard and his bellows, working behind the curtain. Or, in our case, get taken to see the forthcoming bits of Caledon SouthEnd. It looks lovely, but taken as a capture in time [click for the larger image], it looks very odd indeed.)

Miss Tanarian Davies, upon a chance meeting in the caverns below the Moors, wished to show us Saint Kitt's, and fever-dreams of SouthEnd to come. I count it well worth the time it took to journey to that distant isle, to see the odd waterfowl and airborne fish...and the Ferris Wheel, currently high above the land.

Higher than the air-walking geese, even.



(Somehow, I don't think this is what was meant by the phrase 'flying fish'.)

Miss Davies, Mr. Allen and I watched in baffled bemusement as school after school of fish, sides still slick from seawater, left from their wat'ry home and flew through the night air. Gentle breezes redolent with plumeria and the salted sea wafted by, now also bringing us the smell of straining live fish, close enough to touch--and we do mean that literally, as they flew by!



(Even with the oddity of fish that avoid water and geese that want to swim, is it just me that perceives something strange about the Moai head on the rim of the caldera?)

Why it took me so long to realize that Saint Kitt's bore traces of a previous civilization...I can only blame it on inattention, and on realizing that the geese, for all their strange water-seeking and levitating prowess, are not in the least threatened by me.

Good?

I think it's good...after all, Mr. Allen and Miss Davies were attacked! I just had hovering geese peering over my shoulder at me.



(Ah, it's a deck chair...Well, of course--what else would you put on a giant Moai head on a kitten-shaped island, but a deck chair? Makes...err...perfect sense.)

Soon, though, our night of wandering came to a frightening end. We had retired to the new studio space, Mr. Allen and I, to work idly on several developing projects, when suddenly, with no warning, I was hurled into limbo!

I spent the next nigh two hours attempting to regain contact with the world, to no avail. It was sharp and sudden and quite disorienting!

My only fear is that the same thing will happen, as has happened before in such situations--that the Lindens, 'pon my return, will feel the strong desire to fling me somewhere I've never been prior to this. Most likely, standing on my lonesome on a prim box.

And me wearing only a new white one-piece bathing suit I was testing out for possible use on Saint Kitt's.

Shocking, I tell you. Shocking!