In Search of the Holy Spam

[dragon wench]

This is something Fiona and I have been quietly working on. It is intended as a collective story for everyone at SYM to participate in
Note, the "Tap and Tea" can be used for story discussion, questions, thoughts and plot developments


The fires had burned low in the Tap and Tea.
Fiona and DW were chatting about recent events that involved Hill's peculiar tendency to dress up in small, black dresses, and BS' ever hopeful (but ultimately doomed) quest to discover a bevy of nubile young women willing to dance for him.
Fiona reached to pour the remaining drops of a particularly fine Scotch into their glasses, "Damn, we've finished it already," she commented. DW grinned and winked. She then moved (a little unsteadily) towards a small, hidden compartment just behind the bar. Some quick fiddling with levers and keys resulted in immediate success. With a flourish, she produced another amber bottle. Fiona uncapped it and breathed deeply, "Och I can smell the peat."
It was at this point that a series of startling thuds and shouts emanated from just outside the pub's door. DW glanced carefully through the dusty window. A worrying sight met her eyes. Various SYMers were gathered nearby. Upset stares and accusations were being exchanged. A few members were even uneasily dusting themselves off as they rose from the ground. More trouble looked like it could be imminent. Fiona and DW exchanged a glance.
"We could try giving them unlimited quantities of Scotch," mused DW, but I'm not sure it would help."
"T'would be wasted on them" said Fiona, taking another dram. " I am not sure this madness is natural, anyway. I seem to be affected too, and you're quite dizzy. By the way, when did you install the raven?"
"Raven !?!" DW, looked at Fiona, puzzled.
"Over there, in the corner."
DW looked to where Fiona was pointing. She rubbed her eyes in some disbelief as the large black shape ruffled its feathers and fixed her with a beady stare. "This is a strange variation on the little green men” muttered DW.
"Och, but I can see it too."
"I'm not sure that makes me feel any better."
"Well it should" said Fiona, huffily. "Ravens are NOT in the tradition of green men and pink elephants. It must be there. You sure you didn't buy it when you were drunk? Or perhaps one of the Symers left it here?" Fiona eyed the raven suspiciously, looking for hidden cameras or explosives.
"Are you sure ravens aren't some kind of Scottish variation? Some of my ancestry is Scottish, both you and the drink could be bringing it out in me." DW, still wary, scanned the room. Nothing appeared amiss. Well, other than a line of empty bottles, but that wasn't particularly unusual in the Tap and Tea. "Did we drink all of those?"

The raven chose that moment to caw at them, and it hopped closer, flapping its wings vigorously, as it did.
"What do you think that is then, Scotch Mist?" Fiona watched the Raven curiously. Legend said they could talk, but so far as she knew they couldn't say much. "Nevermore" was their stretch. Just as she was thinking this the raven fluttered on to the table "Nevermore" it croaked. Fiona looked at in disgust. "You're nothing but a cliché. Did Ravager send you? He likes clichés"
DW decided to resign herself to the vision in front of her. She had little choice. It clearly was not going away, and Fiona seemed quite sure it was not some kind of Scotch-induced hallucination. In fact she was talking to it. And it seemed to be talking back.
“Well pardon me” quoth the raven. “It is expected, you know.”
Fiona blinked in surprise. This was not in the script. “You’re not from Ravager, are you? “ she said astutely.
The raven looked at her scornfully and turned its attention to DW. “You look like a person who is comfortable with mysteries” it said. “I am a mystery”. Fiona, amazed by the bird’s self-importance, collapsed in helpless laughter. Luckily DW had more experience of the gaming world and she soothed the sulky bird before it flew off. It was very important not to miss an item, as she was well aware.
Mollified by DW’s (feigned) respectful attention, the raven cawed to clear its throat before delivering its message.
“People of SYM.
I speak your doom
You were once a wise and learned race versed in the ways of SPAM and keeping ever to its higher purpose. Alas, those days are gone and you have fallen far, far from the glory days. A curse is upon you and you are shrunken and diminished year by year. There is no gravitas in you
You were once a quick and clever race, shapeshifting, witty and worthy by turns, keeping ever the light and the dark of SPAM. Alas those days are gone and you have fallen far far from glory days. A curse is upon you and you are shrunken and diminished year by year. There is no brilliance in you
You were once a light and mercurial race, random and prolific in the ways of SPAM. Alas, those days are gone and you have fallen far, far from the glory days. A curse is upon you and you are shrunken and diminished year by year. There is no joy in you
Know this, the hex which is upon you will lead to the death of SYM, and there will be no more life in the Halls of GB
Seek therefore the three things which have been lost to you: the gilded goat of gravitas; the bright boar of brilliance and the jumping jack rabbit (aka bunn-ay) of joy. Bring them to the Tap and let them live in harmony together there. Thus will your fate be averted”
With that the raven spread its wings and vanished. Curiously the words it had spoken were now written in indelible ink on the wall.

[ch85us2001]

Chu walked warily down the street, with his brim pulled way down low, There wasnt any sound but the sound of his feet, chu then left his cliche Queen song and entered the tap and tea.

Awaiting him was a curious scene. Sitting at a table near the bar were two maidens, both obviously drunk on scotch. He sat down, and began chatting with a familiar face.

"How are you going to annoy me today, you wanker" Fiona muttered abjectly. "Just dropping in for a quick whiskey." It was then that DW decided to share there plight with a noble defender.

"Hey slade!" she called to the knight. "Im pretty to!" chimed chu indignately. DW rolled her eyes and continued "Slade, weve just had quite a disturbance here . . . " She then preceded to fill slade and chu in on what had just occured.

As she was nearing the end of the story, chu decided to pipe up, "What was that about a boar? I think I remember seeing a boar in one of the SF stock rooms!" "What!" DW exclaimed, amazed that there may be truth in the ravens story.

"I could try to venture there for you, but there will be much styrofoam, and Ill need a partner . . ."

[TonyMontana1638]

Tony started at the sound of a door opening, awaking from his drunken slumber. He looked around, trying to survey his surroundings, and realized he was lying in the gutter outside the Tap & Tea.
"Christ, they must've thrown me out again. Damn, I don't remember a thing..."
He made the effort to stand up, swaying to and fro as his legs had been reduced to nothing more than pudding (or jello) by the vast amounts of Guiness he'd consumed. He heard a door open again, this time being able to discern voices around the corner to his right. Curious, he staggered right into the path of two people he vaguely recognized, knocking one to the ground.
"Whoa! Hey what the..." said a voice to his right and he felt a hand encircle his thoat in a vicelike grip. Focusing his eyes with some measure of difficulty, Tony was able to make out the countenace of a familiar face from his work.
"Chus?"
"Tony? Is that you?"
Having recognized his friend, Chus loosened his grip around Tony's neck and brushed something off of his friend's shoulder.
"What are you doing out here? Where did you come from?" Chus asked. He gave a sniff with his nose, "Tony, dude, have you been drinking?"
"Heh, surprise, surprise," Tony replied, giving a weak smile.

"Hey! Is anyone going to help me up? Are you two done making out?" came an irritable voice from off to their left.
"Ack! Sorry, sorry," Chus quickly said, helping the person Tony had knocked to the ground up with a hand.
It was a she, Tony realized, and a striking one at that. Even in the dark with his senses being none too good, he was able to discern her beautiful features.

[Aegis]

Aegis shifted uncomfortably, as he often did after sitting for prolonged periods of time. How he had found himself to be where he now was would forever remain a mystery to him. The thought, perhaps, would bother him, if it were not for the fact he would inevitably forget about it. The curse of holding the memory of a goldfish, as well as a short attention span. He looked to his right hand, wondering why he was holding something that appeared to be the size of a goldfish's brain. He shook his head vehemently. 'Focus!' he yelled at his mind's eye.

He needed to concentrate on the news he had just learned. Something about a boar, a bunny and a goat. What was going on? Was it that some wished to create a petting zoo within the hallows of the SYMian nation? Foolish mortals! They should know well enough the only proper zoo is made with Guinea pigs! And is a harem! Silly, silly people. Aegis felt it was his duty to spread the turth, and enlighten his fellow SYMians.

It was time, he decided.

"Were you all just talking to that damnable Raven?" Aegis poked his head out from beneath the table, inches away from DW's legs. His sudden appearance taking the room off kilter, both Fiona and DW suddenly looking below the table, wondering how the Toga clad sage had gotten under there without them knowing, much less remained hidden there. As if realizing there thoughts, he simply said "Think of it this way. You are probably more comfortable not knowing."

Aegis crawled from underneath the table, and dusted his flowing Toga off. After a second, he looked up towards the gathering of SYMians, and smiled a toothy grin. "So. Listening to the imaginary birds again, are we, DW?" He pulled a chair up to the table, and plopped down it. As he did, he looked to his right palm. "What is this tiny grey thing in my hand?" He quickly shook his head.

[Ravager]

A little earlier....

Ravager was warding out the chill of winter when a bird entered the still open window. "I thought I'd closed that.." he grumbled to himself "gotta fix that". This bird certainly wasn't run-of-the-mill, how many entered houses and seemed careless of people within? It wasn't like there was food to be found. This bird's feathers were as black as coal as was it's beak. Ravager quickly identified it as a raven, the obvious trespasser. "Why are you here?" he asked the bird, naturally expecting nothing from the winged creature. The raven caaawed in response. "What is this?! he attempted to shoo the bird out of the window which was met only be a steadfast glare. This bird was determined if nothing else. "FINE, stay if you must. Just don't get in my way!" Again a caaaw.
He was beginning to suspect that this bird was seriously out of the ordinary and it had certainly taken an interest in him. What to do with it? he wondered...

[Obsidian]

The earth shook, the sky trembled, or so I imagined. I awake from my dormant slumber, one words rolling endlessly in my mind.. spam, spam, spam spam. As my torpid mind engages, like the clutch of an archiac contraption, the gears move, and my inner voice roars. C0MMrade, awake! The beast has arisen one more. Rally your bretheren, and lead them unto the Tap and Tea. The storm approaches, I speak no more. (ToB )
Stepping to my shelves, I don the armour of enlightment, unfurl the banner of COMM, and sound the horn. Spam will be met on the field of battle.

[ik911]

From a little distance, a figure stood watching the crowd. A raven escaped from the shapeless blob of people.

A raven.

Something snapped. The figure ran forward, into the light. The gracious robe and firm scythe did not betray the true nature of this odd character. Swiftly, he ran after the raven, away from the turmoil and into the darkness, because it was night.

"Raven, where doth thou go?" he asked the animal while running. The raven stopped in mid-flight.
"How do you know I can talk?" asked the raven.
"Well, I figured that a bird with a tiny backpack and a tie would talk." answered the guy. "Now, where are you going, raven?"
"I'm flying out of the script", it answered. "Please, let me disappear into infinition."
"Okay. 'Till we meet again."

The bird took off. The character followed.

"So stop following!" the raven cried.

The robed person apologized and turned around. Back to town. Oh yes.

He was just planning his first steps into the right direction when he heard a horn and armor creaking. "WHO BE YOU?" he asked, trembling slightly. "WHO BE YOU NEARBY IN THE DARK, CREAKING YOUR ARMOR AND SOUNDING YOUR HORN?!" He looked around for a caps-lock button, but there was none nearby.
"DAMN, I MUST'VE ACCIDENTLY STEPPED ON THE DREADED BUTTON WHILE RUNNING HERE", he thought to himself so loud it hurt.

[Lasher]

Far away in the tropical islands of Bahamut, Lasher, an aspiring monk, was under the influence of the monastary's potent mind drug LSP, when he recieved a revelation from his god, and did not awaken for three days. When he went to the father abbot, and told him what he had seen, the abbot, in his pride, decided that if their God had given anyone a sacred mission it was him, and declared Lasher a heretic and a demon worshiper, and had him cast out of the monastary, and given days to leave the Isle completely.

Alone and afraid, he realized that he was remembering less and less of the vision as more time passed. He decided to draw out the last things he remembered, before he had nowhere to go, and no sacred mission to complete.

And so it was that Lasher left his beloved Bahamut Isle, for the first and last time, on a raft, with only rations, faith in his god, the clothes on his back, and his drawing of a goat on a mountain.

[dj_venom]

It was in the middle of the day, when Venom was having one of his barbecues. He had finished wrestling crocs for the day, and was prepared to get drunk and stuffed from meat, when suddenly, he realised too late he didn't have any steak left.

In answer to his prayers, a raven flew by and stopped just next to him. "I have come to help you." the raven said. "Perfect timing," Venom took a flying leap and narrowly missed grabbing the raven. The raven flew up and cawed "I am a noble raven and I have a quest I must assist you goodfolk on, it would not be wise to eat me." "Fine, you probably don't taste nice anyway, now where do you want to go." Upon learning of this, he pointed the way towards the Tap and Tea, and, due to having nothing else to do, Venom decided to walk there too, arriving much later than the Raven.

[Hill-Shatar]

Standing in the shadows of the Tap and Tea, Hill found himself disgusted by the notion that he wore dresses for pleasure of himself instead of the numerous ladies on the board. Seething for several hours, he watched as the two lasses stumbled around, talking to some Raven they thought was not real while a Kender named Maharlika danced by, the purses of the two ladies falling mysteriously into one of his patches, no doubt to be found by the shocked Kender when far away from the pub.

Most puzzling, these other SYMians. Two obviously drunk woman were sitting at a table, after having gone through some very good scotch. Hill knew that DW had some good stuff throughout the pub... he had once raiding one stash to find some good Cuban Rum and Whisky.

There was a young man, perhaps still a boy, making passes at the lady with the Scottish accent, to no avail. A knight sat at the table, with very strange armour. Hill wondered why people still wandered around in the present with armour such as this, but reminding himself that he was located in SYM, he remembered that most likely these armour and swords were capable of something akin to guns anyways. He wondered if guns even existed at all, but given that there were people around the table wearing mini skirts, he guessed it was very modern.

They appeared to be carrying out some sort of conversation involving raven and sheep. Hill's head had risen when he heard the name of his harem, but was disapointed to hear they were t6alking about some magical beasts regarding magical spam. Bah, his magic would suffice in a need. He also noticed a young man in a toga pop up beside the legs of the older of the two ladies. He was surprised he did not detect the young man, he must be a shippery as a wet fish in an old man's grasp, and tricky to, especially since the table had a table cloth cut very short.

This was an unusal occurance. His stays at the Tap and Tea were not as often these days, and it was eerily quiet, the chunking and spalatting of spam in the factory had gone silent and the frat parties at the HC had lowered in volume. 'What sort of disturbance could cause this, I wonder?' thought the young man, brushing hair under his headband gently.

Turning around, he saw a young Australian coming towards the pub. He saw the man pivot and try to stab some Raven with his two pronged fork, but missed. He continued his journey towards the door, and Hill sidled farther into his shadowed hiding place, listening attentively in excitement for what was to happen...

[Lasher]

Through much prayer to his god and Posiedon, god of the seven seas, Lasher arrived at the often talked about but rarely seen by his people mainland. He was tired from fighting the great whirlpool, and doing battle with mythical creatures, so he searched the port for a place to rest and eat.
He was about to retire to his room when he saw a wanted poster tacked upon the bullitin board.... It was his goat.
Apparently there were some people down the street on the same noble quest he was. With a prayer of thanks, he raced down to the "tap and tea". With a quick peek through a dirty window, he saw a group of about 10 people, fellows he could trust by the looks of them. Lasher sized up the knight, subconsciously counting the ways he could kill him with his bare hands. He imagined pitting his wisdom against the sneaky sage and shuddered. This was a group he could join forces with, for surely their intentions were good and they seemed to be aligned with his own quest.
Lasher walked through the door, sat down next to the drunk women, and ordered a meal.

[TonyMontana1638]

Though it took some effort, Tony tore his eyes away from the woman's face and, staring at his boots, muttered an apology.
"It's alright, but for the love of God will you go easy on the Guiness? This is the second time this week we've had to throw you out," she said with exasperation and a roll of her eyes.
"Well where are the two of you off to?" Tony asked.
"We're off to search a closet in the Spam Factory for a magic boar," Chus replied with a wink.
"You dog chus, you finally got her to come around eh?" Tony laughed, clapping Chus on the shoulder in a congratulatory manner. "There's something to be said for persistence..."
"Oh knock it off will you!" she interrupted with some measure of irritation, smacking Chus upside the head and throwing a glance that could heel a drunk Manchester United fan arguing with an Arsenal supporter at Tony. "We're serious, you haven't heard about the Raven?"
"No," Tony replied, throwing a questioning glance in Chus' direction. "What Raven? Did someone leave Phreddie's SF office open again?"
"Well I don't know about Preddie..." she began.
"Except that he should be a writer for Newspeak," Chus mumbled.
"But here's what happened inside while you were passed out..."

[Kipi]

Kipi had just finished his work at the Spam Factory, and was thinking´what to do now.
"Probably I could go to the Tap and Tea to have one or two shots of vodka" he was thinking. He walked to the Tap and Tea, and stepped inside. There were others, too, spending their time. Kipi recognized DW and Fiona, obviously in drunk. There were others, too, but Kipi paid no attention to them. Instead, he was looking a raven.

Raven? Inside the Tap and Tea? Not caring of people near it?

Kipi was just going to order some vodka when the raven started to speak...

[Ravager]

Still earlier than the original events in the Tap & Tree...

"So, you still won't leave, huh?" Ravager murmured in the birds direction."Quite the persistant creature, aren't we? Perhaps I can use you to my benefit..."
Looking around the room, his eyes settled on the nearby bookcase, scanning through the names on the book spines, a little later he found what he was searching for 'Bird Training for Dummies!'. Ah, excellent, hopefully this training won't take too long.
Soon, a new spy would be in the making and everyone's secrets would be his. Though, of course, who would want to know many of these secrets? Still material for emotional blackmail always came in useful.
Training the bird took a surprisingly short amount of time, almost as if it was relearning something already known. Very odd. Not to mention unsettling.
Well, training the raven, who he affectionately named 'Lenore' in the true tradition, to find the places where the others gathered shouldn't be too diffficult. Just follow the sightings of alcohol and leather...
In the meanwhile, Ravager waited for the return of the new spy, who would suspect the fly on the wall, as it were?

[ik911]

The robed character put down his scythe and started looking where the noise came from. "I am Icarus of Athens, bearer of the Scythe of the Saracens and wearer of the Robe of Raging Bull, duke of Aberdeen and Dresden, prince of Flanders and honorary citizen of a small cozy town near the border of Nepal. I demand you to come forth!" He hoped he had impressed the hidden person enough to surrender. "Alright, I'm just Icarus wearing an old robe and carrying a heavy scythe, but just come out of your hiding, okay?"

Between some rather large stones he found an answer. It was a taperecorder of the Obsidian(TM) brand playing the sound of a horn and creaking armor. He picked it up and kicked it into the pond. He had an mp3-player. Tapes were so nineteeneighty.

The helpless tapeplayer struggled to keep afloat but the water quickly ran into every corner of it's porous body.

"Does plastic not float?" wondered the man just before picking up his scythe again. Apparently the tapeplayer was made of more than just plastic.
"What if it belongs to someone?", he thought in a moment of clarity. "I must return it to it's owner!" He looked at the water and concluded it would have been brighter to think of that first before deciding to kick the thing in the water.

With his scythe he somehow managed to screap the Obsidian(TM) tapeplayer off the bottom of the shallow waterbasin and on dry land.

He continued his path back to town. Halfway there, he found an amulet lying in the middle of the road. He picked it up and threw it in the dustbin. Just after thinking what a good citizen he just was, he realized that this amulet too could very well belong to someone. "I must return it to it's owner", he said out loud.

With a slash of his scythe, he ripped open the regular looking, green dustbin of average size. It produced a vast amount of litter, blocking the road for any horse or car that wished to pass. But he wasn't sure cars were invented already, because the atmosphere of the town seemed very medieval. He would have to ask DW, when he saw her.

He searched the rubbish and found the amulet. It was hot and emiting light. That seemed logical. He wouldn't be very happy either when thrown in a dustbin.

He continued his short journey back to town. There he screamed: "I FOUND THEM! I FOUND THEM!!"

[Obsidian]

They found it. Found what he thought. FOUND THE HOLY SPAM answered the voice in his head. Two thoughts passed his mind. First, he now refers to I in the second person, secondly, he thought, how could spam be holy if I were summoned to defeat it? YES, ERM, UMM. PERHAPS THE UNHOLY SPAM?
For voices in my head, he thought, your not very convincing. AREN'T I!?
No, your really not. YES I AM! commanded his inner voice. Touche, he thought. Now what inner voice? He asked aloud, drawing attention from all corners. Yes well, I am wearing the armour of C0MM, and someone scythed my tape deck. There would be a reckoning, because the tape inside was not his, it belonged to Knight Rider. "Yup, he's gonna be pissed. Don't you all have drinking and spamming to be done?" THEY DO! Yes, I know, I suggested that. SORRY. I THOUGHT YOU'D LIKE TO KNOW. No, I really already did. Do you enjoy stating the obvious. YES, AND ONLY THE OBVIOUS. Of all the psychosis to attain he thought, I got Captain Obvious.
THAT'S AN ARMY RANK! Thank you YOUR WELCOME.

[ik911]

But everybody was away. Disappeared, it seemed. Maybe he just dreamt all the people and the raven and the taperecorder and the radioactive amulet.

He hoped they were hiding, yelling SURPRISE when he least expected it. But now he expected it, so they were too late.

Perhaps they're still celebrating Christmas in another town, where it's much cosier.

Maybe they all went searching for the taperecorder he just found and the amulet? Icarus decided to wait for their return in the Tap and Tea.

In the bar there was only a guy in armor. It somehow reminded him of the pond. The pond was lovely during summer. People would swim in it and wash their clothes and dishes and Icarus would stand by the side, leaning on his scythe with a straw in his mouth, with the sleeves of his long black robe up and his sandaled feet sticking from underneath it.

It was time to address the man in armor.

The scyther spoke in his lowest most creepy voice while positioning his head in such a way that the large cap of his robe would cast a shadow over his face, making it impossible to properly see his eyes: "YOU! Doth thou reckon the word 'sandaled' existeth?"

Icarus gave himself the shivers. But it was for a good cause.

[dj_venom]

"That raven stole my lunch. I demand he returns himself to me at once and jumps on my barbecue, preferably defeathering himself while he is at it." Venom shouted all that as he burst into the building.

Suddenly he stopped. Looking around, he saw a most unusual sight. There were two women sitting obvious in the room, commanding the attention of all, several men scattered about, a weirdo in armour, and an even more weird guy hiding in the corner.

This was certainly a strange place to be in. Perhaps it would be best if he left... after finding that damn bird. Now, where could it be. Before he could react, the laziness set in, and promptly seating himself at the bar, he ordered some drinks.

Perhaps this place wasn't so bad afterall. The only thing that could top this off would be to find out where the Raven is, or what he wants.

[ik911]

As he was standing in the door, someone bumped into him from behind.

He looked back. It was the Priest.

"Damnit, I thought you were dj_venom!" Icarus cursed.

"No, dj_venom came in at an earlier time, when the Tap and Tea still had people in it."

"Oh yes, I see." Icarus looked around. Still, the only person present was a man in armor, but slowly, the image of dj_venom faded in. He put his scythe against the wall and rubbed his eyes with both hands. What an unusual sight, to see someone slowly appear as if he'd been sitting there for quite a while.

"What's happening?" he asked the Priest. The Priest knew a lot, but was a mysterious figure.

"Different timescales are described", the Priest answered. But Icarus did not know what he meant by that.

"Whaddayamean?" he inquired.

"There is confusion and people disappear."

"Yes, I noticed"

"Order needs to be re-established."

"Well, thanks." But Icarus said "-anks" to the wall. The Priest had disappeared again.

"This just keeps getting more confusing every minute."

[Fiona]

The Tap and Tea was Fiona’s favourite pub. She spent a lot of time there. OK, there was the occasional brawl, but nothing to what you got almost everywhere else in SYM. You could enjoy a drink without being assaulted (usually) and it was well stocked. So she was a bit surprised by the reactions of the people who had drifted in after the Raven had disappeared. She had thought she knew some of these people, but although they were recognisable they seemed a little out of kilter today. Perhaps it was the drink (had she been drinking more than usual?) It wasn’t so surprising that she could see two of everyone, but in her experience double vision did not normally mean the twins had split personalities. Yet there it was. She scanned the room and considered each of the people in turn.

Chu had come in and sat down. No Queen song, no drag racing, no punctuation. Could this be the same person? And he had arrived with Slade. Slade was in his usual armour, but he hadn’t said anything. Most unusual. Aegis had appeared, apparently from under the table, although there was no obvious hiding place there. Fiona didn’t really know Aegis, but she didn’t associate him with tunnels – she had thought that was Bloodstalker. Still, she was no historian.

Hill, who was a historian and should know better, was lurking in the shadows. He seemed to think he was invisible. He had changed his little black dress for one in Barbie pink and you couldn’t miss him, so that was a bit odd. And Lasher, fondly imagining himself a priest, had informed her he was convinced that the assembled company had good intentions. He was, perhaps, seriously deluded. Or was she growing cynical?.

The madness did not seem to affect everyone, though. DJ appeared to be relatively untouched (unless his muttering about the Barbie referred to Hill and not to dinner. She hoped not). Tony was hungover. Nothing odd about that, although it was a little surprising that Chu had been able to overpower him so easily. Kipi had listened to the Raven, so you couldn’t blame him for the pause while he considered what it had said. She had thought that Ik was unaffected by the strange events. Reassuringly he was pursuing an agenda all his own. Still he did seem to think he was alone, and that was at the very least an escalation of his usual style. She was not sure what to make of that.

And the warrior with the identity problem was downright disturbing.

The most worrying thing did not strike her immediately. It dawned on her gradually that Ravager was not there. Now that was scary. Phreddie wasn’t there either. She would have thought that he would have been trying to sell his products at such a large gathering, but he wasn’t in sight. What could those two be doing ? She had concluded the Raven was nothing to do with Ravager, but now she was not so sure.

As she thought about it, it seemed that those who had been present when the Raven spoke were relatively unscathed. The rest were far from their usual selves. What could that mean ?