NationStates Jolt Archive

Said the Mauve Queen unto Scott Joplin:
"I like System of a Down,
But only one alone amongst these rockers,
May wear my mighty crown."

And said Scott Joplin unto the Mauve Queen:
"Why must it be this way?
Let us dance and soon forget,
And leave this to another day.

And so he played a ragtime song,
And the Mauve Queen danced to its beat,
And in the kingdom knew neither right nor wrong,
As the Mauve Queen shimmied and moved her feet.

A Brief Overview of the Principalities

The Eleventy-Five Principalities of the Principality of the Mauve Principalities are ruled by a single royal family: the Mauve Imperial Metabarony. The Mauve Queen, Psychosis, (current ruler of the Principality of Principalities), is one of thirteen brothers and sisters, all of whom are constantly plotting and counterplotting in order to seize the throne. Born to Queen Emphysema and King Meningitis, these thirteen siblings assassinated their parents as children, and divided the single Principality of Mauve into fifty five sub-principalities, doled out amongst themselves.

The sisters are: Delerium, Lunacy, Psychosis (the eldest sister in the family), Fantasia, Paranoia, Anorexia, Eureka!, and the youngest, Neurotica.

The brothers: Pandemonium (the eldest brother), Mausoleum, Moratorium, and Bob.

Now because we have an uneven number of principalities and an uneven number of siblings, naturally some are going to get more than others, and this is the cause of most of the guile, cant, and intrigue amongst the family. Though the throne is held by Psychosis, the eldest sister (aptly named, for she is indeed, psychotic), this is by far a temporary position, as Pandemonium is mustering a palace coup to oust his sister, and Neurotica and Eureka!, the two youngest sisters, begin to rouse their own rabble of pig-worshippers and hack lawyers, by using the power of a ragtime piano infused with the spirit of Scott Joplin.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention him. Since the formation of the Principality, and the creation of the imperial line, the advisor to the family has always been a large player piano wherein dwells the reincarnated spirit of early 20th century ragtime pianist, Scott Joplin. Some believe that Joplin secretly harbours his own plan for domination of the principality, but others stolidly disagree. Frankly, the debate is as high up in the air as the mediaeval debate over how many angels could dance upon the end of a needle.

As for me, I am the faithful family butler, Moravic Butler, from a long family line of butlers. I will be your guide and companion as we tour the Mauve Principalities.

Yours truly,
Moravic Butler,
Butler to the Mauve Family

Concerning Strumpet Bats

Oh yes, I ought to elaborate on that fact, as outsiders to the Principality may be unfamiliar to this peculiar sort of animal.

Suffice to say, Strumpet Bats are a sort of vampire bat, and roughly resemble bats, except they have no head. Rather, they have a large mouth attached to their upper body, with a pair of extremely wide, red lips. They have the ability to masquerade for a short time as relatively attractive women of the night. Unlike vampires (or vampire bats for that matter), Strumpet Bats do not suck blood, rather, they suck life-energy. Once a person's life energy is drained by a Strumpet Bat, they become zombies, and consequently, extremely flammable.

There is a large market in the Mauve Principalities for professional zombie-burners.

When Pandemonium saw the militiamen and lawyers of his sisters, Neurotica and Eureka!, charging across the fields of his principality he immediately thought of cakes.

Such lovely things, cakes... thought he.

He leaned over the sill of his castle window and shouted to the men below.

"Men! Fend off this puerile attack. Leave no lawyer alive!"

The gates of the castle opened and from over the drawbridge poured a veritable black carpet of Black Carpets. This is to say, Pandemonium's élite group of giant-boar-riding armoured cavalry. Why on earth would one name their élite cavalry 'Black Carpet' is anyone's guess.

As the battle waged on outside his castle, corporate injunctions and arrows flying about in the air, Pandemonium continued his thought.

I shall need to order a great big cake for my nineteenth birthday party. Perhaps strawberry... everyone likes strawberry - except Fantasia, that is. She only likes grape. Yechhh! Who needs her anyway?

Off Somewhere Else

"EUREKA!" cried Eureka! over a subtly glowing vat of green fluid.

"What is it, Eureka!? OOOF!!" asked Neurotica, excitedly prancing up to her older sister and tripping on her wispy black gown.

Eureka! turned to Neurotica and helped her up to her feet, readjusting her spectacles on her nose.

"Do you know about those infernal strumpet bats that Paranoia keeps flying around her castle?"

"The ones that make invasion impossible, sister?"

"Yes, the very ones! There is only one thing, you see, that is invulnerable to them."

"What?"

"The Soulless Parasitic Amoeba!"

"But Eureka!, the SPAs are so tiny... and cute!"

"Indeed, the regular SPAs, but look down into my Pit of Scientific Horrors, at what my," here she chuckles madly, "research has wrought!"

Neurotica looked down the pit and therein she saw a large, squirming green blob, congeries of wet protoplasm bubbling and exploding contentedly.

"Uhh, Eureka!? Are you sure about this? I mean, uhm, it's a giant blob, and everything we've read shows uhm that err that blobs tend to, you know turn on their masters - you know - the way they tend to ahh... eat everything, and uhm I don't particularly like to be, uh, if you will, ahh... assimilated into a large squirming mass."

Neurotica's neurosis began to manifest more clearly now that she'd seen the Blob. It was dangerous to mess with such things.

"It's perfectly alright," said Eureka!, "And furthermore, it'll be totally invulnerable to the strumpet bats because it has no soul - no life-force!."

As she elaborated, Eureka could feel the thrill of wondering, of progress, raw and beautiful, surging through her.

"But Eureka!!"

But Eureka! did not listen.

"And they called me a bookworm! Well I'll show them!" said Eureka!, brooding. She turned her back on her sister, "Neurotica, we shall use this to first invade Paranoia's periphery principalities. Then, once we've controlled the mouth of the Chartreuse River, we can sail down and have free access to the heart of the Principality! We shall strike at Psychosis' castle itself!"

Eureka! threw herself into a flurry of laughing (careful not to throw herself into the pit below in her ecstasy) and by measures, her mirth began to infect Neurotica as well, despite Neurotica's fear-driven neurosis. The two sisters, in their great dark temple atop a grassy knoll in a suburb of the Mauve Principalities, laughed the night away....

The Mauve Palace (Castle of Psychosis)

The courier came running, carrying with him a scroll, large shoes with little curlicues at the end (the way Psychosis liked her servants to dress), flapping on the stone floor.

"Urgent news, your Highness!"

"What is it?"

"It's from Fantasia. The magical blimp explorers - the ones whose golden blimp we helped finance - they've returned from their exploration mission from beyond the Periphery!"

"What?! Tell me everything!" shouted the Queen, pounding her snake-headed staff into the floor.

"The stasis generators worked perfectly. The blimps passed the Disruption Field into the Otherspace outside the Periphery. Outside they discovered a strange world. Great flying machines, powered by some strange magic, civilisations building cities to the sky, travel between the stars! The world, as they explored it, is far greater than we originally projected it to be!"

"Amazing! Did they contact others?"

"Yes, your Highness. Magic blimps are being produced to ferry our diplomats to these other nations, as per Countess Fantasia's orders."

"Good, but send General Goodbody and five hundred Golden Sphinxes to her principalities to make sure that my brilliant younger sister doesn't try anything funny with those magic blimps that we are paying her to produce."

"Yes, your Majesty, your wish is my command!"

And away flip-flopped her loyal courier servant. Psychosis smiled and sat back on her throne, twisting at the end of her long purple sleeve. It was good being Queen...

Translated from a dialect of english thought up by five men in an insane asylum:

Greetings sir or madam. I am Psychosis, the all-powerful Queen of the Mauve Principalities. I and my twelve other siblings would like to extend our hands in friendship, brotherhood, and cakes, to all of you, and hope for friendly diplomatic relations in the future.

Signed,

Her August Majesty,
Queen Psychosis

PS: The principalities are surrounded by a Disruption field which until now have been unbreachable by all but the most powerful of magics and large floods of German Beer. Make sure that, should you choose to enter the Mauve Principalities, bring both a rain hat and some sort of stasis field generator. To fail to do so would mean the dissolution of your body into utter chaos.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

GRRRR ARGH! REPLY TO ME! LISTEN TO ME!!! I CRAVE ATTENTION!

GRRRR ARGH! REPLY TO ME! LISTEN TO ME!!! I CRAVE ATTENTION!

OOC
---

This is really fabulous ... keep it up!

It's the first thing I've read that has made me think that someone else out there is attempting to run a nation in the same vein as mine

I've based mine, loosely, on the world of the Phantom Tollbooth [1] ... and am trying (without, sadly, much success, so far, it has to be said) to drum up a presence by advertising it on the boards

I'm hoping to be able to trade words and numbers in the not too distant future, if only I can get the ball rolling

Meanwhile ... The Sagatious Tourist Board has this to say:

IC
--

We feel that the numbers mine near the city of Digitopolis is worthy of the World stage

The twin cities of Illusions and Reality are quite a spectacular phenomenon

And in the Forest of Sight there is a man who is simultaneously the tallest, the shortest, the fattest and the thinnest man in the nation ... and in the morning and evening, Chroma, the nation's greatest conductor, leads the orchestra in the oncert of the day, playing the dawn and sunset into existance

Beyond the Forest of Sight is the Valley of Sound, where all the sounds in the World are kept

Finally, there is the Castle in the Air ... a quite amazing feat of engineering

Come and visit us ... We are sure you'll find it a place like no other and have the experience of a lifetime

(The Sagatious Tourist Board)

[OOC: Read more at http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=110652]




OOC
---

[1] As a starting point I've used the map and some of the more interesting characters and locations ... have located the nation of Sagatia [2] in the region of The lands Beyond ... and intend to build from there

[2] Unfortunately, the Kingdom of Wisdom was already taken ... *sigh*

Thank you, Sagatia, for that lovely advertisement for your own nation.

Signed,
Psychosis

OOC
-----

Suit yourself ... I started out by expressing genuine admiration for the concepts and style of your entry ... Anything I said about my own nation was merely by way of example of why I might find your efforts so appealing ... But if that's how you wanna take it, so be it ... I shall trouble you no further

OOC: In case you didn't know... that was in character!

No, really, Sag, I appreciated your comments, though. ;D

XOXOXO

But I'd really like other people to reply sometime soon...

Fantasia's Periphery Realm

Atop an immense petrified tree sticking sideways from out of a cliff hanging over the ocean, lies Fantasia's immense, twisted, black tower, like a monstrous hairy black finger giving the 'finger' to whatever deity watches from the heavens. And in the uppermost room of the tower, danced Fantasia, watching the swarms of strumpet bats surrounding her tower become drawn to the electric spirit-worms inside the Leyden jar mounted atop the dirigibles that she had custom-built using melted gold coins sent by her lovely sister and Queen, Psychosis.

One by one, the black things attached their wet red lips to the Leyden jar and in one fiery blue outburst, were electrocuted, falling hundreds or perhaps even thousands of feet, to plunge into the foaming black waters below.

Fantasia, her electric blue hair tied into two ponytails behind her head, wearing black gloves, a black skirt, boots, and pink and white hose, giggled each time the things popped and fizzled.

"Mistress Fantasia!" came a grunting voice from outside her bedroom and magical laboratory.

"What is it, Cockleburr?"

"I have urgent news from our spies at the Mauve Palace. It seems that- erh..."

"Well? Out with it, man!"

"Your sister is going to send several hundred regiments of Golden Sphinxes to your Principalities, your Excellency. To check on the construction of the magical blimps, and make sure that we do not... ehr... plot anything."

Fantasia spat a juicy curse. So it was to be that way, eh? Well, not for long. She peered at the Mirror of Magic Stuff, looking at the various ways that her beloved siblings used magical items to conjure up things to plot against their own flesh and blood. Eureka! and Neurotica had created a giant parasitic amoeba, resistant to strumpet bats because of its lack of a soul, and hoped to rain bits of the thing over the countryside, pushing towards Psychosis' castle, and invulnerable to the strumpet bat guardians. Her brother, Pandemonium, fought off yet another attack and plotted to poison the Queen at his nineteenth birthday party - as well as his twelve other siblings, minus Fantasia. She expected him to be sending an envoy presently.

And so did all the other siblings, creating magical items and creatures, imbuing their personal armies with magical armours and superpowers, and yet all of this flowed from the giant Magical mines which... fortunately... were located quite conveniently near the Whiskyfroth River, that ran through Fantasia's own province and fed the growth of the Backwards Forest where the giant oak trees grew upside-down and to the left. Her own goblins and haunts were prowling the River for the source of entry, and were prepared to use their own magic dynamite to blast out the Cavern of Magical Mysteries deep underground and expose the great Source, all for their Mistress Fantasia.

And Neurotica sought to dominate the Principalities through science! Laughable! No... soon Fantasia would have the Magical Source, and with it, she, Fantasia the Great Mistress of Magic, would become almighty Queen of all the Provinces!

She laughed maniacally, ignoring the plaintive insistences of her servant Cockleburr from behind the door, asking meekly and politely, what they should do with the coming legions of the Queen.

Several hours later, Fantasia had regained her composure and lay panting on the bed, her T-shirt only slightly rumpled.

"Mistress?"

"Recieve them. Hide the Strumpet-Bat Eating Blimp in the crypts deep within the trunk of the Sideways Tree."

"Y-y-y-yes, Mistress! Right away!"

And so it was done...

"B-b-b-b-b-b-b-but h-hh-h-h-ow do we control it?" asked Neurosis to her sister Eureka! as they sat on opposite beds that night.

Eureka! fiddled with her gauzy grey nightgown and calmly folded her spectacles, placing them on the nightstand.

"It's simple really. You know about that talking player piano that our Sister Psychosis keeps around her?"

"That one with the scaaaary ghost in it? Wh-wh-whatsisname?"

"Scott Joplin, yes, that one. The amoeba is controlled by musical tones. All we have to do is persuade the spirit that it's in his best interests to betray the Queen and help us take over the throne. It's simple."

"Oh. Okay."

"Well, goodnight, Neurotica."

Eureka! reached for the lamp to blow it out.

"Wait! Check for monsters for me!" Neurotica said, neurotically fidgeting at her blanket, clutching her teddy bear Stanley.

Eureka! sighed and dutifully went to work.

-----

In his Underground Crypt

Mausoleum plotted with his brothers Moratorium and Bob. Together they had chosen Mausoleum's underground necropolis simply because it seemed like a very cool place to plot insurrection against the Queen of the country. Moratorium's stuffy office seemed out of place, and Bob lived in a hut thatched with drywall - so that was quite out of the question.

"I don't get it, Maus," said Bob, scratching his head of greasy brown hair.

"What is so difficult," spat Mausoleum, "to understand about raising a vast army of the undead to pillage and plunder?"

"Well the uhmm..... err..." Bob looked around, fidgeting nervously, "the middle part?"

"AAAARGH!"

Mausoleum threw a skull from the pile beside his throne at Bob for possibly the fiftieth time this night. Off to the side, Moratorium adjusted his glasses and pecked in some numbers into a calculator, filling out a form with an idle hand.

Mausoleum sighed. He had been cursed, he was sure of it, to live in the company of imbeciles, the insane, and fools.

"Okay, let's try this again..."

OOC: In case you didn't know... that was in character!

No, really, Sag, I appreciated your comments, though. ;D

XOXOXO

But I'd really like other people to reply sometime soon...

OOC
------

Sorry, I was probably feeling a little sensitive [1] ... just having had a couple of bad expeiences on NS [2] ... and taking things a little too much to heart

It did occur to me that it might be in character, but I didn't want to take the risk that you might be being subtle [9] ... so I thought I'd best make my apolgies and leave

As far as getting attention from other people is concerned, I fear you may have to wait awhile before you see any appreciable evidence of a body of like-minded people ... NS seems to be extremely large, sprawling and chaotic ... Getting noticed seems, to me at least, to be a case of throwing something nasty at the fan and hoping that, eventually [10], someone notices the smell in their corner of the room

And when you *do* get some attention, it may not be the kind you want, unfortunately ... When *I* first started reading it my initial response was "Oh, no ... not another adolescent, sub-Gaiman, Sandman-wannabe" ... I only continued reading because I was aware that, being guilty of doing much the same thing by using The Phantom Tollbooth as the model for my nation, I was hardly in a position to criticise

You made me laugh very quickly though ... When I read the stuff about Scott Joplin being reincarnted in the piano, I realised that this was going to be no embarrassingly poor fan-fic and carried on ... But I'm not sure whether many of the, disconcertingly large number of, goldfish-with-attention-span-deficit-disorder cases out there will do the same ... and you might encounter a dispiritingly large amount of rudeness before you find the people you're looking for

In the meantime, however, might I be so bold as to request that you continue anyway? ... I love the twisted little glimpses I get of the world around the characters ... like a child's nightmare [11] ... kind of Clive Barker does 'The Wizard of Oz'

Thanx ... I look forward to my, hopefully, continuing sojourn in the Mauve Principalities




[1] Yes, despite appearances ... and though many would declare you insane were you to suggest it ... beneath this rough, cynical, misanthropic exterior beats a heart of ... well, mush, actually ... but that's not the point

[2] Not to mention a minor existential crisis [3]

[3] Probably a mid-life one, now I come to think of it [4]

[4] Although, I wonder if I'm too young for that still [5]

[5] But, then again, I always was precocious [6]

[6] And annoyingly prone to carrying out entire discussions in the footnotes [7]

[7] Sometimes I wonder if it's a deliberate policy [8]

[8] But I digress ...

[9] Like a brick with a slice of lemon wrapped around it

[10] Probably later rather than sooner

[11] After reading the first couple of posts, I almost immediately thought of the child-catcher from 'Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang'

Lunacy's Mountain Fortress

Deep in the mist-shrouded mountains aptly named, the Misty Mountains, there lay a fortress hidden between the crags and ridges of the mountains, with walls made of the roots of the mountains themselves, and reinforced with mortar made from the essence of the moon. At the tallest tower at the highest peak of the mountains, Lunacy stared at the moon. This is not to say that she stared with both eyes, rather she seemed to wink at it, leering at it with her pale grey-blue right eye, the one imbued with the power of prophecy.

"And she came unto them, singing in seven shades of madness..." she said, dreamily reciting the ancient Scriptures of Woggly-Noggin.

The sentry came walking, and his calm voice betrayed a sense of urgency that one would not really tell to be urgency, if one were not familiar with their peculiar mode of thought.

"My Mistress."

"Yes, Drickelsticks?" said Lunacy vaguely.

"The smiley-ninjas of Paranoia. They're knocking at our gates. Something about a cup of sugar."

"Ahh yes..."

Paranoia, Lunacy's junior by two years, had been feared for her ninjas, who wore all black, save for terrifying yellow smiley-faced masks. Fearsome assassins and warriors, none could stand in the way of Paranoia's mighty covert ops warriors. It was often lethal to challenge Paranoia in regular combat, for Paranoia's paranoid security measures and training instilled a combat-crazy loyalty that was second only to Bob and his uneducated peasant farmers.

But Lunacy did not fear Paranoia, for her sister depended upon her abilities to inspire the battle-insanity that she so greatly relied on. It would not be likely that Paranoia would invade Lunacy's unassailable mountain domain and the valley Principalities it protected, and Lunacy did not see this future in the light of the moon.

"Give them their sugar, Captain, and wish them a safe journey back home."

"Aye, Mistress."

---------
Delerium's Bedroom

Delerium was delerious. Her domain was among the strangest of them all, and it took something close to a full-powered stasis generator to travel into the borders of her eleven small principalities. For Delerium spent the majority of her time in a delerious dream, and consequently, spent a great deal of time connected to a catheter and colostomy bag. True, it was quite disgusting, but through her delerious and often highly realistic dreams, the field-projecting auric crystal that was linked by telepathic radio to her brain was able to create a kingdom entirely of her own, truly different from the general dark purple swamp and lightning-ensconced wasteland that dominated the majority of the Mauve Principalities.

For it was a strange and twisted, red and black world that was created by Delerium's delerious dreams, and in this, her spectral apparition, her mental projection of herself made real through the power of the auric ruby, reigned supreme. Consequently it was not a great fear to Delerium that her small Principalities dwelt within the sprawling shadow of Paranoia's.

"You will FEAR MY TUNING FORK!!!"

VreeeeeeEeeEEEEmmmMMMmmm....

"Yes, your Excellency! Your orders shall be carried out at once!"

A growing army of Dream Wagons, armed with Nightmare jars, was being summoned out of the chaotic aether that thrived at the borders of Delerium's periphery states. Though real and tangible within Delerium's demensnes, the Dream Wagons would disappear if they passed beyond the field projector's auric presence. A winged demon exploded in front of Delerium's window. But her scientists were working on their own sort of device... a special kind of stasis generator.

If all went smoothly...

"EAT THIS PICKLE, MY LITTLE SPORK!" shouted Delerium.

...then her special dream army could sally forth and take over all the Principality. She'd be unstoppable!

"DAAAAAAMION! FETCH ME SOME PIE! COFFEE GROUNDS IMMEDIATELY! COME RUNNING MY PORCUPINES!"

All of which translated to her very specific and rational orders, at least, in the ears of those equipped with special earmuffs. Her red-clad servants scurried off.

OOC: Well? Does anyone else get the letter that Queen Psychosis sent?

OOC: HELLOooOOOOoo??

OOC
-----

If you mean the one translated from a dialect of english thought up by five men in an insane asylum, I read it and I *thought* I understood it, but now I'm not so sure.

The postscript looked to me to be just a bit of the delightful lunacy prevalent in the affairs of the Prinipalities, but maybe I'm missing something


P.S. I was sent here by a friend (Sagatia). I can see why . I's very good.

Dear leaders of the world:

My name is Fantasia, sister to Queen Psychosis, and I am secretly building an army of magical blimps in an attempt to oust my sister and become Queen of all the Mauve Principalities. Would any of you like to propose a trade arrangement?

Sincerely yours,
Mistress Fantasia,
Of the Periphery

A Single Principality on the Edge of the Principalities

Upon a crooked hill there led a crooked road, and at the end of the crooked road there lay a crooked tower, and therein dwelt a crooked girl, all alone in her dusty room. She wore grey and black, a black skirt and black leggings and black buckled shoes with just a hint of gold on their buckles, but it was faded and dead. Outside it was grey and rainy, and the peasants and men moved sullenly about, trying to live out their lives, made all the more difficult by the constant, soaking, cold rain and muffling fog. Anorexia was the Mistress of this single Principality, and she lived alone and despairing, in her crooked tower atop the crooked hill.

Her eyes were dark and cold, and lacked all life and love, as if a vampyre had bitten her neck and sucked out all the happiness and joy in place of blood. Her face was sallow and unhealthily pale where it should have been beautifully pale, and her body was thin and wracked with the pains of hunger. Yet still, every day she would look at herself in front of the mirror and see herself waste away, and feel all the more better about it. However, that was a feeling that did not last long, and she would continue to waste and waste, and it seemed that only through the magical crystal on the golden necklace about her neck, given to her by her long dead mother's black cat in a dream one night, did she live.

And in part this was true, for the crystal had the ability to link her life with that of her Principality, and when she suffered and wasted away, it took, bit by bit, some of the life and soul of the Principality around her. And so it came to pass that eventually the life and joy and gaiety of the Principality of Anorexia itself became sucked out into a blanket of eternal misery. And the crystal knew that, in order to preserve Anorexia's life, it would have to have other Principalities as well, in order to feed from and preserve her, and prevent its master from wasting away to nothing.

And so, secretly, ever so gently did it push her mind this way and that, slipping a word or a subtle meaning into one of her orders, and that slowly, ever so slowly, the military forces of the Principality were being mustered, and were getting ready to invade the nearest domains...

Some Days Ago, Aboard the Magical Golden Blimp

"Stasis field holding..."

"Magical crystal is at full power."

"Visual contact with the Big Barrier made, estimate two thousand merte and closing."

"Steady as she goes, helmsman."

The golden blimp, inflated with volatile hydrogen and imbued with magical spells, drifted ever closer to the Disruption Field, that swirling, twisting electric mass of chaos and black energy. As the fog parted it revealed a swiftly moving, contorting barrier, like the edge of a hurricane.

"Great gods!" breathed one crewman.

"Steady now..." said the captain.

"Sir our forward bow will be in contact with the Big Barrier in five, four, three, two one..."

The ship shuddered, and several chamberpots in some crewquarters were tipped over, but nothing severe.

"Status report?" ground the gravelly voice of the captain.

"Stasis field is holding steady," said the woman at the monitor, gripping her rainhat. Rainhats were essential to helping keep the ship from being destroyed.

"When shall we pass beyond the Disruption Field?"

"Estimates say that we shall pass the Field in about two minutes."

"Sir we are completely inside the Disruption Barrier. Stasis field is holding steady. Spellpower is at one hundred percent."

The little golden dirigible was swallowed up in the red and black chaotic mass, buffeted by zephyrs of pure insanity, and jolted by the smell of turnips and telephones. Some crewmen reported seeing a cow drift by in a canoe before it deteriorated into chaos, and others reported seeing hitchikers in spacesuits get dissolved into tiny particles. Nevertheless, after two minutes of pure lunacy, the blimp emerged, quite unscathed (save for a few spilled chamberpots) into the wide outside world.

"Sir, the ocean...it's..."

The captain nodded solemnly.

"It's blue."

The blimp began to broadcast a message over all magical wavelengths:


To all recievers:

This is the Exploration Blimp Flobbertrolley, of the Eleventy-Five Principalities of the Principality of the Mauve Principalities. We have emerged from the Disruption Field unharmed. We bring salubrious salutations to all peoples.

OOC: Uhm... attention-starved teenager here...

I have been forwarding the story to sagatia via email. I don't know if he's received them yet. But I haven't been sending [OOC] messages. Maybe that's why you have not heard because he's just reading the story.

OOC: But still... I'd like for other people to notice and RP with me, too...

OOC: But still... I'd like for other people to notice and RP with me, too...

[OOC]

Oh. I didn't realise. I thought it was a story. Sorry.

I don't think I'm the right person for that. I _love_ reading this. I think you've got real talent. But I don't think that _I_ have enough to do what you've created justice. I wouldn't be able to come up with the right kinds of ideas. Or write well enough.

Sagatia can write. He has strange and funny ideas too. He writes on something called LJ, I think. But he doesn't write this kind of thing. He's more of an essayist, I think. I don't think he writes any fiction.

Maybe you should put more announcements in the forums, like the letters and stuff. Or maybe you should copy the different bits to the forums as seperate entries and serialise them. Maybe more people would notice it if there were more entries. I think most people probably look at the forums a day at a time. So perhaps they missed it. Or forgot it after the first time.

I don't know. _I_ like reading it all in one place. So maybe you could do both. Then when you've got more people involved they'll come here and start joining in. Or you could copy the bits they write in the serialisation to here afterwards.

Sorry if I'm not being very helpful. But I do think you should keep writing.

Please?

Both the natuion of Sagatia and Croup Merchant Brokers assume that the lack of contact is due to an oversight, or technical issue, and not simply due to a, oh so typical, teen overenthusiasm, that shall soon be remedied and some sort of recompense forthcoming ... otherwise we shall consider our free advice to have been abused and ignore the Mauve principalities forthwith.

We shall, further, feel no compunction with regard to the process of publically 'badmouthing' the Mauve Principalities.

We look forward to hearing from you.

OOC: What is it that you want, Croup? Sagatia?

Scott Joplin the Piano

He was a ghost in the machine. Literally. Caught and trapped six hundred years ago by necromantic spiritcasters in the Principalities, Joplin soon found himself quite bereft of his long-deserved rest. He found himself put on display, like a common player piano and court jester, forced to play the same bouncing ragtime tunes again and again for six hundred years. It gave him quite a headache, or whatever of it that a piano can feel.

But soon he discovered that he could talk after a fashion, beating his keys in a particular fashion that resembled speech, and with this new-found faculty, began subtly counseling the imperial family one way or another.

Finally his time had come, and he had managed to split the entire nation of the Mauve Principalities, formerly one kingdom ruled by a single imperial family, into fifty-five separate, independent principalities, each conspiring to go against the other. Now he traveled after a manner, atop a horse-drawn carriage with a lot of other luggage, swaying gently from side to side.

"BLING PLINK DING BLINK BLINKT BLING DING," said he to Moravic Butler, the family butler, sitting below.

"What did you say, master Joplin?" cried Moravic, leaning out the window.

"BLINK PLINK DING BLINK BLINKT BLING DING!"

"Ah. No worries, master Joplin! I'm convinced that this is a perfectly safe method of travel. Your rope harnesses will prevent your slip, even in the-"

BUMP! went the carriage, and "Oof!" went the butler, as they bounced into a pothole and out again.

"-worst of circumstances. There, master Joplin! You see?"

Joplin pressed all of his keys at once in exasperation and they continued on, activating their own stasis barrier as they passed through the auric field of Delerium's mad dream-world, and entered.

It was a diplomatic mission of sorts. Something that Joplin had been carefully planning for the last six hundred years. If it failed, all would come to naught and his plans for domination would come to ruin. If it succeeded, the same would happen, but his plans for domination would be successful.

Scott Joplin waited and hoped.

OOC: What is it that you want, Croup? Sagatia?

OOC
------

Just got it - An update to the story :D

Croup informed me you are continuing this on another forum, which I lloked at ... I'm glad to see you're getting some of the RP interaction you wanted.

Do you inetend to keep updating the story here ... or should we watch the new one instead?

I think you should keep half an eye out on both, Saggie.

The Cold Palace, The Twisted Plateaux

When she had sent her summons out, she knew that she was going to be interrupting a great many plans and secret plots to oust her, which was precisely why she did it. By the customs of the land, all the governors and principals and minor rulers of each principality had to obey an official summons by the King or Queen of the Principalities.

Even so, the general mood prevalent amongst her loving siblings was, "What have you called us together for?"

Stretching out her arms in a wide gesture, Psychosis called out to the assembled siblings, and the eyes of Neurotica, Eureka!, Fantasia, Delerium, Pandemonium, Moratorium, Bob, Mausoleum, Lunacy, Paranoia, and Anorexia. There were twelve siblings present, including Psychosis herself, but the thirteenth and eldest, Syberius, had disappeared the night they killed their parents and took power. Nobody knew where he had gone, and frankly, nobody much cared. Nevertheless, the principalities that had been doled out to him had need of governance, so the appearance was kept up that Syberius was present and living, though nobody really knew where he had gone to.

Essentially every sibling had taken legal control of Syberius' domain, so it was the only neutral area in existence.

"Brothers and sisters. We come to a crossroads in history. With the science pioneered by Eureka!, and Fantasia's magic, we now have revealed ourselves to those who dwell outside the Disruption Field."

"Obviously," muttered Paranoia, looking around suspiciously. Her steely gaze landed upon Anorexia, who was staring absently at her lap.

"And since they know of us, what is to prevent the greedy amongst them from coming in and invading us?"

"The Disruption Field!"

"Yes, but say that some of us have traded our field technology to others. Then they may trade it with others amongst them, and soon there may be more and more who have them. What then?"

Much muttering.

"So then. I propose this: we must put aside our differences and unite! Yes! That is the word that I said. We must stand as one. No longer can we fight and bicker amongst each other, hoarding and squabbling for principalities. Now they know of us, and they will come here, and they will take what is ours, unless..."

Delerium was bouncing in her seat, and she promptly left the seat for good, screaming, "WE TAKE WHAT IS THEIRS!"

"One thing before another. Learn to walk before you can run. First let us concentrate upon unifying our long-divided peoples. Then we can think of conquest. I give you a fortnight to contemplate my offer."

And so did they adjourn.