On the Nong Nang Ning (Semi-Open, IC)

[Nong Nang Ning]

(OOC: Please post in the OOC/Sign-up thread to get approved before posting here - Thanks)


There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.


The Nong Nang Ning is a very noisy place to belong, however for the top hat called Bob was a bit too noisy.

"Ow, my ears!" he exclaimed as suddenly a whole forest literally pinged into existance only to moments ponged back out "If only I could stop all this noise then perhaps I could get a good nights sleep!”

Whisps of black smoke, whirled nearby and coalesced into the shape of a black cat with striking yellow eyes. “I can help you, with your problem!” the cat said as it stroke its whiskers.

“Oh, Hello.” Bob said as he looked at the cat. “I haven't seen you around before.”

“No, you wouldn't, I've just moved into the area.” the cat smiled for no particular reason that Bob could see, so he smiled back.

“”Oh,” he said “that explains it. You said you could help me WITH THE NOISE PROBLEM?” Bob had to shout as a flock of teapots had descended upon them and made a lot of noise with their Jibber jabber jooing all over the place.

The cat waited until the teapots moved on before grinning slyly again and saying “Yes, come and walk I shall tell you.”

---- Somewhere else entirely in the Nong Nang Ning ---

It was a normal day for Farmer Ted, some chickens had got loose in the barn, the cows were clanging and the pigs were having a lovely discussion about the finer points of go-fish, which the fish didn't like at all. The grass was a brilliant green and the hills were rolling along just fine, until something happened that he couldn't explain, the sounds of the farm just stopped. He tried to say something but no noise came out. Not long afterwards all the colour seemed to drain out of the land as well.

Someone had stolen all the sound and colour in the Nong Nang Ning! This was horrible? How could he know that the chickens were up to no good if he couldn't hear them! Farmer Ted needed help, luckily he knew the right person to ask, he grabbed a marker and large piece of cardboard that he could use to say things and went to town to find Policeman Percy.

Policeman Percy was a very busy Policeman in the morning he had to direct traffic and in the afternoon he had to walk the streets. As Farmer Ted arrived it was all a disaster! Policeman Percy tried to blow his whistle but with no sound no one could hear him. The road was blocked with cars and Policeman Percy was having a hard time trying to clear the road.

“Policeman Percy.” Farmer Ted said, the words appearing on the cardboard as he spoke. “You may want this!”

Farmer Ted walked around the cars and over to Policeman Percy handing him the piece of cardboard.

“Ah, Thank you Farmer Ted, this will do nicely.” Policeman Percy said, the words appearing on the cardboard and fading away like Farmer Ted's. With the cardboard it didn't take long for Policeman Percy to clear up the intersection. “We need to go to the station, Farmer Ted. See if we can find something that will help us.” he said, leaving the road and walking with Farmer Ted to the Police Station.

Policewoman Tessa was there with her own piece of Cardboard, “Policeman Percy, Farmer Ted.I'm glad your here, with no sound I can't tell if the phone is ringing or not so people can't call us for help.”
“I think we need help of our own, Policewoman Tessa. We need to pull the red lever.”

“The red lever are you sure?”

“Yes, I am.”

“But which is the red lever? All the colour have gone!”

Behind the desk at the police station were three levers a red one, fo be pulled on emergencies, a purple lever to be pulled to send out the police car and a yellow one to recall the car or end any emergencies.

Policeman Percy had to think and remember which lever was the red one, and then he remembered, he had a piece of paper which told him which lever was which. It was in the desk. After looking for it he found it. There was a picture of three levers each with a colour underneath it. The middle one was red, and so he pulled the middle one.

As he did so a number of small tornadoes appearded inside the police station it suddenly became very windy.

[Muravyets]

Red curlicues and green leaves on a white background. Blue flowers appearing in the blank spaces. Quickly, the plain hen’s egg was becoming a little garden in Alice Stivna’s hand. The girl dipped the pen into the blue dye again and carefully but swiftly drew out another burst of blue blossoms with stylized strokes. The sunshine through the kitchen window made the colors seem to glow, and the hues and shapes echoed the bright colors of the cups and plates on the shelves, the painted chairs, the embroidered curtains, and outside the real flowers in the garden -- all of Alice’s inspirations.

She finished a last set of blue flowers and set the egg aside, a pretty little jewel now next to the rest of the dozen she had decorated that day. Leaning her elbow on the table, her chin on her dye-stained hand, Alice gazed out the sunny window.

Birds sang outside. Inside, the red and yellow clock ticked away, and Granny’s mixing spoon scraped against the sides of the mixing bowl in time to the tick-tock-tick as she mixed the dough for doughnuts.

Alice let out a heavy sigh. “Mishka, where are you?” she murmured without meaning to.

Granny shot the girl a look from her sharp eyes set deep in her owlish face. Standing at the big table in the center of her kitchen, surrounded by the ingredients for apple doughnuts, the old woman with the bright pink and green apron over her black dress, gave the dough another forceful stir.

“Vill you stop fussing over dat cat?” she snarled in her aged accent.

The girl with the reddish-gold curls tied back from her dye-smeared face turned forlornly. “But Granny, he’s been gone three days. He could be in trouble.”

“Bah! Vat you know about it, stupid girl? Dat von, he makes de trouble, he don’t get in it. Vy you don’t mind your own business, let him mind his? You done vit dose eggs?”

“Mm-hm.” Alice nodded to the wire rack on which the colorful eggs were balanced on their ends to dry.

“Okay, go get laundry. Den ve have lunch, yes?”

“Okay,” Alice agreed, but without her usual enthusiasm.

“Vash your hands. Don’t get dat stuff all over my clean clothes.”

Alice did as she was told. Then taking the basket under her arm, she slipped on her sneakers against the damp grass, which had recently been rained on, and headed out to the field where Granny Hrabak had hung out the laundry to dry. All around her were the colors of Muravyets, the green grass and blue asters, red and yellow finches hopping and flying about, the carnival colors of Granny’s sheets and towels and blouses and hankies flapping in the wind. Usually Alice enjoyed taking in the laundry, almost as much as she enjoyed painting eggs, but then usually, the lithe black shadow of Mishka the cat would be lurking about somewhere near, in and out amongst the colors. But Alice had not seen Mishka since he’d picked up his tail and sauntered off into the woods three days ago. Not all the bowls of milk or rustlings of catnip mice or calls of “psh-psh-Mishku” had enough to bring him back, and even though he wasn’t Alice’s cat anyway, she still missed him.

But as Granny said, a cat always has an agenda to attend to, and his comings and goings were really nobody’s business but his own. In a few hours, Alice would have to go home anyway, to her own house in town for dinner, and Granny had made a special point of teaching Alice how to bake the doughnuts this afternoon, so there really wasn’t any time to search for a cat that likely didn’t think himself lost. It wasn’t like there weren’t other cats lying about in the sun to be petted, nor chickens to be fed, nor Granny’s horses to be brushed, nor any of the other things Alice had to learn to do on the afternoons she spent at Granny Hrabak’s house, after all.

So Alice set herself very dutifully to taking in the laundry and not running off into the woods again to look for “that cat.” She set her mind very dutifully to dropping the clothespins in their little bag, and folding up the clothes and sheets and towels to go into the basket, and not to worrying about “that cat.” The wind riffled her curls across her blue eyes, which were a shade lighter than the asters. It riffled the hem of her blue and yellow mini dress over her jeans and brought up faint goosebumps on her skinny, bare arms. And it played games with the things she was trying to pull off the lines and fold, as if to help distract her from “that cat.” She even had to wrestle the tablecloth out of the wind’s mischievous gusts to get it neatened up at all, and three times, it made her chase a dishtowel or other small item a little way across the field.

Then it happened again, as a very strong gust rudely pulled an embroidered handkerchief right out of Alice’s hand and set it skittering towards a little whirlwind of flowers.

“Wait!” called Alice as she ran after it. “Don’t go dancing with that wind, you have to go into Granny’s basket now!”

Leaving the laundry half hung, the basket half filled, Alice bounded after the handkerchief and reached out to grab it, but just as her fingers were about to close on the slip of fabric, the swirling wind whipped up around her and seemed to lift her up with the flowers and bits of grass. She covered her eyes against the flying bits, and felt like she was being spun crazily in the air, just like Granny's hankie, though she could neither see nor feel where the wind might be taking her.

[Xenohumanity]

Tonight was going to be a good, good night at Club DX-Ultra.

DJ MaxBeat was queued up for the 2nd live mix of the night at midnight, following up a solid finale by The RaveMind Remix Crew. The neon lights were getting low between DJs, the bar was getting hit with the first wave of the night, and the crowd was getting ready for the ‘legendary stylings of Max Beatmaster The 4th’ as they got out on the floor. Standing in his nearly pitch-black booth over the 3-disk turntable, and a pair of vinyl LP’s in hand, he filled the last minutes before he started having an internal debate…

*Hmm… This is confuzzling… Do I go with the electro track to finish or something more pseudo-retro?*

*Both!*

He set the pair of records to the side, deciding to get that blur-mix ready while the auto-mixer kicked in for the batch of slow songs that started up around 15 minutes into the set. Stretching out a little, he cracked his knuckles as the announcer prepped the crowd…

”Hey, hey, hey! Coming to you LIVE from Club DX-Ultra, hailing from Tuzus II, and with more than enough degrees in remix-ology to cure any blues in the crowd, here is the one, the only… DJ MaxBeat!!!”

With that, the fog machines under the table kicked in, the booth lit up just enough for the crowd to make out a silhouette, and Max threw on his hood and took his mic in hand…

“Hey-yo! Alright, party people, I’ve got a question for you all before we begin… How loud is too loud?”

The crowd only had to puzzle for a second before Max gave them the answer…

“Not as loud as this’ll be! Here… We… GOOOOO!!!”

With that, the set started off to a good, solid, high-volume tune, prompting the crowd to begin the typical roar of approval and the mass on-beat jumping associated with ‘party jump-start’ tunes like this that kept locals over the age of 30 out of these ultra-high-energy joints.

The lights in the booth turned up, revealing Max frenetically moving switches, records, faders, gain-adjusters, and volume controls as he worked to stay three steps ahead of the music in laying up the mix. The fog machines kept the air of Olympian aural power in the DJ’s hands as the small wind in the booth began to pick up...

*What…. What the heck? Stupid fog machines. Must have automatically turned up the fans for some dramatic flair or something. I’ll fix it in a second…*

As the song began to fade out into another, a unnaturally powerful gust of wind filled the booth, blowing back the DJ’s hood, tussling his hair, and generally getting in the way of things. The hand-held mic lying on the table blew into his record case, a luckily on-beat ‘thud’ playing over the speakers. Max grimaced as he put his large head-phones around his neck, reached into cargo crate loaded with 172 hours of music in all, and rooted around for it as the sound of the wind began to drown out the music blaring outside..

”Please don’t break any albums in there, little mic… There we go. Whoah…Waaaugghh!”

As he grabbed the microphone, flipped it back off and began to pull himself back to his duty as Rancher Of The Beats-n-Rhythms, he suddenly felt as if he was being tossed like a discarded ragdoll by the now-devilishly strong whirlwind, the world blurring as he disappeared from the booth, the crowd still raving as if nothing had happened…

[Saurisia]

In the quiet town of Vicksburg, 80 miles north of Saurus Rock, life went peacefully on, undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of the large city to the south. In the large park in the center of the town, children were playing with their parents looking onwards, and in the downtown area, citizens went to and fro, shopping or going to their jobs.

On the outskirts of town, a tall attractive teenage Tyrannosaurus female was sitting amongst the foliage, playing with her tail. Andrea Peterson was completely bored out of her mind, as she had spent most of the morning exploring the forest near her home, climbing trees, and trying to find local wildlife. She sighed as she stared at the tall mountain to the south that was shaped like a Sauropod which gave the bustling city nearby its name.

Suddenly, she hears a familiar male voice "Hey, Andrea!" she turns around to see a young male Tyrannosaurus just about her age standing behind her. It was one of her childhood friends, Charlie Baker, who had befriended the adventurous female at age 6 and their friendship was still going strong.

"Hey, Charlie." she told her friend

"So... whatcha doing?"

Andrea stopped playing with her tail and replied honestly "Nothing."

"Hmph, same here!"

"So... what do ya want to do?"

Shrugging, Andrea replied "Not sure, what do you want to do?"

Charlie's eyes widened and he said "Well, I DO know what I need to do right now!" and with that, he began running away, trying to find a tree to pee on. Andrea laughed at her friend's urgent need.

However, her laughing stopped when she noticed a wisp of wind going around her. She tried to ignore it, however suddenly she felt a big gust of wind blow against her, knocking her backwards.

"Stupid gusts!" she growled quietly as she tried to sit back up, however, the wind swirled around her with so much force that it lifted the giant Reptile off the ground, much to her complete horror. She began spinning higher and higher into the air, screaming loudly as she tried desperately for someone to notice her.

When Charlie came back from his urgent bathroom needs, he, having not heard his friend's screams, said "Andrea? Where'd you go?"

[Nong Nang Ning]

Weird things happened all the time in Nong Nang Ning so three strange vortex winds merely invoked a polite interest from the three natives waiting for whatever was going to happen already.

One of the vortexs suddenly grew and ripped a whole in the roof, (fortunately it seemed the roof was only made of paper and so nothing dangerous fell on those below). Out of the vortexs appeared the three involuntary guests to Nong Nang Ning but we shall gloss over this kidnapping for some humour. Alice and the DJ found themselves face to face with their hosts while Andrea found herself with her head poking out of the police station getting a rather unusual view of the city outside, most of it seemed to have not been designed for dinosaurs yet if she tried she would find that she would be easily able duck her head inside the station and see what was going on despite the laws of physics saying otherwise.

“Hello,” Farmer Ted said on his piece of carboard waved to the three of them, even though at this moment Andrea couldn't see him, yet somehow she knew that someone waved to her.

The place had the look of a bad black and white cartoon, all but the three strangers to Nong Nang Ning had a sort of painted quality to them. The three strangers stood out dramatically as not only did they all have their own colours but they were the only ones that looked 'real'. So they dramatically clashed with the style of where they found themselves.

“Welcome, I'm Policeman Percy, and we need your help!” Policeman Percy said, once again on the cardboard, as he made sure his policeman's hat was on straight. “Someone has stolen all the sound and all the Colour!” Policewoman Tessa said “Can you help us?” added Farmer Ted.

[Xenohumanity]

Lord knows where…

Max staggered about a little from the dizzying trip and he (attempted) to moan a little, mic in hand from the trip. He wasn’t even going to try to quantify what had just happened until he didn’t feel like he just got off a tilt-a-whirl. However, when he finally started thinking things through a few moments later, he noticed that he was in what could only be described as a cheap boot-leg of an old Disney cartoon.

His jaw dropped. Max had seen a lot of strange stuff in his days, especially at some of the crazier parties, but that had nothing on the pure ‘WHA-‘ of wherever this was.

“Welcome, I'm Policeman Percy, and we need your help!” Policeman Percy said, once again on the cardboard, as he made sure his policeman's hat was on straight. “Someone has stolen all the sound and all the Colour!” Policewoman Tessa said “Can you help us?” added Farmer Ted.

“Wait. What? Okay, okay, stop. Just stop a second. It warrants repeating; What? Wait, HUH? Someone can steal those?”

He was officially bamboozled. It seemed that he couldn’t hear anything he was saying. He felt it in his throat, and he knew –something- was coming out, but it definitely wasn’t sound. His jaw dropped even further. He looked about frantically, trying to find some remnant of logic and sanity. The random teenage girl (who at least looked the part of real) with him didn’t help much, as she only added to the apparently ordered chaos of the situation. The dinosaur poking out of the police station was brushed aside as more local madness, regardless of how real it appeared. With all of this in mind, he addressed the police personnel.

“Officers, can you answer something for me… Why doesn’t anything make sense anymore? Answers! Please, let there be answers for this! Why the heck am I, of all the DJs in the galaxy, here, in... in... I don't even know what this could be anymore.”

Throwing his hands up in surrender to the madness, he looked to them to at least attempt to answer his many, many questions.

[North Avayu]

It was a good day. The sun was shining in bright yellow, the sky was blue with only a few small white clouds scattered on it like little white sheep and the trees were carrying the fresh green of the spring. Everything looked as if it was painted by a child with wax crayons.

Or by April Caprisi when she was in an especially good mood.

She was, without really knowing why either, but she had never quibbled about such petty questions. Right now, she was happy. A big smile ranged from one of her small ears to the other as she walked through the little park that was part of the campus. It was the shortest way home, but even if it hadn't been, she would have taken it anyway because the park was one of her favourite places. The grass to both sides of the narrow gravel way was filled with students enjoying the first warm temperatures. Many of the sunbathing students greeted April with a wave and invited her to join them, but she just shook her head so that her hair flew in every direction, rivalling the sun in colour and brightness. Shouting some friendly banter over to them, she cheerily continued her way.

The flat she lived in together with another girl was on the other side of the park. She walked this way daily, both on the way to and from the building that housed the art school. Still, she always found a way not to let this way become boring. Sometimes she just stepped on the white stones on the paved ways, the next day she took a long detour along the gurgling and murmuring stream that run through the park, the other day she ran from tree to tree not to be seen by anyone. Of course people saw her, but while some of them wondered what the crazy girl was doing this time, most of them just accepted it as the way it was. April herself? She didn't care.

A quarter of an hour later she opened the door to the little flat. It had only three rooms and a bath too small for one woman alone, yet there lived two. Her flatmate's name was Simona, they got on well with each other, although they weren't close friends. This home simply was too expensive for one person and so they paid it together. At least most of the time. Simona studied psychology, so she usually wasn't at home at this hour, and April stepped in right over the door sill into the living room. Half a second later she realised that her flatmate either skipped class or that it was much later than she had thought. Because Simona was there, as was that tall, dark-haired guy who always had a different girl at his side whenever she saw him. both lay on the couch, in a state of partial undress, closely entwined. Quite a nice couple actually, was one of her first thoughts. But other thoughts had been faster and had already made their way on the express-highway from her brain to her mouth:

"Ugh! Yuck! Couldn't you have told me that you were having a guy over? That rich prig of all of them!", she shouted, not really because she was angry, but because it was always fun to see the reaction of people who are suddenly shouted at in an intimate moment. But while she was watching the two people on the couch hastily trying to get away from each other, there already was something else inbound for her tongue: "Hey, I could paint you two!"

"Go away!" "No!" Her suggestion wasn't a great success, she could tell by the pillow that came flying in her direction. April ducked, fetched it from the lawn in front of the flat and threw it back. "Crazy cow!" were the last words she heard the guy mutter before the door fell shut behind her. Outside, April laughed herself silly.

So she would take another walk. She still was laughing. Not because she hated her flatmate and wanted to destroy her date, but simply because of the look on their faces. When she stopped laughing, she was already in the middle of the park. the sun was shining, the sky was blue and she had just laughed more than most people in a whole week, so why shouldn't she be happy? She began to hum a song and not much later, she was singing. Granted, singing probably was the wrong word. Some people in the proximity were startled because they thought to hear someone shouting in pain. April, walked on, loudly and wrongly singing old children songs. There were some knee-high rocks along the way. She jumped onto one of them and then to the next one. Singing, jumping, her arms stretched out to the sides like the wings of a plane, her short hair and her colourful clothes flying, she was a sight that would have made a stranger to this park wonder whether he really saw an adult woman in front of him.

April jumped from stone to stone. She felt free, was absorbed with herself. She didn't even notice the slight wind that started to blow around her. There hadn't been much wind all the day. But April, flying like an eagle, an eagle who only was able to hop around, didn't care. The breeze was pleasant on the skin of her face. Then she was met by a more fierce gust, in the middle of her next jump. She closed her eyes against it. Her feet took too long to hit the next rock. She was still in mid-air as it seemed. That was strange. She opened her eyes. What she saw made no sense. She was high above ground, around her walls of swirling air. She saw the park under her feet, soon the whole campus, the city and then only clouds. April didn't scream. Somehow she didn't feel as if she was in any danger. The whirlwind around her began to spin faster and faster and she felt like on an old carousel. Everything became blurry and she closed her eyes again.

When she opened them for a second time, she couldn't tell how much time had passed, she was rapidly closing in on the ground again. It seemed to be some kind of forest beneath her. But before she was able to tell much more, she was spit out of the whirlwind rather ungently and hit the dirt face first. Thankfully she had already been nearly on the ground. April got up again, wiped the dust of her shirt and looked around. She had been right, it was a kind of forest, but without any green. Without any colours at all. Everything in black and white. Not the most beautiful forest she had ever seen. Most of the trees seemed to be dead, haggard figures with long, thin arms. There was a bit of life in between here and there. But on a closer look even those trees were somehow wrong, twisted. Really not a place she would have liked to land in.

Being free of the whirlwind now, April also found her voice again. At first, and this was unusual, she found nothing to say. There was too much rushing in on her. But only a few seconds later, she was already back.

"Damn it! Some idiot must have slipped me something into my coffee! If I get my hands on the one who did this ...!" It had to be a hallucination induced by some kind of drug. She had never taken anything, but there were people at the university who felt they needed them to have fun. She wasn't able to understand that set of mind, she had fun whenever she wanted.

Just as she had said that, she noticed something very strange. Yes, her voice was there again. She could feel her voice box vibrate, she could hear her thoughts, but there was no sound. No sound at all. There were no birds, no rustling leaves in this forest. But above her head, there was some kind of bubble. Whenever she said something, the words appeared in it, written in a neat italic font that reminded her of her own handwriting.

"So this is like in a comic? That's kind of cool, I always wanted to see what life in a comic is like!", she said and watched with delight as the words appeared over her head. "Now that I'm already here, I could just as well make the best out of this damn trip."

"Hey! Someone there? What kind of comic is this without anything happening?" She had started to walk around, carefully stepping over the roots in her way, shouting at the top of her lungs. But nothing happened and she only found more trees. It began to bore her. Hopefully this would end soon. She couldn't be high forever. But what to do until then?

"So, what does one do on a bad trip? Right, I could try to sketch that strange tree over there." April sat down and took her notebook out of the little red handbag embroidered with a silver pattern. The tree was dead and strangely twisted, its crown seemed to grow towards the ground and there were many knots in his branches. It would take her some time to draw it true to nature.

[Nong Nang Ning]

“As you can see and hear, they obviously have.” said Policeman Percy on his card.

“We're in the Nong Nang Ning,” Policewoman Tessa announced not really explaining anything but at least giving the place a name. However for why in particular this D.J was chosen was something that they obviously didn't know. The 3 natives looked at each other for a moment blinking before Farmer Ted explained.

“I guess you'll find out as you go along.” he said

“Back to the colour and sound, we need you to work out how stole the colour and sound and convince them to give it back. The Computer might know who might of stolen it but he is a loooong way away. You'll need to go through the Whispering Wood, you will need to follow the green path.”

-meanwhile elsewhere-

If this indeed was a comic then it was clear that the action was happening elsewhere, though eventually if this place was drawn then obviously logic would dictate it would be used at some point, it was just a matter of when.

[Muravyets]

Alice could say nothing for the longest time, she was so stunned by what she was seeing.

The field of green grass and blue flowers was gone. Granny’s laundry was gone. The bright sunshine was gone. When the wind finally dropped her and died down, she opened her eyes to see instead what looked like a drawing of a police station full of black and white things and black and white people, except for the man standing next to her and the dinosaur in clothes standing next to him with its head crashed through the ceiling.

Wait -- what? she thought.

And then a black and white policeman held up a cardboard sign on which words appeared and vanished like some kind of a cartoon or magic trick. She just blinked at it in disbelief, not even able to read the words for while until he got up to this part:

...

“I guess you'll find out as you go along.” he said.

...

“Wait--what? No,” Alice exclaimed without thinking or reading what else appeared on the cardboard sign, “I can’t find things out as I go along. Granny’s waiting for her laundry, and I’m supposed to learn how to make the apple doughnuts today. And then I have to go home for dinner, and there’s school tomorrow. I can’t be here. My momma’s going to come to Granny’s to pick me up.”

Just then she noticed something floating over her head. Balloons? No. Or, rather, yes. White balloons with black writing in them and their tails leading towards her head. They popped soundlessly into the air with each hurried declaration, probably because of the way her sentences were tripping over each other as they rushed out of her mouth. Except they weren’t rushing out of her mouth because no sound was coming even though she could feel herself talking.

“What’s going on?” she wondered, and another balloon popped up, making her duck away from it by reflex. “Huh?” Another one. Alice clamped her hands over her mouth, as if to make it stop happening. That was when she noticed the older balloons fading and that that the man-in-color also had a balloon over his head. He must have been speaking, but she hadn’t known it because there was no sound in this strange drawing of a place. She didn’t know if the dinosaur had said anything. It may have, but as its head was above the ceiling and its balloon might likely be above its head, Alice couldn’t see if one was there or not.

As soon as she was done noticing and figuring all that, she realized how odd it was for her to have done so, and then a lot of other odd things cleared up in her head. As the last balloon faded from above her, she turned to Policeman Percy, Policewoman Tessa, and Farmer Ted. The look on her face was the same one she’d had given her mother years ago when she was little and first asked where babies came from, and young though she’d been, she knew she was being fobbed off with that old cabbage story.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” she demanded, her reddish blond brows frowning over her freckled nose and light blue eyes. “Why did you bring me here? And... and how did you do it, anyway? And how am I going to get back? You can’t keep me here -- that’s kidnapping. I want to know how I’m going to get home. And... and...” Alice looked at herself and the man and the dinosaur, then at the police officers and the farmer, and yet more questions popped into the air above her head, punctuated by pointing and gestures.

“And how come you’re using cardboard instead these balloons? And how come we’re in color and you’re not? Hm? Explain that!”

Her parents and teachers always did say she talked too much and too fast.

[Saurisia]

Andrea, after spinning through the whirlwind for what seemed to be an eternity, found herself having hit the ceiling (literally). She grumbled "Great, this is embarrassing..."

The Tyrannosaurus could hear Farmer Ted and Policeman Percy talking, the latter stating that someone had stolen their world's color and sound and they needed the three strangers (including Andrea herself) to help them. Surprised, the female replied "Is it possible of someone to DO that?!"

She struggled to try and get her head out from the hole, which she managed to do so after some pulling. When she pulled her head underneath the roof, she was surprised by the interior and commented "Wow, nice place!"

[Nong Nang Ning]

The two police officers looked at each other unsure if this would work at all. They slowly and carefully addressed each point both by the Dinosaur and this young girl.

“All sound and colour has been stolen, and can't they be stolen everywhere?”

“Your not there any more...” that seemed to address Alice's worry about the chores she had to do... as if they had no concept of dealing with anything than what was directly in front of them at the time.

“We didn't, the red lever did, we pulled it because the red lever is there for emergencies and it brought us you.” that answered the why and how. As much as can be answered for the strange ways things work here.

“We can pull the yellow lever and that will send you back but only after the emergency is ended.”

“We are from here and were hear when all the colour and sound were stolen you aren't, so obviously you aren't as much affected and still have your colour.”

“You settled down now?” Farmer Ted asked on his own piece of carboard “And ready to start? The earlier we start the earlier you can go home.”

[Xenohumanity]

The girl next to him was raising legitimate questions, the Saurisian had pulled herself from out of the roof, and Lord knows that didn't make things make any more sense. The locals were inadvertently dodging the questions.

The whole time, Max was casting glances at the bubbles, which at least was a little in-Ning consistency. After the farmer had finished, Max opened his mouth to complain about everything all over again, but instead, he sighed and slumped.

*Red yellows, some computer... I... I don't... I give up. Fine. Just... Fine.*

Max had given in. No way out of it now without seeming like the bad guy in the situation. These naive police officers in this slap-dash where-ever-it-was seemed genuinely clueless as to the implications of teleporting 3 people from across the galaxy to some non-Newtonian playground to play detective on their behalf.

“You know what? Fine. I give up. This place is crazy, I admit, but at least it’s good for some laughs, so I’m just going to not care about the unacceptably high crazy quotient here and say ‘yes’ to helping you out. Since I’m here, I’ve got nothing better to do. Just point us in the right direction and we’ll at least try to do something to help.”

[Muravyets]

Alice’s frown only hardened the more as she read the words appearing across the pieces of cardboard. And then that last bit from that “farmer” or whatever he was -- pervy kidnapper, more likely; she knew how things worked -- that bit about “are you settled down” -- coming from a kidnapper! As her mother would say, in the Muravian vernacular to be more polite, on má nervy v něm. *

Alice pointed at the three Ningians accusingly and, yes, rather rudely, too. “That doesn’t answer me about the cardboards. You don’t know the answer, do you? You’re all just making this up as you go along.” She folded her arms angrily, and even the dinosaur pulling her head out of the ceiling and popping out a speech balloon didn’t break her glare.

It was the cabbage story all over again. Typical adults, would never admit when they didn’t know things. Well, Alice had never been the kind to leave a question unanswered. That was why she’d first started running off up the mountain to visit Granny Hrabak in the first place, full of questions that everyone else either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer for her. Just now, Granny’s grinding voice whispered in Alice’s memory, one of the first pieces of advice the old lady had ever given her.

You got brain, don’t you, girl? Figure it out yourself.

That made Alice’s angry glare turn into an angry figuring-things-out expression, as her blue eyes turned away from the Ningians and she began to chew her lower lip a little.

Then the man, the other one who had been kidnapped like her, started talking. The words appearing above his head at least let her know that she wasn’t the only one who didn’t ask to come here and help these people with this crazy problem of theirs.

“Fine, me too,” she declared, “you know, whatever. If I have to fix something I didn’t even do, fine, because I’m going to get myself home, just you watch.”

With that, she turned to the man and the dinosaur. She was a little afraid of the size and other features of the dinosaur, so she held out her hand to the man first, though speaking to both, in the way she’d been taught to introduce herself.

“Hi. I’m Alice Stivna. I’m from Bily Lazhny, Muravyets.”



*He’s got nerve in him

[Xenohumanity]

“Fine, me too,” she declared, “you know, whatever. If I have to fix something I didn’t even do, fine, because I’m going to get myself home, just you watch.”

Seeing things in an uncharacterstically cynical light, Max crossed his arms, leaned back a little, and nodded once to show he was going along with this half-heartedly.

"Hi. I’m Alice Stivna. I’m from Bily Lazhny, Muravyets."

"Alright. Introduction time. The name's Max Beatmaster, hailing from Xeno City."

Turning his glance to the elephant dinosaur in the room...

"And you would be... who now?"

[Saurisia]

The Tyrannosaurus female smiled and replied "Oh! I am Andrea Peterson, from Saurisia!"

[Xenohumanity]

The Tyrannosaurus female smiled and replied "Oh! I am Andrea Peterson, from Saurisia!"

"I remember that place... That would explain the fact you're a dinosaur"

Turning back to their Ningian hosts...

"SO... Without further a do, can you point us to what was formerly the green path so we can get this Mystery Inc. Investigation over with?"

[Saurisia]

Peterson nodded in response and replied "Mm-hm"

[Nong Nang Ning]

“It's just past my farm.” Farmer Ted said “Follow me.” as he beamed a smile, in his own painted way at the three of them. He opened the door and left. “Thank you, Nong Nang Ning is in your debt.” Policeman Percy added after Farmer Ted left.

The door was there it was perhaps a bit small for both Alice and the DJ but there seemed to be no way on earth the Dinosaur would fit through but once again they didn't see a problem, either because they didn't think it was or that they were too dumb to realise it was but this was indeed quite a weird place so maybe it wasn't a problem after all.

Once the three of them found their way outside, through whatever means they were able to they would find Farmer Ted just a step in front. He would lead them through the town and towards his farm. What was different between this and other walks was that this walk didn't seem like they were walking, it felt like they were standing still while merely the background changed behind them.

Literally after a few seconds they had left town and arrived at Farmer Teds farm even though they would of been going at a fairly standard walking pace. They knew it was farmer Ted's becaquse there was a mail box standing by the road, with a sign dangling from it that read “Farmer Ted's farm”

“Keep following the road and it will take you to the Whispering Wood, and don't forget to take the green path.”

“Bye.” He waved at them letting them head off towards the Whispering Wood.

[Muravyets]

With a shrug and a roll of her eyes, Alice slipped through the relatively small-ish door and started to follow the farmer, and ---

Bingo! Farm! It was like, between picking her foot up and setting it down again, the ground -- maybe the whole wacky world -- just slid out from under her and there she was, where apparently she was supposed to be going.

"All right, that's different," she said, holding out her hands as if to balance herself on a ground that could slip again at any moment, even though when it happened, she hadn't felt dizzy at all.

...

“Keep following the road and it will take you to the Whispering Wood, and don't forget to take the green path.”

“Bye.” He waved at them letting them head off towards the Whispering Wood.

"Wait -- you're not coming with us?" she asked the blissfully waving farmer. "Ugh, whatever."

The girl turned with a dismissive wave of her own and took that first step. "This is just so silly."

And by the time the last "y" of that remark was out of her mouth, she was standing at the edge of a huge forest.

"Oh. Well, I guess it won't take long, if it goes like this. So, this must be the Whispering Wood."

Alice guessed that from the fact that, as she looked up at the round treetops, with their oval leaves, all like a black and white drawing, she saw the words "whisper" "whisper" "whisper" appearing on the leaves as they jiggled in the silent breeze. With a heavy sigh, that appeared as "<sigh, heavy>" in the bubble above her curly hair, she trudged forward into the forest. It probably didn't occur to her at first that she hadn't checked to make sure her companions were with her. She hadn't really started thinking of them as her companions yet, even though she had introduced herself them. And after all, this wasn't the first time she had set off into a forest without knowing where she was going, though it was the first time that she'd been in a forest that sent notes about what it had to say rather than just saying it.

As she walked into the Whispering Wood, she soon noticed a change. From the outside, it had looked like a regular forest. Or no, that wasn't quite right. It had looked like a kid's pencil drawing of a regular forest, with trees all kind of uniform and rounded, and pretty dense. But on the inside, things got a little weirder -- which was saying something, all things considered. Because here, the child's drawing changed to be more like one of those illustrations in the old stories in Granny Hrabak's books, the ones where the woods were full girl-eating wolves and waste-laying dragons and wicked stepmothers.

Alice looked around at the dead trees, and the few still living ones, all of them all twisted and warped and gray, and with the words "whisper" "whisper" "whisper" appearing and disappearing on their leaves and bark. Even the dead ones seemed to be still whispering. That struck Alice as pretty creepy as well as weird, and it occurred to the girl that maybe the Whispering Wood wasn't such a nice place to be in.

Just then the road ahead forked off in three directions. Three grayish, colorless directions.

"Take the green one," Alice remarked, echoing the cheery advice of Farmer Ted. "Ugh, whatever!"

[Xenohumanity]

*Here we go on the craziest thing ever. Good job...*

With that, Max tossed his silent microphone into his pocket and followed Alice out of the station through the stupidly small door into the town.

And suddenly: Farmer Ted's farm.

"Jeez! That was fast!"

This world's broken physics meant that nothing could be taken for granted, even traditional things like 'distance', 'travel time', or 'making a thimble-full of common sense'. Making his next few steps cautiously, as if the ground would suddenly give out, he continued moving impossibly quickly through the area with the rest of the group.

...

“Keep following the road and it will take you to the Whispering Wood, and don't forget to take the green path.”

“Bye.” He waved at them letting them head off towards the Whispering Wood.

With a condescendingly fake grin and an over-enthused pair of thumbs-ups, he turned his back to the laughable man and made his way with the party towards the woods.

"This is @*#%$^. This whole place is &%*@^$ after a point."

Not noticing the self-censorship of his speech balloons as they popped into the air, he noticed another 'and suddenly' transition had taken him to the edge of a large, unimposing forest.

"Oh. Well, I guess it won't take long, if it goes like this. So, this must be the Whispering Wood."

Alice guessed that from the fact that, as she looked up at the round treetops, with their oval leaves, all like a black and white drawing, she saw the words "whisper" "whisper" "whisper" appearing on the leaves as they jiggled in the silent breeze.

"Wait. The trees actually whisper? Fail. This is... unexplainable. Forget it. Letsa go."

With that, the normally exuberant, now annoyed-at-life man began trudging (according to the small onomatopoeias near his feet) and trying to hum to keep himself from going crazy, but failing, with bland musical notes in a bubble over his head as the only product. With a “<growl>”, he stopped trying to make things better.

The transition from ‘happy-whispering forest’ to ‘deathly-whispering woods’ was as jarring as ever, and Max was jarred.

“Oh boy… This wasn’t in the job description…”

As the balloon was popped by a sharp, jagged limb on an ancient, fallen, whispering-in-death tree, the party approached a 3-way fork in the road.

"Take the green one," Alice remarked, echoing the cheery advice of Farmer Ted. "Ugh, whatever!"

“Green one? What? They’re all grey. I hope not all the folks around here are as stupid as our kidnappers… Well, we can count on a deus ex machina in this kind of place. Might as well sit down for a second and get comfortable.”

With that, Max took a seat on a perfectly convenient stump and took a deeper look at the place. Rather than the hap-hazard drawing style of the rest of this world, this haunting place looked more crisp and well-done. It was as if, compared to the crayons-and-pencil of the town, this part of the forest was an engraving: Heavily contrasted, sharp, and perfectly capable of making a scary place even worse…

[Nong Nang Ning]

Something else that the DJ saw as he looked around was a girl, sitting drawing a tree, what was remarkable was that she was in colour, and so was her drawing The strangest thing about this girl was that he just noticed her just then surely they would of clearly seen a lady with all sorts of vibrant colours and dramatically stand out in a world of black and white. She could of just appeared but by the looks of the drawing she'd been there for some time.

[Muravyets]

“I suppose we should have guessed this would happen. I mean, they did say all the color was gone,” Alice sighed, plopping down on the black and white grass next to the gray path. Sitting cross-legged, she rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand.

This sort of thing happened all the time in Granny’s old story books. All the time the hero or heroes would come up to three roads and not know which way to go. Alice chewed her lip again, thinking through the various ways the heroes in the stories dealt with that problem. Some of the classics included blind guessing, splitting up, and asking a local guide.

“Hrm,” she mused via the speech balloon, “there are three paths, and three of us. I guess we could each take a path and see which one is the right one by following it. But then how would the one who finds the right one let the others know? And how would we all get together again? Hrm...”

Alice idly picked a blade of grass, and examined the stripes of black and white, which should have been light green and dark green. She brought the blade to her lips and tried to blow it like a kazoo, but got no sound at all. It was starting to make her uncomfortable, such total silence, especially with all these creepy, unfriendly looking trees and stumps.

The thought of eeny-meany came to her but was dropped just as quickly as she thought she remembered that rhyme would always take one back to one’s first starting point anyway.

She threw herself back onto the ground, lying on her back, her reddish blond hair spreading over the black and white grass and looking much brighter, and her jeans and mini-dress top looking much newer than they did in the regular, colorful world. Above, the word “whisper” continued to appear and disappear on the trees.

“If you guys can say ‘whisper,’ can you say anything else?” she asked the trees impulsively. “Do you know which path we should take?”

[North Avayu]

The tree grew by the work of her hand. It twisted, bent and knotted its shape, turning his branches here and there. April didn't know how long she really had worked on it. She had lost all measure of time, a fact she attributed to the effect of whatever substance had sent her here in first place. For that reason, she didn't worry much. It would end, sooner or later and for as along as she was here, she would simply continue to do as she did.

The picture she drew was just as confusing to look at as the real tree. The many different lines were hard to follow, the grimacing bark and the outstretched branches not very friendly. April didn't like pictures like this. they were too dark and joyless for her upbeat nature. Very soon she looked down on her work for the first time and nearly scrunched the paper up and threw it away. But she decided to do something different. Though the tools she had at her disposal were limited, she tried to bring some colour into it. She laid down the pencil and rummaged through her handbag until she had found what she needed. A chewed on dark-green coloured pencil for the leaves, a little piece of blue crayon for the sky, one brown and one yellow felt-tip pen for the tree trunk and the sun, and even a brightly red old lipstick she could use. Now the tree on the page of her notebook became less dark,'t didn't even bring up a second thought in her head. After all, this was nothing more than a strange dream, why should it have to follow rules. She had her colours too, hadn't she? Still, she didn't feel as though her painting really brought the tree to life. That was hardly possible, she told herself, as the original was already dead too.

So at one point, April decided that her work was done. Far from perfect possibly, but it would have to suffice. maybe one day, she would be able to look at this strange sketch in her book and laugh about what had happened to her this day. Sure she would. She felt like laughing about it right then and she did. But out of her far open mouth came nothing more than a few bubbles. What good was there to laughing when nobody was able to hear you, nobody to laugh with you? Closing her book, April stood up and threw a last glance at the tree she had painted.

"Farewell you old dead tree. Thank you for posing for me." She said, hinting an humorous bow, nearly falling over laughing. But alone this wasn't half as fun. She would have to look for someone to have fun together. That shouldn't be too hard. Everything around her was a product of her own imagination, wasn't it? So she would just imagine meeting someone! She took a few steps, not really walking in any direction.

"Hey! Hullo! Huu-huuh!", she said loudly. Or at least, she planned to say loudly.But as she looked up, she noticed that the only thing that really changed were the words in her bubbles, now written bigger, more boldly, which didn't mix really well with the italic font at all. "Hm, no point shouting when the people you shout at have to stand right in front of you to understand you.", she said, still shouting, judging from the writing above her.

Suddenly she saw someone in front of her. A guy in a red hoodie. her imagination could really have been a little bit more imaginative with her imagined companions. Nothing else really remarkable about him. Well, yes there was, he was in colour. That was a start. Then she saw the little girl. Also in colour, lying on the grey ground like a blot of paint. She looked nice and the balloons over her head indicated that she spoke. "Now that was actually pretty quick, imagination!" April said to herself, or better, to part of herself, as eh walked closer. Those people just were there as if they had been there all along. Which was probably right. She had nearly reached them, when she noticed that tow of the trees close to the two also were in colour. In strange colours and they looked rather scaled. As April looked up, she saw a the big head of a tyrannosaur floating above her, sitting on a reptile body that clearly showed shapes of female anatomy. "Oh come on, now you're just trying to overcompensate.", she continued her little one-sided dialogue, just before she stepped into the middle of the group.

"So, if this trip really follows the rules of comic logic, then you have to be important, by the simple fact that you people are the first beings I met here. Oh and you're coloured, that's a plus too, isn't it? So, I'm April, nice to meet you!" Her hand was put out of for a greeting and the smile on her face looked as if there was some kind of secret joke to laugh about contained in this situation. April simply was just like she always was when she met new people, cheerful and a little bit strange.

[Muravyets]

Alice waited several seconds, watching the trees above her intently, but all she saw flitting across their leaves and branches was "whisper whisper whisper." Apparently, the Whispering Wood had nothing of importance to say.

Alice sighed. "That would have been too easy. I guess we'll have to pick a way to pick a path."

Just then a fabulously colorful woman in amazing clothes walked into the midst of the little group (if a group including a dinosaur could be considered little). Alice sat bolt upright in surprise as a word balloon appeared above the woman's head.

...

"So, if this trip really follows the rules of comic logic, then you have to be important, by the simple fact that you people are the first beings I met here. Oh and you're coloured, that's a plus too, isn't it? So, I'm April, nice to meet you!" Her hand was put out of for a greeting and the smile on her face looked as if there was some kind of secret joke to laugh about contained in this situation. April simply was just like she always was when she met new people, cheerful and a little bit strange.

Stunned, Alice stared up at her, open-mouthed. Then, only half recovering herself, she reached up her hand from her sitting position on the ground.

"Alice Stivna from Muravyets," she said. "Very pleased to meet you. Wow, you really are in color. Did you get brought here in a tornado, too?"

[Saurisia]

Andrea followed the others outside and onwards to Farmer Ted's farm, surprised by how speedily they had gotten there. She looked around the area, still taken aback by all that was transpiring around her.