The Wanderer's Guide to Somewhere (CLOSED)

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.8 (41) - Miracle

~
If you wonder where The Creator and Jang Joon-Gweon were waiting as Dr. Heo's flying his way there...
-
Or when The Creator ordained Dr. Heo the latest Gangrimdoryeong (강림도령, 降臨道令 - crown counsel of the Dead in Shingoryeoite underworld)?
-
...Or if you are going by chronological order of storyline, meaning that your latest chapter was on the alternative versions of Quebec and Shingoryeo (ver. 1 of 39402) and wonder what the Dr. Creator were separately investigating?
~

In flight, Huayramarca to Squornshelous
Fluid Time

Upon his departure from the catacombs of Chuquiago, there was a weird mix of feelings that existed for Dr. Heo. Unlike most other times, when Dr. Heo felt every bit confident and ready to justify his stances, especially with the sharpness of his tongue, but Dr. Heo could not fully find himself to a position of relief after he had taken off and started flying in the counterclock direction. With the torch guiding his way to the next destination, that being the abandoned monastery in northern Squornshelous where Joon-Gweon had once stood, he wondered as his feet moved back and forth awkwardly in a swimming motion.

So here I start, to piece the pieces together, he thought, as he wondered how tall the task stood before his eyes, and if he actually had the abilities to do so. Having seen through plenty already, and with much convincement done by Isabel, The Creator and other events that have been coming his way, Dr. Heo was more or less convinced that he had the abilities. But the fear of trying to save his world, that of the Shingoryeoite State, was what he felt overwhelmed, for the risk of failure had run too high for him to just write off.

At the same time he also wondered and feared what versions of himself, and how powerful those alternatives existed, and how close they were from clashing. From what it had sounded the smallest of decisions made by his alternates, whose paths derived from those choices, had their own consequences. And while the worlds themselves were conveniently sealed and separated from one another, the possibility of destruction remained even more real than ever, especially if they were to occur in the usual sequences of 'Everything. All. At. Once'.

And how me and my own multiples would collide. Everything. All. At. Once.. At that moment he was thinking if he had forgotten about his younger self, and started to regret his earlier-life suffering, where a lot of what-ifs, could-have's and should-have's were left in the air. And that when all of this, the task itself that he had meant, was done, he would have to check on those he loved dearly, and still bore the pieces from those lost days.

Maybe it's also about myself as well, he thought, as he would think once again about what to do next when arriving in the abandoned monastery. That's exactly what he's going to do when he would meet Joon-Gweon, and after that Hannah - The Creator may or may not have provided enough instruments for it all to be united. If they were dispersed across the Quebecois outposts, and then the surrounding nations, it would be just as easy to actually tie the magical boundaries together by combining them.

Perhaps the nation itself, which had always drawn their inspirations outwards and from the energies of the three seas - that being Blood Sea to north, East/Grinshem Sea to east, and Salamantic Se to West) - would find the way to move past the starry animosity and fox-fed lethargy that had surrounded the dual-regions. This did not exactly mean that the possibilities of another move so magnificent, perhaps to somewhere farther and distant like Sonnel or Esportiva, would not be eliminated, especially if we were to look at mass-scale relocations seen by the past examples of Nephara and Cassadaigua to Rushmore over fifty years removed from one another.

But Dr. Heo knew that should such scenario be materialised, it would come under a better state of preparation and execution, one that would not require him to appear once more. As he criss-crossed the Huayramarcan mountains, the former lowlands of a former nation known as Semarland, before bypassing the Gesemite hills, before finding his way back to the East Sea. Dr. Heo checked his new clothes, which were light and feather-like, but almost impossible to be touched.

Clinching his right fist with the winter striking his face and torso, Dr. Heo felt the warmth emit from the Schottic Torch to his left palm, and felt how contrasting the feelings could get. He kept flying, though the thoughts about piecing both himself and the world together continued to fly. For short while he considered stopping on some of the villages and smaller cities in his way to ask for directions, or to just see how the people in those towns lived.

'Are those the people who actually live in the Gesemite Valleys? Or are we thinking about a different group?' he would say to himself, his voice disappearing shortly after into the wind. 'Do I even live in the same planet as them? And what would they think?' But deep inside, he knew that such rudimentary questions, while of curiosity, had meant little, for the possibility of ending up on the right dimension was a risk of its own, and that even the uninitiated like Dr. Heo would have figured out by now that flight between multiple regions and nations where how you travelled mattered less, but whatever you would do to make sure to make it safe.

If the flight path were to suggest anything, it would be that the travel from Huayramarca would then traverse the mountains to the east, before heading out into the Squornshelous and then to Aboveland and Gyatso-Kai. The way back north would involve flying into, and not against, the wind and into the Blood Sea, before reaching Pyazhnaya. Into the travels you would carry the threads, ones brought by the Torch, and seamlessly transition between the regional boundaries, those that do not exist in the Quebecois world of cartography but would exist in the minds of blind, 'Celestial Ocean' cartographers, and start generating the magical boundaries again, this time propped up by the nails planted to their neighbours. Little margin of error existed.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.9 (42) - Let The Flames Begin

Rammastein's Ranch, Quebecovello-sud
Fluid Time

His mind stunned, almost as if he was hit by a blunt force, The Creator wasn't sure how long he had found himself in the next version of his world. Maybe hours? Maybe days? Perhaps even weeks, considering how his limbs were at east unlike last ones, though there always existed a possibility that The Creator was just having some unfortunate lags with his narrative progressions.

Well, that's not exactly the way he had imagined himself to go, thought The Creator, noticing that his He was no doubt surprised by the ways in which his own narratives would wander off into unexpected zones. Facing upwards from the nothingness into the sky, almost in the same manner Joon-Gweon did when he had first arrived in the abandoned monastery of northern Squornshelous, The Creator felt time pass.

The hours he had spent there, which was comparable to spending hours wondering about transfer window what-if's and coefficient-related permutations, seemed endless, and in this The Creator too related to his own characters' pain over waiting for him. For someone who's used to being on the polar ends of patience, whose hot temper had conflicted well with patience for those who he held dear deep inside his heart, The Creator knew this wasn't an easy feeling.

So he, as Joon-Gweon had done so earlier, decided to get out and look at his own surroundings. As with his own creation, The Creator would find himself in a deserted setting. Unlike Joon-Gweon, however, he wasn't exactly located in a comforting setting, as the deserted sights of an abandoned uranium mine were all too obvious to suggest otherwise. The Creator knew this had likely involved a past occurrence on his side of the world, considering the unusual nature of the venues he found himself here, and that this most likely involved a conversation with another fellow user who had helped him explain an unexplained mystery that was lost during his semi-absence from the forum.

In any case, however, The Creator knew he had to walk further into the Uranium Mines, which were left out in the open confines of a desert somewhere far, far away from here. This did not exactly mean that Quebec and Shingoryeo did not hold uranium deposits - they were located in the western end of Abitibi-Agawa province, where the Independent Athletes from Quebec side would host Congolese Republic and Geektopia later in the World Cup 93 qualification stage - but how dry, hot and most importantly arid the location was would suggest that they were well outside of the home nations and into another region.

The Creator would soon find himself descending down the open mine shaft, feeling the gravel and sand touching his feet, when the next moment would occur. One drop after another, it started to rain, as The Creator looked around. Once clear skies before him would turn dark, the spotless sunshine of the midnight sun replaced by the dark circles drawn by himself on another lifetime. The Creator stopped, drew a circle around him, and built a makeshift tent with transparent walls or several minutes.

After much effort, which were done with his eyes closed per his preference, The Creator opened his eyes. Well, not bad, thought The Creator. He believed that he was alone here, with his own tent the only sign of life that had remained in this place as the raindrop continued to intensify in thicker, pound-by-pound punches to the ground.

Drip-drip-drip-drip.
Drip-drip-drip-drip.

This would go on for several hours, though he would soon notice, by the way a thread of his mind wished this endless drizzle would end soon, that the time flew fluidly here, as the rain would end. This was another alternate universe that did not exactly have the same version, The Creator would realise, as the rain would slow down, before eventually coming to a stop. Gradually, as he would look deeper and deeper into the surroundings, The Creator would also realise that this was a relatively new addition to the Quebecois realms, ones similar to the Banijan Njaza that had only really taken international (OOC: and thus, all of us users' notice!) notice with the territorial decision to form union as part of the Banijan state, but that whatever the process wasn't peaceful at all.

What the fucking hell, thought The Creator as he got out of the tent, folded it and placed it back into his palm, before starting to walk down the shaft again. It was somewhere in Esportiva, somewhere familiar and not at the same time, but his memory lane had delivered enough emergency sirens as he would continue to descend. While on his way, The Creator had noticed that there was deadly stench emanating from the very bottom. He wasn't sure what it was, and didn't even expect such to come out of there, but had noticed that something was off about it. Is there something even grimmer? he thought, as the stench went past his mask and into his nostrils. Something grimmer that would make the Laputa of Planet-88 nicer...

'Stop.' Another sound of a deep, familiar voice ordered right behind him, as The Creator froze at the sight. 'Dear stranger, this isn't the place for you to be here. But if you think you are who I do think you are, welcome to Planet-711. It's just that you would have to get out of the mines at the earliest time possible, and I mean right now.' Dr. Heo-711 said, his pistol cocked to the back of The Creator to suggest the seriousness of it.

The Creator turned around to face him, only to notice that it was Dr. Heo, but of age 60. He was wearing rancher clothes with a gigantic cowboy hat, held a nicely-polished pistol, and was certainly as surprised as he was. The Creator smiled, as he grabbed his pistol and threw it below the shaft. 'Sure, but you need to tell me where the hell this place is first,' said The Creator, as he watched Dr. Heo-711's facial expressions change from that of confidence to horror.

'Has nobody told you about the Quebecovello-sud? Or does it not exist where you come from?' Dr. Heo-711 asked, no doubt surprised to hear that a significant chapter in the nation's history, that being their expansion into the land that was once known as South Covello, or Gregoryisgodistan, was not being told elewhere. 'Did nobody actually tell you about one of the most famous defaults and governmental collapses in the multiverse, that had been enabled by the Blood Debt they held over nuclear exchange?'

'Okay, I do remember that there once was a nuclear exchange between Quebec and Gregoryisgodistan, that had involved four thousand nuclear missiles,' The Creator stopped, before speaking again. 'Unfortunately they were used against Sao Jose Guayabal, but then the despot dictator was killed and the regime change occurred, allowing that nation to be replaced by a generic, declining mid-power that would slowly lose their energy before figuratively disappearing off the map over time...'

Dr. Heo-711 nodded in confirmation of those facts. 'That part you got it right, yes.' He said, after realising that some facts were indeed correct. 'Well there's more to the story past it.'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

OOC: Provisional RP permission was obtained from Aboveland/Kirungabi, who I do thank for making this RP possible. Of course I remain open to the possibility of edits wherever he requests so.

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.10 (43) - Pt. II

Chronologically Previously...

A half-day later...

Northern Nykipiflugpuu

Jang Joon-Gweon and The Creator watched as Dr. Heo composed himself. Holding The Schottian Torch with him, and the golden, silky threads of the Quebecois realms' narrative boundaries coming out of its tail end, The Gangrimdoryeong sighed and took a deep breath before they walked about five kilometres from the shore.

Located on the southern entryway of the Blood Sea that faced Rushmore from northern Atlantian Oceania, this cove on the edge of northwestern Nykipiflugpuu proved to be an isolated enough of location to establish a boundary. The bleak, grey-ish landscape of the land, whose leadership troubles and history of troubled relationship with the neighbouring state of Aboveland, was an ideal place to further set the southeastern planks of the narrative bed before the crew were to extend further east to Gyatso-Kai. While they were going to stay here overnight by setting a makeshift tent after all of this, they knew that their next place of voyage, that being their longtime Avatarian friends, was going to see them unite with Fabrice Nelson-Ryong, the character whose demeanour, ever fiery and boastful, would require interventions before he would cause troubles with their Avatarian friends (especially of the Mando breed).

With this in mind, their plan would be to leave as early as possible in the morning, after testing out the spike's effectiveness for a few hours for there's not much time they could waste this time around. The journey itself was exhausting - a half-day voyage out of Squornshelous was one thing, heading to the Avataria on a long, though time-fluid, journey another - but it was a better idea to spend less time over it and let the fatigue be address after all this was over.

It was clear from the facial expressions of Joon-Gweon, who utterly appeared daunted by the possibility, that each time they had put a spike somewhere it took significant mental energy out of all three each time it had happened. In an attempt to stay focused and feel something Joon-Gweon kept his teeth close, clenching together the gum of his mouth's very front as he looked at Dr. Heo put a small spike into the top of a small hill with the torch as a makeshift hammer and screwdriver.

'Two done, now two more and we start going to the north and then west. Should be easier once we reach the west to the Salamantics right?' Joon-Gweon said.

'Should be, assuming the spike's placed correctly.' Dr. Heo answered, as he looked back at them. 'I wonder if the Tjætsyyeålmaiaski, native to the land here, would notice the energy emanated by the Torch...the spike that we put back in Squornshelous did cause the mountain to be melted after all.'

'Don't think about that,' The Creator gave a short answer, preferring to not worry too much about the unspecified effects of the spike on the narrative web. 'I got that covered with the Creator there, and whatever the effects...will not seep into here unless he wished it so. Otherwise we are keeping it separate because there are actual places where there would be a hole, or a walkway, that leads into somewhere - this ain't one.'

'Thank you, good sir,' Joon-Gweon nodded back at The Creator. 'Now let's see...'

---

Just earlier in the wasteland...

Rammastein's Ranch, Quebecovello-sud

Fluid Time later..

At that moment it had made sense. Sure, The Creator still had some difficulty recognising Dr. Heo-711 from the Planet-711, and with the way the older man with worn out expressions had suggested, neither did he as they got out of the shaft. This impression would come to change from that of surprise to an awe as they removed themselves from the open-air mine. An hour would take for them to fully escape the vicinities. But once they had gotten out of it all, The Creator would find himself sitting on the armchair, a cup of coffee right in front of him, as they found themselves inside the well-decorated living room of a comfortable, two-storey wooden house that Dr. Heo-711 had lived alone nowadays.

Life of isolation, perhaps even worse...or better...than one I put the original Dr. Heo through. The Creator thought, as he looked at Dr. Heo-711, who got changed from his rancher clothes into a blue tee-shirt and jeans. With his beard and hair washed, combed and taken care of, Dr. Heo-711 had looked the most un-like of his own creations, but The Creator could not help but to notice that he didn't look that bad. Having taken off the dirt from his mind and on the body, Dr. Heo-711 still bore the same level of lucidity that the twenty-five-year-old creator of his held, and the level of interest the Dr. Heo-711 held delighted him even more now.

'So we are here, in Quebecovello-Sud, where the state just...collapsed.' The Creator said, before deciding to go directly to the matter that had bothered him. 'And based on what you are saying...this is part of Quebec and Shingoryeo now? I don't remember ever putting this on writing, and on the default version of this game, let's say, South Covello exists and didn't disappear into the dust of time...just barely functioning and on international footprint.'

'So they got the better of fates here.' Dr. Heo-711 answered, his voice dropping low once again. 'Because you know the famous Quebecois phrase, the one we talk about when it comes to debt.'

'That you never owe anything from someone, but make sure they owe you something?' said The Creator, remembering his own policy of not borrowing money from anybody. Unsurprisingly, he was more than stingy in terms of finances, choosing to mostly give up his real-life indulgences (e.g. Marijuana) in favour of fried chicken and other groceries that would fill his needs, not ache for them. 'Yeah, I live by that. Did they not pay the debt back over there?'

'They tried, but you see, when your economy's struggling and the interests go up...the programs get cut, people would be left on the streets, and all that.' Dr. Heo-711 answered, trying not to get too much into the details. 'Soon the government would collapse as the debtors came out calling, all its assets sold to pay off whatever else. Then, without those assets, the debtors would buy up the sovereignty, including the resource rights that are considered last bastions of it all, and flickers the flames of a nation's last breaths.'

'Hmmmm....' The Creator slowed down, as he tried his best to absorb all that was said in such a short and quick twirl of words. 'So not the most pleasant end to it all.' He then adjusted his glasses a couple of times. 'Then why are you here, all alone? Is Maureen Turner, Maude Turner, Maude Hunter, or Katie Turner, still alive there? How are your children?'

'Katie?' Dr. Heo-711's voice dropped, as a look of wound on his face emerged. 'The one and only...she's moved on when the kids were five and three...leaving them without their mother...' Then he looked back. 'The kids are doing fine. Myeong-Shin plays for the Knights (Kingston Knights is a second-winningest team behind CSKA Quebec in the Quebecois Hockey League -e.d.-), and Myeong-Yoon just retired after playing setter for a decade. Olympic champion, world champion, whatever you call them (OOC: on default settings, Myeong-Yoon played setter until high school for one of her sports before fully committing herself to basketball). They all did it without me, and I'm proud of them.'

'Okay, so they did end up playing different sports.' The Creator said, not feeling so bad about the children's trajectories. 'And let me be the first to tell you that I am really sorry for your loss. Much more tragic than what you would have gotten elsewhere, and no child should bear to live without his mother after all.' The Creator continued, feeling lucky in part that his parents, who lived on the other side of the world, were happily living their lives. 'But then why did you decide to move here? There's no other reason for you to live in a wasteland unless there's something.'

'Because you weren't the only one who looked, behaved or spoken like me.' Dr. Heo-711 answered back, before coming just short of calling his partenaire 'The Creator' or 'Dear Creator'. He had too much of a rogue in him to admit that, at very least. 'There once was a time when someone you know, a famous Lord Nelson-Ryong, had asked if I wanted to leave for somewhere where I could find my peace.. I don't remember much about that time, but it must have been over a meeting I attended while with the Koreana Society.'

'And what did you say?' he asked. The mention of Fabrice Nelson-Ryong (or maybe his first name was Patrice here) immediately affirmed to him that not only were there multiple versions of Dr. Heo as the leading figure, but also others in the personnage.

Dr. Heo-711 smiled back at The Creator. 'Well, why yes? At that point in life, I was fifty, the kids all moved out and off to college, bureaucracy at the University of Kingston as starting to wear down upon me and I was just out of ideas or inspiration to keep going without being reminded of my past-life mistakes.’ He answered with confidence. ‘So I said yes, he gave me a half-price discount to this 2000 acre, and I moved.'

'Not gonna lie, that's a pretty good way, or an idea, to walk off into the sunset.' The Creator replied in awe. 'But you don't seem entirely comfortable with the ranch, at least from the way you looked when we were down the shaft. Half-choked by the spit generated by the dust, half stubborn enough not to go back initially. What is it that's exactly inside the shaft?'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

OOC: Many thanks (there will be a few more afterwards) to Gyatso-Kai for his cooperation in creation of this RP. Much context behind the RP could be found here, on Gyatso-Kai's own series regarding multidimensional fissures. Of course, the Avatarians and the Quebecois are trying to make different things happen.

An additional thanks to Poafmersia for his permissions with the use of Panjias and the historical incident of a man who died after tempting with his own fate.

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.11 (44) - Peace

In the morning, Jang Joon-Gweon, Dr. Heo, and The Creator had managed to find their way in Gyatso-Kai. And it had been about two hours since the pair had entered the Ministry of Magic headquarters in the Republic City for registration. The Creator, who preferred not being seen on foreign soil unless absolutely necessary or on deserted places (which Republican City, even on alternate realities, had no chance of this happening), had used this opportunity to travel back to Dr. Heo-711's Ranch in Quebecovello-Sud, where his mock-up was now asleep before their trip to the very bottom of the shaft the very next morning.

Little time would pass in the building before they would be telephoned by a certain Dr. Li Shercru, the Director of the government-run Institute of Multi-Verse and Temporal Studies, to make their way to the institute building. She had made it clear that the incidents spotted across the Multiverse, which began with the appearance of the sea monsters out Quebecois east coast, and would spiral into paranormal incidents across surrounding nations of AO and Anaia, two nations that the Quebecois state had firmly found themselves into, into both clockwise and counterclock-wise directions.

By one in the afternoon, the pair were standing in front of the IMVTS Director in her office. 'So you and I are both looking for answers, so to speak,' Li said, as she looked sharply back at Joon-Gweon and Dr. Heo. 'The opposite side of the cissures of spacetime, especially since we are looking to open it up, while you guys are trying to close it down, so to speak.'

'Perhaps that's one way to put it forward,' Dr. Heo said, as he took a peek at all three walls in the room filled with liquid tree tanks of water and micro-algae 'Did you always have the room full of those...tanks? I don't think the Avatarians are into this kind of inventions, if anything.'

'Because they don't come from this universe, and in the Multiverse we have to consider any possible outcome.' She answered, before suggesting that there's another universe where the Avatarian lands had taken the other way. 'Safe to say that the land where this had come from is bleak, densified and absence of valuable flora and fauna. Not the worst of universes we have seen though, though it looks like neither of you have managed to find a way to reach other universes either.'

'Were there worse universes out there by any chance?' Jang Joon-Gweon asked, the youngster intrigued to find out.

'Plenty, like the world where Avatar Roku was assassinated, the Air Tribes all but eradicated, and the Water Tribe decimated under decades of war.' She answered. 'Combine that with a nuclear disaster and you could guess the worst case scenario.'

Jang and Dr. Heo both swallowed their spit, as they figured out that the cissure of multiversal portals, especially when uncontrolled, could cause even bigger problems. 'So what you are saying is that unless we fix this, we are fucking fucked and maybe the Avatarians too.' Jang said, accidentally spitting out swear words in front of a dignitary.

'A bit "difficult" of wording, but yes,' Li answered. 'So your case also matters to us, because if our nearby friends in Quebec are being affected by it all, and the neighbouring nations in Atlantian Oceania - yes, I do mean their variants too - then there exists a possibility of cissure affecting us...' She continued to speak. 'For several years the Quebecois appears to have handled the situation quite well, almost as if their ways have worked out to the optimal solution of Laputa and Hades, if I'm using the Western terminologies correctly. But apparently your situation, while sweet in the start, turns out to require more stable, fundamental solutions, especially in order to prevent from bringing ten other nations to the suckage.'

'That would be a correct way of assessing the situation, ma'am,' Dr. Heo said. 'And that is partly why we have come all the way out west to here, to find support needed to help consolidate the power base and then to erect a renewed interrealm boundary around our lands, so that stronger protection be placed around it.'

Li, her arms cris-crossed, nodded along. 'Go along, please.'

'We have set a rough thread around the boundaries of the traditional Shingoryeoite boundaries into the new, torch-like device, one that the Creator of our universe had set aside for the three-manned tribunal to deliver,' Dr. Heo explained. 'Regional boundaries aren't necessary the problem, especially as the all-seeing peoples have no problem transcending between them anyway, and the boundaries do not have a height limit until you hit the stratosphere, let's say, it's more set aside by rough area and no more.'

'A failsafe idea, but I assume the erosion by outside forces and whatnot may have happened.' she said. 'It doesn't look like an external force or two had dismantled the walls though. Or that of your own doing - those at the Institute would have had to report such as well.'

'No, it wasn't,' Joon-Gweon answered. 'It's just all happened out of sudden, almost as if a system failure had occurred. And truth be told, there is no other way to describe such a situation like that, but it is best if we could seek your support, especially considering the Avatarian familiarity to it all.'

A minute of silence had followed, before she would respond. 'Yes, we must,' Li answered in firm agreement. 'Dozens, hundreds, you ask and I will do my best to deal with the Councils at earliest time possible.' She then stopped, before resuming to speak. Li knew that this topic would be one of her interest: 'With that said, I have heard of an incident that may be of your interest. A Quebecois citizen's found in middle of a Water Tribe beach one day, and was immediately brought to his attention. I heard that he's in solitary confinement right now.'

'That being?'

---

The last days of Fabrice Nelson-Ryong's life in year 2022 were tragic. Returning home after attending an important set of business meetings with the Bank of Shingoryeo, the ever-leaky TeleNord and the Royal Quebecois Olympic Committee that was discussing possible withdrawal from the Games of the XI Olympiad that was scheduled to be held in Ilysea, Ilysium, Fabrice's mind was start to wear down on him.

Becoming even more accustomed to travelling farther, more exotic places for votes and support, and stress wearing the 93-year-old man's body out, Nelson-Ryong became indulgent for the first time in fifty years. Then he would start developing certain eating habits where he, in search for every pungent taste in the world, would look for rare foods that would convince him at the verge of death.

What would eventually cost his own life, of course, was Fabrice's desire to try consuming a Panjia in Poafmersia, where the red horse that the native to the land considered to be sacred, while on a trip. His assumptions that a Panjia, a seemingly-mythical creature whose status were only magnified by the centuries of isolation by the North Pacific nation, was worth risking his life. Receiving the birthday gift from his son, Maurice, that was the travel logs of the legendary traveller in the late-1800s, Gabriel de Siches, he would find himself reading into his travels across the Multiverse's Seven Seas, which included the likes of Deltic Waters, Equestria and the mists of Tyran that took another long trip out west. His reading about the land of Poafmersia, a land on the North Pacific with their 'worshippings' of the almighty Potato and the art of permutations, was more than enough to convince him that risking his own life on a foreign land, as de Siches had once done so on the final chapters of his travel log, was worth the risk that would be put on his life.

But what Fabrice did not realise was that his travel logs ended there because he failed to make it back to Quebec. When he feasted upon a Panjia in middle of the forest the night before his departure, he was struck with a mortal curse. Having rid of all possible evidence he thought he had a chance to evade the all-seeing eyes of Lord Almighties before him, but all efforts were futile for once he was on a long ship ride back to Poafmersia, in order to pay tribute to the original route taken by de Siches, he found his skin turning blue, his nostrils tighten, and breathing near-impossible. Inside his suite he would scream for help by pressing all the call buttons and ring the telephones, but all connections were cut off during that very hour that by the time emmergency staff had broken past the door, Fabrice was found dead, reaping what he had sown.

Thirty-four years later, the scene had changed. Well, not exactly the same, but Fabrice was in confinement for sure. It was a tight, narrow, glass chamber inside the Institute of Multi-Verse and Temporal Studies in Republic City, Gyatso-Kai. Though separate from everybody else by the glass walls, Fabrice was never left alone. He would be attended and attended by the members of the Institute who often bore their own bending abilities, while bringing forward the pictures and the holograms of his past-life self - that of his childhood in the Economic Depression of 1930s, the final year of the Southern Rushmori War when he had enlisted as a twenty-two year old, and his postwar life that would see him go down into deep and dirty reaches of financial secrecy.

Sweet, sweet memories...the recantation of the past, he would think to himself. No need for a shame in them now that I have long past, and paid the price by being a ghoul, without a presence in flesh.

This part, after all, was true. His will, which was opened within hours of the passing by the calculated, cold-hearted executors of his estate, exactly followed his wishes to dispose his own body in natural state - that being to leave it out in the open if on the mountains, or to throw it over the water if on ship. So for what many would mean as in 'without a presence in flesh', this had turned into a literal meaning for Fabrice's afterlife, as he literally had no body to go back into.

Three days on, the glass chamber remained the same. But the lab surrounding it was covered by moss and tree branches that had grown out of nowhere. It was reminiscent of the childhood dream of his, when he was an orphan growing up in now-abandoned rural town of population: 1246, or when he would start providing financial support towards environmental activism and education at the seventies of his life. During those lingering times he would start envisioning the creation of a nature reserve, where he could eventually retire to a hut within it without worries or responsibilities/

'I see that they look similar to the forests that I had dreamed of retiring,' said Fabrice, as the old man spoke back to Zhao Feng. Zhao, the ambitious vice-director of the Earthbending Corps of Agricultural Development, was an impressive-looking man with long beard, His interests in Fabrice's abilities made them good talkmates now and then, both the ones that he had used before (like how to manipulate stock exchanges and bonds without a sign of manipulation), or those that he had only found out after his passing (like the ability to generate environments out of nowhere. 'Not bad compared to some of the sights that you've witnessed over the walls.'

'Very much so,' Zhao Feng nodded. 'And you are telling us that you aren't the only one from your homeland who could utilise or travel through the temporal anomalies from another Multiverse.'

Fabrice raised his eyebrows. 'Sure, a couple hundred or more,' he said. 'But it depends if your concept of temporal anormalies include travelling between the dead, the living, and those way past your understanding of the spiritual realms, so to speak,' he said. 'It's taken me over thirty years to have tiniest of sense in flying between them, so what makes you think that poor me could make a difference in it?'

'So that maybe you could help bringing us with a project,' Zhao Feng said. 'It is well known, after all, that Quebec & Shingoryeo, and Gyatso-Kai, have been long time friends. If anything, plenty could claim ancestry through those who had travelled from the Avataria to your land of Iris - I think it's named Inteachan? - in the Middle Ages.'

He then continued to speak: 'But the problems that your people, that of the cissure between the universes, is something that we are also trying to find an answer out of,' he cleared his throat. 'It's a problem for the Quebecois, but it's also the solution for us. One that would involve moving an entire island group into this universe from other versions of the Multiverse that had not experienced interregional incidents such as let's say, a Foxchester split.'

'I see that you are looking to find a way to expand using the temporal portal,' he responded. 'And that's a valiant idea. That said, I do not know if that's the safest of options - I'm sure that there are better ways to handle such a move, those that do not exactly transport them as such. From what I have been hearing the consequences of those moves, without consideration, could be a bad idea-'

It was around then they were disrupted, as the entrance to the Lab opened. A pair of guards turned from the side to face each other as both Zhao Feng and Fabrice Nelson-Ryong turned to face who had come out of it. Zhao immediately recognised the woman in the middle who bore thin, graceful smile of her own and was of much higher rank, as Commander Li Shercru, the Director of the Institute of Multi-Verse and Temporal Studies. Their stances in the recent incidents of interdimensional anormalies, which had been described as moves between -verses of Hertz-like 'frequency changes' (OOC: I am going under Gyatso-Kai's wordings in this case -e.d.-) with minimal physical incidents, have no doubt differed, and the arrival of the Quebecois, who had their own situations unfolding, made things difficult.

As for Fabrice, however, he was delighted to see Joon-Gweon and Dr. Heo, even though it was apparent that they, now dressed as two of the members of the three-man tribunal body, were different in status. 'Lads, lads, glad to see you all here.' He said, in an effort to get the pair to pay their attention to him.

'We do too, Fabrice,' answered Dr. Heo. 'We are here to rescue you. And to start tracing our way back to fix the fissure. Counter-clockwise.'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

OOC: For those wondering what is going on after two cycles (this had originally begun right after the XVI Summer Olympics and right around World Cup 92), this is the final section of Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness, a special Phase II storyline that details Dr. Heo Dong-Soo, a self-insert and father of legendary Quebecois sportsmen Myeong-Shin, of Concord Heights Royals and Kingston Tigers fame, and Myeong-Yoon.

It also features Jang Joon-Gweon, a young cricketing phenom with haunted past, whose discovery and actualisation of his own magical abilities that have haunted him for years will be a major part of the storyline. They, together and with special cast of characters, have to fix the dimensional fissure that is cracking Quebec and Shingoryeo on the seams between Anaia and Atlantian Oceania, effectively settling into a dual-region status that I hope this fully details and explains by the end.

TWGS megathread is currently listed up to the penultimate chapter of the Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness I's penultimate chapter. I will be writing the DHPM I's finale as part of the IBC 37 final RP tomorrow, and from onwards you will see close to daily update on the megathread for chronicling, on top of the megathread itself.

As I resume this storyline for the final stretch, set to end in seven/eight chapters' time, I would like to thank all parties for their support and feedback with the storylines so far. Without your support, this would not be possible.

- Q&S -

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.12 (45) - Bitter Wind

Put, put, put, put.

The feeling of dust blowing at their face and pebbles dropping sideways, all the way to the very pit of the mining shaft, was jarring as The Creator and Dr. Heo-711 quietly descended to the very bottom of the pit. The very abandoned uranium mining pit, one that had come from the years of resource extraction, contained a narrow chamber at the very bottom, and there was no other way to reach it other than to walk for several hours.

Slowly but gradually reaching the end of their course, The Creator and his alternate-universal creation would find their steps getting faster, especially with increasing darkness shrouding them. Long familiar to the two years of black-and-white sceneries of the downtown days begone, The Creator knew he was heading into the right space of mind. While there would be some who would find greater solace in staying home under the silence brought by the Plague that had struck his world, he himself found it to be defibrillating and instead chose to stash those times into a drawer, rarely to be re-opened.

Does he know? The Creator thought, as he turned to look at Dr. Heo-711 descend right in front of him. His eyes were closed, mouth zipped and limbs loose, and the silence continued to follow around them. Maybe he does, and what's underneath the pit connects the multiple worlds and even different dimensions...

Eventually The Creator explained to himself that the very bottom of the pit carried a device that would fasten the facilitation of the Shingoryeoite domains' nettings. After hours of deliberation The Creator had figured out that, while he had recommended Jang Joon-Gweon and the other, Dr. Heo-1 (the actual one) to bring everybody together, he did make a judgment error of his own where the instructions were sparse, spread apart and also did not exactly explain why it would be the Doc, and not he, who had to bring it together back at the Rink of the Dreams.

Naturally he had known why - it couldn't be the same person. The magical box in the middle of the Rink of Dreams, one that Joon-Gweon had touched and led into all of them separated into different spheres, did not allow for the same person, both living and dead, to touch it multiple times.

So there was the issue. The first time they were there, it would be Joon-Gweon who had managed to decode it to unveil the sequences of his own, but it couldn't be him doing it again. With the way that the box inside the Rink of Dreams worked and the way it had repelled the others, it had to be somebody else doing it for the first and only time, and the number of people were finite as a result.

There was also the issue of exposure to him the accidental Creator of it, which had more or less eliminated Fabrice Nelson-Ryong, Alexandre Browne-Hahm and Henri VIII altogether. Now, while such line of thought would have qualified for Hannah, who had much more advanced understanding of her abilities than Joon-Gweon or Dr. Heo did with theirs, the same would not have been applicable for Isabel Jurado, whose foreign origins, and the source of her dimension-tampering magic had only worsened the effect of the explosion back in the Rink of Dreams. As for Hannah, he knew she couldn't - not only Hannah's type of water magic would not be able to unlock it in the inland, she would be needed for greater purposes with another box in future-time, whether be in near future or several decades from now. This meant that there really stood only one of his creations.

Once the pair had arrived with the final steps bringing them to the flat flatter than that of the Earth, they would find themselves in middle of a narrow chamber. Once there, it would start to whirr and clank from all directions, and would continue so for several minutes. Dr. Heo-711 told The Creator that the chamber itself, or the being controlling it that is, usually took some time to figure out if the darkness inside the chamber would choose to 1) crush the occupant to their death, 2) expel them to the top of the pit, or 3) keep them inside the pit with possibility of revealing the unknown. And with the way that they were invited here, especially with The Creator's certainty implied, it looked like the three was the likeliest option. The Creator thought too that this would be the likeliest outcome.

He decided to break ice and ask a little bit further. 'Is the world of yours as technophiliac as mine seems to be?' said Dr. Heo-711. 'Almost to the point where everybody's trying to find the way to explain something as unexplainable as this, or someone falling from the sky, or whatever?'

'Not really, it's still a fairly devout world with Christine the Second,' answered The Creator. 'Who is your sovereign once again?'

'Louis, the son of William III and Queen Katherine (de Kitemah),' answered Dr. Heo-711. 'I like him, but don't ask what had happened between the three princes.'

It was right at that moment when a mysterious fountain appeared on the other side of the chamber, as Dr. Heo-711 and The Creator turned around to look at the green glow that had emerged. Made out of finest jade not native to Quebecovello-Sud, the fountain was behind the dark shrouds of the chamber until its unveiling.

Huh, was all that's come out of The Creator's head as the whirring sound surrounding them would come to an end.

Both of them immediately felt how cool, tranquil and yet tempting the fountain invited them, and how this had meant something different, almost as if it had the ability to defy the normal sense. In how clean the materials were made, how strong it was, and how inviting and yet repellent it was in the energy produced, they had realised that whatever this may be would prove to be an instrument of significance.

'I don't think I've seen that before,' said Dr. Heo-711, as he would recall past instances. 'And this place gives a lot of things - those you have seen back in my place. I've seen mirrors, diaries, and even books of the alternate universes coming out of there, but not...a full fountain.'

'So you are saying that, this object is...?' The Creator asked, before coming short of right words.

'Somebody's got to move closer towards it,' said Dr. Heo-711, giving the younger man a light nudge. He had a feeling this would cause greater effect than what he would desire, but also knew that it wasn't up to the rancher, who had left his homeland many decades ago, to decide. 'If that's not what you are here for, then who am I to judge you over it?'

So the Creator slowly made his way towards the Jade Fountain. Watching his body moving slower each step he would make, The Creator pressed his own limbs and mind towards it, in a matter of not only determination but also hope. The calmness of the jade that might calm the lands if brought home, thought he. Could it calm down the rage and the fury inside me? and bring back some of what I had and lost from the pre-plague times?

Eventually he would make his way right in front of the Fountain. Now directly in his gaze, the Fountain seemed even more alive than before. While appearing clear from some distance, the fountain themselves were engraved with ever-changing tapestry of scenes both of Shingoryeoite history, but also the future. Each scene was carved to the very vein of a young child, individual gemstone generated with different glows of green and white implied, and the very foundation of its movements set by that of a men's chorus aged as richly as a century-old wine.

'My own narrative, that runs past the space and time I give,' said The Creator, as he would look into a tapestry scene of Hannah and Joon-Gweon. In there, he was seeing the very future that had awaited them - the one of promise and forgiveness, one that he had hoped would tie well into the Christinian era that, in future time, would be remembered for the liberal, self-deterministic course.

Of course, The Creator himself knew that what was drawn here held more promise than what he had actually in mind, and thus wouldn't exactly translate into what would eventually happen in time. He, after all, was a tragedian rather than comedian in heart. The 25-year-old Creator also held greater penchant towards historicals - which always held an open room towards lyricism and soliloquies - over universality and ubiquity, which had meant this outcome, while desirable and alluring, was not meant to happen.

But it did give him a sense of doubt over it all, a sense of tingling that he had difficulty ignoring. He would continue to read into the said tapestry, one that promised them the lifetime of prosperity and redemption for young Joon-Gweon Jang-Moran, the son of a long-executed convoyist, and his beloved Hannah Moran, the eventual second-in-command to Irene Kweon Binnington, the visionary Prime Minister The Creator knew would define the course of the nation. The ideal, fable-esque vision of their love, similarly to the story of Caspian the Duke of Brattleboro/Halifax and Christine II, was one that he knew many of his readers would want.

Stop. A quiet, inner voice of his rang as The Creator had looked up. Right in front of him stood a touchpad shaped like that of a human hand. He had not seen this one before, and if anything it looked out of place especially when it front of this mysterious object, but he knew that he, if were to figure out what this Jade Fountain had meant, had to place his hands there.

'Alright, let's do this,' The Creator said to himself as he placed his hand on the pad.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.13 (46) - Deyr Fe

At that moment, The Creator would see that the touchpad of the Jade Fountain started to glow from green to lime and then golden, before spreading into the rest of the fountain. The chamber was still dark outside of the immediate vicinity of the fountain, and Dr. Heo-711 was close to being behind him. It started producing humming sound, almost as if enough vibration is being generated to suggest that the Jade Fountain itself thought on its own.

The Creator looked right above, his right hand still touching the touchpad. But nothing different happened this time.

Alright, maybe it takes a bit more time. He thought. To be expected when you are trying to load a vision. The Creator knew he had to become more patient than he normally was, even as part of controlling the temper and tempo that he admittedly wasn't the best to start with, and leaving the fountain wasn't exactly an option anymore.

It was then that a voice spoke to him, with a simple message printed as matter of caption:

'Dear author, you have reached the fountain. I believe that you are not only a writer, but also a wanderer. To where does your guide intend to take?'

The Creator smiled without thinking. While normally filled with endless booby traps and mazes of his own, he was also a simple creature sometimes. 'Somewhere,' said he, because he didn't define a specific location as to what he would write. Some days he would write about a certain Lundrigan, other days he would contemplate how to restart the Maison M frozen in time and his own inability, and maybe right now he's off to write about how, tied with the gradual madness of the Queen, the arc would bring everybody together at once. He just knew it.

Much to his surprise, the voice just hummed. 'Mmmm,' was all that it said, and for a half-minute nothing followed. But when a massive thump followed he would turn around, only to see the Dr. Heo-711 lying backwards, his left hand with a loose grip on his chest as if he had just died. Then he would turn around, only to see the map of the Shingoryeoite map plot indicating a poorly done version of the eventual plan:

See here.

At that moment he drew a light smug with his own vision, but saw immediate flaws to them that his characters might have a difficult addressing at that very moment. In its strong material and substance of determination pre-determinated by The Creator himself (in both literal and figurative terms), the golden threads of Shingoryeo's protection themselves were going to function fine on own in securing the country from drifting into the dimensional nothingness.

But there existed other issues. The red pinpoints of the web, which amounted to eight in number across the ends of the country, required a practitioner each to nail the netting down. And with Jang's improper handling of the box, one that his very own subjects of 'The Lounge' had mishandled earlier, he knew bringing them back together would require prompt action and accuracy in the co-ordination. And now they were scattered into multiple different locations, with the furthest of them all the way in the mysterious Bellemare Gardens of Al-Tamazgha, located on the mid-western AO.

The Creator took a look at the map again, which located the Rink of Dreams with a small, yellow knot, then touched his right index finger. Located in the very centre of Quebec and Shingoryeo, it was previously built as part of the 44th World Cup of Hockey that would produce endless memories of hockey, one where the magical barriers and the idyllic resort town artificially built to surround the 40,000-seat arena would end up with Gyatso-Kai's first world title in 42 years (World Cup of Hockey 23). But the site itself held other purposes and with the way Sir. Alexandre Browne, one of his loungers who was the Team Quebec coach at the time, making a deal with the spiritual guardians of those northern realms to revert the property for their purposes following the conclusion of the tournament, it was nowadays the epicentre of all things narrative for The Creator when in need.

The epicentre where they were repelled while trying to devise a shortcut with me, now they have to come back and properly activate the defence network. The Creator thought, as he let go of his touch. He then took a step back, and looked around the checkpoints. From its southeastern point near Baekahm, a white dotted line would form and then would move east and north. They would then slowly be pieced together into one from one point to another, and after some time would eventually come close to forming a full circle.

But what he had not anticipated was the potency of the very map itself. The dotted line would immediately stop at the red checkpoint halfway between Jolbonopolis and Montevicio, and did not budge afterwards. The Creator knew right at very moment that something was wrong, but he was unsure what had caused it. It was then that the golden knot started glowing, generating with it the sparkles of gold that would get brighter and brighter before he, without hesitation, were swarmed into it.

It was time for him to go back to the epicentre.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.14 (47) - The Violet Hour

The seas surrounding Quebec and Shingoryeo did not respond so calmly.

If anything they took some time to register the formation of the golden netting that had surrounded the nation, as well as the fact that there were multiple checkpoints were planted across the territories to indicate where roughly a dozen members were supposed to put their spikes on the Shingoryeoite realms, which extended slightly beyond the current territories and into New Gesem-Lacfroid, northern Huayramarca and the Erielhonan Free State (OOC: a puppet that primarily comprises IC equivalent of Michigan in land size or mass).

Some with proximity to the very activation of the golden netting - no less than a dozen fishing boats out in Salamantic and Grinshem (East) Seas, as well as no short of two destroyers and four patrol boats on the Blood Sea just north of Inteachan province - would notice the golden shimmering of the waters as they would cross or wander back and forth between them. They would recall how the waters would do its own magic - nothing that would lead them astray elsewhere, for the Shingoryeoite realms were only bolstering, not breaking down, their capabilities between the Inner and the Outer AO via Quebec and Shingoryeo. Then thet would see their seas surrounding them filled with the most soughted of fishes out in the sea, from the salmon out in the Salamantic sea to cods and pollocks out East sea, and the Tuna where Blood Sea would touch. And while the fishermen would struggle to carry the volume richness that the Creator had unexpectedly provided that night, and the voyagers stared into the golden shimmers in awe, they would not try figuring out the reason behind it all.

Elsewhere, in the meanwhile, about a dozen of the repelled guardians would find themselves looking into a light, golden thread that would bring them to the checkpoints. Slowly but surely they would find their way flying, with their feet not touching the ground. Some too would notice this as the shooting stars that would actually move in a straight or in the case of less experienced voyagers, wiggly shape and form, but the way the tiny trail had twinkled and shone was evident. Eventually, however, they would find their way to the checkpoint with a spike of protection in front of them by the end of the night, the landing of their feet flawless and without requiring much effort to the ground.

In a more ordinary circumstance the records would be made of such incidents, but the power of narrative held stronger with the boundary as the Hypnos's spell of sleep. Combined with the Styxian bounds of the spell that would be put along the Golden Netting's boundaries that would further facilitate the task, the Shingoryeoite people or those immediately outside of it would find their memories cleaned and fabricated to ensure that whatever the occurrence of the aforementioned events would not be chronicled.

Outside of two sources, of course. The Chunchugwan Institute of History (CIH, more commonly shortened to Chunchugwan), which chronicles all Annales of the Shin-goryeoite Dynasty, and the Royal Archives of Shingoryeo (RAS), where the Royal House of Jeongs hold their respective records, held a separate, magical barrier that would overrule and repel most of the magic that attempts to permeate through the walls. While a couple of archivists and court historians, who themselves were present overnight, did not hold specific magical abilities, or enough depth on the superhumanly realms to explain of the abnormalities, their familiarity to the historical occurrences of abnormal events did remind them to chronicle the instances of mysterious events that were happening tonight.

Oh, and then there are also actual chroniclers, one who held both RAS and CIH affiliation and employment, and other whose narrative affiliated to another 'Man-God' figure. Drs. Heo and Jurado. While the Dr. Heo was busy chronicling back to the Rink of Dreams with the Avatarian delegation and Jang Joon-Gweon, it would be Isabel Jurado, who just happened to be southern gateway into the Blood Sea that would connect Inner and Outer AO - apparently that's the actual term used by those of the Deltic Waters to refer to Atlantian Oceania and Anaia post-Foxchester - as she looked into the calm, eerie greywaters of the Blood Sea from another beach in northern tip of Pyazhnaya.

At last,thought she, as she found herself continuing to look into the waters. A quick closing of her eyes, followed by a couple of blinks, was enough for her to slip into the consciousness of the dimensions that showed the events that were happening at this very moment. And when she opened her eyes again, the sea showed a golden thread to the muddy beach and into the sea.

She knew she had to follow it, and thus she did. Into the sea and then back to the Mainland.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.15 (48) - 11 Minutes

The dimensions are something that most simply do not have the ability to reach, let alone understand and alter. Having originated from times immemorial, the dimensions behind the nations and their regions to greater extent, are themselves so tied to the fickleness of our human minds that when improperly tampered, we end up costing more to the nations themselves than actually thriving them off. From time to time, the regions important to our canon would rise and fall, and they too be divided into multiple sub-continents with implied feelings, feuds and ties, that each incision leads into something greater in consequence. We have seen many fall into that before, like that of former Esquarium where the pre-determination of closed worlds have hastened its demise, and will continue to see again.

But that's what the predominant, straightforward interpretations of dimensions would get with the regions. In reality it is more complicated, especially with the necessity of uprooting and re-designing a canon that only ends up causing greater problem than not. There is also the matter where a nation's determination and paths, that which are pre-written beyond even the need of existence of any region, outrun the course of a close-minded region with near-sighted optics, and in those worlds the existence of a nation in multiple spaces, both inner and outer, can be justified. Do we ignore the existence of multiple narratives and spaces, where an outer space and an inner space could exist, and do we ignore the possibilities of a nation's existence in multiples?

These are some of the questions that ought be raised, but ought also be answered. Disagreements may emerge between people, and those disagreements may feel natural. But deep down, there also stands the human ability in attempting to understand one another's canon, no matter how many disagreements can be made. This is why the ability to accept the unexplainable, no matter how it may be viewed by a carpetbagger cartographer on the analogue era, is the key. It may be difficult to explain and understand the ways the sea brings you from the Salamantic and brings you out into the Grinshem, but that too means the ability for the nations of the outer and inner Atlantian Oceania to congregate in the post-Foxchester era. Rather than to limit the possibilities, leaving the nature take the course only brings out the possibilities.

And then there's the matter of preserving the nation from the erosion and the destruction of the natural course.

Upon the moment the golden netting was activated, there also came calling from the other realms. Time froze in Huayramarca for a brief second or two, and the people felt the stand-still of all movements of the people. Nobody but the shamans of the mountainous nation, who knew they had been summoned for the defence of their nation, had a sense about it. Once the movement finished, almost immediately the shamans, amounting 900 to a thousand in numbers, would follow the track of the tiny, golden dots that directed them to the two checkpoints nearest to them. About a half would make their way to the Mount Ashburn, a peak located on a mountain range halfway between Jolbonopolis and Montevicio, and the other five-hundred to the Templeton Tower, an obelisk that stood on the meeting place of the three of five Golden Lakes in Agawa City.

Around the same time, the congregation of the magical folk would follow on the other checkpoints. Hurriedly finding their way into the chaos, they were feeling disoriented, and yet their sense of mission, which held on in a matter greater than their discomfort, made them hold onto it. Their eyes' irises would colourfully flicker in every direction, and having recovered from the explosions that had left many, including those of the Karegnodi Lodge explosion in the previous season, they would bring their bodies to gather themselves on a checkpoint, with themselves numbering in a dozen (see: northern checkpoints where most would avoid) to hundreds in the south and the Blood Sea, where the narrative boundaries to the other users of concern had meant greater urgence...

--

...now, while all of this was going on, Hannah Moran had been looking into the water inside the fountain of the Bellemare Gardens in Al-Tamazgha, where the happenings of everywhere else that was happening around her with peculiar interest was in full visiion. Especially as the other members of the Prospero Lounge, including Isabel her professor and mentor into the dark arts, had started making their way back to the checkpoints. Hannah was getting used to the wait, now starting to read into why she was being asked call into it late. The time is not right yet, thought she, as she remembered the departure of Dr. Heo as the Gangrimdoryeong, the head of the tribunal of the Reapers who could travel between the world of the living and the dead.

Then she remembered that Joon-Gweon, who was travelling with the Dr. Heo and The Creator, who seemingly had the ability to disperse her body in multiple dimensions past that of the so-called 'NationStates-verse' he would mention in occasional vocabulary, travelling back. Right at that moment Hannah felt a sudden chill, the glow of the yellow knot in middle of the map reflecting, as she would figure out the direction of the three back to the Rink of Dreams. Gradually and slowly, she covered her mouth with both her hands and stood closer and closer into the water, until her face were almost in the point of submerge. It was as if Hannah, who was starting to feel like she was left behind in the name of protection, wanted to drown and be sucked into the world back home where everything was happening, everywhere at same time.

Pah, Hannah said to herself in a matter of resistance as she managed to push herself off the temptation and back into the stands, her head dizzy and her mind suddenly feeling the gravity back into the earth. The strong power of the waters within the fountain that told her all that was around. Even with Hannah's ability to use water as a magical ability of hers, one that she had thought she had been in advanced stage of accelerated training un der Jurado, Hannah was barely able to hold on.

Barely standing upright in front of the fountain, she struggled to stand with wobbly legs. She could see that something's about to happen, but was unsure of it. Heavily panting, and her eyes irresistibly blinking, she decided to take a couple of steps further back and away from the fountain until she, with the pull of the fountain and its water starting to weaken, was able to notice a small box about five steps in front of her.

Home.

This was the first thing on her mind as Hannah regained her attention. Slowly but steadily moving forward towards it, she decided to will herself on making her way back home. May this bring me the strength needed to bring me back to the heart of the Portal of Madness, and into the centre of the Rink of Dreams, she said to herself, keeping her green eyes closed and relying upon the footsteps to find the box. Once right in front, she slowly repositioned herself lower to grab the box with her hand, and upon feeling the wood, crushed the box.

The wood, almost as if it were made of fairy dust, were crushed into millions of pieces. And then, she was gone.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Back in Jol Ball

'So, who is he?' Coralie von Kampen asked Louane Simms-Bardenet as she started drinking gin from her crystal glass. At age twenty-three she had already drunk plenty in her life, and after a minor incident where the Jilpoongnodo Institute had placed her once on a month-long suspension after running a massive smuggling scheme of Blood Wine mixed with Ayahuasca with the Huayramarcan magicals to the south, Coralie had to be careful in order to not let her career be affected. But for now, the matter of conversation was going to be on her teammate and friend, who Coralie knew had an interesting encounter or two on the other side of the hall. 'I see that he is a foreinner, but a familiar one by behaviour. Feels Atlantean even.'

'A mortal from Squornshelous. Also a keeper who is here for the World Cup. Apparently those people use different devices than that of ours, so we had better time talking about the differences in our lives.' Louane answered. Unlike Coralie, who enjoyed her time running a small restaurant in heart of Anju, or Hannah Moran, the latter of whom actually had involvements back in Joongyeong, Louane didn't exactly have to worry about her identity. Coming from a known, magical family who resided near the Rink of Dreams compound, and with her occupation officially marked as a surfer and farmer in her coastal cottage that faced the Blood Sea, she all the right reasons to not worry about revealing her identity. 'Admittedly not everything can be told per our regulations, but you know.'

'You know I could hear every word in this space, Louane,' Coralie raised her voice to specify her specialty. Unsurprisingly, strong hearing ability was one of two fortes the Quebecois magical held. 'You two were talking nonstop about deep-sea fishing, about how lovely it would be to capture halibut out in the Blood Sea...and yet I don't know if that..Nikodim's actually into deep-sea fishing. It's either I smell sus in him or feel like you could do better.'

Louane wasn't impressed - it is known that nobody judges her for her choices back at the Institute and the national team - and she shot back at her teammate. 'And I choose who I choose to talk to, excuse me,' she then continued. 'He's an interesting person, someone who doesn't exactly have penchant for lying...and not everybody is like that. Isn't that true?'

'I suppose so, but you have to remember the consequences. You know them as well as I do.' Coralie answered sternly, adding a layer of ice on top of it. 'You risk not only your own life, but that of his, if you reveal tiniest of details of us magicals. The Shingoryeoite Society or the Defence Force does not take kindly to a case of breach.'

'What about Jang and Moran? The heroic couple who had saved this land?' Louane asked.

'Doesn't count, because Jurado at St. Croix was already registered by the Shingoryeoite Society, the same institution's Heo also counting as that of our own though he had not known of his abilities for made decades. Same can be applied to Moran and Jang - former's already a known name, she is our teammate goddamnit, and latter had already earned dispensation from the Queen. Thus not really applicable to what you have in your god-damned head and mind.'

Louane didn't budge. 'And if there's anything, Coralie, it is that I risk,' she said, her red eyes continuing to glow. 'And that you need not worry. If he takes my hand by virtues of potions or actual humanly heart, I will ensure that won't happen. The beachside cottage by the Blood Sea can be protected and converted into a compound if need be, and with appropriate spells I can ensure that will not happen.'

'Well in that case,' Coralie lifted her right hand to shake her wrist. 'Good luck.'

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.16 (49) - Feel It Coming

Only several minutes had passed, though the way Hannah Moran had summoned herself from Al-Tamazgha's Bellemare Gardens to the Rink of Dreams would suggest it likely felt longer than that, perhaps to the matter of hours or even days. The nature of such travels, after all, carried the risk where the traveller would be left from little to no control over how they would conduct it, and tales have been made out of those who have lost their limbs, sanity or even their own lives thanks to their own bodies not being able to hold onto the weight and the pressure of it all.

In any case, however, Hannah had made her way back to the Rink of Dreams compound. She felt the thud on her feet as she landed, loose landing causing the nineteen-year-old woman to overstep a couple of step forward in middle of the wet, grass field devoid of the wintertime rink. Feeling the imbalance of her body Hannah almost fell forward, and only regained control of her limbs by planting her left hand in a matter of desperation that helped reducing the speed.

'I'm back, at last,' Hannah said, as she finally came to a halt. She rolled her head a couple of times, moved her hand from the pitch, and then got up and looked around.

She was indeed back in the Rink of Dreams - thousands of miles and kilometres away from the warm, desert grounds of Sebou Mountains - and the thinness of the air in the Selwyn Plateau's altitude felt right to her breath. She was now looking at the surrounding stands of the Rink of Dreams that was all but abandoned since the World Cup of Hockey 44 - tens of thousands of seats starting to lose their colour and gradually shape thanks to the effect cold, heavy weather filled with precipitation had on them. From some distance, right in front of the home team's quidditch posts (?), Hannah noticed a grey, steel closet that served as a face to a nuclear reactor. It had a red door with golden knob, almost as if one could enter inside the reactor itself.

Hannah looked around the rest, and then to the away end zone. Again there was nobody there. This time Hannah looked above, and into the press box before looking down. She watched two figures - one a lighter, grimmer figure with age reflecting poorly on him, and other a more built and yet awkwardly moving figur, walking down a staircase and towards the pitch. Her vision shaking right at that moment, Hannah took some time to figure out who there was, but with the way the Rink of Dreams complex saw the light, golden barrier rise almost to form a dome, she could easily tell that the reactor had something to do with why she and the company of the Prospero Lounge came back.

'You,' said Hannah, as the gap between them started to close. For some time time seemed to have stopped on their surroundings with Hannah and Joon-Gweon looking at each other, while the re-set figure of Dr. Heo would slow down on movement until he stopped some distance away. Then, almost as if this was a movie, Hannah and Joon-Gweon embraced for a minute. There was a sense of electric touch that they seemed to have felt that moment, the barrier continued to glow lightly while the magical figures from the surrounding nation stood watching, but could see nothing.

Eventually, after a minute had passed, they had let go of one another. Joon-Gweon opened his mouth and said, 'We have to save the world right?'

'Yes,' Hannah answered, only to be disrupted by a cold, deep voice of The Creator: 'Stop.'

They looked around at the origins of the sound, but The Creator's figure was nowhere to be seen, for he preferred directives and delegating responsibilities to different figures each task. 'Neither of you move,' The Creator opened his mouth from above their heads. 'He move.'

Joon-Gweon and Hannah looked to the behind, and saw red light pass through Dr. Heo's eyes as he stood with blank expression. They saw nothing else outside of it, but have felt unnatural heat emit around the older man, who was dressed as the Attorney of the Underworld in Gangrimdoryeong. They immediately drew back, surprised to see how Dr. Heo's figure, which had lasted travels, soul-divisions and whatnot, had come back grizzled of humanity and yet charcoal.

'Am I here to face the time that has passed by, isn't it? The past, the present and soon, the future?' Dr. Heo said, as he looked aimlessly at them, before gazing into the nuclear reactor with its red door. It felt eerily jarring, and yet beautiful, as Dr. Heo looked at it glow. Then he said back to them, 'See you on the other side of the apocalypse, shall we?'

Right at that moment, for what it felt like eternity, Joon-Gweon and Hannah stared into each other in surprise and awe, their eyes were now calming down after bubbling of the anticipation. They had realised that while they have fought and wandered through it all, and somehow putting it all together with next to bare knowledge of the fission, they had no more duty left in this mission of preventing the erosion of the magical borders surrounding the Shingoryeoite realm.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.17 (50) - Boats Against The Current And Daisy's Theme

Dr. Heo Dong-Soo was back into the silence of it all when he went inside the red door of the nuclear reactor.

He was alone in his living form, at least he thought he was at least, and he wasn't sure where he was exactly standing either.Tribulations I suppose, thought the sixty-five year old man, as he looked at his surroundings. It originally appeared to him a clear, pale void with him seemingly located in a green screen-esque space, and the more he looked and the deeper he stared, the details started to appear.

And there's more to it, he said to himself, as more details would emerge. Now appeared a long, well-paved stone corridor in front of him, almost as old as the tale of time and eternity, and it appeared to him that ocean was next and beneath the walkway, close enough to touch but without actually feeling the sensation. It was still daytime, with nothing else to add yet but a almost transparent but still apparent roof that stood high above him, and sunlight gently drizzled to him the more he looked at the end of the corridor.

Upon its very sight, Dr. Heo slowly wandered down the hallway, step by step, in hopes he would be able to see the end. For long time he would with little success, even as tiny figures of dolphins and whales would emerge from some distance away,and there were hardly any guidance to which he was to travel. But here and there, as the day would slowly turn into the night, Dr. Heo started to notice the rows of statues who looked alike more and more to him the more Dr. Heo walked further. All stern and unsmiling, they wore different clothes from that of Gonryongpo (袞龍袍) worn by the older King-Emperors of the country to that of a hockey jersey and goaltender presumably worn by Alexandre Browne-Hahm, and were filled to the very brim with details they offered.

Alexandre the First, also known as the great...Alexandre Browne-Hahm...H is for the late His Majesty Henri the Eighth...and as for that there are a couple of figures I don't recognise, perhaps because they themselves were disfigured....Though why the late old man Youngblood is there remains to be seen. He does not belong here...

Gradually, he came close to the end of the hallway. Standing in middle of the night's vantage point, he looked directly to the very end of the hallway that was cut off dropping into nowhere. And as Dr. Heo looked deeper into it, he became aware of the green light that stood in front of him - a sign of the desire, the long-lost hope, and perhaps allusion to some of the things that he had buried aside earlier in life.

Through the tall, green light that stood like a lighthouse, he could see the reflections of his earlier self, all as an expatriate child, a budding national team fencer, and a hopeful writer, and how the visions of vanishing trees, those that he, at age twenty-seven, would plant his new, Cornwall home with his late wife Maureen, had brought back the promises of what was lost before and what he would lose later as well. Even if for short while, he was able to feel the abnormalities of the trees and the Lake Mahan, and be drawn willingly drawn into the waters he had nearly drowned from just five years prior, facing the borders of the living and the under world.

Run, that's all that was on his mind Dr. Heo shuddered. He had noticed the very source of what had kept him moving in the immediate phases of life that had followed him after surviving the car crash from the ruins of the highway by the Lake Mahan. It exposed him to the very heart of what he could not ignore even when with his late wife, Maureen, and had resurfaced since her tragic death. Sometimes feeling the flashbacks to a small child who did not always find himself understood by the surrounding world of cruel, cruel children, he knew he had to run.

Still he couldn't exactly run - there was nowhere to run, and the alternative even if successful would be to see his home realm collapse. So he turned around, only to see the corridor's lookalike statues standing in two, neat rows behind him, as they surrounded the small, rectangular mini-reactor that stood between them. Back to the very pit of Quebeco-vello's nuclear pit, with a reactor inside a reactor, thought Dr. Heo in Matroshka. He was not at ease over how the cluster of men all smoking cigarettes looked more formidable as an unit than individual figures, even more so as he had known most, who would not get along in real-life, on personal terms and not for non-cohesiveness of the former. There was also a sense of familiarity and repulsiveness in them too, something that he didn't exactly have a way to explain, but it did bother him a fair bit.

Dr. Heo drew a couple of steps forward, trying to be closer towards them. Interestingly enough, what the reactor carried on its shell was not that of plain, decoration-less cover, but rather the screens that overlapped with one another and projected sequences of two visions of life - that of those before him, and that of their Creator. Irish goodbyes and road trips...followed by love letters that were never sent...the unmaterialised prom sequences...those that covered under the dream sequences...turned into year of atonement over tiniest of mistakes in internal convenants...Hours feeling like Centuries in some, others passing through a matter of blink of an eye, all in the 65-year-old Dr. Heo's eyes.

'You have reached your final destination,' said the deep, animated voice to the left of him.

Dr. Heo quickly turned to the left. The Creator nodded back to him. His eyes, however, were busy vibrating back and forth as the mid-twenties man too was busy watching the sequences. But his gaze were dim at the same time, and Dr. Heo immediately noticed how the darkness of his iris were evident as he looked at some of the sequences.

The elderly man was happy to see The Creator, though not exactly at the ease with the anticlimatic way they had found themselves occupied on the moment of decision between Quebec and Shingoryeo's fate. Instead of a matter of life and death, it felt as if the pieces were there to be put together and then to be dispersed. 'You are having flashbacks, aren't you?' Dr. Heo asked him. 'I could see the way your gaze had darkened over the eighties footage of the late King and the Queen Mother Nathalie...'

The Creator briefly closed his eyes, before looking away from the machine and at Dr. Heo. 'Well, that's one of my earliest stories, yes, one that may never see the coda as she's in Vancouver and I not to head there in fear of seeing her again,' he said. 'Have you ever heard of this brilliant movie by Joe Wright? It's titled Atonement. One of my favourites, a movie that I cannot watch again because I cannot bear to watch it with that emotional weight. Of course, with the way that the world and its fates have turned out for your world, the same cycle would continue over and over, maybe not directly to Henri and Nathalie's children, but those after..'

'So that's the beginning of the story,' Dr. Heo answered. 'So this is where the story begins, with a piece of you placed into the world you had begun many years prior...all the way to now.'

The Creator lightly smiled back at him. 'I never liked the ending of Great Gatsby, I will just say that,' he said. 'That's also why your world has a punk band named Daisy Buchanan Was A Whore. Last I heard they were doing pretty well, doing AO tours and shit. Is that not true?'

'Right,' was all that Dr. Heo said. Toucheh. 'I always hated that book.'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

OOC: Many thanks to Squorn. This RP falls between his last two posts, which I am more than happy to adjust and edit where necessary.

Between Matchday Seven and the Final Task

Louane was feeling down about what had happened between her and Nikodim, even more so when she had went back to the Quetzalac's lushy gardens. Louane just knew clarity was what she lacked when she had to tell the Squornshelan that she couldn't tell him the specifics of the magical abilities she held, or that of her own identity. Even more so with the Shingoryeoite Society and the Defence Forces' protocol not to spill the details, even if she were exempted from a great number of requirements that more hesitant of her Jilpoongnodo and quidditching colleagues would not step away from.

The quietness of the walk, however, would be disrupted when she would quickly find herself facing the team's fellow young chaser, Hannah C. Moran. Dressed in a white gown, combined with purple-and-yellow Darth Vader mask that covered the charms of the collective spell that had draped their bodies in tattoos, Hannah decided to talk to the X-Wizard representative who still had one more task left for the X-Wizard Cup.

'You look...stunned,' Hannah said in a lower register of her voice. 'What's wrong?'

'It's not up for me to speak,' Louane answered, upon remembering that she was still feeling additional sense of embarrassment for her struggles with the second task. She had forgotten an object very early into the task, and while she would eventually find it the identity of a very object, a torch that was Hannah lent it to Louane, had left an awkward situation to the team's dynamics after the team had crawled back from the early deficit with three consecutive wins. Now, with a tough loss to a veteran Banija squad that almost brought them to the brink of elimination from the competition altogether, Louane felt too nervous to answer Hannah's question.

'Look, you don't have to feel this way,' Hannah said. 'Really, Whatever about the torch, I will put it back to the very spot where it belongs in the Rink-'

'What would you do when you aren't in a position to tell what we do and can do?' Louane asked, remembering that Hannah's parents themselves were country royalty in Jolbonopolis. 'Like...you and your sisters, or parents. What do you tell them when you show them something.'

'I wouldn't know, i was late to it,' Hannah shrugged. 'I was always scared of revealing it, and there was a lot that's bottled around. Sometimes I would go to the lake and test the water, to see if I could move them around in hopes I could do something anew...but I never did.' She then continued, 'It was kinda a matter of coincidence I came to St. Croix, and was able to be open to those who knew how to open the gates really.'

'What about you and Jang? Did it ever become an issue?'

Hannah sighed. 'He gave it up in hopes of a normal life, that of a cricketer and a naval aviator,' she said. 'He knew the dangers somebody undertrained like him could bring, and having suffered earlier in life wandering for questions, he didn't want to pursue it further. The Shingoryeoite Society saw no problem with someone giving up the abilities as he had made an unbreakable vow of his own.' She then turned to ask Louane further. 'Is the Squornshelan...a magical? One of us?'

'No, without a single ability. And eventually he asked too much so I had to leave him once we went back,' Louane bitterly answered. 'It feels like a maze all over again, doesn't it?'

'Maybe, but you know what you are walking into at the very least.' Hannah answered. 'What matters the most is that he does not say the words beyond what he's supposed to know or say, but I'm sure you know the right charms to control him - worst comes to worst. Besides, I don't think the Defence Forces or the Shingoryeoite Society will care so much about an adorable fella of yours, if there are greater menaces around?'

'Why would I? And who would it be?' She asked.

'Oh, you'll see him very quickly. Heard from Coralie that she's smelled very foul stench from a different guy...'

---

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.18 (51) - Electric Touch

Dr. Heo smiled and then looked back into the screens covering the shell of the mini-reactor. Once filled with scenes of personal regrets and what-ifs on that of The Creator's world, they would gradually be replaced by that of his own world - the one where oddities existed not as a catastrophe and a plague, but rather as a matter of condition and embrace - and how times would evolve over the past three hundred years since the Union of Three Crowns. There would be a piece or two, that suggested some of the life-altering moments that had happened between the Piece 1, and Dr. Heo would notice them, but it felt more that it was there as a matter of tracker, a reference, rather than those of particular relevance in what he was asked to do.

While the Professor was busy looking into the sequences of history that had happened to his interest, The Creator carefully brought out the emerald, Schottic Torch from the back of his pants. The Torch glowed little, but it had gained additional layer of light emitting from the addition of golden patterns he had imagined himself into the carving.

'But for every loss I had suffered engraved into that of the history, I had also brought out hope in chances that they, one day, would be met. First in the deepness of my mind where they would be given suture to the scars and the wounds, and then work the way up to meet it in the actual world.' When Dr. Heo smiled, the end of his fingertips flickered a couple of times, the colour of his iris blurred, and his smile carrying weight as if restricted by that of an lead anklet. 'You may have noticed a few of them, if you have not noticed already from the entourage.'

Thoughts started to conjure up in his head, as he tried to put it together. Alexandre Browne's luck...Lord Nelson-Ryong's ability to conjure money out of nowhere...the Youngbloods' tales of crossing the mountains in hopes of love...Henri VIII who went all the way to the Deltic Waters alone and in shapeshifting forms.... he thought to himself, only to realise that the thoughts he carried would be reflected into the reactor. And the personnages that he had mentioned as company, their moments of tribulation and happiness would be shown, far away from the state of misery Dr. Heo would assess them for. It brought him into realisation.

Dr. Heo went back to what he had instructed to continue, but with himself. And that of mine, coming back from the brinks of death twice, and to face Maureen again. However short it would be... He thought once again without moving. It was then that he would be stopped by The Creator, however: 'Why try to recreate something that you replay over and over, especially when you are living a life that's ongoing?'

Dr. Heo looked back at The Creator in surprise. 'Because I miss those who I have lost,' he said. 'You know, how I lost my wife, my career and all that..'

The Creator looked at him curiously, almost to the point of amusement over what he felt to be a sign of ingratitude. 'You have gone onto live twenty-five years of life with her, moved to Joongyeong and then back, and together have raised two children of remarkable talents. And you have earned your career, perhaps one that's set out for greatness and one that will likely keep you in loops for the path. What is there to worry about?'

'But at what cost?' asked he. 'Could I have been happier? Could I have been moving more freely? Could I have found myself not being bounded by the duties of the homeland?'

'Because it is not your choice to make. It never was, in the greater scheme of narrative that you one day will realise,' The Creator answered back. Right at that moment, there stood plethora of questions they had wanted to ask one another, especially considering the difference in perspective, but they both knew that there wasn't a lot of time left. If anything, they were likely talking over it all on borrowed time. 'There is a difference between those who drive the narrative, and those who I have offered a piece of my own. There's a reason why when the young Jang Joon-Gweon was in front of the reactor, it had only repelled all of you away, isn't it?'

'Because he wasn't one of those you had offered a piece of your soul,' Dr. Heo answered almost instinctively. 'While those who had come before, including some who I have and have not known but shared limited contacts, have carried the pieces of you.'

'Precisely,' The Creator answered. The Torch started to glow by this point, as he held it with his left hand. 'And this is why you are here. You have a world, your own world, to save, and the mission to carry on what I have started with those before years ago, young Heo Dong-Soo,' stared the man in his mid-twenties, nevermind the oddity in using the term 'young' to someone four decades older than him. 'But that will not be it, for there is even more work to be left done.'

'That being?' he asked.

The Creator then brought out two pictures in front of him - Image 1 and Image 2. 'You know these people?' The Creator asked. Of course he knew who they were, and if anything those figures had already been there into the Shingoryeoverse as well, where they would be laid as NPCs for the time being until more flesh and details would be added, almost as if they were beasts with two backs wearing black sheepskin, heading into slaughter.

Dr. Heo did not hesitate upon noticing their facial details, not hesitating from speaking directly about light details he would make of them. 'This is so and so persecutor, there is a certain legal scholar who only goes on drabbles but really speaks little of substance, and isn't that a Marsh Blackburn? Also an idiot of an Army general who keeps claiming there is a commie on the RMC campus? None of his ancestor have served the country, and his stars he bribed his way.'

'Okay, stop, you know what I mean then, amirite?' said The Creator, him raising a slight smug as Dr. Heo's befuzzled expressions contrasted to that of his. 'Where I come from, we call that the Colonial Governor and the 癸卯六賊. And they will come under the false notion of fairness one day, with the hearty words of promises fuelled by rage farming. In an ideal world you would believe that the people would get their ruse and not fall into the sweetened traps...'

'...but the people are not meant to be trusted, thus the task is up to those who know, by the matter of predetermination, to prepare for the inevitable attack and entrap them.' Dr. Heo picked it up, in immediate reminder of a certain opposition leader PeePee's Epsteinian death.

'Very much to the point, monsieur,' he answered. 'So this is it, really. A longer mission, one that will not involve fixing the erosion of borders, but something that will affect everybody more directly to their own lives.

'So please consider this as a reminder that you have a mission to live for past that of your own in this world. One that is going to be important in the coming decades as the pests, while not in exact but still under resemblant form, will find their way here too, and it is your task to prepare the Daemyeongoong Palace (seat of throne -e.d.-) and the Jeongdeokgoong Palace (Parliament house -e.d.-) for the eradication.'

'I see,' was all that Dr. Heo said, before raising his left hand to receive the torch. 'Now, may I please have the Torch back?'

'Yes, but you better not making mistakes like that,' The Creator answered, as he passed the torch to his latest, but likely not the last, creation. 'If you were an X-Wizard Cup participant, you would have been long disqualified for forgetting an instrument of significance like this, wouldn't you?'

He then turned and disappeared into his world. Dr. Heo, upon seeing him disappear in a blink of eye, was back to facing the rectangular mini-reactor as it continued to repeat the earlier sequences of scenes. That of happiness and ascent.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.19 (52) - Fission

Sooner than later, it was Dr. Heo's turn to make the decision alone. The night has reached its full swing on the other side of the red door, and while he was not willing to admit that time was increasingly less willing to become his own friend, he could hear from distant chants of the Huayramarcan shamans, who came in hundreds, and the Avatarian benders reaching their ethereal elements that he needed to put his left hand forward. And that without him acting on it, even as the energy level was getting higher on the gauge, Dr. Heo's inaction could lead into disaster.

Okay, so where do I click? thought Dr. Heo, as he continued to look into the screens. Unlike earlier, however, they were no longer projecting the scenes of past or present. Instead they suggested those of the future, those looked so uncertain that Dr. Heo would have no trouble looking at how abruptly their forms would change. Maybe do I have to think about how it would appear, I suppose, if it's the mind that holds the power...

It was then that a small stone slab would emerge from the floor, causing Dr. Heo to take a step back. Perfectly circular at top, and with a deep hole in middle of it, it looked every bit clear to him that by planting it from above, he would be able to activate the detonator that would either save or, worst comes scenario, blow Quebec and Shingoryeo apart. Maybe that's what some detractors, who walk around blindedly on the distant corner speaking balderdash and marxism, would want, though the likelihood of that was unlikely anyway. Out of near-sightedness that neared blindness, which tbh reflected more of them than that of this land.

Dr. Heo, however, did not exactly bother to care about what-ifs and internal motives - he just had to make a choice. He took a deep breath and thought into what would stand before him when he's back home.

Maybe I'll be back home in Joongyeong, see my parents once more, and we'll go for a dinner just downstairs from the flat, thought he first, remembering his parents who were in their early-mid nineties. He had immediately thought about how time had really come to age everybody, even though he had not exactly felt this only. His children had moved out almost twenty years back - the son never spent much time in Joongyeong and daughter was constantly on fly even after her signing with CSKA Quebec WBC, so this had meant that when he moved back to Joongyeong, it was just him and them, not to mention maternal family. Be kind and spend time well while they are still alive.

Then the next thing came into mind, and that was to go back into the Archives. Specific fonds of Quebeco-Petrogradian high commissions in the old Imperial times that dated back to the early modern period had arrived from Petrograd, and while the pile he would receive were photocopies, he knew they served a greater purpose in redirectioning his own research as well. Maybe it's time for me to stop living into the Silver Age, and think more about the very root if to serve the mission working under the Gyoojanggak Institute, thought he once again. And after all, may be of worth to a senior thesis student or two - perhaps Jarry or Lambiel-Yao.

While all the thoughts had flown past his head, the screens would change briefly, even for half a minute, to a sequence showing a scene. A scene from the future surely, thought Dr. Heo as he was briefly taken back. It was the sight of a gigantic man, whose facial expressions looked familiar and somewhat foreign (key distinction to make from entirely foreign), who was searching in middle of a lushy, temperate forest. Dr. Heo knew the person well, for he was Alexandre the eventual designate to be Prince of Abitibi (Crown Prince in Quebec and Shingoryeo -e.d.-), and found that sight to be quite uncharacteristic of him. He is in search of something or someone, as if the forest itself is haunted...

This would then be followed by the scenes of a girl hiding behind the trees. Brown haired, light in complexion and glaring into the nowhere, she looked very much like that of her mother, who Dr. Heo had not met out of precaution but had known well for years. If that is who I think it is, thought he, his eyes lighting up in both promise and worry. Then so is the inevitable. Nobody is under the direct eye of the QIS (Quebecois Intelligence Service, -e.d.-) without a reason, and if she's the one the Queen has put under one....

Then who am I to disrupt course? I am to set path, not to disrupt. Not just for then, but also to the years after like Dear Creator had suggested...

He stopped looking at the very chase scene, right as Claire Lundrigan had put apparition charm on herself to disappear for short while, and moved the torch to just above the very button. At last, said he to himself, as he looked directly at the button. With the Torch and his hand hovering right above the button, the screens would react to his mind by turning themselves off into the darkness. The waters, feeling the tensions of his own fingers as they continued to shake with the motions of the torch itself, started to roar and crash in back-and-forth motions. Dr. Heo could hear the sounds of the waves crash, and felt like it's his time to call the shots.

Dr. Heo closed his eyes and pressed the button by placing the torch and his left hand, on top of the slab's circular end. Accio, was the sole word he said.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.20 (53) - Fin

Being part of history is an act so immersive for those experiencing it, and one that is yet so few can be in control of it.

Sure, one can enter it either as part of a movement, that being those that define the paintstrokes of how and what has happened in greater scheme, or by being part of an event that would mushroom and create a chain of reactions and events attached to them. Even then, however, only so many can exactly determine the weight of history and its explosiveness a man's action can exact and too often we wonder on the things too late. That, after all, is why hindsight is twenty-twenty, and also why history and historiography exist. To review and assess the regrets so that they would not be repeated.

Speaking of mistakes, the impact it can have on an average man is quite overstated, if you were to ask me. Most of them, if you drag their damage and the nagging feelings a bit longer like mortgage payments, can be let go in due time. Sure, sometimes it might take a bit more time than that, but even then for many, this is made easier by being able to let go by the time life expires from their body. Most, with the end of their lives inching, would at least find a way to accept their inevitable death, and head to the eternity feeling spent and with little spared.

But not everybody's able to handle that - we all know that there are those who stay and wander in questions, and those who just stay around in amusement of extending their past-life tasks into the next cycle. Staying in the background but still living with the mortals, the letters from the underworld are sent to those living and when combined with the strength of twenty-twenty hindsight, at least helps absorb the sensation of being part of history..a little bit better. An overlap in some ways.

Right as Dr. Heo had put the Schottic Torch on top of the slab, it started to rain less and less. The waves started to subdue and the waters calmed down. From 100 to 0 the decibels of the sounds and the fury accompanied would drop, with Dr. Heo not moving much as he absorbed the impact. The only thing that continued to move was the Torch, whose green light would slowly move downwards from the flames to the handle and then the rocks. Soon, the rock would start to crack, tiny rubbles shot into the floor, and show a long, thin bronze torch holder inside, and that would be the last time Dr. Heo, stunned to see it, would see before the mini-reactor exploded.

---

Many minutes would pass between then and now.

It would take some time for the explosion to reach the borders of the Shingoryeoite realms. Even as the news of the reactor's explosion at the hands of Dr. Heo would be quickly spread, people would not notice the very blast until several hours had past it. Coming like a breeze, combined with fairy dust mixed with the glow of a few million fireflies' lights, they would catch the magicals of Quebecois, Avatarian or Huayramarcans of the inner circle (those around the Rink of Dreams) and the outer dreams (those guarding the magical barriers established by the golden thread pulling them together) starry-end.

And for others, nothing would be seen. Their human eyes were never trained to notice the quiet sweep that was ongoing, and they would be left confused and wondering while animals in their household and surroundings, whose senses were much more familiarised to the unusual and the supernatural, would react oddly to it
Sweeping the atmosphere of the land as if one's checking the former trenches for landmines, booby traps and shrapnels, the effect of the magical radiation would wrap the realms around with protection that's stronger than ever, though nothing would be seen. The effect would stay that way again, and by the very next morning, the fix of the magical barriers of the Shingoryeoite realm would be complete to the delight of The Creator, who was watching it all unfold on the screens of his laptop.

---

When Dr. Heo woke up again, he was back in Isabel Jurado's flat in heart of the Quartier Calanien. There were just four of them with him, Isabel, Hannah and Joon-Gweon all finding themselves waking up in the living room. The room was every bit dark and stuffy as it was just days prior, but the rearranged order of furnitures and books would indicate that a wave of change had gone.

Well, we are back to the 'normal world' at least, Dr. Heo thought, him looking at Isabel and the other two as if he himself were mesmerised by a dream whose magic had not entirely past him. The torch was missing, and there was no smell or other sign of the undead left in the room, but it was clear to them that they have crossed the other side of the 'save'. Dr. Heo didn't exactly have an answer to it, nor did the teenagers and Isabel who was only able to watch it from the outside of the dome established by few hundred-something magicals.

Nor did Joon-Gweon, who was looking back at Hannah. They were staring at each other, neither having any words to say, but they could feel a light, narrow ray or two of sun coming from the holes of the curtain. But neither chose to look outside, perhaps the fear of a completely different world striking them with the hammer. They just wanted to go home - Joon-Gweon to spend his final weeks as a Perce Collegiate student, Hannah to fly west to Jolbonopolis and see her family - and just forget about it.

Whether their abilities will come of use again is another story. Hannah knew that she, having experienced her capabilities, was still some time away from fully actualising her abilities and that more time, hopefully under the services of Isabel, would be needed to develop them. Even if she would be working with them under the watchful eyes of the Shingoryeoite Society who would be recruiting for her services to the Defence Force in due time, Hannah knew that was inevitable. While this would require her to find a way to devise herself into multiple, synchronous pieces (implication of time-turner and horcrux abuses here), she would go through them on own and she was fine with that for this had meant that, while mostly spending life on the humanly domains, she would come back to serve.

Different situation was out there for Joon-Gweon who, having gained command of them but who had desired inner peace from the turbulent circumstances around his life, was ready to give them up. For him the brighter futures awaited him back on the future that awaited them. Perhaps as a cricketer representing the Tricolour Taegeuk, or as a naval aviator somewhere abroad and distant. In some ways this would push him forward into the flames, and questions would be asked with him having to answer his own background. But would he be happier? Perhaps, and maybe with her by his side.

As for Isabel, it was the power of hindsight that had left her in wonders. In her decades of studying the confusionism, the icy, sharp-tongued Tequiloa had managed to find her way back from it all thanks to her innate ability of travelling into the dimensions and change each butterfly's movements directly from five to ten seconds back. But this time she, too limited by the scale of the very problem she was in hand for, could do little as everything had happened around her, leaving the middle-aged professor powerless.

As she went to her room and opened the window, she could see that the Quartier Calanien had not changed one bit. The streets were still every bit busy, the usual street noise tingling her ears, and the sun shining into the room. And all just felt...normal, almost as if everything had settled down. Upon realising that all had blinked in a matter of minutes, even if feeling like centuries, Isabel just smiled and thought to herself. Minutes Into Midnight, and Months Into Miniseconds. Looking directly into the Fleuve on the south of Joongyeong, with the water gleaming all over, Isabel just enjoyed the sunshine.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

OOC: Many thanks to Delte/Taxhavn for ideas re: Isabel Jurado's next adventure, and of course, the Schrodinger's Chat-GTP. I hope to hear more on it.

Dr. Heo and the Portal of Madness II: Map of the Problematique

PART 2.21 (54) - Coda

Jang

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The Western Inteachan Ferries Service welcomes you on board. The sailing time to the Bel-Havre Terminal will be about four hours. Please do not remain on vehicle decks, and move up to..

Jang Joon-Gweon had heard the announcement, marking the official start of the ferry's journey from Myeongju, Nord-Est, to his hometown of Bel-Havre Island just off the western shores of Inteachan province. Three weeks away in Joongyeong, where he had just completed his first test with the Inteachan provincial side as part of the new First Class 'The Six' season, was a long one, and even then all of this felt new and tedious with each step of the way. Jang knew this was because he was, in some ways, at the start of a senior career. With the security restrictions placed on him almost all his life cleared, almost immediately in the days after he had saved Quebec and Shingoryeo from dimensional suckage and thus the destruction, Jang found himself shed of the light but distinctive shadow that had followed him for long.

With the subsequent weeks leading Jang into the coda to his days at the Perce Collegiate, where he had made himself a genuine home in the four years there, Jang had spent most of it with his friends, who were also bound for university in autumn, and let the weeks pass all the way to the point of graduation ceremony. The school had let Jang, who was a prefect, cricket captain and also close friend of the head boy, a certain Emile Dallain, relax, knowing that he was also one of six graduates from that Class of 2056 to head to St. Croix (five others went to Farrer, giving it a solid year of graduates on those metrics), but his rest was not bound to last for long.

It was three days before the graduation when Jang would receive a call from Marcel Surgener, the head coach of the Inteachan First-class side, that he would be invited for a week-long selection camp in Equinox Hill ahead of a yearlong The Six season, which would be part of a three-year cricket calendar with First Class, List-A and Twenty20 played on different years. In a call that he had barely caught while napping back in his dormitory, he was caught thrilled and at disbelief at the same time. Each and every moment where he would see a long-closed door open, he was caught in awe.

Even as he would make the journey into the provincial capital, where the steep hills were dotted and draped with colourful houses, Jang was finding the journey that he had partaken as a schoolboy to be different and refreshing. Furthermore, the cricket he had been asked to play at the senior level were motivating. In the collegiate level where the stands would still have limited attendance at home - keep in mind Jang didn't exactly live in the small, more cricket-loving towns on southern Acadie - Jang was clearcut favourite, with him meeting expectations and securing himself a spot at any university team of his choice with his performance. In Inteachan provincial side, his ability as wicket-keeper and more importantly batter were still valued at third in bat, though he was still some distance away from nation team consideration. He would have to make a couple of breakthroughs first - both collegiately and at First-Class.

At the same time, Jang knew he was rewarded for something he had not expected, but willingly accepted when the task hit. He had already saved his country from falling apart into the literal seams of time and dimension. The fact he had taken part in this very improbable journey, with Professors Jurado and Heo along the way, helped to anticipate a more stable, perhaps even guided, sense of his time to come at St. Croix. Then, as Jang slowly made his way back home on a ferry ride, he was also reminded that the fate's going to bring him chartered course with Hannah Moran. It almost felt inevitable. Life at St. Croix had worked around many residential colleges, societies and clubs that the university had offered, and while Jang and Hannah were by no means of similar to same socioeconomic background or even interests, it would be a mistake to assume that there stood no link between them.

---

The Empty Office

Isabel Jurado's office at the Elgin-Michaelson Hall was a tiny, cramped office at Trinity College (how ironic, isn't it?) that was rarely allowed entrance, with most visitors (usually students) calling it the 'locker stall' due to its size resembling that of a locker stall on football stadiums. To end up in this office usually involved taking part in fluid time calculus and linguistic determinism modules, all of which had suggested only a select number of upper-year and even fewer postgraduate students would take them. The Tequiloan woman, after all, held a peculiar reputation as a selective figure who favoured a select number of students peculiar to her taste, and fought with no less than half-dozen departments and the university administration as whole in her twenty years there. All of this, combined with her preference to avoid being on campus outside of scheduling modules and a biweekly office hour, had meant that she was going to be hard to find.

But nobody had expected Isabel to depart. It was early June morning when a colleague from the mathematics department, who had been overseeing a full semester of summer semester modules after a research sabbatical away for the previous academic year, decided to visit her office. No matter her issues and tendencies, Jurado was still a proven academic with remarkable research scope and proven academic resume (140 articles and 12 books as primary or sole author) of own, and plenty of colleagues had found her advice, while difficult to decipher at times (think simpler, you academics!), utterly useful. It was with this in mind that a 45-year old Hector Oh-Blomfeld had decided to visit Isabel on a Tuesday morning.

I hear that she never stacks her timetable, even less so on summer, thought Hector as he opened the door. To his surprise, however, the room was completely empty, with only the curtains still left standing. Did she really disappear into the thin air? Hector stood in front of the room, the mathematics professor feeling both tempted to go in, and not wanting to possibly risk the wrath of the room. He, after all, had heard about the rumours of the Tequiloan woman before, with the routine occurrence of occultism, connections to the higher-ups in both the Daemyeonggoong Palace and 11 Gwangmoo (both of which are untrue, no matter how tempting the connections may be), and even the bewitchment of some.

Not that it had helped much in this case anyway.

---

Beyond Infinity?

The Soongdeok Society's headquarter was a mid-19th century Arlenian building located in middle of the Universite St. Croix's campus. The cobblestone promenades and the asphalt streets in front of it would see the expensive sedans and coupes lined up now and then, but those occasions would only occur every few weeks or so with dinners scheduled into the calendar in advance and the members otherwise accessing the property on their own feet when asked to. This would allow most people to walk past the three-storey house with relatively little assumption and even lesser suspicion, further enabled by the the facade looking much more ancient, enough to suggest they resemble things as old as time itself.

It was around a early-September evening, when Jang had made his entrance into the Soongdeok Society's headquarters. Dressed in a loose variation of his academic dress required for many of the actual university events and functions, he was on back from his dormitory at the Balliol College, where the Master was a reformist theology professor named Gustave Herzen, and was left mostly to his own device along the way with few, innocent eyes noticing his identity. With the curtains covering most of the lights that were turned on inside, suggesting that the dinner was in session, Jang quickly entered into the headquarters with no attention paid towards others.

This would be the first time Jang would be entering the Soongdeok Society, the private members' club that was named in honour and memory of the late Henri VI, Emperor Soongdeok, with reputation both as a liberal and a diplomatic pragmatist. Though secretive with no-phone policy and not at same time with its open facade just minutes away from the Quartier Calanien, it was a club that's held more by values, and was not particularly known (at this point in time, that is) for its roster of clientele and alumni the way Herringbone did on actual Trinity College grounds, and definitely not the notoriety of the Ridler Club that would find themselves on news every other year, the Soongdeok Society.

As Jang entered the hallways, where old-world furnitures were sparsely populated and placed along the open-aired hallways with high ceilings and a Roman bath on the courtyard, he felt as if the atmosphere was no less familiar or welcoming to him. Perhaps it was because of the way the halls smelled of toasted walnut and light charcoal smoke. Or maybe it was it was the almost-automatic way in which an invite was sent to him, perhaps at the insistence of the current chair.

Or it may have been in the ways the members themselves had looked at him in the hallways as Jang would notice in the ways the pre-existing club members, whose alternation of religious clothes and lingerie had no doubt given enough of the attempts in which some members had viewed the Society (much to the chairman's disgruntlement), had viewed Jang with intrigue, perhaps that of a freshman yet to fully acclimate. From the lightness of their glance it was clear that Jang was not the only one - far from it, with about seven others from this year's class set to be introduced at the end of the night.

Jang would then make his way across the Roman bath, where a couple of postgraduate members were talking about a minor edict within the Shingoryeoite Mahayana, and into the main dining hall, where the dinner was still two hours away from being served. Once there, two familiar people greeted Jang. One was the club's chairman who had just turned 65, Dr. Heo Dong-Soo. The other one, who appeared to be around her age, seemed to be comfortable with the very domain. While it was clear that Heo, who knew every student of interest by their background, hometown and patronymics, did not send an automatic invite to only him, the enthusiasm of his welcoming suggested that, somehow in the minds of those unaware of their history, they had known each other before.

'Alas! I knew you would not disappoint. Welcome to the world's finest conversation club where being able to hold interesting conversation with someone you've never met before, or maybe just many moons ago, is the membership requirement,' said Dr. Heo, gleeing at the sight of Jang. Jang noticed how Dr. Heo, since their last meeting (Jang was still not registered in Dr. Heo's 'Introduction to Cultural and Intellectual History of Quebec and the Commonwealth' module, though he was third on the waitlist), was havig his head start to bald at a faster rate, with the wrinkles also developing at last on his face.

This reflected with multiple medals he had accumulated, including the Royal Order of the Mooogoongwha, on the breastplate. 'Mr. Jang, have you heard about the latest invention that is Schrodinger's ChatGTP? Dear Ms. Moran, the fine Jolbonopolis girl, was talking about the latest invention from a colleague of mine.' Dr. Heo asked, his thick northern Acadie accent of Shingoryeoite Korean surprising Jang once more, even more so when considering his formal, RP tongue when speaing in English.

'No, I have not,' Jang answered, the freshman still too grounded into the earthly life back. He noticed how the girl, who had recognised him with clear awareness, was looking back at him, but was unsure on how to approach in the presence of the chairman. 'But do tell about this Schuster-'

'Schrodinger's ChatGTP,' said Hannah. 'Yes, I know this does sound funny, but bear with me here. I have heard back from my old mentor, a certain Professor Jurado, about this latest project of hers. Apparently it involves this fabulous lab constructed for her and her team at this Oroboros-sponsored Laboratory in the University St. Bernardine (USB) in Taxhavn.' She continued to explain, 'Apparently, what she intends to work on is how to AI-powered currency exchange, in a literal Taxhavnian centre where the quality and quantity of resulting financial gains and losses would vary entirely upon uncertainties of how real one's self-powering of AI can do so.'

'It does sound like a bit of bonkers, if you are to ask me on it,' asked Jang. 'If it's a Schrodinger, then won't the fifty-fifty chance just be too big of a risk? Perhaps one may try to cheat the system by trying to write their most genuinely AI-sounding code, in order to maximise the earnings, but what if your attempt in genuine is all for naught?'

'That's precisely what I think as well,' Hannah gave a light smile back. 'I mean, the chances would still be fifty-fifty because of the Schrodinger. At that point, fake AI could be more real than an non-intentional AI, but nothing would change out of it.'

The subsequent conversation occurred mostly between Hannah and Jang, with Dr. Heo occasional checking to remind them about what's to be expected later in the night. More guests would start figuring out, but the scene had remained the same for Jang and Hannah with them figuring out halfway into all this, though short of admitting, that they were talking to each other with the familiarity of the friends, the glances that of the lovebirds, and perhaps the understanding of the elderly couples, and that the worlds apart between them seemed to have left nothing. In that, the puzzle pieces were long put together again.

After about half an hour, Jang turned around as they had turned back. By this point the dinner was about a few minutes away, and they had to get seated. 'I do have a genuine question,' He asked in a rather rhetorical manner. 'If the world is saved, then what is there next?'

Hannah gave a light smile, reminiscing a bit of her mother. 'I don't know, to infinity and beyond maybe?' She answered.

'Perhaps,' Jang answered, perhaps not in the most straightforward way. 'I do envision there being a land of gold, a सुवर्णभूमि, that awaits us.'

Her smile grew even further. 'Le Terre de l'or?' Hannah asked, the Catholic not so aware about Jang's reference. 'What adventure will await us there?'

'I do not know, but I am already thinking about "with whom", "not what it may be", ' was all that Jang said.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

The Promenade: Your Magazine of Introductions to the Society

What is the Shingoryeoite Social Season? A Look

Renee Corbeau

Quebec and Shingoryeo is a nation of traditions and customs. With the country built on the centuries of dynamicity, tolerance and industry best explained through the Union of Three Crowns and the Shingoryeoite Empire of the 1700s to the 1900s, the nation has served for centuries as the multiversal hotbed of historicals with no shortage of coverage in theatre, film and media as a setting, inspiration and also extraction through individual characters.

And while the realm of Quebecois historicals tend to cover a wide range of eras and societies, the immense success of Tele1's 'Danbury House' by Jorge Miguel Melzer brings forth the recent surge of interests in the Shinogoryeoite Social Season. Set in the Louisianan Period of years 1805 to 1812, the six-season Danbury House captivates the viewers with its dazzling aesthetics, historical accuracy, and furthermore the interpersonal dynamics that occur between the Rosenfelds, Baemoons (surname: Cha) and the Songak society with Queen Alae and Lord Swangard the Prime Minister in the background.

But for all the praises it has received on the artistic direction, what seems to particularly draw the viewers is the way the Shingoryeoite social season of old is brought to life. Often described through the dances, high fashion, audiences and endless hours of train rides to the provinces or the festivals, the Shinogoryeoite social season is a complicated, conflicting creature of own.

It is a season that is both Shingoryeoite in its use of Shingoryeoite Korean is still expected on certain domains, and international in the makeup of international high society who have and continues to be seen in Joongyeong or Songak. It is also a season that is both universal in its representation of society's various classes, something that is the production of past hundred years of efforts taken, while also fractured and stratified with those of the Old Society (Shingoryeoites usually defined to be indigenous and/or Koreanophones up to 1820), the Etrangers (usually representing aristocracy, royalty and other elites of foreign classes) and the Outer Circle.

The Shingoryeoite Social Season, unlike in other countries, refers to the social seasons of Joongyeong, the seat of the Parliament and the Daemyeonggoong Palace, and Songak, the nation's economic capital. While societal functions involving the high society have existed in the centuries long before the Alexandrinian Period, the Shingoryeoite Social Season started to evolve in the second half of 1700s following the Unification of the Shingoryeoite realms via the Union of Three Crowns in 1738. A relatively newer conceptualisation of the concept, one that would involve the nation's elite of diverse peoples to unite for the society of functions, would gradually develop into one of their own.

It would not be until the Louisianan period of early-1800s however, when the Season as known by the public right now, would really develop into the current form. The flourishing of Blood Sea trade route between northern Atlantian Oceania and southern Rushmore, one that would be propelled by its allied nations and empires on the Vatmark sub-continent of Rushmore, would pave the way for increasing industrialisation. The development of an industrial empire would both lead into the expansion of both the scale of and the conflicts arising within the High Society where the landed gentry of old, Jangwon-ated means (OOC: usually refers to those who were admitted into Farrer and St. Croix universities) would be challenged by those of the mercantile nouveau riche.

Also coming with it is the establishment of the overseas territories and dominions across the Multiverse, but Focusing on their relative territorial and economic merits, he Quebecois held limited role and left the governance to local royal/dynastical houses, who would fall under the mostly similar administrative and economic frameworks. Such too would find their way in the high societies of Joongyeong and Songak, two metropolises commonly known for their ethno-linguistic rivalries of own, as those of the Imperial, allied and outside realms would too be welcomed into the society that was contradictory in the level of acceptance to Quebec and Shingoryeo society's highest echeleons.

The expansion in all classes of society, both in population and means, would be followed by attempts in demarcating and establishing territories for different socioeconomic milieu. With the definition of the aristocracy expanding into that of the landed gentry, societal expansion would see more movement between the rural house seats to that of the mansions near the two cities (and in some other cases the other of seven capitals of Shingoryeo). A clear distinction would be observed between the cities, where the majority of festivals and more public of functions would be held, while the rural/outer-city mansions would host more exclusive of functions in a more extravagant manner of cottage county traditions better known in other parts of the world.

Being major international metropolises Joongyeong and Songak see no shortage of events on year-round basis. That said, both cities observe two windows - the Small Season from early-October to mid-February, and the Big Season from Easter to mid-June, with even-numbered years expanding into early-July due to conflict with many international sporting events such as the World Cup. Former season would usually start off with the Final Night of the QBC Proms in Royal Walton Hall, Joongyeong, which would then be followed by a season of autumn festivals themed for the Chuseok season. They would be combined with a wide range of complimentary events, including musicals and operas, shoots and sport league opening nights, in more localised capacity than with the Big Season. In past the season was fitted with debut balls to close out the season - once a major staple for the Society season, they have nowadays been replaced with charity functions and more specialised events tied not to the February, but to the wider, local Chuseok festivals earlier in the calendar to mark the thanksgiving. Independent of them, however, stand distinctive, standalone events the Festival de Dongnae held in Dongnae-Halifax County, Acadie; and the Joongyeong Fashion Week, which is normally held as the final event of the season in mid-February.

The end of the Small Season would see two months of adjournment close to the end of a fiscal year and preparations for many examinations and related tasks before the season would resume in April after another year has been crossed. The Big Season, one that the Season's usually known internationally, would start with the April's Jongmyo Jerye held on the Easter weekend. While the Jerye's traditionally function is to observe and commemorate the ancestral Kings and Queens of the nation and predecessor states, a custom valued highly upon in the nation of 40,000 deities, it has somewhat seen an altered meaning elsewhere marking the start of the Social Season. During the summers, both metropolises would see a wide range of events that have since become part of the fabric, including the Athlone Gala in Songak's Soochanggoong Museum or the cricket matches at the Royal Cricket Ground, as well as the QBC Promenades and the horseracing Grand Prix de Joongyeong in the nation's capital.

While traditionally a domain of the two metropolises, several events of the Big Season have also established themselves over time as an integral piece attached to it. In particular are the Festival de Dongnae, usually held as the pinnacle of the Small Season outside of the usual Chuseok festivities, while the summertime would see the Montevicio Emerald Ball in Montevicio and the Adelphite Festival showcasing Opera in Adelphi Castle about half-hour outside of Anju, Abitibi-Agawa. As with events of the more traditional calendar, dress codes, customs and expectations will be expected and followed, though in the recent years there have been changes made towards certain cases, many in positive direction such as the relaxing of the attire colours to be worn at the cricket matches in the RCG, though some have not been as positive, such as increased security checks at the Jongmyo.

Now, as with most customs the Shingoryeoite social seasons do evolve and change. Many do indeed head to the quintessence dust of time or be quietly added, usually as a falsely-claimed addition that one claims to be from an ancestor or a hero of rarified times. But what continues to be the case, however, is that no matter the blind loyalties given in praise or excessive detestations placed on those events, one cannot deny the significance the Shingoryeoite social season holds in the functioning of the society especially considering the members who often take part in them. As quietly and swiftly shelved aside were traditional modes of debutant balls have gone, others too have found meaning in the greater Shingoryeoite culture and society, with Dongnae International Film Festival, the Athlone Gala and the QBC Proms considered to be three of the multiverse's most prestigious events in their respective field of arts.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

The Social Seasons of Shin-goryeo

PART 1 - Festival de Dongnae .1

'So I hear that the state of Cardenao is the latest state vying for the international interests. They do their manners no different than that of ours under the Arsenite times - one moment they are on our hands for the military, the other time they would be out drinking with the Banijans and sending their dearest regards to our neighbours to the west. But I warn you, and you know my advice to you is genuine, as genuine as a cabinet minister could be, to keep a close eye on Mihaly Otamendi, a man who famously named himself the friend and the best man of the late Omugabe Ssekamanya, rather than to close our eyes.'

It was in October 2060, and the distinguished guest of note on this screening was the Lady Louise Bunting Moskowitz, the Speaker of the House of Lords of Quebec and Shingoryeo. With both the sense of exuberance and cynicism in her words, the Lady Speaker Jwaeuijeong (좌의정, 左議政) came to greet her good friend, Raoul-Christophe 'R.C' Jang-Nolan (also shortened as Jang Nolan/Nolan Jang), one of the most internationally renowned film producer of current times. Lady Bunting Moskowitz, who insisted to keep her maiden name when knighted a decade ago, was battling a cold or two, likely the symptom of rapidly-declining Joongyeong weather at the turn between September and October.

Born of wealth and status as a Bunting, and having held extensive connections over her original field - she was longtime arts administrator before finding perfect time to jump into the politics with the PJLQ government under Kim Seung-Yin ministry fifteen years ago - her invitations held significant value even when refused. Her invitation, written in Korean per the Joongyeong court language (though sometimes French translations would be written for non-speakers), were delivered to the most convenient medium of any recipient's choice, and held little space. See the following for R.C. Jang-Nolan's invite here to her holiday house: 'Pavilion, anytime after 16h. Strawberry Shortcakes will be ready. JWJ.'

'Goodness me, Louise, you surprised me over there,' answered Raoul-Christophe, still surprised by the bombastic nature of Louise's words. 'You are not helping me here, for you know I am not here in DHC (shortened term for Dongnae-Halifax County, the nation's fifth-largest metropolitan area) to discuss politics.' He was wearing a dark suit jacket with a pale dress shirt and no tie. Born and having spent almost all his life in Songak, where he lived all the way to the end of his days at Farrer University as a French literature student, R.C. spoke Royal Pronunciation (RP) English and Joongyeongite French that was used as a standard.

He gave a light head bow to Louise, before resuming to speak. 'But in any case, it's absolutely a pleasure to see you again. How are you doing?' said he.

'Nothing particularly extra-ordinary, especially with the sessions conveniently adjourned for the week. But even without that, my engagement was expected - the young Prime Minister of ours has requested I head there in place of both her and the Queen, after all,' Louise answered. 'Having arrived at two in the afternoon, however, the Pavilion's not fully settled for the week. Are you staying for the full week?'

'At the Festival? I'll be here for 'til Monday, and then travel to Montevicio. I have to make my appearance for the Moowhangwedo there,' answered the producer. 'I suppose you do know that I'm working on a new project, if I haven't told you already.'

'I thought you had decided to wait on them until after the filming of 'Cydonia' is finished.' Louise asked, her eyes sparking a bit upon the sight.

This caught R.C. out of the blue. 'If I had not known that filming of the abandoned civilisations plagued by internal turmoil in Cydonia and the discovery of a dimension-changing machine back home, several millennia away, on a set without unnecessary works (refers to extensive use of computer graphics -e.d.-), would take even greater effort than intended, so speak,' he answered rightaway, additional emotion in his language showing the frustrations. 'Bonneville and Joongyeong shootings have gone right, but there are still additional shootings to be done on Tamazghan mountains.'

'Looks like what you need is rest, even if for a short while,' Louise said, before giving a light wink back at her friend. 'You, my dear friend, tend to overthink through your projects, and it's not sustainable, even with you and Magda (Borowitz. R.C. and Magda work together as a producer-writer tandem -e.d.-) working together.'

'And then so be it,' replied R.C., feeling more annoyed at her friend's genuine, but unneeded advice, before deciding to sound more firm with the situation. 'Post-production projects are post-production projects. But I will be the first to tell you that I am working on another project, one that may be of greater interest to you and other parliamentarians of concern.'

'What would that be?' asked Louise with a smile. They were now sitting on a chair, with a dish of strawberry shortcakes and a cup of coffee. The very usual Louise would offer to a friend or a guest this short in advance - she preferred to have more generous options when planned more in advance. 'Are you telling me that you are working on a historical for once?'

'On the very earliest stage, je suppose,' R.C. raised his eyebrows and left index fingers in affirmative manner, 'But it's one that I have a particular excitement about, and one that may...amuse those in all of Montevicio, Joongyeong and here (traditional big 3 cities of Quebecois film industries are Montevicio, more commercial/Anglophone venue, Joongyeong, home of Quebeco-art film, and the DHC, which embodies more in-between, Koreanophone, film of the people), so to speak. I would assume that Multiversal would not be interested, especially after the fallout we had after Interplanar, so I am expecting to see multiple over next while.'

'Interesting,' answered Louise. 'But you need to tell me,' she added, asking him about the very specific reason behind the visit. 'If Moowhangwedo isn't the surefire option, then what are other possible options that you are having in mind? Parker-Leeman, Maeil, or Goldlion? Cinegimms?'

'Hold that thought, but none of them,' said the filmmaker. 'Any of them are possible, but do not rule out Monte-Sierra over it too.'

'Monte-Sierra,' Lady Speaker Wooeuijeong took a brief pause, before giving another smile. She knew what R.C. was talking about suggested no shortage of intrigue, especially with the Monte-Sierra's Krytenian chairman, Rico Heo Sierra of Avides' fame, and flair fitting for it. 'I suppose the project you are working for it requires greater assistance if need be, especially if it involves the Monte-Sierra,' she slowed down, to suggest that she had feelings about R.C.'s motive. She then asked: 'Monte-Sierra's peculiarities lie on sports, documentaries and literary adaptations of historicals. We all know that they are too busy working on Joh Hyeok-Joon's 1942. Is it that complicated of a project that may require assistance all the way to Joongyeong, even involving that of Heo the elder?'

R.C. gave a light smile. 'I suppose so, especially to stay course with my direction.'

'You are taking every length of it all to make sure this would happen. And what would the name of this film be?' Louise asked. She knew they were coming close to an end of this topic, most likely requiring a shift to tonight's premiere where the distinguished guests would have to start arriving around 18h30.

The filmmaker said nothing for ten seconds, trying his best to say it in the correct tone and tempo. Eventually, he opened his mouth slowly. 'Barbenheimer.'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

The Social Seasons of Shin-goryeo

PART 2 - Festival de Dongnae .2 - Raoul-Christophe

It rained all week in the Dongnae-Halifax County.

The rain drenched and the wind swept all over the maritime city of Two million people, bringing with it the sense of chaos and the sense of amity that had swept over the city's Old Port quarters for the festival week.

This was the kind of rainstorm that would hit on you with the uncomfortable feeling, and even more so with how the familiarity of the noise could hurt your ears. But it was egalitarian too in the sense that the blast did not discriminate others, and the scenes that would emerge from the legendary 2060 edition of the Festival de Dongnae no doubt made it a sight of own.

As is always the theme of the week with the cinematographers, the well-connected, and the public would crowd themselves in the entire Old Port district. They would mostly find themselves looking find their friends and family members after a screening, but also to look to spend time in the Donggyeong (Eastern Capital), one of the oldest cities in the nation. They, after all, were situated where the film festival's Pavilion de Cinema and La Cinematheque Acadienne (one of two regional campuses of the La Cinematheque Shingoryeoite based in Joongyeong) directly faced the nearby Mulchi Fishery Market and the Dartmouth Cross square.

Grim faces of the dissatisfaction with the weather alternated with the glee of the surprising encounters and the exchanging gossips on the street, while the guests would move into restaurants and stalls to talk over businesses and recollections of more serious natures. The famous and the beloved of the international film scene had turned out for the occasion, with their family and friends also joining the experience that had become one of own. One moment you would notice the Chae-Morneau duo of the Tomcat series downing shots with Jesper Sandberg, Tikariotian thriller director who's the current year's jury chair, and other moment you would notice the foreign dignitaries conversing with actors and actresses of contrasting classes on a Pocha (street tent restaurant). Even the famous media and film feuds would subdue and change into the forms of passive-aggressions and humorisms.

True to the festival where Raoul-Christophe Jang-Nolan had spent much of his time there, to the point where he would remember every joint on the street and would recall the smell of the subway back to the hostel when he was still a teenager. Inside his head, he was living this experience year after year, one where the tunes of this festival's most memorable soundtracks were still playing, almost as if they were replacing the footsteps and the onomatopoeias on the street, and one where the colours would either turn into black and white or technicolour as if he were turning his mental switch on and off.

Raoul-Christophe's hair was plastered in the rain, with the mousse he had put on his hair melted and dripped to prove they held no use, while he had to put on an autumn coat to limit the rain damage done on his suits. Such was the inevitability of being out in middle of the rain, heading out of his 'rendez-vous' (masterclass) where the re-mastered version of 1956 classic Ahead By A Century was shown, as his mind wasn't even aware of how wet it was. He walked lightly, trying his best to stay relaxed as he was heading into a late-night meeting with his good friend. Raoul-Christophe kept imagining the alteration of his younger self and the years that had passed since, and as the drums continued to beat from the skies, he couldn't help but to feel how jarring the times have been lately.

His friend, Hong Soon-Deok, was very different to Raoul-Christophe. As one that those in Joongyeong had adored more, most people considered them to be the total contrasts, where Joongyeong's darling Hong would stand on the other side of the panel as Songak and Montevicio's Jang-Nolan (many would qualify earlier, psychology-driven works of Jang-Nolan to be different than time and space-influenced later eras of his), but really they were not.

Hong's father, Hong Sang-Hoon, taught at Cinematheque Shingoryeoite in Joongyeong, and then moved onto teach cinema at Farrer and Iggulden University in Songak, where Hong first met Jang-Nolan, then a student at Farrer. For a long time Jang-Nolan would work as a film staff, around the same time which him and Soon-Deok, who was then trying to find a breakthrough after his time with the Institute des Metiers de l'Image et du Son (IMIS), crossed paths. This did seem like a long ways past for them, as they had become the eminent figures on their respective fields of film, and had spent twenty years pass before them. Their friendship, perhaps thanks to how much their difficulties were in the twenties, held onto it, and as he entered into a quiet, restaurant where Hong made the reservations, he was occupied with thoughts.

Now it would be a lie to suggest that Raoul-Christophe wasn't envying his friend. He handled emotions well, but often held things bubbling inside and perhaps have used the said bubble to fuel, perhaps excessively so, for his own competitive edge. And the envy did quietly come up earlier today when Jang-Nolan, who was finding himself in difficulties with Cydonia and his upcoming project, came to realise from the sounds of the applauses and the side-remarks that 'Escort, First Lady' were very likely winners of the Pomme d'Or, and he was very close to refusing invitation from grabbing a 22h supper with his friend. But he knew that wasn't prudent, especially considering Hong's peculiar ties with Montesierra Productions, and that perhaps accepting it would suggest perhaps help as his friend of the House of Lords, Lady Louise Bunting Moskowitz, had done so.

He slowly made his way to the entrance, where a waitress had noticed who Raoul-Christophe was. 'Sir, are you here for Mr. Hong Soon-Deok?' asked she, to which he gave a nod. 'Yes, I am.'

'Please, come this way.'

---

It was a warm, dimly-lit Izakaya, one where most who would frequent here were the locals themselves or those who had been here years ago - this area, which is no short of Izakayas, have fancier, more flashier ones that did not require going into back alleys. Raoul-Christophe was doing his best to not look particularly embarrassed, as him and Soon-Deok started drinking sake glasses after glasses. A more reserved, gentle individual than Raoul-Christophe, Soon-Deok wore a dark suit and dark shirt, a fitting clothes selection considering the weather.

'Congratulations to you, my dear friend,' said Soon-Deok, who was speaking quieter than usual. His face didn't lie with a curvier smile and brighter colour of his face than usual, however. He had a good feeling about the film's chances, even it involved competing against Timón Ferrero's Black Iris and Juan Chota Corta's Elver Garaga, both psychological thrillers more on the lanes of the Jury. 'This is your first Festival de Dongnae for an event at Festival de Dongnae since...what? Interplanar?'

'Something like that,' answered Raoul-Christophe. 'I mean, I come here every year as you know already, but these days I am rarely to present unless invited for classical movies.' He then continued, pouring Sake on an empty glass to indicate his congratulations. 'Congratulations once again, Escort, First Lady looked brilliant yesterday. A bit elaborate, somewhat hardboiled-take reminding me of [Salvatore] Montano, but what I could tell you is that you have brought another masterpiece to the world.'

'Thanks, man,' He answered, as they quickly said cheers and clanged the glass. The glass of Sake couldn't go down fast enough tonight, not with the way rain's blasting down on all of the city for another day. Pajeon (Seafood scallion cake) was cooking from some distance away, and they could smell it, likely meaning that a round of drinks couldn't come sooner. 'You know,' he then spoke again. 'It does feel like times have really flown, haven't they?'

'Yes, and perhaps for the best,' Raoul-Christophe answered. This part, after all, was true. For all the competitiveness they and several others of their generation held towards one another, the current era of Quebecois Cinema has been an outstanding one for all parties. He then switched topics, going straight to the discussion. 'You know, I'm more thinking about a different project, one that may require your assistance.'

'Say it,' answered he. 'I thought you aren't exactly the type to work with Montesierra over this, no matter how the Sierra-Heos would view you.'

This part was true. The Sierra-Heo couple, who were leading Montesierra productions that were based both in Joongyeong, the generally-perceived capital of Franco-Koreanophone cinema, and Gobion, the home to Krytenia's Yardleywood, did have particularly positive opinions about Jang-Nolan. And while their paths had not exactly crossed, especially with the Joongyeong studio directing more social critique and documentaries while Gobion would handle more sci-fi/alternative films, there existed a potential.

'Yes, so that's why I would like to ask them if they would be interested in the latest project I have in mind,' said Raoul-Christophe, who feeling a bit more desperate now. 'I know it's not exactly on their foray, but perhaps they would be interested in working, even if just for this project.'

'What's the name?' Hong asked.

'Barbenheimer. I can't tell you more than that just yet, but I could promise you that if full directions guaranteed, it will be a success.'

'Barbenheimer, that does sound like a fun name...' Soon-Deok slowly nodded, before he started pouring another glass, this to him first. 'Both Msr. Sierra and Mille. Heo are currently out of town due to a funeral, but I will let them know.'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Northern Entrtainment Echo (NEE)

2060 Festival de Dongnae Concludes with Fanfare, Hong Soo-Deok's 'Escort, First Lady' awarded Pomme d'Or

Jean-Luc Baribeau

DONGNAE-HALIFAX COUNTY - The 111th edition of the Festival de Dongnae concluded after two weeks of magic, with the jury president Jesper Sandberg announcing the jury's decision to award the Pomme d'Or to Quebecois director Hong Soo-Deok for his multi-layered, political thriller 'Escort, First Lady'. A year after Tikariotian giant's unanimous win with 'The Grandmaster', a thriller where the grandmaster detective finds himself on a knife's edge chess game involving the lives of five-hundred people trapped inside a medieval castle, the well-received film provides strong continuation of the level of psychological details with a political twist. 'Escort, First Lady' is both a hard-packed satire and a thriller that details the entrance of former escort into power, whose ascendancy coincides with poisonous gender politics and rise of fascism motivated by breakdown of traditional society in a fictional nation of Hangyeong.

The film, an adaptation of the first of The Republic of Prosecutors (검찰공화국/檢察共和制) trilogy of novels written by Arsenius Mills-Graham between 2023 and 2029, is very much the review of the public, as much as it seeks to portray the insides of a power-hungry, fascistic prosecutor and a spouse who the director Hong has simplistically described as a 'fake and a rake'.

This review too is reflected in Sandberg's comments at the post-ceremony ceremony, where he said: 'It is not your average political thriller. It has the punch needed in a Tarantinian, B-esque manner, but it also delves and thrives in the limelight depth that is not only needed on any psychological thrillers, and possesses strong attention to detail in the worldbuilding of Hangyeong, a prosperous industrial state that is undergoing serious struggles between the Westernisation and the Koreanophiles (OOC: reference to two major streams of Russian intelligentsia in the 1800s - Slavophiles vs. Westernisers). The way that this film incorporates all these aspects and travels across these genres is outstanding, and we were all delighted about the way the suspense grew. So that's why we have awarded the Pomme d'Or to it.'

Huayramarcan director Juan Chota Corta won the Grand Prix for his third feature 'Elver Galarga'. Corta, who follows the long lineage of Huayrmarcan filmmakers in the festival and was considered one of two other likely candidates for the Pomme d'Or, takes a tragicomedic descent of Elver, an undercover agent whose infiltration attempts into incel circles end up spiraling into and a personal breakdown in his rural, desert town.

Calling Corta's film 'one that keeps the bubbles on champagne continue', Juror Amy Byeon said, 'It isn't a film that's solely about the societal and moral issues that runs rampant in this day and age. If anything it is a really personal film, showing how through the use of irony and fading colours, and perfect entrance and exit of music, Elver Galarga's state of mind is reflected. It is a highly appreciable film about the vagueness and what it means to cost something, even if it's oneself.' The 66-year old, who won Pomme d'Or twenty-six years ago for her feature film Giant Penguin, noted this year's festival to be 'exquisite, one that continues to challenge horizons - both internally and externally'.

The best actor prize went to Gennadiy Abramov of Novopetrograd for Andrei Rosenberg's 'В наших глазах'. Abramov plays Serguei, an unemployed, embattled twenty-year old who travels one thousand kilometres on feet to find the magical fish to heal his mother's mysterious illness. The best actress prize, in the meanwhile, was considered to be a surprise as Xannerian actress Jessica Fosgue is honoured for her role as the embattled, end-of-career footballer protagonist undergoing divorce and reorientation of her life in David Haines's 'Gamma Life'.

Jorge Santangelo, a known name within the Dongnae festival circles, took the Prix du Jury (Jury Prize) for 'Barricades', the incisive portrait of four families of Farf extraction in Jolbonopolis neighbourhood whose friendly relations gradually disintegrate upon each passing year of the Great War of Farfadillis, eventually leading into a tragedy. In accepting the prize, 33-year-old Santangelo talked about the impact the War having on the lives of diasporas abroad and also made a point of stating the internal strife within Quebecois sporting communities, in particular football, over the war.

While coming short to both Chota Corta and Hong, Krytenian writer and director Jean Courtois was the sole figure to win two awards at the festival this year, when he won both the Prix du Scenario and the Director's Award. His film, Le Requiem en Bleu, is a Sandbergian thriller that looks into a detective who embarks on a solitary journey of vigilantism against the suspected perpetrator of a past case that had cost everything around him. While divisive among the public, Courtois's film has drawn praise for their constant re-questioning of the viewers' perceptions, and four, different versions of a terrorist attack.

In what was one of the more anticipated Festival de Dongnae in recent years, Sandberg presided over a jury that includes Quebecois director Amy Byeon, a South Newlandian director Noa Linder, a Tamazghan director Michel Ounaoui, a Norsk writer Sarah Sandstrom, Acadianan director Louis McKay, a Quebecois writer Emile-Francois Jigonhaase, and a Quebecois director Johannes van de Welde. For the out of competition, the jury was chaired by Ko-orenite producer Othpes Shadoruten instead of Sandberg.

Noting a particularly strong ethos on sociopolitical critique, as well as interests in the human and the collective mind, Sandberg said that, "Art is more than just the visual or auditorial form itself, and cinema, as a multi-planar field that travels beyond just a sheer genre or form, is even more of an important instrument in addressing these issues than before.' He was also sure to address that the issues, while a minor factor that is 'important in understanding the context', was not outshadowed by the primary criteria: 'What matters is the quality and the way a film was portrayed and delivered. If a film cannot deliver on its own, then what worth does it have in this world?'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

The Social Seasons of Shin-goryeo

PART 3 - Bal des Ballons - Soo-Deok

The Hotel Plaza Pomene's ballroom was in full swing. The candles were lit and gilt mirrors were seen on all sides as some of the youths of the Multiverse's high societies had assembled here. They were those who varied in origins and character, but were indeed alike in the rough socioeconomic and cultural milieu to which they had belonged. Mary Kabuye, the granddaughter of legendary college coach and darling of every Busukuma corner Lance, had made her first visit to Joongyeong in silver-and-emerald earings. The jubilant Annabelle Yi, the voyageuse daughter of the current Duke of Bathurst, then came after, accompanied by a cavalier by the name of Lester Alsup, the 20-year-old son of a legendary Hapiloppian director Gwen Alsup best known for the critically-acclaimed Ghostbasterds series and her love of classical convertibles. Alsup, currently a film student at the Yoseo University-Montevicio, had been invited to the previous year's reception but he, due to a case of mono, had to refuse, and was only glad to have found this year's November function on time.

With a rare exception or two, who were here for other services and matters of reportage that had been an usual staple there, those presented at the Bal des Ballons were consisted of three groups. One group, that of the foreign aristocracy and the emerging countries' ruling classes - there often exists little point of distinction between them in mannerism, after all - spoke in controlled gestures and astute, subtle statements. Another, that of the brilliant and the children of tycoons and showbiz types both Quebecois foreign, communicated in bolder terms, outward body movements and sharper socio-economic stances.

Then there was the third group, who consisted of the proud parents and the pomp accompagnes that had come with their medals that had melted into the room, would look away from some distance. There would be some who looked at their children with particular sense of pride, like how once Omugabe Ttembo had done over a decade ago in that year's Bal where she would be floated by her future husband HRH Philippe, elder of two younger brothers of the Christine II. But the adults, for most part would leave their children or protege(e) spend time on their own, and enjoy conversations of their kind instead. They too had tried their best to look for the Queen Mother, who was somewhere in the Halls, but to no success - she enjoyed looking at the scenery from afar.

Someone who was an accompagne, once a cavalier over twenty years ago, but not exactly the type of person inclined to fit into the occasion in this day and age, was Hong Soo-Deok. Admittedly the film director, whose aftertaste of the Pomme d'Or win two weeks prior had quickly worn off once back home in Joongyeong, did fit into the occasion. His dark hair, ever so curly and would have fit well into a rocker's head had he possessed musical talent, have already started showing rapid signs of greying, but the age's effect on him had made it things even more pleasant and charming. His light smile, one that rarely affected the movement of his philtrum, too carried well into his forties, one that would elevate the light touch of his genuineness over time.

Everyone delighted at the sight of the legendary director, who would impress everyone with his mind and technique with such grace and understanding of those around him. Elderly parents and grandparents, who would originate from the days long bygone, would come tell him about the tales of old, and having told him their stories with gentle, sanguine words that had would stabilise even the rockiest of waters (regardless of his personal stance with certain issues), would find him a delight. Others, whose nations and themselves were undergoing an enlightenment phase of own, would find his words to be valuable encouragements and endorsements, and found the occasion to be worthwhile on that alone.

But Soo-Deok, while knowing exactly how to behave in this circuit, chose to avoid excessive delving into the company. He, after all, was here to cover initial premises of his next project, one that would involve the thirty-year, tragic disintegration of friendships and relationships developed at a similar Debutante Ball, 'Once Upon A Time In Palacios'. Staying true to his natural course, his rough premise was to construe a social commentary of contemporary Quebec and Shingoryeo combined with dark comedy attached to the high society, but he has yet to really devise the script that would come up with right words and punchlines. That part, as always, took the most difficult procedure, one that would involve him heading back into kinds of functions he didn't exactly embrace.

In any case, however, he would stay from certain distance, and while playing his part in the crowd, chose to stay more courteous than passionate about the business. To each the debutante and their cavalier he would give a light nod to his head as a gesture of satisfaction, said generous words and congratulations, and generously redirected him to his nearest company, and left them be. Each guest, who had most likely heard of his name or watched his film at some point, paid their due respects, and would follow too as they would return to their respective matter of socialising with one another. He then sat down on a guest's table just next to the circular staircase, sitting next to a cavalier's father who had requested to be seated on the same table as him, but not his own son.

'I see that your son looks dashing out there with a count's daughter, Kanemoto,' said Soo-Deok to Jin Zhi Xian, a Quebecois businessman of Yue extraction. The 53-year old, who was rarely a presence in any media, had regardless chosen to make it out for the occasion for Hong Ye (洪業), his 20-year old son who was a business school at Farrer University where both Jin and his wife Sofia had went. 'He's certainly grown fine into his age, hasn't he?'

It was apparent that Soo-Deok, while a beloved man, was not the best in reading names, especially those transliterated into multiples, and even less so when he had to interact little to none with the man behind the scene. 'Thank you once again for being here, dear Soo-Deok, though I admit that you have once again incorrectly read my surname,' replied Jin, whose Yue-Hanja name, 金知憲, was read into three different-sounding ones - Kim Bak-Seong in the court language of Korean, Jin Zhi Xian in Yueyu and Kanemoto Tomoaki in Japanese. 'But yes, my boy is onto a finer venture here. Of course, it can be awkward for those two to be still attending after a breakup the previous month, but you make what you will make of it.'

'Yes, but we aren't here for that,' said Soo-Deok in a slightly different tone of voice in English to indicate the seriousness of the operations. 'You know, I have received an enquiry, a request from Raoul-Christophe Jang-Nolan that he wanted to work with the Montesierra company for a film that you, as a primary financier, might take a greater interest towards.'

Zhi Xian's eyes lit up. 'Yes, I have heard from Rico about it, the rough premises and whatnot. I like it. But that alone is not going to be enough considering how early into the planning phase Raoul-Christophe (Jang-Nolan) may be into, not to mention the cost and logistical restrictions,' said Zhi Xian, expressing his initial interest before raising his concerns. 'And there is only so much I could do on that without Rico on it, at least not rightaway, and I have to make sure we won't lose everything over the project. With you I can do that, Raoul-Christophe less so - the risk factor there may be too high. That we will have to address with him on it another day.'

Zhi Xian then continued, as he got out of the table. 'Now, let's do a people-watching here. You see about twenty-six of the finest lads and lasses, who are split exactly in half. They are dressed in their finest pieces of jewelry, made by the Pleyel-Joyeux House just down the street, and the clothes made by the haute couture houses you have most likely heard of as a popular-culture term in Songak. But they, though with multiple common denominators, are coming from all over the place. Quite a few, as you would notice here, have intriguing connections, and a good lot of them are interesting minds on own...'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

The Social Seasons of Shin-goryeo

PART 4 - Bal des Ballons - Jin Zhi Xian

One step after, the pair gently descended their way to the ballroom, with both of them possessing steady, short steps, mental luggage on their heads. Giving each table a quick sweep of looks, but not staying long enough to merit a stare, they would look at each guest and analyse their respective situations and backgrounds, before moving onto another table.

One of their first figures of intrigue was a tall, thin figure with bald hair who wore circular glasses and well-tailored, three-button suits that were making a return in the Joongyeong society this decade. The thin, young man was Orlando Odinga, the genius son of an Istria jeweler who Anne-Louise Bergson, the one-time courtesan of Henri VIII and Jacques IX, had known dating back to their twenties. The young man, who was the youngest cavalier at age eighteen, had only started out his adulthood, though much of what would constitute to be modern-era childhood had long past him in his head, and this was his first appearance in Joongyeong society.

'Not a royal or aristocrat, that's for sure,' said Hong Soo-Deok, who noticed that the upper button of his three-piece jacket were closed. Hong knew that closing only the middle button was considered an ideal move, though in his case he would rather just not wear one - he had found them to be cumbersome if anything. 'At least it's not the very bottom one.'

Jin Zhi Xian greeted Odinga with a light nod to suggest his delight. 'The Genius of Heshima & Usian, so have I heard. Certainly a rare one, and even less so if to warrant coming all the way here.' said Jin. 'Apparently the words were that he's working with Ludovic Vance on solving [insert mathematical problem], so that alone is an honour on our behalf.'

They then stopped and decided to listen to a conversation between him and Lester Alsup, for the conversation between a chalkboard-hoarding mathematician in his motorcycle and an automobile enthusiast in pink sunglasses no doubt drew their interest. To their intrigue, their conversation had taken a different take:

'You see, you would not believe this but by the end this will be true,' said Orlando as he looked at Lester with an awkward grin. 'Do you wanna know what's the greatest Montywood script? Tomcat.'

'Go on,' answered Lester, as he quietly raised his left eyebrows to suggest interest. 'I may disagree, but at least this would be hilarious.'

'Tomcat, one and only,' he pouted his mouth, before getting ready to go on his theory without realising that Jin and Hong were close distance away. 'What the fuck is Tomcat? We all know it's about the fighter pilots, but really it's more than that. It's a farming documentary, but also about the collective struggle with one another's homosexuality. That's what Tomcat is really about, man.

'And they go both ways. We have Bronco who's as gay as sun, and Sandman and the boys. They all rep the gay. And don't forget the ranch - like right from the entrance you could imagine from the ranch where the boys stay for a retreat, and how they are surrounded by the cornfields. Look how straight those corns sprout, they go the straight way, like an ocean surrounding the island..'

Jin and Hong's decision to take a closer look was no doubt justified, as they moved a few steps further while the pair continued. Hong, in genuine amusement, noted back to Jin: 'Interesting theory, though I doubt that Moowhangwedo Studios would really let such a spin-off or parody come into the line.'

'Maybe not if they were by the most interesting producer on the earth, dear Soo-Deok,' answered Jin. He, while a man who have grown up in the mainstream Shingoryeoite society, was still a rebel in his bones. That, combined with his Yue, anti-regime background, may have afforded him a couple of safe runs when growing up. 'If you would make a film like what our young genius is theorising, then how will you do it?'

'There's a bit of that mystique in the cornfields, though without the clear binaries implied there,' Soo-Deok noted with a gee. 'But in a such situation, you could easily imagine frat bros go Lady and the Tramp on a corncob, perhaps not aware to the fact that the cobs themselves are set up with deadly traps set up by a murderous gang of children from the local town. Some of the might be living, others might be ghouls, who knows. And there's only one way out of the ranch.'

'Ingenious,' was all that Jin said.

They would then move onto another table where another figure, who was clearly not a Shingoryeoite, had made herself the centre. She was sitting next to another figure, who one of them had recalled to be a Vicomte but nowhere near the peerage. The young Vicomte, aged no more than nineteen, was a sweet-faced man with thin face, green eyes and troubled expressions that more or less spoke to Hong troubled family histories and circumstances he couldn't exactly figure out.

'Do you recognise him?' asked Jin, who immediately recognised his company's struggles to figure out. Jin, naturally, knew all of the beaus and the belles for the occasion, but sometimes liked to pretend that he had forgotten them mostly out of courtesy, before picking them up with his memory. 'Your gaze looks different at that moment.'

'He seems outshadowed by his belle, though he would be a centrepiece figure on any other occasion, doesn't he?' Hong answered, before noticing that he was wearing an emerald brooch with a 14th-century decorations and 17th-century design. 'Like that's a dynastic one from Inteachan, pre-Union of Three Crowns.'

'Perhaps a successor, though whether from those times or were re-issued is another,' Jin nodded. 'Must be the young heir of Duke of Shelbourne if so, the old man who's on bedside. The old man's from Henri VIII's times but rarely comes out of his own estate these days, and his son has been in Songak and then Nyhavn for school, so have I heard.'

'One of the most intriguing figures in this most intriguing company, but one that cannot beat the diamond of the season,' Hong said, first in a sarcastic manner before incisively continuing. 'At least we know who she is, an actual gold medalist.'

A smoothly expressed 'Ah' was what followed by Jin as a matter of nod, as they noticed the Princess Solveig smile back at his company. Solveig held a peculiar brand of light, cooly-expressed smile that she had managed to curate since entering into the foray as the successor-in-line for Cabo Azure. With a slightly angled, dark dress with a yellow ribbon curated by a certain Ji-Ho from her own Songak store, and sapphire ear-rings that shone into the space, she passed the space with clarity among men and women without a doubt, perhaps hiding a bit of nerves internally but have also toughened up enough to show little, while finding herself company with those who admired her figure and eyes.

But those more aware would notice in the way she would move along the ballroom as she would dance with her father David, and converse to her fellow debutantes and young Shelbourne about the state of current affairs in Cardenaoan expansion and the Esportivan Art Festival, in that there existed further nerves. While the final part was not aware for the younger gentlemen who would find themselves in gee of being her company, with maybe a sole exception of the aforementioned Shelbourne, it was apparent to some of other ladies and the older folks that she even seemed shy and perhaps dreamy of the night's effect on her and all. 'Acting it out on a rink is one thing, as you too would know, but being in a Joongyeong court, even with the Queen Mother viewing from some distance, would not be easy,' said Hong.

'I suppose so,' was what Jin answered. 'Not every match here will work. Maybe once in a blue moon.'

It was then that Jin would receive a buzz on his pocket. Upon checking the phone to immediately notice that it was an extra-private number, which likely implied that it was from either someone in the Cabinet - if they even had any reason to do much with him - or the Court. Considering the function he was in, it was likelier to be later.

'Allo?' Jin answered in French. 'Jin Zhi Xian.'

'C'est moi, Kanemoto,' said the person on the other line. From the high pitch and the slow tempo of the voice, it was apparent to Jin that it was the Queen Mother, who carried a tempo so different and opposite to that of her late husband or the daughter. 'I see that you are having a blast with Mr. Hong.'

'Yes, but why did you call-'

'Don't be so fast, Kanemoto,' she answered on the other side. 'We appreciate you and your contribution to the cause, and how the Monteserra's projects have contributed to the film and media sectors in Quebec and Krytenia, but I would suggest you do not cross the line with those you may meet tonight.'

Jin shot back: 'Isn't it the worst kept secret in the world that you have a clear diamond of the season?'

'Yes, but this does not concern her. This never did,' the Queen Mother answered, before her voice quickly dropped off. She would then pick it back up again: 'But let's just say that you are running a dangerous line with those who are here, even under observatioon phase and perhaps it is the best you or your friend do not enquire further.

'Do talk freely, but not to the point where a Bezukhovian debate would emerge in this court. I, or the Queen would be able to, and you may be able to afford that back in Nangang. But not everybody you meet will be able to secure such brightness, especially that of the light, when you tamper into wrong person.

Just make sure to not cross the line, and dare challenge it.'

Then she hung up the phone.

Jin knew that the influence in society is a tricky one, one that had to be constantly renewed and re-devised. Having asked on behalf of those who had helped him rise to the industrial moguldom, he had little trouble serving as the middle-man figure in the society, whether it would be in his liberalised homeland, where he had helped fuelling friendlier environment to the current regime, and in his adoptive homeland of Quebec where he, partly thanks to his ability to remember well and to know social queues thoroughly so, capitalised his ability to flip assets with little to no difficulty. He didn't risk much, he asked enough but in a suave manner, and hakuna matata it would go.

But in the Queen Mother's case he felt, after the phone call, a certain sense of tick. In the past occasions she had brought him out a certain sense of rebelliousness, and some sense of disgust too, with how she would advise him what and what not to do. Queen Mother, who came from a Petrogradian grand dukedom that was reinstated a lifetime ago (1993, so almost 70 years ago), said coldly and acted brashly. Furthermore, he would be reminded from the phone call how the Queen Mother was one of those who, on top of their insistent behaviours, had tendency to recklessly step the lines between what constituted appropriate and what did not. While on enough times she would get away, mostly thanks to status, Jin did not like it much when somebody tried to interfere with his own operations, especially that of his own client (Hong) who he felt had represented the country and the case much better.

That final consideration had ticked him off the edge. He was done. At that very moment Jin went back to the back of the ballroom where Hong Soo-Deok was carefully looking at the table that consisted of Ngina Nũngari, the Joongyeong-educated daughter of the President of Mlima Kijani.

'So?' Hong asked. 'Who called?'

Jin spent a bit more time to think, but after about a minute he came up with a single answer. 'Fuck it. Tell Jang-Nolan that we will be discussing Barbenheimer back in Haiguaidian.'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

The Social Seasons of Shin-goryeo

PART 5 - Testiculos (?) - Raoul-Christophe Jang-Nolan

Two weeks have passed since Jin Zhi Xian, after being provoked to react off the confrontational behaviour of the Queen Mother at the Bal des Ballons, had decided to recommend Barbenheimer, Raoul-Christophe Jang-Nolan's latest film project involving a tragic nuclear scientist and his eccentric wife, to Montesierra. Despite finding the much-needed support for the film, and the Montesierra, a company that had been known for wanting to work with Jang-Nolan in multiple occasions, happy about it, these dreamers of the pink technicolour dreamland were tired, right at the beginning of the stage.

The trajectory where you inches closer and closer to doom, even as the war heads closer to victory on the other side of Blood Sea and in the Vatmark...

Raoul-Christophe was trying to figure out a right sentence to explain while sitting at a table inside the conference room at Jin's Haiguaidian mansion. It was a new, marble mansion with every bit of spaciousness and strong number of bizarre statues that a man of nouveau riche wealth and foreign taste would accrue, and Jang-Nolan found himself being reminded of a setting that he once designed for 'Resumption', an earlier film of his ten years ago about a circle of enthusiasts inside a dreamscape labyrinth.

While Jang-Nolan had spent the past twenty years rising from the ever-prominent Quebecois film industry, and him having won every honour and financial success expected thanks to 'Resumption' and subsequent Pomme d'Or winner 'Interplanar', there still existed a wide world of ideas and potentials that Raoul-Christophe knew he had to explore.

At times he missed the younger days, when him and his wife Magda Borowitz had lot more to figure out breaking into the cinematic world as a producer-screenwriter tandem. He still remembered how all of this, which came before the limestone mansions and the exclusive functions separate from the screenings themselves, had been more conceptual, and how the thrill of actualising them on each step, into something palpable would thrill him further. In those days he, who had hated using computer graphics unless to the very last possible measure, would try to save costs while bringing out the fullest of screenable impact.

'Feeling more sure about the film than three days ago, Raoul-Christophe?' a husky voice right in front of him entered into the picture, as Raoul-Christophe looked above to think back at him. It was Rico Sierra, the Krytenian chair of the Montesierra company, looking back at him. Of course, he wasn't alone - Jin Zhi Xian and company's executive producers, explosions afficionado Chae Sang-Beom and elderly Goh Seung-Jae, were watching him on the other side of the room.

'The majority of manuscript's already written, and Magda's still editing it back home,' Raoul-Christophe answered, his light frame reflecting that of a man whose work had weighed heavily upon his body. Him and his wife, who were practically inseparable in each other's worlds, had dedicated themselves to the complete build-up of their -scape, whether it be on historical adaptations or an extraterrestrial time-bender. 'Casting's also being figured out, though whether you would agree upon them, naturally, is another story, of course.'

The Krytenian, who was an Avides's ladies' man half a lifetime ago, raised his eyebrows. His marriage into the Quebecois basketball hall of famer, Heo Myeong-Yoon, had meant that his earlier reputation as an outgoing pop star had to be tempered and controlled a bit more, but his mannerisms had remained every bit with constant grins, beach shirts and groovy steps still present. He raised his left index finger and gave a light glare back at Raoul-Christophe.

'Show me who you have in mind,' said Rico. His vocal tone was very much like multiple waves of breeze, which gave a sense more that of tickles or sustained reminders, than stern words expected from a film executive. He, after all, was used to a bit more ubiquitously flirtatious nature of behaviour displayed by men and women alike in Joongyeong, the city of love.

Jang-Nolan then passed the preferred casting list of the characters to Rico and the producers, before leaning back. By the virtue of being technically offered, rather than offering his way towards the opportunity, and also having a vast majority of bigger names in nation and abroad open to work with him, Jang-Nolan knew he had some advantage in the casting choices. Several of them, after all, had also worked with him in the past films.

'Jim Brenson's a classic. Thoughtful man, definitely one with more exquisite glare,' answered Chae Sang-Beom, the younger brother of Tomcat-series producer, the late Chae Sang-Deok. 'Corentin Agbapu definitely sounds like your peculiar choice, wasn't it? There's got to be a good reason behind why he's portraying Ed-Philippe Menzies.'

'Menzies? The ruthless counterpart, the opponent back in Joongyeong, for not only Kenneth but Barbara Barbenheimer. Agbapu knows what death is, and adds the richness and grit to the cast like a well-aged wine,' Raoul-Christophe answered. 'So flip around the script and have him play the opponent role to Kenneth, eventually to the point of shootout.'

'I suppose so, now Mevlida Kusturica is the interesting one,' Goh Seung-Jae then raised. 'Jasno Odonelec's wife? The Mytanar model who since committing herself more to the film and the drama, has been the hottest ticket in Esca for past couple of years?'

'Correct, and she has the perfect kicks for the role, if anything.' Jean-Christophe nodded. 'Underrated even with the current era of fame, if you would ask me on that. Foreign - Barbara Barbenheimer came to Quebec while a teenager and spent her twenties travelling, let's reminder ourselves that this was in the 1930s - she knows how to portray, brings life out of characters, and has right energy level - a metal lover.'

'I suppose so, you are never wrong with them,' Rico looked back at Jean-Christophe. He seemed satisfied. 'Natalie Gregoris is Natalie Gregoris, so we know what to expect - she's shifted well genre-wise in the past decade.

'Yi Geum-Rahn and Florent Boitano will add class to the times we were talking about. I know we don't often discuss this, but with our home region of Anaia (Krytenia is only two hours' flight away from Quebec by outer AO flight routes) undergoing major conflicts lately, it does...reflect well with the times. We all know Florent Boitano's portrayed Frederick Sullivan (wartime Prime Minister also known for his friendship with his successor, then-leader of opposition Yves-Francois Ahenakew, think of Attlee and Churchill IRL e.d.-) multiple times before, and each time's gone gold.'

'Exactly so,' answered Chae Sang-Beom, right before being discussed. 'And the scenes themselves, don't get me wrong, sound solid in proposal. But now the question is less so on the ground, but where to stage all of this together...the scale itself would not be replicable without artificially bringing a million soldiers and additional technologies. I'm sure neither you, not even Jin would be able to provide for such.'

'That, exactly, is what we'll have to discuss for sure,' Jean-Christophe said in agreement. 'Replicating the nuclear weapons, and the so-called 'Barbie Villages', with hundreds of houses painted in pink to reflect the sunlight-absorbing roofs of those in Los Pueblos is fine. But replicating that, on Quebecois soil, would be impossible.'

'Even more so when there's a city of 200,000 living there and the actual Los Pueblos grounds nowadays off-access even for visitors,' Chae said. 'There is also the matter with finding enough cast to handle some scenes, like the ones involving the Valladar Westland fronts of the Southern Rushmori War, We'll have to find a place abroad...'

'But where the hell would be possible?' Rico asked. 'No country in their right mind will gladly lend such a space and people away...'

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

OOC: The spoilered article on Mauril Yoon was RP'd for the IBC 37 and thus not be graded. Rest, however, are open for grading purposes.

The Social Seasons of Shin-goryeo

PART 6 - T-culos (?) - Armando Sierra-Heo

'Papito! It's almost time for Testiculos,' Armando Sierra-Heo, a tall, toned son of Rico, entered the room and looked at the four individuals inside. 'I hope I didn't interrupt an important meeting.' Armando had dark, curly hair cut short and wore a blue and gold Avidia United jersey and white shorts. Looking more like his father, who had ability to charm the most difficult-looking of men, than his mother, Armando carried with him a light, pleasant smile that would sometimes turn into a smirk.

At age twelve, young Armando would normally call his parents' two-room apartment, which was located right in the Concord Heights Boulevard at the heart of Joongyeong's plush 2eme arrondissement, home. But for most of his time, he was really spending many weeks and months out of town or abroad with his parents whose work schedules - originally as international basketball star and then emerging film producer, and more recently the Montesierra co. chair and Perce Town co-owners - had meant that they would be away for much of the year. Thus he, who had already missed multiple days on his first two months of first year (or year seven) with Lycée-Alexandre-IV, was every bit aloof or ambivalent towards traditional curricula that his mother's family excelled within.

Rico, of course, was happy to have his son on this trip. 'Si, Si, Armando. Why don't you come have a seat with the gentlemen here? I see that they too would be glad to take a little bit of time off the tough times,' Rico answered as he checked back at Raoul-Christophe and the two executive producers, who then responded to their CEO with a slight nod to their head. 'But it will be just for five minutes, you know how long these speeches can be..'

'Of course, dad. It's going to be a short one. Besides, who wouldn't want to watch Reba Wawanolett?' Armando smiled back at his father. 'And one day, Perce Town will have a Testiculo too. I bet it will be AKK (shortened name for Korniloff-Kouyate) - as expected from every Grim Reapers' number-ten.'

Nevermind the fact that Anna Korniloff-Kouyate, while coming from Perce Town's world-class academy that has produced many internationals, came before the Sierra-Heos' time with the club. 'Now, let's turn on the television.' Rico said, as he quickly leaned back into his seat. Being a Krytenian had meant that he, while not being able to witness recent glories of his own country on the World Cup proper (we are purposefully discounting the Cup of Harmony 80 run for narrative sake, folks), still knew it was in his own interest to catch the ceremony. And he, with Jin Zhi Xian having to check the operations of the ships back in the Haiguaidian proper, was not really worried about what the others would think of either.

'Well, it's certainly a ceremony we are seeing...' Chae Sang-Beom said, the old director happy to see the very moment Rebecca-Anne 'Reba' Wawanolett stepping into the podium. What he would not notice, howeve, was the hand gestures made by Raoul-Christophe and young Armando, who immediately noticed the oddity on Wawanolett.

'Papito, what's the very badge Reba Wawanolett wearing?' he asked, his left index finger pointing to a massive, circular sky-blue badge with a white cross and a skull and fleur-de-lis intertwined right in the middle of it. Rico, who didn't notice the sign first, didn't know how to explain to his son about the current Great War of Farfadillis, or the ongoing RQFA-Grim Reapers' dispute that was being fought outside the pitches, and drew a light 'mmm'.

The silence instead would be broken by Raoul-Christophe. 'That's the Rulandese symbol, and knowing the way the fleur-skull's designed, that's about the war isn't it?' Raoul-Christophe raised, as he saw the Chromatik midfielder open his mouth. 'Interesting to see how the public has managed to galvanise themselves around the matter if anything.'

'Precisely so,' said Goh Seung-Jae, the other executive producer being amused to see how such a display, one that gets hard enough to explain as it was, would be made in the heart of Mlima Kijani. 'It does bring us to a very interesting premise though, one that could solve our problem. Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Rico?'

The volume of the actual speech itself was lowered, as the producers and Rico had looked at one another again. Armando, who didn't exactly realise what he was about to cause, looked at them in surprise, and chose to keep watching the speech. The speech, in every sense, was a well-measured, carefully-delivered one of humility where Reba Wawanolett, a Zenit Attawapiskat product who had the privilege of working with legendary Jannick Kontiola (who was also coincidentally a Zenit product fourty years prior), thanked her parents and teammates for making the Testiculos honour. It was one that would follow Songak-native Abel Wesoloski-Okafor as a back-to-back Quebecois recipient (nevermind the fact Abel himself has chosen to represent Banija instead!), one that no doubt felt deeply to Armando's heart.

As for the adults, they knew they had to reach out to a contact. Chae Sang-Beom's eyes, one of excellent acumen when it comes to maximising action relative to value (something that Raoul-Christophe admittedly lacked), glowed on the possibility. Raoul-Christophe also saw a great potential with the idea that was quietly planted inside the head, and while the Pomme d'Or winner still had to figure out on how to make the filming work, he knew that Ruland would be where this quiet vision of a 1940s village, set in middle of the Southern Rushmori War, could be draped in pink.

Rico, while a bit more hesitant due to the logistics in actually reaching Ruland without being shot down, also saw enough premise in the idea itself. Besides, for the hesitation the Avides held towards this idea, he had a contact, a familiar face, who could facilitate this. An agent who's got to know every major sportspeople in this country, whether through representation or acquaintance, in a matter of five years.

The Mathletes - Scientific, Literary Venue of Sports Journalism

For Mauril Yoon, Attention, Flexibility and Excitement is key to becoming the next Quebecois super-agent

Hector Satriano Nam

KATTERIMUNK - Mauril 'Mo' Goh knows he's a lucky man.

If anything, he's too aware of it. Too often his friends would tease him saying that he has too good of memory, and that his ability to let an impression or a recollection play into his mind routinely gets into his head.

From time to time he thinks about what-ifs as well: What if he had not worn a retro Dexter Ahn Fighting Irish jersey? What if he had chosen not to wear the shades at Bonneville Airport? Two years ago he didn't always wear his trademark shades, and to this day only chooses to wear it when on a trip. He rarely wears old jerseys in public too, preferring to leave that 'domain of those who have earned the right to wear them'.

And yet he did that day at Bonneville Airport. 'A pure matter of chance, only because I had run out of clothes to wear for rest of that trip,' Mauril says, sitting on his flat in Downtown Attawapiskat he bought last year. 'And if I didn't wear that, I wouldn't have had that fateful moment.'

And if that moment didn't lead into a conversation, he would not be finding himself where he stands right now. If that didn't lead into him reaching out, he'd not be standing in the red carpet of the Maytime Athlone Gala, finding himself alongside a star-studded group of clients and dressed according to Mode editor-in-chief Jamila Schiller's recommendations. There would be no boardroom meeting with the country's biggest sponsors, meetings with QBL, QWBL and QBO general managers, not to mention executive boxes to the World Cup and multiple visits to the Daemyeonggong Palace. If Luigi Tüjângér-Arngna'naaq didn't stop him because of how he was smitten by the Dexter Ahn Fighting Irish jersey from his rookie campaign, he would not be in the line to succeed as Quebec's next biggest super-agent.

In May 2058, things definitely looked different than it does right now. Luigi was 23-year old forward who had long been a staple for the Quebecois men's national basketball team. He was at the Bonneville Airport after running a training camp he had set up in the Bonneville area, where his wife Ada Beleskey came from, and was on his way back to Wansan. While a basketballer by the virtue of his height, and his light frame had not exactly made him a football player in his youth days, Luigi held significant sport for the sport of gridiron and would remember the year and the edition of most replica or authentic jerseys he would see on streets.

So when Luigi who barely got past the customs for his flight back home - 'There's a long story behind that with my luggage, I'll explain another day', says he - but the 24-year old managed to draw Luigi's attention on time with the Dexter Ahn jersey and shades. After much deliberation between him and his partner, footballer Jordyn Mah then of Wansan Noksaekjeonsa, Luigi would approach Mauril about the jersey. And while Mauril only had the jersey because of his uncle who had played with the quarterback considered to be the greatest Quebecois to have played with Kingston Argonauts, he knew his efforts to answer a question would not go wrong. A quick chat later they would exchange numbers and naturally became friends.

Four years later, the 28-year-old Mauril Yoon's still feeling the buzz of his recent fame. First a basketball fan, he is watching on the executive box at Galaxy Arena in Katterimunk, talking to Basketball Quebec executives and like-minded coaches and agents with their respective views on the Grim Reapers. Yoon dresses simply with a dark suit and dark, well-polished Stefano Mariani shoes, but keeps his style of wearing without a tie.

When asked who's his favourite women's basketball player, he responds straightaway. 'June Mayberry, and not even close,' Mauril says. 'She has impeccable footwork and shoots elegantly, but really has that sense of tempo that is very hard to be ignored. She was one of the biggest reasons behind our championship win back in Poafmersia.'

And to prove that he's not joking about his adoration of the swing-woman, Mauril heads to the sidelines to see Mayberry, who immediately welcomes him with an embrace. 'Not bad huh?' Mayberry says. 'Nope, it's a good day of competition for you guys,' Mauril grins back. 'I'm not the player here.'

And Mauril is aware of that. If anything, what he's most aware of is the fact that he's next in line as the next Quebecois superagent. He is aware that it is a difficult world with agents all competing against each other, with them trying to figure who's going to represent who, and what can bring the best out of them, but that goes past his interest range. When Mauril Yoon was named the successor to chair the Maison M corporation last April to succeed the retiring legend in Pierre McCarthy, he had made the final part clear.

'His situation is interesting for sure,' answers FAS TV commentator Simone Cha. 'Pierre McCarthy's never the one to take a lot of clients, and only takes several athletes he considers to be generation-defining. Think of it like a Marvel movie phase, maybe, but previous generation would have the Wesoloski-Okafor brothers - yes, this includes the volleyball legend and the Testiculos winner - while household names Zinaida Woodcarver, Joelinton Dyxkeson, and Jean-Christophe Babin are all there.

'Obviously none of the names mentioned here are going anytime soon, but is Maison M already preparing for the next generation? Quite bold, but if the rumours of Pierre McCarthy's health issues prove to be true, then we must consider this to be a pre-emptive action than an ill-prepared move.'

When asked about the transition, which is aligned with his representation of a half-dozen budding stars of teenage years, Mauril limits commenting on it. 'Whatever the words Pierre and I had discussed about the future of the organisation stay between us for now,' says Mauril. 'But I assure you there won't be much change. We aren't that different of people after all.'

Two weeks after Mauril had returned from his friend's wedding in Bonneville, Luigi called him saying that he had booked a dinner at Joongyeong's 'Le Relais de Pomene', a famous steakhouse known to be frequented by members of the political elite for his connotation. Luigi and Mauril both held degrees at a Lotus League institution - Mauril wrote a Masters thesis on contemporary Korean literature with neo-modernist oeuvres of Asher Lundrigan - and held love of travelling coming from their familial backgrounds. Luigi spoke 6 languages, attributed to his growth in Iqaluit with an Inuit father and Rulandese mother, while Mauril grew up with a ex-diplomat mother.

Passionate and friendly, Mauril would stay in distance, watching Luigi spend a full month, back and forth between Joongyeong and Wansan, for a full month. There they would talk for hours, of course, but knew they had to keep distance. 'We had to establish the common ground first,' Luigi says. 'Get too close and you could fall into a dangerous territory. Get too far apart and you lose the meaning of trying to figure out who's the right person to represent you.'

The efforts would pay off, however, with Mauril receiving a call from Pierre McCarthy, Luigi's agent with his own cadre of uber-famous clients. Upon Mauril answering the call, 50-year old McCarthy told him that he was interested to bring him as a young assistant. 'You know what you are doing, young gun,' Mauril says, recalling the very words said by the super-agent. 'And he said that he wanted me to come to Songak to start working for the Maison M.'

In the past four years since then, Mauril Yoon would become a distinguishable part of the Maison M machine that, while maintaining its current group of marquee clients. bBst demonstrated through back-to-back Testiculos winners Abel Wesoloski-Okafor (Pierre's client dating back to Mipojoseon academy days) and Rebecca-Anne Wawanolett (Mauril's client), this is a membership that continues to expand while maintaining uniquity attached to its name. He makes that part clear when asked about it: 'Pierre and I may be doing things on same picture, but we have different clients and we express our feelings and plans differently,' he says. 'Pierre wants more...consistent guys, while I welcome more character guys. It's been a blast because we were able to compartmentalise on that.'

Passionate with his love of the life of party, and also with underrated sense of culture and politics, Mauril would not stay quietly within the domains of representation, seeking to improve the player brand altogether. His love of travel and understanding of many sports alike would lead him into most unexpected of cities and destinations he would go, and Mauril would note them back to both the head office and the client. He also keeps a close eye on the organisational directions, something that he, who hopes to transition into more traditional sports administration in distant future, likes looking into.

Being under Pierre McCarthy, a Jorge Mendesian figure who prefers to minimise clashes between his clients and teams, has no doubt helped him to develop quickly. While working on his certification under the RQOC, McCarthy let Mauril take part in negotiations, ask past and present GMs questions, and also to attend open meetings of the Imperial and Royal sporting councils (two crown agencies part of the Ministry of Sports) and the Royal Quebecois Olympic Committee. 'I learned a lot, just absorbing everything out there,' Mauril says. 'and to not take things for granted. Always look into the forest and not the trees because you always have to look into everything when you are an agent.'

This sentiment rings across his clients who, while coming from different sports, bond easily with one another through same range of interests and backgrounds. This is particularly evident among his younger clients - Tihon striker Oberon M'bah-Pinho and Levis Athletic phenom Horace Karugunda have been good friends for past half-decade, with both growing up under athletic families of one another in Joongyeong, while Karugunda and Montreal Koreana winger Didier Garnacho, who represents his father's country in Kirungabi, share connections as members of the Quebec's sizeable Kirungan diaspora. Also on his roster is Layvin Son-Saka, the Quebeco-Banijan left winger who scored 27 goals in his sophomore season with St. John's Arsenal as a seventeen year old - a natural choice given Abel Wesoloski-Okafor's value to the Kadongo Kamu.

'Common ground, across all sports, is very important,' says Mauril. 'That's also why it's going to be difficult to represent more than, maybe, ten members at a time. You have to give a proper damn detail across multiple sports, and you can't stick to one sport or do fifty clients. That's not fair towards nobody.'

And he's still working towards finding the right answer to it.

'If we wanna do this, we cannot do this without Mauril Yoon's help. Other times we would rely upon a more proven contact, like the Quebecois Consulate, but the Consulate itself is a five-floored fortress of own and you will need Erin Kang or Mathinna Bouck's name to get around there. Trust me bros,' Rico Sierra said, as he looked back into the part where Reba Wawanolett would finish the five-minute speech with a simple shout 'FORZA RULANDEA'. 'Old man Pierre McCarthy would be saying no, sure, but he's still hospitalised, and this young buck Mauril I heard is a thrill-seeker.'

While the speech was followed with a mix of boos and applauses reflecting the venue, not to mention frowns from the eyes of Graintfjaller presenters and Abel Wesoloski-Okafor, he knew this was still a task worth taking. 'Go get him on the call.' Raoul-Christophe said.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

The Taegukgi: The Korean-language voice of the Quebecois Commonwealth

Songak Praetorian Sold: Unlikely group of bidder wins, shocks the media world with purchase that accompanies promises of non-intervention

Gilles Halgorsen

CONCORD HEIGHTS, CASSADAIGUA - The most unexpected sale ever.

Of course, it is not finalised yet, especially with the sale having to be approved by the Office of Competition under Her Majesty's Government. But if materialised, The Songak Praetorian will be sold to the H&N Media and Sports Group, led by legendary Quarterback and media personality Ian Lautner, Quebecois business executives Ji Gyeong-Wan and Moishe Goldbloom, in a move that is set to shocked the very core of Quebec and Shingoryeo's newspaper and media industry.

The agreement for The Strathcona Trust to sell a near-majority ownership and provide five out of eight board members, excluding the Chair, in one of the flagship Quebecois newspaper brings an intriguing question to the 245-year-old newspaper that has been under the sole control of the Strathcona Trust since 1927, and sees strong, international reputation through its values both as a traditional, left-wing newspaper and also for its opposition to Paywalling trend that some newspapers have brought in various points of contemporary Quebec with limited success.

The historic deal was conducted with high degrees of secrecy, with codenames and overseas meeting held to ensure the privacy and security of the details, and it would not be until the morning of the deal that its own investigative reporter have found out about the news. 'Certainly not a normal deal, and every bit electrifying news,' Archimedes Fagan, former member of the Trust and current Quebecois High Commissioner to Acadiana, told The Taegukgi. 'The way they had handled the proceedings isn't anything like I have seen. But then, why would they want to risk it on a paper with such history?'

It was announced on The Praetorian's own account that the decision came from that of the Strathcona Board itself. Raoul de Strathcona, the trust board member whose family had owned the paper from 1848 to 1926 and is allocated a lifetime position on the Board, explained that the H&N Group was contacted via an investment firm and after months of negotiation, had agreed to a deal.

While the exact details of the purchase was not known, it is rumoured that the sale price for the partial sale was set to be around Q£233 million (NSD $700 million), which consists of approximately the two-third of the Songak newspaper's fund. The figure describes the scale required for a complex family operation in order to purchase an institution as renowned and prestigious as that of Songak Praetorian.

H&N Media and Sports Group is a family-led investment fund that is previously incorporated six years ago by Lautner, Ji, Goldbloom, and multiple members of the Heo Family of sporting fame in recent decades. Chaired by Moishe Goldbloom, investment banker whose brother-in-law is baseball legend and current Bugil College coach Heo Myeong-Shin, the company holds a complex group of companies and sports clubs that suggest diverse interests:

- Ownership stakes: Moishe Goldbloom (30%) - Ian Lautner (25%) - Ji Gyeong-Wan & Maisie Dreyfus-Milliken (25%) - Heo-Goldbloom Foundation (15%) - Montesierra Corporation (5%)
- Stakes: ALORS S.A. (Hotels and Resorts - 30%), Cannabiscorp (5%), Montesierra (Film - 25%), Songak Praetorian (Media - 45% and majority in Board positions)
- Sports Clubs ownerships: Montevicio Lakers (Quebecois Basketball League), Northandryun Rovers (Multiple sports, including Q-League), South Bend Sakers (Quebecois Women's Basketball League)
- Sponsorships: H&N Gallery and Museum (Arts and Culture), National Racing Authority of Quebec (Horseracing), Quebec Foundation (Culture), Queen's College and Universite du Saguenay (Education)

Raoul de Strathcona announced that the decision ensures the newspaper's stability into the future: 'The Strathcona Board has been synonymous with the success of the newspaper, whose foundation begins with prompt, insightful and incisive investigative reporting, as well as its ability to incorporate the interests of the public that becomes ever diverse. When the H&N Group came up with the proposal, we knew that it was a promising one for our future.'

'The H&N Group's proposal is one that we could not refuse considering their interest in not only the integrity of independent journalism, but also that of fields that we have made our names for in arts and culture, and in sports. Their familiarity in business and economics will also add an unique lens to it, and thus we feel that this move allows for further enrichment of The Praetorian.'

According to the announcement made by Moise Goldbloom, the chair of the H&N Group, the operations of Songak Praetorian will remain uninterrupted with the Group members holding little to no interest in intervening the newspaper's operations. 'Life will go on, plain straight forward,' Ji wrote on his letter to the Praetorian employees. 'We have a strong, diverse group of like-minded individuals in the H&N, and we believe that the newspaper's best left in the hands of actual reporters and editors, who we dearly trust. We will aid them in what they need, without taking any.'

The partial purchase of Songak Praetorian no doubt brings an interesting dilemma to Quebecois newspapers who continue to face challenges to retain their readership and ensure consistency in financial survival. Quebecois public continue to remain hostile towards the idea of paywalls, which have no doubt brought little success for multiple outlets that have tried it, and the linguistic division of the newspapers too have made things tricky for certain outlets, such as French-language Le Mazepa or Korean-language The Taegukgi, who enjoy universal trust domestically but sees limited market on primary language of distribution (both has significant English-language outlets).

The H&N acquisition also brings an interesting situation with the Heo Family, whose foundation originates with the St. Croix-educated professors in the Heo siblings' father and grandfather. While their patriarch, Dr. Heo Dong-Soo, remains mostly elusive as the Head of the Royal Archives of Shingoryeo (RAS) and Jacques IX Professor of History and Comparative Literature at his alma mater, his two children and nephew have all enjoyed successful transition into new careers outside of sports and through strong family and friendship terms, which include Ji, whose in-laws Dreyfus-Millikens are unlikely to hold the newspaper's opinions, or Ian Lautner, a longtime friend of Heos dating back to their fathers' college days.

Goldbloom told Songak Praetorian that 'Good times will continue, and that the Songak Praetorian's commitment to the people and the communities across the nation and the world will continue to be upheld.' He insists the ownership will mostly be concerned with ensuring financial sustainability of the newspaper, citing that 'our interests lie in re-investment, and reinvestment does not mean taking your investment account money out of the ATM for blackjacks and hookers because why save money? We are here to aim for the long future.'

The Office of Competition was unable to be contacted for the enquiry.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

The Social Seasons of Shin-goryeo

Part 7 - Testiculos Ceremony - Mauril

'Ah, the most opportune timing possible indeed,' Mauril 'Mo' Goh lifted his voice slowly, almost as if he were falling under a drawl and roll, as he took the opportunity to take a break from all the post-ceremony highs and quietly made a phone call.

It surprised nobody that Mauril, who was Quebecois superagent Pierre McCarthy's successor-designate at the Maison M, made his own way to accompany multiple players of his, especially considering the relatively heavy proportion of footballers in his limited stable that only went by references or his own calls driven out of intuition. Rebecca-Anne Wawanolett, this previous cycle's Testiculos d'Oro winner, was a former, one who signed with his predecessor under the recommendation of two Zenit legends - Jannick Kontiola (remember that name?) and Sandra Middleton. 'Your congratulations to Ms. Wawanolett is accepted, I will send her my dearest regards, as any self-respecting man would.'

'Absolutely, what else would I to say as a fellow footballing professional?' Rico Sierra, the co-owner of the pre-eminent filmmakers in Montersierra Productions, as well as a co-owner of Perce Town alongside his wife, basketball legend Heo Myeong-Yoon and club president Einar Salihamidzic. 'You have done your best part to ensure she stays with the best club in the world right now. Not a lot of clubs can say that out there - maybe Crisisbless, Myana, Atleik, Mipojoseon, and I'm sure Rulandea Kosta would also have a word on that too. The list is very small, but one that is distinguished indeed.'

'Rico, you know we do not have a lot of time right now. So, while your congratulations are accepted, I'd like you to go straight to the point, my dear friend,' Mauril said, feeling a little bit of smug in his voice. Mauril, for most part, did not work much with Perce Town players - Sinisa Salihamidzic, the current President's son who played Centreback with them before 8m move to Montreal Koreana, was the last one - but it wasn't exactly by his choice. Perce Town's business model, as a smaller-town side with more malleable prospects, worked slightly different

'What is it with me that you would like to discuss? I believe that no client has come forward to speak about moving to Perce Town just yet, though I'm sure that by next year we would be talking things differently.' This was a reference to possible move, one that would become effective under Bosman Rule by the new year, he wanted to secure for Gabriel Sayritupac, with the rumours of Audioslavian National League's finances looming on the papers.

'Ah, sorry about that,' Rico answered it right away, before proceeding to ask Mauril about a project. 'Mauril, you said that you work routinely for the Quebecois players at the SFPL right? And I do not mean just for those playing in Banija.' This part was important - while most of the Quebecois players who were in the SFPL were playing for one of ten Banijan sides, the Farf clubs had a couple of high-profile national teamers who had played for them.

Era comes, era goes, was the wording that's often used to described how the players who would have gone to Faroleran clubs (and thus part of the Farolera-friendly inner circle of RQFA administrator and oldbies) in our parents' generations, were now heading to Rulandese sides. 'I'm specifically talking about those in the other side [of Shango-Fogoa].'

For a brief second, Rico heard some loud noise outside, though it would quickly be dropped. Festivities things, or the matter of life being somewhere far and deep into the wilderness like Mlima Kijani, thought he, before letting out a sigh to get some air out. He had relatively little to work with the Farf clubs of the SFPL sides - the clubs themselves paid their players well, even in the direst of wartimes, and neither the Kangs nor Mathinna Bouck, who had been signed from his familiar grounds of Montreal Koreana to replace Erin Kang, now the General of the Rulandese Revolutionary Army.

'Okay, sorry about that, cellular isn't the best.' Mauril returned to speaking on his phone. 'Yes, I would be the right person to talk about it. But you have to keep in mind that right now, the transfer market is closed and most agents do not enter into the godforsaken island unless absolutely necessary. So whatever you are proposing will have to be convincing.'

'Well, it does involve somebody familiar with Ruland and the related parts of Farfadillis for the sake of our...project, let's say,' Rico answered confidently. 'It involves the filming of our latest project, a blockbuster that you likely would not have expected from us ever and never will. And we, as in me and a certain director known for his non-linear plots and excellent real-life recreations, will be looking to film the latest project in Ruland....let's just say it involves explosions, a Quebecois Prometheus back in the days of Southern Rushmori War, et cetera.'

'Okay, so the story of Dr. Kenneth and Mrs. Barbara Barbenheimer,' Mauril answered, unsure on how to go about it. Everybody had known very well about the Quebecois Prometheus, the Jewish Quebecois physicist whose scientific innovations and moral consciences have influenced many, as well as his wife Barbara, whose eccentricities and love of firearms...have no doubt added interesting notions. 'I'm sure it would be the worst-kept secret in the world by the time you will actually film it though.'

'In any case, we will need your help in filming this project, not because of who you can be but because who you are,' Rico answered. 'This could be one of the most monumental projects in the recent history of Quebecois films. To actualise a dream our ancestors had, we need practical men on board, and everybody has different ways of being practical.' He then stopped for a second, before resuming. Perhaps there was an irony in such connotations of patriotism said by an Avides man. 'It is deemed that Ruland, due to the availability of mass casting opportunities, perfect climate to replicate Los Pueblos, and not to mention the polyglot nature of the populace, is considered the best. Not to mention the public favourability would rank higher there than in other places, where either the governance model is dubious or the situations too unstable.'

'Szoirsia is not an option?' Mauril questioned. 'And yes, even then, that require a lot of reasons to go back to a goddamned war zone there when it's not the transfer period.'

'No time to waste, we will talk when our plane will be picking you up in the days time.'

Then Rico hung up the phone. Mauril, who immediately went back to the winners' banquet table with purple-haired Reba and her family, as well as the fellow members of the particularly heavy Quebecois delegation of this year's Testiculos ceremony in Mlima Kijani, knew he was in for a long ride. It wasn't exactly the safest of ideas, and he knew that, but the temptation of participating in a project as important as that, even if for the site consultation, was not exactly something that he had in mind of refusing. Who would when offered, after all?

So he knew that he was fucked.