Cruise Ship Le'Faye, Day 16, TARDISrider's murder log, begining recording.

So Will's dead, and Lemony Snicket finally got some cat food, good for him, but I have a few accusations for who the murderer might be:

Silvery Ink

Brookeira 

And maybe, maybe, just maybe, Actually, I have no other ideas. I'm fairly sure that it's Silvery, though.

I need a bubble pipe and a deerstalker. Then I'll be a real detective.

But I don't have those, so I'll have to make due.

I'm just worried that I might be the murderer.

I might even accuse myself.

Terrifying.

But I need to protect myself. I think I can soomon things from the TARDIS, just once or twice, so I can draw at max two items for my entire stay here. Sword, and spear. Ah, here they are! Here already, with some cat armor. That's all I can get.

Lemony Snicket, get over here! You need this armor!

*Hisses*

OOOOOW! I need those eyes!

*More hisses and a growl*

I also need that hand! Just let me get this breastplate and helmet on, and you should be good.

*Ten minutes later*

Awwwww! Aren't you my little knight in shining armor! I should've brought a shield with that! You are too adorable for words!

Anyways,

Day 16, TARDISrider, clocking out.

*end recording* 

@Teller, I'm so sorry!  

@Shifting and Somebody: I am thoroughly offended! For your information, cat food is an excellent source of vitamins and minerals! Don't you know anything about nutrition?!?! (Heh, heh. Just playing with you!)

Day 17

“What’s that?” Booksy inquires, as Lemony Snicket comes clanking down the hall, in full armor. He walks proudly, with an air of great importance, stepping high and ignoring everyone, including TARDISrider.

Booksy continues to watch, as the cat marches around a corner, to some place of great importance.

“Huh, funny.” She takes a step out of her room, and almost another before someone jumps from behind her and empties a coffee pot on her.

“Rise and shine!” shouts The Teller, attempting to dash away, but trips over an armored Lemony Snicket.

Booksy mumbles something, then grabs the half full coffee pot and turns it upside down.

Unfortunately, Somebody, who for the most part of the morning, had been blinking out of existence and back again  as well as teleporting all over the place, appears right where Booksy dumps the cold coffee.

“Hey! You-” But she than disappears, later to conveniently appear right next to one of the cowboy’s mug of coffee. She grabs it right before she disappears again, still soaked in cold coffee.

Lemony meows in displeasure, despairing that his day has turned dismal.

Brookeira is alone, eating donuts over what looks like a spaceship control panel. She is rather surprised not to see a mob of CBers at the donuts piled on the table. Somebody grins and sneaks up behind her.

“Wake to hear the birds!”

Brookeira whirls around, coffee getting in her eyes, just to see Somebody disappear. She glares at the now coffee soggy donut.

“l will get you for this, Silvery!” she yells to the shadows assuming that it was her.

But Silvery is sleeping, at least for now. Brookeira doesn’t know this, so therefore assumes that she is behind that menacing-looking door, because she heard it slam shut just a few seconds after Somebody disappeared.

She places her hand on the old brass doorknob, and slowly turns it. The hinges let out a low groan, like a giant tree in a windstorm as she pushes it open just a crack.

Dust flies everywhere, and Brookeira gives the cold stone door a push inward. No one has been here for ages, at least as far as she can tell. There’s no footprints in the dust, and spiderwebs hang like lace from corners.

“Hello?”

“Rise and shine!” Shadowdancer leaps forward, but has miscalculated and is teleported to the dimension of malfunctioning dishwashers.  

“Weird.” Brookeira picks up the coffee pot and walks farther on. She enters a large black stone room and halts in her tracks. The house lights began to turn on, row by row with a bang that echos throughout the room. The hooded figure orchestra strikes up a mournful tune, and Jim the cowboy falls asleep because someone stole his morning coffee. The CBers appear one by one, Spyro eating donuts, Shifting having an argument with TARDISrider who appears a second later. Booksy and Somebody appear in the very center of the now very bright room.

“Hey!” says TARDISrider. “Where are we?”

The Teller shrugs. “Not in the hotel, l would know. Another dimension. Although, who, l don’t know, and l don’t like it. They have power, possibly more than me.” She shudders, pulling the cloak hood father down and gazing around.

The lights suddenly snap off.

A pattern of stars, like a hologram, starts to swirl around the center of the room. A galaxy. A spiral galaxy. The Milky Way. Bright pinpricks of light for each of the billion stars all dancing in purple and silver light. ‘Round and ‘round. And if you look a bit closer, at the very center, there is a void. No stars, no light.

A black hole.

Booksy screams as bright sharp words flash across the wall.

Help_needed_This_is_what_will_happen_if_you_do_not_obey_

The black hole at the center of the galaxy begins to grow until both Somebody and Booksy are engulfed.

The others are frozen, unable to move, even The Teller. Then the black hole shrinks, and everyone is thrown gasping back into the hotel. Except for Booksy.

Where she is, no one knows. But she is gone.

~~~~~~~~~

R.I.P. Booksy Owly. Rest in black holes and galaxies.

This is getting dark. Darker than l ever thought it would be. Better turn on some lights!

Day 18

”Rise and shine!”

“No, wait.” Jim the cowboys seizes the cup of coffee positioned over the head of Somebody.

“Aha! Thank you very much, l shall be going now.” He empties the contents of the cup on The Teller’s head  then dashes away. “I WILL GET YOU FOR THIS.” Yells The Teller, but trips over a flower pot that just happens to be there and into a hole drilled there the night before by someone very sly. Somebody peers over the edge but can’t see the bottom. “Well that’s nice.”

“R-r-r-rrrrrinnnggg!” Calls the Radium clock. “Ring ring.”

“You can’t actually chime?” Shadowdancer asks, leaning in the doorway.

“Rrrring. Ring a ding ding.” Says the clock, sounding annoyed. It teleports to the wall besides her ear.

“RRRRRINNGGGG. RING-A-DING-LING. RRRRRRIINGGGG.” She jumps.

“Heh.” Whispers Silvery from the shadows.

“Mumph?” Questions Spyro from a mouth full of donuts. He hasn’t eaten anything else for the last two days.

“Humph.” Mutters Shifting. She’s mad about something.

“Meow.” Exclaims Lemony Snicket.

“Huhhhhh….” Sighs Brookeira.

“Shhhh…” Says TARDISrider.

“HELP!” The Teller shouts.

The echos reply back, “Help…..help…Lp….P……”

Somebody whispers something to Silvery and shows her a scrap of paper who whispers it to someone else until everyone has heard it.

“.....A treasure hunt?.......Let me look at that map…...Are we really going?........What about The Teller?.....But it says that there’s a curses…..”

The Radium clock frowns as it hears this. The CBers glance at the hole that someone very sly has drilled overnight before tiptoeing out of the room. The clock follows, half scared, half curious, half hoping to find out what they’re talking about.

****

“So this is how it works.” Explains Somebody, spreading out the map. “It says that the treasure is passed many traps and such, here.” She jabs a point on the wrinkled map. TARDISrider leans closer. “Where is here? And what if The Teller somehow gets out of the hole?”

Silvery smiles a sharp smile, one full of sharp fox teeth. “l’ll take care of that.”

The Radium clock in the corner shudders. What this treasure is, it can’t be good.

****

The CBers gather around a huge medieval style oak door, that has many worn and weathered carvings all over it. There are a pair of huge metal handles also worn down to a shining copper right above the CBers’ heads. This entryway seems to be made for a giant. Or a dragon.

“This is it.” Brookeira whispers for some reason. “The Hall of Crystals. The place where the treasure is to be found.”

“That sounds alright.” Says Shadowdancer, “Except for the part about the traps and the curse. It’s pretty vague about them. How are we going to get passed?”

“We have a plan.”

“We do?”

“Of course.” Says Brookeira. “You see, Spyro here, will go in first, and spring all the traps then we follow in, safely.”  

“But,” Objects Spyro.  “What if l die? And what are these traps going to do to me, and-”

“Nonsense!” Exclaims Shifting, “You’ll be fine.”

“But-” Brookeira gives the others a stare, and they shove Spyro into the doors and then the Hall.

“Have a good time!” Somebody shouts after him.

They wait for exactly twelve seconds, the Shadowdancer leading, carefully step into the Hall.

It’s a large room, with a arch ceiling and high windows lining each wall. A strange silvery light floods through them into the Hall. The floor is grey marble, and slippery. It is empty, except for a large chest at the way end.

Shadowdancer, forgetting everything that she had been warned about, runs up the the chest, passed where Spyro is standing paralyzed. But she halts. And then begins to dance the foxtrot around the room. The other stare.

“What are you doing?” Silvery asks.

“l can’t help it!” Says Shadowdancer, now dancing a ballroom dance. She twirls around, then out the door that just appeared. She didn’t come back.

~~~~~~~~

R.I.P. Shadowdancer. Rest in dancing.

TO BE CONTINUED………..   

Why thank you. It turns out that I could dance after all. Well time to go raid a bakery/bookstore. Look out apple fritters here I come!

Day 19

The CBers have found a small room filled with pink sparkly pillows, where they have set up camp for the night.

The Radium clock, simply to be annoying starts ringing at midnight, but then when no one gets up, it dumps a bucket of ice water over their heads.

“Mumph-mumble, omph!” exclaims Spyro, but finds out that the clock has also shoved pink sparkly pillows in his mouth for some reason. TARDISrider wakes up in a puddle of pillows. Soggy pillows. While standing up, she knocks the whole pile onto Brookeira, who is not amused and slides them across the floor into Somebody who is trying to make breakfast. Now everyone has pink sparkles in their oatmeal.

“Yuck,” grimaces Silvery.  “We’re going on a treasure hunt and all you have is oatmeal?”

“l’m not a chef,” Somebody grumbles, slopping the oatmeal into bowls and serving it up. “And we couldn’t anything else.”

“Well l’d rather eat a radioactive clock!”

“Be my guest.” Somebody growls over lukewarm and lumpy oatmeal.

Spyro happily gobbles his, he’ll eat anything. Oddly, Shifting is nowhere to be found. Or maybe she’s just hiding in all those pillows.

After breakfast, the adventurers gloomily prepare to set off. They pack their bags, which have been stuffed with pillows overnight, and fling open the door and march out.

Everything is the same as they left it. Brookeira examines the map and turns it around and peers at it some more.

“It says here that once all the traps are sprung,” here Spyro glares at her, “we are to follow the yellow brick road to Wonderland and then everything will be good and jolly.”

She glances at Somebody. “Is this some sort of code?”

TARDISrider comes over to look at it. “It’s in shorthand. Norwegian shorthand, no wonder why you couldn’t understand it.” She takes the map, and proceeds to read it.

“Follow the blue concert path to Neverland and the nothing will be real.”

Shifting grabs it from TARDISrider’s hands. “Norwegian shorthand? Nonsense! Can’t you tell time speak when you see it?”

The other stare at her blankly. “Time speak?”
“The language of clocks.”

The Radium clock hiding among the pink sparkly pillows in one bag in suddenly very interested.

“Ah!” Says TARDISrider. “Timey whimey stuff. l think it says to go-”

There is a rattling, grinding sound as the wall splits into a huge jagged crack that spills darkness and dust everywhere. “-There.” She shudders. “This doesn’t seem like such a good idea after all-”

“Nonsense!” says Brookeira. “Why don’t you go first?”

“l-l-l, well, really don’t want to-”

“That’s a great idea!” exclaims Somebody, sounding a little too excited. “You should go!” Shifting, Silvery and Spyro all nod. “Definitely! Absolutely!”

Lemony Snicket meows his approval.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Spyro promises.

“W-w-well okay…..”Says TARDISrider, glancing at the crack. “But it feels evil, almost like we shouldn’t go-”

Someone, no one remembers quite who, darts forward and gives TARDISrider a shove. She gives a yell, and then….Silence. No one moves.

“She’ll come back,” says Silvery, “And tell us about what’s there, right?”

They glance at each other. No one says a word.

“Oh, no!” exclaims Shifting, “TARDISrider had the map with her! We can’t go treasure hunting without it!”

“We’ll have to leave,” says Somebody sadly. They pick up their bags and head over to the huge oak door.

But the crack leaking darkness and dust is still there, and in it, TARDISrider.

****

The Teller sulks at the bottom of the hole. “They probably went treasure hunting without me. And look here.” She addresses the Radium clock on the wall.

“27,0984 of The Ultimate Guide to Adventuring: Never leave your manager and possible protector against very dangerous things at the bottom of a hole while you go off hunting for treasure. Serves them right if a few died here and there. l’m going to fire the murder. They’re not doing the right thing. Kick them off the hotel. l need these people alive.”

But a shadowy figure lurking around hears this. And they are not happy, not at all. But they have a plan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

R.I.P. TARDISrider. Or maybe not. Killed by the crack in your wall. Or maybe not. 

l am so sorry that this is late.

And the Italics aren't working for some reason.

Day 20

Drip….Drop...Drip….Drop…

The wax of the candle slowly trickles down and forms a puddle of the old oak desk, as the night wears on, getting shorter and shorter. It illuminates The Teller, frantically scribbling a letter, then crumbling it into a ball and starting over again. The whole night long.  The Radium clock flinches in irritation of the endless  scratching of The Teller’s quill.

Grey dawn creeps one hidden window that no one can see, but the clock senses it and goes off the wake the CBers. The Teller finely writes something that isn’t half bad, then knocking the Unlimited Adventures Guide off the desk, runs off.

And in a few moments later, comes back dragging one of the cowboys (Probably Morris) to help fix the sound system.

“It doesn’t work like rocket boosters,” The Teller explains.

“Well of course it doesn’t.” Morris yawns. “Someone stole all the very fake instant coffee.”

“How nice,” mutters The Teller. “And where is that clock? It’s supposed to wake everyone up.”

The clock appears, frowns, and disappears. It’s having a hard time waking these CBers up. Almost like someone drugged them with sleeping medicine. It’s dumped water on them, set part of a room afire, rang for ten minutes straight, and they’re still abed.

Well there’s just one more thing, just one more to get them all up.

Donuts. The last hope of empires. It better work.

“Do everything in your power to wake them up,” The Teller had instructed. “It’s important. Deadly important.”

In a flash of light, the clock teleports over to the kitchen, and balances the donuts on itself like a platter.

It hovers right above Spyro’s nose.

Wake up. Just please wake up.

He twitches, then shakes awake……

Yes!

And then he roars, incinerating all the donuts.

No...No….Not happening. Can’t be happening. The donuts are dust, just dust. Hope in dust. What will The Teller think? l’ve failed, failed…….

Spyro moans, then turns over and falls onto Brookeira and rolling onto Silvery.

“Geroffofme!”

“What was that-”

The clock now cheerily rings. All is not lost!

****

After the clock rings everyone into the main room, the CBers half-asleep and stumbling all over the place, it smugly resorts to an overlooking wall, giving a pleased little ring-ding now and again.

“Ahem,” says The Teller, solemnl. “l have brought you here for a matter of great importance. Something that could change your lives forever.”

Shifting yawns, ruining the moment. No one yawns when something is serious.    

“This.” The Teller pauses for effect. “Is a history-changing moment.”   

“Yeah right,” mutters Somebody.    

The lights dim, and suddenly the CBers feel like there are hundreds of other, shadowy people with them. But there is just the murderer, who has been there all along. They stealthily pick up one of the crumpled pieces of paper and read it with horror. The Teller is speaking, but all they can hear is her discarded words, echoing in their head.

How dare she! After all they had been through, and now this! They finger a long, thin knife hidden in their clothes and glance at The Teller.

Traitor. Death is too good for you. But life is as well.

And then they draw it out, and lean back, then throw it, aimed at The Teller’s heart.

The Radium clock, on the overlooking wall watches as in a split second the gleaming silvery knife spins through the air, making a whistling sound as it halves through each air atom, seeming to stop an hair’s breath from The Teller, and in that instant, in desperation, the clock tries to teleport between the knife and The Teller to stop it, but it is too late and the knife sinks its wicked blade into The Teller.

Then time, for all eternity, seems to halt, freezing the image of the shocked faces of the CBers, some lunging forward, of The Teller falling backwards, the black obsetine handle of the knife lodged in her, of a clock in a crackle of energy rushing forwards, of the murderer slinking back into the shadows, and Morris the cowboy looking not sad or shocked, but strangely relieved,  as if he was glad that this all happened.                 

Then time resumes. The Teller collapses onto the ground, a shadowy form of blood starts to form into wispy puddles, like eerie black mist. The clock halts a millimeter from the stone and whirls back.

No, no, no…...This can’t be happening.

The murderer slips away quietly.  

“W-what can we do for you?” one of the CBers asks.

“Nothing.”

“What? B-but you’re going to die. Where’s a doctor?”
“Nowhere.” The Teller fishes around in a cloak pocket and draws a piece of paper out.

The last will and testament of The Teller of Tales.

“Leave. l will die alone. You will survive.” She fixes them with a glare, then lies back down on the ground, gasping for breath.

“C’mon.” One of the CBers whispers. “Let’s go.”

But The Teller whispers something more. “l am not infallible, but muffins, muffins, are.”

****

The world suddenly gets a lot greyer. And colder. They open The Teller’s will and read it.

The last will and testament of The Teller of Tales.

1. Don’t give me a funeral. They’re boring. Besides, l’m probably going to disappear in a cloud of black smoke.  (Which they soon found out was true.)

2. The murderer is on the loose. It is one of you, find them and avenge me.

3. Don’t die. Just don’t die, okay? l’m dead already, don’t follow me.

A single tears falls onto the paper, blurring the rest of the ink.

“No...No…..”

****

The Radium clock watches, in horror and sorrow and strange fascination as the black cloud of smoke that was once known as The Teller of Tales vanished into wispy bits.  And only when the last bit is gone, and a silvery knife clatters to the ground, does the clock allow itself to feel the pain of living in a world without The Teller. And then it glances at the stone wall, then at the knife, and makes a decision.

It teleports, ever faster towards the stone wall. And this time it doesn't stop.There is a shattering of glass, then silence. Silence that could kill. For the clock couldn’t imagine life without The Teller. But it could imagine death with The Teller.

The murderer, when they go to fetch their knife, finds a pile of glowing, broken glass that once might be called a Radium Teleporting Clock.

But not anymore.

My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf so it stood ninety years on the floor.

Tick-tock, tick-tock

But it stopp’d short-never to go again-when the old man died.

****

There is silence. Grey silence. The silence of death. Tears can’t fill it. Regretful words can’t fill it, words are useless now. In one of the rooms is a pile of glass, in another a dragon, a ghost, a fox, a girl,a shadowy figure.

What matters, anyways?

~~~~~~~

R.I.P. The Teller of Tales.

Hey wait, that’s me.