Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple - Forum - Letters to Heaven

A Most Gnarly Situation

Peter Aronson — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:27:48 -0800

The letter is written in blunt pencil on a slip of Surfer's Inn stationary.

Hey Pilgrim Dudes!

We have a most gnarly situation here at Mussel Beach. Me and some of my friends were surfin' after a storm (really insane clouds!) when Brad and Thom found this really freaky statue floating around -- it was some kind of a fish-squid-ape-dragon-guy thingy, about ten feet tall and made of black rock. Anyway, Brad used his big jeep to haul it down to the beach, and set it up back at our shack. Most of the crew thought it looked real bitchin there.

Anyway, I just thought it was an awesome piece of, you know, decoration, but some of the dudes and dudettes started rubbing it for luck on their way to the surf trials. And you know what's really outrageous? Those guys started beating everyone else out in the trials.

Well, it wasn't long before, like, everyone was rubbing the statue for luck, which made things kind of even out, which I thought was cool. I mean, a dude should rely on his moves, not on help from some weirdo statue. Then someone got a real bummer of an idea -- cutting the heads off of live chickens and tossing the body at the statue's feet (or whatever it had).

Well, pretty soon those dudes who were willing to pull such groady trick were taking all the prizes. And pretty much all of the dudes here at Mussel Beach are, kind of, you know, competitive. So, aside from me and a few righteous dudes who maintained that this behavior was mighty offensive in the eyes of the Great Kahuna, every serious dude or dudette was doing in chickens.

Now, the situation is gnarly enough, but some of the most competitive dudes are looking at the beach bunnies and gremlins sort of sidewise and considering like, and I'm afraid someone's going to go a bit too far soon. And since no one is listening to me any more, I hope you most excellent guys could send someone to stop things before they go too far.

Dave

Ancient Rite of Passage

carrotsnmysox — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:55:19 -0800

The letter is written in paint on soft cured skin. It's all in beautiful detailed pictograms. You don't know what it says, but luckily one of the temple elders can translate for you.

Ancient Rite of Passage
(Knot+Heart+Lotus)

To the Spirits of the Great Temple,

I am Nodding Squirrel a boy in the village of Golden Winds. At the age of 13 I must now pass into adulthood as my father and his father and the many fathers before him have done. When I pass, I will gain a new name, the name of a brave man, as well as great honor and the love of the chief's daughter, Winking Lilly. Across from the lake of Uktena Tears and over the Moonbridge there is the forest of Long and Haunted Paths. In this village many moons ago in the time of the great chief Howling Dog my people encountered the spirit Empty Belly the wolf. Empty belly tried to trick the people into his den to devour them, but the clever chief lead them on the straight and true path that gave us our beautiful fields of Golden Winds.

Since the great triumph against the tricky Empty Belly, the angry wolf spirit has wondered the woods looking for a descendant to devour in revenge. When boys of the Golden Wind become 13, we are meant to travel to Empty Belly and prove our worthiness by surviving 4 days in the wild with him.

I am frightened. I worry that I may not be able to out fox the wolf, but if I do not go I will not be a man! I cannot avoid the fate, for fear of ridicule and forever the status of a child! Worst than that, I cannot marry the beautiful Winking Lilly until I have become an adult, and surely she will move on to another, braver man! Imagine, Nodding Squirrel, a 30 year old boy watching his love married to another! No, surely I must go.

Can the brave Spirits of the Great Temple help me to find the courage and wit to avoid either horrible fate? I will place this at the very top of the tallest hill I know, and let the wind spirits bring it to you.

Can't Milk those darn Cowephants!

carrotsnmysox — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:45:59 -0800

The letter is written in fairly clean handwriting on a piece of paper that's obviously homemade, pressed with a few flower petals here and there. It's been put in a bright red envelope and tied to a blue bird's leg. The writing is in green ink. For all the letter's careful charm, there are a few big splats of what looks like mud, but doesn't smell as sweet.

Can't Milk those darn Cowephants!
(Tree + Flag)

Monks of the Temple,

I am a humble farmer. I live with my young husband, Roland, and we tend our little property with the hard hands of good decent folk. On our little planet it's hard to grow too much and villages often squabble over land, food and animals because of it. Food is scarce, and in this little village we are the only farmers.

Our village is tiny and hidden between two great mountains in a valley, so we don't get too much trouble normally, but lately the neighbours to the North been affected hard by the drought, everyone has, and they're contesting ownership of land and pinching our animals at night. Worst of all is the cowephant, which are mighty valuable around here. They're huge beasts that fly way up in the mountain mists, they smell bad but they're cute things and they give a whole heapin' load of milk, enough to get our tiny village through a rough drought.

I've been pulling a double shift watching the Cowephants to keep the greedy buggers away, but I'm afraid our little baby airwhale isn't up to all nighters. Silver's been grounded with fin rot, and he's the only airwhale we've got broke in around here. I'm sure Silver'll get better, but while he's sick I can't fly up to watch the herd.

Now, if I can't watch the herd that means a couple things. First of all the folk here in town are running down their rations and no milk means a lot of skinny folk. Plus, sooner or later a thief is going to nab a couple head, if not the whole lot. If we lose those varmints, we'll be flat broke and hungry. To top it off, my favorite of the bunch, ol' Bess is due to calf soon and that'd be a cryin' shame to lose that babe- and the money we'd get from selling such a fine animal.

Already I'm sure those poor Cowephants are aching to be milked. Ain't there any way you monks could lend a hand?

Thank You Kindly,
Mary

Planning an Invasion

cappadocius — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:13:34 -0800

This letter is written in luminescent ink, in a flowing hand, on a silvery, metallic sheet.

Greetings, Puny Human-Things! I AM MORTHANK THE CONQUEROR, Chief Overmaster of Chenluk and Brood-Lord to the Granlok Horde!

Our world is an old world, human-thing. Its resources have long been used up, and our people grow decadent and cruel. Our technology is mighty, but fewer and fewer larvae seek to learn the proper maintenance. The atmosphere generators that keep our tenuous atmosphere from escaping into the heavens to sustain some younger, less worthy race are slowly wearing down and even our canals, bringing precious liquid water to us from the poles, are being seized by the savage White Monkeys. Not a few of our Torturer-Savants believe our world to be dying.

However, there is a world nearby to ours. It is green and lush with water and life and its monkeys do not have venomous stingers on their myriads of tails. My advisors and toadies have suggested that we make war and conquer this green world for the greater glory of Chenluk. We have long observed this world with intellects cold and vast and unsympathetic, we know that our mighty tripods and death rays can make short work of the primitives on this world. However, the Torturer-Savants bring up the valid point that it is possible that a world so fecund with life may have horrible diseases that our mighty immune systems would not be able to cope with. WE WILL NOT BE CONQUERED BY A VIRUS!

I command you in the name of our mighty Atomic Murder-Machines to go to this world, and bring back a sample of all known diseases of that tiny world, in airtight containers so that we may study these diseases and develop immunities before we save the lives our of ancient and glorious race and its civilization by wiping out the verminous natives of the Green World. I shall place this primitive messaging system on the person of the next person to fight the Garthok, so that when he dies, his animus may carry this message to heaven.

Yours in Conquest,

MORTHANK THE CONQUEROR

THERE ARE GIANT BUGS IN OUR STEAM COMPUTER

Peter Aronson — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:45:23 -0700

The letter is typed (and punched) on a series of oak tag punch cards.

MONKS!

STEAM IS OUR FUTURE - ALWAYS HAS BEEN, ALWAYS WILL BE!

HERE ON OUR WORLD WE HAVE BEEN ENGAGED FOR DECADES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN ENORMOUS STEAM-POWERED MECHANICAL COMPUTER (THE STEAMIAC) TO CALCULATE THE EXACT MOTIONS OF THE LITTLE WORLDS IN ORDER TO IMPROVE NAVIGATION AND TRADE.

THE STEAMIAC IS ENORMOUS, COVERING ONE AND A HALF COUNTIES TO A HEIGHT OF A 100 METERS AND BURROWING INTO THE DEPTHS BY AN EQUAL AMOUNT. OVER THE YEARS, FED BY THE READY AVAILABILITY OF HEAT AND WATER, IT HAS DEVELOPED ITS OWN ECOSYSTEM. MANY UNIQUE SPECIES OF MOLDS, FUNGI, PLANTS AND ANIMALS LIVE WITHIN ITS CORRIDORS. INSECTS HAVE DONE PARTICULARLY WELL IN THIS ENVIRONMENT, OFTEN GROWING TO ENORMOUS SIZE. THIS SIZE UNFORTUNATELY MEANS THAT WHEN THESE GIANT INSECTS GET CAUGHT IN THE STEAMIAC'S GEARS, IT BRINGS THE MACHINE TO A CRASHING HALT. OUR PROGRAMMERS ARE MOST UPSET, AND GRACE BROOKS, OUR CHIEF OF PROGRAMMING, IS ON THE VERGE OF RESIGNING.

WE HAVE TRIED CONVENTIONAL INSECTICIDES, BUT THE INSECTS DEVELOPED IMMUNITIES RATHER FASTER THAN OUR MAINTENANCE CREWS DID. WE HAVE TRIED HUNTING THEM WITH GUNS AND DOGS, BUT SOME OF THE SPECIES HAVE TURNED OUT TO BE VERY DANGEROUS, AND THE CHIEF OF MAINTENANCE REFUSES TO SEND ANY FURTHER CREWS OUT FOR THIS PURPOSE. THUS, MONKS, WE HAVE TURNED TO YOU. CAN YOUR PILGRIMS HELP US? OUR MOST LAUDABLE PROJECT IS IN REAL DANGER OF FAILING!

THIS MESSAGE WILL BE PLACED IN A WATERPROOF WAXED ENVELOPE AND DROPPED IN THE BIT-BUCKET FOR TRANSMISSION TO YOUR TEMPLE.

YOURS,

ALFRED HOPPER,
CHIEF OF PROJECT.

Dragon Child

carrotsnmysox — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:08:06 -0800

The letter is written on what looks like a bit of trash paper with rough charcoal from the end of a burnt stick. The letters are big, hardly legible and some are backwards and every other word is spelled wrong. It is rolled up and tied with a bit of dirty twine. On the back there appears to be an old shopping list.

Dragon Child

(Knot + Tree)

DER MONKS,

My nAMe is UrkgraHH and i ned HelP. My Famly is BIG and im smal. My broFArs and sisFArs fhly and plAy and Blo BIG Fires at the pepul in the toWn bellow. it look so mUch Fun but i donnt no how too fhly and my bref donnt Have fires in it no mater hoW hard i blo. i donnt evin have Wings!! the BiG kids laf at me and say "she stupid, stupid UrKgrAHH cannt Fhly none!"

Moma says im pepul Folk and pepul Folk don'nt no how two fhly and blo Fires like dragon Folk do. Moma says im ~~adahpid~~ ~~adapted~~ adopted so im nOt guna lern Fhlying. But i ax MurrSSShd my bigist broFar and he says pepul can too Fhly!! he says monks Fhly and that thay go ALL thru the SKy and ~~myb~~ maybee thay donn't blo no Fires but they do ofher stuF too thats juSt as ~~god~~ good!

Can yu Fhly? Can yu help me lern to do it so ofher dragons don make jokes? i want too kil towN pepul and be biG like them!

(signed) URKGRAHH

Remove My Sin

cappadocius — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:32:16 -0800

This letter is written on cheap typing paper, and was obviously written on an old-fashioned manual typewriter. The paper is stained by several blotches of water - tears, perhaps? It is in a brown envelope with a return address and seven stamps.

Dear Temple People,

Hello. How are you? My name is Lance Wilkinson, and I am 13 years old. I have a problem. I cant go to anyone else with it because it is such a horrible sin. My teacher (who is letting me borrow her typerwriter to write this letter) said that ancient people used to go to you to solve their biggest problems, and even Heartspeaker Chanson is always going on aboutthe wisdom of the ancients.,

This last summer a boy ~~came into~~ moved to our town. There was a story on the news about it because his family was the first of his race to move to Saultsburg after the government forced us to integrate. A lot of people were upset about it. Mauybe you saw it on the news? Anyway my daddy didn't raise me to be no bigot so I tried to make friends with him even though Charlie Stapp said he would give me one of his animal diseases that they all carry. I don't believe that, Charlie is no better than his dad my mom says. And the new boy whose name is Solomon was really cool and smart and funny and he was better at telling jokes than anyone I know. We got to be friends and even thogugh my old friends grumbled he got integrated real good in the neighborhood.

But then school started and we had to take showers after ~~jim~~ gym class with all the other boys. And I started having horrible sinful dreams about Solomon. I asked Heartsmith Jenn if you could be damned for dreams in Testimony and he said yes! So I started to do extra penance every day and when people asked me about it I just told them I was wanted to be extra pure for Mannas. But then last week in the showers I accidently looked at Sol in the showers and just looked and looked because his body is so perfect like one of them naked statues in the history books and Sol must of seen me because he smiled at me and I felt that weird sinfulness downt here and I lost my crap I guess because I punched Sol and I called him a horrible slur word I once heard mister Stapp use and then I ran out and pulled on my jeans and ran home.

Well the Principal called about that and my dad and mom raised something fierce abouut how they raised me better than that and why I would do such an waful thing and I could not tell them because sin is sin and even the parent may not spare the child the fires of hell. Now I am grounded and my dad thinks I am on drugs ( I AM NOT!) and Solomon won't talk to me and I think I am going to throw myself into the Pyre of Absolution when the Inquisitors come for the Mannas ceremony next week. If you can please cast out whatever awful demon is making me evil and if you can';t do that please protect Sol after I have burned up and gone to hell because I think that Charluie has it in for Solomon even if he is all smiles when we play baseball together.

Yours Truly,

Lance Wilkinson

M/S/SG (Sun God) looking for BIM (beautiful Innocent Maiden)

carrotsnmysox — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 14:11:31 -0800

The letter is written in blood and is sticky to the touch. It has been deposited in a heart (a human heart?) which looks like it was then set on fire. Tied with a string to the aorta is a blue feather that looks to be more than six feet long. The handwriting seems abnormally elegant.

M/S/SG (Male/Single/Sun God) looking for BIM (Beautiful Innocent Maiden)
(Lotus+Knot)

Great Saints of the Sky,

We call to you as you are denizens of the Sun God and lord of all Tonaltzintli. We are the Xtuqoiti and are loyal followers of Tonaltzintli, as I am sure He sees from His seat in the sky. We Xtuqoiti live upon the great pyramid land, where each step up grows fuller and lusher with the most fantastic plants in all of the universe. Our waterfall are pure and dazzling, and often they run red with the blood of our enemies, shining our glorious victories!

As loyal followers of Tonaltzintli we sacrifice each month a young, beautiful, innocent maiden to His almighty glory as pleases Him and so that He may use her strong blood to fuel His mighty light. We send these maidens out upon a feather from the colossal coyolxauteotl bird into the sky with a dagger that she may fly to Tonaltzintli and pierce her heart for His pleasure. All has been well, and Tonaltzintli has lead us to prosper and conquer!

But, alas, we have run out of young, beautiful, innocent maidens! One month we sacrificed a maiden beautiful and innocent, but not young. The month after, a maiden who was young, but neither beautiful nor innocent. Last month we sacrificed my grizzled old mother who looked like a boar's filthy back end and was just as sweet. Because of the lack of young, beautiful, innocent maidens our luck has been terrible. Tonaltzintli hasn't been watching over us. We lose battles, our children get sick and food is scarce. What will we sacrifice this month? We may have to start sacrificing the children, or men, or animals, or feathered hats!

Please, as Tonaltzintli's underlings, Saints of the Sky, surely you can help us. We MUST gain favor back with Tonaltzintli before our glorious society crumbles!

Sincerely,
Tlacatl the Mighty Head Priest of Tonaltzintli.

Watchers of the Immortal Storm

Peter Aronson — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 21:20:24 -0800

The letter is written in a slightly messy hand in pencil on the back of an old sky map. The map indicates a set of worlds very distant from the Floating Temple.

Hey Monks,

I'm writing to you because the supposed "grownups" are all too proud to ask for help, but since I'm only an apprentice I can ignore all the garbage. Anyway, I'm Melanie Tay Vodoss and I'm an apprentice Storm Watcher of the Stormwatch Fleet. And we really need your help.

In case you don't know, the Stormwatch Fleet is this large collection of skyships that follow the Immortal Storm around, warning the worlds in its path so that they can prepare for the storm and limit the damage it does. As for what the Immortal Storm is, well, it's a huge, violent storm that travels the airs between the worlds, and it's much, much bigger than any world we've ever heard of.

Warning people about the Immortal Storm is the whole reason for the Stormwatch Fleet's existence, and it's also how we make our living. You see, the worlds we warn are usually at least a bit grateful, so they supply us with supplies, food and money. And that worked pretty well for a long, long time. But for the last few generations, it hasn't worked so well.

That's because the Storm's path took it into a great void where there are no worlds. No, you might think that's fine, no worlds, no danger, no problem. But there is a problem, because the Storm is almost done passing through that void, and there are plenty of worlds on the other side. Not to mention that without contact with worlds to weaken it, the storm has gotten even stronger. And the fleet's falling to pieces.

With no worlds for support, we've had to exist on sky whale and air plants and ship's gardens (and occasional monsters that come out of the Storm). But the sky ships need wood, metal and rope to keep them in repair, and all we've had for the longest time is whale bone. Needless to say, the ships are all falling apart. We've managed to keep some of them in repair by disassembling others, but you can only do that so long before things get real crowded on the rest of the ships. Anyway, our engineers have determined that our ships will have all broken down by the time the Storm reaches the next group of worlds. Which is, you know, really bad.

Anyway, the Grand Captain (that's my dad, Trevarian Tay Vodoss) and the command council have decided that we have no other choice, but to abandon the Storm and head our fleet to the nearest inhabited world.

There's a lot of problems with this idea, the first being that the nearest world is not one of the worlds threatened by the Immortal Storm, or even very close to it, so it's a useless destination from the point of view of warning anyone. The second being, that this world will have no reason to help the fleet, so we'll either have to sell our ships and settle down leaving the Storm without any guardians (my dad's plan) or we'll have to raid for what we need like sky pirates (my Uncle Jack's plan). Frankly, both of these ideas stink like month-old pickled whale meat. So I'm hoping you guys can send some pilgrims to come up with another plan that isn't entirely stupid, bad or wrong.

Thanks!

Melanie Tay Vodoss

I wonder if this letter ought to be somehow connected with Daniel's Fluttering Menace: The Butterfly Conspiracy letter, since the organizations seems sort of similar. Of course, it's a big universe.

The Peaceful Disease

carrotsnmysox — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:01:21 -0800

The letter is written on tightly wrapped scroll, the parchment bleached to a crisp white. The edges are bordered with elaborate gold and silver patterns and it is contained in a seamless glass cylinder found floating aimlessly on the tail of a balloon. In immaculate calligraphy is written “To whom it may concern.”

The Peaceful Disease
(Tree + Sword + Pen)

To Whom It May Concern,

I, Ca’trel of the Cloud, Keeper of Books, humbly request assistance for my people. We are a quiet, honest people who, through our efforts towards harmony, have lived without conflict for many ages. Only recently has a sorrow penetrated our existence.

Reminded through old stories of war and famine, we strive to preserve life and well-being amongst all those in the Cloud. The Cloud provides for us perfectly and we do not want for anything. Stones, plants and creatures waft through the Cloud with us. We make our homes in the floating white stones, constructing vast libraries dedicated to the virtues of knowledge and truths. The endless drifting orchards provide us with all the sustenance we need. We do not harm any of our fellow creatures for food nor sport, but take joy in them from the tiniest ti’li bug to the behemoth She’thel’ra himself. We have known peace with the natural world as well as we have known peace with each other.

Thus, it was a shock when the Peaceful Disease appeared. It has seized the tiny and innocent ler’ri’uqs. Ler’ri’uqs, once known for their gamboling ways, soft white pelts and silent wisdom, have become something very dreadful. When infected, the eyes turn red and froth forms across the maw. Once the ler’ri’uqs nibbled quietly the fruit of bramble vines, but under the Peaceful Disease they leap upon the people of the Cloud. Once bitten, one falls into a long, still sleep, and death surely follows.

The people of the Cloud are an innocent and gentle people. They do not react and accept their death as honorable, it being better to not harm an innocent creature than to defend one’s life. An ethical man is seen as one who does not disrupt this natural occurrence, and many even seek their fate as a desirable moral duty. The animal’s lives are sacred and treasured while ours quietly slip away. More than a third of the Cloud has perished thusly.

As Keeper of Books I have read many things. I have read of the old days when man fought man and beasts were brutally murdered and consumed. More importantly, I have read of diseases plaguing the Cloud and the destruction they inflicted. There are many ways the people of old defeated these illnesses: through violent destruction of life and something called “scientists” whom I can only guess cured disease through some lost knowledge.

I have presented the people of the Cloud with some of these ancient ideas of change, of anything but stillness, but have been vehemently ostracized. I am powerless. The people will not harm these creatures, and I am at a loss. If there is any wisdom in the hearts of those who find this letter, let them enlighten the stubborn but gentle people of the Cloud.

Signed,
Ca’trel of the Cloud, Keeper of Books

Excessive Elves

Peter Aronson — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:14:19 -0800

The letter is typed on ordinary paper with ordinary ink and signed in an ordinary hand.

Guys, you got to help us! We got elves everywhere, and I tell you, they're driving us all around the bend! And I don't mean two-foot-tall little cute Christmas elves, either, but the six-foot-tall variety, complete with wise gray eyes, pointed ears, silver hair, billowing cloaks -- the whole nine yards.

They showed up on a Monday (which kind of figures, somehow). It was a pretty ordinary Monday with too much traffic, too much work, and not enough coffee or sleep. You know, Monday. Then, they came walking out of every wood on the world at the same time. Except, you know, these guys don't exactly walk anywhere; they stride or they glide or appear silently, but Heaven forbid they should do anything so ordinary as just walk like normal people.

At first, they just stood around in little clumps, looking calm and all-knowing. Then they started frowning in disapproval at normal stuff, like cars and smokestacks and garbage cans. Then, dear god, they started to share their "wisdom" with us. Like about how we were abusing nature, and that they could "hear" the trees calling out in grief and the grass crying in pain other gruff like that. And if they just kept it to stuff like that, it'd been bad enough. But they didn't.

They started walking into people's homes, practically uninvited. Oh, they'd ask first, oh so politely, but they'd do it in a way so formal, old-fashioned and confusing that by the time you'd figured out what they'd said you'd already let them in. And once inside they'd start giving suggestions about everything, and I mean everything. They'd tell you how to rearrange your house to make it look better, they'd tell you what to feed your cat to make her happier, they'd tell you what to teach your kids "to improve their spirits" whatever that meant. And while they'd be doing this, they'd be standing there, drop-dead gorgeous or handsome, looking at you with those ancient, wise gray eyes, expecting you to do just what you said. And if you didn't, they wouldn't do anything but look sorrowful and disappointed. But you see, they're really, really good at that looking sorrowful stuff -- they could give guilt causing lessons to my Aunt Matilda, and let me tell you, until these guys came, she was world champ in guilt!

So, most people pretty much started doing whatever the elves ask to avoid those looks. And it be fair, it's a healthier life you get in return. But it ain't much fun: all that walking and singing (those elves are real big into singing), no meat, no cigars, no whiskey, no sleeping around, no football, no drag racing, and definitely no fun. It ain't a big surprise that people are pulling up stakes and moving to other worlds to get away from those pains in the rear. Why last week, my best bud Frank had to go and fix something in his hunting shack in the North Woods (not that anyone hunts "our furred brothers and sisters" any more). While he was out there, he had the bad luck to run into one of the chief elves, meditating out in the woods. Well, before Frank could get away, he had a life and a half's worth of mystical hooey transmitted directly into his skull and now, this big, tough truck mechanic wanders around town talking to flowers and birds with a really weird smile pasted on his mug. It's enough to make a man cry into his beer (except all we got to drink now is wine, which while it has a kick, is just spoiled grape juice if you ask me), and Franks wife is taking him away to another world to try to get him cured.

You might wonder why we don't grab our guns and baseball bats and chase these pointy-eared yahoos off of our world. The trouble is, if you try something like that, they just stand there looking noble and long-suffering and stuff and you end up feeling just like a puppy that just piddled on the rug. On the other hand, if things get bad enough and people get desperate enough, then maybe things will get down and dirty. That could be bad too, since these elf boys and girls all have long silvery swords and these curvy bows and I bet they know how to use them. Things would pretty likely get really ugly if things go that way.

So, if you guys could send some pilgrims and get rid of these elves before everyone moves away or things get real violent, we'd appreciate it. I'm going to throw this letter in the trash bin behind O'Malley's Bar -- that'll get it to you pronto, and those elves wouldn't look back there in a million years.

Thanks,

Bill Smith

URGENT LIFE OR DEATH

cappadocius — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:50:38 -0800

This letter is actually a postcard. On one side is a picture of a native dancer on a beach, the other side is written in very small, very girlish handwriting.

Hi Temple Monks!

This picture should be me because Mom promised me that if I got all As on my report cards we could go here for summer break. Then stupid Bill lost his job and now Mom says we have to use the money to tide us over until he got a new job. I could just die! I promised Becky and Shannon that I would bring them back authentic Island Jewlery! Help me get to Alalawaui! I will have Schnapps bury this because he is a Luck Hound and they know about this stuff!

XOXOXO

Aileen

A Pile of Notes

cappadocius — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:56:45 -0800

A thin stack of notes, on a variety of papers. They are crinkled as if stuffed into their hiding place. The notes are written in two different hands. One of the notes is on business letterhead - this is the only clue to the identity of the writers

"He came home late last night again. I don't buy his excuse."

"She started crying as soon as I walked through the door."

"He never talks to me."

"She interrupted the championship game to talk about CURTAINS"

"He left the toilet seat up. When I confronted him about it, he shrugged."

"She suggested bringing pork chops to my mother's potluck. She didn't even know what was so bad about that!"

"When I asked him what he thought about having kids, he grunted. He didn't even look away from the TV!"

"She's been awfully chatty with the mailman lately."

"He's been flirting with that slut at the supermarket."

"I feel trapped!"

"I feel trapped!"

The Haunted Go Tournament

Peter Aronson — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:58:26 -0700

The letter is written on fine, apparently handmade paper, and lettered neatly in black ink with a brush, and signed at the bottom with a pictogram in red ink. Careful examination of the paper will reveal a watermark and signs of machine manufacture.

Reverend Monks and Pilgrims,

It was, in retrospect, perhaps unwise of us to hold a Go tournament in what was reputed to be a haunted castle. But the Heron Tower was well known, inexpensive, spacious, and provided a good mounting place for the television broadcast equipment. And even the ghosts were appropriate! Supposedly the 30 greatest Go masters of Phoenix era had committed suicide here in protest of the withdrawal of the Imperial Go subsidy that had formerly supported them.

At first, matters went so well! Corporate sponsors contributed a large prize for the winner, and television rights sold for a large amount after brisk bidding. Go masters from all over our world and many nearby worlds eagerly signed up for the tournament. The first day of the tournament was blessed with a perfect spring morning. The only thing that went wrong was that somehow, fifteen extra tables were set up, and there were a few hiccups in the match assignment software.

Then the tournament started, and things went horribly different than planned. First, all the doors and windows slammed shut and locked themselves. Then, a storm blew up from nowhere, darkening the sky in moments. A cold wind flowed into tower from thin air, all the Go boards began to glow softly, and the ghosts of the dead Go masters rose from the floor and made their way to thirty different boards. And then, and only then did play begin.

That was five days ago. No one can leave, no one can enter. If a player is eliminated, then they are made to play in another tournament. The players can neither sleep nor eat -- they can only play. The support staff is similarly bound.

However, the ratings have been excellent, and several of the ghosts have negotiated sponsorship deals by cell-phone.

So, could you please send some pilgrims to free us from this endless tournament? Although, if you could do without banishing the ghosts, we'd appreciate it -- they are good for the game, and they want to keep playing.

Sincerely,

Nikkai

The Insomnia Plague – A Zombie Apocalypse

Peter Aronson — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:57:28 -0700

The letter is hand-printed in pencil on typing paper. It appears to have been copied out very carefully, though there are some signs of erasure.

Pilgrims,

It might seem strange to you that we have not written to you before, but truth to be told, here on Stramonium, The Flying Temple is considered a children's myth, on the order of the Christmas Bunny or the Easter Clause. However, we are running out of food and ammunition, and at this point, frankly, we'll try anything.

The situation is, well impossible. But I'll give you Dr. Davis Wade's (our sole surviving scientist) summery of the situation.

No one knows where the plague first originated, but it clearly had two phases. The first, wildfire phase where the plague spread by air or touch, started in Spring. Within a month, over 98% of the world's population was infected. The second phase, the zombie phase, followed immediately afterwards.

The effects of the plague are same, no matter the method of infection. First, the victim runs a brief, high fever for about a day. Then, they appear to recover, but now have completely lost the ability to sleep without the aid of powerful narcotics. Within 48 hours the victim begins to hallucinate. Within 96 hours, they begin to experience psychosis, coupled with uncontrolled telekinetic abilities (also known as "poltergeist phenomenon"). After 120 hours, 9.99% of the infected slip into the so-called zombie state.

A zombie, while technically alive, no longer possesses a normal metabolism, but rather, is sustained by their psychic abilities. A zombie has no need to eat and only needs a tiny amount of water to drink. Mentally, a zombie usually has an IQ in the 60 to 80 range. Zombies mostly wander aimlessly in a dream-like state, barely remembering anything of their previous existence. The only two things will usually rouse them from their apathetic state: a threat to their existence, or the presence of uninfected humans in the immediate vicinity. Zombies will attack any uninfected humans they encounter, and attempt to eat their brains. A zombie that consumes at least a quarter of a healthy human brain will regain their full intelligence and awareness for 24 to 48 hours before falling back into their usual daze; this is an addicting experience and a zombie who has once fed on human brains will seek them out vigorously in the future. Zombies appear to be able to sense healthy humans psychically within a range of 30 to 40 feet. The bite of a zombie almost inevitably passes on the plague, even if the subject is immune to the airborne variety of the pathogen.

The other 0.01% of the infected population becomes something other than zombies. Called "Zombie Masters", "Wizards" or "Brains", these individuals never leave the psychotic phase of the disease, but instead develop vast psychic powers and the ability to command normal zombies to do their bidding. These zombie masters have no particular desire to consume uninfected brains like their minions, but they have been known to hunt uninfected humans down to infect them in attempts to create others of their kind. Zombie masters often war upon each other. Zombie masters are almost always of above average intelligence and creativity before their infection. Zombie masters can exist without food as zombies do, but prefer to eat.

A recently made (no more than 10 days old) zombie or zombie master can sometimes be cured. The process requires giving them massive does of anti-viral drugs and narcotics (usually morphine). If the zombies can then be kept unconscious for 48 or longer hours, they will either die (the usual case) or recover from their disease. Those who do recover often have the same psychic powers as a zombie master.

That is what we know.

So this is our situation -- we are, essentially, doomed. I will place this letter in the chimney of the fortified estate we few survivors are huddled in, and if the old tales are true, it will make its way to you. I don't know if there is anything you can do to help, but at this point, you pilgrims are our only hope.

Yours,

Janus Prospero

Down to Gehenna

Peter Aronson — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:04:44 -0800

The letter is written in ink on fine, hand-cut paper in a neat hand. However, the signature at the bottom is shaky and almost illegible.

"Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone" wrote the poet, and he could have been writing of my life. And what a fine, wicked selfish life it has been! However, as I rapidly approach the first destination in the above quote, I want to make one thing utterly clear: I regret nothing. Nothing. Not for me is mewling, last minute cry for forgiveness, but rather a smug and satisfied look back at a lifetime of villainy.

You may wonder why, given that I am an unrepentant sinner, am I contacting you for help. It is very simple: despite a life dedicated to sin and debauchery, I have accumulated a monstrous store of plunder, far greater than I could spend in a full lifetime (never mind the pittance of one that remains to me), and I want you to give it away for me.

You see, I am not so foolish as to think I can take my treasure with me, so it amuses me to have it given away instead. Oh, I have considered creating a charitable foundation, like many other successful thieves and plunderers, but I am, frankly, far too lazy to bother. So, instead, I am gleefully dumping the problem into your pilgrims' laps. Give it to my many illegitimate children, or to the widows and orphans I have made, or the friends I have betrayed or the men and women I have harmed. Or pile it up in a great pile and set it on fire, or keep it for yourselves. I care not. For this is but a whim, and soon, I will be past caring.

I shall place this letter behind a loose brick in the fireplace, and it will either reach your temple or be burnt up -- it matters not to me.

Yours,

Sir Armand Beowulf Blackwell

That Darned Volcano God!

Peter Aronson — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 10:36:32 -0800

The letter is written on cheap stationary in blue ballpoint pen in a firm, sloppy hand.

Hey, Pilgrims!

I hope you guys can help us here at Houkala Temple National Park, 'cause with old Houkala acting off his nut of late, the tourists are staying away in droves, and it's getting kind of hard to make ends meet.

Now usually, Houkala ain't a bad guy -- oh, he was kind of wild when he was a kid, but hey, who wasn't? Besides, that was five hundred years ago, and aside from some long-haired history profs, nobody much remembers that stuff. But as I was saying, Houkala is normally a pretty stand up guy for an authentic Volcano God. He normally just hangs out in his big temple up in the caldera, with bunches of priests in these crazy robes and priestesses in these real skimpy silk things. And sometimes he even comes down from his throne and talks to the tourists. Normally this is great for business, 'cause who doesn't want to be able to say they shook the hand of a real volcano god?

But the thing you got to remember is, no matter how much he's like a regular guy, old Houk's still a volcano god, and he could just snap his fingers and bury three counties in ash and lava. He's done this before, too, just not for hundreds of years. So usually, the priests and priestesses usually keep a sharp eye on who they let into the divine presence, so Houkala doesn't get too annoyed. But those guys are only human, and when faced with a bunch of famous movie stars who wanted to talk to a real, live volcano god, they had a bit of trouble saying no, even though the movie guys were all drunker than skunks. (It didn't hurt the way they were waving large wads of cash around, either.)

One thing that isn't well known about Houk, is that while he loves to drink, he can't handle hard liquor worth a darn. These movie guys had Houk higher than a kite faster than you could say "cataclysmic eruption". Soon, he (Houkala) was talking about "the good old days", which weren't very good for most people if you catch my drift. And those movie guys were just egging him on! It wasn't long before Houk was going on about no one made human sacrifices to him anymore. Well, thinking it was all a big joke, those movie guys told him that he ought to go on strike until someone made a human sacrificed to him. Then they all piled into their cabs, and left.

Well, next morning Houkala had a hangover that would kill a rhino. But he still remembered that he wanted a human sacrifice. And now he's just sitting in his temple threatening to blast anyone who sets foot inside unless they bring him his sacrifice and business has gone completely down the tubes.

So, do you think you could send us some pilgrims to talk Houk out of this dumb idea? He's really not a bad guy at heart, just not to swift in the brains department if you get my drift. I'll leave this letter under a pile of rocks at Scenic Outlook #3 -- that always works.

Benny McCollum,
Owner, McCollum's Cab Service

A Load of Crap

QHudspeth — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:59:07 -0700

This letter is written on hand-made paper, with elegant handwriting, and strange ink. It was lovingly enclosed in a sacrificial bird and tossed into the maw of a ketoptera, a giant whale-bat of Phytochorosa. It was prompted by a comment on Daniel's blog (http://gobi.livejournal.com/675386.html).

DO: A LOAD OF CRAP
Most Honored Pilgrims of the Sun Temple:

I write to you as one Holy Woman to many, and I implore you for your aid.

Long and long ago my ancestors sailed the Æther between the Worlds in great cylindrical ships of wood, bone, and cloth. For many long stretches of days they traveled, cataloguing and exploring the Worlds. On one such trip the explorer ship Rocinante foundered in a storm and was lost within a great sea of plants—spheres of lacy fern-like foliage ranging in size from the smallest of spore-specks to great worldlets with woody labyrinthine interiors. It was upon one of these large planitia that Rocinante crashed and was destroyed. But many of her occupants survived to form a colony here in Phytochorosa, that sea of plant-spheres.

Many generations passed and some of the Dinae—as the people of Phytochorosa came to call themselves—left Primoplanita to colonize others of the larger planitia. They thrived and multiplied, learning to care for and sustain themselves on the flora and fauna that lived within and among the planitia. Chief among the animals of Phytochorosa are the magnificent ketoptera. Enormous cylindrically symmetric beasts like whales with diaphanous wings, they ride the Æther currents between the planitia, feeding upon plants and animals, which they sweep into their maws with delicate pteripalps. They are beautiful and awesome to behold, and we, the Ketopterites, are blessed to live among them and upon them. We care for them almost as herders of old. I say almost because we do not exploit the ketoptera. We seek only to serve and be blessed by our lords.

But the Dinae do not exalt the ketoptera as we do, and seek only to use them for their own gain. Already have we seen attempts to enslave our holy lords, and we have intervened with good success. But these sacrileges were perpetrated only by small, easily dissuaded groups. Now looms an even greater threat.

Many among the Dinae have forsaken the old ways for what they call progress. They ruthlessly exploit the natural resources of Phytochorosa, corrupting and bending the laws of nature to their will. Great hulking behemoths of metal and steam now plough through the Æther where once ships sailed gently upon the winds. This “progress” disturbs the ketoptera and their food sources. As if this were not affront enough, their “natural philosophers” covet and steal that which rightly belongs to the ketoptera and their servants.

Around a generation ago some foul philosopher discovered ketoptera guano—which floats freely within Phytochorosa, aggregating into lumpy coprolitic asteroids, and which we have long used to fashion holy relics—could be processed to release a number of hellish compounds. They now seek it relentlessly, sending expedition after expedition into the vast wilderness in search of these coproids.

We Ketopterites travel great distances with our pods, and it often takes several hundred days to traverse a migration circuit. Because of this, we have not been able to keep abreast of all the Dinae would do and several days ago our greatest fear was realized. The Dinae have discovered Connubilacuna, the vast, open space at the center of Phytochorosa, where the ketoptera gather to mate and birth their young. Here lies an enormous coproid of planetary proportions, aggregated over many tens of millions of days. And here we found Dinae defiling our most sacred of spaces, mining guano, and infesting tunnels of their own creation. They have refused to leave, citing some obscure law of the Dinea. They will not accept that their laws have no meaning here!

Please, Most Honored Ones—help us rid ourselves of this vermin.

Yours in Faith, Jeriba Toscal

Our Alphabet is Vanishing!

Peter Aronson — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:43:42 -0700

The message is written on business-quality paper using a mechanical typewriter.

Dear Monks,

Our letters are vanishing from our alphabet! Once we had 26 letters in our alphabet, but now we're down to 23 and I am much afraid that more will vanish soon.

We don't know the reason the letters are vanishing -- some think the super villain known as the "Phantom Teacher" is stealing them somehow, others believe it is because the mad scientist Doctor Sinister von Boom has flooded silverfish and bookworms with radiation, and the resulting mutant bugs are eating the letters, others claim it is because we're reading too large amounts of comic books. But whatever the cause, once a letter vanishes, it vanishes from all places at once -- books, newspapers, and even those round things someone hits when someone uses a writing machine. And no one can write them with a pen, either.

When the last letter in the alphabet vanished, it wasn't too bad. True, we had to write "place with the animals" instead of "?oo", and "blade" instead of "ra?or", but we could cope. But when the second to last letter vanished, it got a lot harder. I had to call the machine I use in the work I do each period of light a "writing machine" instead of a "t?pewriter". When the third to last letter vanished, we all got downright scared. True, that letter wasn't used much, but the preceding letter in the alphabet is "w", and if that vanished, it would make all sorts of writing far too hard! We'd have to give up reading and writing, which would be bad, bad, bad! Modern culture lives and dies through the written word.

So, if some pilgrims could be sent to help us solve this problem, that would be a great good thing! I shall make this letter into a paper airplane and throw it off the top of the Clark Kent tower -- that should get it to the temple soon.

Thanks and be quick!

Lester Savage

There's this Great Sushi Place . . .

Peter Aronson — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:14:44 -0700

The message is written in pen on the back of a paper menu for a restaurant called Awesome Sushi. The menu is pretty typical for an inexpensive sushi bar that serves cooked Japanese-style food, except it contains no pork dishes, it says that all sake must be paid for it advance, it has a hand-scrawled note saying Pilgrims of the Flying Temple eat free, and the odd little disclaimer that says: We do not serve Sea-Monster sushi or sashimi, we have never served Sea-Monster sushi or sashimi, and we absolutely never will serve Sea-Monster sushi or sashimi!"

Dear Pilgrims,

There's this great sushi place you got to try! It's called "Awesome Sushi" and Pilgrims from the Flying Temple eat free there! It's a neat little place right on the bay in Awesome Town, and has the best sushi and Japanese-style dishes in many worlds.

There are not too many tables, so its best to get there before sundown, when the ghosts come out and occupy most of the place. But don't worry, they hardly ever bother anyone (except for Mai, the hostess -- the poor girl is possessed nightly by her grandmother's ghost who just can't give up the job).

But the fish is so fresh, that they used to have pirates try to come and steal it! But since the restaurant added a few cannon on the seaward side, the pirates hardly ever raid the place more than once or twice a week. Why, they even sometimes come in through the front door, and pay like normal folks! (Of course, they do tend to get in brawls with the bikers, but you have to expect that sort of thing. Fortunately, they have enough sense to leave the zombie bikers alone. No one messes with them!)

Now you do have to be a little careful about the Sea-Monsters all around the place (sometimes even on land). There was a little misunderstanding a few years back involving sea-monster larvae and a different (now non-existent) sushi bar, and the sea-monsters are still sore about it. You particularly need to watch out for the radioactive ones with tentacles.

The other thing is, while they have cooked Japanese-style food, they don't serve pork. There were some problems with Circe Meats a few years ago, and the cooks threatened to resign en mass if pork wasn't taken off the menu. There's really no chance of getting the wrong "kind" of pork again, but they won't listen to reason on this topic.

Anyway, the food's great and Pilgrims eat free. I'll send you this note on the back of takeout menu which I'll leave tacked to the roof.

See you soon,

Ken "Awesome" Asai, proprietor

Tribes of the Endless Library

Peter Aronson — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:12:05 -0700

The letter is written in pencil on a stack of the sort of cards used in old-fashioned card catalogs.

Greetings in the name of the books!

I am Michael Ernest James Joyce Fitzgerald, Eldest Reader of the Clan of the Third Poetry Courtyard, and we eagerly beseech the aid of the Flying Temple, for our world is hard beyond standing.

Once our world was a normal world where normal folk lived their normal lives more or less in peace. Oh, we were known for our libraries and scholars, and particularly of schools of library science, but this had little effect on most people's lives.

Then hard times came, and work became hard to find, and our schools and our libraries became the only way anyone could earn a living. Soon, schools of library science and actual libraries covered most of our world. More and more books poured into our little world every day.

Then something happened. Maybe it was all the books, maybe a malicious god, but one day, everything changed. The libraries grew overnight until they covered the entire world, except for an occasional grassy quadrangle. And the librarians, too, were changed, becoming glowing beings, ten foot tall, bearing mysterious and terrible powers. And their anger became terrible: any who harmed a book, no matter how slightly, would now bring down their wrath. If they were lucky, they would only be slain by a swift bolt of lightening, if they were not, stone angels would be sent to rend them and their tribe to pieces.

Those of us who were not transformed retreated to the quadrangles, where we could farm and raise stock. But there is never enough land, and tribe wars on tribe with spear and knife (but always careful to avoid the anger of the librarians). Over long time and through terrible wars another weapon was developed: the books themselves.

Most tribes forbid the art of reading, as it encouraged the handling of books with its terrible potential for bringing disaster down on the entire tribe. However, much useful knowledge could be found in books; in particular, secrets of warfare and agriculture. So most tribes had at any time a small number of readers, painstakingly trained to handle books in relative safety. These readers would venture into the library halls for days at a time in search of useful knowledge. And one day, somewhere, a reader discovered a new power: the ability to call characters from books.

These characters would do the summoning readers' bidding to the best of their ability, and when slain, simply returned the book. Character summoning, however, puts the book (and thus the tribe) in greater danger of damage. Thus, most tribes forbid it, except in times of dire necessity. But when necessary, a tribe rich in readers can unleash fictional hordes upon their enemies.

Thus, between limited land, warfare between tribes, attacks by enemies real and fictional, and the ever present threat of the librarian's wrath, life here is very hard. We would have asked for help from the Flying Temple long ago, but when the world was transformed, the hollow prayer stones where we used to hide our letters to the temple were lost to us. However, recently, when on a search for an obscure wing of the library, I found a tiny, long-lost courtyard. Within this courtyard was a prayer stone! So I will leave this letter to be carried to your temple.

Please shield us from the wrath of the librarians!

Michael Ernest James Joyce Fitzgerald

Deliver Us From the Hands of the Authors!

Peter Aronson — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:40:12 -0700

The letter is written in oil on a piece of blue-checked gingham fabric.

Monks of the Flying Temple, you just got to save us from the authors! If you don't we'll all go mad, or something worse. The five of us have been so many different things at so many different times that we can't really remember who we were to begin with. At least our basic identities stay the same -- we're always The Girl, The Dog, The Straw Man, The Metal Man and the Lion. But the details keep changing something awful. Some days I'm a little girl, the next a grown woman, and sometimes I just want get home to my family, and sometimes I want . . . other things, things to do with my fellow cast members that seem wrong when I'm little. It's very disturbing!

But you know what's even more disturbing? We can hear all the authors muttering to themselves as they hang out there in the air between worlds, looking down on us and changing us. But we don't want to be changed! It's not right, not at all. We just want to be the people we originally were, whatever that was. So could you kindly send us some pilgrims and have them tell the authors to please leave us alone?

Thanks a bunch! I'll stick this letter inside the metal man the next time he's hollow -- that should get it to you.

Sincerely yours,

The Girl

Is it Safe to Allow Cabbages on Roller Coasters?

Peter Aronson — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:42:11 -0700

The letter is neatly typed on business-quality paper with the letterhead Popsicore Worldwide Family Theme Parks, Inc. printed on the top in gaudy purple and green circus-style letters.

Dear Monks,

I'm probably not the guy who should be writing you about this problem, but my boss, George, has locked himself in the executive bathroom with a case of gin and won't come out. Not that I blame him, except, you know? I do. Still I can understand.

Things were pretty simple here at the Popsicore Park until recently. We sold tickets and junk food, kept the rides running and park clean (a big job that, what with the rides, kids and junk food). I mean it was hard work, yeah, but not exactly mentally taxing if you know what I mean.

When the Sky Cabbages first came to our world it didn't make much of an impact here. Yeah, it was pretty weird that our world was being visited by six-foot-around talking sky cabbages, but it didn't have anything to do with the daily round of repairs, cleanup and crowds. Not even when a bunch of crazies called "The Coleslaw Front" started attacking the sky cabbages at random with bombs and machetes. But then the cabbages discovered than they loved amusement parks. So they started showing up in droves. So of course they showed up here at Popsicore Park.

That gave us with a number of problems. First, since they were six-foot high, the cabbages are tall enough for all of our rides. But they're also six-feet wide, which is a bit of an issue. We could have simply have turned them away, but the sky cabbages waved a lot of money at George (who began to develop a bit of a twitch at this point), so he signed some sort of contract with them and told me to figure something out.

Well, most of our rides are based on a standard cart design. I figured that if we replaced all the seats with a padded floor and sides and added some extra safety straps, we could accommodate one sky cabbage per cart. I told George this, and he told me to change over a quarter of the carts on each ride to carry cabbages. (At this point his twitch got noticeably worse.)

Well, we closed for three days in midweek for the changeover, and planned to reopen on this Friday with a big ad campaign about how we were now "cabbage friendly". George figured since a lot of people were curious about the sky cabbages, so we'd pull in a lot of regular people, too. And he'd probably have been right, too, if the High Slicer of the Coleslaw Front hadn't gotten on the radio somehow and broadcast a threat to send a thousand thugs with machetes to slice up the cabbages if they dared show their, ah, leaves, at our park.

Well, just as George had decided to not open the park on Friday after all, a delegation of cabbages showed up, waving the contract George had signed and told him in no uncertain terms that they weren't afraid of the Coleslaw Front, and if the park wasn't open on Friday, they'd sue.

That's when George went out and bought the gin and retreated into the bathroom, leaving me in charge. This leaves me with two big questions I was hoping you guys could help me with: first, do I open the park or not tomorrow; and second, even with the modified cart, is it safe to put a giant cabbage on a roller coaster?

Thanks for your help! I'll stick this letter in a helium balloon and let it go -- with any luck it'll float to your temple in time.

Best,

Hazel Harrington,
Chief of Maintenance
Popsicore Park

The Return of the Giants

Peter Aronson — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:53:40 -0800

The letter at first seems to be hand-lettered on parchment, but on closer examination is actually computer-printed on parchment-colored paper.

And lo! In those days great Giants walked our earth! Children of gods and mortal women, under the leadership of their chief, Azagog, they ruled our world for nine hundred and ninety nine years. But they forgot to honor the jealous gods, who smote them and hurled them down into the depths of the earth.

It has been twice a thousand years since those things came to pass, and the gods' wrath has cooled and up out of the depths the Giants of old have returned. And the returned Giants looked upon this new world and said to each other: "The people of these latter days have raised mighty cities and have mastered strange and potent arts. But still, they have forgotten us and no longer honor our memory. Let us war upon them and grind them beneath our heels like insects until they acknowledge our supremacy."

And thus they warred upon us, and the skies turned black with smoke from the burning, and the seas ran red with the blood from the slaughter. And they smote us mightily and countless thousands died. But we smote them back twice as hard, sending their survivors to hide in mountain and badlands, where they lurk to this day and from where we cannot dislodge them.

This sorely vexed our people, still grieving from our losses from the war, and they choose a new leader, one Jack Diamond, who has vowed to blast them in their hiding places with sun bombs.

So, could you perhaps send us some pilgrims to convince them to leave? Otherwise, the government will likely to strike them with sun bombs, which could harm our world as much as they harm the Giants.

I shall leave this message in my prayer book overnight so that it may speed to you.

With hope and fear,

Rev. Thomas Grimm

We Are All Dreaming About Worms

Peter Aronson — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:36:23 -0800

The letter is handwritten on machine-made stationary, with multi-segmented, three-eyed worms doodled all over the margins in blue ballpoint pen.

Monks of the Temple,

Everybody on our world seems to be dreaming about worms lately; blue-glowing eight-foot-long worms with three eyes, many segments and round mouths full of teeth (I know this because they call in to my radio show and tell me). And stranger still, anyone we talk to about these worms seems to start dreaming about them too. Max Von Winkle, the famous psychologist, came to our world to study this phenomenon. At first he used terms like "communicable psychosis" and "mass hysteria", but then he started seeing the worms, too. Now he just spends all his time in the university library, reading all sorts of obscure books and won't talk to anyone.

Dreaming about worms isn't too bad by itself (although they are a bit alarming in appearance), but they also seem to be taking over our arts. Painters can't help adding worms to all of their painters, singers sing about worms, and even small children add worms to their finger paintings. And people who see the paintings or listen to the music start dreaming about the worms, too.

This bothers our neighbors, and so nobody comes and visits our world anymore, and we're not welcome anymore on any of our neighbor's worlds. Needless to say, this has hurt our tourism industry a great deal. But it's getting even stranger -- a few folks have started predicting that the worms are going to visit our world in person. And at least some of these people are worried -- they think the worms might be hungry.

I'm going to place this message in my dryer -- I figure if it makes socks disappear, it shouldn't have any problems with a letter.

Best regards,

Eddie Eddison
Host, World Talk
WRMM Radio

Someone Is Stealing Our Rainbows!

Peter Aronson — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:57:12 -0800

Dear Monks.

Not everyone on our world cares, but someone has been stealing our rainbows! After a storm, you can see them up in the sky in a cannon-armed sky-ship with black sails. They float up to the rainbow, and then stick their infernal device over the side of their ship, and actually vacuum the rainbow from the sky! Then they sail off into the sky until the next storm.

You may wonder why I care -- after all, rainbows are pretty, but hardly important, right? Wrong! Rainbows, I am convinced, our essential to our mental and spiritual health. Since this thievery began two years ago, there has been a subtle but noticeable decline in the happiness of our people. I'm a mathematician, as is my daughter Yolanda, and together we've been tracked many things: how many hours a day children play in the mud, how many times in a week adults spontaneously burst into song, the average time it takes young people fall in love again after a disappointment, and many other similar measures. And they've all shown distinct downward trends since the rainbow thefts began.

Now, who is behind this awful business, I do not know: perhaps mad scientists, perhaps the priests of Jurgen (who do seem to want to outlaw fun in our lifetime), perhaps it is the moon trolls of legend. But I can tell you where you may find them! We have watched countless of their raids using our trusty telescope, and it is clear that they always fly away to the backside of our world's tiny moon. Alas, we are not a sky-travelling people, or I would travel to the moon myself and give them a piece of my mind!

I will send this letter to the temple by repeatedly folding it until it disappears. Please send us some pilgrims to straighten this matter out!

Sincerely,

Margret St.Ivenstoll

Does Anyone Know How to Steer a Giant Turtle?

Peter Aronson — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:03:52 -0800

The letter is painted with a small brush in red paint on the back of a large, colorful poster for The Circus of Seventeen Worlds.

Hey folks, did you ever want to visit the circus!? Well, here's your chance! The All Amazing Circus of Seventeen Worlds and a Hundred Wonders has just issued a personal invitation to each and any pilgrim from The Flying Temple who wants to attend! Assuming you can find us, that is.

Our circus has from time out of mind (well, for over fifty years, anyway) inhabited a small town built on the back of a giant, flying turtle named Bertha (the turtle, that is). Bertha has always flown in a fixed pattern among seventeen little worlds, stopping a week or so at a time at each. When she stopped, we'd put on a circus. This had been going on since the first Ringmaster found Bertha and made an agreement with her.

Each Ringmaster in turn renewed the agreement with Bertha, and our way of life continued uninterrupted. Oh, occasionally someone would leave the circus, or someone would join, but for the most part we were born in the circus, grew up in the circus, and died in the circus. And we wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

However, our last Ringmaster, George Zinger, died before he could pass on the secret of how to talk to Bertha. Worse, he died from Voog Fever, and as typical for the disease, he died raving and ranting. However, Bertha must have understood something he said in his final delirium, because instead of continuing on to the next world (Lesser Flemming), she turned into the great deeps and flew in a new direction. And this new direction doesn't seem to have any worlds!

Because Bertha did all the serious flying, we don't have much in the way of ships -- just a few sky-skiffs for the advance men, and some very slow heavy-lifting balloons for loading and unloading. So we're kind of stuck. And, while we have gardens, we don't grow enough to feed both us and the animals, so that's really not good. So, could you maybe send us someone who can talk to giant flying turtles?

Thanks! I'll roll this letter up and hide it under a seat in the Big Top -- that usually does it.

The Amazing Moho the Clown

We Need a New King

Peter Aronson — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:16:17 -0800

The letter is typed on expensive bond paper decorated with what appear to be masked wrestlers in the margins.

Hey Monks!

Have we got a deal for you! How would one of your pilgrims like to be a King!? That's right, one of your pilgrims could be King of Sram -- all they have to do is show up and go through some formalities.

To give you a little background, Sram is broken up into the Greens (who live in the forest and are into nature), the Reds (who live on the plains and are into warfare) and the Blues (who live in the ocean and are into fish). Well, the Greens don't trust Reds, who don't like the Blues who look down on the Greens. As you can imagine, this makes it hard to find a king everyone will agree on.

The ancients tried a bunch of stuff to solve the problem: rotating kingships (didn't work because people didn't want to hand the kingdom over to someone else's kids), kings marrying outside of their color (didn't work because that doesn't produce kids, and then you had to go through the whole thing again), and even choosing a king via ultimate combat cage matches (sort of worked, but most of the kings weren't all that smart). Eventually, the ancients came up with the idea of importing a king. So they found a whole tribe of people on some other world, and invited them to move to Sram, and their king would be our king.

This worked pretty good for a long while, but I guess there weren't enough people in the tribe, because they eventually died out. In fact, the last one died recently, leaving us with no king. Well, the three Lords of the Colors got together argued over the new king, but couldn't agree on a candidate. So they asked the Sacred Sportswriters, who suggested we get a Pilgrim from The Flying Temple to be King -- that way we could have an inexhaustible supply! And we could even combine this with traditional selection methods.

So, if you could please send us a batch of pilgrims? And don't forget them to have them bring their wrestling outfits, OK?

Sincerely,

George James Jones

Large Birds of Prey Will Carry Us Away

Peter Aronson — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:37:37 -0800

The letter written in pencil on the back of complicated military form having something to do with travel.

Dear Pilgrims,

Sorry to bother you, but I could do with a spot of rescuing. But only the right type of rescuing -- I'm sorry to say that the wrong sort of rescuing could be worse than not being rescued at all.

It all started when me and my mates were all drafted for the big war with Eastasia. The business was none of our idea, but no one asked us. So anyway, they run us through basic training and in no time we're standing on sky docks, in a bleeding gale, every man-jack of us carrying fifty pounds of equipment and an unloaded gun ('cause they didn't trust us not to shoot the bloody officers). There we are, standing in the rain, hungry, tired and soaked to the skin, with the cavalry behind us making sure we don't desert like sensible fellows, waiting for the gale to die down so we can board the skyships, when some lets out a shout and suddenly there these giant birds swooping down from the sky.

Well, we sensibly enough tried to run, but we'd been packed together so tight that most of us had nowhere to go. Before I knew what had happened, I was grabbed by the claws of the biggest damn eagle I'd ever seem in my life. The eagle screamed louder than a fire siren, and then leapt into the air, beating its wings like anything. At which point, like any reasonable fellow, I passed out.

When I came to, I was in the biggest bird's nest you ever did see with five other guys from my unit. Several them were still out cold, but a couple of them were awake and looking over the edge of the nest. I joined them and looked down. We were in the branches of the biggest tree you (or anyone) had ever seen, and it was a long, long way down to the ground. If there was any ground.

We discussed the situation, and agreed we had been the victims of an Eastasian secret weapon. We also figured our chances of being rescued were pretty slim, because face it, the army didn't give a fig for about what happened to us.

Soon, the eagle came back, or rather, two eagles. And they were holding in their mouths something that squirmed kind of oddly. When they landed we could see that they held was worms. Live worms, longer than a man was tall and thicker than a strong man's arm. Which they proceeded to drop at our feet. Then the eagles moved back a bit and eyed us expectantly.

One of the other men -- a fellow named Benson -- broke into laugher. "They must think we're chicks," he said, "they're feeding us!"
At which point, one of the eagles made a very loud cheeping sound, and pushed the (still squirming) worm toward us with its (her?) beak. Well, there was nothing else I could do, so I killed it with my trench knife and began to slice it up.

The other fellows stared at me in surprised horror. "You ain't plannin' on eatin' that, are you?" A fellow named Michaels said, "Not raw?"

I shook me head. "No, not raw," I said, "I got stuff to cook with in my back, and I aim to fry this stuff up." And so I did. And you know, it was actually kind of tasty -- sort of a bit like chicken.

Life hasn't been half bad since then. We lounge around, talk, play cards and sleep, and the birds feed us regularly. We all agree that it’s a lot better life than being in the army. The only thing is, is that we're afraid that at some point the birds are going to decide to teach us all how to fly, and we suspect that might not go so well.

So, if you could send us some pilgrims to rescue us, that'd be really nice. However, I don't think we want to go back to Oceania -- they'd likely only put us in the army again, and none of us want that!

Best regards,

Nikolas Smith,

PS: We'll make this message into a paper glider and throw it off the side of the nest. That ought to get it to you nicely.

This is based on the Rudyard Kipling poem, "Birds of Prey" March, who's second verse goes:

Cheer! An' we'll never march to victory.
Cheer! An' we'll never live to 'ear the cannon roar!
The Large Birds o' Prey
They will carry us away,
An' you'll never see your soldiers any more!

Don't Drink the "Light"

Peter Aronson — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:40:49 -0800

The letter is written on a pile of stained cocktail napkins in blue ballpoint pen.

Hey Pilgrims! We could use a bit of a hand here. The Floating Admiral, is, well, floating away, and we're almost out of stout.

It started with the new shipment of "Light" ale, "Light" beer and "Light" whiskey that arrived yesterday. Needless to say, none of us regulars wanted to have anything to do with the stuff. However, Brown (the owner) cleverly offered the stuff up at half price. What could we do? We drank up.

It turned out to be an epic night. It seems if you drink enough light booze, it's pretty much like drinking the real thing. Well, at some point, when it was just down to us regulars, Brown locked the door, and the serious drinking commenced.

It was rather late next morning before anyone came to. Old Johnson was first, but when he opened the front door, instead of stumbling out, he leapt back like a scalded cat. It seems that the ground outside happened to be slightly missing.

Well, after Johnson's shout we all woke up and opened the shutters. It was a distressing sight: The Floating Admiral was airborne, without any bit of land in sight. We figure that drinking (and spilling) all that light booze the night before must have made the pub so light that it simply floated off of our little world and into the great airs.

Well, we were sitting there in the pub, having a liquid breakfast with peanuts on the side, wondering how we'd get home, when the pot man gave a yell. It was dragons! Dragons were flying right toward The Floating Admiral.

Now, these were smallish dragons, not much bigger than a horse, but still rather well equipped with fangs and claws. They flew right up to the door and pushed their way in, breaking the crossbar (which we had hastily placed) like it was nothing. We were certain that we were dead men, but they ignored us and slithered up to the bar, where they ordered stout, just as polite as polite could be.

Well, being no fool, Brown served them. Well, the Admiral is justly famous for its stout, and these dragons were apparently creatures of discernment, for they drank up promptly, with obvious signs of enjoyment. Not to mention they paid for their drinks in gold, which pleased Brown no little bit (and in fact he muttered something to the effect that his regulars could stand to learn a thing or two from these dragons).

Well, seeing that the dragons seemed peaceable enough, we were all soon mingling. But to our disappointment, the dragons claimed not to have ever heard of our little world or any of the worlds near it. But they looked at each other sidewise in a suspicious manner when they said it. We suspect that maybe they knew more than they were saying, so as not to loose the source of their drink. Worse still, they keep giving us considering looks, like wondering how we'd go with the stout. It would be enough to put lesser drinkers than us off of their sauce. But fortunately, they seem to prefer drinking to eating. At least for the moment.

So, if you could send some pilgrims to rescue us before we either run out of food or maybe become food, we'd heartily appreciate it. We'll stuff these napkins up the chimney to float to you, just like they did it in granddad's day.

Best of the day to you,

Thom Jones

One Wish Left

Peter Aronson — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:14:13 -0800

The letter is written on rice paper in what seems to be chocolate scented crayon. The whole sheet somehow smells of sugar and is slightly sticky.

Dear Monks,

Um, you know those old stories about magic lamps with genies in them, who when you release them, grant three wishes? Well, my five-year-old daughter Amanda found one that worked for real. And she used it.

Her first wish wasn't too bad -- she wished for a million stuffed animals. So yeah, the whole town is filled with stuffed animals (our house in particular), but while that's kind of annoying, it's not too much trouble and it's also sort of cute.

However, her second wish was kind of a doozy, though. She wished the whole world would be just like her favorite song, with milkshake fountains and candy fruit growing on trees and lemonade rivers and grass made of chewing gum and chocolate dirt and -- well, you get the idea.

So now, our whole world is made of sweets, and after a week of this, I for one would kill for piece of broccoli. Everyone has a sugar hangover all the time, and you wouldn't believe the mess when it rains!

You might notice that I only mentioned two wishes: that's right, Amanda was so excited by the sweets that she dropped the lamp somewhere in the house. You know, the house that was literally buried to a depth of three to four feet in stuffed animals by her first wish? My husband Henry and I've been looking desperately for the lamp for a week, but it's hard going, and we're afraid to tell anyone else about the lamp for fear we'll be held responsible for the whole mess. So maybe you could send some pilgrims to help us find the lamp so we can make a wish to undo Amanda's second wish?

Thanks!

Lisa Cockaigne

PS: I'm wrapping this letter around a stuffed kitten angel and leaving it in the fireplace -- that's supposed to work, right?

Our World is Growing (or We're Shrinking)

Peter Aronson — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:03:17 -0800

The letter appears to be written in absolutely tiny print on the back of blank matchbook. But after you study it for a bit, you have a moment of vertigo and then can't decide if the matchbook is normal sized and the print tiny, or the matchbook is huge and the print normal sized. Somehow, both seem true at once.

Dear Monks,

As weird as it sounds, either everything in our world is growing, or all the people here are shrinking. Either way, everything is getting bigger, which is very disturbing since it includes our houses, clothes and animals!

It begin on the day when the Council of Wizards and the Council of Scientists, in a rare moment of agreement, marched down to the Great Temple, and declared that the Goddess was an obsolete belief and stood in the way of progress. I was there as a reporter for Biweekly World Recorder, and I saw it all: the arguments with the priestesses, the destruction of the goddess' statue by the Chief Wizard and the Chief Scientist, and the goddess appearing in a form made of storm and fury and declaring her curse.

Anyway, since then, everything has grown (or we've shrunk). Now everyone's only three-fourths the size they used to be and nobody's clothes fit right anymore and we're still shrinking. It's not hard to see that soon we'll be hiding in the vast caverns of our houses, hunted by our cats, and living off of what canned goods we can manage to open. It's not a pretty picture.

I'm going to file this letter in the dead file -- stuff in there always vanishes eventually.

Able "Ace" Stanion

Alone in the Swamps of Love

Peter Aronson — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:24:42 -0800

The letter is scratched into the surface of several huge green leaves, apparently with a sharp instrument, and then red mud rubbed into the resulting grooves. The leaves are slightly scorched around the edges. The message smells of growth, earth, decay and burning.

Can you guys help a lonely dinosaur in the swamps of love?

I've got my chocolates, I've got my Elvis wig, I've got my guitar and a whole lot of romantic music, but what I don't have is any eager female dinosaurs. Or any disinterested ones. Or even any downright hostile ones for that matter.

Now, we're a long-lived species, and if we're getting kind of sparse on the ground of late, I might not have noticed. And mating season only comes every ten years. But it's mating season now (I can tell by the smell of the flowers, by the color of the mud, by the position of the moons in the sky; not to mention I've got it marked in my calendar), and I'm the only one here -- there aren't even any other guys! This is strange, in a very, very bad way.

I figure the others must have gotten lost or something. Or maybe they moved to someplace more exciting. In any case, I got to find them -- could you guys send some pilgrims to help? Thanks! I'll throw this message into to volcano for you guys.

Best,

Dino

Bong, James Bong

Peter Aronson — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:57:57 -0800

The letter was written using a fountain pen on fancy hotel stationary with L'hôtel de Grande Classe on the top.

Pilgrims,

This is Agent Bong (James Bong), otherwise known as ZZ7, and we have a situation here. It started off routinely enough -- a power-mad megalomaniac with a doomsday device and a plan to conquer the known universe -- but somehow things have spiraled out of control and now we face something far worse: a complete end of all fiction in the universe.

I know it sounds unlikely, but if Dr. Borg's Universal Editor comes on line, he will use it to turn every piece of writing, speech or art into absolute representations of reality. There will be no room for art, metaphor, magic or anything but mundane, everyday reality.

And I'm afraid he's got me trapped -- locked in a fiction-proof room where no secret agent trick, no plot device, no wile will avail me. So it's up to you, pilgrims: he must be convinced to stop. Or he must be stopped. Or the world will be a much sadder place.

I have, I hope, found a place where I can slide this letter past the limits of the fiction-proof zone so it can make its way to your temple (at least for the moment -- when his diabolic device is finished, such magic will no longer exist!). Godspeed and good luck!

James Bong, ZZ7

Elevator Music is Reprogramming My Brain

Peter Aronson — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:34:17 -0800

The letter is "written" by pasting words cut from newspapers and magazines on what appear to be fast-food wrappers.

Do not read this under an open sky! Or when anyone you don't know is in sight. Or while not wearing your aluminum foil hat. This last is the most important! Without your foil hat they will know your thoughts!

I have discovered their secret! Not only do the walls have ears and the ceiling have eyes and the waiter is an agent in disguise, but they are planning to use elevator music to reprogram everyone's brain using elevator music (you didn't think it's because anyone thinks it sounds good, did you?). You must come help me stop them before it's too late. I will know you by your shining foil hats and clear, unclouded eyes -- you will know me by the same. Everyone else here's mind has been corrupted by them. Come soon! Bring large amounts of aluminum foil and duct tape!

I will bury this message under my kitchen floor, so it will reach you without interference.

Yours in the struggle,

(Name withheld for security reasons)

This second, attached message is typed neatly on business-grade paper. It is not signed.

Dear Agents of the Floating Temple,

Please do not worry about your message from poor (name withheld for security reasons). He or she is quite unwell and needs a long period of undisturbed bed-rest, without any disturbing visitors. And aluminum foil is now illegal here.

Fnord.

Why Rocks Talk To Trog?

Peter Aronson — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:00:20 -0800

This "letter" is a series of pictograms painted in something brown on a piece of deer skin. What follows is a translation by one of the temple's scholars.

One day, rocks start to talk to Trog. Why do rocks talk to Trog? Trog not talk to rocks! Trog scared. Trog hide in back of cave. Trog put dirt in ears so no hear rocks. Please make rocks stop talking to Trog? Trog will drop this writing in river to go to big float place. You make rocks shut up, OK?

Trog

Help! I No Longer Exist!

Peter Aronson — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:58:22 -0800

The letter is scrawled in pencil on the back of set of blueprints. The device described on the other side is extremely complex, and annotated with many equations full of numbers and Greek and Hebrew letters.

My Dear Estimable Monks and Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, I give you good greetings.

I am afraid that I have gotten myself into a spot of trouble, and frankly, I can not think of anyone else who might have a chance of getting me out of it. Hence, I am sending you this missive which you are hopefully currently reading, describing my problem.

It all started when I was a child. I was an extraordinary child, the product of an extraordinary line of scientists and inventors. The greatest of our line -- standing head and shoulders above the rest -- was my grandfather, Malcolm McGillivray. Now, I had never met my grandfather -- we McGillivray's tend to marry late in life, science being the harsh mistress it is -- but I grew up studying his papers. Ah, Grand-père McGillivray's papers! What mysteries, what knowledge, what sheer, unadulterated brilliance was contained there within! I don't mind telling you that they obsessed me. And three of them obsessed me more than the others.

These three papers obsessed me in particular because they were incomplete. That is, while my grandfather had recorded the problem and the solution, he had neglected to record the steps in between, leaving me with no means to truly understand his work. And I desired that understanding with the heat of thousand burning suns! But alas, no matter how long I studied the papers, no enlightenment came. Grandfather's brilliant reasoning was beyond me.

Time passed, and I grew from child to adult (as is the usual tendency amongst mankind), and I put aside the interests of my childhood. I became a well-respected scientist in my own right, and eventually, upon the death of my progenitor, inherited control of the McGillivray Corporation and its superb laboratories. Then, for many years, I was content, inventing useful items for the betterment of mankind, supervising the business of the corporation, and occasionally presenting a paper or three for the approval of my peers. It was a life of, and for science, and it suited me most excellently.

However, as I came into my late thirties, I noticed a certain restlessness in myself, a certain decrease in my élan vital, a certain ennui, if you will. The life I was living was no longer enough, science was no longer enough -- I needed something more. I consulted my grandmother -- the matriarch of the McGillivray family, well known for her wisdom (even, alas, if she could not shine any light about my grandfather's researches) -- who told me that likely marriage would cure my woes. Upon due consideration of her advice, I resolved to find myself a wife.

And find one I did! The beautiful and brilliant Stephanie Delacroise soon consented to be my wife. She was what I had been missing in my life.

When I returned from my honeymoon, revitalized, I cast my mind around for a project worthy of my new estate. And then, for the first time in decades, I bethought myself of my grandfather's papers. Ah, there was something worth doing! I quite reasonably assumed that what was an insurmountable challenge for a child would fall quite readily to an adult's intellect. I was wrong; utterly, terribly and completely wrong.

My childhood obsession soon returned. I could not eat, I could not sleep, I could only study the papers. I would create theory after theory about the processes described within, and without exception they would prove false. This continued until one day, I collapsed in my laboratory, and had to be carried into my bedroom by the servants, ranting and raving about the papers. At last, I collapsed into an exhausted stupor. But as I slipped into the blessed realms of Morpheus, I heard my darling wife murmur to herself: "My poor husband! Alas, if only he could simply ask his grandfather these questions in person!

When I awoke, many hours later, I was in command of myself once more. I ate an immense meal, and then shut myself in my laboratory. For my wife's wise words had given me the answer to my dilemma, I would simply ask my grandfather my questions myself! Fortunately, many years earlier, I had noticed a quaint mathematical oddity in one of Einstein's equations that made building a functioning time portal merely a simple technical matter.

(Continued in next message)

The Return of the Flying Saucers

Peter Aronson — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:58:53 -0800

The letter is written in utterly atrocious handwriting (you can barely puzzle it out) in ink on middling quality business stationary. At the top is printed Douglas McNamara, MD, Quadleford, New Mars.

Dear Pilgrims,

I'm afraid that there's about to be a terrible mistake made here on New Mars, and I hope you folks can do something to prevent it. I think it's really a communications problem, but it's about to turn into war or something a whole lot like it.

You'll need to know something about the history behind things, which is a bit unusual. You see, as far back as there are records, once every decade or so a fleet of silvery flying saucer-shaped airships visits New Mars. Except visits isn't exactly the right term -- swoops down upon is a bit closer. They fill the skies for days on end, silently flying this way and that way or just hovering. And sometimes they shoot down gold beams of light that lift up people, plants and animals.

It's real strange on board those saucer ships! Everything's made of metal, and the lighting is either dim and blue or dim and red. The crew's a pretty strange, too, being short as children, slender, hairless and gray skinned with enormous black eyes. And they never talk to you -- they only show you these slate-like things covered with weird symbols that move.

When you're on those ships, you can't really move -- you only lie there on metal slabs while the crew examines you, or sticks things into you or gives you weird liquids to drink. Needless to say, most folks find this pretty scary, but there's no actual evidence of anyone really being harmed by them (and that, I think, is important).

Anyway, the people of New Mars have gotten real tired of these saucer ships coming by every ten or so years, and recently they elected a new government who ran on platform of putting these visits to an end. So, they bought plans for anti-aircraft cannons from one of our neighboring worlds, and have been building them by the score. More so, they've been buying all sorts of stuff and hiring all sorts of people. We have dragons and wizards, air-battleships and ray cannons, and god knows what else waiting for the saucers to reappear. It's very likely to get ugly when they do.

And the worst part of it? I think the saucer folk have doing their best to help us. Now, I'm just a simple county doctor, but I remember a few of my classes at medical school, and in particular I remember my epidemiology. I've done some studies, and the folks on New Mars are far healthier than they ought to be. We live a fair bit longer, we avoid epidemics like the cycles of influenza that hit all of our neighbors, and we have fewer cases of cancer and far fewer cases of senile dementia.

Now, it might have been because we all come from tough, frontier stock. But it isn't. You see, you see the life expectancy and rates of infection and the like are the same for immigrants who have been here for one saucer visit as it is for native born, but the numbers for immigrants who have not been through a visit pretty much match those for their home worlds.

I tried to bring these facts to the attention of the government, but remember how they got elected by promising to do something about the saucers? They didn't much like my theories, and in fact, they've thrown me in jail as a "suspected alien collaborator" without even the formality of a trial. And I'm not the only one, either. In the cell across from mine is the famous mathematician Ingrid O'Neil, who made the mistake of claiming that she could decipher the messages on the saucer folk's moving slates using mathematics, and they said things like "we come in peace" and such. So I afraid those saucer folk are heading for a massacre unless you can send some pilgrims to stop it.

One of jail guards (who doesn't much like this business of holding people without trial) has promised to leave this letter in a graveyard with a silver penny for me, so it'll get to your temple as quickly as possible.

Sincerely,

Douglas McNamara, MD

The Interworld Railway

Peter Aronson — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:54:08 -0800

The letter is typed (apparently using a manual typewriter, because the letters vary in darkness and depth) on thin, lightweight paper. On the top is printed The Interworld Express #1 in black, with a golden steam locomotive underneath.

I've worked the Interworld rail system for forty years, women and child, and would hate to see it die. We've had the rails in the Celebration Cluster for almost a hundred years, and I would reckon that not a man or woman born here doesn't take those golden rails through the sky somewhere sometime in their life. But the railways are dying, because the trains are dying and no one really knows how fix them, and because various governments are taking down the rails for their gold plate and steel, saying that airships are the way of the future. Airships! As if any sensible person would trust anything so fragile when a solid train is available? What if there was a storm? A properly maintained locomotive laughs at storms -- not like an airship that likely as not will be knocked to pieces!

But as I said, the trains are wearing out, and the Builders of Yam have retreated to their golden world and tore up the rails that led there and wove a storm around it so no one can get there to bother them. No one knows why, either. They won't even respond to messages dropped on their world in whiskey bottles -- heck, as far as we can tell, they don't even drink the whiskey! How can you talk with someone like that? But the Builders are the ones who made the trains and rails in the first place and they're the only ones who know how to fix them. Oh, other people have tried, but the results weren't pretty.

What I'm hoping is that your pilgrims, with your ability to fly and all, can make it through the storm to Yam and talk the Builders into coming out again and fixing the trains and rails (and maybe teaching other folks how to fix them, too). I mean, you're pilgrims must be sturdier than those airships that can't get past the storm, mustn't they?

I'm going to send you this letter by way of the Lost Mail Car, since all its letters make their way sooner or later to the Flying Temple.

Yours truly,

Josephina Sherwood,
Chief Conductor,
The Interworld Express #1

The Endless Feast

Peter Aronson — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 12:57:40 -0800

There's a little world with no name where everyone knows you by name, and that feels just like home, but more so. It's always mealtime here and there's always more good things to eat than you can possible imagine, and the pie, well the pie is like a taste of heaven.

All of these things should have been a warning, but what can I say? I came there tired, cold, hungry, and bruised of spirit. At the time it seemed like a miracle. But I forgot that not all miracles are bright, that there are dark miracles as well. But I was on the run from that hardest thing to outrun: yourself. I was recently orphaned and recently disappointed in love, and I had more money than I could spend in a reasonable lifetime. So I ignored my responsibilities and traveled instead, hoping to escape from myself, but where ever I went, there I was. But something awful happened to my ship, and then, somehow, I stumbled into this place. Or maybe it came to me.

Our hosts are hard to see clearly, except out of the corners of my eyes, where they look like angels from the books I read as a child. Except sometimes, after a few too many glasses of wine, they look like something else, something less familiar, something less comforting.

Everyone here is happy and no one ever wants to leave. Or can leave. But as the feasting and partying, the games and amusements go on and on; I have begun to notice something: new guests arrive all the time and old guests are seen less and less often until they never seen again. I fear it is my turn next. And I would very much like to leave -- could you please help?

When I was very small, my grandmother taught me the trick of how to send a message to the Flying Temple by sticking a message into a pocket with a hole in it and walking around until the message is gone. Hopefully my hosts won't notice if I spend a lot of time examining the buffet tables.

Hopefully,

Ambrose Matsuri

Could Ya Help the Gentlemen a bit?

Peter Aronson — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:07:11 -0800

The letter is written in brownish ink on piece of parchment that has been scraped and reused several times.

Pilgrims,

While I realize this might sound a tad irregular, I wonder if ya might see your way given the gentlemen of the night (smugglers to ya) around here a helpin' hand? Ya see, the local gov'ment has been crackin' down on them something fierce like and they can hardly get their air-skiffs out of hidin' without some revenue cutter jumpin' them and hauling the boys away in chains.

Now ya might think the gentlemen are bad men and deserve bein' carted off to prison or transported for what they has done, but it ain't that simple around here. Ya see the gov'ner, one Lord Royalle, has decided that the common folks (which is pretty much everyone here on Estelle) ain't showing him enough respect, so he's stopped most of our food an' medicine shipments. Now, we got enough marshweed and pomgrass to live off of, sort of, but a kid can't grow up straight an' strong on that sort of diet, and a man who falls sick ain't going to get better. But we're stubborn cusses on Estelle, and we ain't going to bend the knee to some stuffed-up toff from one of the bigger worlds. We'd rather die first, and that's a fact.

So that's where the gentlemen come in, ya see. They've been running in better food and meds for us, an' it's the only thing keepin' us going. Oh, an' they hire local lads to crew their boats an' they pay pretty good, too. More than one local farmer got the price of his land an' his plow crewin' one of the gentlemen's air-skiffs. An' of course they buy our marsh whisky to sell (ya can have as much of it as ya like if ya come, it'll put hair on yer chests, even the girls).

I gotta be straight with you -- things are getting awfully bad here. Over half the kids are down with the Marsh Fever, and without yarrowroot and better food, one in five of them ain't going to get better. And worse, one of 'em's my boy, Richard, and if he dies, I don't know what me and the wife would do. If we can't get stuff we need any other way soon, we're goin' to have to raise the black flag and storm Lord Royalle's castle. And that'd be bad in more ways than a man could count without takin' off his shoes.

Now ya might wonder why we don't simply ask ya to try to soften Lord Royalle's heart, but it's dead simple. Ya can't soften what ain't there.

Yrs,

Garrik FitzWilliams

The Empty Temple

Peter Aronson — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:23:47 -0800

This letter is written on a piece of fine stationary, with HXMAS Catabasis embossed at the top in gold. The message itself is written in ink in a strong, masculine hand.

Commander John Smith,
Her Xenotopic Majesty's Air Ship Catabasis,
Somewhere in the Outer Reaches

Wumpus 8th, 7 E8R

The Flying Temple,
At The Center

Your Excellencies of the Flying Temple,

Subject: Duplicate Flying Temple Found

On the fifth day of the month of Wumpus in the 7th year of Her Xenotopic Majesty, Elizabeth the VIII's reign, the Air Frigate HXMAS Catabasis, engaged in a survey of the Outer Reaches, encountered what appeared to be an exact duplicate of the Flying Temple.

Now, as it happens, both I and my ship's physician (Lt. Arnold Hayward-Jones) have been to Flying Temple, and recognized the structure immediately. This duplicate temple appeared identical in every respect, except for two details: it is located in the Outer Reaches instead of The Center; and instead of bustling with the coming and going of pilgrims and monks and visitors, it appeared utterly and completely deserted.

We docked with the duplicate temple and have explored it with reasonable thoroughness. As far as we can ascertain, it appears to be a complete duplicate of the Flying Temple in every respect, except there are no living creatures of any sort. Where the real Flying Temple has gardens or trees or other plants, those are present, but there no insects or worms. Likewise, there are no signs of domestic animals in the barns and pens reserved for them. And while quarters for the monks and students that would normally inhabit the temple are present and furnished (even to the point of personal possessions), we found no actual human beings.

However, we did find plenty of signs of life: clothing in the middle of being washed, food abandoned while being cooked, even while being eaten. It is as if every creature capable of movement suddenly decided at the same moment to calmly get up, and walk off, leaving whatever they were doing at the moment behind them. It is quite odd, and my crew has found it most disturbing.

Rather more disturbing is that crewmen out exploring the temple have suddenly begun to disappear without any trace. So far eight men have vanished. For now, I am only sending large, well-armed search parties ashore to look for them, and keeping the remainder of my crew on board at all times.

I shall place this message in the stone basket outside the duplicate temple that appears identical to the one outside the real temple where petitioners who have come in person usually leave their message. I hope it reaches you, and soon, before I am forced to leave without my missing men.

Your humble servant,

Cmdr John Smith, HXMAS

I realize this is in a formal voice, but I was reading the description of Full Light, Full Steam and got an irresistible urge to write in a Victorian voice...

There is Nothing Wrong Here!

RichD — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:46:00 -0800

The letter is written in purple ink on a piece of fine vellum

I am writing you this letter to tell you that everything is perfectly fine here. Our Perfectly Sane King is ruling well, the villages are in perfect repair and there has been no signs of dragons wreaking havoc at all.

There is no reason for you come immediately to our planet and put things right and we will not be expecting you at all. This letter will not be placed under the hearthstone in the Great Hall.

Insincerely yours,

Rudolf von Stamberg
Minister of Contradiction
Court of King Rollo the Perfectly Sane

Once Upon a Time

Peter Aronson — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:21:03 -0800

The message is written on foolscap in ink, using either a quill or a dip pen. The writing is very neat and elaborate.

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom terrorized by a giant silver rat. The silver rat could travel faster even than bad news and gossip, and would flicker from one end of the kingdom to another; grabbing food from the people's hands and mouths and gulping it down before they could swallow even a crumb. Everyone was soon faint from hunger, even the childless old king and his nobles. So the king made an announcement: anyone who could slay the rat would be adopted as his son and heir, and rule the kingdom when he was gone.

Many heroes came to slay the rat, but they all failed, and the rat swallowed them all down ("Snap! Gulp!"). The kingdom was starving and all hope seemed gone when the most unlikely of heroes walked into the palace. It was a calico cat, and she wore tall boots and a three cornered hat all of red leather, and at her side was the Sword of Swiftness.

The battle between the cat and the rat was terrible! Back and forth across the kingdom they fought, until at last the silver rat was exhausted and turned to flee. But the cat slew the rat, and cut off his head and took it before the king. And there, amidst great feasting, the king adopted the cat. And then, in the fullness of time, the old king died and the cat put aside her three-cornered hat of red leather for the crown of the kingdom. And the people, remembering the rat, cheered.

But the cat remained a cat, and soon found she had no desire to rule a kingdom. However, unknown to the cat, the crown of that kingdom was magic and could only be put down at death or by the will of the people. And the people loved her for saving them from the rat. Then one day the cat had a wonderful idea! She would write to the monks of The Flying Temple, and they would send pilgrims to free her from her burden. So she wrote them a message, and tied it with ribbons in three different colors, and threw it over her shoulder at sunset.

The End

This letter is in part a tribute to Seanan McGuire's song Earthquake Weather, which is one of her cycle of songs, stories and poems about the Babylon Wood, which is made of stories.

Sorrow of the Sky Sapphires

Ryan Macklin — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:55:53 -0800

Encased in a golden cask covered in sapphires, this letter is written on fine, blue-stained vellum with shimmering gold ink. The writing looks fluid and elegant, as though entire sentences were written without lifting the pen.

Greetings, fair monks, from the city of the twin sapphires in the sky, Shuangbao Lanshi. No doubt you have heard tales about our wonderful celestial jewels, Dongbao and Xibao. I am sure that you have seen our two blue stars chase each other in your night sky. Our picturesque world floats serenely in the middle of these ever-circling orbs, never ceasing to brighten our days. We are a wonderful land of an eternal, blue daylight, and our vigilantly-polished brass cities reflect that light back to you with a golden hue, delighting and inspiring people on many other worlds with our beauty and wonder!

But I write not to boast, but to plead for your ever-wise assistance, as disaster has struck! Our Western gem, Xibao, extinguished without any warning! As I write this, our capital city has been without light for over two weeks. My citizens are in panic! Tourism to our glorious world, which we depend on so that our people may live in the glory and splendor that they have as they have for so long, is in steep decline -- indeed, only scientists have been coming visit us, and they do not spend the money that my people need!

Worse yet, the people are scared beyond belief that Dongbao will extinguish next! I humbly beseech you, learned men of the skies and the natural world, to restore our star and bring our world out of darkness! The fate of our world and the joy it brings to all is in your hands.

With respect,
Praetor Iulius Aurelius

We Are All Melting...

Peter Aronson — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:18:43 -0800

The "letter" is actually a small piece of crystal which when touched to your forehead causes the message to be "spoken" inside your head.

We urgently need help from the Monks of the Flying Temple (or is that priests or pilgrims? -- none of us can ever (usually) remember) because we have found (and touched!) the supposedly mythical Crystal of the Mind and now the four of us (Suzy, Michael, Ralph and Julia) are all melting into each other and we can't tell anymore if there are four of us or one of us and is so hard to think clearly or to know when one thought stops and another starts (see, here we are doing it again (it's not my (our) fault!)) and so we badly need separating before we (I) all go mad (we already know all of each other's secrets and we can tell you there are some things you don't want to know about someone else, no matter how much you like (love) or respect them!), we hope you can (will (are able)) to help us soon (we are sending (teleporting) you a message crystal with our newfound powers of mind (four being greater than one, we (I) guess) so there will be no delay)!

OK, this one is a bit of an experiment... It might be a bit hard to read.

Can Topiary Contain Souls?

Peter Aronson — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 21:10:39 -0800

This letter is written on some form of handmade paper in brown vegetable ink. The hand is neat without being lifeless.

Monks of the Flying Temple! We have a serious issue on which we need clarity, and since the high and mighty of our world are too proud to ask your assistance, it falls to me, Miriam, a simple beggar woman, to beg your assistance. But, then, begging comes naturally to me now.

A few or many years ago -- I can not recall how long and it scarcely matters, anyway -- the issue of whether topiary can contain souls began to be discussed in the markets and temples. You see, in the beliefs of our people, any object that takes the form of an animal eventually becomes the housing for a soul during the ceaseless process of birth, death and reincarnation. Thus, from time out of mind, the making of statues in the shape of people and animals have been forbidden lest a reincarnating soul inadvertently become trapped. But the ancient prophets and wisemen never said anything about shaped bushes.

There are four positions on the matter. The Leafy Statuary party -- led by the Guru of the North -- holds that topiary are just another form of statue, and thus forbidden by the ancient edicts. The Green Incarnation party -- led by the Eastern Priest -- says that since topiary are living creatures and thus mortal, they are perfectly reasonable vessels of incarnation and thus not forbidden. The Imperfect Image party -- led by the Prince of the South -- holds that since topiary do not, in fact, look very much like actual animals, that souls seeking reincarnation are not likely to be fooled, and thus are harmless. Finally, the Skeptics -- led by the Great Scholar of the West -- hold that the entire issue is silly and even considering it in public does our world a great disservice.

All of these parties have many, many adherents who feel strongly about the issue. Topiary have been burned in some places, and venerated in others. There have been daily clashes in the streets and arguments in the supposedly silent quarters of the temples. And now, the four leaders have arranged to meet in the Arena of Debate to settle the matter with sacred maces and blood. This is terribly foolish, as you must agree! So I beg your help in avoiding this wasteful battle.

It does not help matters that the topiary have recently started whispering in strange languages none understand. But I think they will take this message to you.

Miriam the Beggar Woman

Ducks and Foxes

Peter Aronson — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:55:21 -0800

The letter is written on a sheet of fine vellum with a slightly disturbing-looking dark brown ink. It shows signs of having been written using a quill.

A clever day to you monk guys!

What we have here, you see, is a problem in interspecies relationships. You see, our world is split between two types of people: fox folks, like me, and the duck folks (oh, there are a few humans and other odds and ends, but they are all mostly tourists and don't really count). Now, sharing a world like we do, you would think we would have to get along pretty well. And we do, except for one little sticking point: despite being people, duck folks are quite delicious.

Now, any sensible guy knows that eating other folks just is not civilized, and in fact, people who make a habit of that activity are quite rightly shunned by all reasonable folk as being nothing but lousy cannibals. But the problem is, sometimes we just can not help ourselves. I mean they smell so tasty, and their flesh is so sweet and toothsome and goes down so nice with a cold beer (or even a warm beer) and, and . . .

Excuse my outburst above, but I have hit my head against my wall several times, and now feel more myself. But you see the problem: if an upright guy such as myself, who believes it is uncouth to chow down on your fellow citizens, sometimes goes off the deep end on the subject, you can imagine what those mugs from Pawtown do when they meet a fellow citizen who happens to have feathers instead of fur. So perhaps you guys can send us some of your pilgrims to push home the message that this sort of behavior is just not OK? And maybe they can burn down Pawtown while they are at it -- those guys are a real disgrace.

Thanks,

Ray the Mouth

All the World's a Maze

Peter Aronson — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 21:16:52 -0800

The message is written in large, wide letters on several sheets of engineering graph paper, using a drafting pen. On close examination, each letter is actually a tiny, complete maze. Also, the boarders of the paper are filled with a light gray maze drawn in pencil.

Pilgrims and Monks of the Flying Temple,

Let me start at the entrance and work my way to the exit. To us on Labirinto, mazes are an art, a popular entertainment and a religion rolled into one. We adore building and solving mazes, and we excel at both. Companies of artisans from our world have built mazes of stone, of plants, of metal and light on a dozen dozen worlds.

So, as you might suspect (and you wouldn't be wrong), our world contains a maze or three. In fact, as you'd probably expect, it contains many more than three mazes. How many more? Well, it's hard to count them exactly now, and that fact has more than a little to do with our problem.

Working our way a bit further towards the center of the matter, there are three competing major companies or bands of maze mazewrights on Labirinto: The Exalted Fellowship of the Most Holy Curve, who make artistic mazes, full of unusual shapes and decorated with sculpture, topiary and paintings; The Imagineers, who specialize in mazes that form images (such as faces or famous buildings) when viewed from above; and finally, the Mathematical League, who specialize in complex and mathematical mazes, and to which I belong. Having three companies has been good for the art of the maze, as we compete fiercely. Where the people of some worlds cheer for sports teams or gladiators, we on Labirinto cheer on for a well executed maze. And for a long time, it was good.

The problem started when business slowed down. You see, we had already built plenty of mazes on all the worlds nearby, and while they were appreciated, the people of those worlds didn't love mazes the way we do, so our mazewrights had to travel further and further to build their mazes. This, of course, raised prices, which meant we were building less mazes on other worlds. So, to keep themselves busy and to practice the art, the companies built more and more mazes on Labirinto. And each maze by one company had to be topped by the next maze by one of the other companies, and each maze was more elaborate and more complicated than the last.

(Are you still with me? The exit's almost in sight.) So the companies built more and more (and more complex) mazes right here on Labirinto. And these were not easy mazes like we built on other worlds. No, these were mazes built for Labirintoans, complex, intricate and tricky. These mazes were so hard, that the builders had to include bathrooms, snack stands and even sleeping quarters and it would often take days to solve such a maze. And over time they became even more complex and large. Soon, whole farms and food processing plants had to be incorporated into the mazes to supply the restaurants. Then factories, offices and schools. Soon, it became possible to live your entire life with a maze. And the companies became so caught up in their competition that they ceased to look for off-world work and put all of their effort into the competition with the other companies.

And then at last, the mazes met. That is, all of our world became covered with these mazes, and there was no more space outside of the mazes. Each maze's exit led to another maze's entrance, so there was no escape. And that's your exit. But we here on Labirinto have no exit anymore, which is why we need your help. You see, while these mazes are things of true beauty, they also divide us up. I haven't seen my parents for years, and I long lost all of my friends outside the company as they wandered into some maze or another. We have reduced ourselves from a people to a scattering of lonely individuals, all lost within the endless mazes, and as lovely as the mazes are, it's no way to live.

Anne the Geometer

Do You Believe in Prophesies?

Peter Aronson — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:23:12 -0800

The letter is written in purple ink on fine parchment in a neat hand.

Hey Pilgrims,

I need some help. I'm not sure where to start, so I'll start, I guess, at the beginning with my childhood, even though it was mostly school and classes. But that turns out to be important.

My childhood would have made a lot more sense at the time if I had known that my parents were trying to prepare me for a career as a wizard, but they didn't actually know anything about magic. So they guessed a lot, and had me take a lot of classes "just in case". Since they didn't really have any idea what I needed to know, they tried to make sure I knew everything. (And because I'm sort of like an information sponge, I went along with it, even though it meant I didn't have a lot of time to myself.)

They did make sure I learned a lot. They gave me a solid background in math and the sciences (which I didn't mind -- I like math and science), and threw in a bunch of weird stuff. Latin didn't surprise me as it's kind of fashionable again, but ancient Greek and Hebrew (and we're not even Jewish!)? And while dance didn't surprise me either (lots of girls my age took dance), Ti-Kwan-Do and Yoga were kind of out there. Not to mention a ton of philosophy and comparative religion. And to round off the educational weirdness, they also made me take public speaking and calligraphy.

The really weird thing about all this, is when, on my eighteenth birthday, the Arch-Wizard Gargalmash showed up to claim me as his apprentice as had been prophesized, most of it turned out to be at least sort of useful. This is a good thing, since I then spent the next three years of my life in Tower of the Winds, learning magecraft, sorcery, witchcraft and wizardry (and yes, they are all different things).

However, what I didn't expect was that when I completed my studies, I would be expected to save the worlds. I really don't think I'm ready for that, but Gargalmash does, and he's kind of hard to argue with. He just keeps babbling about this prophesy, but for all the magic I've studied, I don't really believe in prophesies -- among other things, they violate both the doctrine of free will and quantum mechanics. Maybe you guys can argue some sense into that thick head of his? Or at least explain this prophesy business to me in a way I can take halfway seriously?

Thanks!

Sophia Morningstar