Dreamcatcher
Honorable Pirate
Raiders Of The Lost Arrr
chapter 1
The rusty pick axe shattered the lock on the front of the skull chest, and Ramon bent down and picked it up from the dirt and tossed it back into the open pit that it had just been dragged from. I leaped down from the rock that I was brazenly Flexing Mightily atop of, and helped Ramon lift the creaking, frozen lid on the skull, once again praying silently that this madness would now finally come to an end .
"Is only another map Christina, just the same as all the other chests, nothing more. I do not think we will ever find this object you seek, we are just chasing the wild goosed." I reached into the chest for the map, and stuffed it inside my faded black puffy shirt, which I am told is torn in all the right places, and handed the bottle of rum to Ramon.
"These chests are like walking through a maze" I explained, "It may seem like we are getting nowhere, but with each one, we are getting closer to it, I can feel it. And if I hear that kind of talk again my handsome little deary, it will be my whip that ye feel wild goosing ye backside." Ramon handed the bottle back, and replied with a laugh, "Si senorita, Ramon would very much like to see the other uses you have for that whip, I am sure that you know a great many."
I put the rum back in my pack, and grinned broadly back at him, saying, "You always could manage to make me smile, no matter how badly I felt. When I look back, I don't know how I would have survived after father was murdered without you, Ramon. There just aren't enough words in any language for me to convey how I feel about you."
He took out the bag of crackers that he seemed to have carried with him his entire life, and handed me one. I had never seen a person who liked crackers so much, I thought to myself. He swallowed the cracker and said, "Your father, he always treat Ramon very well, almost as if a son" Ramon began, just as if he hadn't told me this story more times than I could count.
"Even at the age ten Ramon could see very bad things in future, a filthy jail cell if I was very lucky, and a headstone if I was not. The street is no place for small boy, it make him old too soon. He give me home and better future, and he teach Ramon to become strong man, with a good head up on his neck. Your father were very good man, but he always have too much trust inside him Christina, and the cur of a dog who take advantage of that was coward, men do not shoot in back. My knife will rest in his belly someday senorita, as I speak your fathers name in his craven ear.
"Enough!" I finally yelled at him, "I really wish you would stop saying "Your father" Ramon, because honesty, I am getting sick to death of hearing that" I growled, staring at him angrily. "From the moment that you stepped through the door, he became "Our father", and there has never been a single time in my life that I did not think of you as my big brother. Simply being born into a family is not an overly special trick, but when you are chosen to be in a family, that is special. You were just as much his child as I was, and at times I think, perhaps more. So please begin calling him what he was. Our father."
"Si Christina, I am sorry, I will honor our father, there were never nothing Ramon ever want more than to be his son. My real father never no want to be one, so he run away and never return. That more than anything help kill my mother, I want never to see him again. It seem loco now, but Ramon always jealous of hearing you say "father", while I feel I could never." I dug out the rum again and handed it to Ramon, as he went on talking.
"He once tell me of a great darkness that enter his house when your mother unexpectedly die giving birth to you, and he refuse to even see you for weeks, he no see anyone. When he finally do, he say that he look down in crib and he see your mother in your eyes, and the light suddenly return to house when he see you smile."
"Your... our father, tell me once that he have everything he want in this life, and he now need nothing more but to see you face always smile in his heart. So, when he die, I decide that it time Ramon repay all he has been given in life, a good father and a beautiful sister, and it now my job to make sure that you still smile for inside his heart."
I looked up and stared into Ramon's unwaveringly piercing brown eyes, and then had to quickly turn away. Absentmindedly, I began fumbling with my whip, running my fingers slowly up and down the hard leather coil hanging limply off my hip. Biting softly on the corner of my lip while I shook my head, I picked up the bottle of rum from the rock and finally managed to quietly mumble, "Jesus. Can someone please tell me why the hell all the good ones seem to be either married, or my "brother?" Okay, I guess there were a few times I hadn't thought of him as my brother.
We took the leaky skiff back to the ship, and I rolled the map out on the desk in my cabin, while Ramon cooked the fish we had caught in the nets in what he called, "a delightfully zesty pomegranate infused vinaigrette, with "truffle kissed" Brussels sprouts." As I studied the map, I wondered silently which would kill me first, something that was guarding these chests, or Ramon's mail order French cooking classes.
He brought in two plates as I was staring at the map, and asked, "So where are we going now senorita, the end of the world?" "Not quite that far" I said, pointing at the island to the left of the grog stain I had clumsily spilled onto the map. "A lovely fly speck of dirt in the middle of nowhere known as Raven's Cove. It says that the next chest is buried in a sand mound near an altar with an idol on top of it. The winding caves have been mostly deserted for years, well, that is unless you believe all the crazy stories of the ghosties of cursed miners running around in the tunnels."
"And if it is another map we find inside this chest," Ramon questioned between mouthfuls of purple tinted fish, "What will we do then? Shall we search for this object until we are old and grey, or half mad? You still have not told me what this object we seek is, and I think it is time that you start to 'splainin' to me about this foolish search."
Ramon walked over to the cabinet, and brought back two glasses and the bottle of very expensive cognac we had taken from the short, and quite angry Frenchman, who had tried to steal the first map from us. Figuring that he had little use for the fine spirits, what with being tied in his frilly lavender colored underwear to the tree like that, the bottle had gone into my bag. He poured half the bottle in my glass, set it down in front of me, and declared, "You will drink now, and you will loosen that infuriatingly tight tongue you have had since a child. Please Christina, tell me just what this thing is that we are chasing in circles."
"The object we are seeking is called "The Emulator" I answered, taking a large drink of the cognac. "Where the object originated from is unknown, but it is believed to hold the power of life and death over all online worlds inside of it, and can create new, or it can remake any game that was ever made." I took another drink of the cognac and continued.
"Walt discovered the Emulator in Africa during the 1950s while doing one of his many nature documentaries in the jungles. The natives there had found it buried in a cave, and they were using it to fill a dusty hole in the belly button of one of their giant monkey statues. Walt, always known for being the shrewd businessman, had traded them a nice, shiny Magic Kingdom ashtray for it."
"Walt returned to America, where the Emulator supposedly remained locked in his private safe until after his death in 1966, his two daughters being the only ones that even knew of its existence." I pushed the cold plate of radioactive looking fish away, and pondered my empty cognac glass.
"In 1974 the Emulator was connected to ARPAnet, the primitive forerunner of the internet, and in a very short time it had created "Mazewar", technically the first MMO. Many more would soon follow, and in time, the Emulator began learning from, and correcting, its past mistakes, almost as if it was becoming self aware."
"So what you say is, this Emasculator just have power to create and run games? Nothing else? That is why you drag Ramon on this errand of fools?" He stood, and began cleaning up the dinner plates, clearly upset with me. "There is more to it than that Ramon" I tried to explain, "They aren't merely games anymore, it has gone beyond that, most of them are real worlds now."
I poured the rest of the cognac into my glass as Ramon put the plates back down. "Real?" he questioned, "What do you mean, the games are real?" "I mean" I replied, taking a huge gulp of cognac, "The people in them all are flesh and blood, living, breathing, and taking out the damm trash on Tuesdays real " I answered. "At some point the Emulator began creating sentient life, and everything in those games it made are now thinking and reasoning creatures. And if I don't find it soon, they will all die."
"Eighteen months ago the Emulator disappeared from the locked and guarded tower at Disneyland. There was a massive search conducted by the heavily armed Disney Secret Service Ops, the Pixar Seal Team squads, and the recently acquired Empire Stormtrooper battalions, but it was never found. The search was ended shortly before the Avengers and the Incredibles were brought in, as Iger apparently saw the price tag for the operation."
"The worlds it created are now becoming increasingly unstable without the Emulator's constant presence to feed off" I explained. "Some of the realms are drifting between the game zones and our zones, while others are becoming trapped somewhere in between. Those unlucky ones await a slow and agonizing death as their worlds begin to crumble beneath them. Raven's Cove may not even be there by the time we reach it, or we may be dragged back with it if we stay too long."
"You are mad my dear sister, or you are drunk" Ramon cursed at me. "A monkey's belly button creating life? We should return home, for you need a long siesta." I downed the last of the cognac, then looked him in the eye and said, "Always the one with his head out of the clouds, and his feet firmly on the ground. If you can't touch it or explain it, then it doesn't exist, just like father was. Well, this does exist, and I will find it, with or without you, my brother."
I turned and walked over to the starboard wall of the cabin, and stared out the porthole at the stars overhead, now seeing twice as many. Dang, that is good cognac. Ramon picked up the plates and as he was leaving, said, "I do not believe we will find this Holy Grail of yours, this sound like the fairy stories father would tell us as children. I do believe this will end very bad. Each chest we find seem to be now taking things out of us, instead of other way, and then give us another map, so as to take even more. Soon we will be left with nothing in ourselves if we continue this, but if that is your wish, I cannot stop you."
"We will sail for this Raven's Cove in morning Christina" Ramon declared, "But if chest is filled with more monkey belly lint, Ramon will find another use for that whip." I stumbled over to my bunk as Ramon slammed the cabin door, and plopped myself down onto it, feeling the entire boat spinning underneath me. I closed my eyes and heard a lonely Right Whale gently begin singing for a mate off in the distance, as I pulled the blanket over my head and hoped that the anguishing dreams would please just leave me in peace tonight.
End chapter 1
chapter 1
The rusty pick axe shattered the lock on the front of the skull chest, and Ramon bent down and picked it up from the dirt and tossed it back into the open pit that it had just been dragged from. I leaped down from the rock that I was brazenly Flexing Mightily atop of, and helped Ramon lift the creaking, frozen lid on the skull, once again praying silently that this madness would now finally come to an end .
"Is only another map Christina, just the same as all the other chests, nothing more. I do not think we will ever find this object you seek, we are just chasing the wild goosed." I reached into the chest for the map, and stuffed it inside my faded black puffy shirt, which I am told is torn in all the right places, and handed the bottle of rum to Ramon.
"These chests are like walking through a maze" I explained, "It may seem like we are getting nowhere, but with each one, we are getting closer to it, I can feel it. And if I hear that kind of talk again my handsome little deary, it will be my whip that ye feel wild goosing ye backside." Ramon handed the bottle back, and replied with a laugh, "Si senorita, Ramon would very much like to see the other uses you have for that whip, I am sure that you know a great many."
I put the rum back in my pack, and grinned broadly back at him, saying, "You always could manage to make me smile, no matter how badly I felt. When I look back, I don't know how I would have survived after father was murdered without you, Ramon. There just aren't enough words in any language for me to convey how I feel about you."
He took out the bag of crackers that he seemed to have carried with him his entire life, and handed me one. I had never seen a person who liked crackers so much, I thought to myself. He swallowed the cracker and said, "Your father, he always treat Ramon very well, almost as if a son" Ramon began, just as if he hadn't told me this story more times than I could count.
"Even at the age ten Ramon could see very bad things in future, a filthy jail cell if I was very lucky, and a headstone if I was not. The street is no place for small boy, it make him old too soon. He give me home and better future, and he teach Ramon to become strong man, with a good head up on his neck. Your father were very good man, but he always have too much trust inside him Christina, and the cur of a dog who take advantage of that was coward, men do not shoot in back. My knife will rest in his belly someday senorita, as I speak your fathers name in his craven ear.
"Enough!" I finally yelled at him, "I really wish you would stop saying "Your father" Ramon, because honesty, I am getting sick to death of hearing that" I growled, staring at him angrily. "From the moment that you stepped through the door, he became "Our father", and there has never been a single time in my life that I did not think of you as my big brother. Simply being born into a family is not an overly special trick, but when you are chosen to be in a family, that is special. You were just as much his child as I was, and at times I think, perhaps more. So please begin calling him what he was. Our father."
"Si Christina, I am sorry, I will honor our father, there were never nothing Ramon ever want more than to be his son. My real father never no want to be one, so he run away and never return. That more than anything help kill my mother, I want never to see him again. It seem loco now, but Ramon always jealous of hearing you say "father", while I feel I could never." I dug out the rum again and handed it to Ramon, as he went on talking.
"He once tell me of a great darkness that enter his house when your mother unexpectedly die giving birth to you, and he refuse to even see you for weeks, he no see anyone. When he finally do, he say that he look down in crib and he see your mother in your eyes, and the light suddenly return to house when he see you smile."
"Your... our father, tell me once that he have everything he want in this life, and he now need nothing more but to see you face always smile in his heart. So, when he die, I decide that it time Ramon repay all he has been given in life, a good father and a beautiful sister, and it now my job to make sure that you still smile for inside his heart."
I looked up and stared into Ramon's unwaveringly piercing brown eyes, and then had to quickly turn away. Absentmindedly, I began fumbling with my whip, running my fingers slowly up and down the hard leather coil hanging limply off my hip. Biting softly on the corner of my lip while I shook my head, I picked up the bottle of rum from the rock and finally managed to quietly mumble, "Jesus. Can someone please tell me why the hell all the good ones seem to be either married, or my "brother?" Okay, I guess there were a few times I hadn't thought of him as my brother.
We took the leaky skiff back to the ship, and I rolled the map out on the desk in my cabin, while Ramon cooked the fish we had caught in the nets in what he called, "a delightfully zesty pomegranate infused vinaigrette, with "truffle kissed" Brussels sprouts." As I studied the map, I wondered silently which would kill me first, something that was guarding these chests, or Ramon's mail order French cooking classes.
He brought in two plates as I was staring at the map, and asked, "So where are we going now senorita, the end of the world?" "Not quite that far" I said, pointing at the island to the left of the grog stain I had clumsily spilled onto the map. "A lovely fly speck of dirt in the middle of nowhere known as Raven's Cove. It says that the next chest is buried in a sand mound near an altar with an idol on top of it. The winding caves have been mostly deserted for years, well, that is unless you believe all the crazy stories of the ghosties of cursed miners running around in the tunnels."
"And if it is another map we find inside this chest," Ramon questioned between mouthfuls of purple tinted fish, "What will we do then? Shall we search for this object until we are old and grey, or half mad? You still have not told me what this object we seek is, and I think it is time that you start to 'splainin' to me about this foolish search."
Ramon walked over to the cabinet, and brought back two glasses and the bottle of very expensive cognac we had taken from the short, and quite angry Frenchman, who had tried to steal the first map from us. Figuring that he had little use for the fine spirits, what with being tied in his frilly lavender colored underwear to the tree like that, the bottle had gone into my bag. He poured half the bottle in my glass, set it down in front of me, and declared, "You will drink now, and you will loosen that infuriatingly tight tongue you have had since a child. Please Christina, tell me just what this thing is that we are chasing in circles."
"The object we are seeking is called "The Emulator" I answered, taking a large drink of the cognac. "Where the object originated from is unknown, but it is believed to hold the power of life and death over all online worlds inside of it, and can create new, or it can remake any game that was ever made." I took another drink of the cognac and continued.
"Walt discovered the Emulator in Africa during the 1950s while doing one of his many nature documentaries in the jungles. The natives there had found it buried in a cave, and they were using it to fill a dusty hole in the belly button of one of their giant monkey statues. Walt, always known for being the shrewd businessman, had traded them a nice, shiny Magic Kingdom ashtray for it."
"Walt returned to America, where the Emulator supposedly remained locked in his private safe until after his death in 1966, his two daughters being the only ones that even knew of its existence." I pushed the cold plate of radioactive looking fish away, and pondered my empty cognac glass.
"In 1974 the Emulator was connected to ARPAnet, the primitive forerunner of the internet, and in a very short time it had created "Mazewar", technically the first MMO. Many more would soon follow, and in time, the Emulator began learning from, and correcting, its past mistakes, almost as if it was becoming self aware."
"So what you say is, this Emasculator just have power to create and run games? Nothing else? That is why you drag Ramon on this errand of fools?" He stood, and began cleaning up the dinner plates, clearly upset with me. "There is more to it than that Ramon" I tried to explain, "They aren't merely games anymore, it has gone beyond that, most of them are real worlds now."
I poured the rest of the cognac into my glass as Ramon put the plates back down. "Real?" he questioned, "What do you mean, the games are real?" "I mean" I replied, taking a huge gulp of cognac, "The people in them all are flesh and blood, living, breathing, and taking out the damm trash on Tuesdays real " I answered. "At some point the Emulator began creating sentient life, and everything in those games it made are now thinking and reasoning creatures. And if I don't find it soon, they will all die."
"Eighteen months ago the Emulator disappeared from the locked and guarded tower at Disneyland. There was a massive search conducted by the heavily armed Disney Secret Service Ops, the Pixar Seal Team squads, and the recently acquired Empire Stormtrooper battalions, but it was never found. The search was ended shortly before the Avengers and the Incredibles were brought in, as Iger apparently saw the price tag for the operation."
"The worlds it created are now becoming increasingly unstable without the Emulator's constant presence to feed off" I explained. "Some of the realms are drifting between the game zones and our zones, while others are becoming trapped somewhere in between. Those unlucky ones await a slow and agonizing death as their worlds begin to crumble beneath them. Raven's Cove may not even be there by the time we reach it, or we may be dragged back with it if we stay too long."
"You are mad my dear sister, or you are drunk" Ramon cursed at me. "A monkey's belly button creating life? We should return home, for you need a long siesta." I downed the last of the cognac, then looked him in the eye and said, "Always the one with his head out of the clouds, and his feet firmly on the ground. If you can't touch it or explain it, then it doesn't exist, just like father was. Well, this does exist, and I will find it, with or without you, my brother."
I turned and walked over to the starboard wall of the cabin, and stared out the porthole at the stars overhead, now seeing twice as many. Dang, that is good cognac. Ramon picked up the plates and as he was leaving, said, "I do not believe we will find this Holy Grail of yours, this sound like the fairy stories father would tell us as children. I do believe this will end very bad. Each chest we find seem to be now taking things out of us, instead of other way, and then give us another map, so as to take even more. Soon we will be left with nothing in ourselves if we continue this, but if that is your wish, I cannot stop you."
"We will sail for this Raven's Cove in morning Christina" Ramon declared, "But if chest is filled with more monkey belly lint, Ramon will find another use for that whip." I stumbled over to my bunk as Ramon slammed the cabin door, and plopped myself down onto it, feeling the entire boat spinning underneath me. I closed my eyes and heard a lonely Right Whale gently begin singing for a mate off in the distance, as I pulled the blanket over my head and hoped that the anguishing dreams would please just leave me in peace tonight.
End chapter 1
