A Third Tour of Steelhead’s St Helens

It was time for me to ride into town again. Since my last trip (not to mention the one before that) many things had changed in St Helens, none so much as the residents. As Frank and I slowly trotted through the morning splendour of Steelhead’s beautiful wilderness, I recorded these changes for posterity. Here, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a pictorial record of my third tour of Stelhead’s St Helens, starting with my own, hand-built humble abode in the shadow of the mighty mountain itself…

I followed the river east to where, on the former site of Autopilotpatty Poppy’s tree-stump house, Thadicus Caligari has set up camp. Frank has a knack of finding other horses, y’know…

Journeying around the back of Mr Caligari’s property, it seems Mr Vain Adder has expanded his own land holdings considerably and built an impressively large town house in the middle of the forested wilderness.

Frank led me over the mountain and past Miss Fogwoman Gray’s charming cottage (where Frank found yet another horse to snuffle at).

Nearby, Otenth Paderborn had set up a small stables for horses (which seems to have replaced Maev Ceawlin’s balloon air tours)…

…which dovetailed nicely with the Mayor’s blacksmith’s business near the welcome centre.

Frank stopped for a drink in Elegia Underwood’s rather eerie pool…

Whilst I’d much rather have been in her saloon!

Nearby, MisLily Nightfire has a truly lovely home by the border with Shanghai.

And the Asian influences from Shanghai seem to have inspired Miss Kristianna Fotherington’s home (which I think has replaced the strange rabbit tent of Katsu Catnap).

It was a delight to find Miss Anna Darwinian’s gorgeous wee cottage and garden still here!

As it was with Miss Mara Razor’s mill – hell, St Helens wouldn’t be St Helens without Mara’s mill!

Across the road from the mill, Thadicus Caligari has a rather lovely piece of land by the river that I think replaces the house Maxim built.

Valdyr Dreamscape has built a Jagerhut (forgive the spelling if wrong) on the site of Mari Moonbeam’s old farm & campsite.

Which is even more striking inside!

Frequency Picnic has moved out and her wee log cabin has been renovated by Otenth Paderborn.

Who has a rather lovely prairie meadow just above it (Frank loved the fresh grass!)

The lovely BobbiJo Jonson still has her wonderful place above the river!

As does Miss Riven Homewood, who also has some rather fine horses to boot!

And that ends my third tour of St Helens my dear readers. As best as I cab figure, the only place I’ve never photographed is (or was, as he’s moved out) nichus Berman’s gorgeous log cabin. Ironic really as it was nichus who kindly showed me how to make log cabins and without his help and his cabin as both inspiration and guide, I would never have built my own!

p.s. Come and visit St Helens by beaming in at my place here.

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You can read more about the history of St Helens, as well as how to rent a plot there, over on the Steelhead Ning here. The rates and prim allocations (as of 29th Sept 2010 and subject to change by management, of course) are:

• Land Fee or Buy in Price: 6144L$
• Monthly Rental: 1800L$
• Weekly: 450L$
• Most lots are double prim 234 some sims offer more than double prims at an additional fee if available

For all my Steelhead related posts click here.

For all my St Helens related posts click here.

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Steal Head: Chapter 12 – The New Herald…

The monkeys had grown clever. Clever and dangerous. They had new things, things not given to fear. Things of china powered by the dust of creation flew through the skies. Dog-men bred for war ran through the streets. Metal machines clanked and splashed above and beneath the waves. All were looking for Him, all protecting His prey. He was still weak, still consolidating. He had to hide and swim as His terrible hunger drove Him on. He would fight them all! He would kill them all! He would not be denied! He… He was not what He once had been. The fall had been far. He was hungry and to eat He found He had to adopt a level of caution He despised.

Until, as if sensing His desperation, the capricious whim of the Universe turned in His favour.

From the moment He saw the monkey He knew His Herald was found. The old Herald had been unsuitable from the start and now hovered on the brink of death. This one was different. The fear coursing through its veins and the scent of its soul had nearly sent Him into a feeding frenzy but the black emptiness inside it spoke to Him. He halted and stared into the weakling monkey at the thick tar of its self-hatred that had crept out to inhabit every part of its pathetic little body. The monkey was all but lost and would soon rejoice to be His Herald.

Cries of alarm! The dog-men were coming and there was no time to loose. He swept the monkey from its feet and dove into the water. His new lair was nearby and there His new Herald would learn to serve Him…

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To be continued…

Links to other blogs and stories:
1) All Dr Beck’s Journal Entries can be read here.
2) All my “Steal Head” posts can be read on my blog here and on the Steelhead Ning here.
3) The latest “Steal Head” Story So Far recap can be found here.
4) All my “Mutations” posts can be read here.

 

Adric Antfarm – Haunting Hammy From Beyond The Grave!

In what I can only imagine is a development that would make Adric piss himself laughing, Hammy has posted a piece about his death only to see it turn into a “Hammy is teh ebil!” flame war. Adric would have loved that – not the fact that the Hamster posted about his death, which would have pissed him of royally, but that people managed to get their “FUCK OFF AND DIE!” posts to stick in a place he himself found his comments more often than not wiped from.

An Aside…
Y’know, even though I don’t read it anymore, I really do wish Ham wouldn’t post Blue Mars posts in his SL blog – but I guess it’s his blog so it’s his choice… which leads me nicely back to the start of this sentence Anyhoo, back to the main event…

Follow the fun!
Hamlet’s post.
Crap’s no nonsense post in reply.

Other Adric links:
The post from Amalia that announced Adric’s death.
His RL friend’s photo tribute.
An in-world memorial.
Prok says his own sort of farewell…

Other Crap/Prok/Adric stuff:
There seems to be another in the endless spats between Prok & Crap with Adric & Josue… all amusing stuff from the outside so I thought you’d like a read

 

Goodbye Cousin Adric

The man behind the avatar Adric Antfarm, died suddenly last weekend and I, like many others, will the miss him greatly. There is a post on his blog from his RL friend: http://www.adric.us/2010/09/sad-on-the-prim/

Filthy, funny, clever, vile and caring Adric was someone I never thought I’d like and found I loved. Sometimes the targets for his anger or amusement made me wince, but invariably the core of what he said was true. Adric didn’t just hold up a mirror to all of our hypocrisies, but he smacked us in the face with it and called us tossers. Or fucking dickwad tossers to be more precise. Anyone who knows me knows I like swearing, and Adric swore like a navvy with his cock trapped in a door.

Another great thing about Adric was his ability to piss Prok AND Hamlet off at the same time. Neither knew what to do with him and for that alone he should be knighted. In fact the only people of note in the top SL bloggers who got him were Dale & Crap, which was a tribute to Crap considering how much Adric took the piss out of the Second Lie (anti-)gestalt on Twitter.

His blog had a hardcore of regular readers and commenters and I’d like to think I was in that number. To think I’ll never see his entry in my Google Reader go black with unread goodies again makes me very, very sad.

I don’t believe in god, heaven or anything after we die, but that doesn’t stop me smiling to think right now he’s clogging up the Almighty’s free-wifi with porn and endless YouTubes of idiots fighting on live TV or public transport.

I’m raising my cup of tea (if it helps, it’s strong tea) to you cousin Antfarm, you part Welsh, part Native American, all American bobby dazzler!

I’ll miss you, mate.

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As ever, timezone differences meant I never really got to meet Adric in SL – he did come to the last season of The Show Must Go On and I snapped these shots of the handsome bastard

 

Steal Head: Chapter 11 – Into the Lair of The Beast…

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam

Flashes of stones, snatches of cobbled streets…

To shine for Him each day

A sickening leap into nothing…

In every way try to please Him

The cold slap of the ocean…

At home, at school, at play

Underwater… choking… drowning…

A sunbeam, a sunbeam

Into air… sudden, gasping, retching…

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam

Crashing onto wet wooden boards… slipping… sliding…

A sunbeam, a sunbeam

Darkness… faint light through strange, square holes in the walls

I’ll be a sunbeam for Him

Lips suddenly pressing against his ear “You are to be His… you are His new servant… His Herald…”

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam

Beck’s eyes snapped open. He was in a cave, a narrow, wooden cave sloping downwards into a dark pool of churning water. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw heads, lots of heads, severed and rotting heads skewered onto to spikes rammed into the walls, their faces twisted with their final screams of horror.

The terrible decaying voice whispered to him again, “This is His temple and you will serve Him here.”

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To be continued…

Links to other blogs and stories:
1) All my “Steal Head” posts can be read on my blog here and on the Steelhead Ning here.
2) The latest “Steal Head” Story So Far recap can be found here.
3) All my “Mutations” posts can be read here.
4) All Dr Beck’s Journal Entries can be read here.

 

Mutations: Chapter 12 – And The Ocean Swallowed Her Up…

With a lurch Beck awoke, the frantic knocking at his door jolting him from deep, dark dreams of snow-blanketed wilderness spotted with the coal-black stains of accusation. He stumbled over to the door and opened it to the panicked face of Meili, her skin as pale as the full moon hanging in the sky behind her. “Meili…?” he slurred. A tall man moved in behind her, Beck’s eyes darted back and forth as he felt a sudden, and entirely surprising, pang of jealousy.

Before he had time to wonder where such an emotion had come from, Meili, between sobs, blurted out “Doctor Beck, please! It’s Xan, she’s missing!”

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The night, though chilly, was free from fog and the wharves of Shanghai shone with the torches of Jager patrols as Beck grabbed his lantern followed Meili and her male companion into the moon-lit streets of Shamian. As they ran towards the family home, Meili told how she had returned from work to find her sister-in-law gone and, fearing the worst, had gone to fetch Beck.

“Hold on,” Beck gasped, exhausted from the run, “we need help. Let me go and alert the Jagers. You go home and see if Xan has returned…” Meili began to argue, but her companion intervened in Mandarin. Whatever he said worked as Meili nodded sharply once and agreed. “I’ll come to your house as soon as I hear anything, and if Xan does return then we can let the Jager captain know. I’m sure she will be alright, Meili, I promise.” As soon as the fatuous words left his mouth he hated himself for saying them. How could he promise such a thing? He wanted Meili off the streets and out of harm’s way and the fact he’d promise her anything to keep her safe squirmed evilly inside him. He watched her go before setting off towards the wharves facing the moon tower.

As he strode through the night, footsteps echoed down the dark, twisting walkways of the slums and more than once he found he was holding his breath in fearful expectation until he broke free and came out onto the open stone docks. There were no Jagers in sight and he peered out across the bay looking for signs of a patrol on the far side. As he did so, he saw something in the water that turned his blood cold.

Her hair floated around her head as if it were wheat waving in the wind and as he gazed at her corpse, the black void inside him crept out further from his gut, numbing and smothering him from the inside out. He had no idea how long he stood by the water’s edge watching her lifeless form rise and fall with the swell of the bay, but as his senses slowly returned he began to call out for help. He shouted for the Jager guard, for anyone to come. He would not let her stay out there. He would not leave another person out in the water, in the cold, deep ocean, all alone, abandoned. He would not…

The wet slap on the stones behind him was barely audible yet it stopped his thoughts in their tracks. Slowly he turned, the sounds of the Jagers sounding their alarms fading away to nothing as looked up into the terrible eyes of the creature known as Steal Head…

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To be continued…

Links to other blogs and stories:
1) All Dr Beck’s Journal Entries can be read here.
2) All my “Steal Head” posts can be read on my blog here and on the Steelhead Ning here.
3) The latest “Steal Head” Story So Far recap can be found here.
4) All my “Mutations” posts can be read here.

 

From the Journal of Dr Rynhold Beck: 17th September 18ζΞ

17th September 18ζΞ

Will this hellish week never end? I seem trapped between the monster and its vile murders on one side and the Tong’s endless violence on the other. I shall come to the Tong later, but for now the issue of the devil that is beheading people all across town looms large in my worries.

After the Town Hall Meeting I think people are finally waking up to the danger that confronts them. Who can blame them for not seeing it until the bodies began to pile up? Not I. I who was so convinced the dreams were mere mass hysteria caused by some unknown poison in the town’s water system. If only we – I – had listened to the sensitives in town, those folk who feel the subtle vibrations of things unseen and unheard. Maybe if we have all stopped and listened to their panicked cries and warnings we could have saved the lives of the poor wretches this monster so callously took. Mayor Lunar has ordered the setting up of a morgue next to my surgery so many are the dead. The last of the victims we have found, the poor girl everyone took for a nun, has moved me greatly. Out there in the town is a father grieving for a lost child, just as Xan & Xao grieved for their own and I for mine.

Xao… Oh god what do I do about Xao? She has lost everything and now, with the explosion that brought the Dragon Lady’s rail car crashing into the lagoon, she has lost her husband as well. How can there be a god looking down on all this loss and suffering? How can people like Xan & Xao find comfort in such the dream of such a god? I’ve given Xan’s sister, Meili, some extra sleeping draughts in the hope Xao will remain calm enough for her heart and mind to heal enough to be told about Xan.

Speaking of Meili I am sure she helped me back home from the den last night. I hadn’t realised it but she is one of the pipe girls, one of the Dragon Lady’s retinue who saw the explosion I hear. I was lost last night. I could not find the usual relief from my memories and instead my mind tormented me with things I’d rather forget. I breathed in deeply, too deeply, in an attempt to black out the whiteness and I remember nothing more until I awoke this morning to the scent of roses and fresh tea. I could have been in no fit state to get home myself and can only assume I had help. That, the scent and the fact my clothes had been removed and folded means I can only assume a kindly feminine hand was at work. That poor girl is all the family Xao has left now – and god help her, Xao is all she has left; less a family more a life sentence of domestic care. Maybe I can write and implore the Dragon Lady to release her into my employment? But then, what can I offer her? What little I earn flows out of the door in rent and supplies. If it weren’t for the kindness of some of the town’s folk I don’t know how I’d survive here at all. I have nothing – and that is what I have to offer Meili & the Dragon?

Talking of my survival here, and my anonymous benefactors, a very curious thing has happened. On my small table, by the new microscope I found outside my door a few weeks back, someone has left me a gift. A gift I am at a loss to explain. The kind soul who donated the microscope (and I know it to be the same person due the same calling card and wrapping paper) has left me a small, wooden box containing six precious or semi-precious stones. I have no idea how they got in without damaging my locked door or, more importantly, why they would leave me such things. What am I supposed to do with them? Pawn them? Sell them? What if it’s a mistake? What if they were meant for someone else and they ended up here? Should I tell the sheriff? Maybe I’ll run them by Miss Blackheart and seek a valuation first. God, can you imagine what the Tong scum would do if they knew I had something of worth here?

Ahhh the Tong. Why is it none of my entries can go without the Tong creeping in? They are a cancer at the heart of the slums and if the explosion was indeed an assassination attempt by them then the cancer is seeking to spread its malign influence out of the slums and into the rest of Shanghai. I wonder what the Dragon Lady’s next move will be, that is assuming the warehouse fire last night wasn’t it, of course. I must speak to my patients tomorrow, they know the street gossip and trust me enough to give me snippets and warnings, despite the risks they run. I need to know if the Tong and the Dragon Lady are about to go to war – if they do so whilst this Steal Head monster is prowling I fear the sheriff’s resources will be diverted and the creature will be free to kill again and again – and it must not be allowed to!

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To be continued…

Links to other blogs and stories:
1) All Dr Beck’s Journal Entries can be read here.
2) All my “Steal Head” posts can be read on my blog here and on the Steelhead Ning here.
3) The latest “Steal Head” Story So Far recap can be found here.
4) All my “Mutations” posts can be read here.
5) The gift of the stones is detailed here.
6) The Tong warehouse fire is detailed here.
7) A sensitive struggles with visions here.

 

Steal Head: Chapter 10 – From Lair to Lair He Stalks…

He had hunted from before time had begun. He had stalked through the dust of creation and laid waste to countless races as they emerged from the primordial mud of their pathetic spinning spheres, their first breath their last as He left world after world to rot behind Him. He had taken stars and moons as they danced through the cosmos and snuffed out the light in a billion billion galaxies. He was more than Death, more than mere un-life. He ate the souls of creation, sucking its life-force like marrow from a bone and no one, not even the dead were safe from Him. He had prowled every Heaven and Hell imaginable, feasting wherever He went, and even the blessed of Valhalla and Elysium could not hide from Him. He took their death as He had taken their life and in doing so erased them from creation for all eternity.

But as is the way of all things, He grew old. Even His might could not evade Entropy. He became bound by creation, dragged down closer to its filth and mire until He was no longer able to take and feed at will. The fall might have been gradual, but it was a fall nonetheless until He became dependent upon the fear and adulation of the clever monkeys He once ruled. He was a God, yes, but He had been so much more and although He could feed off them, He found that without them He receded into the Blackness Between and was all but lost from time.

Until the Hearld was sounded. Its dreadful call had echoed between realities, pulling Him back from the brink and once more towards the monkeys He so craved. And in the fog and the night He arrived. His first faithful, His Herald, had welcomed Him with a gift and the taste of her soul re-ignited His appetite. He gorged Himself in an orgy of heads, collecting them in the tunnels His Herald had found for Him. Above ground the fear spread and the smell of it drove Him wild with joyous hunger. These new monkeys might well be clever, but they felt the fear of Him that all the filthy lives He had snuffed out throughout time had done. They feared him and He grew strong on it.

Except… except not all the monkeys felt the fear. His lair had been defiled. His collection re-taken. The smell of the monkeys hung heavy, one a mutant and one moon-cursed. They would alert others and more would come to drive Him out. He could not allow it! He had only just begun! His appetite was not sated and He would have more heads to feast upon!

He called his decaying Herald to Him and gave His orders. He had to move, find a more suitable lair for His collection. As He watched His Herald shuffle away, He licked His lips as He realised He would need a new Herald soon…

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To be continued…

Links to other blogs and stories:
1) All my “Steal Head” posts can be read on my blog here and on the Steelhead Ning here.
2) The latest “Steal Head” Story So Far recap can be found here.

 

Steal Head: Chapter 9 – A Fifth Letter to the Town Council

Dear Esteemed Members of the Town Council,

This has been a truly dreadful week in the city which has seen five gruesome murders take place on our streets. With at least one poor girl still missing, I fear the evil that until recently seemed content with visiting our dreams has now decided to crawl on our shores!

Research from across the city, and especially from the staff of Frau Lowey, has shown that the nightmares were not caused by any environmental factor such as a toxin or miasma but rather by a concentrated shockwave of mental energy, most likely caused by the protracted arrival of the monster the Scamps have taken to calling Steal Head. I believe this to the be the same creature that attacked and damaged Captain Crieghton’s submarine in our recent expedition to the deep waters off our coast. I myself was knocked unconscious in the attack, but Captain Creighton and Miss Jonson captured several images of the beast as it continued its attack, seemingly trying to get at us inside. Luckily the sub held together but it took a heroic effort on Captain Creighton’s part to raise us to the surface and get away from the monster.

Steal Head is an apt name for the brute as my post mortems on all five victims can attest. Each death occurred due to sudden decapitation with no other significant physical injuries found. The heads of these poor folk were simply torn (or in some cases bitten!) right off. None of the heads have, to this date, been recovered. Until we know why the creature takes only the head, may I just add that popular & somewhat ghoulish public speculation that they are being eaten is extremely unhelpful and distressing to the families of the victims.

I look the liberty of contacting Miss Homewood at the public library with regards to some research into instances of ritualistic head removal and in short measure she had furnished me with several reference books that detailed just such instances. Although many of the practices mentioned could be passed off as misrepresentations, rumours and lies, one passage did stand out. In Frome’s “Pizarro’s Legacy – Blood and Gold” there is a curious section entitled “A Treatise on the Savage Beliefs of the Cultures and Sub-Cultures of Peru” which, amongst a great many other things, deals with the Nasca people’s practice of keeping heads as a sort of trophy. It is within that section that I stumbled upon mention of a God-like creature the Nasca worshipped (or feared, it is unclear) who swam in the sea as a whale but came to the land to gather and collect the heads of his faithful’s enemies (or the faithful themselves, again this is unclear). Only one image exists of the creature in the manner of a small carving carried by fishermen for protection. The carving is indicative of the artistic nature of the the Nasca and appears to show a bi-pedal whale-like creature with a human head clutched in its teeth-laden maw. Apart from fragments, the Nasca language has been lost but one name comes down to us through the ages. It appears this creature, this God-figure, this head-collector had a name and that name was Ya Yiwama, which could be said to mean The Thief of Heads or, as I’m sure you have realised, Steal Head.

Now as a man of science and medicine I find the idea that the streets are being haunted by an ancient South American God intent on turning our fair city into a charnel house almost beyond the pale, but given the weight of evidence that has been uncovered or alluded to over the last few weeks I’m at a loss to come to any other conclusion.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Town Council, I fear Ya Yiwama, an ancient and evil butcher God, has found his way to Steelhead and has but one thought on his mind – to kill and kill again. And it is because I fear this antediluvian monstrosity is driven by a hunger for heads that can never be sated that I implore you to muster the newly formed Steelhead Militia! Call upon the Baron’s Jagers! Set patrols with the Nuns! The public must be protected!

Why only today I was approached by a local business man who is willing to act now to organise flying patrols of the city following a very kind offer from one Miss Qlippothic Projects and her crew. Mr Danielovich of Velvel’s Bazaar in Shanghai can furnish you with details, but I was assured the cost to the city would be negligible; a covering of expenses, some Sunstones from our mines for power and a berth for their craft so the crew refuel and their company’s founder is able to explore the city. I beg of you all, good members of the Council, to take up Miss Project’s kind offer and restore some calm to our terrified streets!

Yours in Dire Straits!
Rynhold Beck (Dr.)
13 to 14 Shamian Alley,
Shanghai, Stlhd.
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To be continued…

Links to other blogs and stories:
1) All my “Steal Head” posts can be read on my blog here and on the Steelhead Ning here.
2) The latest “Steal Head” Story So Far recap can be found here.

 

Mutations: Chapter 11 – The Endless White

The smoke curled around his head as if it were caressing him with a lover’s touch, but he didn’t notice. The cot held him as tightly as a mother hugging her child, but he didn’t notice. The beautiful pipe-girl gazed at him with a curiously caring look in her eyes, but he didn’t notice. Dr Beck had breathed deep and long from the pipe currently dangling precariously from his listless fingers and his glazed eyes now saw a world far removed from the dark, hidden depths of the opium den his body remained in.

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The endless whiteness was all consuming. It burned into him, flooding into his eyes and filling his mind until he thought he could take no more and that it would burst out of him. And it was all his fault.

In their flight from the navy, they had been driven further north and west than their small trawler was ever meant to journey until, in desperation they had pushed on with only one hope, find the northwest passage and circle over hostile Canada to the free lands of America. It was his plan. He had convinced them to try it, to push on into the endless whiteness, to search for freedom. And god help him they listened.

He thought the snow and ice terrible, mile after mile of white wastelands burning into him, searing into his eyes until he feared he’d go blind with it. He thought it worse even than the cold and the hunger, but he was wrong.

The endless whiteness. Perfect in every way save for two small, black stains on its surface. As the ship cracked its way through the ice, journeying ever forward into the unknown, the coal-black smears grew smaller and smaller until the the Arctic wastes swallowed them and his world once more was the searing endless whiteness forever frozen in his tears.

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Outside the den, as the scent of burning catnip rose from a burning warehouse, an ancient evil stalked the streets in search of a terrible harvest…

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To be continued…

Links to other blogs and stories:
1) All my “Mutations” posts can be read on my blog here.
2) All my “Steal Head” posts can be read on my blog here and on the Steelhead Ning here.
3) A “Steal Head” Story So Far recap can be found here.
4) More details on the burning catnip warehouse can be found in Alana Steamweaver’s Ning post here.

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