Bill Martin
2008-01-26 20:17:53 UTC
Remember, like the year Rob entered, I cannot judge my own fic, so this
is up to those that have entered this year's NYC to judge...
New Year’s Challenge - Medium Omake Entry
Team Deadly Redheads, Take 3
Genie - Rune Soldier Louie
Miss Yukari (a.k.a. Inspector Widget) - Nerima Daikon Brothers
Nami - One Piece
It was a brisk January morning. I looked around the Colorado site,
some people were summoning their team, others were showing up with
their teams already summoned. Several people were in the cocoa tent,
warming up their insides, while others were blissfully ignorant of the
cold, and walking around talking to other teams, waiting and
speculation on the challenge. Once I was sure that all the teams were
there, I got up on a make-shift stage to address the crowd.
“Thank you all for coming. This year’s Medium Challenge will take
place downstream, at the end of your whitewater rafting trip.” In
retrospect, that’s when I made my first mistake. “My team and I will go
on ahead of you. Those that attempt to arrive before us will find that
the challenge won’t have been properly set up.” Once Nami, Genie, Miss
Yukari, and I were all in the raft, we headed downstream. As we were
leaving the docking area, I saw some teams were getting anxious, others
were getting perturbed, others just didn’t care. I also kept a lookout
for my “hidden” spotters, to make sure that I’d be notified, in case
some teams tried to beat me past the “point of no return.”
As my team and I journeyed down the river, the radio in my backpack
crackled to life, saying, “Challenge is a go. All teams are in the
water, repeat, all teams are in the water.” I started to relax, until
I looked back, and saw a few teams trying to catch-up, maybe even pass
me. Once the gap narrowed enough, I decided to get my radio out. I
clicked the transmit button and spoke words I knew I’d regret in the
months, and maybe years ahead, but I said them anyways, “Change of
plans. Blow the charges now! I’ve prepared for this, look for me at
the rendezvous area, and have the Medical Tent get ready.” As my team
and I rounded the first corner, we heard the explosion, and saw smoke
climbing rapidly. “What did you do?” the ladies asked me. I remained
silent until we neared the waterfall area, I grinned and started to
sing, “Me and my three teammates, on a routine New Year’s Challenge,
are getting pulled into the greatest time window ever seen. Hastened
by the rapids, it’ll take our tiny raft, and plunge us over a thousand
feet below, to the Land of the Lost (lost, lost, lost), to the Land of
the Lost!” The trio of ladies were giving me an icy stare that, if
possible, would’ve killed me. Fortunately, I passed out before they
could do anything about it.
As I started to regain consciousness, I immediately felt hot, and
started to take off some layers. I saw the jungle around me, and I saw
the ladies were also adjusting to the change in setting. I knew that
the beautiful scenery around me was a bit misleading, as the Land of
the Lost was very deadly. The Marshalls had found a couple of ways
out, and I knew that if they could survive here, lots of people could,
I just hoped my two newest teammates could work out, since team synergy
is imporant, and without synergy here, we were as good as dead. As I
shook off the final cobwebs of unconsciousness, I gathered up the
supplies I’d stored in the raft, put on my backpack, and spoke to the
ladies, as they were in various stages of alertness. “First off, you
can be mad at me all you want, but right now, we have more important
concerns. Shelter, preferably above ground level, and kindling to
start a fire. We’re going to be here a while, and no search party will
look for us here, if they could even find this place.”
Nami was the first to speak up, saying, “I’ve been to lots of weird
places before with Luffy, and I’ve heard about some others from Usopp,
when he talked about his dad’s adventures, but this place seems to take
the cake, and what did you mean when you sang ‘Land of the Lost’
earlier?” I replied, “Well, if someone found it, it wouldn’t be lost.
This is a place beyond normal understanding of time and space, a sort
of pocket universe where a big ‘what if’ took place. Where the
dinosaurs of my world didn’t die off from a mass extinction, where
mammals evolved alongside dinosaurs, where dinosaurs continued to
evolve, and even took on a similar bipedal form. There are carnivorous
dinosaurs, carnivorous plants, and complex matrix tables that keep a
delicate balance from going too out-of-control here. Crystals from
caves not only combine to do various things, but also manipulate the
matrix tables to control weather, night and day, and if worse comes to
worse, time travel us back to when we came, but that only happens once
every three years, and I don’t know where that one is, much less if
it’s even open soon. At night, we should avoid the Sleestak, which
should be easy, you can usually hear one coming.”
“Sleestak?” Genie asked. “Is that singular or plural?” “Both,” I
replied, “they’re descendants of the Altrusian race that once thrived
in the Land of the Lost. Mostly, they’ll hunt down their ‘sacred
Altrusian moths’, but they’ll occasionally trap larger animals to be
nourishment for their younger hatchlings. We should be able to avoid
the Pakuni, they’re like the supposed missing link in evolution, but
like many things in the Land of the Lost, they’re designed to be that
way. They are herbivores, as are most of the dinosaurs here, but
still, we’d better find shelter and fast. It’s almost noon here, and I
don’t feel like sleeping in trees.” Miss Yukari had been scanning the
distance as I was explaining things to Nami and Genie. “I see some
caves off in the distance, and we can make it there in a few hours, so
long as we leave now.”
As we portaged the raft, I heard a distant roar. I thought to myself
that the roar either came from “Alice” or “Grumpy,” but I wasn’t sure.
Once we got to the area Miss Yukari had talked about, I saw it was
similar to the High Bluffs that the Marshalls stayed in, but with more
caves, and looked to be more orangish, where as theirs looked like
limestone. Once a cave was picked out, and determined not to be
currently inhabited, Miss Yukari and Genie went out to gather wood and
kindling for the fire, and I slowly started to unpack my backpack.
Having gone camping before, and knowing the climate of the Land of the
Lost, I was prepared for this trip. I pulled out a cooking kettle, and
pulled two blankets out of it. A skillet held some packages of tallow,
that I’d acquired from a friend in Canada named Paul. While I knew it
wouldn’t spoil, I preferred to use it for seasoning, rather than as
sustenance. I then went to the other large pouch. A few MREs I got
from a guy in my neighborhood, a few toilitries, and the final two
blankets. Once the fire got started, I looked and saw a nearby stream,
took the pot, and got some water for boiling. Once the water had been
boiled, I started to relax, and got into a very long discussion of
everything I could remember about the Land of the Lost. After they’d
exhausted their questions, I too was exhausted, and went over to one of
the blankets, pulled it up over my body, and went to sleep.
In the morning, we each ate one of the MREs I’d brought, and went to
the long, side pocket of my backpack, pulling out a tube. I handed the
tube to Nami, and after she opened it, she saw some rolls of parchment
and several writing instruments. Miss Yukari started to ask,
mockingly, “What else did you bring, a nuclear reactor?” “Nope,” I
replied, trying to play off her jab, “figured I could build one of
those from some coconuts.” I then looked at the other ladies as well
and said, “From here on out, the MREs are to be emergency food rations
only. Eat nothing but them and you’ll get blockage, and we should be
able to forage for the fruits and vegetables we should need. If we
hunt down any small animals, we should definitely ‘bleed’ them away
from here, so we don’t get any unwanted...” I stopped in mid-sentence
when I heard the loud roar that startled everyone. We looked outside
to see two rather large dinosaurs. Genie spoke up, saying “Okay, the
welcome wagon’s here, and they think we’re dinner.” Nami responded,
“Really? I’d think we’d be more of a light snack...” “Not helping!” I
replied, “Miss Yukari, can you identify them? Although I was a big
dino fan in my youth, it’s been too long since I’d studied anything on
how to identify them, and there are no living specimins to help me out
back home.” “Hmm,” she said, “based on their femur lengths, and
overall height, they appear to be allosauruses, specifically male and
female. My guess is that the closer of the two is the male, as it has
a different hue, and is smaller overall.” We went back inside and I
explained about Big Alice and Junior from the TV show, and figured that
we were in before the Marshalls, and we’ve met Senior. I noted that
Alice was more Jurassic Park-ish than I remembered, but theorized that
the Land of the Lost was interpreted differently based upon the basic
knowledge available at the time when people entered. If I ever ran
into some of the other people in the Land of the Lost that I’d barely
rememberd, I’d have to ask them. After a while, Alice and Senior went
on their way, but not before marking their territory.
That afternoon, the three ladies and I paired off to go explore the
area. Genie and I paired off, and went one way, while Miss Yukari and
Nami would go another way. It wasn’t until we’d walked a half hour
before Genie asked, “So, what happened to my, um, what’s the best word
to use here, sister?” “Well, after you and the other two left, and the
conflict got resolved, Anti-Lirin went off and lived her own life,
while AntiGenie, or as she got used to being callled, Jeannie, and I
got married. Had a pretty good life too, used Anti-Nuku-Nuku’s
advances to end up taking over the world, but like all the challenges,
once the ‘follow-up’ happened, I was dumped back into my normal
reality, as if nothing happened. Back then, I was just an ordinary
entrant, not the Challenger, like I am now. A specific code in the
master device prevented me from repeating the chaos mirror to bring her
back, especially since she’s not a canonical character. I got a few
scrapes as the metaverse collapsed to resolve the challenge universes,
and was actually conscious in the limbo, where I got some healing from
some characters there, I still have some scars they couldn’t heal.”
“So... that explains that, but why did you choose to form a team this
time? And why us?” “Well, I wanted a team that could survive if I
ended up getting forced into competing, since I wanted to whitewater
raft again, and with a team, I didn’t stand out. As for why you three
specifically, well, you are awesome with a sword, and could easily
handle most combat situations. Nami is probably the best mapmaker in
all of anime, and Miss Yukari can outrun and outmuscle any of us. She
may not show it, but she’s a cyborg, her nickname is Inspector Widget.
Truthfully, I know that I’m just a schmuck who’s lucky to have three
gorgeous redheads with me in one of the most dangerous places I could
think of.” With that compliment she blushed, barely, but we got back
to exploring.
That day, Genie and I found several plants that we took back for
analysis, and even found a few red crystals near a cave entrance. I
warned her, and the others later, about the mixing of crystals, which
could produce different effects. Since Genie and I got back first, we
set the cooking fire up, and by the time we had water boiling in the
pot, the other ladies got back and showed us their findings and we
showed them ours. All told, we had some herbal broth with bamboo
shoots that tasted excellent, but didn’t fill our bellies enough. The
next day, Genie and Nami paired off, while that left me the robo-babe.
Genie went and showed Nami where we went yesterday, and explored the
cave and a few other areas. My team searched, but only found more
jungle, a clearing or two, and more of the same old vegetation we’d
seen before. Well past noon, we headed back, finding only a tar pit.
When we got back, we were the first ones again, and I got a potato soup
going, but without milk, it wasn’t all that great. The others returned
with a surprise for us, they’d captured some chickens, and found their
nest, and the eggs in the nest. While Miss Yukari and I started
plucking, Nami and Genie were measuring ropes for a proper bleeding in
one of the other caves, so that we didn’t draw unwanted scavengers,
especially Big Alice and Senior.
The next morning, after some scrambled eggs with some herbs and the
coffee packets from our already-consumed MREs, I actually had a good
feeling about that day. While Genie was checking on the chickens, and
Nami was collecting the feathers, Miss Yukari and I were quickly
scanning Nami’s map. “Hopefully we can find some salt caverns,” I
said, “it’ll help preserve our meat. We can also look for something
bigger once we find some salt, but don’t go overboard. Pocket
ecosystems like this have a balance. Small changes don’t upset the
apple cart, but big ones do. We can take out a few chickens, a pig or
two, and some fish, but if we go whole hog and start a genocide on all
the tasty animals, the Land of the Lost will be a nightmare. Also,
we’d better hope there are only large carnivores here, if other
dinosaurs such as velociraptors are here, our chances will go from
decent to slim on survival. Then there’s the possibilities of Compys,
that’s not their full name, but those little buggers aren’t much bigger
than these chickens.” When Nami overheard that, she decided to wait
for Genie to go with her to the river and wash the feathers. Less than
a few minutes after Miss Yukari and I left to go explore, I stepped
into a snake hole that I didn’t see. I sprained my ankle, and with
some help, I got back to the caves alright. The rest of the day, I
spent working on a nice herbal chicken soup for supper, and ground up
some roots to try and make a primitive bread. Miss Yukari was over
sowing up a pillowcase for the feathers. Since we had no puzzle
experts on our team, I figured we’d be here a while, probably the whole
3 years since I knew I’d set it up so that teams enter after the moons
finished lining up. My inadvertant humming, though, was about to get
me into a world of trouble. I sat humming random tunes, until I hit on
the Inspector Gadget theme. Once there, I couldn’t focus on others,
and kept on going back to it, then I started quietly singing the lyrics
I could remember. When I started to make up my own lyrics I found
myself in real trouble. Apparently singing “Doot-doo-doo-doo-doo,
Inspector Widget, doot-doo-doo doot-doo, doot-doo-doo-doo-doo,
Inspector Widget, she’s the one I’d like to do...” ended me up in
handcuffs. Needless to say, it looked really bad when Genie and Nami
got back.
Hours later, after describing the last challenge I participated in, and
my subsequent role as Challenge Issuer, attempts to recreate Jeannie’s
summoning and my being a redophile (redhead lover, for the record), I
stood outside the main cave, rubbing my wrists, and silently figuring
out which cave I’d probably be moving to, based on the snippets of the
discussion I was hearing. I figured I should probably choose a cave
above theirs, so as not to be accused of staring at their beautiful
posteriors. Since my ankle was doing better, but not at 100%, I ruled
out the upper caves. That left me two or three choices, I couldn’t
tell if the one I was seeing was a trick of the setting sun or not, so
I looked at the entrances to the other two. One was facing the
opposite way, but had a decent sized opening and could be reached
without a lot of effort. The other one was hard to get to, and had a
trail of blood leading to from it. Apparently the latest kill had been
dragged in there, since I’d heard Nami say something about “good news”
before being shocked by the scene she and Genie arrived to see. I
sighed, and then sat down to give my ankle some rest before the
inevitable climb. I held out a small glimmer of hope, but knew that if
even one of the ladies felt uncomfortable, it would be the right thing
to do to move out of the cave. I also looked up to the sky, and
confirmed that the moons were truly diverging. I then relaxed and
awaited the verdict...
The next morning, I immediately regretted my cave choice. I didn’t
need any roosters to wake me up, the cave I’d picked got the first rays
of the sun. A night of rest did wonders for my ankle, so I grabbed the
cooking pot from my backpack and climbed down to the ground, and went
to get some berries that I knew grew close to our bluff. On my way
back, I could tell it looked nothing like the Marshall’s bluff, so even
if I could remember how far certain pylons were from theirs, or even
the Lost City, it wouldn’t matter. Once I got to the ladies’ cave, I
sat the pot with enough berries for all of us in the center of the
entrance, and I then went to sit off to the side. I grabbed my
binoculars that I thanked the Lord had survived in the raft. Had they
been anywhere else, I might have lost them when the raft and my crew
entered the Land of the Lost. We had ended up near some trees, and I
was glad that Grumpy was nowhere to be seen. The two allosauri I’d
seen were huge, so I shuddered when I thought about how tall that mean
tyrannosaurs would appear. I surveyed what I could see, but cursed my
nearsightedness. After some noise from inside the cave, I smelled some
coffee, or at least I thought it smelled like coffee, being made, and
once everyone was up and decent, the berries were brought in, and I was
allowed in for the meal. Whoever cooked, she or they made a delicious
omelette. I was also given a cup of the coffee I’d smelled earlier.
One sip, though, and I realized that it wasn’t coffee. It tasted like
a tea, with peppermint and olives, but I knew I hadn’t brought any of
those with me, even in the MRE’s. Miss Yukari stated that the “coffee”
was made from some root they’d found that was edible, but wasn’t on any
herbitalogical chart she could find. I thought, “Great, now I know why
Will Marshall didn’t like those smilax cakes. If it makes a coffee
taste like this, I’d hate to see what baking it would do...”
After some discussion, it was arranged for me to clean up the ladies
cave, in exchange for sharing in their food, while the ladies would go
explore as a group. The previous explorings in pairs had been deemed
to inefficient. After I’d finished up the cleaning, I grabbed a small
knife and started preparing dinner. Based on the last few meals, I
figured out about how much the ladies and I could eat. I cut up some
potatoes into the steak-fries that I like, and then ground up some more
for a primitive flour, since potato bread is better than no bread.
When the sky started to grow dark, and the ladies weren’t back yet, I
started to get worried. I moved the supper I’d made to a spot where it
wouldn’t get scorched on our cooking fire. As the smells of chicken
stir-fry, steak-fries, and warm potato bread wafted throughout the
cave, I started grinding the leftover berries from breakfast into a
jelly, trying to distract myself from eating. When the ladies finally
got back, they told me of the pylons they found, and the strange
creature they saw on their way back that delayed their return. A large
flying insect had crossed their path as the day cooled into night, and
it was later pursued by the strange creature. Based on the description
they gave, I told them that it was a Sleestak pursuing one of their
“sacred Altrusian moths.” I told them they were right to avoid
confrontation, since we didn’t need to alert the Sleestak to our
prescence. That night I went to bed, not feeling great, but it didn’t
seem like anything important.
The next morning, I realized what that feeling was. Needless to say,
something I ate or drank didn’t agree with me, and was forcing itself
out of me, seemingly on both ends. After a trip to the river to clean
up, and then back to my cave for my only other clothes, I went down for
breakfast, but didn’t really eat much, since my appetite was gone.
After a little discussion, they decided that Miss Yukari and I should
rotate the cooking duties for the evening meal, since Nami could easily
handle breakfast, and Genie didn’t list cooking among her repetoire.
With Genie and Nami, we headed out toward a mountain range. I
mentioned to Nami about the one spot where there would be an empty
space where a pylon should be, and that was the entrance to the Land of
the Lost’s “stomach.” As we walked around the first mountain on the
range, I was amazed at what I saw. The Lost City. I checked to make
sure I didn’t see Big Alice or Senior, and we went into the entrance.
“Sweet,” I said, “now we won’t have to go far for our crystals. Now
all we need to do is find Enik’s chamber, the matrix table in there,
and we can try and figure out which combination will get us home.” A
voice startled us from behind us, “Chamber? I have no chamber here,
I’ve been wandering around this place for several days, and have just
arrived here.” After some introduction and discussion, Enik, Genie,
Nami, and I slowly figured out exactly what had happened. I had
apparently entered a Land of the Lost where Enik had been called to by
Holly and he entered the time-travel pylon. I remembered that the TV
show had Enik enter through a time window, so I knew that the variation
I was in was different than the TV show. As we got ready to leave, I
saw the small temple that would be where Shaka would gain his musical
ability, or at least, set in motion the events that would give him the
musical ability, but that wasn’t important. Seeing Big Alice’s and
Senior wandering around it was.
Every so often, after that, we would check in with Enik, and thanks to
his telling Nami of his wanderings upon arrival, we were able to find
the time-travel pylon. He’d even described seeing the exit I had set
up, down river, for the entrants that would be waiting the entire 3
years. One of the trips even found us with access to the temple, as
there was a heavy smell of blood in the air, and it was definitely
upwind. Big Alice and Senior would be busy gorging themselves,
hopefully, on whatever poor creature had died. My team and I found the
“Da Vinci” panel, and I did the honors of opening the door. Once
inside, all four of us saw the digital matrix table, and the anteroom.
Upon entering the anteroom, I was stunned. There stood an older,
grey-haired version of me. “Greetings, me,” the older me said, “I’ve
left this digital projection for you. It’s too late for me to leave,
now. But I have one consolation, I’m finally going to meet the makers
of the Land of the Lost, and hope to figure out some of the mysteries
going on here. As for you, run, now! Enik has figured out how to get
you, your group, and himself home. If you don’t go now, you will be
stuck.” As the projection started to fade, my team was already out the
door, and I was close on their heels.
As we raced to the Lost City, we found Enik just as my future self had
said. He was waiting to tell us the good news near the entrance.
After all our picks for who was to replace us (since this doorway
required a quid pro quo for admittance), we left and my team and I
arrived at the outro point I’d set up beforehand. My master device
fired back up to life, and after thanking my team, I returned them to
their homes. Other teams were also there, as some were waiting for
their official rulings, others waiting in the healing tent, and the
rest were wondering what was supposed to be challenging about the Land
of the Lost. Once everyone was finished, I sent word for the clean up
to begin. When I only had the time-travel pylon left to worry about.
I walked up to it, and sighed, “Guess I’ll never know...” It was then
that I got shoved inside, apparently by some irate otaku who didn’t
like either my rulings or my choice of challenge. As the door closed
on my side, I fired up my master device, and summoned a gun which would
allow me to write in sand. “I guess I will know who wrote that, if it
isn’t already there...” As various eras appeared before me, I waited
for the purple-hued era. Once that one arrived, I poke my head out
long enough to write “HOLLY DON’T” with the gun, and then tossed the
gun off to the side of the pylon, and watched it explode. Once the
pylon cycled back to the exit point, I got out, and finished what I’d
started earlier. On my way back to my car, I started planning next
year’s challenges.
is up to those that have entered this year's NYC to judge...
New Year’s Challenge - Medium Omake Entry
Team Deadly Redheads, Take 3
Genie - Rune Soldier Louie
Miss Yukari (a.k.a. Inspector Widget) - Nerima Daikon Brothers
Nami - One Piece
It was a brisk January morning. I looked around the Colorado site,
some people were summoning their team, others were showing up with
their teams already summoned. Several people were in the cocoa tent,
warming up their insides, while others were blissfully ignorant of the
cold, and walking around talking to other teams, waiting and
speculation on the challenge. Once I was sure that all the teams were
there, I got up on a make-shift stage to address the crowd.
“Thank you all for coming. This year’s Medium Challenge will take
place downstream, at the end of your whitewater rafting trip.” In
retrospect, that’s when I made my first mistake. “My team and I will go
on ahead of you. Those that attempt to arrive before us will find that
the challenge won’t have been properly set up.” Once Nami, Genie, Miss
Yukari, and I were all in the raft, we headed downstream. As we were
leaving the docking area, I saw some teams were getting anxious, others
were getting perturbed, others just didn’t care. I also kept a lookout
for my “hidden” spotters, to make sure that I’d be notified, in case
some teams tried to beat me past the “point of no return.”
As my team and I journeyed down the river, the radio in my backpack
crackled to life, saying, “Challenge is a go. All teams are in the
water, repeat, all teams are in the water.” I started to relax, until
I looked back, and saw a few teams trying to catch-up, maybe even pass
me. Once the gap narrowed enough, I decided to get my radio out. I
clicked the transmit button and spoke words I knew I’d regret in the
months, and maybe years ahead, but I said them anyways, “Change of
plans. Blow the charges now! I’ve prepared for this, look for me at
the rendezvous area, and have the Medical Tent get ready.” As my team
and I rounded the first corner, we heard the explosion, and saw smoke
climbing rapidly. “What did you do?” the ladies asked me. I remained
silent until we neared the waterfall area, I grinned and started to
sing, “Me and my three teammates, on a routine New Year’s Challenge,
are getting pulled into the greatest time window ever seen. Hastened
by the rapids, it’ll take our tiny raft, and plunge us over a thousand
feet below, to the Land of the Lost (lost, lost, lost), to the Land of
the Lost!” The trio of ladies were giving me an icy stare that, if
possible, would’ve killed me. Fortunately, I passed out before they
could do anything about it.
As I started to regain consciousness, I immediately felt hot, and
started to take off some layers. I saw the jungle around me, and I saw
the ladies were also adjusting to the change in setting. I knew that
the beautiful scenery around me was a bit misleading, as the Land of
the Lost was very deadly. The Marshalls had found a couple of ways
out, and I knew that if they could survive here, lots of people could,
I just hoped my two newest teammates could work out, since team synergy
is imporant, and without synergy here, we were as good as dead. As I
shook off the final cobwebs of unconsciousness, I gathered up the
supplies I’d stored in the raft, put on my backpack, and spoke to the
ladies, as they were in various stages of alertness. “First off, you
can be mad at me all you want, but right now, we have more important
concerns. Shelter, preferably above ground level, and kindling to
start a fire. We’re going to be here a while, and no search party will
look for us here, if they could even find this place.”
Nami was the first to speak up, saying, “I’ve been to lots of weird
places before with Luffy, and I’ve heard about some others from Usopp,
when he talked about his dad’s adventures, but this place seems to take
the cake, and what did you mean when you sang ‘Land of the Lost’
earlier?” I replied, “Well, if someone found it, it wouldn’t be lost.
This is a place beyond normal understanding of time and space, a sort
of pocket universe where a big ‘what if’ took place. Where the
dinosaurs of my world didn’t die off from a mass extinction, where
mammals evolved alongside dinosaurs, where dinosaurs continued to
evolve, and even took on a similar bipedal form. There are carnivorous
dinosaurs, carnivorous plants, and complex matrix tables that keep a
delicate balance from going too out-of-control here. Crystals from
caves not only combine to do various things, but also manipulate the
matrix tables to control weather, night and day, and if worse comes to
worse, time travel us back to when we came, but that only happens once
every three years, and I don’t know where that one is, much less if
it’s even open soon. At night, we should avoid the Sleestak, which
should be easy, you can usually hear one coming.”
“Sleestak?” Genie asked. “Is that singular or plural?” “Both,” I
replied, “they’re descendants of the Altrusian race that once thrived
in the Land of the Lost. Mostly, they’ll hunt down their ‘sacred
Altrusian moths’, but they’ll occasionally trap larger animals to be
nourishment for their younger hatchlings. We should be able to avoid
the Pakuni, they’re like the supposed missing link in evolution, but
like many things in the Land of the Lost, they’re designed to be that
way. They are herbivores, as are most of the dinosaurs here, but
still, we’d better find shelter and fast. It’s almost noon here, and I
don’t feel like sleeping in trees.” Miss Yukari had been scanning the
distance as I was explaining things to Nami and Genie. “I see some
caves off in the distance, and we can make it there in a few hours, so
long as we leave now.”
As we portaged the raft, I heard a distant roar. I thought to myself
that the roar either came from “Alice” or “Grumpy,” but I wasn’t sure.
Once we got to the area Miss Yukari had talked about, I saw it was
similar to the High Bluffs that the Marshalls stayed in, but with more
caves, and looked to be more orangish, where as theirs looked like
limestone. Once a cave was picked out, and determined not to be
currently inhabited, Miss Yukari and Genie went out to gather wood and
kindling for the fire, and I slowly started to unpack my backpack.
Having gone camping before, and knowing the climate of the Land of the
Lost, I was prepared for this trip. I pulled out a cooking kettle, and
pulled two blankets out of it. A skillet held some packages of tallow,
that I’d acquired from a friend in Canada named Paul. While I knew it
wouldn’t spoil, I preferred to use it for seasoning, rather than as
sustenance. I then went to the other large pouch. A few MREs I got
from a guy in my neighborhood, a few toilitries, and the final two
blankets. Once the fire got started, I looked and saw a nearby stream,
took the pot, and got some water for boiling. Once the water had been
boiled, I started to relax, and got into a very long discussion of
everything I could remember about the Land of the Lost. After they’d
exhausted their questions, I too was exhausted, and went over to one of
the blankets, pulled it up over my body, and went to sleep.
In the morning, we each ate one of the MREs I’d brought, and went to
the long, side pocket of my backpack, pulling out a tube. I handed the
tube to Nami, and after she opened it, she saw some rolls of parchment
and several writing instruments. Miss Yukari started to ask,
mockingly, “What else did you bring, a nuclear reactor?” “Nope,” I
replied, trying to play off her jab, “figured I could build one of
those from some coconuts.” I then looked at the other ladies as well
and said, “From here on out, the MREs are to be emergency food rations
only. Eat nothing but them and you’ll get blockage, and we should be
able to forage for the fruits and vegetables we should need. If we
hunt down any small animals, we should definitely ‘bleed’ them away
from here, so we don’t get any unwanted...” I stopped in mid-sentence
when I heard the loud roar that startled everyone. We looked outside
to see two rather large dinosaurs. Genie spoke up, saying “Okay, the
welcome wagon’s here, and they think we’re dinner.” Nami responded,
“Really? I’d think we’d be more of a light snack...” “Not helping!” I
replied, “Miss Yukari, can you identify them? Although I was a big
dino fan in my youth, it’s been too long since I’d studied anything on
how to identify them, and there are no living specimins to help me out
back home.” “Hmm,” she said, “based on their femur lengths, and
overall height, they appear to be allosauruses, specifically male and
female. My guess is that the closer of the two is the male, as it has
a different hue, and is smaller overall.” We went back inside and I
explained about Big Alice and Junior from the TV show, and figured that
we were in before the Marshalls, and we’ve met Senior. I noted that
Alice was more Jurassic Park-ish than I remembered, but theorized that
the Land of the Lost was interpreted differently based upon the basic
knowledge available at the time when people entered. If I ever ran
into some of the other people in the Land of the Lost that I’d barely
rememberd, I’d have to ask them. After a while, Alice and Senior went
on their way, but not before marking their territory.
That afternoon, the three ladies and I paired off to go explore the
area. Genie and I paired off, and went one way, while Miss Yukari and
Nami would go another way. It wasn’t until we’d walked a half hour
before Genie asked, “So, what happened to my, um, what’s the best word
to use here, sister?” “Well, after you and the other two left, and the
conflict got resolved, Anti-Lirin went off and lived her own life,
while AntiGenie, or as she got used to being callled, Jeannie, and I
got married. Had a pretty good life too, used Anti-Nuku-Nuku’s
advances to end up taking over the world, but like all the challenges,
once the ‘follow-up’ happened, I was dumped back into my normal
reality, as if nothing happened. Back then, I was just an ordinary
entrant, not the Challenger, like I am now. A specific code in the
master device prevented me from repeating the chaos mirror to bring her
back, especially since she’s not a canonical character. I got a few
scrapes as the metaverse collapsed to resolve the challenge universes,
and was actually conscious in the limbo, where I got some healing from
some characters there, I still have some scars they couldn’t heal.”
“So... that explains that, but why did you choose to form a team this
time? And why us?” “Well, I wanted a team that could survive if I
ended up getting forced into competing, since I wanted to whitewater
raft again, and with a team, I didn’t stand out. As for why you three
specifically, well, you are awesome with a sword, and could easily
handle most combat situations. Nami is probably the best mapmaker in
all of anime, and Miss Yukari can outrun and outmuscle any of us. She
may not show it, but she’s a cyborg, her nickname is Inspector Widget.
Truthfully, I know that I’m just a schmuck who’s lucky to have three
gorgeous redheads with me in one of the most dangerous places I could
think of.” With that compliment she blushed, barely, but we got back
to exploring.
That day, Genie and I found several plants that we took back for
analysis, and even found a few red crystals near a cave entrance. I
warned her, and the others later, about the mixing of crystals, which
could produce different effects. Since Genie and I got back first, we
set the cooking fire up, and by the time we had water boiling in the
pot, the other ladies got back and showed us their findings and we
showed them ours. All told, we had some herbal broth with bamboo
shoots that tasted excellent, but didn’t fill our bellies enough. The
next day, Genie and Nami paired off, while that left me the robo-babe.
Genie went and showed Nami where we went yesterday, and explored the
cave and a few other areas. My team searched, but only found more
jungle, a clearing or two, and more of the same old vegetation we’d
seen before. Well past noon, we headed back, finding only a tar pit.
When we got back, we were the first ones again, and I got a potato soup
going, but without milk, it wasn’t all that great. The others returned
with a surprise for us, they’d captured some chickens, and found their
nest, and the eggs in the nest. While Miss Yukari and I started
plucking, Nami and Genie were measuring ropes for a proper bleeding in
one of the other caves, so that we didn’t draw unwanted scavengers,
especially Big Alice and Senior.
The next morning, after some scrambled eggs with some herbs and the
coffee packets from our already-consumed MREs, I actually had a good
feeling about that day. While Genie was checking on the chickens, and
Nami was collecting the feathers, Miss Yukari and I were quickly
scanning Nami’s map. “Hopefully we can find some salt caverns,” I
said, “it’ll help preserve our meat. We can also look for something
bigger once we find some salt, but don’t go overboard. Pocket
ecosystems like this have a balance. Small changes don’t upset the
apple cart, but big ones do. We can take out a few chickens, a pig or
two, and some fish, but if we go whole hog and start a genocide on all
the tasty animals, the Land of the Lost will be a nightmare. Also,
we’d better hope there are only large carnivores here, if other
dinosaurs such as velociraptors are here, our chances will go from
decent to slim on survival. Then there’s the possibilities of Compys,
that’s not their full name, but those little buggers aren’t much bigger
than these chickens.” When Nami overheard that, she decided to wait
for Genie to go with her to the river and wash the feathers. Less than
a few minutes after Miss Yukari and I left to go explore, I stepped
into a snake hole that I didn’t see. I sprained my ankle, and with
some help, I got back to the caves alright. The rest of the day, I
spent working on a nice herbal chicken soup for supper, and ground up
some roots to try and make a primitive bread. Miss Yukari was over
sowing up a pillowcase for the feathers. Since we had no puzzle
experts on our team, I figured we’d be here a while, probably the whole
3 years since I knew I’d set it up so that teams enter after the moons
finished lining up. My inadvertant humming, though, was about to get
me into a world of trouble. I sat humming random tunes, until I hit on
the Inspector Gadget theme. Once there, I couldn’t focus on others,
and kept on going back to it, then I started quietly singing the lyrics
I could remember. When I started to make up my own lyrics I found
myself in real trouble. Apparently singing “Doot-doo-doo-doo-doo,
Inspector Widget, doot-doo-doo doot-doo, doot-doo-doo-doo-doo,
Inspector Widget, she’s the one I’d like to do...” ended me up in
handcuffs. Needless to say, it looked really bad when Genie and Nami
got back.
Hours later, after describing the last challenge I participated in, and
my subsequent role as Challenge Issuer, attempts to recreate Jeannie’s
summoning and my being a redophile (redhead lover, for the record), I
stood outside the main cave, rubbing my wrists, and silently figuring
out which cave I’d probably be moving to, based on the snippets of the
discussion I was hearing. I figured I should probably choose a cave
above theirs, so as not to be accused of staring at their beautiful
posteriors. Since my ankle was doing better, but not at 100%, I ruled
out the upper caves. That left me two or three choices, I couldn’t
tell if the one I was seeing was a trick of the setting sun or not, so
I looked at the entrances to the other two. One was facing the
opposite way, but had a decent sized opening and could be reached
without a lot of effort. The other one was hard to get to, and had a
trail of blood leading to from it. Apparently the latest kill had been
dragged in there, since I’d heard Nami say something about “good news”
before being shocked by the scene she and Genie arrived to see. I
sighed, and then sat down to give my ankle some rest before the
inevitable climb. I held out a small glimmer of hope, but knew that if
even one of the ladies felt uncomfortable, it would be the right thing
to do to move out of the cave. I also looked up to the sky, and
confirmed that the moons were truly diverging. I then relaxed and
awaited the verdict...
The next morning, I immediately regretted my cave choice. I didn’t
need any roosters to wake me up, the cave I’d picked got the first rays
of the sun. A night of rest did wonders for my ankle, so I grabbed the
cooking pot from my backpack and climbed down to the ground, and went
to get some berries that I knew grew close to our bluff. On my way
back, I could tell it looked nothing like the Marshall’s bluff, so even
if I could remember how far certain pylons were from theirs, or even
the Lost City, it wouldn’t matter. Once I got to the ladies’ cave, I
sat the pot with enough berries for all of us in the center of the
entrance, and I then went to sit off to the side. I grabbed my
binoculars that I thanked the Lord had survived in the raft. Had they
been anywhere else, I might have lost them when the raft and my crew
entered the Land of the Lost. We had ended up near some trees, and I
was glad that Grumpy was nowhere to be seen. The two allosauri I’d
seen were huge, so I shuddered when I thought about how tall that mean
tyrannosaurs would appear. I surveyed what I could see, but cursed my
nearsightedness. After some noise from inside the cave, I smelled some
coffee, or at least I thought it smelled like coffee, being made, and
once everyone was up and decent, the berries were brought in, and I was
allowed in for the meal. Whoever cooked, she or they made a delicious
omelette. I was also given a cup of the coffee I’d smelled earlier.
One sip, though, and I realized that it wasn’t coffee. It tasted like
a tea, with peppermint and olives, but I knew I hadn’t brought any of
those with me, even in the MRE’s. Miss Yukari stated that the “coffee”
was made from some root they’d found that was edible, but wasn’t on any
herbitalogical chart she could find. I thought, “Great, now I know why
Will Marshall didn’t like those smilax cakes. If it makes a coffee
taste like this, I’d hate to see what baking it would do...”
After some discussion, it was arranged for me to clean up the ladies
cave, in exchange for sharing in their food, while the ladies would go
explore as a group. The previous explorings in pairs had been deemed
to inefficient. After I’d finished up the cleaning, I grabbed a small
knife and started preparing dinner. Based on the last few meals, I
figured out about how much the ladies and I could eat. I cut up some
potatoes into the steak-fries that I like, and then ground up some more
for a primitive flour, since potato bread is better than no bread.
When the sky started to grow dark, and the ladies weren’t back yet, I
started to get worried. I moved the supper I’d made to a spot where it
wouldn’t get scorched on our cooking fire. As the smells of chicken
stir-fry, steak-fries, and warm potato bread wafted throughout the
cave, I started grinding the leftover berries from breakfast into a
jelly, trying to distract myself from eating. When the ladies finally
got back, they told me of the pylons they found, and the strange
creature they saw on their way back that delayed their return. A large
flying insect had crossed their path as the day cooled into night, and
it was later pursued by the strange creature. Based on the description
they gave, I told them that it was a Sleestak pursuing one of their
“sacred Altrusian moths.” I told them they were right to avoid
confrontation, since we didn’t need to alert the Sleestak to our
prescence. That night I went to bed, not feeling great, but it didn’t
seem like anything important.
The next morning, I realized what that feeling was. Needless to say,
something I ate or drank didn’t agree with me, and was forcing itself
out of me, seemingly on both ends. After a trip to the river to clean
up, and then back to my cave for my only other clothes, I went down for
breakfast, but didn’t really eat much, since my appetite was gone.
After a little discussion, they decided that Miss Yukari and I should
rotate the cooking duties for the evening meal, since Nami could easily
handle breakfast, and Genie didn’t list cooking among her repetoire.
With Genie and Nami, we headed out toward a mountain range. I
mentioned to Nami about the one spot where there would be an empty
space where a pylon should be, and that was the entrance to the Land of
the Lost’s “stomach.” As we walked around the first mountain on the
range, I was amazed at what I saw. The Lost City. I checked to make
sure I didn’t see Big Alice or Senior, and we went into the entrance.
“Sweet,” I said, “now we won’t have to go far for our crystals. Now
all we need to do is find Enik’s chamber, the matrix table in there,
and we can try and figure out which combination will get us home.” A
voice startled us from behind us, “Chamber? I have no chamber here,
I’ve been wandering around this place for several days, and have just
arrived here.” After some introduction and discussion, Enik, Genie,
Nami, and I slowly figured out exactly what had happened. I had
apparently entered a Land of the Lost where Enik had been called to by
Holly and he entered the time-travel pylon. I remembered that the TV
show had Enik enter through a time window, so I knew that the variation
I was in was different than the TV show. As we got ready to leave, I
saw the small temple that would be where Shaka would gain his musical
ability, or at least, set in motion the events that would give him the
musical ability, but that wasn’t important. Seeing Big Alice’s and
Senior wandering around it was.
Every so often, after that, we would check in with Enik, and thanks to
his telling Nami of his wanderings upon arrival, we were able to find
the time-travel pylon. He’d even described seeing the exit I had set
up, down river, for the entrants that would be waiting the entire 3
years. One of the trips even found us with access to the temple, as
there was a heavy smell of blood in the air, and it was definitely
upwind. Big Alice and Senior would be busy gorging themselves,
hopefully, on whatever poor creature had died. My team and I found the
“Da Vinci” panel, and I did the honors of opening the door. Once
inside, all four of us saw the digital matrix table, and the anteroom.
Upon entering the anteroom, I was stunned. There stood an older,
grey-haired version of me. “Greetings, me,” the older me said, “I’ve
left this digital projection for you. It’s too late for me to leave,
now. But I have one consolation, I’m finally going to meet the makers
of the Land of the Lost, and hope to figure out some of the mysteries
going on here. As for you, run, now! Enik has figured out how to get
you, your group, and himself home. If you don’t go now, you will be
stuck.” As the projection started to fade, my team was already out the
door, and I was close on their heels.
As we raced to the Lost City, we found Enik just as my future self had
said. He was waiting to tell us the good news near the entrance.
After all our picks for who was to replace us (since this doorway
required a quid pro quo for admittance), we left and my team and I
arrived at the outro point I’d set up beforehand. My master device
fired back up to life, and after thanking my team, I returned them to
their homes. Other teams were also there, as some were waiting for
their official rulings, others waiting in the healing tent, and the
rest were wondering what was supposed to be challenging about the Land
of the Lost. Once everyone was finished, I sent word for the clean up
to begin. When I only had the time-travel pylon left to worry about.
I walked up to it, and sighed, “Guess I’ll never know...” It was then
that I got shoved inside, apparently by some irate otaku who didn’t
like either my rulings or my choice of challenge. As the door closed
on my side, I fired up my master device, and summoned a gun which would
allow me to write in sand. “I guess I will know who wrote that, if it
isn’t already there...” As various eras appeared before me, I waited
for the purple-hued era. Once that one arrived, I poke my head out
long enough to write “HOLLY DON’T” with the gun, and then tossed the
gun off to the side of the pylon, and watched it explode. Once the
pylon cycled back to the exit point, I got out, and finished what I’d
started earlier. On my way back to my car, I started planning next
year’s challenges.