SHIP'S LOG:

Egregore

Rose Nomenclature 11/26/2020 11:31pm

When I came back to Old Habitsform, this wasn't the kind of business I was hoping to drum up. In fact, this wasn't "business" at all. This was "getting away with my life."

And all, apparently, because of that stupid book I'd bought from an idiot sky sailor junkman @Billy Sabab. Trouble seems to stick to him like dorf poop on a shoe. And somehow now it keeps sticking to me too.

"The Traits, Features, Characteristics, Peculiarities, Mannerisms, Qualities, and Attributes of the Hymergian Man-Fungus." The book important enough for an automatic mannequin to die for. Or at least become radically disassembled for, thanks to my new found cute and furry quasi-bovine friend. I never spent much time trying to decipher it. Mostly because you'll go mad if you do, maybe even with the special glasses you're supposed to wear while reading it. The ones the automatic mannequin was so interested in. I had slipped them back into the little pocket in the book.

"Mweeeeek!" My little furry friend had found the book on my desk. Head butting it with its three little horns. "Weeeeek week week week. Mweeeek week week week."

Yes, indeed. That book. Where had it really come from? And if it's so in demand, why did it end up with me? Where was it really from?

"Mwweeeeeeeeeeek!"

We didn't have to share the same language to come up with the plan. I'd seen real Hymergian Man-Fungus creatures before. I knew where they lived. And if I was lucky, @Billy Sabab might have left a trail. And knowing him, it would be a trail a mile wide and littered with destruction.

I was headed back to the open sea, off the coast of Desitiny City.

Rose Nomenclature 10/8/2020 8:50pm

The flurry of claws turned out to be tiny hooves. Attached to five legs and a tiny tail. And a furry black torso with a head with three horns and two glowing yellow-green eyes.

Hooves or claws, they turned out to be mighty sharp, and with such an explosion of fury that they tore the face right off the automatic mannequin. Then it sunk its tiny fangs into one of sockets and pulled out a glass eye at the root, trailing a bundle of wires and lubricant.

The automatic mannequin began to shudder, then have a full blown seizure on the tarmac.

The little black creature squealed and hopscotched back up into the open hatch of the Egregore.

"Mwweeeeeeeeeeek?" it squeaked out at me.

Guess it was time to get the show on the road. I slipped the Uhrenfabrik glasses from his shirt pocket and ran.

Rose Nomenclature 8/28/2020 11:59pm

The automatic mannequin wanted to see the book, "The Traits, Features, Characteristics, Peculiarities, Mannerisms, Qualities, and Attributes of the Hymergian Man-Fungus." Well, "demanded to see the book" is more accurate, and I was still in no position to argue. After releasing me from his mid-century Iron Maiden, he walked me back through the warrens and stairs of the ghetto of the automatic mannequins, a sharp but steady point held to the small of my back. Somehow, when we arrived on the street, he had changed his clothes, and was now wearing the familiar drab jumpsuit of the Airshipman's Union.

"Hail a cab," he whirred through his birdhouse head. "To the docks."

There are good points and bad points to working alone. Mostly I appreciate the independence. But there are times when I wish I had some backup, someone holding down the fort, someone waiting for me back at the ship. Not an entire crew, but even just a "man Friday" or similar help. A valet?

Of course, not some bozo like @Billy Sabab. How did he end up with a whole crew?

Finally, the cab arrived at the docks. He followed me close, the stub of whatever he had still stuck in my ribs, as we checked in at the terminal and they let us onto the field.

At last, we came to the Egregore, moored at ground level. I noticed the hatch was ajar. And a shadow moved.

The hard point in my back poked harder.

"No surprises..." he whirred.

HISSSSSSSSSSSS! and a flurry of claws and black fur leapt from the door and onto the face of the automatic mannequin.

Rose Nomenclature 7/19/2020 11:57pm

"Honestly, I've never heard of Uberfabric 9."

"Uhrenfabrik 9!" whirred the automatic mannequin. "The same shop that created your glasses? They are an older model, but clearly Uhrenfabrik work. The Wilden Krötenfahrt, if I'm not mistaken..."

"I do not know these words you are saying."

"You can't just buy these at the Uhrenfabrik store. There IS no Uhrenfabrik store. These glasses are incredibly rare and their access is strictly controlled." The automatic mannequin's syllables fluttered out of him like chimes.

"Now tell me about your Uhrenfabrik contact or you will find your setting increasingly uncomfortable."

The chair clicked in a notch tighter. Including the blade against my neck.

"A book. It came with a book. About fungus."

The automatic mannequin cocked his head.

"What kind of fungus?"

"A... a 'man' fungus?"

The automatic mannequin's eyes grew large. Such perfect glass eyes.

He slammed his fist down on the table.

My chair cage relaxed a notch.

"Waiter! Check please!"

Rose Nomenclature 6/7/2020 11:01pm

I don't appreciate restraints. I find them really violating.

In this particular case, I walked right into them. And in retrospect, my nonchalant approach could have been interpreted as creepy, if not downright sinister. Can't a dangerous and haunted artifacts trader let her guard down once in while?

"Ahem. I will ask again: Why are you following me?" said the automatic mannequin, adjusting his wow and flutter.

"I... I... I'd never seen an automatic mannequin before. So, I just..."

"... wanted to see how they live? In the wild?"

"Yes! No! ...I mean..." I strained against the metal restraint chair.

"You wanted to see them in their quaint little hovels? Their exotic rituals? Their strange family structures?"

"It's not like that! I mean, well..."

"Or were you fact in trailing me as part of the ongoing surveillance from Uhrenfabrik 9? With these!!!?"

The automatic mannequin held up the glasses I'd gotten from @Billy Sabab.

What trouble had that bastard gotten me into now?

Rose Nomenclature 4/28/2020 10:29pm

The automatic mannequin was not alone. Coming in and out of the shabby store fronts, milling around the tinkers' wares filling the sidewalks, there were more. Some were the size of children, others full grown, still others hunched. They wore the clothes you see in other parts of town, but sometimes other, more colorful, androgynous robes and gowns.

"Wwwwwouldyyyyyyyyyyoucarrrrretocommmmmewwwwwithmeeeeeee?" my automatic mannequin whirred.

He stood there a moment and cocked his head.

"Yes," I answered.

He turned, and I followed him deeper into the alleyways, into doorways and through busy back rooms and hallways, stairs stretching up and over enclosed gardens and lines of laundry. Eventually we emerged in a small cafe, buried deep within a teeming city block. Filled with automatic manneguins.

He gestured towards a table. I took a seat in an ornate ironwork chair.

KLANG! KLAMP.

Steel manacles sprung over my wrists and ankles. An iron bar swept over my chest, and a wire helmet clamped over my head. Something cold and sharp pressed against my neck.

"Andnowwwwwwwyyyyyyyyyouwwwwwwwilltellmeeeeewhyyyyyyyyouarefollowwwwwwwwwingmeeeeeee."

Rose Nomenclature 3/19/2020 10:16pm

I met an automatic mannequin today. I'd never seen one in person before. If I hadn't had the glasses on I might have not even noticed, but the readouts in the lenses made it clear he was different. I had assumed he worked at the bookstore I first saw him at, but then I started to seem him around town, browsing at other shops, making small purchases, never speaking.

I've been spending a lot of time people watching from the cafes and coffee shops. In between bookstore jaunts. Old Habitsform has its charms.You start to notice the faces you see again and again. The glasses help you keep track, cataloging, making their own AI projections about their patterns and potential next appearances.

"Automatic mannequin" I said, just loud enough for the glasses to hear.

The glasses showed me paths, probabilities, green lines to follow. I found myself in a part of Old Habitsform I'd never been. Apparently it was the clock repair district.

"May I help you?"

The sound was like wind chimes, or delicate bells, formed into words by tiny whirring humming birds.

I turned around, and there stood the automatic mannequin.

Rose Nomenclature 2/13/2020 2:24pm

Being back in Old Habitsform reminded me of those funky glasses that that dork @Billy Sabab included in my purchase of "The Traits, Features, Characteristics, Peculiarities, Mannerisms, Qualities, and Attributes of the Hymergian Man-Fungus” (which is now a permanent part of my personal onboard collection). They keep you from going crazy when you look at the fold out illustrations (which are remarkably intact), but I think they do other things too. Really wish I had a manual.

So I’ve been wearing them around the book district, looking pretty stylish I must say. People here wear a wide range of enhanced eyewear. Full frame, semi-rimless, rimless, goggles, phosphorescent contact lenses, single vision, double vision, half bison, photochromic, quadfocal, jeweler’s eye pieces, progressive socialist, all bristling with knobs and antennae and ghost pony tales. By which I mean to say I’m blending right in with the crowd as I browse the endless warrens of dangerous and haunted rare book stores. The books, that is, not the stores.

Not yet anyway.

Rose Nomenclature 1/9/2020 9:38pm

The dangerous and haunted artifacts trade can have its ups and downs, but I've realized I prefer the dangerous and haunted book side of the business. There's a certain civility you find there with book people, as opposed to the dangerous and haunted crystal skull business, or the dangerous and haunted doll family business.

That said, the circle of book dealers I know in the industry have been saying times are getting rough. As the "Age of the Dark Twins" generation grows older, their widows are selling off their collections faster than you can say "country ham," and there's an oversupply in the market. And the up-and-coming "InstaJot" generation just isn't interested in collecting modern firsts of new demonic lore, or the general eldritch classics that used to be perennial sellers.

But there's still a pulse in the higher end dangerous and haunted books market. Which is why I'm headed back to Old Habitsform to see what kind of business I can drum up.

Rose Nomenclature 12/3/2019 9:28pm

It isn't every day you get to witness the rebirth of a species.

"The Traits, Features, Characteristics, Peculiarities, Mannerisms, Qualities, and Attributes of the Hymergian Man-Fungus" isn't just some curious piece of lost esoterica. It describes the life cycle of a biological entity. The Hymergian Man-Fungus once lived under water, millions of years ago. Through time, it emerged on land, and took on various forms, ultimately something vaguely human, yet sweaty and frog-like, with large bulging eyes and a soggy, lugubrious state. Eventually it coalesced into a single individual, and sought out the fossilized remains of an ancient host. It then merged with that tiny, dehydrated remnant of a once great prehistoric sea creature and returned it to life, whereupon it swam to its ancient temple, returning as prophesied by the merfolk.

That would explain why and how @Billy Sabab suckered me into all this. That damn book was bait. And I took the hook.

It also explained why all the tiny, newly reborn Hymergian Man-Fungus creatures swarmed @Billy Sabab's submersible and, overpowering it, hauled it back to the center of the amphitheater and exalted it, rising it above their tiny swarm to the cheers of the crowd. To them, it was @Billy Sabab who made this all possible. He was the hand of god in their return to the sea.

Seemed like a good time for me to be on my way.