Admission Notes:

These notes are being released to the student body to avoid the confusion presented by accepting this new student, because of certain… difficulties… that the school administration must ask the student body to deal with and accept without question, even though we know there will be speculation over our reasoning.



A diminutive but feisty young man of dubious background but impeccable character, Whitney is a transfer student from an alternative reality of Earth.

Due to the political situation involving Earth and this alternative reality, Whitney has been chosen by his ancestral house as their best choice for an inter-dimensional mission of diplomacy. A major problem presented by this political situation is that the astral location of this alternative reality must remain secret.

Whitney’s parents wanted him to continue to get the best education available, so they sent him to Psy High.

The staff of Psy High have been made aware of an exchange student they had not known of previously, due to differences in the tesseractical strings of the fourth dimension involving the two alternative realities. They have made an exception to their usual policy and allowed Whitney to enroll in Psy High without the usual requirement that they know the astral location of the alternative dimension involved.

Getting past the red tape to attend the school without this information has, in the past, been impossible.

Paradoxically in this case, however, The other exchange student involved, a David Somethingorother (his name hasn’t been released, due to the redundantly tight temporal security), was able to send a message back in time to the head of the Temporal Metaphysics Department explaining the need for the ________________, and explaining the reason for the sudden appearance of David Somethingorother’s files on the Dean’s desk that morning. Unfortunately, the documents in question appeared about a foot above the desk due to some problems with the temporal interface, and upset an extremely hot cup of coffee into the Dean’s lap.

While that would have been painful enough, the Dean was watching a demonstration of a ‘can this kitty fly?’ spell at the time, and the kitten in question had just been tossed through the air by the student (who will remain nameless, as it wasn’t his fault, and he feels terrible about it), who was pronouncing the spell to attach the wings at the exact instant the reports arrived above the table. The sudden appearance of the large file caused the student to lose concentration, and he lost control of his spell.

Chaos ensued when the Dean, with hot coffee in his lap, and the kitten, still floating through the air expecting wings (which appeared on a small potted ficus plant next to the desk), tried to occupy the same space and time coordinates. As this is a spell that requires much skill (which the Dean has), and preparation (which he did not have), the results were comical, if not pretty.

The kitten, finally aware that it would get no wings on this trip, flailed madly about with its claws seeking anything that it could hang on to. Unfortunately, what it found was the Dean’s toupee, which was not fixed so tightly to the Dean’s pate to remain attached. Kitten and hairpiece achieved a steady state of inertia together which unfortunately was interacted upon by the wall. This caused the kitten to take out it’s anger on the rug, there on the rug. Only the Dean considered this any great loss.

Meanwhile, the ficus flew up, and being single minded, as are most plants, it tried to get as close as it could to the sun. The plant smashed into an eastward facing window, shattering it's pot on the window frame, and showering the frightened and awestruck witnesses with a combination of potting soil, sand, gypsum, and stray bits of ficus. Services for the brave little plant that flew will be held next Tuesday.

The administration is checking to see if the lady friend of the student trying to fly the kitten was involved, as she has been cramming for a midterm in Chaos Theory.

The student files for David Somethingorother are postdated by ten years, but the data revealed in them have been just enough, and not too much, for the Dean to confirm to himself after he was able to have contacted himself at the relevant temporal nexus in the future.

Because of this, the Dean waved the usual Nondisclosure of Origin restriction and Whitney was allowed to enroll in classes.

Other factors rumored to be involved in the decision to accept Whitney to enroll were a substantial bribe, and a sealed Diplomatic pouch from the alternative realities’ future Ambassador. This is a package that the future Dean has entrusted his previously existing self to save secretly for Whitney, and as it has a large ‘DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS 2002’ sign on it, it only adds to the mystery surrounding this new student.

An interesting side bar to the whole affair is that the counselors who vetted Whitney’s background, including the author of this report, and the future Dean of Temporal Metaphysics all had to undergo multiple doses of Amnesiata to create mid level memory loss.

No one is quite sure why the present Dean was spared this treatment. Any speculation that he has become immune to Amnesiata through decades of its recreational use should be kept to yourself.

Another paradox of this strange situation is that no one can explain why the future Dean is apparently no longer immune to the effects of Amnesiata, else there would be no need for him to undergo that particular treatment.

All of this information might explain that just about everyone other than Whitney is speculating as to what’s in the diplomatic package already. There is an illusion generating spell so powerful on the package that two senior students (students who used to have jobs in administration) have already been sent to the infirmary for hallucinatory injuries they believed they suffered when they thought they had tried to remotely view the assumed contents of the package alleged to exist in the Dean's care.

Students who come in close proximity to Whitney may experience a slight feeling of disorientation. They should not worry about this. It is nothing more than a low level Barnard’s Field, which causes the person upon whom the field is focused to constantly dump the contents of their short term memory.

The only students this will affect negatively will be the ones who sit closest to him in class, and his roommate. As the students in question will not notice the effect, the administration has no plans to deal with any problems this may cause. When directly questioned about this, the Dean of Temporal Metaphysics said, “What were you asking about?” and as the questioner couldn’t remember the question, the subject was dropped.

Any reader that notices errors of logic or missing sections in this report will not be aware of anything they have missed, and if they do become aware of missing something, it will soon be explained away by what seem to be mundane causes.

End of released report.
 

2001-3-6   Whitney Micrathene

Hey--

I’m just getting settled in here at school. The room is nice. I thought I’d have a roomie, as I transferred mid term, but I guess there was an extra dorm room available.

I know I look different, with my exotic ears, but everyone keeps staring at me. It doesn’t bother me, but it seems that other people around here think that kind of behavior is impolite.

I checked out the library this morning, and it turns out I may have relatives (very distant relatives) here. I haven’t seen any of them at the school yet, but I heard about many different islands that have lore about small magic folk. There’s a couple that I will have to check out more closely, as they have legends of people with magic in Eire, and there are the Menehune of Hawaii. The latter of these intrigues me the most: We have a legend about people like this in my world called the Menahun. They disappeared thousands of years ago, but no one knows why or where.




Later:

The weirdest thing happened to me in psyche-pyrokinetics class today. The teacher introduced me three times to the other students. Every time I turned away from her, She’d ask me for my paperwork and start up the ‘transferring student’ speech again. Half of the class was turned purple, and it sounded like there was a herd of mules in the room, because we were all trying not to laugh out loud. I finally gave up and walked to my desk as she introduced me to the class. Once I was seated, things got back to normal, or thereabout.

Transferring here has been strange. Gathering energy is so much easier back home. Once I get my problems with that sorted out, I can finally show the faculty all of my abilities. For some reason, there is a block preventing my access to the energy fields the way I would have done back home. It’s artificial, ponderous, and I know better than to mess with things I don’t understand. I didn’t see anything in the library about it, but I could feel that the most important stuff in the library is only partially in the library, if you catch my meaning.
 

2001-3-6   stephy M

My dream job has come true! After 6 months of trying I finally landed a job here in the library, where I get to work with my passion - books!

My favorite part of the job is shelving, cause then I can just loose myself in the stacks. But a lot of the job is just sitting here at the desk, waiting to check books out to people.

My favorite part of the job is shelving, cause then I can just loose myself in the stacks. But a lot of the job is just sitting here waiting to - uh oh, here comes that new boy with the cute ears. Gotta go!

 

2001-3-6   esoterica weaseldale

Has anyone seen my gray cat that likes to curse in German? I think he went into the steam tunnels under the school...I keep forgeting stuff around 3rd period. His name is Wolfie. I have finals coming up and I think I was supposed to figure his future roamings but since that was 3rd period chaos class I keep forgetting assignments. I can feel something was going on this week in class, like it's on the edge of my brain, but I am not sure what. I think I will change seats next time.
 

2001-3-8   Rob Wraith

OK already. My best friend has been on me for months to make a journal entry. She says I’m lazy and that touching is not home work. Whatever. Girls and their cats, go figure. Have you guys seen all the ghouls hanging around the coffee shop lately? I tried to show them to Esoterica and the new kid, I keep forgetting his name, Whitney something or other. Man I can’t even remember that much when I talk to him. Anyway, they told me that I was crazy. That being a given and one of my entrance requirements, I am dumbfounded. I keep trying to scan them, but all they say is “quit harshing my buzz”. Iv'e done some research using my ouija board and all it says is “Jerry’s Kids”. I fail to see how this relates to a popular comedian from the late 20th century. If any of you have seen them please let me know. Otherwise things are good. I got my grant for “lifestyle research”. The government is so easily duped. So, I off to spend gobs of cash on stuff I don’t need and see if I can take my practical jokes to a new level. Watch your back Weasledale.

Later.
 

2001-3-11   Whitney Micrathene

Wow, do I feel like a jack’a’nape.

I was running around all week depressed and angry, because no one remembered my name, except for some kids from third period. Everyone smiled at me, but no one would to sit near me in class. I felt lonely and ostracized. It was the end of the week before everything came together and I figured out that my real problem was the Barnard’s Field.

I never bothered to consider how impolite I’ve been, messing with everybody’s studying. I walked around all week fuzzing out peoples’ memories needlessly. On Friday afternoon Rob Wraith came up to me and told me to quit ‘screwing around with my head.’ It turns out that the Barnard’s field has other effects than memory loss on the undead. Rob didn’t specify how I was messing him up, but I gather there was some sort of incident involving a pastor who is no longer anonymous in the Jehovahs’ Witness Relocation Program.

So I spent some time studying the Barnard’s Field, and I discovered some very interesting things about it. People should begin to notice me more now, at least enough to remember my name. Nobody is going to be walking around with that ‘just on the tip of my tongue look any more, at least not on my account, anyway.

I don’t want to say too much more about my Barnard Field studies for now, except that I hope the school assembly next week is well attended. You know the assembly I’m talking about, the one where the sales representative for The Memorysoft Corporation is going to try and sell that expensive new memory recall improvement system to the school? It should be… entertaining.




There sure are a lot of people here. Not just at the school, but here on Earth. Where I come from, we barely have one one hundredth of the population you do. It’s amazing how close you come to feeding everybody, but I wonder how long you can endure this kind of population level without serious consequences. I’m just trying to understand this, not to criticize anyone for it.



The mystery surrounding the power blockage I noticed is deepening. The faculty seemed to be completely unaware of the problem. I haven’t probed any deeper into the blockage at it’s source, but it could explain why even though there are so many more people on Earth there aren’t more people with psychic abilities than where I come from.

Back home, almost everybody has ability. Here, ability seems to be very rare. I did find something the other day that I think may relate to all of this. I saw a movie, “Pi,” about a mathematician who had certain views of how the world works, involving the number Pi. I’ve seen some of the same sort of patterns that the protagonist of the movie did, but I don’t get the same sort of reaction to them, Thank the Deities. It’s definitely something I must take extreme care investigating.

More soon.
 

2001-3-15   Whitney Micrathene

Hi again,

This place sure is different, for being so close to where I come from. The other students have been asking me where I’m from, a lot! There’s some very good reasons I can’t tell anyone, I just can’t think of them when I try. The same thing happens when I try to write the name of my homeworld in my journal. I either end up writing ‘where I come from,’ or ‘Earth.’ Makes my writing kind of awkward, and I’m sorry about that.

I can tell you a little about my home, though. The continents are similar, but where I -- I mean, my homeworld -- rotates on a different axis. The poles are less than fifteen degrees different from your Earth, but the differences in the geology, and the desert, tropical, temperate, and polar regions would make my world quite confusing to any Earther who stumbled into it accidentally.

Your world is as confusing to me as mine would be to you. Imagine Alaska being near the NORTH pole! Of course, we don’t call it Alaska where I come from. Japan being inhabited was a shock to me also. It’s icebound and Volcanic back home, but Mount Fujiama is even more majestic in repose there. No one bothers him much any more. He’s rumored to be irritable when needlessly disturbed.



I think that Ramona is right about the kid on the MIR. There is definitely something not quite on the level there. I've had a headache all week long, and nothing I can get from the herbalist has helped a bit. The energy of his life force is similar to some of the… folk from my neck of the dimensional bottle. I wonder if he’s one of the Leprechauns I’ve been reading about in the Library. I’m positive they are the same as the Menahun from back home.



The power block is becoming more and more frustrating to me. If it wasn’t there, I could be of more help with whatever we end up doing to rescue the mir kid. As it stands now, I would barely be able to guide someone else there, as my meager powers would be drained by covering the distances involved. If we can motivate enough people, we might be able to synergize in unity and save the poor moppet. Inshallah…
 

2001-3-17   Whitney Micrathene

want to thank Stephy M. for the hours of work she’s helped me do with my research, Even if she doesn’t remember it. I’m trying to research the names of the Houses of Faerie on Earth, but it’s difficult to find anything, as they have never been trusting of the Children of Adam, and left few records of their existence in your world. I can feel that they are still around somewhere, waiting. I wonder what they could be waiting for?

Stephy sure is shy, though. I can barely get a word out of her some times. I’m not trying to be a clown around her. Oh well, the long term effects of my misadjusted Barnards' Field will wear off soon, and I will know if she’s just shy around me, or if this is an unforeseen side effect of the excess energy of the field.

I do hope she will still respect me when she finds out I’m a member of the G., L., Bi., Hu., Un., Tr. P., and Tr. U., Club (Ghostly, Living, Bi- locational, Humanoid, Undead, Trans- sPecies and Trans- sUbstantial Club). I’m just a live and let love kind of humanoid who doesn’t want to be pressured to decide one way or another.

Peace, gentle beings,



May the wee folk watch o’er ye,

and not cause ye too much harm,

But trust not the Merrie Sidhe,

They could be pranking ye…


W. M.
 

2001-4-25   Nonflammable Norman

So the head of housing, in infinite wisdom, has come up with the ‘solution’ to the problems caused by my inadvertent inter-dimensional interlude. I have to move out of my dorm and go room with Whitney. I like the crowd that he hangs out with, but I’m scared that my grades will go to hell.

If only I could remember what I did with that lapis talisman that keeps me focused on my work.



Oh well, entropy eventually fails,

Systems work,

Effects cause causality, in casual affectation,

Stochastic vibration.


In a tall masted ship fantasy sails,

Literary hook,

Orchestral sonance surrounds cetacean conversation,

Ethereal flirtation.





Oh Yeah, I left my lucky charm by the aquarium. So scattered these days. There was something I wanted to mention…

Oh man, it’s right on the tip of my tongue. By hook or by… that’s right, hook.

Yeah, the literary hook-- something’s coming to mind…

There’s something I remember overhearing one of the other kids talking about. Something about some strange book with weird pictures in it.

Oh darn, here comes Whitney. So much for this entry…

N. N.
 

2001-4-29   Whitney Micrathene

Man, I don’t know if this room mate thing is going to work out. I kind of freaked out Norm last night. I seem to react strangely to the presence of others when I sleep. I get vivid dreams. Very intense dreams. Norm somehow went along for the ride..

My dream was kind of strange anyway. It was different, even by my standards. I was along for the ride in someone else’s consciousness. I know that there was someone else in control, because I recognize where I was, and it’s back in my homeland. I would not have been in that setting of my own free will, and I wouldn’t have had the-- well, I should tell you the way I saw it in my dream:

I had been running from something I wasn’t ready to recognize yet, and I had finally slowed to a walking pace to think about my situation. I seemed to be barefoot in the woods, walking along a trail not paying too much attention to where I was going.

I walked around a hill and found a nice meadow with a lake. Motes sparkled in the morning sunlight. Around me a hush gathered, and I stopped to enjoy the pristine beauty of the wildness. Past a finger of the lake shore was a natural bench formed by a fallen log, so I walked over to it and sat down to think. My mind floated, and I listened to the susurrus of bees in the sea of wildflowers growing in waves of wild mustard, poppy, and lavender around the lakeshore. The orange- red of the ‘Indian’ paintbrush rushed and crested within the wild, golden wheat as it ebbed and flowed in the breezes that washed around and over me. The reddish brown tangle of twisting manzanita trunks contrasted the dark, seaweed green of their leaves and anchored the up reaching branches to the ocean worn sandstone boulders around which the trees grew.

Birds schooled around me over the meadow. A crow flew low around the lake shore and landed in a live oak tree not far from me. I can’t put my finger on what menaced me most about this bird. It seemed familiar, yet it was disturbing. It caught my eye and winked at me, calling loudly. I gazed intently at it, trying to figure out why it seemed so important.

It looked as if it barely had enough feathers left to be able to fly. The feathers it did have left were ragged and oily. It’s skin, where the feathers were gone, was scabrous, gray and diseased. Strangely, it’s head was perfectly plumed, as if it had plucked it’s own feathers. I didn’t care to consider what kind of self hatred would cause such behavior.

Some core of my being sensed something oppressive in this situation, but I was powerless and lethargic. My fingers began to tingle, then all my limbs went to sleep. I felt drained and dreary. My arms and legs burned with pins and needles, and the stinging intensified when I tried to move. I laxed my muscles, and felt instant relief. My thinking turned murky and funereal. As I approached the absolute edge of depression my introspective being frothed in panic, yet I was paralyzed, and could only stare fixedly at the crow. My eyes burned as they dried, but I couldn’t even blink. The ebon glare of that beaded raven eye held me in a glamour. Everything I saw around his jet feathered face faded into a gray and dizzy blur. I wanted to pass out, but I couldn’t even do that. The crow took on more texture and ‘color’ to the black of it’s feathers. These waxed richer and more intense as the surrounding world diminished.
I don’t know what happened next, but I felt and heard a distinct cracking sound deep in the back of my neck. The crow heard it as well, I think, because it flinched and blinked at almost the same time I did ( it must have blinked after I did, otherwise I couldn’t have seen it, right?).

Suddenly my chest burned sharply. I thought that I had been stung by a wasp. Without thinking about it, I slapped at the bug, and my hand smacked the hawk whistle which a friend had given me a long time ago. I grabbed at it, and this finally broke the hold the black bird had on me. When I sounded it, the bird cried in pain and tried to fly away.

The air rent with cries, echoing the screaming tear of the bone and metal instrument I still sounded in my dazed rapture. The fey crow never had a chance, as it bore the full onslaught of three hawks dropping simultaneously on him. They didn’t bother to eat the nasty, either. As each of them landed with their piece of burden, they hopped up a bit and shook off their talons. After wiping the gore from their bodies and beaks, each of the raptors then turned to me and seemed to bow slightly.

As one, the three birds cried and launched themselves in the air towards me. I flinched back out of their way.

One of the birds laughed at me and said, “You should be more careful when you dreamsdrop in on other people’s stories. It’s impolite, and if you aren’t careful, you can affect the reality of what you see.”

That’s when poor Norman finally had too much and whimpered in his sleep. No matter how intensely I dream, I wake fast, and it’s a good thing I do, too. My roomie was sitting up, staring blankly at the picture on my wall. The wall was half de-solidified, and things were getting strange.

Norm was unresponsive to me when I asked him what he was doing. I got up and grabbed him by the shoulders, which suspended his catatonia. The picture restabilized, as did the now more firmly grounded wall, and Norm woke up completely. He remembered most of the dream as I did, but he felt that the person we were visiting in our strange dream seemed familiar, somehow. If he writes about it, maybe he can tell you more.

The thing is, I would never have anything to do with either crows or hawks, had I the choice, and I definitely wouldn’t have taken a hawk whistle from anyone, even in my dreams. I’m sure of that. I wonder what it all portends?

W.
 

2001-10-8   Nonflammable Norman

Well, at least I finally heard from Whitney. I woke up this morning to find a note on his pillow. The picture on the wall has completely changed. While it still has the overall form and dimension of the trees, valley and clouds, the form and texture has changed so that it now it is a very large black wave, painted in a Japanese style.
Here’s the note Whitney left me:




The more things strange, the more they seem the same.



Norm,

It would take too long to relay exactly how I sent you this note. The most that I can tell you is that I know the terrain around the landscape hanging on our wall intimately. I have worked out enough of the trick of the artist to have used the painting for a quick supply run.

I understand that things are kind of over tossed on your side of the paradigm. The news of the terrible things that have transpired only counterpoints the struggle in my home land. This frees me to tell you a little more of my situation.

My family is part of a loosely organised confederation engaged in a struggle for what we believe are the basic tenets of civilisation. The sort of atrocities you have so recently experienced are become an almost seasonal thing in my world. Society exists like an acrobat balanced on a large sphere. Picture extremism on every side of the globe. Religion opposes on one set of cardinal directions, Politics another. On still a third side, Nature opposes herself in the form of natural selection. Now coat the ball in extra virgin olive oil, and send it bouncing down a steep hill.

Wiser people than I feared the spread of interdimensional chaos and sent a very few agents to try and stem the flood of trouble that would ensue, were this to happen. We were to learn as much as we could and to pay attention to unusual events.

I fear that my investigations may have been getting too close to the source. If my guess is right, it might also explain why even the faculty of the school was blinded to the approaching onrush of evil that has engulfed your world. It would seem that just as I was sent to prevent the spread of uncontrolled chaos, others were sent to prevent the control of totality.

I had a breakthrough of sorts in the library. I found a trail of documentation proving that events had happened, and would continue to happen, under the influence of interests not of your world. I think that I set off some sort of trap left for the over inquisitive, for when I tried to leave the library, it had become labrynthian.

I wandered lost in the aisles for hours before I realised that I couldn’t be in the real library any more. At that time, I thought it was just a matter of concentration of will to free myself from the trap. I found a likely study nook and sat down to meditate. The attempt took much longer than I had anticipated, and when I finally was successful, I discovered the reason.

Somehow there is yet another rift between the dimensions at Psy Hi. It exists between the library you are all familiar with and a library on my home world that shouldn’t be known by anyone at school but myself.

I fear that I am not the only one at school intimate with this location. The fact that there was a trap implies something important must be kept hidden. The people that set the trap also took pains to hide the unfolding future events not only from the students in the foreseeing classes, but from the faculty of the school as well.

The good news is that nobody else should be able to get through the landscape on our wall, Norm. The bad news is that I don’t think I can say the same thing about the other rifts around school I’m staying in my world for now to investigate and help out. I’ll be in touch when I can, but I need to help the cause over here for a while.

Life is going to be interesting for a ways.

You do remember what your philosopher Confucius said about living in interesting times, don’t you?

Whitney




There you go. you know as much as I do about the whole thing. Be aware of where you are when you use the library, okay?
 

2001-11-10   Nonflammable Norman

Wow- All kinds of things have changed around here.

I think my roomie may be back.

My concentration has really been slipping over the last couple of days. The strange force on our dorm room wall pulses with energy and hums angrily at night. It is NOT a painting!

I went out for coffee at the Ugly Mug, and when I returned, I had to force our door open. I was lucky to have a fireball spell left over from elementary magic class (after all, we are at war, and we've been told to be aware of our surroundings). Inside the room were a few, well, I'm not really sure what they were. They looked kind of like hobgoblins, but on steroids. A little less than a meter tall, and butt- ugly.

They had pushed Whitney's desk against the door, and they were trying to complete some sort of complex and arcane ritual. Thank the Powers, they were distracted. When I couldn't open the door to the room, I backed up across the hallway and exploded the door with the hard pure force of rhyme. I learned something in this: the desks the school provides to it’s boarders aren't nearly as sturdy as they look. Shrapnelled study furniture flashed across the room and instantly killed one of the intruders. A second was damaged severely by a drawer to the face and upper torso.

The third little bugger was momentarily stunned by the unexpected tumult, and that may have saved me. I came through the door intending to wreak havoc as only a two hundred pound, six foot four, psychic student can. I was ready with the trigger for the fireball before the dust was out of the air, and that little sucker almost slit my throat.

Fortunately, I was able to say the trigger for my spell, and the flaming flatus spell left me with only crispy critters in my room.

I mean that literally, I torched all of our combined possessions with my fireball. The automatic energy suppression system kicked in and put out the last of the fire before the whole high security wing went up, but now our room is trashed.

The only thing unchanged through all of this destruction?

That freaky picture on the wall, still absolutely pristine. Just a picture of some beautiful valley of oddness.
 

2002-1-13   Whitney Micrathene

Boy do I have a tale to tell.

I’ve been back for about a month now, but I had to get up to date with my classes before I could devote time to my journal.

I went down to the library to continue my research into the history of the houses of Faerie on Earth, and I was searching for a particular work by an early fifth century Druid named Llewelin Peregrine Lanner. The librarian on duty, a very pleasant woman with an obviously painful backache, directed me to a wing I hadn’t previously noticed.

“Up along that aisle to the left,” she said, pointing towards a dusty lane of rickety shelves barely containing the tomes that were supposed to rest methodically thereupon.

“Go that way past four junctions and turn left at the fifth. Two rows down from there and turn right. Follow that stack until it turns left at the wall and look for a doorway further to the left along the wall.

"I’m not sure along which wall of the room that doorway is currently located. The book you want is in that room.”

“Not to tell the staff how to do your jobs,” I replied, “but isn’t it kind of disorderly down that way?”

“No offense taken,” she replied, with a chuckle, “You see, it’s that none of the librarians on staff are willing to work in this section. It’s well known amongst the staff for its amazing properties. Folks sometimes take hours to get back from even just around the corner.”

“If its that much of an iffy proposition, why don’t you just clean it up a little bit at a time?”

The librarian fixed me with a long stare before she replied.

“It’s been tried,” she said, then turned her head and spat on the floor, “Normally we don’t send students down there, but you seem to be sure of exactly what you need, and you look like you can handle yourself, or I wouldn’t have told you where that archive was located.”

This tidbit didn’t fill me with confidence, but I had to continue. The book I was looking for supposedly contains the original documentation of information to which a number of other texts I have been studying have alluded, and this data is critical to the core of my investigation. I *needed* to see the original text, so I headed off to find the book.

It was indeed the road less traveled. Books, maps and compendia were piled so high on the shelvage that at some places they actually overhung the pathway down which I had trodden. Cobwebs hung everywhere, and the dust in front of me was pristine and undisturbed. The whole situation was unnerving. I had a sudden feeling that I was hip deep in danger without my waders.

With frail heart I continued, and found my way to the wall of which the librarian had spoken. I followed her instructions exactly and turned left to locate the door. Finding the entrance to the room was more of a challenge than I had expected. I persevered, and after a diligent search located the portal in what would seem to have been the exact place I had first encountered the wall. A little more illogic to start the day. I opened the door, stepped over the lintel and leaned back against the closing door to survey the disrepair.

Books and papers lay strewn about. It was as if some first year student had been practicing chaos theory and summat’ gone wrong. Something large had made a nest in a corner of the room, and there was an unhealthy reek to the air.

I searched for the book I needed. It could have been coincidence that the moment my fingers touched it’s spine there was a shuddering of the earth (I think you call it an ‘earth-quake’), and the building groaned and complained. After that commenced a rhythmic creaking, and I noticed the oil lamps that lit the room had started to swing back and forth from their chains.

Oh no. I’ve managed to travel from a semi modern, early Twentieth century Earth building into an old something with oil lamps. Not a good sign. I grabbed on tightly to the book and rushed to the doorway in one motion. Things seemed off kilter, and I felt slightly drunk.

A look at the door itself was enough information to tell me why the room was creaking and the lamps were swinging. The door no longer went all the way to the floor. Instead it was a hatch, which told me that I was on board a water vessel of some sort.

Great-- they’ll think I’ve stowed away on board their ship, I thought. I’d better get it over with, and see the skipper of this tub right away.

I had thought the changed doorway would lead immediately to a different environment but I was mistaken. This ships’ library was bigger than one room, which implied a large vessel. That was good, because it meant I’d get better treatment from the crew.

I tried a little spell to increase my pocket money, and noticed for the first time that my powers were back. I wasn’t at full strength, as I hadn’t been meditating lately, but it sure felt good to know I had something there.

My confidence increased with this bit of luck, and I made my way from the ships library to the corridor, and sought out the bridge. I realized that I still held the book in my hand, and put it in my pack.

I noticed then that I had a digital camera lent me by Norman in my pack. I took a few shots of my journeys, but they showed up weird in the display on the camera. Norman has a friend who may ort may not be able to decode the pictures I took. If they print well, he may post them at his web page.

Back to the important stuff:

After wandering around for a couple of minutes in the corridors and taking every gangway I found upwards, I found the deck, and then the bridge. Once there, I asked to speak to the Captain and explained my predicament to him. He wasn’t happy, but when I produced money to pay for passage, he became more enthusiastic.

My main surprise came when I asked him where we sailed.

“The Aeneth Sea,” he told me, “We’re headed to the Isle of Heather Morn.

That told me I would be a while getting back to class. The school library sent me home somehow. The Aeneth Seas are a Black Water ocean from my home world. While little parlor magick with pocket money might work here, I wouldn’t have the Mana to make it back to my home. I knew then that my research at Psy High was going to be delayed somewhat.

More soon.

W.M.
 

2002-1-14   Nonflammable Norman

Okay, I didn't believe it either.

Whit showed me where he was when he started his journey. The books are stacked to the ceiling, and one set of footprints leads away in the dust. I also collected a small crusty deposit which Whitney claims is librarian lickspittle.

I'm sending the sample to the lab for testing. Couth be told, I think there's more in the library than that, though I trust that my room mate wrote of events as he perceived them.

Something is odder than usual as of late, and I fear that Ender, the punk rockers at the big 'n' tall ball and others may have taken the rap for the consequences of actions taken months ago.

If the reaction to attraction is an action of distraction,

Could the being seeing being be seen seeing being being?

Schrodinger has a cat, I see (I think that's the name he uses here).

By the way, Whitney's original entry had more correct directions to the room where he found the ship's library, but I talked him into befuddling them because I know my fellow students. We also called Psycurity and told them where we think the rift is located. Students lurking about trying to find a new way to sneak off campus unnoticed should go elsewhere, this way is fraught, man, just fraught.

There's no way to be sure if the opening still exists unless someone checks out the room, and Whitney says he's not ready to do that yet.

Psycurity has been all over the Administration to change this, but so far it's Whitney's play (a lot of nervous security types are getting overtime pay though).


 

2002-8-26   Nonflammable Norman

I told Whitney we shouldn't go back to the nook in the library, but he "had to investigate the anomaly..."
 

2002-12-3   Nonflammable Norman

I haven't had the time to post recently...

Whitney tossed a note to me from the picture in our dorm room. In it he asked me to pass along the information that he "is tasked in his homeworld, helping a friend of Earth to battle the evils that beset our mutual realities."

He wasn't much more clear than that. I think that it has something to do with the box locked away in the Dean's office that wasn't opened at Christmas.

As for me, my semester final for my class in the Magikal sonance of rhythm was a complete success. By the third stanza of my effort, the words and driving pace of repetitve esoteric rhyme had the room disoriented and attentive. By the time I started the second verse, I could see in the tranced, glazed eyes of my audience an understanding of my theme. From there it was a simple task to make the illusion more important than the reality of the classroom.

It caused quite a stir in class when their awareness returned to them and they found themselves with me in the Kiva, and not in the classroom. Some of my fellow students were sceptical that we had really translocated, but after climbing up the ladder and through the roof opening and walking around the village they were convinced. Fortunately, the natives were used to my arrivals by now, they accepted all of us with stoic aplomb.

After a meal and ritual greeting from the elders of the village, we headed back into the kiva, and I sang us back to campus again.

I think I will get an 'A' for the course.

The other day someone asked me what was my first psychic experience:

I had a dream that I was in a Victorian house, all in Walnut and white. The house was built on a hill such that the first floor had it's ground level on the right side of the building, while the "third" floor was at ground level on the left side of the house. In my dream, I walked down a corridor on the third floor, and looked up into the tops of forty foot oak trees that were just barely above my eye level.

I walked into a room where a bunch of kids were gathered around a record player listening to "American Pie" by Don McLean. They greeted me warmly, and I knew I was among friends. Imagine my surprise to find, ten years later, that the everything from my dream was perfectly descriptive of my first class here at Psy-High.

Is it true that to understand the Zen of the beach you must be able to imagine the sound of one flip flopping?

I must go, I'm waxing philosophically rhetorical, and I have a foreboding sense of impending ennui, blended with just a touch of apathy. If it weren't for the chance to fly in the face of expectations, I'd split into the wind.

Don't forget your preventative Oral hygiene. If everyone out there helps, we can carry it off, and Mr. Roberts will be just an old WWII movie again.

If any of this makes sense to you, be sure to seek the clinical advice of your favorite health professional. My favorite health professional is my spirit guide, Topo Gigio. He keeps telling me to "close the box!" -- So I will.

N.N.
 

2003-2-19   Nonflammable Norman

Gung Hay Fat Choi everybody!


The Picture on our (my?) wall has been acting strange again. It throbs, electrically pulsing with some unfathomable power. The scene displayed within the frame shifts at irregular intervals, such that one cannot tell what the view will be at any particular time. Even the size of the aperture changes to fit the view perspective rendered from the other world.

The scents and sounds are exotic and surreal. There is one view that is enchanting, almost narcotic. A valley of cultivated plants, fragrant and healthy in the summer sun. Across the valley, a small castle stands atop an island in a sleepy river. Great bridges link the island to either bank. When ever I see this view, I find myself drawn closer to the picture on the wall. Even though the thing gives me the heebie- jeebies, I am drawn to that sight.

Whitney hasn?t checked in with me yet, and I?m worried about him. He was to have seen me before the Horse was run off by the Ram, but he?s been so silent.

I?m looking for a job to help pay my tuition. Maybe I?ll send my resumé to Mr. Van Gray and see if I can get a driving position.



NN

 

2003-7-6   Nonflammable Norman

Kicking back in remote viewing class, not paying attention to the droning droid at the lectern... Summer school ain't where it's... Well, at least it's Psyhigh! With all of the excitement around graduation, I haven't had a chance to update my journal, now that they've allowed it back to me.

If it hadn't been for the picture in our dorm room, the last few months would have been like prison for me. Though no one else seemed to notice, the School Board (yes, the School Board) removed me from my classes and confined me to the dorm room I share with Whitney (like he's ever around). This was because someone finally remembered to read a scroll they were supposed to have opened years ago at Christmas (don't you just love a bureaucracy?), which foretold of events involving the picture "hanging" on our wall. In the collective rush to jam sand in their eye holes, they locked me into the room, telekinetically transmuting meals to me to satisfy my nutritional needs.

Fearing the worst, they confiscated my journal, and left me unable to write (or read) about events concerning the school. I did learn one thing before they locked me in here: They have come to the conclusion that the thing hanging on our wall is an "Escherine." An Escherine is "Theoretically, mind you, a semi-stable location where a world with n dimensions interacts with a world having n+x dimensions," I was told by an expert examining our anomaly, though he seemed exasperated that I had bothered him in asking.

He refused to speak to me after that, responding mostly with nonverbal grunting whenever I started to ask him anything else, and he was the most talkative of all three visitors allowed into the room (not to see me, mind you). I guy could get paranoid, or at least agoraphobic, as for the last few months, our dorm room has been three walls (one with a locked door), floor, ceiling, and, well, whatever happened to be where the fourth wall was supposed to be.

The restrictions on my movement and access to my journal were restored apparently as a result of the inter dimensional disturbances that came to a head at graduation. This had a fortunate effect on the Escherine, so that now the changes in location have definite periodicity, and I have been able to explore some areas of the landscapes provided me. This has been really helpful for the last few weeks, as I've learned to dump the cafeteria foods towards the end of the week. I was getting these incredible headaches on Fridays-- that all stopped once I was foraging from the frame, as it were.

Anyway, there I was in remote viewing, when all of a sudden I got this strong vibe that someone was trying to contact me. Just when I had almost picked the psionic lock to check out the gym changing rooms, too. As soon as I tried to 'accept' the call, it disappeared. Happened again and again, all day long. It's kind of unsettling, just as my attention wanders, there he is, tickling my medulla-- as soon as I pay attention, he's gone.

Then, the weird part: I go back to the dorm, and, even though it's been locked up fifteen different ways, someone left a note inside on that odd letterhead, so close to the school's own.

The note reads:

"Religions (and religious differences) will always exist, because it is impossible for the minds of men to keep uncorrupt the word of God. No matter your belief structure, you look up to one who has lived a life so exemplary it is to all others as a light in the darkness. Thus, in your estimation, you raise this being above all others, disbelieving that other beings representing other faiths may have been as enlightened as the one you admire.

This is natural to humanity, for from the beginning of time we have lived in small family groups, surviving through our ability to defend our group identity. The only things that have changed in all that time are the reach of our families, and our capacity to act in ungodly ways in the furtherance of our faiths."

Now why would someone break into my room to leave a note like that? The only other thing I can think of is that there are other unknown Escherines elsewhere on campus. After all, the school has been diligently guarding the two we are aware of, here and in the Library.

Maybe Whitney will came back soon and enlighten me.

NN
 

2004-9-9   Nonflammable Norman

An amazing thing, the picture on my wall. I was exploring the local environment, with twenty minutes to go before the image was supposed to change, and --whump!-- I heard an onomatopoeic loudness, look back at the dorm room, which suddenly wasn't there. So I figured to be there a while (it has been taking about two or three days before an image repeats itself in the painting on our dorm wall), and set about making a camp.

I had a good amount of campstuffs with me, as I had made the rookie mistake of wondering what sort of supplies I'd need were I to get trapped in the painting on a scouting trip, when a grey van pulled up with four "double density Klein Bottle" boxes, and an invoice noting my account had been already been debited the cost.

Since I used their equipment, I am glad I didn't tell them to take the stuff back. I was pretty damn upset at the time though, and told them that I hadn't had the choice to think about the purchase. Then the driver played back the recording they had brought with them, where indeed, you could hear me thinking out loud about what provisions I'd want on such a journey.

I really have to remember to stop talking to myself when no one else is in the room.

Long story short, a three day camp out became a year long safari, and with Whitney gone (I typed his last entry for him... screwed it up, too), our dorm room was vacant for the last year. I guess its a good thing that the administration was too freaked out by the painting to clean the room for other students. Who knows what chaos might have ensued if I materialized in the middle of the night to an reoccupied dorm room. I see explosions in that future... even with my as yet unexplained ability to adsorb thermal, chemical, and electrical excitement without deleterious effect to my body, my defensive reaction when hit by such energy in a closed space is to return it to its source. I wouldn't want to have damaged a classmate by defending myself.

Anyway, I was stuck 'out' in the painting, and the damn thing just wouldn't cycle through and let me back to my room. I didn't want to leave the area, for fear I'd miss my chance, and I wasn't in a good place.

The painting I walked into had shown a tall mesa in a desert, with a skull low on one side. It was a beautiful and severe environment, and I was glad I had a solar still packed up in my gear. After about eight months, I was glad I had all four of the Klein bottle boxes as well. Lots of food in one of those boxes, and I was working on the last one, just a few days ago, when this strange looking dude hikes up to my camp.

He started to yell at me that I was screwing up his picture, and that customers were complaining about their reception, and just what the hell was I trying to do, ruin him?

I yelled back that I was waiting for the view to open up again, so that I could get home, and he gave me a funny sideways look.

"Where are you from?" He asked.

I told him, and he couldn't have been nicer to me after that. He told me his name was "O'syryous," and that he was the artist responsible for the work in our dorm room. Then, he told me that all I had needed to do to get home was to wait behind the artist's point of view of the painting until I saw the reality dim.

He wouldn't tell me much about his work, but he left me with a collection of what he called more 'mundane' pictures to bring back with me. I gave him three of the Klein boxes in return, and packed the new paintings in the remaining receptacle. They were wrapped in brown paper, so I didn't see what I had until I returned.

As we were out of frame, the painting cycled up to the image after only a few minutes, and I was on my way home.

When I got back, I looked at the first package of paintings, and had quite a shock- a picture (I think, a good one, too) of my old friend Rob Wraith was among them.

Since the paintings looked good, and I needed to not only make my tuition, but to pay off my Grey Van bills, I took the damn things over to the coffee shop to try and sell them.

When that song came up on the jukebox, and Rob un-dissipated from the canvas with a cloud of noxious smoke, I was as surprised as anyone else.

As the scientist milling odd spores from organized bacterial life for experimentation said, "Weird seines inside the mold grind."

Good to be back,

NN