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Post by Jacques Snicket on Jul 17, 2017 20:32:15 GMT -5
Deleterious Diagnosis 05
Daniel Faraday languished under the concierge cap of the Hotel Denouement he had been issued when he had showed up in the lobby about a week prior. Matching his Hotel Denouement concierge uniform and Hotel Denouement sunglasses, the cap sat fortuitously upon his head, a phrase which here means "hid his forehead from the prying eyes of those who would expose him to volunteers and villains alike as an individual of grave curiosity." He was there because Kit had sent him there to do a bit of spying, for she had said to him before he left, "This world is but a masque of spies, my dear." She had looked him in the eyes as she whispered her warning, the evening glow settling upon her face like a royal sunbeam, giving her lips a heraldic quality, "Vicious rogues who spout nothing but vanity and deceit, and lifeless masks of crimson death and the poets' morbid hue." To be honest, her words had mostly gone over his head. His main area of interest was physics, not the literary power plays of the dramatic poets. He only knew scant of Molière and a hint of Poe, so he gathered that as much from Kit's masque of the masqued spies.
Within the Hotel Denouement there was a suitcase, and within the suitcase there was a compartment, and inside that compartment was a secret file called the Snicket file. Guarding the file within the compartment within the suitcase within the Hotel Denouement was a man known to the City as Schrute, to the Hinterlands as Dwight, and to the Snow Scouts as Xylophone. For some odd reason infinitely bewildering to him, his friends kept on calling him "Bruce Wayne". He was there on posthumous orders from Doctor Diogenes to transmit the suitcase to an esteemed Justice of the High Court, a phrase which here means "Count Olaf intercepted some Very Frightening Documentation relating to the good Doctor's deleterious demise and was sending one of his associates disguised as a Justice of the High Court to make the trade, a phrase within a phrase which here means, 'Count Olaf was about to get his grubby hands on the Snicket file'".
"Hello there. Dwight Schrute. Are you that High Court Justice that Count Olaf sent? I've been trying to reach him to see if he knows anything about the DHARMA Initiative."
"Not so loud!” shouted the hook-handed man highly judiciously. "Do you have the damned file?"
Dwight Schrute shook his head. "You won't get it until you answer my question."
"What!?"
"What is the DHARMA Initiative, associate of Count Olaf?"
The hooked judge spluttered, "Wasn't that some television show? The boss didn't like it. Every time those people got close to an answer to why they were there in the first place, they're interrupted by something stupid like a baby with magical powers or some tragic backstory that we all have to suffer through, like those three dratted Baudelaire orphans. That tiny baby bested me in the most incredibly deadly card game—"
"The DHARMA Initiative, Widdershins. Do you know it or not?"
At the mention of Widdershins, the hook-handed man erupted, "DO NOT USE THAT PATHETIC NAME IN FRONT OF ME, DWIGHT SCHRUTE! OR I'LL HANG YOU BY THE TIPS OF MY HOOKED HANDS DOWN THE FRONT OF THE STUPID HIGH COURT! Olaf should have burned down that eyesore instead of the—"
"Very well, then. Here is your suitcase." And Dwight Schrute promptly left the building.
"Boss," the hook-handed man struggled to operate the walkie-talkie, "I've got the suitcase."
Olaf on the other end hissed. "What do you mean a suitcase? I specifically asked for the secret file hidden inside the secret compartment hidden inside the suitcase inside the Hotel Denouement being guarded by some corporate hack named Dwight Schrute who keeps pestering me about the damned DHARMA Initiative. Who does he think I am, one of those idiotic twins? I mean, I would love to burn down that damned hotel myself someday. The nerve of that cur, thinking he could defeat the great Count Olaf! Nathaniel Hawthorne, I'm surrounded by idiots..."
"There's no Nathaniel here, boss," radioed the hook-handed man.
"I wasn't talking to you, minion!"
"But you're talking to me now, boss."
"Arrgh!" A static-filled breath. "Just bring me that suitcase." The radio clicked off.
Watching Olaf's accomplice, Faraday could remember the look on his love's face as they had set the V.F.D. Library on fire. They would never understand, she had explained to him. They would stand in our way and with our enemies. Destroy their hub and they would be too weak to launch a sufficient investigation. Her eyes promised him everything imaginable as they deshelved book after book, tearing the pages into an incoherent mess like a wind storm. The only copies in existence of ancient V.F.D. records of the Great Library of Alexandria were torn apart and added to the pile of kindling. With a kiss, she guided his hand as he threw the lit match onto the stained pages. He'd saved his uncle's Time Travel Minutiæ from consignment to the flames, of course. Jacques Snicket had hung his head low, watching them, as if coming to terms with what they had to do to ensure justice done to villains no matter the resulting cost. Sacrifices needed to be made for the greater good. If V.F.D. got in the way of that good, so much the worse for it. He and Kit and Jacques had solemnly broken themselves apart from the secret organisation they had all been apprenticed by. But they were the true volunteers, Faraday had thought. Count Olaf had been right all along, back in Dewey Denouement's underwater catalog where they had found the blue police box before their sword duel. Before Radzinsky had killed him for getting in her way. Before Olaf, deranged from a lifetime of grief and rage, had wanted him to tell Kit something....
Something was moving. The ridiculous disguise of Olaf's ridiculous associate had fooled most of the hoteliers, except for a certain snake well acquainted with the Baudelaire orphans, which had warned the frogs living beside the reflective pond of the Hotel which had alerted Dewey Denouement by a pneumatic sound tube made of reflective glass from within the catalog.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! cried the clock of the Hotel Denouement as it struck twelve. The noise reverberated across the glass panes and the wooden floors and the concierge desk and the dome above where the clock hid its face. To Faraday it was as if the Hotel was laying judgment upon him for his complicity in the burning down of the V.F.D. Headquarters. But it was the only way! The only way to avenge justice. Kit had realised that, and so had Jacques. So had he. He had done it for her, always for her. He would not abandon her now. He would never betray her. Ever. She was his everything. He was her dragon. Her instrument. Her plans were his own. There was no going back now. He could not go back. He did not want to go back. A life without Kit is like a life without meaning, and if she wanted to punish the world for its injustices, the world could go to Hell if it meant her beautiful smile. "For you, my Kit," he whispered as he watched Fernald away with the hidden file.
He knew very well who Count Olaf's associates were. He had read countless articles detailing their crimes, similar to the papers the Quagmires had found in the archival library of Prufrock Preparatory School. He had read the fruits of the investigation of Jacques's brother Lemony when Theodora was training him in the ways of V.F.D. in the alternative future, relative to this timeline, he originated from.
With the Headquarters burnt down ahead of time, Lemony's investigations would never reach as wide an audience as they had done in the original timeline. Such was a sacrifice, he solemnly noted, that was worth the end goal: Kit's happiness, whatever that may entail. For too long had the world wronged her and held her back, had held them both back. But no more.
By her side, he was complete. He had found his purpose. His destiny. Enforcing her justice was everything he had ever wanted. He would be there for her always.
He moved to the elevator as the fake judge's silhouette disappeared beyond the lobby entrance. Room 404. "Not Found In This Hotel: Ask A Concierge For Directions. Failing That, Earnestly Ask A Frank Manager (Or Frankly Ask An Earnest Manager) For Help Immediately". As it is, 'twas a secret passage to a hidden room (guarded by a Vernacularly Fastened Door whose answers relate to special topics of language), much like 667 Dark Avenue's rumored secret floor above the Squalor penthouse. The Vernacularly Fastened Door was not the only entry. When a secret lever was pulled, the inner mechanics of the room shifted to another compartment, with its own ordinary door, ideally suited to the furtive placement of sugar bowls amidst Various Feuillantly Designated tea sets. "Let them eat cake," was the misunderstood and misattributed line of a V.F.D. code, which led to great misfortune.
Within the old sugar bowl was a message: "If you are reading this, Count Olaf has gotten his hands on the Snicket file." Faraday laughed. He had always enjoyed the sense of humor of the secret organization with regard to events that had just transpired concerning the object in question, even though he had just broken away. "Spooky action at a distance", indeed. He read on. It was a telegram. Apparently sent by his future self, it contained directions on what to do. It also contained a directive to meet Alighiero Mallahnson himself, but at a most unexpected place of meeting: the charred former residence of S. Theodora Markson.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Jun 26, 2017 13:20:25 GMT -5
Thank you, guys
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Jun 21, 2017 0:04:55 GMT -5
Deleterious Diagnosis 04
"Name, age, and occupation."
The Lucky Smells Lumbermill was hosting a visitor, the first since the town of Paltryville had gained notoriety after the fires that had consumed their only post offices and telegram stations were blamed on the Baudelaire parents before their three children had been born. This visitor was none other than Ellington Feint, loping snug in a disguise cobbled together from a various finery disguise kit dangling from the street lamp next to the Paltryville Library in which every book was the same volume. Feint had decided to drop Kit Snicket's face for the moment. Her revenge was not yet complete. She had to stop Jacques Snicket from telling his brother everything. She ought to have killed Jacques Snicket at the first opportunity. The Faraday boy was off doing her bidding, love-sick fool that he was, but very useful to her all the same. She had come to the mill disguised as a tree speculator in order to set a trap for Lemony, who was always three steps behind the three Baudelaire orphans, never quite catching up to them. She would use the town's wrath towards Beatrice and Bertrand against their own children, and Snicket would have no choice but to come to their rescue, after which vengeance would be hers at last, in the name of the Inhumane Society, in the name of her father. But she could not bell the cat herself. No. She needed Count Olaf's help, and Count Olaf needed Georgina Orwell.
"Isadora Duncan, old enough to know better, tree speculator," she lied with aplomb.
"The Duncans, Skylords of Mistral City, ma'am? They're a bit strange, they are."
"The Chippewa Falls Duncans, actually," she fibbed slyly.
"Never heard of that place. Is it over the Sea?"
"Yes. The Duncans of Chippewa Falls take tree speculation very seriously."
"I hear they have very good inns in Stain'd-by-the-Forest."
"I have never been there, sir, but I may take you up on that."
"Enough dawdling, miss. Move along. Wouldn't want to miss your appointment with the boss."
The boss was, as bosses go, one-dimensional, a word which here means "what one would normally expect of a boss in a book about a series of unfortunate events: somebody named Sir."
"Hello, there. I'm Sir. And this is my lumber mill. Care for tree-bark coffee, miss -?"
"Duncan," Ellington hemmed, "Isadora Duncan."
"Well, whatever your name is, you should know that when I make suggestions they are to be followed, because I'm the boss," Sir finished with a grin that smelled lucky.
"I understand, sir."
"Splendid! Now, onto our discussion. You mentioned a Flacutono to one of my former butlers in passing named Xylowhatever. How can they help Lucky Smells Lumbermill turn an even greater profit?"
Ellington smirked inwardly. He was playing into her plans perfectly with his profit-obsession clouding his judgment. That shadow of a man, Charles, stood out to her a bit more just now. His eyes seemed to tell a story. A story about the Baudelaires. Charles had just hired them for the Lumbermill. Olaf had killed that fool Montgomery Montgomery at last!
"Flacutono is a great foreman, sir. His records are right here." She slipped him a small sugar bowl which she had nabbed from the Rowling estate. Blackmail is a weighty thing, unfortunate reeder. Blackmail hinging upon hypnosis, however, is even weightier. Sir fell into a trance, reading the word "LUCKY" written in hypnotic ink upon a slip of paper within the sugar bowl. Georgina had been kind enough to aid her in her scheme, despite her troubled past with Count Olaf. What else was the greater good for? It got them working in unison, a phrase which here means "channeled the self-interested rapacity of the many into an iron-cast plan of the one villainous master they all served: Israphel, and to destroy V.F.D."
"You will hire Foreman Flacutono to help streamline the dismal production quality of this mill. You will refuse to have the genuine interests of Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire at heart. They are to remain your faceless employees. They are to never gain any privilege that your partner Charles might sway you to concede to them. You will continue to allow Georgina Orwell to hypnotise your workers into dull efficiency and for them to have and to hold Lucky Smells Lumbermill till death do they part. Got it?" Then she snapped her fingers. Sir shivered and nodded, his plasticine charisma back on his rugged face. "Good."
Ellington Feint smirked slyly in sly triumph, a phrase which here means "slyumph."
"It was a pleasure during business with you, Sir."
"Now that's over with, I want my tree bark coffee. Charles! I need a tree bark coffee....and one of my cigars!"
"But those are unhealthy for you, Sir."
"I don't care. I'm the boss. If I'm your boss, I am the boss of health!"
She departed before escalations would exacerbate themselves, a phrase which here means "she was now out of earshot." Yes. As she walked out onto the plaza of Paltryville proper after reversing her trail through the mill, Ellington Feint was having a very fantastic day.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 27, 2017 18:58:39 GMT -5
They could be comparable to The Who as well, as they were big in the 1970s while the Marauders were at Hogwarts.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 23, 2017 21:28:30 GMT -5
Deleterious Diagnosis 03
"Severus Snape always looked like an overgrown bat if you ask me." "Really? And I suppose you don't look like a troll that had its head smashed in by an eleven year old with a tenuous grasp on spells at best?" "You flatter me." "Don't flatter yourself, Salazar." "And why not, dear Godric?" "It does not become you, my friend." "Neither does this topic, Lionhearted One." "We're dead, Salazar. How else are we meant to pass the time?" "I always said that we ought to have become imprints of our departed souls." "I suppose I'll have to hang my Hat if that ever happens." "Why so glum, Gryffindor? We'll personally see what it is like at our school long after our deaths. Come on, Godric, you know you want to." "...Alright, Slytherin, but you owe me." "I do not." "Yes, you do. I'll be invisible, if you don't mind..." "You're aiming for poltergeist?" "No. Peeves is quite enough." "What are you going for?" "Say I had a cloak of invisibility..." "Yes, I see! Death's Cloak." "I never took you for one to believe in those legends. Considering we're ghosts, we are already part of Death's Cloak, don't you think, Salazar?" "I like where you're going with this." "Good. I'm gladdened." "No, I really mean it this time, Godric." "Mean what?" I AM COMING FOR YOU, JACQUES SNICKET! Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin had stopped, frozen by this unknown terror. Both of the male Hogwarts Founders out of the Four seemed infinitesimal compared to the dark purple inferno of the fires at Quintus Dellegaarde's command, bestowed by the Dark Lord Israphel himself to destroy any and all traces of V.F.D. The flames licked into his very soul, tormenting him.
Jacques Snicket awoke with a pang of distress in his belly. The dream had been all too real. He had been on the run from his own sister, for she had become mad with the prospect of revenge against everyone who stood in her way. He had just become one of those who stood in her way. Orford Creevey had been right, but....there was something very wrong with the whole situation. He was missing something, but did not know what. It made no sense at all. None of it did. He wondered a great wonder. Then he wondered some more, and then he thought back to his sister's little mannerisms, ever since they were children, he'd noticed a consistency of habit, something he himself possessed, as did his brother Lemony.
He'd noticed something drastic about Kit some time after she and Faraday had found each other. Odd pauses, stares, silent smirks. And, most of all, a thrusting personality change like the stab of a knife. She seemed to be more...dangerous. And as long as he knew her, she had never been dangerous. Not in the way Olaf was, nor in the same way of the beardless woman and the hairless man. Nor in the way of Quintus Dellegaarde, come to think of it, when remembering reports of that villain's actions. And then his thoughts turned to Stain'd-by-the-Sea, and Lemony's apprenticeship there under S. Theodora Markson (what does the S stand for?), and the girl he met: Ellington Feint. Yes, Ellington was dangerous enough, no doubt. And Lemony had once made an off-remark about their sister meeting Feint in a train car. It did not take long for Jacques Snicket to put the pieces together. Orford Creevey was wrong. Kit was not a villain. Hangfire's death was an event of unknown significance to Creevey. He had not known that Ellington Feint had personal reasons to despise Lemony Snicket forever, and the organization he remained a part of, even after all those trials and tribulations: V.F.D.
But as he was enveloped in his reveries, a slip of paper onto his table at the Anxious Clown brought him to attention. In crisp handwriting read the name: Diophantus Diogenes. He turned to look at the waiter with a questioning start, but he only said, "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion, sir, but I felt it prudent to disturb your quiet." A phrase which here meant "a volunteer has just been killed." Jacques frowned, and grabbed a nearby newspaper. Understanding blossomed as he read, considerably the part where it claimed that Kit Snicket was an avid aficionado of jazz music, which could not be further from the truth, a phrase which here means "he finally understood that Kit Snicket was being framed due to someone else disguising themselves as her." And Jacques said, "Faintly fall the footsteps of the fleet-footed felon," and the waiter hurried promptly away. They were all in grave danger.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 22, 2017 12:10:35 GMT -5
I wonder what Armstrong would think, even though he too led a double life. And the fact he has a grandson that may or may not be dead. Fitzgerald Feint's middle name is Schrödinger, after all...
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 21, 2017 20:41:59 GMT -5
Deleterious Diagnosis 02
There once was a box. The box had six sides and however many edges and corners a three-dimensional cube possesses. Within that box was yet another box, and within that box was yet another box, and in that box was a file of papers all done up with string. In that file were the documents, maps, graphs and photographs pertaining to the Snicket fires, a phrase which here means "this was the Snicket file so long sought by our enemies and, after escaping with its thirteenth page from a hospital fire, the three Baudelaire orphans." However, all the pages were in one place, and they were not gathering dust in Heimlich Hospital's Library of Records as they had been in the previous timeline. No. They were in the offices of a man named Diophantus Diogenes who was a doctor of medicine at The City's own hospital, named the Belled Cat Sanitarium, which was a rather odd name for a hospital as hospital names went, but there you are, a phrase which here means "so it goes."
For Diophantus Diogenes, life was simple: he arose from bed each morning, caught the paper at his bedside delivered to him via pneumatic delivery services, made his eggs, drank scalded coffee, freshened up, put on his coat, and went to work at Belled Cat Sanitarium and returned home at the end of each day. But it was today, a dreary Tuesday in fact, that his life was about to take a turn for the complicated. He dropped The Daily Punctilio and gasped. The offending headline read, INFAMOUS AUTHOR ROWLING DEAD IN SUSPECTED ARSON FIRE SET BY KIT SNICKET. Diogenes stared at the fallen front page. Fear began to dribble down his stomach in innumerable amounts. He whipped his head around as if he were suddenly being watched. He had known Kit Snicket since his schooldays. This was simply too insane to have actually occurred, much less the deed having actually been done. Why on earth had she gone over? And why Rowling? What had she ever done to Kit Snicket? Had he truly known the real Kit Snicket, all those years ago?
Then again, given that her faceless brother had been plastered over the very same paper many years ago connecting him to another string of arsons, he wondered whether the Snickets were beyond hope. As far as he was concerned, Jacques Snicket was just another firecracker waiting to happen. But then he thought about how the other brother had been framed and how a woman named Beatrice had convinced him of Snicket's innocence. He wondered why he could not remember the faceless Snicket's first name. Marmoset Snicket? Leopold? Redbeard? Limey? Sherlock? Some weird name of theirs. Snickets and their weird names, he thought disinterestedly, but not without a tiny hint of elapsed fondness. He once knew a woman whose first name was Snicket, and that she had a wild-haired sister with another S at the start of her name. He never quite remembered what the S stood for. He was not young enough to remember. Not anymore.
But that was when he jumped out of his body. Or, ought to have, given his advanced age. For standing behind him was someone he certainly never expected to meet. "Y-Y-You're..." He keeled over in a faint before he turned to look clearly at his visitor. He was dead before he hit the floor. The sound of a phonograph scratch could be heard as Diogenes quickly became cold by the quick-acting poison within his dead form splayed on the carpet of his office. A melancholy tune laced with bitterness echoed silkily in the air as the record began to spin. The figure began to get to work, hauling the body off to throw it down the chute for used chemicals next to the case of vials, upturning the desk, destroying the furniture, tearing apart the fallen newspaper, and generally making it look as if a train ran through there. The vial case was opened, yet the vials went untouched as a secret hand reached for a secret switch behind the panes. A distant whirring could be heard as the case swung forward, allowing the figure access to the hidden passageway behind. With a flick of a match, the ruined office was set ablaze as the figure retreated into the passage they had entered by, closing the vial case behind them like a lugubrious door, just as the first hints of smoke reached it. The dismal music played over the roaring of the fire only for a moment, until it too was consumed.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 21, 2017 16:29:30 GMT -5
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 21, 2017 11:51:48 GMT -5
Edit: A thought: Does this series actually have a title yet? Or is it being deliberately left unnamed? Good question, Dante. I don't know the right words for the overarching title. Probably, "The Overarching Oeuvre". And it's not Minecraft, per se. It's the Yogscast (who do have a large chunk of Minecraft content which did inspire everything to do with Israphel here, and that advertisement for the "Leek and Bong" in the deserted inn Snape whisked Jacques Snicket away from, in reference to an "inn" Duncan built in an episode of Druidz Downtown).
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 20, 2017 19:29:10 GMT -5
Book the FirstBook the SecondThe Deleterious Diagnosis of Doctor Diogenes 01 Count Olaf stood over the mangled body of Élise de la Serre and wheezed wheezedly in villainous triumph. He had killed her with poisoned tea as soon as the meddlesome Jacques Snicket had been captured. Olaf had disguised himself as one of her associates who was working undercover to spring her out, a phrase which here means "pretending to be her friend so he could kill her later." Now the Templars would learn to fear the name of Count Olaf, as he had been the first to kill one of their number since ages and ages ago, not since Israphel had first incarnated into physical form. But Olaf knew nothing of Israphel, nor of the legendary heroes of the past long before the formation of The City or the birth of Telchar Snicket: a spaceman named Xephos and a dwarf named Honeydew who had stopped Israphel's first real gambit at world destroying, nor of Israphel's Cult of nameless fears and monsters of the Deep. Nor any ancient wars for that matter. What mattered to him was fire and money, conflagrations and fortunes, cunning and evil schemes. Nobody stood in Count Olaf's way. Except for the two with the auras of menace. They stood in Count Olaf's way whenever they felt like it, and it terrified him. He had known that they had had a hand in allowing the volunteers to murder his parents on stage at that fateful opera. The night he was made an orphan by poison darts shot from Beatrice Baudelaire's balcony seat, her face pensive in the dim lighting as Bertrand held her protectively above the growing whispers and shouts of terror as Olaf's parents fell in unison like lifeless husks (and not at all like trained actors who were alive but acting as if they were dead for a play only to arise after the curtain had fallen to go out and bow in front of star-struck audiences) to the stage floor just as the curtains began to drop. It had been weeks since he'd heard the news: the V.F.D. headquarters had burned down at last. His eyes glinted in the secret light. A morbid soliloquy danced upon his ravenous soul. He had long dreamed of setting fire to those twiddling fools and their aggravating library. A fire raged through his laugh as he bellowed darkly, the smoke of his satisfaction blotting out the stars in the night. If Élise de la Serre had found it funny she showed no sign of it, clearly being dead with her murderer leering above her cold corpse. He crumpled out a note in his match-striking hand coated with a shimmer of soot. He cursed all the blasted furnaces of Hell as his avaricious eyes swiveled to the tune of the rush of the scribbled cursive, written by someone who had not had much time. He cursed again and hurled the paper into the fire, harrumphing in disappointment. "Blast it all, Esmé!" She had failed him for the last time. But no matter. Her mistake was of no consequence. Somehow Kit Snicket had turned her back on V.F.D. and started the fire that left the Valley of Four Drafts under a heavy shroud of smoke. Not that he had any complaint, of course. He lived for this sort of thing. He bit down a pang of jealousy mixed with an eerie sense of pride, knowing that the time traveling brat and Kit were together setting things on fire like peas in a pod, a phrase which here means "Count Olaf was very very envious of not being with her in Faraday's place." Damn that bookworm, Olaf thought. And then he thought some more. Fine. If Kit did not have time for him, even as her true fire-starting self, he would see what Georgina was up to. He hoped they would resume their villainous camaraderie. True, he left her to die, but self-preservation is the first law, and she knew that, surely. They all did. Her survival was proof that he was right, as always. He was Count Olaf. When had he ever been wrong? His eyes burned with anguished fire as he recalled the past. So much pain, to get to where he was now. So much hardship. Secrets and lies, that's how he was brought up. Smoke and mirrors. Misery handed on from man to man. His life was like a deepening coastal shelf awash in the miseries of his past, present and future. Count Olaf was a walking chronicle of the darkest thoughts and the melancholy of those who had experienced the truth and been found lacking. He was purposeless. Perhaps he had been purposeless before he was even born, used and taken and inked and lied to, but no more. No more would those volunteers lie to anyone ever again. The world is a cruel place, and there was no point in hiding it from anyone, not even from children. The better they learnt the truth, the better off they would be at surviving. He felt an odd affinity with the Inhumane Society because he had realized what a farce the human ideal of decency actually was, but he could never be a loving father. He could not live what he was not. Beneath the stilted pretenses of every man, woman and child was a lawless monster sniffing at the chance to break free and scream the terror of the antediluvian age against the paper tigers folded daintily and defenselessly by humanity against the gaping maw of the sweet and heady onrush of pure chaos thrumming through the world and through his blood. A painful frown. An unspoken cry of preternatural fury. Vengeance was his only truth. Vengeance and avarice. A primal rage against the world drove him on. Fire was his heart, and it smoldered quietly like an assassin would before making the kill. He imagined himself as an unquenchable fire devouring everything in its path. No library would be safe from his flames and suffocating smoke. No safe place would remain safe for long. His anger flared like a supernova, yet he contained it deftly within the chamber of his heart. Where all his white-hot capacity for betrayal lay. He was the product of a dark seed planted in secret aeons ago. His destiny was destined to be amongst the thorns. Grief was wholly alien to him. He only had a constant need to subvert and destroy and self-aggrandize. He did not love his parents in the same gaudy way as others love their own parents, yet he missed them terribly. They were the only ones who had ever understood him fully. The Baudelaires and the Snickets were his greatest enemies for this reason, he recalled with infernal loathing. They were complicit in their murder, in his becoming an orphan. He may not have gushed about his parents like other children had, but they had been his parents all the same, and he did love them.. But it did not begin or end with his parents at all. Their deaths were just permission slips waiting to be handed out to him. Catalysts to the full unleashing of the madness of Count Olaf upon the world. Violet Baudelaire had not even been born for many years when Beatrice and Bertrand went to that opera, but Olaf did not care how old any of their orphaned brats were. Their foolish mother had told him, when they were but small children, that he would fail. He took it as the challenge it had naturally been for him. "I'd like to see you try to make me fail!" was his snappy rejoinder. He meant every word, and every tone too. Nobody told Count Olaf what to do. Unless the two figures with auras of menace were involved, in which case somebody had told Count Olaf what to do countless times. He obeyed, save for a feral bristle of contempt inside, masked behind his fear. He saw the world as a prison and snarled at it with scorn, "You think you can hold me?" He would get even with his two superiors one day. There is no good and evil, Olaf thought just as he began to drift into sleep, there is only power, and those too weak to take advantage of it.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 20, 2017 15:37:26 GMT -5
Sensible (one of those Puritan-style names, like Credence Barebone, I wonder if Newt Scamander had any dealings with a Bombinating Beast, as that would be right up his magical suitcase)? Something. Snicket (how's that for a first name?). She. Sally. Sharon. Stain'd? Stain'd-by-the-Sea? Certainly not Stew. Sallis. Stannis? (just kidding), Shirley (as in "Surely there's an explanation for this..."), Sherlock? Skeletonkey? Solitude. Sunny would be the most direct callback...
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 20, 2017 14:40:10 GMT -5
To whatever bookworm is reading this,
Let it be known that I, Count Olaf, have intercepted this letter to a kind editor and read it before setting it on fire so no bratty orphans would get any ideas about the world being quiet. Soon the Baudebrats will be in my clutches, along with their fortune. They are with that fool Montgomery Montgomery as I write these words, having missed the chance to adopt them and marry the eldest for their fortune, and to get back at Beatrice and that fool Bertrand by eventually killing all three of her brats after I acquired their fortune.
I'm amazed at even myself. I, the great Count Olaf, have managed to not make any spelling mistakes at all. Onto the time traveling brat who I hear so much about. My associates tell me that he has hooked up with Kit Snicket. I shudder to think at what glasses-wearing time traveling mini-brats would mean for my plots to burn things down and acquire fortunes. And when will I ever find that sugar bowl? I find my morning coffee less evil without it, a word which here means I want that sugar bowl, Lemony Snicket.
I don't care how many orphans I have to orphan to get it. Nor how many dead people I have to make dead, Snicket. I feel inordinately fortune-hungry as I am for actorial approbation, as I am Count Olaf. Feast your eyes upon my words and my life, Snicket, and see where you measure up. Esmé has more fashion sense than you do, although her irritating obsession with in things is irritating, like my obsession with sugar bowls and stealing fortunes is to those two powdered-faced women I can't remember the names of.
I shall do something about it, Snicket, because I, unlike you, am Count Olaf, and I always set fire to my problems. Fire is so shiny like my shiny eyes, my eyes which shine with shiny shininess whenever something shiny happens. The Baudelaires will be mine. And then I'll deal with those Quagmire twins. Know who else are twins? Frank and Ernest. They're not just twins. They're idiotic twins. I am Count Olaf, and I will prevail. Heh heh. I'll get my hands on you, Baudebrats...
COUNT OLAF
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 19, 2017 21:36:52 GMT -5
Mortmain Motet 13
Once upon a time there was a murder on a train. Someone was framed, and Lemony Snicket helped to clear their name. But once upon a time there was also a villain who craved the seductive whispers of chaos and anarchy, and through the actions of Lemony Snicket he had been hoisted upon his own petard, a phrase which here means "pushed into the gaping maw of the monster he had sought to unleash upon the world". He walked away that night into the dark and clusterous forest of eerie ocean-less seaweed with a statue of a legend nestled in a jacket pocket.
Once upon a time a man was alone in a wood and lost his way, beset by a foul beast only to be saved by the image of his beloved. Once upon a time a man walked the road less traveled by, but in Lemony Snicket's case, it made no difference. Lost and alone, he wandered. In time, it would grow upon him like moss on a tree.
Lemony Snicket claimed that he had always been cautious and not the brave and determined young man that had saved a dying town from its death. She would hate him forever, and she had very good reason to. My brother was always a little hot-headed every now and then. This had been an exacerbation of the problem. He had saved a town, yes, but at the cost of companionship with the girl he desperately and foolishly wanted to save. The girl with the question mark eyebrows. Ellington Feint. What words passed between her and my sister Kit in that train cell, I do not know. I doubt Lemony cared anymore to know.
Beatrice was always destined to be his real north star, Feint or no Feint. If ever anything was in charge of destiny, it would be the Great Unknown, a mystery which shares certain unfathomable characteristics with the Bombinating Beast. Death and Time are inexorably linked. One cannot exist without the other. Yet Life cannot operate without Death to check it. Life and Death are complements, not opposites. It is not a straight line, but an evolving spiral. Time is the commingling of Life and Death, an interplay, a dance. Time is a sentient spring coil, shedding and slithering like a serpent, like a great river whose ends are as wide as possibility itself. Schisms are a part of life, though we are often loathe to admit it. Without strife, peace becomes meaningless. Without fire, water becomes blasé. The same would hold true for a world of fire-starters who had never faced fire-fighters. Fire is not just a physical destruction catalyst. Fire warms us, brings us light and safety. Water, although it can be life-giving and thirst-quenching, can become suffocating and stagnant, never changing into anything but those types of forms restricted by its self-contained molecular bandwidth like ice or vapor, never changing the essence of what it is, only what it appears to be. This is not to say that ice or vapor are not as real as water. Each is as real as the other, and are each as important and necessary as the other. Vapor can become fire through likewise circumstances.
All schisms are based upon misunderstandings, and all misunderstandings are based upon a failure to communicate. Fear is the king of schismatics everywhere. For just as Hangfire fed on the fear of the inhabitants of Stain'd-by-the-Sea to fuel his schemes, schismatics utilize fear to tear down what others have built to keep the world "safe, secure and smart" (even if they have not made the world so with their builds) to sow discord and to call into question the safety of the last safe places in the world. They are lawless and wild, fully in tune with the dark whispers in their soul. Those whispers promise fire and blood and unceasing vengeance. To them, humanity is a fraud and a misnomer. They don't start out as villains, but they grow to become so through their inhumane deeds. So it was that the Inhumane Society was born, and so it was that Ellington Feint would harbor in her heart of hearts a deep hatred of my brother until the day she died. But she wasn't dead. Not yet, at least.
Ellington Feint smiled an unfathomable smile. Her plan had worked perfectly. The real Kit Snicket had been "packed away" so she could disguise herself as her and take her place, and get the time-traveler to do her bidding. When the boy found out the truth, she would be long gone, or she might end the boy when he posed no further use for her ends. The boy's maudlin declarations of undying love made her retch inside, but she hid it well behind a sincere face, for her vengeance would be put into motion at long last. She had learned from the best, after all, and she had taught her son too. He had spied on them impeccably. She did feel sorry for leaving him, but he could not learn any other way.
She had pushed Faraday in the right direction, slowly causing him to consider the idea of changing history so that he would have thought it to be his own idea. The Snickets would rue the day they had been born. Ellington was sure of that, if not much else. She sauntered over to the secret compartment at the back of her son's Black Cat Coffee shop and discovered (to her not so faint shock) that her captive was gone. Kit Snicket had escaped!
She ran blindly through the halls of the headquarters, hoping to reach her Reu. She'd been kept imprisoned for a few weeks and she smelt of freshly roasted coffee beans for some reason. She thought as she ran, panicked and frenetic, two words which here mean "having figured out that someone else was disguised as her and using her identity to further their own nefarious plot." But as she reached the Library, the love of her life was nowhere to be found. What was more odd was that her brother Jacques had been there as well, for his coat was draped unceremoniously upon one of the armchairs, and three smoking Black Cat Coffee mugs were unattended and cold.
It was a while before she smelt the smoke, and then heard the crinkling of flames. The V.F.D. Headquarters had just been set on fire, and Ellington Feint, wearing Kit Snicket's sad and beautiful face, smiled savagely.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 18, 2017 17:24:31 GMT -5
Mortmain Motet 12
A gruff voice awoke me from my fall. "Get up, Snicket. Ye fainted," said Orford Creevey, handing me another bar of chocolate which I took with a hint of delight. He jerked his head and grunted, and I remembered what he had said before I fainted: I must kill my sister before she becomes the enemy, he had warned. I nodded to him and he said, "Well, Snicket? What's yer answer?"
I thought for a long time. More than I usually take the time to think on matters equally as grave. I weighed the pros and cons within and felt around them with my acute sense of morality. I allowed arguments for and against to battle it out in my mind. There were some arguments in which I reasoned that Faraday was the root cause of her turn and in those arguments was proposed the idea of getting rid of him to keep her on our side, but then I realized that that would most likely bring about Kit's turn more than it would impede it, as I knew her well enough to know that she had fallen deeply in love with him (and he with her, no doubt) by the time I was here in this tent, mulling over such terrible things. I shuddered. I gazed at Creevey, his red robes framing him like an executioner of Hell, his quiet eyes burning with dutiful fury. I looked within myself and weighed it all again, hoping beyond hope, until I found something which gave me a steely look in my eyes, and a determined snarl upon my face.
I knew what I had to do. I would have no part in murdering my sister in cold blood, not even to fix the future. If Kit had become the enemy, she must have had a very good reason for it. I would not know by killing her before I knew what caused her to turn. "I refuse, Creevey." Orford Creevey gasped in shock. "I will not do as you ask. I will go back to my sister and the time-traveler and together we'll solve this. Without your help." I spat out the last words as I turned my back to him, walked out of the tent and onto the moonlit lea, awash in anger and a destiny-cursing wrath. I absent-mindedly grabbed the old typewriter and once more I was enveloped in a whir of color and sound...
I landed gracelessly in the snowdrifts of the Mortmain Mountains. Strange, I thought, the port key must have known where I wanted to go. A velvety white wonderland surrounded me as I looked towards the V.F.D. headquarters nestled in between snow, steam, and falling water. My shins ached during the tedious trek up to the Vernacularly Fastened Door, where I was met with a stymying situation as I had completely forgotten the codes. Being transported recklessly by an inanimate object can do that to one, I suppose. I tried various phrases. None worked. I even tried some back in our parents' day. Those were of no help either. I was at my wit's end, a phrase which here means "frustrated at being unable to warn my sister and her time-traveling beau about what I had heard". When Kit found me, I was banging on the Door, shouting every curse known to man while the Door stayed firm and my foot felt like it had been shattered one too many times. "Hello, Kit," I greeted exhaustedly and sheepishly grinned at the look on her face as she opened the Door from the other side. "How are you?"
"He wanted you to kill me?" Kit almost yelled. I nodded, still shuddering at the thought of killing her. Faraday gripped her hand tightly, a silent and solemn promise. She leaned her hand into his, resting softly and protected. Faraday eyed me with respect. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. As if I were going to just kill my sister on anyone's say so! We were in the V.F.D. Library with mugs of Black Cat Coffee for us I had made myself. Our armchairs were shields from the terrible things I had recounted to them both. Whilst lovingly tracing tiny shapes on Kit's hand with his fingers, Faraday was deep in thought. "I will never let anything happen to you, Kit," he said firmly, to re-assuage both her and myself. I knew he meant it with every fibre of his being. There was a new light in his eyes ever since I had told him to make for headquarters. I knew, then and there, that if she went over, Faraday would follow her into Hell if it meant her happiness. I suddenly blanched. He had told Kit everything. Everything about his own timeline. He had not held back for her as he did with me. He would do anything for her. He would do anything she asked. He would send the very Heavens crashing down for her smile. I finally understood. I finally understood everything.
Kit looked at me with a stern knowing. A blazing desire for justice, her beau at her side, as if to guard her from me. I also realized why the Vernacularly Fastened Door had not been working. It had been deactivated. "Join me, Jacques, and we will right the wrongs of this world. You have always wanted to be appreciated by our superiors for your noble deeds, brother. Now, with Reu at my side, we will be free to right wrongs without the scruples of others getting in our way. They were fools, Jacques, and we both know it. Join me."
Kit's eyes promised equity. Kit's eyes promised a quiet world where people would be safe, secure and smart. Kit's eyes promised Justice Herself. Kit's eyes blazed with a fearsome fire, the same sort of fire that burnt in Faraday's eyes for her and her alone. I did not know what to do. Join my sister's crusade? Stand in her way? No. Faraday would see to my destruction if I ever openly opposed her. No. I had to put on another disguise. A disguise of the mind. A disguise of intent. I had to appear to agree with her. I had to join them, if only to put myself under cover. "Yes," I said dimly, as if hearing my own voice from the inside of a can with string on it. "I will join you."
"Good, brother," Kit regarded me with fiery approval before she cupped Faraday's devoted face and kissed him hard. He leaned into her, having finally gained his purpose, just as she had gained hers: each other.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 18, 2017 14:40:55 GMT -5
Mortmain Motet 11
A caravan of carnival sellers converged on the plains where I landed with an unceremonious thud! The moon shone bright above the hills as I strained to collect myself amid the pain of my unfortunate landing. I felt sick. Severus Snape's port key had not been the most comfortable means of transportation, but in a life such as mine comforts are rare to come by. One of the carnival mongers, who had long white hair and sported ruby red robes, approached me daintily, unsure if I posed a threat to them or not. "Who migh' yeh be?" he asked. He jerked his gnarled finger in my general direction for emphasis. "Sev'rus Snape send yeh?"
Relief dimly flooded my aching, still teetering from that port key. Looking back, I never did manage to ask Snape why he thought a port key was necessary and not any other magical method of transportation, nor why he had deigned to help me in this manner. I was among allies, for the moment. "Yes, he did," I managed, panting heavily. "Firs' time trav'ling by Portkey?" The ruby robed man said. I nodded almost absentmindedly. He thrusted a bar of chocolate into my hands. I looked up questioningly. "Eat it, 'tis fer yer nausea." I took a bite of the chocolate and a warm, heady feeling surged through my veins. My exhaustion was gone. My aches dulled considerably. I smiled in thanks. He gruffly waved my thanks away, and told me to follow him.
I was led into what appeared to be a lonely tent, but when I stepped inside, I was blown away by its enormous inner space. My mouth must have been hanging open in unadulterated awe, because the head carnival seller said, "Amazing, isn't it? Ventricular Formulation Detector. It shows you the interior layout most dear to your heart. We have set it to combine various layout parts so we can all call this place home away from home. It is also our mobile headquarters. It was designed from a forgotten patent by Alighiero Mallahnson."
I reflected for a moment, my mind filled with images of that blue police box that Faraday and that other Olaf had appeared at the Baudelaire mansion ruins in. I turned to him and spoke "I'm sorry, but I haven't asked you your name.
"Creevey. Orford Creevey. I'm part of the Versatile Faction of Dementors." I had no idea what a Dementor was, but I thought it was related to insanity somehow, so I backed away a bit. "Oh, don' be 'larmed, Snicke', 'twas just a name we picked fer 'uselves. We don' like those ghas'ly creat'res," said Orford Creevey, breaking back into his character disguise. "They were sent by th'enemy." What enemy, I wondered. But I already knew the answer to that: something far more dreadful than Count Olaf or the two with the auras of menace. "She came from far away. She came back."
She? Who was she? And why did I have a sudden ominous and bad feeling about this? Creevey had a dark look about him, as if he were gazing into my very soul and finding something he didn't like in there. He eyed me with a hint of suspicion, trying to make up his mind about something. "She's your sister, Snicket."
Immediately, cold flooded my limbs. Impossible, I wanted to say. My sister, the one behind everything? No, that could not be. Something was off here, but... "Perhaps not as she is now, but there will come a time when she will become the cause of a great deal of trouble." He turned his back on me for a moment, sizing up his thoughts.
He whipped around and spoke the words that would smite me in the very heart: "You must kill her, Snicket."
I found myself terribly in need of something to lean on before I passed out from the shock of what was just said to me. This wasn't good. Not good at all.
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