Having washed the breakfast dishes, the kato dried it's paws on the greasy apron that he wears around his waist. With a jug of whiskey in one paw, and a lit mint cigar in the other, this aged monster stood outside the kitchen door to relax.
It's been starting out as a good day for him. He got away with serving mocchi leftovers for the morning meal, and he hadn't seen Seth since the day before. Even the sky remained blue as the sun headed towards mid-day.

Carl showed Fluffy around the ranch as they made their way towards the rotund laboratory tower. After looking in the barn and seeing Seth passed out naked in a pile of hay, he decided to show his kitten the rest of that building some other time.
The next building with it's fenced yard is for drills. It's almost never used since Seth had developed more creative ways to exercise the dumb brutes.
There is also a garden that's tended to and guarded by zombiefied monsters. Right next to that, are the small blacksmith and carpenter shops.

The storage barns, within chambers containing frozen monsters are lined up on both sides of the aisle. Fifty huge chambers in all. A few of them have monsters stored by townfolks, ready to be combined when they'll have another monster they want the necromancer to use in the combination.
At the other end of this long building, is a large sliding door that opens into the lab tower. The cart that carries frozen monsters, gets pushed through here, then stops between the two dragon-sized fluxing wells.

The laboratory building began as a simple grain silo before the war. During the war, the outer wall was strengthened with a granite stairway spiraling up, allowing soldiers to keep watch from the top. After the war, burgomaster McBride saw to it that the necromancer had an appropiate lab and freezing barn built. Using the reinforced silo as it's support core, the lab was built around it.

The first floor has three dragon-sized wells that surround the core. Two fluxing wells that sometimes contain a frozen monster each, for blending into a newly created baby monster. The baby monster is magically formed in the birthing well, from the recombined atoms of the two fluxed monsters and wax effigy.
Each fluxing well has stone vents leading up to the second floor; where enchanted plasma and stomach acids pour down to dissolve the frozen monsters and turn them into mists. The mists are then drawn into other vents to meet and dissolve the wax figure in the effigy chamber.
The effigy chamber is a vent itself, set into the wall of the birthing well. The effigy is made from bee's wax with flakes of a disc chip blended in. More of the same disc chip is used to create a paint, to further design the coloration(s) and markings of the baby monster. For example, a blue tiger that has white stripes like a zebra.
The birthing well sits on the opposite side of the lab, from the storage barn door. Next to the birthing well, is a foyer that leads to the lab's main entrance. Outside the main entrance is the veiw of the ranch house and gate.

Carl was beginning to take Fluffy upstairs; to show her how all the pulleys, ropes and chains work when operated by the levers and cranks on the first floor. The sound of the gong interupted his long winded tour of the lab. He knew that he couldn't trust Seth to open the gate in a timely fashion, so he'd have to do it himself.
"Wait here Fluffy. And don't touch anything." The old man went to see who had just showed up at the ranch.

It didn't take long for the kitten's natural curiosity to get the best of her. Looking around at levers and cranks attached to the wall and wooden cabinets, she didn't think that there would be any harm in playing with one of them. Staring at the polished ivory handle, she couldn't resist pulling it. Having done so, she was disappointed that nothing happened. The pixie then pulled the two that are next to the first lever.
Fluffy's ears twitched and moved towards the activity occuring upstairs. A sound like metal squeeking, then water being spilt. The sounds from upstairs began to be dominated by a loud rushing of fluids pouring into the fluxing well next to her. Looking down, watching the well slowly filling with sparkling torrents from two vents, made her aware that she did something very bad. She began imagining herself on the menu at the Silky Claw.

The sound of the gong woke Seth out of a blissful sleep. Her mouth and throat dry as cotton, she drank the last few drops out of the wine jug. Struggling to stand up, she noticed that the golem had managed to roll away from it's filth and fall asleep. She staggered over and smashed the empty jug on it's head, before heading out to the house. The shocked golem once again let the tears flow.
Seth and Carl stopped and stared at each other as their paths crossed. Seth knew that at any other time, her master would have rushed upon her and took his pleasure. Her heart felt another bleeding stab as he turned around to answer the gate. Choking back on her grief; she chose to slip into the closer doors of the lab, to conceal her immodest condition from whoever may be at the ranch gate.

As he opened the gate doors, the old man happened to see Seth head into the lab. Looking quickly to see who his visitor is, he quickly hollered,"Let yourself in, I've got to stop Seth." Worried what his drunkened assistant would do to the harmless kitten, he ran to intervene.

The young man driving the supply wagon, at the gate, is one of Fagin's pirates. He often volunteers to make the long journey to bring goods to Carl's ranch, so that he can visit his sister, Seth.
Seeing the frail old man speak of his closest kin in a panic, and then take off running; made him think that his dear sweet sister might be in immediate need of help. He brought the wagon in just far enough and briskly closed the gate, then rushed to the building that the necromancer was heading to.

Fluffy, not knowing what to do with the mess that she made, scurried over to the foyer that her master left through. As she turned the corner, she came face to face , within inches, of Seth. The woman's sad face turned to hate, then a sinister smile.
Seth threw a punch. The kitten ducked. The assistant tried to grab the monster with both hands in a rush. Fluffy jumped to the side. The momentum of the drunken woman continued to send her forward to the edge of the birthing well. Trying to grab onto anything that would keep her from falling, Seth rolled in mid-air and fell in shoulder blades first. Her head hitting after, knocked her unconscious.

Fluffy crouched near the edge of the well and looked down at the laid out Seth. She turned her head to see her master come in. He was panting heavily, trying to catch his breath after jogging back into the lab.
Carl looked at Fluffy, down at Seth, and then towards the sound of one of the fluxing wells being filled. Astonished at everything going to pot in just a few short moments, he went to stop the precious fluids from being wasted if he could. The kitten faithfully followed him.
Looking at the levers, the old man turned to his monster and asked,"Fluffy! What have you done?!"

A voice cried out. "Ahh! Seth, Seth!"

Carl and Fluffy turned to see Seth's brother, Mick, leaning over the well that his sister is laying in.
"You. You! You evil monster, I'm going to kill you!". Fists balled up and shaking, Mick ran towards the kitten. The old man moved his pet behind him; but the younger man grabbed him by his long gray curly hair, and threw him down to the floor.
The pixie, fearfull for her master, scratched Micks eyes. Grabbing his face, he stood back. Fluffy delivered a high kick that sent him into the glittering pool below.

Splashing into the magic laden pool of plasma and stomach acids; Mick began bobbing up and down, horribly screaming in searing pain, as his body slowly melted away. Blinding agony gave way to a feeling of floating like a cloud in the wind. In the blackness of his mind, it felt as if another cloud bumped into him and dispersed in a shrieking voice like his own sister's.

The nerve rattling cries of pain drowned into silence. Drained by the series of events that shot through this late morning, Carl and Fluffy sat down, mentally exhausted. The burnt smell in the air, alerted the necromancer to look down into the fluxing well again. Sure enough, Mick's body and all that precious magical fluids, were gone. There was only one place that it could have gone to.
Cautiously, Carl approached the birthing well, afraid of what he would find. The burnt smell was coming from this direction as well. The last strand of mist fingered it's way out of the effigy vent. However, Seth remained unchanged.

Turning a crank, Carl lowered a ramp so that he could walk down and check out his assistant. Putting his ear over her heart; her vulnerable, possible dead state, enticed him. At his touch, she groaned.
Lifting his head off of her, he looked into Seth's face. Her last dying words confused him, "What have you done to my sister?"

Wow, nice and long chapter this time...just the way I like it.

I am really enjoying this one Carl, keep up the good work.

Thank you. I'm suprised that you said that you like longer stories.
I've been trying to keep these pages short so that I don't lose peoples' interest. It's tough fighting my long winded nature. I could spend the whole day talking about any and everything. Sometimes I get so lost in conversations that I even neglect things that I need to do, like sleeping or going to the bathroom. However, forgeting to do that last chore often kills a conversation. Unless the bears are quick to try and find the source of the smell.
Then while we're stuck up in the tree, out of reach of the bears, there's nothing to do but talk. If the person(s) who are up in the tree with me fall asleep, I start talking to the bears.
It's amazing. Did you know that bears can be put into hibernation just by talking to them? Every time I talk to bears, they get drowsy within three or four days. And this is in the middle of summer!
The bears are pretty strange up here. They always try to hide when the tourorists are around, because they hate getting blinded by flash bulbs. Not only that, but most of them won't pose for pictures unless their agents have signed contracts and cash in hand. There are a few hams though, who'll do it for free.
Bears will get bolder doing spawning season. But, they still don't like tourorists around, because state law says that the bears have to hide their hip waders and fishing poles, before they're seen.
If a tourorist is unlucky enough to witness how the bears really get their food, the poor bear(s) have to eat them. Bears hate eating people, we're alot worse than any chemically raised beef. Especially with all the diseases going around now a days. Not all bears are health fanatics though. During early spring and late fall, some of them will hang out at taverns and drink espressos or brews practically all day and night.
Some of them pay with money that they've made by posing for pictures, or that they've earned working as bouncers. But, alot of them are very good in pool and play for free drinks.
Warning. Never play a bear a game of pool, unless you're willing to pay.
I forgot. Was there a question?

.....?


I seem to have fallen off the metaphorical 'bandwagon' here...


Did I miss something?

A joke, (cyber)hillbilly, Carl talks too much.

You know, it's not good to talk too much. I only
talk a teeny tiny bit. I mean, when you go to
school where I do, the teachers don't care if
we talk. Speaking of teachers, they don't stop
talking either. They give you too much
homework. Then you gotta take all that trouble
out of fun and sit down, pick up a pencil, and
write. Speaking of pencils, did you know they
were made of trees? That's weird. My dad
made special effects on his theatre show
called "House of the Blue Leaves", and it's
really cool. Speaking of special effects, my
favorite special effects are Britney Spears.
She's got really nice special effects, if you
know what I mean.
Speaking of mean, why do people call me
that? Speaking of calling, I have to talk to my
friend in Missouri today. Speaking of my friend
in missouri, I'm going there on Wed. I don't
like Wedsdays, because all you do is do
homework and you got two days of school left.
Mondays are terrible, especially in the
mornings. Speaking of terrible, nice story. It's
coming along well.

Speaking of wells...

.....?


I seem to have fallen off the metaphorical 'bandwagon' here...


Did I miss something?

Ha. Ha. Ha.


We got ourselves a pair of regular rip-roarin' comedians here :0)

house of blue leaves? john guare? the guy who writes another set of lyrics to white christmas without realizing that he had done it? the girlfriend who wont cook for him until they are married? the crazy wife? that house of blue leaves?

Yeah. That house of blue leaves. And the "friend"
movie star?

That show is crazy.