Adventure or Bust!

[Off Topic 3132]

[BOX][INDENT][CENTER] [IMG]http://www.valucre.com/digitalvb/morbid_dark/misc/quote_icon.png[/IMG]Originally Posted by [b]spontaneous applicable theme[/b]
[SIZE=4][b]ADVENTURE
OR
BUST[/b][/SIZE]
[/CENTER][/INDENT]

Continued from [URL=http://www.valucre.com/showthread.php/22469-Outside-the-Sword-and-Board-Inn-A-Game-of-Chess]A Game of Chess[/URL]
[/BOX]


[CENTER][IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img585/6458/bluehillspuffclover.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]

[INDENT][CENTER][quote name='smokescreen to Old man Seras']
[SIZE=4][b][!]Saddlebags[/!]
Slooow-doooowwn[/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

[CENTER]Damnit Neighbor! [i]Can't you see[/i] we're talkin' to you? This shit's wiii'icked![/CENTER]

[INDENT][CENTER][quote name='smokescreen to a man walking ahead']
[SIZE=4][b]...WIII'ICKED[/SIZE][SIZE=7]!!!!!!!![/b]

☜(ˆ▽ˆ) [/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

[t][row][col][img]http://imageshack.us/a/img5/7145/vc3j.jpg[/img][/col][col][RIGHT][SIZE=7]"............[i]H'OY![/i]"[/SIZE]



Do you know what that is?! That's a Puffclover!
[i]This[/i] is what they look like in the [URL=http://www.valucre.com/content.php/799-Blue-Hills]Blue Hills[/URL]?!
They're all (eye squinting) spiney-spikey
(fingers waving) denim-fluffy (crouching)
angel-indigo mound'tastic (closing in)
splashmagic wonder-fill'ish--[i]SNIP![/i][/RIGHT]






[CENTER][SIZE=5][sub]SNIP![/sub][/SIZE] [sup][SIZE=3]SNIP![/SIZE][/sup] [sub][SIZE=4]SNIP![/SIZE][/sub][/CENTER][/col][/row][/t]

By now, Etam sits in a frog's idea of a crouch, tentacles wreathing in delight as the first raw samples are collected. The walk here from Casper was a short one, wasn't it? Perhaps not there just yet, but bluegrass and clear-sky plants can be seen just over the next mound.

[INDENT][CENTER][quote name='smokescreen']
[u]Puffclover [b][25][/b]:[/u] Commonly named "blowballs" and "cloud-pollen", puffclovers are flowering plants that reach maturity and wither away at an alarming rate. Known to bloom only for 2-3 hours before losing their petals, the flowerheads contain single-seed fruits named [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/achenes]achenes[/URL], giving puffclovers their trademark appearance. Each achene is attached to a [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pappus]pappus[/URL] of fine hairs which enable wind-aided dispersal over distances as far as 100 miles. The puffclover is invasive, making up for short lifespan with it's form of pollenation, and has become widespread across all of Valucre.
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

[INDENT](Exclamation finger!)[/INDENT]

...But what do [i]these ones[/i] do? The shaman's skin mimicks their shallow-water shades as the specimens are tucked away in a shoplift-racer's delight. Now that a pocket has been inflated beyond closing--the flap barely contains the overspill--and we've made a receipting-hairline out this meadow'y spot; each tentacle wreathes one puffclover for it's own, constricting as if snake-fingers, holding rain-pollen orbs to all organs of perception at the same time. One will find it's way to all four of the shaman's eyes, another just below a curious flare of the nostril--another to brush follicles on forearm, the remaining two held tightly at each ear. What do these ones do? Suddenly lips begin to open, a puffclover already in-position begins to----woah there, wait a second. All it takes is a split-second headshake, a one-two blink and clarity setting in, to realize how dumb of an idea that would be.

[INDENT][CENTER][quote name='smokescreen to Seras']
[SIZE=4][b][!]Neighbor[/!]
We need to borrow your digestive system.[/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

(Forcing nonchalant smile)
[INDENT](Holding puffclover to be received)[/INDENT]

[CENTER][Url=http://www.valucre.com/showthread.php/22270-Shamannequin]Shaman Nequin

[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5919/etamthumbnail.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
+ [u]LONE TEACHER OF THE GAIAN ACADEMY?[/u] +
++ [b]SAY[/b]N'T [b]EAT[/b]'EM ++[/CENTER] Edited June 14, 2013 by Off Topic

[Suta 509]

Seras had smirked wildly. Wildly was an understatement. Seras had smirked fool-heartedly, he had struck a stupid grin so far the crookedness threatened his ear with an invasion of lip. His smirk, so wide, so wild, so willful, that even the devil-may-care. He had thrown his arms in such a manner that those surrounding the chess game began to retreat, and Seras had snatched up the bag of coin, snuck his hand into the crowd, and taken the briefcase that would accompany him for the travels.

He had slung the case over his shoulder and cocked his chin at the mute who spoke by smoke, and exhaled his own gentle fume as the wind swept his hair from his eyes. He had then passed out, because whatever gold-wrapped thing the shaman had given him, it had knocked the poor inexperienced boy out, flat. Awakening later, he had marched along with his neighbour to the precipice of Casper, and set foot into the wide open world of adventure. All his belongings on his back, all his stories atop his neck, just begging for his eyes to see.

He turned back to look at the distracted shaman. The man(?) went about enthusiastically gathering the blue plants of all sorts as soon as he saw them. Seras had hardly noticed they had just entered the Blue Hills, or at least it's border. But looking now, he was glad the shaman had stopped. While his friend shared his thoughts with rather eloquently designed clouds of smoke - of which their detail was rather jaw-dropping - he looked about the horizon. The nearby terrain was relatively flat, with the blue plants beginning on the first rise into the hills which were described as blue. Seras winced as he looked at them, raising his chin for a moment to compare the sky to the ground, and found the ground lacking in radiance.

Surely the herbalist behind him would disagree, but he seemed to be requesting something. His digestive system? Good thing his mother had taught him all about the things she didn't know. He gently picked the puffclover from the shaman's tentacle and placed it on his tongue, proceeding to swallow what was handed to him with little question.

He didn't hesitate for a moment to ask himself, 'what's the worse that could happen?' Edited June 14, 2013 by Suta

[Off Topic 3132]

[INDENT]It should be known there is a mourning fog to this place all the live-long-day--of haunting vapors and ill-be-gottens, a history darkest and widely unknown. While swishing along the outers of this skirt, still at a safe distance not-yet-entered, this veiling actually appears quite beautiful. The refraction of light onto such heavy ground-clouds and changing in terrain causes blue-bands, purple-prisms, ultramarine ultraviolets. Something like rainbows but without the static shape, omitting all but a quarter of the colorwheel, forming alien double-helix wacky-waving photon-inflatable arm-bands. It's haunting, beautiful, like endless sunset color-opposites--like an Aurora Borealis farm wildly overgrown, manically escaping it's harvest. Are these ghostly tornadoes? Are they [i]only[/i] light? Most importantly--the sun's what's making them, right?

Not many people come to the Blue Hills, so we hear. The shaman is too low to peer over-the-hill and view this however, still much too captured by the immediate to notice. Seras had just performed what, from the reception afterwards, you'd have guessed to be a magic trick.[/INDENT]

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=7][b][!](⊙[sub]o[/sub]⊙)[/!][/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

Wow, [i]really[/i]? Nada-sliver of hesistation at all? In that case, a single exhale of canary-mist; a streamline smoke of tumbleweed tumblers from Falserod weed, provides the following:

[INDENT][CENTER][SPOILER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=7][b]t(>.<t)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=4]THAT WAS[/SIZE] [SIZE=5][i]WICKED[/i][/SIZE] [SIZE=4]SICK, NEIGHBOR!

You're a badass(!), try more![/SIZE]

[SIZE=5][sup]Knowledge[/sup] is [sub][u]Power![/u][/sub][/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/SPOILER][/CENTER][/INDENT]

Still in the lowest-to-ground leapfrog, the retina reticles widen to degrees normally reserved for children. At this time the 8 clovers inside octo-"hair" are extended upwards at the man, pairing two-in-ones while doing so, freeing half the lock-feelers and retrieving Donovan Gold from lips. The shaman's composure remains silent--yet it still speaks: for this birthday grin and Halloween-handout, more'ning of Christmas and messiah of the playgrounds generous, are genuine. There can't be found a greater wonder in the world than a selfless child--and no greater a witnessing force to this, than that of Etam Nequin.

Curiouser and curiouser we grant the navigator.

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=4][b][!]Don't worry[/!]

I got'ch-your back.[/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

Soul author of the Coconino Cookbook, we were. Decoder of the 'in-code'd End-Ex Herbie, we are. Creator of Fourth Era Herbalism at the Gaian Academy, we have become. In all of Terrenus there possibly exists no better of an Herb A-List(er) than the Twin Sha-Mannequin, save for maybe... [SIZE=1][i]Mad Marlo[/i][/SIZE]. Regardless! Healing and Meta-Zen Medicine is our special-tea, unlike the bulk of those Last Chance Franken'works. Plus, we came prepared, remember?

You don't mind the smokescreen being only inches away from your face as you stand, right?

[CENTER][Url=http://www.valucre.com/showthread.php/22270-Shamannequin]Shaman Nequin

[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5919/etamthumbnail.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
+ [u]TASTE LIKE OLIELLE?[/u] +
++ [b]PRO[/b]FESSOR META-SAGE ++[/CENTER]

[Suta 509]

The shaman was content about something. He was throwing on a giddy little smile as stupid as Seras's, which only provoked his further. One would expect the two men to be bouncing about like little school girls, giggling about something top-secret and highly classified - like a classroom crush. He took a few more of the puffy blue plant and looked it over more closely. From his take, it looked like a weed. A weirdly colored weed, but a weed. He hesitated now, despite the encouragement (peer-pressure, if we're sticking with the school house analogy) and the shaman's excitement, stuffing a meal's worth of plants down his food pipe could only do questionable things.

But the shaman had his back, right?

He proceeded to eat the flowers in a very unscientific manner. Some he swallowed hole, some he chewed a tad, others he ground into unrecognizable paste in his mouth. What could be said of the taste? Well, they tasted like flowers. However there was this distinctive blue touch to it. Whatever blue was supposed to taste like, a tad melancholic, perhaps? An unfamiliar emotion.

Under the scrutiny of his peer, he completed his task and bobbed his head low, swallowing the last of the plant. "Alright, so, what does this do?" were the only words that leaked from his mouth, along with a few short breaths as he regained himself from his airless feast.

[Off Topic 3132]

[INDENT]Did you know that an octopus can actually taste everything it's arms touch? It's true--the appendages of cephalopods are equipped with high-sensory chemoreceptors, much like taste buds in a way, meant to compensate for the lack of precise control over the arms. Though the shaman indeed can use this octo-hair within a drunken surgeon's clumsy margin, the main reason Etam would choose to use the tentacles over the opposable thumbs is not for show--it's to analyze it by it's taste. Fortunately for the Shamannequin, the Totem synchronization provides this union of two bodies with an accelerated immune system which is currently rejecting the toxins from the Blue Hills Puffclover--but someone injesting it certainly wouldn't be as lucky.[/INDENT]

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=4][b][!]Woah Neighbor[/!]

You're not holding your breath, are you?[/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

You're turning blue!

Uh... Oh...

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=4][b][!]These REALLY ARE wicked[/!][/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

They're not just cool-looking--they're haunted! Designed with ghost in-mind! Bred from the dead! Dipped from the crypt! Don't hold your breath, neighbor!

The hands flash up in a open palm surrender, body flushing with an embarrassing red as the thought of accidentally encouraging Seras to poison himself washes over the immediate, and the shaman quickly begins rummaging through the yamulka stash. While frantically searching, herbs in bundles and bags and strange tied bulks are thrown onto the ground--Flameleaves, Dragon Tongue, Stench Cactus needles, Gore Urchin antitoxins, Tree-of-Heaven sap, Net Slime balm, other various unrecognizable forms and containers. The eyes were fixated inside the sack completely at this moment and only after retrieving ingrediants did the shaman look back up to--!

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=4][b][!]WOAH[/!]

[?]Are you feeling all right[/?][/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

You don't look so well--you may want to lay down. SORRY! SORRY! You can read it in both faces--the octopus and human's, as the shaman motions for the man to lay on his back. Now the fingers begin dipping Stench Cactus needles in the sap then the antitoxins, handing needles in groups of 8 to each tentacle until all but the joint-holder was full. Dragon-Tongue joints to regulate heart activity! Yes! We can't risk this being a cardio-inhibitor, I'm sorry son! The fingers roll a joint of said herb from a paper in 10 seconds flat, acting at all times like the lone doctor of an Emergency Room patching.

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=4][b][!]I NEED YOU TO SMOKE THIS SHIT, RIGHT NOW[/!][/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

After extending it to the man already lit, the attention is brought down to the Flameleaves--which will be prepped into applicable bandages using the adhesive of Net Slime. After combining sap and balm with antitoxins, this creates a bandage that temporarily sears into the skin (it does burn, not gonna lie) while being pulled inward by adhesive--but there is no better a way to counteract activity in the bloodsteam, save for injection. No syringes though--simply Stench Cactus acupuncture.

[CENTER][Url=http://www.valucre.com/showthread.php/22270-Shamannequin]Shaman Nequin

[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5919/etamthumbnail.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
+ [u]HAVE YOU MET MY PEN-PAL, Z1PP0?[/u] +[/CENTER]

[Suta 509]

Things kind of got a little fuzzy then. As fuzzy as the blue plants he had eaten so voraciously. Related, quite obviously, to the blue plants he had eaten just then. His eyes fluttered, then blinked. His entire face scrounging into his eyes in an attempt to bring them to their tightest closing, then tear them open anew. He felt a little blue about the whole ordeal. He felt watched, by more than just the eyes of his companion, but by something else. Something at once otherworldly and then again something so very natural. Something spiritual? Something ghastly.

He couldn't focus, he stumbled back. His words folded on themselves and whatever the smoke-monster-cloud was telling him couldn't be read. He blinked a few more times before crashing backwards. The fall brought him back, though, and a roll of paper, lit at one end, was thrust into his hand. Smoke it, said the smoke. Faith in that low-hanging cloud had gotten him into this mess, makes sense that it would help him out. There was logic in that, right? He started smoking the smoke's smoke. Needles innumerable were being pinched into his skin, but he couldn't feel it over the otherworldly sensation of blue.

He could feel it, the colour blue will haunt him for the rest of his life. He could feel his heart pump steadily, but with closed eyes he could only smell the shaman at work, a curious stench slowly rising.

[Off Topic 3132]

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[img]http://www.push-start.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/metal-gear-alert.jpg[/img][/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

You know, laying in the bluegrass like that in your current condition, makes you look just like [i]us[/i] for a second! Neighbor, you're an octopus-shaman too! Totally camouflage!

[INDENT]Actually, the giddiness isn't there, instead a 'woah shit, woah shit' shaking of the whole body in response to Seras' sudden drop. Didn't expect him to go that fast! The treatments are still being treated, sterilized in Stench Cactus, in racing blurs and messy rushes juggled until sloppy products of spontaneity--but medicine nonetheless. The power of substance in play is wicked fast, isn't it? Luckily just a puff or two of the Dragon tongue, however flimsy, would begin to disperse digoxin and digitalis through the cardiac system and work in your heart's favor.[/INDENT]

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=4][b][!]Nurse[/!][/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

...?

[INDENT]Nothing happens.[/INDENT]

Instead the head shakes itself out of momentary lapse, ducks down just as bandages and balms are arranged upon the grass. The shaman leaps from position to crouch over Seras; checking pupils, breathrate, swollen esophagus, pulse--all of which surgically targeted for stabilization. First two flameleaf bandages; synergies of Net Slime and Tree-of-Heaven to counteract swelling and act as an inhibitor to the burn; are placed on the man's throat as well as what's estimated to be his stomach. These bandages will sear into the skin within a minute--causing only minor topical damages, nothing to concern oneself with after-the-fact... We hope. Anyway! Secondly comes the Gore Urchin antitoxin; in bubbles collected at the spike-end of Cactus needles--156 of these (as that would be 8 in 7 arms each) dispersed throughout the man's body. After a rather swift once-over from right palm to wrist to elbow to shoulder to chest to waistline to down the calves and ankle then back up again--and then rolling into a mirror opposite of the remaining side, Seras is now a Hellraiser all-over.

[INDENT]Currently it is unknown how this toxin travels--whether that be through digestive system, circulatory, respitory, somatic or the like--and time does not allow for a comprehensive diagnosis, given the liberal dosage taken.[/INDENT]

After rejoicing in the needle placement with jumping stand, Etam now curiously watches the man, contemplating risks for metabolic catalysts--or accidentally mixing a bit [b]too[/b] much in his system to help the matter, so-to-say. BUT! Just in case, the shaman powerslides as if stealing third-base and on the way to home, rummaging through sack and wildly pulling items from their pocket. It is decided that a synergy of standard Puffclover and Starmusk should also be applied; as they compliment and stabilize the respitory system, and will be combined with a mixture of Odium-Poppy and Rosin Rose. This is the feel-good drug of all feel-good drugs, Neighbor--a churning of mortar and pestle then dipping result into small aerosol container. As this last substance is sprayed into the mouth, it should help to alleviate the wind-tunnel with antihistamines in a KICK of numbilicial cord delight. It's something like a numb and tingling, a refreshing buzz to outweigh any pain.

[INDENT]Will that be enough to hold the wicked poison at bay? Only time will tell... It is curious imagining what kind of magical properties the new variation of Puffclover may have though, and the Shaman ends in a low-sprawl, giving a squinting-decipher to ice or air association--or something else entirely.[/INDENT]

[CENTER][Url=http://www.valucre.com/showthread.php/22270-Shamannequin]Shaman Nequin

[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5919/etamthumbnail.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
+ [u]WHOOPSIE-DAISY[/u] +[/CENTER]

[Suta 509]

Smoke was cutting through his mouth and throat, seeping into his blood and calming his running heart. Or was it pressing on a crawling heart? He couldn't be sure. The cigarette was gone by the time he had been made a pin cushion, but again he wasn't sure what that was like. "Say," he began reluctantly, "did'ya say what this was gonna do? The, uh, the puff-plant?" He lifted a punctured limb sorely, dancing it along as if held up only by a string made of hair, before it fell back into the blue grass, and his head fall back.

Something was sprayed into his throat, and relaxing seemed like the only thing he could do. His bones turned to butter, and his jaw dropped the burnt out roll onto the ground. The shaman was doing something complicated, something he'd never understand, probably, something bewildering and magical, and grounded in the most earthly of sciences. Perhaps such was the nature of octopus magic? Science? Herbalism, maybe.

Seras drifted off into la la land, his fingers fluttering as he fell asleep. He was clearly not himself when not active and jumping around and full of energy, like this, he felt useless. Like this, he felt... Does that guy have an octopus on his head? Woah, dreams sure are weird.

[Off Topic 3132]

[QUOTE][SIZE=4](NOSTALGIC ANNOUNCER VOICE)"...MEANWHILE, IN LA LA LAND..."[/SIZE][/QUOTE]
[t][row][col][img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lps7e1s8pN1qduevwo1_400.jpg[/img][/col][col][SIZE=4]"Why are you looking at us like that, Neighbor?"

"...What's wrong?"[/SIZE][/col][/row][/t]

...Oh shit!

[CENTER]What are we doing in [b]here[/b]?!

[SIZE=5]C[/SIZE][SIZE=6]A[/SIZE][sub][SIZE=6]H[/SIZE][/sub][sub][SIZE=7]-RR[/SIZE][/sub][SIZE=7]RR[/size][sup][SIZE=7]RACK[/SIZE][/sup][SIZE=7]![/SIZE][/CENTER]

"OOOWCH!"

The shaman's eyes are opened at the whipping of tentacle across forehead--which is the favorite spot, as the backside of head is [i]already[/i] taken.

[INDENT](Teary-eyed and holding fresh welt) "...Chill out!"[/INDENT]

The same tentacle, without the rod-of-discipline approach this time, pries human fingers from blocking the vision. After tears are wiped, blinks of clarity made, and an octo-arm forces chin forward, the sight of Seras (and in a non-dreamworld) laying on the grass becomes immediate.

"Oh shit!"

Now's not the time to fall asleep! ([i]...What'da fahck?[/i]) The Shamannequin shakes the sudden slumber, unfortunately dosed off during that last part where Seras appeared slightly conscious--you know, the part when he talked. ([i]...Can a narrator no longer rely on character?[/i]) Instead, we, uh... Slipped into an out-of-body experience, but it wasn't entirely our fault, you know. You can't just run around startin' dreams up everywhere around shamans, thinking nothing of it! ...But whatever, Neighbor. At least we weren't fooled.

[INDENT]Judging from your dream however, it's now known that you're most likely totally tripping balls right about now. Have you ever tried Coco-Knot, Neighbor? Oh it's delightful, you simply must try it. We'll get you some![/INDENT]

Coconino Knotweed is used religiously by the Coconino in spiritual birthrights, baptisms, rituals and practices--it has high concentrations of quinine, an alkaloid with fever-reducing and painkilling properties. Extracts of this bud commonly appear in tisanes like coffees and teas and the occassional tincture, that is, alcoholic beverage. The final treatment will be a premixed brew which was prepared back at the Academy, one which has has a multitude of healing capabilities. Only difference being that before tilting this flask downward to Seras' lips, Coconino Knotweed and Coconino marshwater would be added to the regular recipe. Don't worry neighbor, we think you'll be okay!

The shaman concludes the spontaneous additions and kneels next to Seras' head, gently adjusting the flask's angle to not drown the man as he's trying to take a healing elixir. The last few tokes of Donovan Gold was taken then, another is lit in a flash. Herbie's Joke will not take effect instantly, but this now concludes the full-circle antitoxin treatment. Unless this Bluehills Puffclover possess something entirely unencountered before--then we got'ch-your back, Neighbor. Your symptoms [i]should[/i] begin to recede in 10 to 15 minutes or so, given the amount of counter-action you're buffed with. That could've been a close one...

[INDENT](Tentacle-wiping forehead) "WHEW!"[/INDENT]

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=7][b](X_X)[/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

[CENTER][Url=http://www.valucre.com/showthread.php/22270-Shamannequin]Shaman Nequin

[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5919/etamthumbnail.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
+ [u]CAN YOU SEE THIS?[/u] +[/CENTER] Edited June 28, 2013 by Off Topic

[Suta 509]

"You know, I can see myself with a cigarette. People don't really smoke anymore, eh?" 20 minutes after he had passed out he had found himself with his back to a tree, and a spiked liquid pouring down his throat. "Except, I'd have metal jaws, or something sick." He pouted, the cigarette swishing between his teeth. "This won't be bad for my teeth right? I like my teeth." He chomped down on the paper, the unknown material within giving way to his pearly whites.

Etam had saved his life, as well as put it in jeopardy(?) He'd used duct tape and a few bobby pins, but he pulled all the stops, and Seras just had to rest, a tummy full of a strange blue plant. Who know what mystical powers these blue plants could give him? What skills, talents, power, or spells he'd garner from his consumption of the unique blue puffclover. Probably gas. "So uh, how does a guy," he hesitated, slowly letting the weight of his head pull his ear towards the ground, his neck craning to the side. Was it uncouth to ask what he'd say next? Someone might hesitate to call Seras a patient man, instead calling him callous. But he was Seras, so...

"How does one get an octopus on one's head?"

[Off Topic 3132]

Seras was well.

He wakes, he stands, he shakes off the poison; feels completely fine for what seems like a sober 20 minutes.

In all reality though, a shaman recently came to the realization that this man shouldn't have been diagnosed the same way we would diagnose ourself. That is (clearing throat), [SIZE=1]one less immune system, fragile metabolism, inherent lack of chemical tolerances[/SIZE]--we uh... Might've accidentally...

[INDENT][b]Well...[/b][/INDENT]

[INDENT][INDENT][SIZE=1]Made a mistake, neighbor.[/SIZE][/INDENT][/INDENT]

[QUOTE][CENTER][SIZE=4]SERAS (Rambling)[/SIZE]
"Hooo d'uh une het aocsheojazz'f;"
[/CENTER][/QUOTE]

[i]...What?[/i]

Are you trying to talk to us, neighbor?

[INDENT]"H'OOY!"[/INDENT]

Are you all right?!

[INDENT][QUOTE][SIZE=7][CENTER](O_O)[/CENTER][/SIZE][/QUOTE][/INDENT]

[INDENT]The shaman is wide-eyed and staring at Seras, who has clearly been hallucinating this entire time. He [i]was[/i] leaning against a tree--in his head. In 'all reality'(?), his perception was being warped from the very moment the medicine was administered...[/INDENT]

In 'all reality', the Coconino Marshwater you drank just a bit ago is naturally loaded with MAOIs, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, meaning for the last 20 minutes every foreign neurochemical in your system has been given one green light and one jetpack of a leadfoot. Tryptophan giants, harmaline monoliths and tropane behemoths to stomp through your circuitry without any immune system resistance--it feels real, doesn't it? Felt just like 20 minutes, [b]experienced[/b] just like 20 minutes too... In this state, your sensory data is being internally generated, organs projected by their in-house brainware; externally you're little more than balls-deep napping in a R.E.M. sleep refuge. Still lying on the ground like a good pin-cushion patient in La La Land--the blue color has even receded from skin pigmentation, meaning the antitoxins worked.

[INDENT]Flick! Right on the forehead, to judge reaction. Nothing. The shaman then crouches closer to Seras, holding eyelids open and measuring dilation, releasing them to closed so that the sporatic movement of the lens beneath may be observed.[/INDENT]

[CENTER]Yes, you may think you're just leaning against a tree, AND THEN SUDDENLY:

[SPOILER][img]http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/siteimages/terrifying_hall_photo.jpg[/img]

[b]"SIKE"/PSYCHE-OUT!(?)[/b][/SPOILER][/CENTER]

The drugs begin to peer through the veil of what you think is reality--in a moment your head feels like it's splitting only to literally become just that, something like a stretching wormhole shattering through time having just emerged from between your eyes. This tunnel spins and propels you forward--though not from the spot against tree, it's of a different layer of visuals entirely, an overlapped watermark of some strange cosmic launchpad, or something...

[t][row][col]--------------------------------[/col][col]---------------------------------[/col][/row][row][col][SPOILER][img]http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4122a3dsA1r9sk9ao1_500.jpg[/img][/SPOILER][/col][col][CENTER]The background of
everything you see--sky
and ground, companion
and even own body--now
bend and flex like sheet
metal smacked from
behind. This ripples like
like the face of water
and begins to melt into
a psychotropic paradise
parade. Colors become
psychedelic and the
world around is
compressed into
something like neon
technicolor rays, like
cell-shaded carnival
raindrops from above
dropping images and
objects and plethoras of
abstractions aimed at
you and you alone.[/CENTER][/col][/row][/t]

[CENTER](Muffled from outside)
[SIZE=1][i]"Stop squirming, Neighbor!"[/i][/SIZE][/CENTER]

[t][row][col]---------------------------------[/col][col]------------------------[/col][/row][row][col][CENTER]Before any type of
reaction could be
properly made, the
world retreats--it
recedes into a
monocolor polar-
opposite. Objects
no longer appear
to have the
consistency of
water, they now
have form, appear
to be solid. The
felt-notion of body
returns and it is
observed
immediately that
your limbs are
sprawled outward,
twig-stiff, that you
are rooted in-place
beneath a pair of
eye-moons with
beam-glares each.[/CENTER][/col][col][SPOILER][img]http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sime5-big.jpg[/img][/SPOILER][/col][/row][/t]

[CENTER]It is decided that Etam would pursue Seras while Nequin stays behind to control the body, to prepare a FLUSH remedy.[/CENTER]

[t][row][col]----------------------[/col][col]----------------------------------[/col][/row][row][col][SPOILER][img]http://www.theampalcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/American-Hallucination-597x800.png[/img][/SPOILER][/col][col][CENTER][SIZE=6]"There you are!"[/SIZE]

An entity appears before
you--instantly on the
border of personal space,
quaking and changing the
background with abrupt
appearance. This world is
tremoring and pulsing and
moving like HD cloth in
the wind, it is filled with
self-animating arts which
magnify and generate from
the tone set. It's the vibe
that controls it--the same
felt nature of 'atmosphere'
and 'aura', made tangible
by the mood set
soon-to-be setting.
The shaman is no stranger
to this place and brings a
sense of order to it; it is no
longer chaos, no longer a
nightmare lost in the abyss.

Or at least alone, that is.[/CENTER][/col][/row][/t]

[t][row][col][CENTER][SIZE=4]"Why are you looking
at us like that, Neighbor?"[/SIZE]

Try to relax a bit, son. Stop
kicking on the outside--we're
having a hard time holding you
down and keeping you from
hurting yourself with all those
needles still in. We don't know
exactly how you're seeing us
at the moment, but surely you'll
recognize our vibe, right?

We can be a navigator.

Do you know how shamans
become shamans, neighbor?
They are immersed into the
cosmos from a body near-
death, they experience a
spiritual plight, a journey
within to the deepest of
all deeps... It is an initiation
by dream, of messianic
magnitudes and prophetic
proportions.[/CENTER][/col][col][SPOILER][img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_med71ef1Ij1qfxrhno1_500.jpg[/img][/SPOILER][/col][/row][/t]


[t][row][col][SPOILER][img]http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/094/c/0/dreamland___above_than_clouds_by_anuk-d2f04rh.jpg[/img][/SPOILER][/col][col][CENTER][SIZE=4]"We can show you peaceful places."[/SIZE]

And with the topic came
a curtain of a membrane
to fall in front of the eyes
and the mind. The gust of
the wind, subtleties of
sound and all senses are
delighted by this picture--but
it is soon replaced by another.[/CENTEr][/col][/row][/t]

[t][row][col][CENTER][SIZE=4]"Or 'alien' lands."[/SIZE]

Not extra-terrestrial, intra(enter)inter-terrestrial.
Only a moment of this view is given before all
visuals begin to pixelate, to materialize in bulky
clouds and tear white background from sight.
It soon becomes a labyrinth of nebulas among
a starlight night--which you then recognize to be
a reflection of yourself. The epiphany rewards
you with the experience of reflection, of moments
spent in a bliss so unreal, the mind can only
compare it to something-or-another Godly.[/CENTER][/col][col][SPOILER][img]http://i.neoseeker.com/n/5/ffiiivi.jpg[/img][/SPOILER][/col][/row][/t]

[t][row][col][img]http://imageshack.us/a/img801/6778/o1kd.png[/img][/col][col][CENTER][SIZE=5]"This is the
YOU[/SIZE][SIZE=4]-NIVERSE[/SIZE][SIZE=5]."[/SIZE][/CENTER][/col][/row][/t]

[/LaLaLand]

And it would be at this peaking spot in your very sporatic and short trip, Seras, that the FLUSH adrenogland would be injected. The acupuncture needles have been removed, seeing as you may awaken rather... Suddenly. This concludes the effects of all injested medicine (which will now be flushed out, lucky lucky) and toxins. Once awake, you'll find the entirety of your body quite relaxed and flexible, very well rested indeed. You will no longer go to La La Land unless you choose to do so.

"WHEW."

Can you tell how exhaustedly cracked-out this shaman looks right now? The splitting of TOTEM and rushing around of treatment have taken a toll under the eyes and in their bloodshot shining.

[Suta 509]

[IMG]http://miqel.com/images_1/myspace/dmt_4.jpg[/IMG]

Everything was bright. Seras was bright, the sky was bright, the moon and stars and sky and eyes were so very very bright. But the sun was dark, so dark it was blinding, so golden it must have been cursed. His head grew three sizes, then forty thousand more, and he became the light he was staring so wistfully upon. Somewhere along the way, he had become a universal being, an entity into and of itself, composed of everything and breathing of the energies of the universe. Of his universe. Look into the center of his golden heart, his brilliant eye, watch him reach across the world and consume each sight he beheld, drawing them in with immeasurably long straws.


[IMG]http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/340/b/0/dmt_world_by_nomadicortex-d4ichkk.jpg[/IMG]

On each tendril of his reach, he travelled by foot. A textured landscape of skin pores and toad's feet. A sort of coral-reef of feelings and un-saturated rainbows. Here, in this world, he was a green as murky as his eyes. His form young and forceful, terribly in the nude, wielding a brilliant golden star in his hand that shone with all the lightness of his soul. His tendril-world cast forward and curved through space-space, and he walked with a pride unencypherably strong.

[IMG]http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/hh566/SutaTsu/nonsense_zps9a82a756.png[/IMG]

Seras was a god! That's what it was, with his little golden star, and unending tentacles of reach, he could see all and feel all, had power over all and trapped all within his infinite grasp. He was the master of life, and death, the demons that cut into soul and spirit, body and mind. His arms rose and golden eyes peered into the un-end. He was eternal, and forever. Even Death was beneath him, and life was nowhere to be Sean. He stared up into the orb of his own spirit-light, and watched uh...

Is that, Etam... is that you? So shiny, and cute. I could gobble you up. Gods don't talk like that, do they? Where was he, what was he, not a god, but a being of matter. Was he even an entity onto and of itself, what did that nonsense even mean? He blinked twice, and flutter to life, his badness flushed from him and his good awakening to a mouth full of drool, and a body freed of cactus needle.

His friend looked exhausted. Even his own voice was cracked and broken. "Tell me," he spattered coarsely, "what the fudge-hell did I just see?"

[Off Topic 3132]

[CENTER][QUOTE][SIZE=4][u]NEIGHBOR[/u][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]"Tell me, what the fudge-hell did I just see?"[/SIZE]
[/QUOTE]

[SIZE=1][#]MANDATORY EXPLANATION THEME[/#][/SIZE]
[SPOILER]
[video=youtube;_bpS-cOBK6Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bpS-cOBK6Q[/video][/SPOILER][/CENTER]

[INDENT][CENTER][QUOTE]
[SIZE=4][b]Well first, you know that the world [u]is made[/u] of language, right Neighbor?[/b][/SIZE]
[/QUOTE][/CENTER][/INDENT]

[center][img]http://www.wallpaperstop.biz/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Cameron-gray-art-three-spirituality-tree-third-eye.jpg[/img]

"We call it the You-niverse, but we've hear it called the 'Gaian Mind' by others..."[/CENTER]

[INDENT]The shaman speaks full-sentence for the first time openly, in a much more feminine voice than might've been expected. At the moment Etam is kneeling on ground with a heavy look off in the distance, watching clouds set before the sun with tentacles in a slow snakedance. The stress from situation caused the cheeks to rose up--a facial feature you'd only expect on puppets or pantomimes.[/INDENT]

If the small, redundant movements of others can be translated into body language, then how much more does the world speak in it's conquest of the minute and the mountainous? It's always in-motion, always busy.

[CENTER](Holding palm towards Seras) "You know what this is, right? It's a '[b]hand[/b]'. That's the model given to us as children--that [SIZE=3]IS[/SIZE] what this [SIZE=3]IS[/SIZE], a hand."[/CENTER]

The shaman breaks concentration after speaking, scanning the area for the sack filled with ingredients. After it was spotted tuck'd in the nook of roots 10 feet away, Etam speaks while leaping toward it.

[CENTER]"...And you must know what this right here [i]is[/i], right? The '[b]tree[/b]'?"[/CENTER]

Words are our models for reality and how the world works. Quite a few theories about [b]how[/b] the world works, but each of them depends on a fundamental assumption of [i]what exactly[/i] the world is--but honestly, no matter what is agreed upon or what is said; whether scientific or religious or somewhere in between; what we get each time can only amount to being language. A textbook of how physics is applied is not [i]how[/i] the world works or [i]what[/i] the world is--it's just a large bundle of paper. That book is only a collection of words in a certain order to force an extended metaphor or train of thought, to build what is called a 'viewpoint paradigm'--a monopoly of perception within self-consciousness, a conditioned way of looking at things via the indirect lines of association we've been taught to vocalize. The world is made of description in a manner-of-speaking, therefore the world too can reflect how we're describing it at the very moment we are doing so.

[INDENT]That would be why the world appears to be so many different things to so many different people, also why the strongest of experiences are beyond words.[/INDENT]

[t][row][col][b][i]Oooh La-La[/i] Land[/b]
(Joint)[/col][col][img]http://imageshack.us/a/img824/5431/3hf9.jpg[/img][img]http://imageshack.us/a/img585/5408/7des.jpg[/img][img]http://imageshack.us/a/img40/5169/7re.JPG[/img][/col][/row][/t]

Before using the sack as a pillow, three herbs are withdrawn in tiny tie'd off baggies. With those knapsacks in-hand, Etam plops ontop the bag and lays across the grass with stomach up, scooting backward until reaching the comfortable tilt for neck (so as not to squish the octopus, you know?). Now Etam's eyes are downward, watching the fingers tear apart herbs just like otters do clams in-lap, organizing piles into the pocket-wrinkles of cloth in shirt. Though a joint's already being smoked (still held by a tentacle), another joint is being rolled while describing it the only way one [i]can think[/i] to describe it.

[CENTER]"We took you from this world and language to show you hers. We can only do it through herbs--they are her blessings, afterall."[/CENTER]

[INDENT]Language is visual much moreso than it is spoken word. Not visual in the sense of a character in the alphabet or what a word looks like on-page or an educational diagram--but [i]everything[/i] that's visual. The grass and location, sky and cosmos, your own body and vibe, psychedelic H-E-dubble hockeystick tunnels, anything discernible with those eyes of yours.[/INDENT]

[CENTER]"Every moment you have your eyes open, Mother Gaia's speaking to you--we just took you beyond her body language to show you her voice. That's what you saw, just then. The voice of Mother Gaia."[/CENTER]

[INDENT]An odd time for a spiritual experience. The shaman extends this joint to Seras, still laying on grass as if a hammock.[/INDENT]

[CENTER][Url=http://www.valucre.com/showthread.php/22270-Shamannequin][FONT=TIMES NEW ROMAN]Sage Against
The Machine[/FONT]
[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5919/etamthumbnail.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]

[Suta 509]

The man with the feminine voice (or was it the other way around?) started something up with his word-speaker. He was going on about words, and used words to describe it. If it was all a little hard to understand before, his teacher pulled a miracle from his octo-hat and clarified everything. So he was not the god of his visions, he was the listener, hearing for his first time ever what the big girl upstairs was shouting. Did he make her proud? Not at all. Suppose Gaia's a tough gal to please, and roses don't cut it.

Seras followed after the Shaman, his foots taking after his eyes already traced his motion, his eyebrows thrown back in an explosion of knowledge. When the shaman set himself down, he slid his back against the [SIZE=4][I][B]t[/B]r[/I]e[B]e[/B][/SIZE], and fell to his neighbours side. The shaman's hand extended towards him, and he took the joint simply and without a fuss. It was already alight, so it was brought to his lips and fine white chompers. He wondered what his actual mom would think of him smoking [I]drugs[/I] with a [I]shaman[/I]. Though the man was a far cry from the all too familiar street dealers. Smoke passed from burning weeds through the expanse of his mouth, dry loose lips, and pearly whites, before dancing its way through his blood. He didn't puff, or inhale, he let time and the wind burn the joint; Gaia as his enabler.

He moved to talk, the cigarette still loosely held in his mouth, eyes blinking slowly, natural breathing wafting smoke loosely to and fro, eyebrows curved far up from his nose, lips puckered ever so slightly, jaw low and heavy. Hands played with the grass at his side, as if communion with Her wouldn't be complete without it, and a light-hearted but dead-set voice formed words from brain-sparks, and let the words fly from the song-maker in his throat.

"Why'd she sound so... worried?"

[Off Topic 3132]

[t][row][col][b]Bob Gnarley ('Three Little Birds')[/b]
(Joint)[/col][col][img]http://imageshack.us/a/img194/4509/h148.jpg[/img][img]http://imageshack.us/a/img542/9995/bsqe.jpg[/img][img]http://imageshack.us/a/img5/4051/qgj6.jpg[/img][/col][/row][/t]

[i]"...It's surprising that you noticed that, actually--your mind must be as sharp as your eyes are."[/i]

After passing off the joint (and recipe, if he were so inclined) for Seras, the shaman is already at work rolling another spliff for their own use. The mixture of herbs chosen is a strange Christmas theme, it is green and red with sparkle-dust all over. The fingers pick at these clumps and grind them into dust with mechanical precision, leaving a moundmix ready to be scooped onto paper. As the roll is pinched from both sides and in a flash turned inward, the face scrunches and flinches slightly in reaction to Seras accidently uprooting two needles of grass from soil. The shaman wouldn't vocally oppose, would only turn the eyes while sealing the joint with the same left-to-right licking of an envelope. After dragging it along Bombino belt as a match on end, it flickers and lights, soon held by a lone tentacle which rests on the left shoulder between every puffing.

(Softly) "We haven't found out what's happening yet, but we can feel the Earth-Mother tremble. Something [i]very very wicked[/i] is to blame--that's the only time it ever happens."

Inhaling this smoke causes a very euphoric body-buzz, evenso that it calms the ever-moving tentacles to leave them resembling usual strands of hair. With these large locks and big bangs motionless, sprawled down body length to the stomach, Etam very much appears a normal human wearing a strange wig. The octopus, by no fault of it's own, instinctively hugs the tree being leaned on, replicating the rough grain and bark-y texture of wood all the way to hairline. Almost looks like Etam's physically attached to the tree right now, actually...

"--You talk in your sleep, you know. [i]Who's 'Kriemhild'?[/i]"

The face turns to him with a curious eyebrow up. It was hard to make anything of his ramblings from an hour before, but that name kept being repeated--it was so strange and unfamiliar that a mental note of it was made within the mind. The shaman pulls extended legs inward, bends the knees up and rests an elbow on each while awaiting response.

[CENTER][Url=http://www.valucre.com/showthread.php/22270-Shamannequin][FONT=TIMES NEW ROMAN]New-Age
Herbie the Sage[/FONT]
[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5919/etamthumbnail.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]