Aldous Huxley VS Huxley Pig GRAND BATTLE!

Well, here I am again, O most loyal minions. Let's see where we were last time, shall we? Let's grit our collective teeth and analyse the improbable situations I'm facing....

1. It appears the universe is going to end. I thought I'd better put that as problem number one.

2. It appears I am supposed to be able to do something about it. The less said about that the better.

3. I am thoroughly sick and tired of surreal and disturbing things happening. I just thought I'd better throw that in, as you can't really have a two point list, can you? Oh, don't mind me, I'm in a bad mood. Well, you would be too in my situation, wouldn't you? *GRUMBLE*

OK, inane text-type introduction over, time to find out what was going down back in the safe and comfortingly mouldering environs of Zarfang's kitchen. I can't say that at this point I'd entirely recovered from the horrible events rendered to you so inarticulately in the previous message. Oh, let's not dwell on that any longer than we have to, eh?

***

I thought it was about time I got to the bottom of things.

"Grott," I said, "You knew we'd turned up in this place, whatever the hell it is, didn't you?"

Grott shuffled about sheepishly. Nigel looked as if he was about to attempt a repeat of his previous attempt to get Gorgrod to wallop him. Maevrin sat half slumped at at the kitchen table, looking pretty exhausted. Poor old Maevrin - I wished I'd never let her come along. I affixed a mental note to the mental fridge to try and console her a bit later on, hoping that a mental gust of wind wouldn't blow it under the mental cupboard.

"Well," Grott began, "I admit, I had started to suspect where we were. However, I promise I didn't know for sure when I sent you out there. But enough of that, tell me what happened to you? You met him, didn't you?"

"Oh, alright," I said, wearily, "I'll tell you what happened."

Everyone listened with an interesting spectrum of expressions. Maevrin looked disturbed, Nigel hovered around an almost comical expression of disbelief, the sort of face a football fan makes before he can figure out just how outraged he is going to get at a dreadful refereeing decision. Grott maintained a starry eyed expression like something from an old cartoon, the sort where the pupils go the shape of a cake with a slice out (I wonder if there's an official term for that?) and Gorgrod oscillated between gargoyle-style grimaces and grins, which was a bit distracting. These expressions intensified as my over-melodramatic account drew near, complete with dubious Carlos Castaneda style out of body mind warpings.

"So what do you make of that, then?" I said to Grott.

"Yes..." said Grott, not looking towards me and seemingly talking to himself, "It all makes sense now. You must have become partly embedded in someone else's dream..."

He fixed his beady black eyes back to me.

"I hope you now realise why my master disappeared. It was to repair the damage he'd done to reality."

I struggled to think of a sensible response to a sentence like that.

"Here's a question for you." said Grott, assuming the tone of a temperamental lecturer, "Haven't you ever wondered why after my master's career, all manner of modern inventions just seemed to invent themselves? Television, automobiles, even the internet? Not only that; people became innately aware of the other world those inventions originated from."

I felt strangely confused.

"I... suppose I've never really thought about it..."

"Exactly," said Grott, "How could people not think of that as suspicious? I'll tell you why. Reality from another world has been leaking into this one and changing things. You see, our universe is only supposed to be a small satellite of the main one, full of the sort of things that are supposed to inspire legends, myths and the like. That was what it was before my master, anyway. Of course, reality has also leaked from our universe back into the main one, but the effect was much less pronounced in that direction, and seems to have become entangled in films, television, games and the like. Where do you think all those MMORPGs keep coming from?"

"Hold on a minute," chipped in Nigel, "So if I'm right in thinking your boss has gone and naused up reality, how are we supposed to do anything about it? He said Ivan had to do something, didn't he?"

At this, Grott's face fell.

"Well, yes, that's true, I'm afraid. You must find some way to beat Eldrigar, otherwise the damage he is doing will set free the forces my master is currently fighting to contain, meaning the end of the world. In answer to the question you're about to ask, it has to be you for complex reasons you won't understand easily. This tower can warp reality, even transcend time itself in some capacity, but can't affect the laws of causality. You've become entangled with the tower, so it's impossible to reverse your involvement, I'm afraid."

There was short silence.

"Well?" I said, "I was kind of hoping you were about to tell me about some hidden power I'd got, or some kind of plan you might have to sort all this out? Maybe we could cut to some kind of training montage or something?"

Grott looked at me blankly.

"No, actually I wasn't. You haven't got any hidden powers. In fact, you're almost completely useless. Eldrigar could atomize you on sight. And I haven't got a plan."

"Oh," I said. "How about assembling some kind crack team from somewhere or other which we could use to win in an epic showdown?"

"Err, well, if you happen to know the address of any powerful white wizards in the neighbourhood who could do battle with the greatest sorcerer imaginable, maybe that would work."

"Oh, come on!" I said, throwing my hands up in exasperation, "Can't you be a bit more useful? You've been scurrying about all this time, doing you own mystical thing, then you reveal your secret identity and act all high and mighty, now, when you might actually help us out, you're no use whatever!"

"Oh don't start on me," Grott said, irritably, "I was only created to look after this tower, not to save the blasted universe."

"Don't worry about him," said Nigel to me, in a semi-reassuring tone, "He's just a glorified janitor anyways."

To avoid Grott's furious expression, I walked over to the window and looked out. The garden was still as beautiful as ever, the sun was now sinking lower in the sky.

"What's this place supposed to be, then?" I said, gloomily thinking that there was nothing better to do than to carry on the conversation. Grott replied grudgingly.

"I suppose this must be the interface point that my master created on the fringes of the world of dreams. I never saw it myself before, but we'll be quite safe here. We must have effectively collided with it on our way past, I hadn't realised the world of dreams had expanded so much."

I turned back to Grott.

"So the universe could end at any time, then?"

"Actually," replied Grott, "I think we should be alright for the time being. You see, we're actually outside the time scale of our world here, where the damage is being done, so nothing should happen any time soon, so long as we don't go back home for a while."

At this, I brightened up immediately.

"Well, why didn't you say so before?" I said, cheerfully. "If we don't have to do anything for the time being, things aren't so bad, are they?"

Nobody else looked particularly convinced, but personally, nothing cheers me up like a bit of procrastination.

"I'm sure we'll think of something that'll sort all this out," I said, with ridiculous forced cheerfulness. "How about I cook us all something nice? I can't promise it won't contain beans, though."

At this, everyone groaned.

"I tell you what," said Grott, "How about I take you somewhere interesting? maybe it'll cheer everyone up a bit. There's a place I used to go that's not far from here, in a manner of speaking."

"Oh no," I said, feeling a sudden sense of dread, "After what happened in this place, there's no way we're going to some other crazy, messed up location. I know what'll happen - first it'll look fine, then all of a sudden there'll be a Transylvanian postman lunging at me with his antique gravy boat collection."

Grott looked disappointed.

"Oh, come on," he wheedled, "That could happen to you anywhere! [note from me - what???] This place is quite safe, it always used to cheer me up when I'd become a bit bored of waiting for my master to return. And it's only a little bit surreal."

"No way!", said Nigel and I at exactly the same time. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have the desired effect. Grott's face took on an impish expression, like some kind of mischievous school boy, which looked pretty weird and incongruous on his gnarled features. With one quick cry of "I'm going to do it anyway!", he disappeared out of the room almost faster than the eye could see, leaving a hysterical "hee hee hee!" hanging in the air behind him.

The next moment, the view of the garden that could be seen from the windows vanished, replaced by the black, swirling vortex we'd seen last time the tower was travelling, though reassuringly without the deep groaning sound we'd heard before.

I sighed. What on earth was the point of putting a brave face on things, when stuff like this kept continuously happening? Seeing as this was fast turning into some kind of adventure or adventure related escapade, shouldn't I have at least made some kind of progress already? Maybe a little bit of a feeling of getting somewhere? Oh well.

We all looked at each other with a sort of "never mind" expression on our faces, then I proceeded to cook us all some sort of dubious bean concoction, fortified with some past its sell by date chilli sauce from the fridge. We carried on drinking the whiskey, no food can taste too bad when you've had a few drinks.

Actually, it turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable evening, though we made sure to keep the topic of conversation away from the events of the day. There wasn't anything much any of us could do about the situation, Grott seemed to have done another of his disappearing acts, so we ended up feeling strangely cheerful. Maevrin seemed to have recovered and cheered up, and Nigel was telling all sorts of hilarious stories about stupid things his various uncles had either done, said, or told him. He'd grudgingly admitted that his "slightly invisible" potion was a fraud after I put a bit on my food and discovered it was indeed brown sauce, he swore dark oaths of vengeance against Uncle Trevor. Even Gorgrod could be palatable company when he'd had a few drinks.

I looked around at the gloomy old kitchen, now full of the sounds of people laughing and joking. It seemed strange that I'd been happy enough pottering about it largely alone, satisfied by vague pipe dreams about becoming a great and powerful dark wizard. I realised that despite none of us wanting to have been caught up in this sort of insane adventure, all of our lives were pretty drab and boring, whether it be working endless hours in a sandwich factory, organising stamps in a dark room or just simply being a rather unpleasant troll, and that at least bound us together in some way. At least this sort of thing was interesting, whatever else you could say about it.

After a number of hours, which were impossible to measure as we'd noted that each of the clocks in the tower was rotating in its own random direction and speed, we decided it was time for bed. I discovered to my surprise that Nigel was indeed actually sleeping in the bread bin. Yes, I did laugh.

Well, what strange adventures will we get into tomorrow? Where is Grott taking us? Will I figure out a way to even come close to solving the dire problems we've all so happily put on the back burner? Stay tuned to find out, as I for one would like to know.

Peace out, y'all.