Memoirs of a RAFian

[Cloak]

You guys are assuming Parker'll find out.

I was going to post another chapter . . . but I don't have the energy I thought I did.

Maybe later. Maybe.

[Underseen]

I think this will he funny.

[redtailedsaffa]

Yes, it's playing out like a Simpsons episode for some reason.

[Cloak]

Yeah, I don't think the later books get this schticky. Anyway, a new chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Down the Aisle

"Come with me," said the leprechaun, seizing Helen's hand - the one where she wore her ring. "Come with me, my bride."

Helen was already repulsed by the leprechaun's face and slovenly ways, but this assumption -- this presumption that she'd accept such a demand without a fight! That was the most offensive thing about this. But before Helen could voice her indignation, her revulsion, the leprechaun's face cracked a crooked, malevolent smile, revealing his yellowed, crooked, pointed teeth. He snapped his fingers, still holding Helen's hand with his iron grip.

Suddenly, they were standing in a void, and Helen couldn't understand why she couldn't access her Star Sapphire powers. The leprechaun snapped his fingers again and rather somber music started.

"Oh, great." Helen muttered, distracted from her plight momentarily.

"Oh, I can't live a single day without you --
 Actually, on second thought, well, I suppose I could.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is,
Honestly, you're the greatest.
Well, at any rate, I guess your pretty good.
Now, it seems to me that I'm really lucky,
I know I couldn't ask for more.
I can honestly say you're a C+ lady.
You're very nearly what I've been looking for.
You're sorta everything I ever wanted.
You're nearly perfect, but I love you somehow.
You're the woman I've dreamed of.
Well, not really, but you're good enough for now.

"You're darn near close to what I've always hoped for.
That's shy my love for you is . . . moderately strong.
And I swear I'm never gonna leave you, darling.
. . . At least, unless someone better comes along.
'Coz you're sorta everything I ever wanted.
You're nearly perfect, but I love you somehow.
You're the woman I've always dreamed of.
Well, not really, but you're good enough for now.
No, not really, but you're goid enough for now."

Deeply offended by this song, Helen was just about to tell this leprechaun her mind when she discovered that she was inexplicably in a flowing pinkish-white princess-like wedding gown and bridal gown with only a white light showing an aisle and alter. Worse of all, a wedding brand had replaced her Star Sapphire ring.

[Underseen]

Yeah, Parker will kill him for sure now.

[Cloak]

Again, you're assuming Parker'll even find out. Helen doesn't have to tell him everything, you know.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Monetary Distraction

"Walk with me, lovely," the grotesque leprechaun lecher said.

"No," Helen said firmly. She was always a strong woman, even if she didn't always get a chance to showcase it.

"Women don't get a choice, they do as they are told!" the leprechaun snapped.

SLAP!

Helen ****ed her arm back to slap this leprechaun sharply again. Helen was absolutely livid. "It's high time someone reacquaints you with the modern world, you chauvinistic sack of buzzard crap!"

SLAP!

Helen gnashed her teeth. "I'll speak my mind if I so chose, and no one -- no one -- will tell me that I cannot do so simply because I'm a girl."

SLAP!

"Now, on a different matter, GIVE ME BACK MY RING!!!"

There was a small pause.

"YOU KNOW VERY WELL I DON'T WANT YOUR FRIGGIN' WEDDING BAND!!! I WANT MY STAR SAPPHIRE RING!!!"

SLAP!!! SLAP!!!

Clearly, the leprechaun's probability manipulation powers don't work on strong women.

***

"I don't know about this, Cloak." Underseen said.

"Finding that gold could be the only thing to lure the leprechaun out of hiding," Cloak said, adding soberly, "as well as prevent Avers fate upon any other."

"But do not, and I cannot stress this enough, do not touch any of the gold." Aquilai intoned warningly. "I have reason to believ this gold might be covered with gold mites carrying the gold fever microbes."

Dino, Saffa, Abby, Noelle, and Gaz nodded understanding and the search was on.

It took upwards of 95 hours to find the really well hidden grotto in which the gold festered.

Cloak ferrokinetically removed the pot from the grotto . . . but the gold coins levitated from the pot, as if they were a gold coin swarm, destroying the gold mites in the process. Then they exploded out into many directions.

"Gateburst!" Cloak cursed. "They went and Dragonballed!"

"What?" Dino asked.

"Never mind!" Gaz said. "We have to find the coins! Find them before that blasted leprechaun kills again!"

***

"Me gold!" the leprechaun gasped as Helen continued to pummel him, until he dropped the ring, transporting them both back to reality. He gave up on brides, and decided to seek out his gold.

Again.

[redtailedsaffa]

Talk about a fickle mind...

[theyoungphoenix]

The leprechaun is really obsessed... Obviously.

[Cloak]

Right, I'll post another chapter if my internet behaves.

Probably gonna be a short chapter -- and I don't know if I can post one tomorrow.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Globetrotting

"Underseen -- it's not funny anymore." Abby said, searching for the coins in a patch of clover with Cloak and . . . and a shapeshifted Underseen.

"But itsa me! Mario!" Underseen perfectly mimicking the voice and the Super Smash Bros model.

"It's not as funny after the twenty-third time, Underseen." Cloak said, adding fifty coins to the ones they collected.

Underseen took the point and reverted to his base form. He asked, "Why are we finding them all in clover patches?"

"Dunno." Abby shrugged, not deterred or distracted from her goal.

"He wouldn't cross clover when Aquilai and I observed him earlier," Cloak recalled.

Abby briefly abandoned her search, "Really? Well, we may have a weapon to use against him."

Cloak shook his head as the search began again. "A deterrent maybe, but not a weapon. We don't know if it harms him -- he may just have a clover adversion."

"So just grow a clover ring around the forum, Cloak." Underseen said.

"Wood is one of the Six Elements, but clover -- to my knowledge -- has no wood in it." Cloak corrected.

"Oh," Underseen said, returning to search intently to the left, "sorry."

"At least you acknowledge errors . . ." Cloak muttered, more to himself than the others.

***

Meanwhile, Phoenix, Brad, and Aquilai were scouring the countryside for the coins, as the entire planet was crawling to find them before the leprechaun.

"Who are you?" Brad said suddenly.

"Just an old mountain coot," said the wizened, barefooted man in tattered clothing (blue jean overalls, plaid shirt, and an old, pale khaki prospector hat) with a long dingy beard and crazy-looking, electric-blue eyes.

"What are you doing here? You didn't find any coins?" Aquilai interrogated the coot.

"Coins? What would I want those things fer?"

"Then what are you doing out here? Looks like it may storm soon." Phoenix inquired, gentlely and calmly.

"Lookin' for four-leaf clovers." he said, sounding quite demented.

"Need some luck?" Brad smirked patronizingly.

"It has nothing to do with luck, m'boy!" the coot said with a wheezy, insane-sounding chuckle. "Four-leaf clovers are the only thing to kill evil leprechauns!"

Then he ran off laughing insanely. The three RAFians looked at this crazy old mountain coot as he made his way out of their eyeline.

They were seriously considering what he said, though probably not the best source or lead to go on.

[theyoungphoenix]

Aha! So the clovers might just be a weapon after all!

[Underseen]

of course you guys don't accept my comic relief in a time like this.

[Cloak]

It was the 23rd time you did the joke, in the story, Underseen!

[theyoungphoenix]

Ya, I probably would have been sick of it by then. 

[Cloak]

Well, sorry, but no new chapter today. Just done 8.5 hours of work -- which I'm probably gonna get fired from.

I work -- perhaps I should use the past tense of "worked" -- as a housekeeper for four buildings at the local college, and today was my third day of work -- and I was on my own, completely alone. Well, I had to wait outside the gate for fifteen minutes just to clock out and turn in the keys for the night. I thought I'd be there all night, and lost my temper and cool -- I tried to wiggle underneath the gate, and then angrily pummeled it.

Then the **** guard who finally decides to show up decides to make light of the situation, and I tell him I wasn't in the mood for it. Then he calls me an ****, and so I get a little touchy (I was and am exhausted, I didn't sit for more than a few minutes everyday). Then he tells me not to take a tone with him, and I say, in a low voice I hope, that I'd speak to him any way I please. Then he lets me into the damn building, and I turn in the keys -- only to discover that I need a key to get to the room with the goddamn time clock. Then there was the fifteen, twenty minute walk ahead of me, with darkness falling and a very real possibility of rain.

Problem was, I think it may have been the supervisor but I'm not sure.

*throws his hands up*

Don't know why I bother sometimes. I work hard, but I get the feeling that that will be discounted.

[redtailedsaffa]

That really blows, Cloaky. I know you haven't heard the verdict yet, but you could look for an opening somewhere else just as cover. I'm pretty sure you'll find something; there are too many places that need housekeeping.

For the record, nothing in that incident was even your fault! So hopefully justice prevails and you keep your job. There's always <hope...>