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fandomtownies2007-03-02 07:00 am
norglomofnit.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomtownies2007-03-02 07:00 am
Entry tags:
The Fandom Post Office: Thursday
In response to the complaints directed at the Mayor, the troopers had handwavily been sent. They discovered the post office was deserted, drifts of mail covering the floor in a strange, crackling snow.
They hadn't stayed long, wanting to get back and report what they'd found - or rather, hadn't found - and as they'd left, one had glanced over his shoulder, pointing out that someone was going to have to run the post office.
Had they remained, they would have seen the walls shine with reflected light, as the machine partially hidden in the back room began to glow. It was searching, flipping through dimensions where its duplicates resided, seeking what was mising.
Fandom had a way of finding what it needed, and what it needed - what the mail needed, the machine needed, even the building itself needed - was a Postmaster.
* * *
Very, very far away (and also, dimensionally speaking, just next door), in another post office in another place and time, Moist von Lipwig was annoyed. Bored and annoyed, which was never a good combination in anyone, and was even less so in him.
"Why am I investigating this thing?" The Sorting Engine was magic; that meant it should be the University's problem, strictly speaking. Except that he'd done such a good job convincing everybody in the Post Office he was the answer to their problems that he was now stuck being the answer to everybody's problem.
"Because You Are The Postmaster, Mr Lipwig," Gladys intoned, in her deep voice.
Or in other words, he was the Postmaster. "Yes, I know. It was a rhetorical question." The dull hum emanating from the machine seemed to bypass the ears entirely and burrow deep into bones and teeth, making his head ache. "How long has it been doing this?"
Gladys paused, then said, "Two Days, Nine Hours, Thirty Six Minutes And Thirteen Seconds. Fourteen Seconds. Fifteen Seconds. Sixt--"
"Yes, that's fine. Thank you." Golems could be so distressingly literal, and Gladys was by the far the worst of them. "All right. My investigations have determined that it's doing something it didn't used to do." Since what it used to do, in addition to not hum, was alter anyone foolish enough to touch it into a rather macabre wall finish, Moist was staying well back. "What do they expect me to do about it?"
"Fix It, Mr Lipwig."
Before Moist could reply, there was a snapping whine, the glow widened and brightened, engulfing them, and they were sucked into the hopper and dragged elsewhere.
Luckily for Moist, Gladys, and the state of the walls, it wasn't actually their sorting engine into which they disappeared.
The wizards had said the Sorting Engine existed in plenty of other presents. They'd used complicated words like quantum, multi-dimensional, and portal, but what it boiled down to was that there was more than one. Scattered throughout the dimensions, Sorting Engines hummed and glowed and twisted universal constants in response to the needs of the mail.
The Ankh-Morpork Sorting Engine was merely acting as a conduit for another, one which, thankfully, had not been built by Bloody Stupid Johnson. Whoever had built the Sorting Engine currently residing behind a large and unwieldy stacks of mail in the Fandom Post Office had been competent enough that Moist and Gladys arrived bruised, shaken, slightly nauseous and thoroughly confused, but in one piece.
Moist was all of those, at least; Gladys lumbered to her feet - meeting the 'in one piece' criterion, but apparently unaffected by the rest - and ploughed through the pile of mail, turning to lift Moist to his feet. "We Do Not Appear To Be In Ankh-Morpork Any Longer."
"Oh, don't we? I'd never have guessed," he snapped as Gladys set him down. "Where we appear to be is in another damn post office." He resisted the temptation to kick the Sorting Engine. He was smart enough not to push his luck when it came to magical machines with a reputation for turning people inside out and sideways. Especially when against all probability it had just failed to do so.
"Yes, Mr Lipwig."
Teach him to admit he was bored. The universe had a funny way of dealing with comments like that. "All right, let's see where we are." The drifts of letters he pushed gently to one side, remembering the power of mail and the voices of the undelivered. "There must be an office around here somewhere."
There was an office, at the top of a winding staircase, abandoned and dusty. Whoever had occupied it last had left not a trace of themselves behind. Moist spent several hours pouring over log books, journals, a banking ledger, and piles of random documents. It was a post office all right, though thankfully one without quite the number of problems as the last one he'd been landed with. It had a healthy bank balance, even if some of the information made no sense, and that was a good start.
Moist wondered briefly how he was going to get back to Ankh-Morpork. The place he was now was somewhere he'd never heard of - and there weren't many places Moist had never heard of. His finely honed skills had led him to acquire a brief geographical sketch of every place a person with money and hope could come from, and Fandom didn't appear anywhere in the picture.
He'd be prepared to accept he could have missed somewhere, could have overlooked a small and inconsequential island, except for one thing: the days were wrong. There weren't enough them, for a start. Seven instead of eight, and that was simply ridiculous, but if the information in front of him was to be believed, it was the truth.
"You're right, Gladys," he said as he lifted his aching head to stare at the golem. "We're not in Ankh-Morpork anymore."
[OOC1: Establishy only; no interaction possible. OOC2: As promised, info post on Moist is here, info on the Post Office is here OOC3: Troopers modded with permission. OOC4: THANK YOU to everyone who played with the 'no mail' thing, and especially to those who went and hassled the poor long-suffering Mayor.]
They hadn't stayed long, wanting to get back and report what they'd found - or rather, hadn't found - and as they'd left, one had glanced over his shoulder, pointing out that someone was going to have to run the post office.
Had they remained, they would have seen the walls shine with reflected light, as the machine partially hidden in the back room began to glow. It was searching, flipping through dimensions where its duplicates resided, seeking what was mising.
Fandom had a way of finding what it needed, and what it needed - what the mail needed, the machine needed, even the building itself needed - was a Postmaster.
* * *
Very, very far away (and also, dimensionally speaking, just next door), in another post office in another place and time, Moist von Lipwig was annoyed. Bored and annoyed, which was never a good combination in anyone, and was even less so in him.
"Why am I investigating this thing?" The Sorting Engine was magic; that meant it should be the University's problem, strictly speaking. Except that he'd done such a good job convincing everybody in the Post Office he was the answer to their problems that he was now stuck being the answer to everybody's problem.
"Because You Are The Postmaster, Mr Lipwig," Gladys intoned, in her deep voice.
Or in other words, he was the Postmaster. "Yes, I know. It was a rhetorical question." The dull hum emanating from the machine seemed to bypass the ears entirely and burrow deep into bones and teeth, making his head ache. "How long has it been doing this?"
Gladys paused, then said, "Two Days, Nine Hours, Thirty Six Minutes And Thirteen Seconds. Fourteen Seconds. Fifteen Seconds. Sixt--"
"Yes, that's fine. Thank you." Golems could be so distressingly literal, and Gladys was by the far the worst of them. "All right. My investigations have determined that it's doing something it didn't used to do." Since what it used to do, in addition to not hum, was alter anyone foolish enough to touch it into a rather macabre wall finish, Moist was staying well back. "What do they expect me to do about it?"
"Fix It, Mr Lipwig."
Before Moist could reply, there was a snapping whine, the glow widened and brightened, engulfing them, and they were sucked into the hopper and dragged elsewhere.
Luckily for Moist, Gladys, and the state of the walls, it wasn't actually their sorting engine into which they disappeared.
The wizards had said the Sorting Engine existed in plenty of other presents. They'd used complicated words like quantum, multi-dimensional, and portal, but what it boiled down to was that there was more than one. Scattered throughout the dimensions, Sorting Engines hummed and glowed and twisted universal constants in response to the needs of the mail.
The Ankh-Morpork Sorting Engine was merely acting as a conduit for another, one which, thankfully, had not been built by Bloody Stupid Johnson. Whoever had built the Sorting Engine currently residing behind a large and unwieldy stacks of mail in the Fandom Post Office had been competent enough that Moist and Gladys arrived bruised, shaken, slightly nauseous and thoroughly confused, but in one piece.
Moist was all of those, at least; Gladys lumbered to her feet - meeting the 'in one piece' criterion, but apparently unaffected by the rest - and ploughed through the pile of mail, turning to lift Moist to his feet. "We Do Not Appear To Be In Ankh-Morpork Any Longer."
"Oh, don't we? I'd never have guessed," he snapped as Gladys set him down. "Where we appear to be is in another damn post office." He resisted the temptation to kick the Sorting Engine. He was smart enough not to push his luck when it came to magical machines with a reputation for turning people inside out and sideways. Especially when against all probability it had just failed to do so.
"Yes, Mr Lipwig."
Teach him to admit he was bored. The universe had a funny way of dealing with comments like that. "All right, let's see where we are." The drifts of letters he pushed gently to one side, remembering the power of mail and the voices of the undelivered. "There must be an office around here somewhere."
There was an office, at the top of a winding staircase, abandoned and dusty. Whoever had occupied it last had left not a trace of themselves behind. Moist spent several hours pouring over log books, journals, a banking ledger, and piles of random documents. It was a post office all right, though thankfully one without quite the number of problems as the last one he'd been landed with. It had a healthy bank balance, even if some of the information made no sense, and that was a good start.
Moist wondered briefly how he was going to get back to Ankh-Morpork. The place he was now was somewhere he'd never heard of - and there weren't many places Moist had never heard of. His finely honed skills had led him to acquire a brief geographical sketch of every place a person with money and hope could come from, and Fandom didn't appear anywhere in the picture.
He'd be prepared to accept he could have missed somewhere, could have overlooked a small and inconsequential island, except for one thing: the days were wrong. There weren't enough them, for a start. Seven instead of eight, and that was simply ridiculous, but if the information in front of him was to be believed, it was the truth.
"You're right, Gladys," he said as he lifted his aching head to stare at the golem. "We're not in Ankh-Morpork anymore."
[OOC1: Establishy only; no interaction possible. OOC2: As promised, info post on Moist is here, info on the Post Office is here OOC3: Troopers modded with permission. OOC4: THANK YOU to everyone who played with the 'no mail' thing, and especially to those who went and hassled the poor long-suffering Mayor.]