Eh! Where Did My Pen... Pen... Go!?!

Book 1.5: Amaranthe Guild – Side Stories

Koko's Tale

The Puppet Asylum (Part 5A)

“Ugh, I count wrong... again. I meant Ate... not Tree... You only got Tree more before I count Tent and come up to punish you!...”

:giggles: She's back... she's back... And it looks like she found what she was looking for... :giggles:

Yes! Judging by their utterings, it sounds like I made it back in time.

Demora straightened her slumping body to sit up in the lotus position, her back once again touching the cool surface of the large room's concrete wall. Now to find some doll heads for the spell.

“But first, let's get all this hair out of my eyes so I can see,” She muttered as she brushed her long wild hair away from her face with both hands, taking note of the new ombre colors which were blends of purplish-lavenders and soft strawberry pinks; Her silky soft hair going from darker shades near the roots to lighter shades at the tips.

With her view now cleared, she looked to her sides; Her lips curved upwards as she spotted several doll heads attached to broken bodies to her left.

:gigglings: Such a wicked teasing smile upon her cute strawberry lips... Makes us think she found more than what she was looking for. :gigglings:

“Nine... Come down now little bunny dollie girl or I'll count to end...”

:giggles: Ooh, I think you're right. Looks like we're in for a really good show... what fun. :giggles:

Ignoring the giggling voices, Demora leaned over, grabbed the pair of broken dolls by their hair, and pulled them to her side as they scraped against the wide wooden shelf she sat upon.

“Tent... I now comin... Huh. What dat noise? What you doing little bunny dollie girl? Tell me now befor...”

Demora tuned Kresh out, lifted the broken purple-haired doll onto her lap, and then proceeded to pull off its head.

The head came off with a light POP!

Yes! I now have the vessel needed for the Vodaru Espirin Dollhead spell. Time to summon the spirit needed for possession. And that spirit should be Kilijoy.

“Okay, here goes... first time the c-ch-arm...” Demora stuttered as the large wooden shelf she sat upon shook. She heard grunting coming from below followed by a string of unintelligible grumblings.

Placing the doll head in her lap, Demora grabbed hold of the shelf with both hands and scooted forward to peek her head over the edge causing her fluffy bunny ears to flop downwards, along with strands of her hair.

Oh Great! He's climbing up. That big oaf is actually climbing up. He's going to bring these large shelves crashing down on top of himself... which I wouldn't mind if not for the huge ruckus it'll make.

Hmm... I need to get him to stop and buy myself some time so I should...

Demora quickly scooted back, gathered some of the nearby broken dolls from her right, and then drop them over the edge atop Kresh's head.

Psh... Psh... Psh... Several of the doll parts pelted Kresh's soft plushie head and bounced off falling to the floor with a clatter. Kresh turned his head to glare above and growled, “Hey! What you doing little bunny dollie girl? Why you throw stuff on my head? Bad bunn...”

“Huh? I'm innocent! I'm not throwing anything! Why is Kresh blaming me when it's your fault? You're the bad perso... Uhm... puppet here; Trying to climb up even though you're so big and heavy. Everything is falling because your climbing is making the shelves shake!”

“B-but Kresh only climbing up becuz you no come down for punishment so it's no my fault. It your fault. So come down now or I come up an git you.”

Kresh waited for a moment, lifted his hand onto the next shelf, then began to pull himself up again; The shelving shook causing more doll parts to rain down (with a little help from Demora).

“AAAHHH! Okay, okay. Don't come up anymore or everything is going to crash down on top of us! I'll come down... I'll come down...”

“Reelly? You no lyin to Kresh? Come down now to proov you tellin true...”

“I-I can't. The shelves will shake too much if I try to climb down and you're still on it. You climb down first and I'll follow.”

Kresh tilted his head, furrowed his brows for a moment, and then decided, “Okay. You make cents so Kresh go down first. Den you follow.”

The shelves shook as Kresh climbed down; Reaching the near bottom shelf, he hopped off landing on the floor with a thump, happy that the little bunny dollie girl was finally going to come down to receive her punishment.

He waited and waited but saw no sign of her coming down. But he could hear strange soft words being sung from above.

“Why little bunny girl singin wen you should be coming down?”

Demora neither heard nor cared what Kresh had to say. Her focus was directed inward where she felt a stirring near her heart followed by tingling as the energy that had gathered in her chest began to climb up to her shoulder.

Recalling that the spell required her guidance, Demora sent her thoughts to the ball of energy that was now in her shoulder. Following her orders, the energy ball began scuttling down her right arm coming to a crawl into her open hand which she held above the doll head sitting in her left hand.

The energy then began to pulse and spin as Demora's fingertips began to prickle; A half breath after, Demora softly gasped as she watched thick threads of silvery lavender and pink energy shoot out from all five fingertips landing on the doll head.

:giggles: Yay! She's doing it... doing it. Now that she's connected to the vessel she simply needs to call forth a willing spirit. :giggles:

Nodding unconsciously, Demora closed her eyes and called out in her mind, [“Kilijoy... Kilijoy! I summon thee to come play with me... come play with me... come play with me.”]

Loud joyful laughter immediately echoed in her head.

Demora shivered as something cold rushed out from her mind; It flowed down into her right arm where it then slid down into her hand and paused for a brief moment, [“Ready or not, here I come!”]

Demora's fingertips all came together, uniting the 5 threads into a strong Nethryn Web Tether; A ghostly light flashed as a bird beaked orb burst free from the confines of her body, entering the world through her hand.

Within her head she heard children cheering as the Kilijoy orb flew down the silky tether, landing within the doll head.

The doll head's eyes fluttered open; Kilijoy Dollhead rose up into the air as the ethereal tether attached to the top of her head slid to the back.

Grinning, her fair doll face began to stretch, morphing into a bird-like beak as Demora removed the Nethryn Web Tether from the fingertips of her hand and attached it to her back, near her upper shoulder blade.

The tether began to thrum as it quickly formed a connection with her trinity core causing a portion of her oryn energy pool to become sectioned off; The energy within this partitioned section became dedicated for the sole use of the Kilijoy Dollhead.

Demora didn't panic as this occurred. The spell had informed her that this was necessary in order for her summoned Voden Dollheads to get 'fuel' to function.

The greater the number of Voden Dollheads summoned, the greater the section of the oryn pool cordoned off.

Oh, what a nice surprise! I thought this spell was going to take around half of my oryn pool to work but it feels far less... like just around a quarter.

I guess I must have a real good affinity with this type of magic.

Transformation complete, Kilijoy released a fog-like aura; Purplish-pink smoke emanated out from where the neck should have been attached making it appear as if the Kilijoy Dollhead was floating atop a pretty cloud; Overjoyed, Kilijoy grinned widely as she circled Demora.

“Yay! You did it, Dea!”

“Shh! He might hear you and ruin the surprise.” Demora chided in a whisper.

“Little bunny dollie girl why you no answer me?” Kresh asked, taking a step towards the large wall of shelves.

“What? Answer you... were you asking me something?” Demora asked in earnest since she had tuned him out during the summoning.

“Yes. I ask why you singin when you should be comin down!?!” Kresh grumbled, stomping the ground.

“Oh that... Uhm... Oh I know, I was just singing to myself because I like to sing to myself when I'm scared.”

Laughter slipped out of Kilijoy's beak at her answer as she mouthed, (“No way is he going to fall for that excuse... right?”). Demora responded by raising her finger over her smirking lips, signaling for her to hush.

“Scared? Why you scared?”

Kilijoy wore a 'pokan' face as Demora's smirk bloomed into a 'see I told you so' smile. “Because you made everything shake with your climbing down. I thought these big shelves were going to fall and hurt us.”

“Oh. No need be scared no more. I no climbin now so you can come down.”

“O-okay. Just give me some time to... to gather all my things so I can bring them down with me.”

“Time... how much time?”

“Not much time. Just count to ten-t and I'll be ready to climb down... okay?”

“Okay, but hurry. Almost time to feed Kreepers. They get mad when no git food on time.”

“Ah, I wouldn't want that... whatever they are. I'll work fast, you count.”

“Will start now. One...” Standing near the metal cart, Kresh began to count once more.

“Ahahaha You weren't kidding. He isn't very bright now is he?”

“Shhh Kilijoy, he might hear you and I'm not ready to start fighting yet.”

“Why not? We can take him. He may be strong but he looks slow... in more ways than one. Plus, he's ground bound... he can't fly like me or spiderwalk like you.”

“Those are all very good points but it looks like I have more than enough energy to summon another Voden Dollhead. This means Cylem can join our little party so it'll be three against one!” Demora happily explained.

“Ooh, she'll love that. Okay, let's go with your plan then. The more, the merrier!”

Demora grabbed hold of the second doll head, popped off its head, and tossed the broken body aside.

A still counting Kresh heard singing coming from above again and called out, “Four... Don't be scared little bunny dollie girl. Kresh no shake shelves. Kresh wait for countin ends...”

By the time Kresh reached “Tent!” an odd little trio atop the big storage shelves had just finished whispering amongst each other, finalizing their plan of attack.

“Kresh finish countin. Little bunny dollie girl must come down now for punishment. Proov you no lyin to me.”

“Okay Kresh, here I come. AAIIIEE! CATCH ME!” Demora shouted.

Kresh looked up to see a shadowy body wrapped in a thin layer of smoke falling down towards the ground. Worried about what the great fall would do to the little bunny dollie girl, he rushed forward with his hands up and caught her.

Bringing his hands down, he got a good look at what he had just caught.

A bird beaked dollie head was attached to the body of one of the discarded dolls. There were tendrils of pretty smoke leaking out of the seams of the loosely connected neck and mismatched limbs.

“Huh, what this? You no little bunny dollie girl. Who you little birdie dollie girl?”

Turning her head to look at Kresh, the birdie dollie grinned. “Hello, Kresh! I'm Dea's good friend...”

“Dia? Whose Dia little birdie dollie girl? And why you smokin? You should stop becuz doctors say smokin bad for you.” Kresh rumbled, bringing Kilijoy closer to his face as if that would help him to better understand what she had to say.

“Oh, that's right, you don't know her name. It's De-ah, not Dia, okay. Dea is the nickname that little bunny dollie girl's friends use to call her. And since I'm her friend, Kilijoy, I get to call her by her nickname.

Anyways, Dea sent me down here to give you a big surpri...”

“What? Why little bunny dollie girl no tell Kresh her niks name before? Kresh friend too... isn't me?...”

Ah, he looks so sad now. Maybe we shouldn't give him that big surprise. Maybe we should just talk our way out of here, what with him being so dumb and... Kilijoy began having second thoughts about their plan but then she heard his next words...

“If Kresh not friend of her... then Kresh punish her harder to make her friend!” Kresh grumbled as his brows furrowed and his grip on Kilijoy's dollie body tightened, crushing one of the legs and arms.

Ignoring the body breaking apart in his hands, he looked up and shouted, “Little bunny dollie girl! You come down now so Kresh can punish you into being friends! No more countin!”

Ya, nevermind... let's punish the stuffings out of this big oaf! A glint of red light flashed across Kilijoy's eyes as the pretty smoke spilling out from underneath her doll head changed colors to a noxious jaundiced bruised color.

Kresh stomped forward, releasing the now broken doll in his big hands to grab onto the shelves before him, and gave it a hard shake causing many dolls and parts to come tumbling down onto the ground.

:gigglings: Finally, the dramedy part of the show is over. Time for the fight club part to begin... :gigglings:

Storymask

Coming up next: Team Demora vs Orderly Kresh! in The Puppet Asylum (Part 5B). (Special Note: Next 2 parts have been written so both parts will be released tomorrow after I give them a reread and Grammarly check.)

Side Notes: Well, last week was very a busy week. I spent last Sunday to Tuesday communicating with Amazon to get them to pull down a kindle book named Micah's Quest because I received a message from the Admin of Royal Road informing me that they had copy and pasted my story into that Kindle Book.

The Admin discovered this thanks to the LitRPG Podcaster, Ramon Mejia ( https://litrpgpodcast.com/litrpg-podcast-241 ). He listed my story as one of nine web novels that had been plagiarized (copy and paste thefts) and turned into Kindle Books.

Apparently, this person (or group of persons) copy and pasted my web novel into a Kindle Book; I clicked on the link provided by the message and immediately recognized the book summary as my own so I then downloaded the free sample chapters and confirmed it was my story.

The only difference was s/he changed Michael/Wylla Wylden to Micah/Wylia Wylden. And the book title to Micah's Quest. S/he even used an image (probably stolen) of a guy in armor holding a bluish-white glowing magic sword for the cover. ( See https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55038005-micah-s-quest if you'd like to see the cover image the book thief used.)

So I reported the book for copyright infringement, wrote a review letting potential buyers know that the book was plagiarized and could be read for free online, and posted a review as such on Goodreads as well.

The person had published the book on Aug 19, 2020. Amazon pulled it down on Wednesday. The good news is that it was discovered fast enough so that the book thief received no income from book sales and lost the money spent to publish it.

Side Note Two: After taking care of the Amazon issue I got back to writing Koko's story by first revising chapters 1 to 4 (biggest changes to chapters 1 and 2). There were things about Koko that were in my head and notes that I failed to put into her short story so I went back and added the following:

1. I started Koko's short story with her having a conversation with voices of friends only she could hear and see in her head. 2. I gave huge hints as to who the Patient is that escaped the Asylum in chapter two. 3. I added a Kresh reference in chapter two. 4. I reworded paragraphs/sentences that felt a bit clunky to give the story better flow. 5. Small changes here and there.

This process took longer than I thought it would because I failed to realize just how long some of those chapters had become. As such, I'm going back to the 2-3 thousand word chapters from here on out. Any chapters that grow longer will be chopped in half but I'll try to do it in a way to minimize cliffhangers.

Side Notes Three: My niece has sent me some wonderful Illustrations: The first is of Big Sister Cara (Abrynth Name: Celestina Iona Star'uun) in her 'hero' outfit. And the second is of the first form of her awesome weapon named: Star'uun. I'll be posting the colored versions once Big Sister Cara's short story begins (It's the next one I want to write).

*Also, I received a request for Koko's illustration so I'll be passing that request on down to my niece but with college starting for her it'll take some time before she'll be able to