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Chapter Nineteen — The Pursuit of Reason
Chapter Nineteen — The Pursuit of Reason Pam looked at the two pamphlets on the table. On the left was one of the pamphlets she existed to give out. It had the cafe’s logo on it, and the address. It was printed at the sign shop by the nice old mortal who named Pam Pam.On the right was another pamphlet. This one was one of those that she had made. It was called the Not Today pamphlet, and she had made several hundred of them. Each one was a little different, a little... better.Not always. Sometimes she did something wrong, sometimes, in her pursuit of a better pamphlet, she didn’t quite get it all right. The mistakes were lessons though, lessons on how to place the words, where to put the images, how to crease and fold the pamphlet.There was a lot more to it then she had ever considered.It was, she judged, a good goal to have in life: to learn how to make the perfect pamphlet.Hers weren’t.Her pamphlet was still a little uneven, and her handwriting a bit scratchy. The crayons she used weren’t as precise as the stamped ink on the old man’s pamphlets, and hers lacked a certain uniformity to them. When she stacked hers, they didn’t all feel the same.That was okay.Pam felt happy that she was getting better, and when she shared her pamphlets, the ones she made, it made her feel... special. Nervous, but special.The old mister made pamphlets for a living. He had said so himself. Maybe she could make pamphlets to keep on living too?She had made a lot of Not Today pamphlets, enough to last her a while. A good, proper (if crooked) stack of them. Now she was considering making another sort of pamphlet.“Hey, you.”Pam looked up and found that Dreamer was staring at her. “Hi,” she said.“Hi,” Dreamer said. “I should probably get rid of you, because we don’t need you anymore.”“Oh,” Pam said.That made sense. She was here to hand out pamphlets, but now that the cafe had a steady stream of customers-in part (she hoped) because of her efforts-they really didn’t need her there anymore.She could accept it. It would be the right thing to do. Dreamer would yoink her back into the big body, and Pam would be nommed away.Maybe if she was lucky some small part of her would remain, become one with the bigger whole that was Dreamer.She doubted it.Her speck, her existence, was a tiny thing.“I don’t want to,” Pam said.Dreamer blinked. “Yeah well, that doesn’t matter.”“I can still help,” Pam said.Dreamer frowned. “But we don’t need you anymore.”Pam opened and closed her mouth. Reality was warping, and she knew that she was about to end. “I can make things that you can’t,” she said.Dreamer paused. “What?”“I can make things that you can’t,” Pam said. She grabbed a Not Today pamphlet and gave it to Dreamer. There was that familiar jolt of happy as Dreamer took the pamphlet, but it was a small, distant thing. “That’s something I made. I can make others.”If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.“This is weird,” Dreamer said.“I... I know,” Pam said. Her pamphlets were weird. They weren’t as good as other pamphlets. And despite how happy she was to see someone taking something she made, it still made tentacles wiggle in her stomach to have someone see something she made.Pam hesitated, then she lied, lied to herself and to Dreamer.“It’s a very good pamphlet. It has good information and, ah, visual design. And it’s very nice. I think that people would be very impressed seeing it.”“Yeah, okay?” Dreamer asked.Dreamer... didn’t get it. She wasn’t Pam. Pam had been Dreamer once, she knew how Dreamer thought, and Dreamer didn’t care about pamphlets. It was why Pam was made.It felt like... like she was a pamphlet in the hands of someone who didn’t care, and now she was being torn apart, ripped into little shreds.She was made because people didn’t care about the thing she was made to do. No one would ever understand her purpose.But, that wasn’t true. There was the old man.There was Pam.“I can make new kinds of pamphlets,” Pam said. “All sorts. I can make them about anything.”“Yeah, but I don’t need them,” Dreamer said. She was confused.Maybe that was good. Pam was often confused too. “I... I can make pamphlets about good things. About food, and about hugs and pats and Abigail. I can make them so good that when people read them, they’ll learn about how good those things are.”Dreamer hesitated. “That would be good.”“Yes!” Pam cheered. “Yes, I can make them so good that everyone that reads them will know how good the things are.”Dreamer looked at Pam’s Not Today pamphlet, the one she’d been given. It was the latest one, with her best ideas, her greatest efforts.“Okay,” Dreamer said.“Okay,” Pam said. She smiled.A new purpose. Sort of. She was still Pam the pamphlet clone, but she would continue to be, and she would make the best pamphlet that ever was.And in doing so... maybe she’d find a purpose behind her purpose. Maybe that would be enough for her to be happy, even if she might be nommed one day.Pam gathered her pamphlets with a big smile on and rushed to the door and then outside. She had to visit the old man again. He told her how he made his pamphlets, but maybe she could learn more.At the entrance she almost bumped into Charlotte, who was just walking in.“Oh, hey, it’s you,” Charlotte said. She smiled, then frowned. “Why are you crying?”Pam tried to speak, then had to sniff in hard to clear her nose. Talking was so much worse than just giving people a pamphlet, she found. “I... I was almost gone, but I’m here instead. I have a purpose.”“That’s wonderful.” Charlotte said. She squatted down so that her eyes were level with Pam’s. “Are you feeling okay?”Pam considered it. “I think so.”“Good, good,” Charlotte said. She raised her arms. “Come on, just a quick hug to make sure.”Pam discovered something else. She really enjoyed hugs.It was a very strange day.
Chapter Twenty — Magical Girls
Chapter Twenty — Magical Girls Crossover: The Agartha Loop, by RavensDagger
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“Yeah, but there’s just something about older women, you know, they have this...” Cassy paused mid-sentence, which was strange. She could really get going sometimes, at least when she was on a topic she cared about.Amber looked to her blue-blonde haired friend, then looked around. It didn’t take much to figure out why Cassy was acting strangely.They weren’t in the Academy anymore.They might have been in Norumbega. The decor-part rustic, part modern-would fit right in with some of the shops next to the portal back to Earth. She hadn’t ever heard of a cat-themed cafe, but then she didn’t spend that much time outside of the Academy.“Uh,” Jade said as she stepped up behind her.All three of them-Amber, Cassy, and Jade, turned to the fourth member of their group.Morgan, for her part, was frowning as she took in the room. “We were teleported,” she said.“Wow,” Cassy said. “I’m so glad that you’re the first person I turned to, because I would never have guessed. It’s almost like I was not in the place I was walking to. I didn’t think I could find that out just by looking around and noticing the obvious.”“Don’t be rude, Cassy,” Amber said. Though the statement had been a little obvious.Morgan sidestepped around Jade and Amber and walked up in the lead. “It could be a magical pulling a trick on us.”“Right,” Amber said. A trap, by those weird magicals that had tried to kill her a few times already. She felt herself tensing, ready to act. She wished that she was in her magical girl costume already, but she'd have to figure things out without the benefit of her costume.“I can’t sense anything too strange,” Morgan said. “Then again, my senses are hardly the sharpest. Amber, Jade, do you feel anything?”Amber shook her head, and Jade muttered a quiet ‘no’ next to her.“Hey, you’re not going to ask me?” Cassy asked.Morgan rolled her eyes. “Cassy, do you sense any differences in this place’s gravity?”Cassy crossed her arms. “As a matter of fact, I do.”Now they all turned to stare at Cassy, who had a distinct and powerfully smug look on. “Seriously?” Amber asked.“Yeah, this place is lighter.”“Lighter?” Morgan asked.“There’s less... gravity stuff,” Cassy added.“Could you be any less accurate?” Morgan added.Cassy glared right back. “Look, no one knows how gravity works, alright? Just because I can mess with it doesn’t mean I get it. All the sciency books I looked into just throw big meaningless words around because sciency sorts are too cowardly to admit that they don’t have the faintest clue. But I’m telling you that the gravity here is lighter.”“Uh, hello!”The four members of team Svallin looked up to find a girl just a year or two older than them, with a nice apron on, and a nervous smile. “Welcome to Dreamer’s cafe, ah, are you... not from around here?”“We’re not,” Amber confirmed.“That happens a lot, I hope you don’t mind being, ah, brought over. We have a discount for people who have travelled here.” She gestured to the side where a sign hung on the wall. It had a chalk menu, and at the top, right next to some symbols that seemed to swim around like optical illusions, was some text in big letters. Realm Travellers Get a 20% Discount!This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it“What is this place?” Morgan asked.“It’s a tea shop,” the girl said. “We get a lot of people from other worlds here. Ah, once you’re done, you should be able to go back home with no problems.”The girls glanced at each other. Surprisingly, Jade was the first to speak up. “I’ll be honest, this isn’t the strangest thing I’ve heard of.”“So, what do you serve here?” Cassy asked.“Tea, cake, coffee,” the woman said.“That sounds nice?” Amber tried. “Maybe we can just sit for a moment and look at the menus?”“Of course!” the serving woman said. She grabbed four menus from a little rack and handed them over. “Pick any seat, and I’ll bring your things over in no time. Don’t worry about currency, we accept just about anything, really.”The four of them moved over to a table off to the side and sat down, then they stared at the menus for a bit. “Okay, this is seriously weird, right?” Cassy asked.“You’re asking for confirmation?” Morgan asked.“Hey, I’ve only been doing the magic stuff for a month or so, for all I know girls end up in the magic coffee shop all the time,” Cassy shot back.“If they do, it’s news to me,” Morgan said. “Should we call the school?”“I checked my phone, there’s no signal,” Jade said. “Also, if gravity really is weird, we might not be on Agartha, or on Earth.”“The Seelie, then?” Amber asked.“You think they’ll show up?” Cassy asked. She placed her menu down, a few items already highlighted.Amber shrugged. “We can try?” At the chorus of nods, she closed her eyes and focused. “Seelie, Seelie, Seelie,” she said.Nothing happened for a moment.Then there was a commotion from the back of the cafe, and a young girl’s voice called out. “Abigail! There’s a kitty cat in the kitchen! Can I eat it?”Pots and pans banged and the girl that had given them the menus ran back into what Amber presumed was the kitchen. “Let go of that! It might be dirty.”More banging, and the distinct sound of a mug breaking.“Catch it!” the girl’s voice said. “It keeps slipping out of my tentacles.”Amber and the rest of team Svallin stared wide-eyed as a disheveled Seelie burst into their part of the cafe and flew into Amber’s arms. “Protect me!” it screamed in a way that didn’t suit the Seelie’s usual calm tones at all.The waitress and a little girl in a dress rushed into the room. “Did you see a— oh, there it is ,” the waitress said.“My snack!” the girl in the dress said.Amber hugged the Seelie closer. “I’m sorry, this is, ah, our friend?”“It will consume me, as it has consumed entire worlds,” the Seelie muttered. “It is the end of all things, the waking nightmare. Her reach is eternal through time and space. Why us, why us?” It was shivering.“That’s my snack,” the girl said to Amber.“Um.”The waitress placed a hand on the smaller girl’s head. “No Dreamer, it’s their cat, though... maybe don’t let your cat into the kitchen, please?”“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Amber promised.“Wonderful! So, have you decided what to order yet” she asked, switching tracks in the way that only someone who had seen it all could manage.
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Chapter Twenty-One — Secret Pamphlet Making Technique: Long Horizontal Fold!
Chapter Twenty-One — Secret Pamphlet Making Technique: Long Horizontal Fold! Pam had a lot in her pamphlet, her metaphorical one.Dreamer wouldn’t nom her, not as long as she was useful, which meant that she had to make herself useful. That wasn’t all that simple.Today she was out on the streets, walking at a good pace through the city with her head on a swivel. She had to find someone who could help her.Last time, that had been the nice pamphlet-making man. He had given her a name, had taught her how to make pamphlets and was very nice. She liked him, and he was just a normal mortal. Then again, so was Abigail, and even Pamphlet, who had barely interacted with Abigail at all, knew that she was pretty great.So now she was thinking very hard about finding another person who could help her.The problem was that there were a lot of people in Five Peaks, a whole city’s worth of them, and she didn’t know which one would be the best to ask for help. There was Daphne, but Daphne wasn’t an expert on what Pam was looking for.Charlotte was very nice, but she was also busy, so Pam couldn’t ask her.She sighed and slowed to a stop at the next street corner. A few carriages were blocking the intersection, the people driving them screaming at each other about who had the right to turn first while their horses neighed and looked uncomfortable about the whole thing.She looked around at all the people around her. Did any of them seem nice to talk to?There was a gentle old lady, and a young woman that looked a bit like Abigail nearby with a big basket before her. A less old-lady was whispering with an equally less-old friend next to her, trading gossip about the logos on the sides of the carriages.They didn’t seem right. Instead, Pam focused on an old man next to them. He had a nice suit on, and a tubular hat that marked him as a person of some middling importance. He also had a cane, but didn’t seem to have a limp, so Pam wasn’t sure what to think about that.“Hello mister,” she said.The man looked down at her. “I don’t give money to beggars,” he said.Pam shook her head. “I’m not a beggar. I’m a pamphlet giver.”“Well, I don’t want it,” he said.“That’s okay,” Pam said. She didn’t intend to give him one anyway. She only had Not Today pamphlets on her anyway. “I have a question.”The man sighed. “Well, ask someone then.”She nodded. He was someone. “I have questions about stuff, who can I ask?”The man chuckled. “Have you tried asking the Inquisition? They’re rather fond of those.” He sniffed, then walked around her. The congestion on the road finally freed up as one carriage pulled out ahead of the other.Pam considered what he’d said. The Inquisition were those people that Dreamer had gotten some of her nicer hats from. They were the very rude people that used to meddle in Abigail’s stuff until Dreamer kindly asked them not to and threatened them with the great bapping paper of bapping.There were always a few of them spying on the cafe, on Abigail, and on her friends.Pam had even given a few of them some of her pamphlets. They had placed the pamphlet in a little baggie with some long metal tongs before running off.She glanced over to a nearby alleyway between a house and a bakery, and the Inquisitor spying on her ducked back in a hurry.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.Well, if the old man said so...Pam walked over to the alley, then into it.There were two people there, both young men in very normal clothes. They weren’t even wearing any hats. But they felt like Inquisitors. All of those Inquisitor people had meddled with a certain amount of eldritch magic, which left a stain on them that was easy to spot. “Hello Inquisitor people, I have a question,” she said.“Uh, hey there, I don’t know what you mean,” the one on the left said. He was shorter, and had boring brown hair and boring brown eyes. He smiled strangely and took a step back and away from Pam.The other man didn’t seem nearly as nervous. He was taller, with more muscles, and a mean look in his eyes. “Don’t need to be afraid, it’s just one of the thing’s clones.”“My question is who can I ask about hugs?”“Uh, we, ah, we have to go,” the shyer one said.“C’mon, look at it—it’s hardly a threat.”“You weren’t there when it broke into the headquarters and made a mess of everything.”The bigger one shook his head. “You Five Peaks people are so weak. It’s unbelievable. I’d rather die than cower in front of a bloody child.”Pam blinked. “Oh,” she said. She reached into her pretty dress, which had a few ribbons she used to tie pamphlets with, and undid one that held onto a Not Today pamphlet. “Here,” she said as she extended the pamphlet to the man.It was one of her latest ones, her very best work.He scoffed and slapped her hand to the side. Her pamphlet flipped over in the air and landed in a puddle of dirty water without even a splash. “Don’t approach me, you extra-dimensional filth.”Pam looked at her pamphlet, then backed up to the man. She felt a feeling in her tummy. It was very warm and she didn’t like it.“Hey, don’t antagonize it,” the softer guy hissed.“Oh, please, it’s not even human.” The big guy stepped up to Pam, then jabbed his forefingers onto her head. It wasn’t a pat, it was a poke, and it hurt.“Stop that,” Pam said.“Or what?” the man asked. He poked her again.The warm in her tummy turned cold.Her purpose was to make pamphlets, that’s all she was good for, but making pamphlets was an art, and all art came with advantages. She stepped forwards and shot her hand out, smacking the man in the chest with a tiny whump.“Was that meant to hurt?” the man asked. “See, it’s useless.”She pouted. She wasn’t useless. “Secret Pamphlet Making Technique: Long Horizontal Fold!”The man’s laughter cut off as his feet twisted, toes turning to point at each other. Humans were able to do that much, it wasn’t even hard. Then his knees snapped around and faced each other, with something in his hips popping.When his hips folded in half he screamed, even as his stomach bent in on itself.The scream stopped when his ribs folded forwards and touched each other, then his neck, and finally his face.It was weird, seeing a person’s face squish into itself, then twist around so that their eyes smacked into each other.The man fell to the ground, folded in the middle.Pam shook her hand out and looked to the softer man, who was breathing very hard. “I’m looking for people who are good at hugs,” she asked.
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