Virtual Solstice Party -- Six Months Late
By Daphne Xu
Finally, thought Daphne as she saw the sign over the
not-so-friendly-looking door, this was it -- Dante's Tavern.
She hoped she wasn't too late for the Virtual Solstice Party.
What a heck of a trial it was getting here.
She gasped in terror and tribulation as the door opened. . .
* * * * * *
What were the directions again? Daphne wondered. Again, she
kicked herself for not having written them down, trusting them
instead to her memory. Oh yes, she remembered now. "Take a
left at perdition and follow the signs."
Well, first she had to find Perdition. That was quite
troublesome, because she didn't believe in the existence of
Perdition. Furthermore, any direction from one point on the
earth led to another point on the earth, or in the earth, or
above the earth. No way led to Hell. That left her in quite a
pickle.
Finally, at long last, Daphne took the plunge -- off the top of
one of the twin towers at the World Trade Center during the
middle of the night. She screamed in panic, as she realized
the irrevocability of what she'd just done.
The next thing Daphne saw was a deep sign in deep blue
letters, flashing the word, "Perdition!" Yes! she thought to
herself. She made it this far! Now, all she had to do was
turn right and follow the signs, and she'd be there.
She followed the tunnel, looking for the first sign. After
walking for something like half an hour without seeing anything
resembling a sign, she had the feeling that something was very
wrong indeed.
A tentacle sprung out from the shadows and wrapped around her
waist, pressing her arms tight against her body, and pulled her
back against the slimiest thing she'd ever felt in her life --
ewwwwwwww! Another tentacle wrapped around her ankles, and a
third slithered up her skirt, between her legs, along one inner
thigh, reaching and lightly touching her Vertex through her
undergarments.
Daphne shrieked at the invasion. She slammed her legs
together, and jerked them up and out of the tentacle's grip.
She pressed her arms back against the slimy whatever-it-was,
flipped over backwards, breaking out of the other tentacle
still holding her arms and upper body, and landed on top of the
monster. She stomped on the monster a couple times, then ran
out through a momentary opening between the tentacles. The
monster tried coming after her, but she kicked away any
tentacle that approached her.
Finally, the monster scampered off. How utterly ghastly! she
thought. Nobody was ever going to touch her like that and get
away with it!
She looked down and was relieved that her dress-suit wasn't
damaged much from the encounter. She was wearing olive-green
jacket, vest, and skirt extending half-way down to her knees.
Underneath, she wore white turtle-neck blouse, bra, panties,
and held up by a garter bra. Come to think of it,
she thought, her clothes looked as impeccable as in the
business meeting this afternoon before that dive down to
Perdition. How could that be?
Daphne turned and walked the way she had come, or so she
thought. She wanted to return to Perdition, because she
thought she might have taken a wrong turn. As she walked, she
wondered how she'd managed to escape the monster. And what
kind of monster was it, a giant octopus? She must have used a
faint echo of memory of the Taekwondo classes she'd taken,
before being told once that Taekwondo was not ladylike.
Or was it something from the she used to watch?
She walked along, looking neither to the right nor to the left,
when she heard a buzzing sound growing rapidly in intensity.
She barely saw a large flying insect, before it zapped under
her skirt and stung her Vertex. Ouch! She found herself
dancing about, trying to avoid the queer tickling aftermath of
the sting. It seemed like the trees around her were dancing as
well, and she thought she could hear music and possibly someone
singing -- a girl's voice, perhaps?
Eventually, she was able to stop. The trees and singing
stopped as well. She was now able to think. She did indeed
recognize that music; it was the Jitter Bug song that did not
make the final version of "The Wizard of Oz," where Jitter Bugs
swooped down on the heroes and stung them and made them dance
until they dropped. But there was no way in Hell that the big
boys at MGM in the late '30s would all the Jitterbugs to sting
them -- ugh! -- down there. Could this Jitter Bug not have
stung her somewhere else?
And how did those trees get here anyway? Last she'd seen
before, she was walking through a very warm tunnel in the
ground. Well, that didn't matter. She had to get back to
Perdition.
She kept getting loster and loster, the farther she went. She
encountered numerous other incidents. Some were merely
trifling, whereas others were life-threatening. At one time, a
troll came at her armed with a -- what? A natural appendage,
normally not used for fighting, it looked like. It was long
and thin, although it would have been rather for her. It
took but one kick on the weapon to send the troll away
screaming in pain. This was obviously one of the trifling
ones. Another time, she found herself armed with armor, and
became an enemy fighter in one of the Quest for Glory games.
She had to fight the would-be hero, and this became one of the
games where the player had to restore a saved game. This was
also one of the trifling ones.
At one time, she found herself on the edge of a cliff, and she
flung her arms out in a flurry to avoid toppling over.
Hundreds of yards below was a sea of lava, with islands of rock
eventually melting away, and new islands bursting up through
the lava. What was this, she wondered to herself; it looked
very familiar. Has she found herself in a scene from Fantasia?
Or was this "Breathtaking View" from the relic computer game
Adventure?
More to the point, how was she going to get out now? Now, if
this were Adventure, there would be an exit behind her leading
to some other drastic incident. She was sick and tired of them
all. Remembering how she'd arrived in this place the first
time, she turned her mind away and dove down into the lava.
She found herself at Perdition again. Now, she remembered and
turned *left*. The signs were readily visible, and she
followed them to an unattractive building with "Dante's Tavern"
on a sign.
* * * * * *
"Yes?" came an ominous voice.
"I-I've been informed that a winter party i-is to b-be held
here," stammered Daphne.
"Yes, the party was here, but you are late -- six months late,
in fact." Daphne's eyes widened in surprise. "However, you
are just in time for the --" he paused. A fanfare of
octo-contrabass clarinets sounded, and he continued:
"Summer Virtual Solstice Party!"
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