Part XXII: The Search For Winter

I awake in the Black Forest to find the small pleasant pond before me transformed into some Stonehenge type, possibly sacrificial, alter. I'm glad I woke up when I did. What the hell were they planning for me. We should get out of here, Torchy.

Trudging up the hill, we find more yuppie homes. This one appears to have a messy pentagram scrawled on a wall on the second floor. Might be in blood. I think it's time for a little B & E.

No breaking and entering needed. The door is unlocked and it announces my presence with a whisper. It's a little unnerving. For some reason, I think I might have preferred a shout instead.

A well stocked, unusable liquor stash is always a must in any Second Life yuppie domicile.

We're in his/hers/their office and I must say, I think they have questionable taste in art. Or they're just horn-dogs.

Maybe I'm being too hard on this person, Torchy. At least they left their crib open to vagabonds like myself. Most people with land and a house have their forcefields raised at all times.

Maybe I should pray to Satan a little for forgiveness in my judgmental ways. Maybe he can even throw in an idea for a new quest we can undertake.

I must assume the pentagram is another piece of art on the wall and not a shrine of any sort, because I don't get a peep out of Satan. Maybe it's better that way. I hear he's kind of a dick. This still leaves us without a mission, though. And something about SL has been bugging me lately, but I have yet to pin it down...

...until now. I suddenly realize what's been missing. Weather! I've been so distracted by the scenery and the citizens to realize it. There's never any weather here. It's always been balmy and a cool 72 degrees (I'm guessing) in almost every place I've been. No rain, no snow...nothing. Torchy, we got to find ourselves some weather. And since it's 90 degrees in real life right now, I'm itching for some snow.

I crunch "snow" into my guide. It took a while to find something worthwhile. A lot of sites just throw a bunch of words, like snow, in their descriptions just so they'll pop up in your search. Most I found had nothing to do with snow and were just using a sleazy tactic in a vain attempt to get you to go there. Assholes.

I eventually found a ski resort. You can't have skiing without snow, right? Torchy and I arrive to the place and are greeted by two guys sitting at the bar. No snow was in the near vicinity.

One guy at the bar said, "Hello, Huygens." I replied, "Yo." The other asked, "Is this your first visit here?" I replied, "Word."

The first one asks, "What's with the torch?" I asked him, "What's with not having a torch?"

He didn't respond so I continued, "This is Torchy, my pal. In another quest I might have asked you two gentlemen to fight, but I'm just here looking for some snow."

The other responds, "OK? Good luck with that then." "Thanks," I replied and walked away. But before I was out of earshot, I heard the first one say to the other, "That was a weirdo."

Looking at my map, I could see snow due east of the main lodge. I decided to take the easy way and flew up to get a good view of the land. This virtual world still surprises me sometimes. The view is quite majestic and lovely.

As I get closer to the mountains, I find the snow I had been seeking and cabins nestled along the ridges. Almost all of them have their forcefields up. Paranoid mountain folk, there here be.

They are all empty of their residents, except one. I fly on down to see if they feel like a chatting about squirrels or something. Unfortunately this person has the shields up and I am prevented from knocking on the door.

So I do the next best thing. I hover up to the forcefield and attempt to talk them into lowering it. I know they can hear me from this distance. I say, "Helloooo. Anybody home?"

Nothing. I could see the person. He was on the second floor. He was looking at me too. I said, "Don't be scared. I thought maybe we could talk about squirrels." Nothing again. Maybe being up here all alone has degraded his social skills. Maybe his "shining" was telling him not to trust me.

"Are you a hermit?" I asked. Still nothing. I had better things to do than try to pry this recluse out of his shell. I said, "I'll see ya later. I just thought you might want to chat. Go ahead and continue living your caged lie, you stupid git."

Nothing. Insults, the last recourse, could not even get anything out of him. I continued flying up the mountain and left lonely-boy to do whatever he does alone.

Yay! I made it to the top. I guess I could have taken the ski lift. Oh well.

The snow is beautiful when illuminated by Torchy. He says no need to thank him. He does what he does.

I meander around the peak awhile. There's a swank looking lodge at the very top, but of course it's blocked by forcefields.

With this mission complete, I have little else to do up here. I should have picked up a free set of skis somewhere. What the hell, let's see if we can ski down the mountain anyway. With no shoes on, I bet my feet will be slick in the snow. That is, if anyone bothered to script those kind of aesthetic codes into this reality. I doubt it. More likely the programmers are still working on trying to get boobs to look just right or something.

I step over the edge and start my decent. As far as I have seen, there is no running in Second Life. There is either walking, driving something or flying. And walking down such a steep incline, I am going so fast that it ends up looking like I'm goose-stepping down the mountain.

I trip over a waterfall and free fall for a bit.

Bouncing of boulders of various sizes, I fall with a thud in front of a couple of skiers at the bottom. I get up and exclaim, "Shit yeah, that was fun!"

One laughs and the other says, "Smooth."

I respond with, "They call me......Ex-Lax."

So with not much left to to, I hobble over the the main lodge and nurse my battered bones with a fireside seat and a pint of Guinness in hopes of trading stories with other ski extremist like myself. No one seems interested, so I enjoy the solitude like my hermit friend up on the mountain.

We should get going soon. There's more weather out there to find, Torchy.

He suggests we find some that's less bruising next time...

...