Gift for @Damer :
Everything is quiet at DAREBEE HQ. Neila left this morning with her pups, leading all the Bees on an expedition to some magical land where… something something about sunshine and rainbows and funny-tasting flowers. You weren’t paying all that much attention to the party plans. You helped to decorate the DAREtree. You gave as good as you got in the Snowfight. But now it’s time to get down to business. You’ve got Guides to write, videos to record. The work never ends! So, with your Grinch hat firmly affixed to your head, you get down to it.
Since you have the Hive gym all to yourself today you figure it’s the perfect time to record some videos. You’ve got the perfect Exercise Snack you want to introduce to everyone in the New Year: a one-armed, one-legged burpee with a clap push-up and a front kick. That’ll get everyone’s hearts pumping! Your Grinchly self chuckles with glee as you imagine the looks on all the Bees’ faces when they see that one.
You get your cell phone all set up in the gym and are about to press ‘record’ when you catch a glint in the corner of your eye that draws your attention back to the office. You notice the snow in your snow globe is swirling. Odd, because you hadn’t disturbed it lately.
Is there someone back there? You thought everyone had left for the party already.
“Hello?” you call out. “Olllie? Bennie?” Maybe Neila changed her mind about taking the dogs, and they’re scampering around in the office making a mess? Or…?
You’d better go check it out.
So you return to the office. But nobody is there. Not even the dogs.
The snow in your snow globe is still swirling though.
You pick up the snow globe, give it a little shake…
… and the white flakes inside turn to gold.
That was unexpected!
You peer closer at the globe and see through the falling flakes of gold familiar faces: There’s Saffity, dancing around a giant flower with Munchie and Biggie. Anek and graoumia are relaxing in lounge chairs beside a large, hexagonal pool, sipping brightly-coloured drinks through elaborately-curled straws. Maegaranthelas, Syrius, and f1shie sit at a table nearby, sharing a giant platter of garlic fries, while Sólveig and Jiolfi do burpees on the pool deck. NancyTree and Heeropotter are wandering around with cameras, photographing everything in sight. All the puppies and kitties are basking in the sun—save for Cooper who is boofing at the others for being flaked out and not playing with him, and the kitten Erebus, who is valiantly trying to catch a hold of Cooper’s wagging, feathery tail. Somehow your snow globe is showing you a scene of the DAREBEEs’ Great Getaway Gala!
You smile at everyone’s enjoyment of the party.
But then the flakes inside your snow globe change colour once again. Now they are dark and grey, and instead of falling gently are driving sideways across the scene. The Bees all start shouting and running about. The dogs and cats and kids all huddle underneath tables, trying to find shelter from the driving rain.
“I thought bad weather wasn’t supposed to happen in the Hallowed Honey Heartland,” you say.
“I thought bad weather wasn’t supposed to happen here,” echoes princess_sarena in your snow globe.
The wind picks up then, sending tables and chairs and anything else not firmly rooted to the ground flying. The garlic fries scatter on the pool deck, but they’re so cold and soggy by this point, not even Shelby is interested in them.
“It isn’t!” shouts Laura Rainbow Dragon, raising her voice to be heard above the gale force winds. “When I planned this event I was assured of favourable weather for all!”
The scene in your snow globe changes once again. Now the flecks have turned white again. But they’re round and hard. The Bees are being pelted with hail!
“The weather server must be offline,” says Laura.
“Can we reboot it?” asks Matan. “Has anyone got a key to the server room?”
“I do!” says neilarey. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out…
… an empty hand.
“Oh, no.”
The other Bees all stare at Neila. “Oh, no?” they say in unison.
Neila looks sheepish. “I must have left the key back at DAREBEE HQ.”
You look over at Neila’s normally immaculate desk. Sure enough, there’s a big, shiny, golden key sitting right on top of the pristine white desk. You pick up the key. It looks like you’re going to be attending the Great Getaway Gala after all.
#
Unfortunately, since you hadn’t planned on attending the Getaway Gala, you hadn’t made note of the instructions for how to get there. The place isn’t noted on any maps. So you’re unlikely to be able to find it on your own. You snatch up the golden server room key and head out in search of some help.
Usually people have to travel down rabbit holes, or across large bodies of water to reach magical lands, don’t they? You look around you but don’t spot any Damer-sized holes. So you decide to head to the beach.
Sure enough, when you reach the beach you find a woman standing near the shoreline dressed in a green jacket and breeches with red-and-white-striped stockings, and black shoes with ridiculous curled-up pointed toes. A golden bell dangles from the tip of each toe point. The woman’s purple hair is braided into seven stiff braids that fan out from her head like a tiara. A miniature Santa hat sits perched on the end of each braid.
Is this how elves dress these days? You’re not sure. But the woman sure doesn’t look like a local. Besides which, she’s standing in front of a giant contraption that looks like a cross between a sail boat, an eagle, and a pipe organ.
There aren’t any more likely prospects about. So you approach the woman.
“Hello!” you say. “I’m Damer from DAREBEE. I’m trying to reach my friends in the Hallowed Honey Heartland. Do you know how I might get there?”
“You’re in luck, Damer from DAREBEE! I am Captain Sassafras of the Airship Penelope. I’m headed towards the Hallowed Honey Heartland myself and am in need of hearty souls such as yourself to help crew my ship. Are you in?”
You’re about the explain that you’ve never crewed an airship the likes of Penelope before and ask what’s involved when Captain Sassafras shouts, “All aboard!”
A long line of people in all manner of strange attire suddenly materializes on the beach beside you and begins marching up the gangplank into Penelope, with Captain Sassafras at their lead.
This is not how you had envisioned your day going at all. But your DAREBEE friends need you. So you join the line and march up the plank into the airship.
Inside the ship, Captain Sassafras assigns you to a line of people who are standing side-by-side across Penelope’s deck, behind a row of wooden levers.
“Pump the organ, crew!” shouts Captain Sassafras.
The people in line with you start doing knight steps, dropping first their right knee onto a lever, then their left onto the lever beside it, then standing again, lifting first their right knee, then their left. Then they repeat the sequence in the opposite direction.
“Come on Damer from DAREBEE!” shouts Sassafras. “Do you want to get to the Hallowed Honey Heartland or don’t you?”
You start doing knight steps.
The great pipes strung across Penelope’s masts start to emit a song that sounds like a cross between a hurdy-gurdy cranking out a folk ballad and thrash metal, and Penelope rises into the sky. Is this the route everyone else took to get to the Getaway Gala? It’s certainly an odd method of travel. But at least you’re making progress.
You and the knight-stepping crew find a good rhythm, and Penelope picks up speed, sailing smoothly, if cacophonically across the sky. All is going well, until Captain Sassafras shouts, “Kraken!”
Kraken? Aren’t they sea monsters? What are they doing up here in the sky?
The crew members on either side of you
drop to their knees and continue pumping up and down from a toe squat position.
“Damer from DAREBEE!” shouts Captain Sassafras. “Get down crewman! Unless you want the kraken to eat you!”
You see them then: a great school of flying monsters, with giant many-fanged maws and undulating winged tentacles. They’re flying right at Penelope with those hideous maws wide open.
You do not want to be eaten by a flying kraken!
You get down.
Captain Sassafras, however, does not. She remains standing proud on Penelope’s top deck, swinging a great broadsword in circles above her head. You hear an almighty crack as her sword makes contact with one of the kraken, then a loud thud as the beast’s head drops to the deck in front of you. A foul-smelling green goo spills out of the creature’s skull and sluices down the deck towards you.
“Legs up, crew!” shouts Sassafras. Kraken blood will boil the flesh right off yer bones!”
The other crew in your line all lift their knees and feet off the ground, dangling from their arms in
pendant pose. (Hands are apparently immune to kraken blood.)
“Damer from DARABEE!” shouts Sassafras.
“I know, I know!” you shout back,
lifting your own legs up. You surely do not want the Kraken blood to boil your flesh!
The kraken blood has soon all washed past, and those beasts still living, having witnessed the ferocity with which Sassafras defends her ship, decide to move on to easier prey. You’re about to stand up to resume your organ-pumping work, but the Captain shouts, “Stay out of sight, crew! Low as you can! These here are treacherous skies. Let’s try to sneak through without attracting anymore attention.”
You’re on a giant flying ship that looks like a cross between a sail boat, an eagle, and a pipe organ that’s blasting out a song that sounds like a cross between a hurdy-gurdy cranking out a folk ballad and thrash metal. How on earth are you meant to sneak through anywhere without attracting attention? But when the rest of the crew in your line drop into plank positions and begin doing
plank up-downs, you decide your questions can wait.
With all the crew low to the deck doing plank up-downs, things do appear to be smooth sailing once again. But from your new vantage point you can see through the ship’s scuppers down to the ground far below. You see the Hallowed Honey Heartland growing closer and closer. But then Penelope sails right on past it!
“Captain!” you call out. “I think we just passed the Hallowed Honey Heartland!”
“Right you are, Damer from DAREBEE,” says Sassafras.
“So… why aren’t we landing?”
“Why would we land?”
“Because that’s where we’re going.”
“That’s not where I’m going,” says Sassafras.
“But you said—”
You stop yourself. Sassafras had said she was heading
towards the Hallowed Honey Heartland. She’d not said it was her final destination.
“Damer from DAREBEE, do you want to jump ship?” asks Sassafras.
“My friends are down there,” you say. “I need to get to them.”
“Parachutes are stowed at the stern,” says Sassafras, pointing the way with a thumb over her shoulder.
You start to stand up to head back to the stern.
“Stay low!”
Right. Right. Right. You
army crawl to Penelope’s stern, strap on a parachute, and jump.
After an uneventful
superman glide to the ground you land in a field of tall grasses. There’s a row of trees on one side of the field that appears to stretch back into a forest. But there are no Bees in sight. No giant flowers. No strange weather patterns. The sky for miles around is clear and blue. You could have sworn you didn’t overshoot the Hallowed Honey Heartland by that much. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary here at all.
Nothing save for the giant praying mantis dressed in a pinstripe suit sitting on a toadstool, calmly sharpening its foreleg teeth on a whetstone.
You approach the mantis.
“Hi!” you say. “I’m—”
“Damer from DAREBEE,” says the mantis. “Yes. I know.” It continues to sharpen its foreleg teeth.
“How did… how did you know my name?” DAREBEE has long been a popular website. But you had no idea even praying mantids were using it now!
The mantis looks up and stares at you through its huge, bulbous eyes. “I know many things,” it says. Then it returns to its sharpening.
“I see,” you say. “And you are…?”
“Fred,” says the praying mantis.
“Fred?”
Fred puts down the whetstone and looks up at you again, flexing its newly-sharpened forelimbs. “You got a problem with my name, Damer from DAREBEE?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Good,” says Fred. “I suppose you’ve come to ask me the way to your friends in the Hallowed Honey Heartland.” Apparently your intentions are one of the many things Fred knows.
“I have,” you admit.
“Fred nods sagely. “It’s just on the other side of that forest.”
“Thank you!” You bow to Fred the mantis, then start to head towards the treeline.
“But you’re going to have to shoot the duck first.”
“Shoot the duck?”
Fred pantomimes pulling the trigger on a long gun by squatting low on one of its hind limbs, with the other hind limb stretched out in front of it.
You look up. The cloudless sky has not a duck in sight.
“What duck?” you ask.
“That duck,” says Fred, pointing.
You look where he’s pointing and see a bright yellow rubber ducky flying low over the grass towards you. It looks cute and happy and harmless…
… until it opens its mouth and you see razor-sharp snakelike fangs top and bottom. Those fangs are heading straight for your shin.
What is it with scary-mouthed creatures in these lands? you think. Then you drop into a
pistol squat “shooting the duck.”
The duck strikes your heel and disintegrates in a puff of smoke.
“Well done,” says Fred. “Better shoot that one too.”
You do. And the next one. And the next one. And the one after that. But now the ducks are flying at you too fast. There’s no time to go up and down in between each attack. So you
hold your squat as the ducks smash against your heel, one after another, and disintegrate.
When you’ve obliterated the last of the fang-toothed rubber ducks, you put your leg down, happy for the rest.
“Best to shoot that duck too,” says Fred, pointing behind you.
You turn around, and sure enough: there is another yellow rubber ducky flying low across the grass towards you. You do some
pistol squats and another
pistol squat hold on the other side to take care of this new assault.
When the second barrage of rubber ducks has been laid to rest you look around you, wary of what might come next.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Damer from DAREBEE?” asks Fred. “Your friends are through there.” He points again towards the forest.
“Thank you, Fred,” you say. Then you set off at a trot for the forest.
“Better stay low, Damer!” Fred calls out. “Head below the top of the grasses is best if you want to keep it attached in these parts.”
You nod your thanks once again. Then you
squat walk to the tree line and through the forest.
The forest turns out to be just a narrow strip of trees. But when you emerge from the other side of it you find you are not in the Hallowed Honey Heartland at all, but on a beach. A beach on which a woman is standing near the shoreline dressed in a green jacket and breeches with red-and-white-striped stockings, and black shoes with ridiculous curled-up pointed toes with golden bells on their tips. Her purple hair is braided into seven stiff braids that fan out from her head like a tiara, with miniature Santa hats adorning the end of each braid. She’s standing in front of a giant contraption that looks like a cross between a sail boat, an eagle, and a pipe organ.
Your heart sinks. But you don’t know what else to do. So you cross the beach, calling out, “Hello again, Captain Sassafras!”
“Have we met?” asks Sasafras.
You’re confused. “I think so? I’m Damer. From DAREBEE. I was just on your ship. I’m trying to get to the Hallowed Honey Heartland.”
“You’re in luck, Damer from DAREBEE! I am Captain Sassafras of the Airship Penelope. I’m headed towards the Hallowed Honey Heartland myself and am in need of hearty souls such as yourself to help crew my ship.”
“I know,” you say. “But I’ve already tried this. You really don’t remember?”
Captain Sassafras shrugs. “Things tend to have a cyclical nature in these parts,” she says. “You generally have to do everything
three, five, sometimes even seven times to get anywhere. I try to put those old cycles out of my head and just concentrate on doing the best I can on the one I’m on.”
You nod. “That’s a good idea, Captain.”
“Right then,” says Sassafras. “Are you in? All aboard!”
You follow Captain Sassafras and the other suddenly-appeared crew members back onto Penelope.
#
When you have completed the required number of circuits, your final squat walk through the forest takes you to a land of wild weather and giant flowers where all the Bees are huddled together outside the locked weather server room. Everyone cheers when they see you approaching, key in hand.
You soon have the door unlocked and the weather server rebooted. Blissful weather returns to the Hallowed Honey Heartland, and you happily join all the other Bees in your gala celebration. The work can wait for tomorrow.
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