Wednesday, 22 November 2023

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 314

This week's picture prompt is a digital creation by Ciara, or Aura, as she calls herself online, and She Freaks, She Speaks, over on Facebook. She has some wonderful digital art, and she also has a shop where she sell crystals and crystal jewellery. If you like that sort of thing there's a lot of choice. I have also used one of her pictures before on Week 301 with the teapot, & Week 291 I with the stained glass bath.

A Tricky related story, exploring some backstory. The last time I wrote one about Tricky was on Week 312

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.


Digital piece of art depicting three glass bottles all with real-looking cat's heads, each with eyes glowing a different colour: Turquoise, Violet and Yellow. The contents of the bottles are swirls of patterns, and stars all in a variety of glowing bright colours. Created by She Freaks, She Speaks on Facebook.


Activated

“Have you got it?”

“Yes, it was easy, he gave it to me without question.”

“Good.” Douglas Bottle, aka Gandalf, took the smooth, large, palm-sized obsidian from Adric and turned it over in his hands. “It is rather special, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes.”

“And it records, you say?”

“I’ve tested it a few times, it’s quite easy to activate, you just have to use a combination of energy light and sound.”

“Sound?”

“Yes, if I use a certain pitch or intonation with some keywords, and run some magenta light through it, it turns it on.”

“And you can play it back the same way?”

“Yes. And it’s personalised; every person’s voice has a different level of intonation.”

“So I can’t activate it then?”

“Not recordings I make no, but you can make your own.”

“So it’s like secret recordings for each individual?”

“Yes. Though, Dufray has managed to record on it and I’ve managed to activate it by running light through it, so I’m not quite sure.”

“Secret recordings he’s made?”

“Oh no. I’m not even sure he knew it was recording; it was just him jabbering on to his flock of birds. But it’s how I realised it could record and I’ve been testing it out since.”

“It would be a neat trick to leave it in a room to capture conversations.”

“Nice idea, but it needs to be activated by energy light, which has to be sustained.”

“Shame. So there’s no way we can do this without him knowing?”

 “I thought you were going to drug him?”

“Yes, but I was hoping to do it subtly so he wouldn’t catch on. Here …”

Gandalf led Adric downstairs into a dimly lit basement, one lined with shelves full of different bottles containing liquid in an array of colours. He took them over to a bench where three bottles with cat heads as stoppers stood. The innards of each one glowed with swirling colours, but what unnerved Adric was that the heads moved as though alive, blinking and meowing. Gandalf stroked one of them and it omitted a purr.

“What are those?”

“They’re just enchanted. If anyone but me touches them they will hiss or bite to alert me to any trespasser. Their contents have taken me years to develop, and it’s this particular potion I was hoping to test out on Dimitri tonight.”

“He’s no fool. How will you get him to take it?”

“Oh it’s tasteless, thus easy to put into a drink.”

“Okay. Will he be dopey or out of it? To activate the stone I need to create an energy light set up.”

“You could say it’s for protection. It’s not like he will know; he has little concept of this stuff, he just does as I tell him with any of the enchantments or energetic communications he partakes in. He won’t be out of it so much as loose tongued. I’m intrigued what he will come out with.”

“So am I. But remind me again why you wanted this recorded?”

“I don’t trust Dimitri, or his endgame. He treats folk like us as disposable. So should any of this not go the way we want it, we have something to blackmail him with … should that time come.”

“Oh my father would love to get his hands on anything that would incriminate Stanislav. He’s itching for a reason to dispose of him.”

“He’d have to find him first.”

“Indeed, he’s a slippery bugger.”

“Which is why I’m hoping to pin him down on this recording. Now, go back upstairs and get everything ready. He’ll be here in a moment.”

 


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