Into the Eighth Sphere

Puck had called to Paracelsus several times telepathically hoping that he would be able to avoid passing down into this Eighth Sphere to find him ... but it perhaps it was that the preoccupied mind had blocked his message and could not receive him.

He would have wished at the very least to have an escort, but could not see any of the winged apes around to help.

He came to the rope ladder that trailed down the side and into the abyss. Although thick and wiry it was worn and showed signs of quite possibly giving way. He started to tremble for this was a face of Humanity he cared not to look at. An optimist at heart, he could not endure decrepitude.

Stepping closer he peered over, listening to the wailing that was rising from the distance below. He turned back quickly, forgiving himself his failure - with his nerves giving way to a new change of plan.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

One Door Out

There were parts to Hell that even the bravest would not willingly venture into - ephemeral and undisclosed, with occupants bereft of their humanity, held in a place that is shrouded with screeching phantoms and populated with the excrement of wraiths.

There is one door out, yet all are incapable of finding it - and now await the deportation from the family of Man that they have used so sorely and stolen from.

It was here that Paracelsus would go - to study and help where possible. His charity glowed amongst their fetid space and the warm light he emanated only seemed to cause them difficulty. Even a kind word stung greatly as they were living an existence that perceived everything as being back-to-front and inside-out. Misery became pleasure and happiness caused aggravation.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Counterfeit Beings

But the Generals of Phoenix were a far bolder and bigger variety.

They were organised and cunning, seeking to inhabit bodies themselves that they could engage in with the world. They were 'evolved' and in spirit these demons were known as Vampyres.

You see, when a body dies, the soul inhabiting that body lifts up and out and moves onto higher plains, disconnecting itself far from it.

Sometimes and only rarely, it may happen that the corpse itself, without a soul any longer, is inspired to keep on living after having deceased - and it is at this point where the stronger of the demonic beings can inhabit them fully.

These are the Vampyres, who as before are still given to find their sustenance from the vitality of others - from living human beings - for even with the body of a hijacked corpse they cannot regenerate normally or receive the life force ordinarily into themselves.

Vampyres might appear to be the person that the body once cradled and would want you to believe this of them - but they are only counterfeit beings. The spirit who birthed that body has long gone and is free of their evil contamination. It is only in fiction that they take on the originating persona, and although imbibed with the residual memories and behaviours, it is simply a parasite within, and not a soul.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Certain Freedoms were Holy

Puck could never see the point of anyone wanting to own the World; but throughout the ages he had watched quite a few aspire to it; littering countries with death and upset to achieve their end desire.

Perhaps it was merely a sickness after all - just like any other illness of delusion - only it was cleverly convincing and with devastating consequence, when others were taken by their visions.

He knew too, that certain freedoms were holy, and that corruptions seeking to disable men could only be the prize of demons, who with their jealousies enjoyed the chaos that they caused.

He had always thought that they (the demons) were not much to look at - with their clamour and grope, ever-present at accidents, overdoses and orgies - feeding from the energies expired there, inciting more to come.

For the demons have no life of their own and so they obsess after the mortals fanatically.

The Fey won't tolerate them and just brush them away - for most are as small as your hand.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

An Iron Grip

Like so many ideologies before them, WAR had become the exact reverse for all it had said and stood for.

It now held an iron grip worldwide on its people: owning personal and very particular information via tracking, banking, sickness and medication histories, distributing through their International Pharmaceutical company, Paypill.

WAR imprinted the lives of two-thirds of the overall population, and held a massive five hundred million in prison farm factories, who supplied their empire daily.

Perhaps none of this would have mattered so much had it not been for the political arrests and property seizures from conversants who were monitored through email, Tracebook and the game itself. Any dissent - even a suggestive cartoon shared - was considered ambivalent, and therefore dangerous to society.

Added to this, suicides were increasing. No one knew why. Statistics stopped being published after the figure tripled within a decade - and the public were told that for the sake of privacy these numbers would from now on be sealed.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

"GONE TO HELL"

Goober needed to find Puck in a hurry, but all he got was a note on the fridge door saying:

"GONE TO HELL"

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

I have come to find Master Paracelsus

He mentally searched all of the immediate realms and enquired at the Grand Lodge also, where one did know, and answered: "yes... he is in Hell".

"How can this be so?"

Puck fretted greatly at this thought, which stung, for Puck had loved this mortal for his bold thinking and scholarly ways.

He immediately packed to go back down there.

The road appeared to be more congested than usual - moribund with harrowed and pitiful wraiths - embellished with pride yet withered by selfishness. No one seemed to see him as he passed by the great line trudging slowly towards the fateful gate - a stretch that was half a million or so.

The Ape at the post belched and closed his eyes when he saw Puck approaching. Puck bowed slightly, ignoring the fact that he himself was being snubbed.

This Gatekeeper - named Silius - refused to listen to him.

Puck spoke ignoring the attitude saying:

"I have come to find Master Paracelsus who I believe to be in your care."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

This Hum Grabs like Slag

It was Paracelsus who first taught Puck how to preserve his seeds perfectly, so as to enable their life force to remain whole within, in readiness.

This sage always engaged with almost everyone, and exchanged his knowledge freely.

He had not, as yet, been reborn, for Puck found that the souls who were presently incarnate would 'hum' when you came to think of them, and he did not.

Some had said that this humming was a sound bite from the earth's radiation surrounding those folk whose feet touched its ground, whereas really it pertained to the collective thought and its mesh of activity, that the soul is immersed in from the moment they are born.

It is quite often one of the last sounds that the dying will hear, or the man in meditation will sense being there, or the inventor will wade into when 'fishing' for ideas.

This hum grabs like slag and when a spirit is awake and fully conscious within his body, this worldly sound is all around him. But Puck could not hear it coming from his friend, and so that told him he must be dwelling in spirit elsewhere.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Singing Amulet

Puck was rummaging around his bag of magic, looking through keys, crowns, spears, gems, rings, and guns; but he could not find the one piece he was looking for.

He stopped thoughtfully to admire a golden egg he had once acquired from an enormously large troll that had lived on a cloud covered mountain; ....and then returned to his task at hand, finding the singing amulet.

It did not look like much - wittled from a black wood in the shape of some hideous, hoary face; however the tree that it was carved from had once been inhabited by an Elder who had given it the power to receive and transmit cosmic music that was grand and symphonious.

These soulful orchestrations stirred latent memories of deep melancholia, penetrating early thoughts and enlightening the mind to listen to. It enabled one to stop and find the quietness within - such was the wonder of this tall black tree's mystery.

And the very wood carved from it could sing - which became a restoration to the heart of those who heard.

Puck had often taken it with him on his expeditions into Hell, to help awaken souls that he was helping to deliver.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Because they are Made of Men

"You have to understand my son, that these beings [demons] so born, have no souls, or conscience, and no ability to spawn life of their own. This is why they resent and detest their parentage and the children thereof. They are anti-humans, and anti-Divine, caught in a quasi existence with little hope for an immediate redemption. Their will and want is independent of others, and their hatreds are a'many."

The Azlan continued:

"They can contaminate men because they are made of men, and are therefore part of Man - herein is their grave threat."
"How can we fight them then?" Puck questioned further, having seen the trouble the demons had caused over aeons.

"When the last man to have dark and selfish thoughts has turned his nature to good, they shall either expire or reform ... until then, we cannot predict the outcome."

Puck could feel the weight of this and was saddened.


The Azlan could feel his seriousness, satisfied that he had been understood.

"In the meanwhile it is our contention that their spread is in fact growing, and their influence, corrupting the people of this planet. Those who have not the minds or wills yet strong enough to repel their dark suggestions are at risk of following them into the pit."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Demonic Beings are the Skin on the Custard

"Puck, where did the demons first come from?" asked Goober as he methodically separated out the golden peas from the green.

Puck had asked this same question of the Azlan some time ago, and he had been answered:

"Demonic Beings are the skin on the custard. They are sad and ill-defined creatures who have no natural home.

"They are the bastard offspring born of Man and Angel - from a time when the two were easily palpable to one another - and shared a common love."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Pure sense of Joy in the Moment

Life on a cellular level has fun and plays too - the randomness is not a sporadic chaos, nor craziness, or ever divorced from its purpose, that seeks this adventure and fun - for it is precisely the adventure and fun that drives them on.

It is the pure sense of joy in the moment, of the realisation, of beingness, of the delight in the finding and the upliftment of giving, of the proving of self, of the trying and the solving, of the perceiving and the growing, of the revering and the loving.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Motivators of the Natural World

When a baby chuckles his parent's heart becomes full of life; when an immortal is happy the plants and trees around him inhale the exuberance he feels. They are truly the motivators of the natural world.

Angels are genuinely cheerful too - as are the gods as well - and although birds have been known to become agitated quickly, they are also, at heart, happy creatures. Even insects know small joys in their existence.

For all beings within this universal kingdom, their magnetic north rests in genuine mirth.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Emotions of the Fey

This could have been just another grim faery tale, were it not for the characters inhabiting this particular story.

It certainly can be said that the Fey are no strangers to gloom and the knife-twists of history. They have seen tragedy and struggle from early existence and suffered alongside their mortal brothers who repeatedly birthed and fell.

Throughout, their natures were buoyant, and cheerfulness was maintained with an ineffable optimism - that same cosmic currency that drives and inspires Nature to thrive. The thoughts of Man build future worlds, whilst the emotions of the Fey build up this, our Natural World.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

World Commerce

In the year prior, the WAR organisation had worked with the media to expose the illicit Pharmaceutical trade, filming manufacturers and chemists who unknowingly had handled and sold counterfeit drugs.

They published proof of the devastating findings that found one in three of the standard prescribed medicines to be fake and very potentially dangerous to the consumer. Reports of wrongful deaths had everyone worried - as even the common pain killing drugs had been seen to be copied and sold.

On this day WAR proudly announced Phoenix Pharmaceuticals - a company that could be relied upon to service the community's needs with guaranteed quality standards; procuring the worldwide licenses for production with every major patent in the world.

Members could now access virtual doctors and most diagnoses along with monitoring could be undergone in the convenience of their own home. Prescriptions were instantly filled online and despatched immediately. It was an impressive system.

Phoenix now controlled the seed companies and the silos, the hybrids and the mines, the waterways, the electricity farms, the mega-servers and the five top shipping cartels that circled the earth.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Phoenix Currency

The walrus was getting very long in the tooth - it was Puck's birthday...

On this day the world exchange changed once again - this time into Phoenix currency.

Coins and notes were abandoned and replaced by digitally encrypted cards. Cross-border transactions were now so effortless that world trading had never been better, they said.

The security features of this system were celebrated. Records of money trails could be kept confidentially by the WAR membranous collectives - and now citizens everywhere were completely contained by their data and traceable through their finances, whether members or not.

There were cash prizes and giveaways for the best internet articles published as to why e-money was the way forward into the future.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

I have their minds & they are overwhelmed

The rabbit gave chase, the wild flowers sang, buds blossomed with the morning's dewy lick; here a rose and there a meadow, life was full of promise once again. Love was in the world and it was unstoppable - the ephemeral electricity that powers the life divine!

Energetic Love was the element absent from WAR Phoenix and the lesser games like it - so much of life played out in mime, but love it could not synthesise.

Whatever the name or costume, so many games are intent on the skill of murder - their purpose is rewarded in killing - with millions of thoughts transpiring daily of causing injury, from taking down warriors to angry birds.

And the astral world is saturated with this thought-blood spattered with a subtext that reads: "I have their minds, and they are overwhelmed".

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

His Lion-heart

Benita Winckler

Pander, a long time assistant to the Woodward, sat beside Puck steeped in seriousness.

He adored Puck, having a fond recall of their time together in the forests of young Britain. "How is King Richard these days?" he enquired with a soft voice reserved for public events. The table quietened somewhat to hear the answer.

Puck hesitated and drew his eyes low, as if his vision of recollection lay on the table before him. He then smiled and said quietly "He does well, although I cannot tell you in this exact moment where he walks. He met with an unfortunate death quite recently - a surprise that could not have been foreseen. I have taken it upon myself to care for him, as friends must."

"Has his memory of it all quite gone?" Pander asked knowingly "Yes, yes it has - but his lion-heart remains the same".

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Way back from Atlantis

Puck's seed farm had always been invited to these gatherings - for their interest involved the cataloging of rare and endangered pods and seeds they had retained and traded over the ages.

His family tree was known well, for they had revived the potato during its blight, reinvented the carrot; and importantly transported the seed stores all the way back from Atlantis - whose etheric plant powers were considered far superior and stronger than the material of present day.

They sat around a vast table littered with impressive foods and beverages. Before them lay the papers of concern, itemized to help keep them on topic.

It was a small group of just thirty, with the addition of a notary, who sat recording all that he heard with astounding rapidity.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Woodward

The Woodward spoke in treble tones, widely flourishing his knotted hands in time to his words delivered. His appearance was ancient, truly ancient, with folds of wrinkles engraved deeply upon his brow.

Although he was seated he still towered above everyone as they stood - for he was twice and thrice the height of other beings who were not giants. With a kingly presence and sombre regard, he was lovingly respected by each of the Fey - from the oldest to the youngest of natures.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Thimble Full

The Cow did not give over much, but what there was of it, was just what was needed.

The thin white fluid turned silver in the sunlight, and with etheric sight it was seen to expire a dancing effervescent energy, which had been hoped for.

Once drawn, it was placed into thimble-sized containers and then over given to the starlings that arrived every day to collect it. Fastened around their iridescent necks, the birds then made their way to the volcanic edge of Hades, where the Gate Keeper stood waiting to receive them.

No one had seen the child but they had been told he was still very much alive.

Puck could feel the purpose of it. He could feel success riding the wind towards them.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Dragon Bangle

He felt strangely calm; until the General had appeared back again. He was walking around and around the Dragon, as if looking for something - or sensing something was amiss. He could not see them wince when he walked briskly beside Brogan treading on his foot. He pressed a button that sat at his throat, which lit up instantaneously opening the anal hatch.

Brogan quickly slid his arm back out - his wrist felt tender - there was some metal that came with it, looped around his wrist.

The Dragon snorted with snot spurting gobs in the air; the two jumped back, seeing the General take his mount, to then fast disappear. They looked over the hills and plains once more as he flew far from them into the distance. Both felt relieved he was gone.

"Nice bangle" said Nervina, noting the golden glint on Brogan's reddened arm.

Brogan could not read Nervina's mind but he could tell from his face what he was thinking. He said, "I'm not sure it suits me you know - I'm a bit of a bloke.... here, go ahead, why don't you try it on."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Larger than Life

For a moment he reflected on where his life had taken him - "life sure is strange" he confided in himself ... ending up here with his arm stuck up a dragon's arse. He never would have reckoned of that happening. His entire journey after death had proved so much larger than life. 

"I wonder if that is where the saying came from?" he mused, "for the death experience is most definitely larger than life, isn't it?"

Nervina could read his thoughts but remained silent - he had not lived a life on earth, and had no idea what Brogan was going on about.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Brogan had his Hand Caught

Brogan had his hand caught and stuck in the fissure at the back of the metallic dragon.

He had been trying to force the tendril-like porthole open further when the thing had clamped shut. It was of course, a security response to intruders. His wand was jammed inside there too. Nervina had tried to pull him out holding his waist, but Brogan complained that something was dragging on his hand every time he pulled back, and it felt excruciating.

Even though the two were invisible they were still very much a part of this virtual world. They could feel everything around them, whilst the others who were actually playing in the game, could not.

"If this thing takes off we'll be in trouble" Nervina said a little obviously.

Brogan thought the inclusive 'we' was inaccurate. He felt alarmed.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Marble White Fluid

Cow had been eating the pink flowers in the paddock, and neither Puck nor Goober had realised that this had been inhibiting her milk production. It was only when the buds had all been eaten, and she had no more left to graze upon, that one morning the marble white fluid appeared in the pail.

"Finally!" a joyful Goober called out to Puck, interrupting this morning's session with the highland Dwarves who meet together every solstice. Each had a coffee and cake, although some were still tucking into the cheeses. (It was the Dwarves who invented Cappuccino, named of course after the famous Red Cap dwarves of Europe.)

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Rot that the Selfish Endure

Phillip Marsden was not all bad - but his soul had developed that kind of rot that the selfish endure when goodness begins to offend them, and in the later part of the malaise, causes them pain.

He had absconded from a permanent hell only because of this alliance - and now were he to be without their influence he would perish, as it was their life force that animated his every move.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Repelled by their Reptilian Ways

Marsden would strive to please the demons, yet his master was self-pride. He had commissioned monuments and portraits, displaying them all with extravagant promotion. Throughout the virtual communities of Phoenix and within the real world too: art centres and public parks, were grandiose sculptures, drinking fountains and illuminated billboards, all portraying his powerful self. He was sending out a message that his eye was on the community, and that his presence being everywhere, was worthy of celebrating.

He had also created artworks, which resembled the unattractive alien beings he was entangled with. He did not do this from respect, but for appeasement. His fealty was plastic, he really did not care for their kind at all.

In point of fact, the human being that was still left in him was repelled by their reptilian ways, yet it was very difficult for him to disassociate from the entity who had attached itself to the back of his neck and imbedded itself at the base of his head. It would even speak to him when he tried to sleep, and interject with cruel and snide mutterings, just when he needed to rest.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Juvenile Detention

Of course the bulk of Phoenix hardware - their collectibles, tokens, ID strands, catalogues and contents, were all supplied by the prison factories, and then paid for in discounted lots back to the local communities.

Easy targets for recruitment were the infants of the teenage mothers, who were fostered into Phoenix homes until old enough to be first set up for juvenile detention. It was a seamless plan with endless candidates. 

Getting them young meant that they would become used to the work ahead of them in their sunless existence yet to follow.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Entrapment

Labour in the Third World had become expensive with Fair Trade winning its cause. This meant now that cheaper work was sought for – and it was now the prison occupants who formed the manufacturing base for the worldwide economy - from clothes to car parts - respectable society prospered while the unpaid slavery toiled within their confinements.

Furthermore it was the universal government itself (working in alias through Phoenix) that had actually put the goods out there on the streets in the first place.

Entrapment was absolutely justified, they explained, as it was a means to sorting the citizens best suited for internment work - those who took the con, had lost their privilege in an instant of an ordinary life outside.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

'Blitz' on Crime

Out on the streets the word was that they were making big arrests in every city of the world.

This 'blitz' on crime was proudly publicised as being a great win for those of the moral society, who had flatly decided that the scum of the drug trade were now to be reigned in and punished, once and for all.

Operation 'snatch' was so successful that the correction facilities were running overfull, and they were putting three to a cell just to be able to hold them.

But in truth, it had been the free labor that the governments had been after all along; and the arrests were simply a means to an end.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series