Aquatica
By Eric R. Ashley


There are innumerable small islands that dot the Bathtub Sea (so-called for no reason that the inhabitants can decipher as they do not have any such thing as a bathtub), and I venture today to describe the curious and prolific life about one of them for any children who fall through the sides of a wall they are resting a weary head upon, or for dimension-traveling wizards, and especially for my kindred, the verser.
Yes, the verser, the jack-of-all-trades, who has wandered up and down the myriad ways and byways may find a pleasant, although not pacific place of pleasurable
per-ambulance hereabouts.  The local deity in charge seems to be the same entity that rules over Lakraine, and yet how different these two worlds are.  Granted, both have islands and water, and elementals, but otherwise so far different.
In case you have not traversed the Isles of Lakraine, let me introduce you to the Awe.  Not in person mind you. For the Awe never chose to incarnate him or her or uncertainty…the most it ever showed of itself was a voice thundering over the waters, and it sent Elemental Beings of Water to speak its will.  Now, the Awe is a goodly power, a being fond of Humanity, and aligned to the Host of Heaven, and while there are evil spirits in the land, they are few and small.
However, this is not to say they won’t be a serious challenge. For a spirit small in power to the Awe is great compared to thee.  And the Awe is likely to take a backseat role, and allow you to mess up on your own.  Its his way.
Technology is impaired in this land, although Body related skills are at a maximum.  The highest tech is the bow and arrow which the Can Balls on Do-Wrongi I-Land use to gut visitors.  The highest local psionic skill is the Heavy Telekinesis of the Great Kraken.  Magic, well, magic is at the roof.

Upon arriving in Aquatica, you will likely find yourself drifting away from the Chaos Gate.  Here is a reverse whirlpool, underwater and tilted on its left side, mind you, which draws up things from all over the world, and all over the worlds, and deposits them in its thick mud-choked effluvium to descend to the Junkyard Bottom.  The gigantic whirlpool is usually seen with all manner of oddments drifting down from it--refrigerators, toilets, bottles with ships in them, heavy power armor for space marines, plastic knives with mustard still on them, and even the occasional squawking parrot are but a few of the things one might spot while drifting downward in the current.

Despite the mud, the water is quite breathable because the efforts of Meticulous Serendipity, the local water elemental who runs the whirlpool, although it may have particularly thick spots where the mud makes the water like thick smoke to breathe.  If you are a verser, you will be breathing it well before you wake up.

The Junkyard Bottom should be covered with mud, but the sand has peculiar properties.  Its Shifting Sand which means it alters whatever it touches.  Thus, the verser upon reaching the bottom will discover he has gills in his neck.  The fridge may well develop the power to make anyone who touches it gain ten pounds, the toilet bowl will change to the Toil-Let Fish in a Goldfish Bowl which is never so happy but when others are feeding it because it likes to Let others Toil, for it is lazy, and quite vocal about it too as it’s a sentient and loudly so fish. The ship in the bottle will awake with a crew, and pull itself out of the bottle, and start sailing away, tacking as need be, across the ocean floor sands.  The power marine space armor is swarmed by a bunch of lobsters who tear it apart, and remake themselves armor from its shell, and boldly announce their plan to conquer all of the La Goons, that is, the Spanish speaking Pie-Rats.
If the verser stays there, on the Shifting Sands, he is liable to have more oddities, and perhaps less useful happen to him.
If you follow the current, it takes you south to the Glass Sea.  This sea is a small pond amidst the greater ocean, and it is a deep hue of blue.  Also, the ceiling of the water is covered in glass so that you cannot reach the air.  And in the shallows are many intelligent fish species, most quite bossy and rude, and eager to tell you that you are getting in there way for there are things they have to be doing.  These fish are made of glass, and many are almost invisible, although some do have a few streaks of color in them.  It is possible to get badly hurt by a swarming rush of glass fish as they batter their way past you.
If you go toward the shallows, which is east, you come to the Quarrel Gate in the Coral. A looming castle wall which goes above the surface of the water bars passage except through this one gate to the I-Land.  Tens of thousands of bickering little fish flicker and flash their bright colors in bright neon pulsing light which they can shape into words.
And in the gate is a pink fish who can’t spell very well.  He’s a Corning Insult Fish.  He’s very prickly, and he can be ripped to pieces, and sorta stuck back together. And to get past him, you have to beat him in a challenge of insults.  However, attacking him, or suggesting that insulting is mean, and why can’t we be friends also count as winning insults (although dirty pool, of which more later).
The coral fish keep score, and announce it with their bodies, and even do color commentary that way for the Insult Match.
Once past the Quarrel Gate of Coral you are inside the domain of the La Goons.  The Dread and Piratical Kingdom of the La Goons has over a dozen ships, of which perhaps one could survive the open ocean without swamping, and going straight to the bottom.  The Pie Rats fight each other all the time, with Custard Blade and thrown pies.  They are approximately two feet tall, run very fast, and are always squabbling over who took the last bite of the cheese, and who was supposed to clean out the bilge pump, and making runs to get more ammunition for their squabbles at the Pi Trees which are always hard to precisely and correctly pick since although they are in reach for a jump, the exact distance for the jump is always uncertain being 3.14 something, something, something….feet.
Their queen is the Dreaded Cut Lass, a beautiful and obnoxious young ‘Uman, who carries at her shapely waist a Cat of Nine Tails.  This creature has nine tails with dreadful spikes at each end, and it can grow to be five feet tall at the shoulder, and it loves nothing so much as to be unleashed from its mistress’ charm belt to cause pain and suffering among the Pie Rats who while they are not terribly nice, still are far nice than the Cat of Nine Tails.
Incidentally, the Pie Rats can swim quite well (which saves them time and again from the Cat which can’t.) and they do battle with the Lob-Stirs who also claim the island and the undersea of the La Goon Lagoon.  One form of battle is to sink Pies at Lob-Stirs who traverse the lagoon bottom, but this doesn’t work very well.
These Lob-Stirs are a slower species, and their main headquarters is underwater, and hidden behind a S-Murky Cloud in the far northern corner of the lagoon.  The S-Murky Cloud is dark and impossible to see through, and radiates a sense of contempt at any and all who venture near it.  This can be difficult for those with weak self-esteems to handle the sneer of the cloud, but if you press on , you will see a small city, of hundreds of Lob-Stirs.
These giant, foot-long Lob-Stirs are excellent cooks, tending their Hot Rock stoves (with fresh hot rocks brought right to them from the local volcanic vent by other Lob-Stirs equipped with Claw Mittens to hold the rocks with safely.) with a deft stir at the appropriate time, and then packaging the food for shipment all over Aquatica to certain specialized customers.
Now for their supplies, the Lob-Stirs must go inland, and pick up Feud Supplies such as Shot and Pow-Herd.  Some of the Shot, a small glass cup, they use to defend themselves against raiding Pie Rats by using ingenious Trebuchets to launch them at the Pie Rats, and if the Cat of Nine Tails is unleased, then they get out their gigantic Cat-a-pull, which enormous slingshot (made of braided rubber trees) (dosed with certain herbs cats dearly love) invariably attracts the Cat who is pulled in by his instincts, and then slung away and out over the ocean.
The Pow-Herd are small creatures who eat rock, and spit out gunpowder.  This serves as a defense in the wild because any attacker might well get blown up as it attacks since the only natural predators of the Pow-Herd all have Ironic Natures which is likely to cause sparks.
Gunpowder plus shot plus fermented fruit pie yields the famed To-Kill-Ah, which liquid is used by police to subdue raging drunks the ocean wide.  A drunk with a bar stool in hand, ready to rampage, is approached by a policeman who offers him a drink.  The drunk says, ‘Shurre’, and then tells the cop that after this, he’s going to ‘kill ‘m’  One drink, and the drunk’s eyes roll up, he says ‘Ah’ and falls asleep.
Now on the other side of the I-Land, after you pass the moving band of Bloody-minded Selfishness which bisects the I-Land, and threatens to turn any group of two into a fight, and a group of three into a mob, and is only delineated by small letter “I’s” hiding amidst the bushes, you come to a more peaceful, but still somewhat narcisstic land.
Here a beautiful harbor in which Dollfin’s (small plastic, and finned, but very well turned out dolls) loll about in the water and Myrhhmaids swim calling out to the weary traveller to toss them a chunk of pine sap off the pine trees that grow near the water.  In exchange, the Myrhhmaids will sing a song for the traveller, a weary or sad one, one suited to sleeping, and the traveller may find himself falling to sleep under the pine tree which tree will cry as it Pines, and great lumps of resin will land on the traveller to pin him down.
However, this will not kill the traveller. Instead, it will turn him into a Myrhhmaid who will climb into the water, and sing sad songs for the Pining Trees who remember the days when they were Happy Trees with sad memory.  The traveller will stay a myrhhmaid as long as the sap does not melt off of him or her, which could take from one to four days, and may be longer if he gets given more pine sap to smear on the body.
Going back to the Dollfins, they lounge about on small chairs (with a slit in the back for their fin), and get tans, and drinks, and swim, and generally do absolutely nothing of use except offer very good fashion advice if asked.  They do have attractive male dollfins who fetch and tote for them….these are named Kent Dollfins.  All the Kent Dollfins wear stylish glasses, and if danger threatens, they seek out the nearest telephone booth…which causes quite a line-up as there is only two telephone booths on the I-land, and one is being always used by a doctor of temporal physics who is rather tardy despite his line of work.
Needless to say, seeing a swarm of flying Kent Dollfins going to stuff shut the volcano that dominates the I-land is an experience one will not soon forget. Each of the now glass-less male Dollfins carrying a huge plastic bucketfull of wet sand to dump into the volcano…such courage, such strength, such biceps…
Out further, on that side of the I-land, is the Amusement Park. Here Clown Fish stroll the Strollway, park in the Parkway, and plant seeweed in the Greenway.  Seeweed is the type of underwater growth of plant, such as Kelp (which word comes from the strangled sound of “help!” after it tries to wrap itself around your neck for a chance at a quick snack), which can be seen. Un-seeweed is the rest of the underwater growth of plants such as the stuff to the north of the I-land which is a veritable maze of Un-seeweed. One can wander for days in sight of escape, but unable to find a way through the maze.
Anyways, back to the punch line, which is where the Clown Fish ask you if you got the joke. If you didn’t, or if you lie poorly and say you did, they punch you until you lie better, or lie still.  Or you rip the red clown nose off their face. See, Clown Fish are practically blind, and so they have to use the Red Sonar of their Pulsing Nose, which produces Red Sonar Waves, in order to see.

The Z-Bra fish - usually seen with the Myrrmaids?

Anyways, back to the punch line, which is where the Clown Fish ask you if you got the joke. If you didn’t, or if you lie poorly and say you did, they punch you until you lie better, or lie still, or you rip the red clown nose off their face. See, Clown Fish are practically blind, and so they have to use the Red Sonar of their Pulsing Nose, which produces Red Sonar Waves, in order to see.
And lets not forget Unsee-lee Weed which is a kind of diaphanous and beautiful until one is too close to escape when it reveals its true nature, and turns to a hideous destroyer.  Fortunately, it often is too impatient to wait until victim/snack is fully in range, and it lunges forward with Clam-Mor Spelts not fully encircling a victim.  These Clam-Mor Spelts are small, man-eating fish which have the ability to make themselves look harmless, and work in symbiosis with the Unsee-lee Weed.  The Weed is only found on the lee side of an I-land which is of course the southern side.
        Also, let us not forget the Myrrgents, that is the male counterparts to the Myrrmaids, who tend to emergent behavior when dealing with the problem of trapping, err courting, their lady loves.  That is, they are very good at a group of them instantly coming up with a brilliant solution to any problem, and putting it together perfectly.
         They are often chosen by Z-Bra Fish, and soon enough their are plenty of little Z-brats running around, and kicking up their heels as they push through the undersea water, and try to escape to go play in deep water, thus testing their father's emergent behavior skills to the very limits.  Meanwhile, the Z-bra fish go off looking for a new 'friend'.
          They often go down to the Amusement Park already mentioned, and find the O-sin Club which headlines MC Hammmerhead, and has a full chorus line Craberet.  The Craberet usually end their act with the Song of Marlin Rouge.
          Further on into the Park is the Midway since its the midway point between the I-let, and the Towers of Manhadden.  Before you get to the Towers, you see Pole-Lease Fish.  These cary a red and blue striped pole which they used to smack offenders of the Code of the Sea, and are quite willing to Lease in exchange for hard labor a small, furnished apartment with food provided for a number of years. Unfortunately, they are not so willing to lease the keys to these variously sized lobster cages.
          The Towers of Manhadden are huge, vertical stacks in the dozens, and comprising of millions of rubber tires that rise almost to the sea's surface.  That is, on a distant I-land, there are Rubber Circles whose job is to smooth and polish vast stretches of asphalt so that it shines in the sun so that the ruler of that I-land can go outside his window, and look down on his I-land, and admire his beautiful network before climbing onto the back of his flying bird, and going to order his workers to work harder.
          Once these circles are bald, they are tired, and have to retire, and in fact they are quite happy to be sold to serve as towers for the vast swarms of busy Menhadden who use them as homes and offices.  The Menhaden have learned to ignore their griping about polishing roads, and go about their own business.
          For those not so self-absorbed, or inclined to nervousness which the Menhaden of the Towers of Manhadden are not, may go to the Bot-Tum where small flowers grow with little white circular fruits which ease the stomach.
          Beyond the Towers is the continental shelf edge known as the White Cliffs of Dover Sole.  And down there in the dark, more weird things wait than you can shake a clam at.  However, dealing with them keeps Prawn Connery, probably the most deadly sentient in the Bathtub Sea very busy.  One of them is the Great Kraken which has been known to eat a whole I-land by crushing it with his tentacles, and sifting out the good stuff to munch on.  But another, more benign presence sails through the dark, occasionally coming in sight of the Towers...the Impossible Bream.
          Its a fish of mind-shattering size.  No matter how big you think it is, the next second you realize its bigger.  And so the story goes that if you are able to grab onto it, a fin or a tail perhaps, and hang on for the ride that you will get a wish, a dream granted.  Its also said that the longer you hang on the better chance of the Dream being accepted by MCA, that is Miracle Control Authority, which tries to keep the level of magic and miracles down to a dull roar so as to avoid something called "Waking the Bather".
     Now back to the I-land for this is the edge of the world, or as far as I went anyways.
     North of the I-land is the Unseeweed Maze, and if you can dare that, and succeed, you find a small village named Home Abalone, full of Abalone, who live quite domestically and bourgious life in between the Maze, and the Racing Seas.
     You can tell you are about to reach the edge of the Racing Seas because hundreds of "C'" will be doing their daily sprint across the Bathtub Sea.  Dodging between them (and they are very blind despite their name, and quite sharp), you come to the first block.
      A horde of Puffer Fish, eager to tell you all about their newest book they've written, and quite unwilling to shrink down in size to let you slip past until you've listened to every last one of them detail all of each of their thousand page books.  If they can, they will enclose you in a hollow ball of Puffer Fish and tell you about their books for hours, and days, and weeks.  Most of the local fish not Puffer Fish hear-abouts are deaf, or half-deaf, and good at pretending to be deaf- its a defence.  Since attacking a Puffer Fish only makes it bigger and louder and stronger.  Only truly massive damage....like a large explosive, or a volcano exploding could deter them.
        If you succeed in getting past them, you will encounter a wall of "c", that is water moving at the speed of light which is two thousand miles per hour.  I have no way of knowing whats beyond this personally, as getting through this water stumped me, but I've been told that on the other side is the Temple of the Elemental Lady of Water who administers the Bathtub Sea for her Master.  And that she is seen drifting through it, giving orders to drips, gushes, and even whirlpools, and it is said to any of the elementals such as the one attending the Entrance Whirlpool.  Her personality is said to be amiable, and relaxed, ready to bend as needed, but if neccessary she can be utterly unmovable, and break rocks with her fixed will, and if in her wrath she turns sharp and cold so that her merest presence freezes one solid, well, I've always found insulting demi-goddesses to be a losing proposition, and you should have been more polite.  So there.
       Now we turn to the south of the I-land where two small I-lets live, like boisterous twins, and occasionally up from underneath the water, in the midst of them, their elder sister, an Aisle arrises and chastises her two younger brothers.  Now besides jiggling about to vex a hyperkinetic, these two brothers are circled by orchards which hold the finest of undersea currents.  These black fruits are wondrously tasty, and hold their electric charge for nearly a day which means they get much used as weapons in combat, although the troops are always getting in trouble for holding some back to uncharge, and then 'dispose of efficiently.' by eating them.
     These troops live on the eastern side of the Jumping Brothers, and they can bee seen as the white foam waving as water crashes home onto land near this I-let.  This is their immature larval form, and do they ever enjoy body-surfing.  They would like to go further, but their parents have wisely placed signs on the edges of the safe area which say "Caviar Emptor" or "Beware the Fish" which of course the body-surfers understand since only surfing is tough, the rest, such as perfect Latin, is easy.
     The fish to be wary of is the Jurrassic Carp, a ferocious eating machine, from back in the early days of the Bathtub Sea.  He fell through a sinkhole in the Sea of Time (which is another adjacent sea, but very hard to find a port onto it), and arrived here, and started eating.  His goal is Carp Diem as he says "Seize the Fish".
     Now he mostly lives on the southwestern side of the I-land in the Kingdom of Dirty Pool, whereas the body-surfers live in the Kind-dom.  KDP is a filthy place, with much mud floating in the water, and the air in the water is hard to breathe, and the fish here are simply treacherous even when it does not benefit themselves to be so.  This is so because at the bottom, something waits beloww the ferocious Rip-tide, a long, million teeth creature no thicker than a two by four, but extending several dozen feet in width, and perhaps having a fifty foot tail with a stinger which it uses to zap a target, and then drag the target to its mouth.  The thing that waits is the Squi-ID.  A single blast of its ink, and moral considerations fall aside, one is left with simply one's desires.  It pollutes the water with its presence.
    If you go further south, you again reach the continental shelf, and see the Great and the Wise, the Eleven Wizards preparing one last song magic to preserve some of their good in a world growing less fantastic by the millenia.  And so I sing with the others in gratitude who come to watch for the nostalgic memories, and I sing "Thanks for the Manta Rays" to the great Manta Ray Wizards.
   And then I turn toward my home on the beach which is surrouned by trained sand fleas whose bite makes even the bravest man a coward who fleas in mortal terror, and there upon my doorstep, I see my old friend, the Punfish who sails the Bathtub Sea in his Punt Boat, and seeks out new verbal oddities in order to add to his collection since he is the Official Torturer for the next Eyeland which is over toward the west of my beach.  His job is to Pun-ish the Wick-ed, that is Candle Fish who get out of line, and he always needs more, but alas, I cannot help him, for in all my travels, I met not a one, I am most pun-y of wit, and I only say sadly...

"Veni, Vedi, Fishy...I came, I saw, I fished. That is all, my friend.  Best of luck with finding some new puns."  And so I pun-ted the problem back to him.

"I-I, Captain My Cap Ten, they are hard to find." He said, and agreeing once more, I took off my ten caps off my head, and relaxed as a couple gill-friends dropped by to teach us how to play a new card game, Go Fish.

Safe sailing, brother or sister verser.


Craberet
Z-bra Fish
MC Hammerhead
Tanks for the Manta Rays--at the edge of the world or the continental shelf
Prawn Connery--a deadly dangerous secret agent shrimp
Home Abalone
Song of Marlin Rouge--land feature Marlin Ridge
Bot-Tum
The Impossible Bream (grants wishes)
Jurrassic Carp--dino fish
The Towers of Manhadden--aka Manhattan
The White Cliffs of Dover Sole
Puffer Fish
Riptide
Sinkhole
Waves of (waving water)
Dirty Pool
Undersea Currents (electricity and type of prune)--some electricity is back of the amusement park
C as in light speed
Ocean as in O-sin
Eyeland
I-let
Isle as in Aisle
Small pools of water and passage zones.
Punt--a type of boat, a kick
Pun
Punish
Sole Train…leads from the amusement park to the club where MC Hammerhead plays
Undersea Island
Squid--unleased a blast the unleashes the ID
Caviar Emptor - Beware of the fish.
Carp Diem - Seize the fish.
Veni, Vidi, Fishy - I came, I saw, I fished.
Cod Erat Demonstrandum - Proving the fish.--have a police area which uses these last four or so.




Thanks goes to Misty, Kate both of RPOL, and http://www.jimrothermel.com/FishJokes.htm and http://reelinthefish.net/hookedonline/badpuns.html for help in Pun-ishing the Reader

Okay, it looks like the rough draft of Aquatica is done.  The inspiration for this mess is Wizard of Oz, btw.  Whatdy'a think?

PT

Ok, I also need to add 'octo-pus' as in eight-legged cat...we'll maybe make it like Sleipnir that it can carry people far.

PT

Forget not the sponge - always borrowing things
and the sea urchins - always running around under foot

I like it alot, it also seems a little reminicent of Alice in Wonderland.

C-turtles....
PeanutButter and Jellyfish...
The backwards squid...it even uses an inkpen in reverse
Manatee-maids....
Sealions...
Choral reefs....singing always
Carpet sharks...
Fighting Fish Schools...

Thank you very much, I shall have to densify the area with your additions, which will be a very good thing.  I'll probably put some of them in the mostly uninhabited Amusement Park.

Although I have never read Alice in Wonderland, that and Oz, and Neopia, and Marapet Land were some of the inspirations.  Its meant to be a Wonderland.  In Oz, you wander about going to some destination, and bump into all sorts of small villages with very strange inhabitants.

PT

What about musicians?  I've always liked fiddler crabs, rock sole, rockfish, bluefish (very mellow), rock shrimp, and for those old enough to remember, the (Lawrence) Welk mollusk.

I think this is all wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. :)

I shall have to add a few more clubs near the one I already have...hmm, actually one of the secondary music places next to Nashville was a small Alabama town named Muscle?? Shoals...Mussel Shoals (that might be its actual name) would be good, maybe a bit obscure unless you're from the area or in the music industry.

Sea Bass or just Bass singers and players and guitarirsts...
Trout with the Tout--which is an English-ism for some sort of gambling I believe
Plank-ton--heavy-weight foundation boards that hold up the Towers of Menhadden
Algae?
Red Tide--a horde of insane Communist killing machines--thousands of little algae screaming power to the people and swinging knives....also a horde of Alabama football crazed fans stampeding over everyone in their race to get to the fifty yard line, and back to the concession stand, and then back to the fifty yard line before the kickoff...
Hammerhead Sharks...the carpenters of Aquatica

PT