Issue 12

Teknomage refamiliarized himself with how things were set up. "Okay, there are four Wheels. This one, mine, is naturally occurring. then there's the one Teknophage built on Kalighoul. Then there's one called Dominion which is very much the same as a website in another universe, a real universe, and on that website there are stories where everything that happens in those fictional stories is pretty much what really happens in the real versions of those stories, in the Dominion Wheel's universe. or something like that. So one could go thru the Dominion Wheel to any place that exists fictionally on the website Dominion in the real world.

now, all these wheels are connected by magical axles or something. my Wheel is connected to the Phage's Wheel and to the Dominion Wheel. The Phage's Wheel is connected to mine and to a mysterious one which won't come into play for a long time anyway and we won't bother worrying about it. Let's call that one the Zed Wheel for now. That name may mean something later, thinks one of dave's other personae, wayfarer. What? nevermind, i do hope the WatM stops doing that, popping into my head and saying stuff i can't be expected to understand. Well, the Dom Wheel is connected to mine and the Zed Wheel. so they all connect to form a huge rectangle, like they were wheels on a wagon or something. Teknophage's to mine to Dominion to Zed to teknophage's. okay. and each one exists in its own universe, quite unaccessible any way but thru the axles. and then when you're faced with one of the wheels, you can program it to take you, if you step thru the normal spaces rather than the axles, to any number of places. like mine goes to places like "over the rainbow," which i haven't explored yet, but which i will assume is Oz, and Wonderland, and Xanth, and a number of other interesting fictional places that i know of from stories in my own world, Earth. the Phage's wheel takes you to planets like Earth, Kalighoul, Albion, Avalon, etc. The dom wheel takes you anywhere you could read a story about on the realworld website of the same name, which of course means it'll overlap with a number of places you can get to thru other wheels, but it is unclear whether they will be the same version of a place thru each wheel. They will be the same, just to make things less confusing. thanks, writer-me. but please don't do that if you can avoid it. i will... um, do it as little as possible. thanks."

so he thot he had it all fairly well established in his own mind now, and hopefully in the minds of any readers. so he went about setting up a house for himself and Zack the Cheshire Kitten here in his own private paradise, not too far from his own Wheel.

"but there's another problem," he thot to himself one night sitting in his house thinking about things. "I seem sometimes to know things or people i've never heard of or met. that's because the Writer-me read or did these things on the website Dom before he got around to creating me as a character. this could be quite confusing, for me, and especially for anyone i meet who doesn't understand that they are characters in a fictional story, at least on some level, as well as real people in another universe. or something. even i'm not real clear on it all, so i don't know how anybuddy else could be. oh well. here's an idea: whenever i seem to know something, I'll dismiss it as having happened to me as a character already, even if it really only happened to Writer-me before i even existed. or something. i wonder if that'll work? well, hell, sure it will, if i like. whatever."

and then he went and prepared guestrooms, and one special room for nikkita, who he hadn't met but once in the Queen of Hearts' rose garden or something, himself, but he knew he loved her, and suddenly felt jealous of the real him, the Writer, who obviously was in a better position than he was yet regarding her...and many other people and things. but probably they wouldn't be getting too involved in all this anyway, and i can just write their characters involvement however i like, unless they object. and if they don't get involved, why would they object? still, it'd be nice if they did. get involved, that is, not object.

"then again, why does Nikkita even need her own room? she can share mine... ah, but no, it's always nice to have a place of your own to retreat to sometimes. whatever, it's okay. say, wait, if i'm real to me, but the writer's just on computers, i have an advantage, because i actually get to meet these people really, and do things with them, that he can't... especially nikkita..." would you stop thinking about her, you're making me jealous. "I thought you were staying out of things, writer." fine. i will.

the next morning, everything seemed very clear to teknomage, and he decided he really needed to do some adventuring. so he got zack and they squeezed thru the axle of the Wheel and came out the other side, face to face with the Dominion Wheel.

"where to go now?" he thought. "Oh well, let's assume that even tho teknikly i haven't really met anybuddy around here so much, i've already been to ThELanDOFMilKAnDHoneY, and i'm already a knight of the Square Table. and i already know a lot of people around there, and let's say that some of them know me. i think now i want to go to witchqueen's palace."

so he programmed the wheel and stepped thru, carrying zack cradled in his arms, and a pack slung across his back, with his walking staff stuck between the pack and his back, since he couldn't readily carry both it and Zack. he appeared outside the Palace, and the guards knew him there, vaguely. apparently, he had briefly considered joining the Guards of the WitchQueen Recruitment, but it hadn't panned out. he already had his own room, Tekno's Outpost, in the palace. he stopped in there and dropped off his pack and Zack, taking only his staff with him when he went out looking for where interesting things were doing. it turned out to be the warroom.

before going in, he stopped and thot that this seemed further in the future than he expected to be. he thot there were things going on elsewhere, in places like Arkadia and Nyebeh, but that must be ten years ago. then it occurred to him that he might go back there, back in time, someday. if so, anyone who'd been there would know him now, if this is the present and that the past, or something. so he was here first, but to them this was not their first meeting. well, the Writer himself knows somethings about that history and may provide me with certain knowledge, but not all, as it is not all written yet. this could make things more confusing, but at least i'm not mezberris. "who?" you'll find out, answered the Writer...

teknomage shrugged, gave in once again to the insanity of it all, and knocked on the door to the warroom, awaiting an invitation to enter...

Issue 13

_____the Cheshire Cat fades into view, and looks around. "Appears that this branch of the Story has gone into a quiet stage for a while," it comments to the empty air. Having come to this useful conclusion, the Cat fades away again.

_____But then, with a , comes into view again. "Having consulted the empty air," Cheshire says firmly, "I'd point out that one signs up TO BE a Guard of the WitchQueen, (or as an advisor, such as myself :) ) AT the topic 'called' Guards of the WitchQueen Recruitment." And with that, the Cat fades away again.

_____"Probably what he meant, of course," and with that, the Cheshire Cat is gone to where it came.~~~

Note: memory fails, but chances are this was May 1996:

Issue 14

just outside the WitchQueen's Palace, teknomage and zack the cheshire kitten opened the Dominion Wheel. they walked thru, using tek's specially installed rerouting circuit (which let them skip over parallel Wheels, as necessary), and emerged outside in the desert, in teknomage's Earth. he hadn't been here in some while. now, he and zack journeyed back to Caribou, back to tek's house in the real world...where tek went by another name...

things got rather boring and normal. and God, was it ever refreshing...

Author's Notes, August 21, 1998

In the time between January and May, of course, some things would have happened. Tek and Zack would have had some adventures, in other stories which weren't saved by the WatM (Writer-at-the-Moment) to disk. And a great much of what was discussed somewhat in things that were saved, and now is reproduced here, either never happened or at least ended up making even less than the nearly nonexistent sense the WatM originally intended or at least hoped for.

Still, he remembers vaguely spending some time on the Twilight Paths with some interesting folks. He remembers that he has a magical red backpack from which he can produce almost anything he wants, mundane or magical, sort of like Mary Poppins's carpet bag or a replicator... He remembers starting to do something with Moxie on Acrothei, and he might have a hard copy of some of that story somewhere...

Yes, things happened. Life went on. Until February 1997, at which point events in the so-called real world conspired against his continued access to the Dominion, either the website or the Wheel of Worlds... and eventually, he returned in August 1998, and could perhaps resume adventures... perhaps perhaps perhaps, one never knows...

And perhaps i made a modification or three (or more or less, i never really counted) in transferring this from disk-saved-off-the-Dominion to homepage. I changed the fact that originally i had character teknomage as about 2 years older than writer teknomage, though somehow the character still managed to live in Caribou and be writing comic books whereas writer teknomage (aka David, and so many other names) still lives in New Sweden, some 15 minutes away from Caribou, and New Sweden being the most boring place ever conceived by Man; and has no writing career of comix or anything else, though he does try to sell books and stories, and so would be grateful if anyone knew a good agent.