well after spending the WHOLE afternoon wandering aimlessly around the very non linear inside of new zealand's national museum te papa i'd seen it all...it was a lot of fun, and one of the best museum's i've ever seen. yet i was here for the job ms. rhonwyn sent me on. the flax artifacts hadn't done anything yet... despite my hopes of their earlier acting up with the cannon in the botanic garden being evidence that they finally got enough mana exposure in wellington... they hadn't done anything anywhere in the museum.
making me panic a little, i'd accidentally wandered into full view of the tuatara display in the geology hall. now though tuatara's are far from scary or dangerous, in fact their quite cute, this caused me quite the frieght. i remember reading at the southland museum that the tuatara was the maori god whiro's messanger on earth... whiro didn't manage to track me down till after i'd visited the southland museum, which was packed full of tuatara's...
meaning he might very easily get back on my tail now that i'd stupidly shown off my intentions here on the north island...
little did i realize the most extrordinary thing was going to happen on my way out of the museum...
on my initial tour of the museum on the top floor i'd accidentally stumbled into "someone" while stupidly not watching where i was going... museums should have automated floors so you don't have to worry about watching where you're going, and you can just look at all the cool stuff inside them!...
going to yell at the guy who "ran" into me so hard i was shocked to come face to face with a maori style carving...
the top floor of the te papa is a world famous marae. or in other words maori meeting hall. in maori culture these places were very important to the function and runnig of communities and tribes (iwi in maori... i'm picking some of it up).
this was a modern one. covered in amazing modern style (ancient maori couldn't have produced them if they wanted) carvings and statues provided by many of the iwi of the whole country.
i'm sure for a normal visitor this is quite the spectacle to see... for me it was horrifying.don't get me wrong people of the web wide world. i was really impressed, and this was an amazing piece of art/culture.
at the same time it was also showcasing all the potential gods and entities that could be after me and these baskets... there was just SO many of them!!!
the whole thing was covered with gods, demi-gods, and atau coming off the surface...
though looking back on the pictures now they were neat as... but at the time with the kete o te wananga, the vessels of all maori magic, in my hot little pocket it was scary to look at all the potential stalkers and hunters who could be after me...
imagine these guys above alive. they didn't look so friendly to me.
these guys had a hint of sinisternous despite their sort of helpless look.
there was so many of them they just piled up literally on each other.
there were even taniwha, maori monsters, in the mix!
some of them were clearly evil, and their statue representations freaked me out enough on their own!
i was startled turning around and seeing a familiar "face"... whiro!!!
it was only a momentary freight fortunately. this whiro wasn't the greenstone i'd come to "know". it confirmed though that if whiro was in these ranks, that any of the others could potentially show up out of legend and try to get me, and the baskets...
oh right. i started this post about my leaving te papa!
well after seeing the various atau of the marae i decided to skip this room during the rest of my time at te papa. which was easy enough. it is one of the few easy to find and understand places in the museum. its the top level. period! the majority of everything else is below it so if i stuck to those than i couldn't go wrong.
by the time i'd finished spending the whole afternoon wandering the museum, and it was practically closing time, and they gave the 10 minute warning. i decided on one last run (almost literally...) through the place just to make sure. i knew that if the baskets were going to do something it would have to be te papa...
i figured i'd start from the top and work my way down as it'd be harder for them to kick me out the further i was from the entrance.
i'm glad i did it that way...
the instant i got to the top of the BIG stair case i suddenly got dizzy. a common thing to happen i've been finding with mystical occurrences!
like the cannon misfiring incident and the whale at kaikoura my shirt pocket suddenly heated up to a million degrees (at least it felt that way okay!)...
before i know what was happening one of the kete baskets floated... at least that what it looked like. it felt to me like it lept... out of my pocket and up towards the marae!!!
a million questions went through my peanut sized brain... was this a good thing? were the statues coming to life, and this another trap? should i be scarred? how was the basket floating? what is the square root of 13 346? what should i have for dinner?
fortunately all this mental activity ate up my brain's processing power, and i didn't actually react... had i, i might have interupted the big event... which is good as it turns out there was enough nearly going wrong at the time...
a security guard starting to herd people towards the exit for closing time had snuck up behind me. i think he'd been saying something to me, but i'd failed to notice on account of the mystical situation unfolding in my pocket... er airspace... anyways
suddenly there was a big strong hand on my shoulder. "sir, you have to leave!" he said as though i'd deliberately ignored him... uh i guess i did, but not how he thought anyway.
i snapped out of worrying thought, and into battle mode. last time a civilian (okay person not involved in my quest... which is everyone on the planet minus ms. rhonwyn) got between me and the baskets the reaction had failed...
without turning around... i wasn't sure if eye contact on the basket was a factor or not... tried to stall him. "one second," i paused of course for no reason, but i made it sound like i had one!
ten seconds later after letting the silence linger into an obvious brush off on my part. "sir i don't want to have to ask again," his forced politeness was wearing thin. i must have missed him in here a lot longer than i'd thought.
"it's just i noticed..." i again drew off as annoyingly as i could. trying to buy precious seconds.
again the guard politely waited hoping for me to explain my clearly rule breaking behaviour. mental note to self this guy was a good at his job. i'm going to have to a lesson from him here for my guarding at the otago.
"you'll have to come back and look at it tomorrow sir..." he began to say when he suddenly figured out what i was looking at. "is that hovering?"he said almost to himself.
before the poor guy could really grasp or ponder the sight before him, 'it' happened.
suddenly the magical tingle turned into a pulse... it was like my heart had become a hydro-pump and my blood was now pulsing my WHOLE body. only it wasn't my heart or blood involved. it's hard to describe...
at the same time the whole room lite up with magic, and the basket dissolved into... well thin air. it just wasn't there anymore. which i guess was the point of the exercise...
the guard saw something, but i'm not sure what. from what i understand normal humans (and dinosaurs for that matter) don't see magical energy like this. "did you just... see that?!?" the poor security guard pleaded with me for an answer. i didn't give him one of course.
i just savoured the immense satisfaction of victory! i'd travelled just over half of new zealand, and FINALLY i'd accomplished 1/3 my mission.
sure i still had more than half of my cargo left, but it didn't matter. they could be disposed of, and there was a purpose to what i was doing. more to the point there was one less thing i had to worry about whiro or other maori deities getting their hands on!
this museum quest was suddenly looking all the easier...
Location: Te Papa Museum
Baskets Left: 2!!!
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