the big picture (new horizons part 1)

now as you know people of the innerweb i've had a rather interesting year so far. mostly on account of work... in fact VERY much so because of work.

when my boss ms. rhonwyn gave me a promotion a year ago (due to my being able to put up with my JERK! of a cousin larry's visit) i had NO idea what i was in for...

back in canada at the tyrrell museum life had been pretty normal for me. in fact almost boringly so! most of the time i just sat around pretending to be a statue (so i didn't bother the guests by talking to them...). apart from my brief gig hanging out with the museum's summer camp (which was primo fun! i'll have to post about it sometime) i always knew what to expect.

at first working at the otago museum was the same thing. being a security guard is pretty predictable. so when ms. rhonwyn made me her personal assistant i just thought it'd be the same. a low key repetitive task... man was i wrong! (don't believe me check out the museum quest she sent me on ALL over new zealand!).

the scary thing is she just offered me ANOTHER promotion... what on earth could this lead too i don't know?!? as if being chased by maori gods wasn't crazy enough!!!

of course the other big thing was not only did she just offer me another promotion. i just found out that ms. rhonwyn while here in australia (during my whole museum quest adventure) has made a ton of new dinosaur friends and acquaintances.

including one dip serendipaceratops. who in some ways is probably the most amazing dinosaur i've come across over the years. she's not just a museum exhibit or resident... dip serendipaceratops is an actual PHD candidate. in other words not only has she somehow gotten into skool, but she is going to be a real scientist soon!

can you imagine it people of the innerweb?... maybe not easily come to think of it. for you its probably normal for someone to at least potentially do anything they want.

for us dinosaurs still left alive in the cenozoic things are not quite that easy. you're best hope is to become a movie star or a museum's key attraction. even then you're at the whim of your popularity with the human public. if they lose interest you're back at the bottom. that bottom being a pushed around part of a museum's collection or worse a under appreciated spectacle of some tourist town or theme park...

yet here is dip rising above all that to something resembling a human being. imagine if her example takes off? i've always dreamed of becoming a curator someday. maybe with someone like dip pioneering the way that'll be possible for me someday.

at the same time i really don't like her. now don't get me wrong people of the web wide world. i appreciate what dip is doing for my kind. at the same time she is really mean. frankly i don't really like mean people (or dinosaurs... does anyone?).

anyways i'm way off tangent. point being that now dip is hanging out with my boss ms. rhonwyn, and their working on sciency type stuff together (though what sort of science ms. rhonwyn does is beyond me). i don't like it. with my brain size problem, and dip being more legitimate i am going to level with you people of the innerweb that i'm worried that ms. rhonwyn won't have a use for me anymore. even despite her offering me a promotion today.

right the promotion!

so ms. rhonwyn had taken me away from dip and the other aussie dinosaur of the melbourne museum to the human half of the gallery. here she wanted to discuss my future. or at least that's what i thought at first... it turned out she more wanted to wrap up the museum quest once and for all.

she brought me to a display of aboriginal australian baskets... but i at first glance i thought they were maori flax baskets... or as the new zealand brand are called kete among which were the kete o te wananga which i'd carried all around new zealand...

seeing these i kinda freaked a bit! i was SO not going on another museum quest!!! no matter what she offered me, i was going to tell ms. rhonwyn i quit that instant. there was no way i was going to be hunted by anymore angry deities EVER (so i hope anyway...).

ms. rhonwyn just laughed when i refused to transport any of these baskets. "no, no silly," she giggled. "the kete o te wananga are gone for good thanks to you. there will be no more quests like yours ever again."

"have there been any before?" i wondered out loud.

ms. rhonwyn frowned a bit at the question as though i'd hit a sore point... seriously i hadn't meant too. seriously! "no," she answered simply, which answered my question, but ms. rhonwyn sounded as though she thought this wasn't enough for some reason. she took in a slight breath thinking of how to answer further. "the truth is though, traumador, there should never have been a need for your quest. if the kete o te wananga had been left in the care of the maori as tane had intended then none of this year's debacle would have occurred."

"though we don't understand the exact timing or nature of their origin, the kete o te wananga appear to indeed, as the legends say, be the source of all maori mystic knowledge. whether how they ended up in the possession of the maori as described in stories may well remain a highly debated question among mystical scholars. all we do know is that somehow three immensely concentrated chunks of mystical gradient essence were endowed within three flax kete with the purpose of fostering and powering maori magics."

"wow," i said impressed. that was cool. somehow in the distant past the maori had taken pure magic from beyond our world and trapped it in something they had made to harness the power for their betterment and use. normally a story like this would have been a bit above my head, but somehow i already knew the story... i'd touched this power first hand so in a way i was now a part of this story... the end of it.

ms. rhonwyn took my comment to be a sign of boredom or something and changed her train of thought. "anyways," so i'm not the only one who can go off topic like that! "as the maori's culture succumbed to european expansion into the country, eventually the three kete were acquired by various new zealand museums. the kete tuauri [basket of benign magics and the occult] was purchased in 1896, the kete aronui [magics beneficial to humanity] traded to the fledgling otago in 1900, and the maori successful hide the kete tuateu [basket of harmful and "black" magic] until 1956 when the faithful guardians finally passed on with no heirs. can you believe in the end that one of the most feared artifacts of an entire culture was simply donated of all things?!?"

"with the kete out of the protective care of their creators the maori they simply sat on display or in collections across the country collecting dust" ms. rhonwyn grew sad, "a true waste. on all fronts. the maori had relied on them for centuries. so it was a real loss for them, and to the world's knowledge as we didn't learn a damn thing from them till it was too late."

"the whole time they leaked and oozed their high level mystic gradient radiation. under the watchful eye of a tohunga [maori shaman] these residues would have been contained and hidden. we idiots of the west just held onto their treasure because that's what we do. hold on to treasure. never bloodly learning why it is treasure! i thought i'd made the discover of a lifetime last year when i connected the three spread out baskets to their true identities."

ms. rhonwyn turned to me sympathetically. "my own quest to find the baskets was why i was away so much of last year."

"of course i did this only to find out that they were being sought by things of a otherworldly nature, and more than likely not too friendly a disposition."

"as you now know traumador, you leave a trail of mystic gradient radiation lying around, and something is going to pick it up. i realized quickly that the baskets were no longer safe in our realm. if they were to fall into the hands of mystic creature in our dimensional plane the results could be unimaginable," she cautioned. though i could imagine it. i'd seen ghostbusters, and i had nothing with which to cross the streams! "the only solution was to re-disperse them to the magical realms from which they came!"

"there were tales among the tohunga of the ill effects of taking the kete close to places of great mana [maori concept of power and supreme presence]. thus why i had you go to the places you did. i figured either the locations of maori reverence or their artifacts of old might have enough power left in them to tigger the baskets."

"why me?" i asked.

ms. rhonwyn frowned, clearly feeling as though she'd let down more than me by not taking the baskets around NZ herself. "because i had no choice," she admitted. "the league couldn't make up its mind as to whether dispose the baskets before a threat or after."

"the league?" i asked completely confused and excited. did she mean the justice league?!? wow i soooooo wanted to meet superman!

crushing this hope of mine ms. rhonwyn looked at me puzzled for a moment. "the australasia heritage league," she declared. when it clearly didn't ring a bell she looked at me bewildered. "your current employer?"

"the otago museum?" i answered her with a unsure question. wasn't the museum who i worked for.

ms. rhonwyn looked more baffled than before. "you haven't worked for them officially since last year!"

"WHAT?!?" i thought and said at the same time... how could that be?!? i'd been getting pay checks from them this whole time... or had i come to think of it. apart from two pay checks i'd been out of town on the quest, and i hadn't paid (pun intended i guess) that close of attention to my checks at that point.

"traumador i only work out of the otago as my base of operations. my duties with the league take me all over the region of new zealand, australia, and further. as my personal assistant you're in the same boat," she informed me.

i was still reeling from the news i didn't work at the otago. "this league, they aren't top secret are they?" i asked expecting yet another palaeo central story with more things lurking in the shadows and everything...

"no hardly," ms. rhonwyn laughed. "its quite public knowledge that the various museum, universities, and other research institutions of the southern hemisphere have tried to work together to safe guard the various historic and heritage resources we possess down here. its just a question of how successful we've been."

"the kete being one the first of what will surely be, sadly, many challenges we have in this regards," she sighed at some unknown to me knowledge of hard battles and decisions coming up. "a clear issue like them, and the league has no idea how to react. that's the problem with noble intentions. they sound good till you find out everyone has different ideas and degrees of nobility."

ms. rhonwyn turned to me earnestly. "which is why i'm offering you this new promotion. you won't just be my reserve assistant anymore traumador. you'll be an actual field agent in the thick of new zealand's historic resources."

"you mean like a researcher?!?" i jumped in the air eagerly with excitement.

"well i wasn't going to mention that part till we had a chance to sit down and really figure this out. to be honest the league has no idea what it is doing. i forced this kete mission down their throats, and having been proven right i might be able to form more policy of a proactive nature. which might than allow me to get you in a few places you'd never think possible," she answered me smugly, but cautioned. "at the same time that is a big maybe. i've got a few things to sort out, and you have a lot to learn in the meantime. for now i just need to know traumador, are you able and ready to take a more active role in the finding, collecting, and protecting of ancient materials?"

it was a dream come true. maybe all this exposure to dip wasn't such a bad thing after all! "you bet!!!" i nearly shouted with excitement.

"excellent," ms. rhonwyn smiled. "well in that case i have some paperwork to process. we'll discuss your new position in depth, once i've figured out exactly what it shall be," she smirked. "in the meantime have a relaxing evening. i hear you have a BIG day ahead of your tomorrow," she winked at me and started walking me to the door.

tomorrow was indeed a big day! i had my date with lillian albertosaur!

not just that now my career within the museum world might actually take off and lead somewhere! instead of looking forward to being just another attraction i might actually get to be one of the thinkers of the research world!

i won't lie people of the web wide world, today i feel like anything is possible!

quest's end... (museum quest CONCLUSION!)

Location: Auckland

Baskets Left: 1
_

i'd failed my mission to dispose of the three kete o te wananga (the tombs of all maori mystic knowledge) baskets... though i'd managed to alert ms. rhonwyn of the situation i didn't think there was much hope of her salvaging my bungle up...

_
whiro, maori god of suffering and darkness, had caught up with me in auckland. this was the end of the quest for more than one reason.

the most obvious being with him on my tail (nearly literally) there was no way i could safely hold onto this basket. besides that i had no way now of getting rid of it. i'd hit every spot on the list ms. rhonwyn had given me...

okay all but one. however picton (which i had to skip due to the LAST time whiro caught up with me) was halfway across new zealand. now i was out of tickets and money to get around the country. meaning i was stuck on my own two feet to get me anywhere, and with a tireless immortal deity chasing me down my odds of making it out of auckland, that alone to picton were pretty much 0%.

in desperation at the auckland war memorial museum i'd come up with a REALLY stupid off the cusp plan. one that almost seemed to be working. not that i knew how it was going to actually save the basket... and there certainly was no chance i was going to live through it. that was for sure.

the key to my plan was that whiro chase me. which could only end in him catching me...

the reason i say this is that after running dozens and dozens of blocks through auckland i couldn't run anymore!

i'd done pretty good if you ask me. i'd managed to keep ahead of the immortal whiro, with his seemingly never ending supply of energy, and for a guy with supernatural powers he runs like an edmontosaur! with the speed advantage i had on my ornithomimid-like juvenile tyrannosaur body, i'd nearly lost whiro three times. the problem was that was me sprinting, and i'd of course have to slow back down to regain my energy. at which point he'd catch up...

till i finally reached a point where i couldn't run anymore at all. my legs were dead, and i could hardly stand up because of my gasping for air. the spot was actually pretty cool (though i never did learn what it was called). it was a stadium of some sort, and in front was a polynesian style totem pole. had it been different circumstances this would have been a great spot...

but as craig used to say "this is the way it is." whiro was once again caught up with me, and there was NOTHING i could do about it...

i'd fallen in an exhausted pile at the base of the totem pole which is where whiro caught up to me.

looking at this photo i didn't realize how well i could have camouflaged with the flowers just beside the darn pole!!!

"you have given me a good hunt kauwheke te kura [ancestor of the moa], but you're lack of courage here at the end disgusts me. could my brother tane not find a more brave warrior to be his champion and face me in battle?" whiro seemed to complain as he close in on me. wielding his mere or maori jade stone club he showed his intent to end my existence...

i let out a scream... not that it mattered the stadium was quite abandoned during this dull afternoon.

whiro laughed. "i shall not lie to you kauwheke te kura, i take great pleasure in this deed. not just for the trouble you have caused me in recovering the kete o te wananga i rightfully deserve, but because of this pathetic display of cowardice you give me now!"

he was right i realized out of my fear. i stopped screaming, and suddenly i had an odd calm about me. it was scary people of the web wide world. suddenly i didn't care i was about to die. i'd accepted it as matter of fact, and just started thinking through very detachedly how the last few seconds were going to play out...

"very well," i agreed. though i was exhausted, i stood up before him. "i shall face you at least standing on my own two feet."

whiro made an audible sound of satisfaction. he seemed to take a moment to savour the anticipation of the kill...

however my fight or flight instinct had kicked back in, and for once... my suppressed tyrannosaur instincts must have been stirred... i wasn't opting for flight now. i was going to fight!

it was almost like slow motion, but not really. my brain just registered stuff really fast (definitely unlike normal!!!) as they happened. whiro gripped his greenstone club tighter, and started to draw his arm back for the killing strike. as he started to advance on me i lunged at him. bearing my full killer crushing jaws at his chest...

had he not been made of greenstone himself, and not immortally or magic (i'm not sure which one) invulnerable, my bite would probably have killed him dead as i punctured his chest with my teeth and crushed his ribs with my incredibly strong bite. sadly though he was made of greenstone and he was invulnerable.

i just slammed off his torso as though i'd run into a brick... er greenstone wall (though in my defense i was defending myself. normally i'd never run into a wall). some of my teeth broke... its a good thing that in my case they'll grow back.

whiro stopped for moment. "i'm impressed their is a spirit of warrior buried somewhere within you," he stopped and starred at me. a long penetrating glare as though he was reading my very essence. "yes. under all that pākehā [maori word for european... though i think whiro used it here to mean modern society vs. traditional mysticism fearing cultures] conditioning lies a monster's soul waiting to be unleashed. in fact it is ready to come out any moment."

was he referring to my tyrannosaurid ways i'd been spending my whole life to avoid?

suddenly stopping whiro became very distracted by something afar. he turned to face it. just as i contemplated running again, whatever it was hit me too...

it was as though a shock wave from a nuclear blast had hit me... but yet not. i was unbelievably dizzy. something majorly magic had just happened! i suspected i knew what it was.

indeed my suspicion was correct... for back at the auckland museum part of my plan had panned out in a way i'd never anticipated...

remember that panel i'd been really stressed about in the marae. well there was a very good reason i was stressed about it. take a really close look at the picture...

did you notice the kete basket i'd hidden in the panel? well that's what i did.

the plan had been to hide it there, and hope i could distract whiro long enough for ms. rhonwyn to arrange for someone else to go and retrieve the basket and get it to picton.

only something very unexpected happened...

despite my having spent a few hours in the auckland museum and it doing nothing, now the basket suddenly decided that there was actually enough mana in the marae and that it was going to finally phase out of our reality...

somehow my plan had worked!!!!!!!!!!

i certainly wasn't expecting any of that to work out.

I'D ACCOMPLISHED THE MISSION!

not that i was going to get to enjoy the fruits of my victory.

as the pulse wave from the basket disappearing subsided (i'm thinking it was that much stronger a pulse of magic because the whole set of baskets had now gone) whiro snapped around to me. there was no need to guess what was going through his rock head.

gone was the composed god. before me was a crazed beast. he hunched over in a frightful manner, and emitted a most vicious growl. in this feral stance he advanced on me, mere posed before him.

as he closed, whiro pounced into the air to bring his entirety down upon me for the finished strike...

my life flashed before my eyes... wow had i seriously done so much and yet so little in my nearly five years of life?!?

i can remember in vivid detail, him descending on me in slow motion. my magic sense kicked in as an intense dizziness hit me once more. i thought this was my detecting my mystic natured doom finishing my existence...

little did i know behind me something was materializing...

before i know it a second greenstone figure swung in from over top me, and smashed whiro out of mid air! it was the awesome combat move i'd ever seen! (probably because it saved my life rather than it's kung funess). this new atua's (god i was assuming) hit sent whiro flying back several metres, and his mere flying from his clawed hands.

the comer took up a clearly aggressive stance between me and whiro (i smartly hid behind that statue). "you are to cease this at once whiro, and depart this realm forever!" it commanded in a really pissed off voice.

whiro's voice hissed in reply "so you finally dare to show yourself brother," ah i was right, the new comer was a god... as all the maori gods were related to each other. "this was your doing wasn't it. sending the kete back to the upper heavens. you and you're pathetic champion may have thwarted my reclaiming them, but neither of you shall live to enjoy your victory!!!"

suddenly a loud buzz filled the air as a great shadow fell from the sky to surround whiro. it was a massive army of his minions, the mosquitoes and sandflies, just like the ones that had attacked me in rotorua only there were way more of them here!... for a moment they menacingly, and very intimidatingly swarmed above their master...

than in unnaturally organized columns the legion of bugs charged my defender full on. sending him reeling from their impact. within seconds he was overwhelmed by the pests. though individually they were nothing. as an army their power was incredible. as the buzzing of their efforts grew deafeningly loud one could hear over the crunch and crack of rock... despite his greenstone composition my guardian was literally breaking under their assault!!!

just as all hope seemed lost for both him and me there came from under the buzzing and crunching a echoed voice, that despite being quite inaudible, resounded.

there was a great light, and my magic dizziness went into overdrive, as my defender finished casting his spell or incantation. the swarm of insects ignited as the powerful enchantment simply vaporized them (or something... i'm no wizard, and couldn't tell you the technical terminology for it... all i can say is they weren't there anymore).

my defender pulled himself off the ground. the breaks and fissures in his once smooth flawless greenstone body were now evident as this damage caused him to creak and crack as he moved.

"i warned you whiro," he bellowed in a both furious, but yet sadly disappointed tone. "just as i did thousands of years ago. once again you leave me no choice but to use the kete tuateu against you."

whiro who till now had been amazed and shocked into inaction by the destruction of his minions once again snapped into his bestial state and blindly rushed his brother.

once again my defender began his unearthly echoing chant, and a very very intense spell shot forth... striking whiro...

i could just make out through the humming of the spell, and the loud echo of my guardian's chanting whiro scream "i will not return to rarohenga [maori underworld]!" with this resolve he seemed to shoulder off the blast for a moment, but than the chanting increased volume and whiro started to demateralize!

moments later it was done whiro had been engulfed and swallowed by the blinding energy.

just like that the quest was over. both the kete AND whiro were gone... yet there remained something to remind me of what had just been happening.

my guardian walked over to me as i lay on the ground in a my exhausted, terrorified, and quizzy pile. looking up at him i expected him to speak. yet he said nothing. he just tilted his head so that it was alined with my own.

there we stayed for, what felt like anyway, a few minutes.

than from behind my saviour a bright glow erupted from... well it looked kinda like a crack through... thin air. he started to turn towards it as though to make his exit...

in all the confusion, action, and near death experience i hadn't pondered with my small brain who this might be. suddenly my neurons fired up on the subject, and i figured it out quick! like normal big brained human quick!!!

could this be tane? maori god of the forest. the one who had acquired the kete o te wananga in the first place.

rather than answer my questions about my guardian it simply raised more.

• why had he saved me?
• why hadn't he intervened sooner?
• if he could have sent whiro back to the underworld why hadn't he done that sooner?
  
• if he didn't want the baskets to fall into whiro's hands why hadn't he just taken them?
• why were the baskets going back the higher plains of reality now after being on earth for so long?
• was ms. rhonwyn in on all this?
• could he help me with my new magic problem?
• what was going to happen next? was i going to have to worry about whiro escaping?

as the glow increased, and he started to walk into it desperate for some answers i called out. "tane?"

with his back still turned to me the god stopped for a moment. rather than answer my question it simply said "i thank you."

it than resumed walking into the light which was incredibly intense now. a second later snapped off as though by a switch, and the god (tane???) was gone now just like whiro and the baskets...

THE END...

of the museum quest anyways... my life would go on... and in ways i couldn't possibly imagine. which is saying something considering what i saw today!

(Production Note: So now begins Traumador: Year 1.5)

no where to run... (museum quest part 26)

Location: Auckland War Memorial Museum

Baskets Left: 1

it should have been over people of the web wide world...

i'd hit (nearly) every stop on ms. rhonwyn's list, yet i still had one of the flax artifact baskets. even after going round the auckland museum's maori hall twice it was still here...

this was a big problem, though not an entirely unsolvable one mind you.

i'd been forced to skip all my stops in picton, by what i think most would consider acceptable reasons. if i could figure out a way to get back to picton than i'd probably be okay. not that it was going to be easy. ms. rhonwyn had given me a set of rental vouchers, free tickets, and money to get from one end of new zealand to the other. all of it was gone now. she'd been specific that i not miss stops so i won't have to back track...

now i was half a country from where i needed to be.

that was just the problem if i were keeping it solvable mind you... of course it wasn't anymore.

due to a brand new factor, literally walking onto the scene.

whiro the maori god of darkness had finally caught up with me... which was almost an extraordinary event (if not for the peril it caused anyway). i hadn't seen him on the north island at all... only his minions... i'd been wondering if he'd been able to make the crossing to the north island or not. apparently he could it would seem.

the only good bit of news out of all of it, was that whiro didn't know where i was in the museum.

i'd managed to hide just in time when he arrived (if not for my newly acquired "magic sense" i'd have had it!). not that it was going to really save me for long...

he seemed to have an uncanny ability to track me... the only time i can think of that i lost him was at the mirror lakes (he just walked off into the woods for some reason)... so even if i managed to sneak past him out of the building he was bound to catch up quick.

that wasn't even mentioning i had no transport. i'd returned my last rental car when i got into auckland. meaning i'd have to find a car or something out of town... which would take time... last time i had whiro right on my tail there was no way i would have been able to get to rental place and hit the road. so i didn't see how this time was going to be different.

i suddenly realized all this thinking had distracted me for a good minute. i peeked around from my hiding spot to discover whiro was no where to be seen...

stupid tiny brain! heavy thinking like this always slows me down big time...

i reminded myself not to panic. it was important not to panic. the good news was whiro obviously couldn't pinpoint me in the museum... though for how long that was true i wasn't sure... to be fair he could also have been toying with me.

i needed a plan of action, and i needed it yesterday!

the weird part as unlike normal i didn't need huge amounts of time to think. for whatever reason, probably the panic, i came up with a really fast plan.

even right at that moment i thought of it, that alone thinking about it now, it was the worst plan i'd EVER come up with!

what choice did i have though???

okay don't actually answer that people of the web wide world... the obvious choice was to take a few minutes and come up with something better... but its always easier when looking back in time. for all i knew whiro was about to pounce, and let me assure you he may not be scary to read about, but he sure is scary in person!

so off i went to enact the first foolhardy idea i'd come up. even i could tell i was doomed from the start...

i sprinted to the maori gallery trying to get to the marae, but you'll never guess what i nearly ran into... yeah it was whiro... okay that was a lame game of guess who i admit, but considering the stress of today please cut me some slack people of the innerweb.

despite nearly barrelling into him, whiro didn't notice me. which is pretty amazing considering the loud screech i made clawing my way to a halt on the slippery tiled floor.

i stumbled around for what must have been the age of the earth to find a hiding spot... though in a review of the security tape i'm told 24 seconds... when i finally found one i was still amazed that whiro hadn't taken notice.

in fact as i watched him, whiro seemed very distance. zoned out in fact. it was like he was... this will sound stupid, but it's true... following his nose. wait why'd i say that... pretend i hadn't written that last bit, and this is what i said instead of the nose thing... like he was following an invisible trail.

i realized after watching for a couple minutes that whiro was seriously following my path through the museum. somehow he was taking the EXACT same route as i had... wait i'd seen this before. when he tracked me down at the mirror lakes... somehow he was either sensing something me or the baskets were leaving behind.

suddenly my plan altered a little bit... which i knew even then, must mean i was even more doomed than before. if my plan could be that easily changed... too late though.

finally whiro wandered out of the maori court, and i snuck into the marae.

here was the moment of truth. either i go through with my more than likely critically flawed scheme or listen to sober second thought and try and think of something intelligent...

so of course i opened the dare basket!

immediately i was dizzy and tingly. than just like it had the first time i'd opened a basket the dosage of mystic gradient energy turned up... or sorry mystic gradient energy is fancy sciency talk for magic...

again i could feel the magic flow through every millimetre of my body. there is nothing grosser or more uncomfortable than feeling all the organs and soft gooey parts of your body people of the innerweb. seriously i felt everything down to the little ends of my nerves.

i also once again got a massive flashback/slide show version of maori mysticism. for a moment i knew it all as though i had the brain of a smart person. sadly i lost most of the knowledge when the effects of the basket wore off. with this peek i can safely say this was kete tuateu the tomb of all the maori black arts and deadly magics (what little i remember typically shows up in my nightmares...)... this was the same basket i'd opened up before.

the secrets of the maori dark arts, i definitely didn't want whiro getting his hands on these!.. and what had i done. turned on the loudest mystic beacon i could as to my whereabouts!

instantly after the basket had finished bombarding me and the room with mystical gradient energy, the place went insane! i'd seen what baskets could do to a place while their magic was sealed up in wellington (here and here). i sure wasn't prepared for the effect it'd have on maori artifacts (though i really shouldn't be surprised. the baskets did make pearl harbour new zealand into the best war reenactment of the movie ever!)

suddenly all the dozens of totems and statues of the marae were really animated. well okay fortunately just their mouths. otherwise i would have been in trouble... cause they were all really mad at me!!!

from all around me (the walls were made of these guys after all) came a none stop chatter of them screaming stuff like: "you foolish mortal!" "what have you done kauwheke te kura?" "you have broken tapu!" "may the gods curse you forever!" "you dare release such terrible powers on the world?!?" at me.

though it was quite insulting and frankly irritating (i now know what the phrase "if these walls could talk" means!) i was relieved. it was kind of part of my plan. though i'd never imagined the building itself would become such a character in all this. i'd just been counting on a magic over dose... i was suspecting that was how whiro had been following me the entire quest.

he hadn't picked up my trail until i'd stupidly opened the basket. had i never done that than he'd probably never have found me in this big country... to late to cry over spelt magic though.

the only part of my plan that made sense was to use his magic hound sense against him.

quickly i ran over to the wall furthest from the door. the wall totems really didn't like that, and i had to not lean too close or they'd bite at me. several of them had sharp carved teeth!

i prepared the key part of my plan.

though i finished with time to spare it couldn't have been long enough really. a few minutes later a familiar clicking sound of stone on tile could be heard getting closer, and moving very quickly towards the marae.

whiro appeared at the entrance, but cautiously entered as though adjusting to the dark...

as he stepped inside the totems on the wall all began to register their hatred and fear of whiro. well apart from one or two interestingly. they were deity butt kissers, who clearly didn't like him, but were trying to kiss up to him...

even though the totems had all seen what i'd done, not a single one ratted me out though. phew! it'd have been game over if they had.

"silence you fools!" whiro hissed above their combined chatter. instantly the totems all quieted down some visibly recoiling despite being unable to actual move. "you dare address an atua such as myself in this manner?!? do you not realize what i in my infinite power could do to you?" i wasn't sure how much of his talk was just for show or not, but these carvings of great ancient warriors and demi-gods clearly were really scared of him.

"why i should not invoke tapu upon you now i do not know. it is because of your ancestors and iwi abandoning the old ways we gods have been brought to brink of oblvion," whiro contemplated aloud. than i realized why. he was trying to scare them into helping him. "it is so bright in here. if one of you tell me where the kete is that i seek you shall be rewarded in my ascession."

no i just realized, he was overcome by the crazy amount of magic inside not the dark! he couldn't see properly because of my bombarding the place... just like i'd planned!

wait a second. he'd asked the totems to tell him where the kete is, and i wasn't prepared...

as whiro walked into the middle of the room awaiting an answer, i crept towards the door. as i went i very anxiously looked back at the panel where i'd been "hiding". me as my brain and limbs went numb as fear and doubt overwhelmed me... everything depended on that one panel. the stupidity and recklessness of my "plan" hit me all at once as i stepped into the doorway...

than like that i had to get into game mode.

one of the sucking up totems spoke up. "oh great atua, whiro, the kete which you seek..." it started. oh no!

fortunantely a few of the other nobler and braver totems began screaming at and over the cowardly one drowning out the rest of the sentence. if i was going to keep my so far working plan on the tracks i had to kick it into high gear now!

as i got into the door i purposely tripped. i was rewarded with a very unearthly frightening growl (it made gozer's roar in ghostbusters seem like a little girl growling!) as whiro noticed my attempted escape.

with my juvenile tyrannosaur legs (which are of course built for speed compared to the heavier adult) i bolted out of there. much to the shock and annoyance of the normal visitors to the museum. they couldn't see whiro though. i'd noticed most peope don't seem attuned to magical stuff unless their exposed to it properly.

trust me though, if you'd seen him sprinting after me you'd have been terrified too!

as i ran from the museum i could hear him on my tail till i got out the front door (or was it back? auckland has two main entrances...)

as i made it halfway across the grass i realized i'd lost him... why?

as i stood panicedly thinking the situation over, and what i was going to do next... i needed him to follow me away from the museum... i clawed anxiously at the grass.

the soft vegetation under foot was kinda soothing despite the dire situation i was in, and it made me crave a nice lay down back home in the botanic garden in dunedin... i could just imagine lying my head down on that nice soft moss pillow and closing my... wait a second! MOSS that was it!!!

there was moss at the mirror lakes... oh sorry people of the innerweb, euphorias muck up my at the best of times strained thinking... remember when whiro had me trapped at the mirror lakes, and followed my trail perfectly till it came to the bit off the path... well this was just like that.

he'd been following me in the museum fine, but now that i was in "nature" he seemed to be unable to get my "scent"...

i couldn't let him back track and figure out what'd i'd been up to it would have been game over...

but how was i going to get his attention now?...

than it hit me. ms. rhonwyn had said not to phone after mystic gradient radiation exposure because the phone connection applified it into a magical becon...

so guess who i dialed?

ms. rhonwyn answered the phone with no rings. "traumador our tracking sateillites have been picking up spectacular MGR spikes in auckland. does this mean you've completed the mission?" she sounded hopeful

i couldn't lie or even pretend my plan was going to work. "no, i've failed," i sadly admitted thinking through the situation one more time.

"ms. rhonwyn i'm so sorry i couldn't pull this off for you, and i hope you forgive me when i'm gone," which i suspected would right after this phone call. "i failed in the marae at the auckland museum. send someone to follow up my efforts there, and there might still be some hope."

"traumador?" ms. rhonwyn's voice was completely shocked. i could tell she knew what i mean, and that she had realized this was quite possibly the last time she'd ever speak to me again.

i tried to think of something kinda touching or fitting to say... you know like the people in the movies do. famous last words or something... when i looked up and saw something that made me drop the phone...

the weird black statue that'd given me the weird feeling when i got to the the museum. the weird feeling was back... kinda like deja vu... only i knew that something pivital was ABOUT to happen...

suddenly from behind me there came another great unearthly growl just like in the marae.

you see while running through the museum i'd lost whiro initially due to his making a stop at one of the exhibits...

a rather destructive one at that. he spotted an artifact that could be of great use to him. so he simply took it...

now armed with a particularly renowned mere, or short club, with which to hunt me down once and for all whiro resumed trying to hunt me down.

only by this time i'd hit the lawn, and he lost my trail...

with my phone call, whiro literally lept back into action!

at which point i saw the statue... only to have him come up behind me, and emit his bone chilling battle cry.

with him now "safely" on my tail again i proceeded to run away from the museum.

the only thing was i had no idea why at this point!

my plan really hadn't been the solid to begin with. i'd never anticipated getting this far with it, and now with whiro chasing me there was little certainty that i'd live to tell the end of this tale. that alone whether my small hope of keeping him from the basket would pay off...

to be CONCLUDED!!!

small problems (museum quest part 21)

Location: Rotorua

Baskets Left: 2

after my first stop in rota-vegas (the kiwi's nickname for rotorua) i wasn't any closer to getting rid of any more of the maori artifacts for ms. rhonwyn. i'd been to the museum and nothing.

how was i going to find a place that matched te papa in majesty for these stupid baskets?

though i didn't know it at the time, my next stop was about to prove a whole lot more interesting than any i'd had on the north island yet...

my destination in the afternoon of my rotorua trip was to the volcanic geothermal springs just outside of town.

these hotsprings and the area's ongoing volcanic and geologic phenomenon were of great mythical and spiritual importance to the maori, and they of course had all manner of legends to explain the activities they saw going on around them.

we today now know that the reason for this is rotorua being a major intersection for fault lines through new zealand. due to this rotorua is geologically speaking a time bomb of volcanism which HAS gone off in the last 150 or so years, and both excitingly and sadly will likely go off again relatively soon (geologically speaking soon anyway).
_


this maori history was not lost on the owners of the hotsprings, and they'd decorated the place to give it that cultural feel.
_

when i looked it up (a future post i promise), i found out much of this art was done by REAL maori artisians, and unlike much of the art in town this art work was authentic... which may explain why so much mythologic activity was waiting for me inside!
_

the entrance even had a traditional style maori fortification wall, made of logs, surrounding the place. i wondered if it was to keep modern people out (which would be better done by a modern fence) or to keep something ancient just like the wall style inside? turns out i was asking a good question!
_

entering the geothermal park was like walking onto a different planet!


even the air seemed hostile and alieny! it smelt like really rotten eggs (caused by sulphur i learnt).

as a side note rotorua as a whole area smells like this when and if you visit... but at the geothermal park it REALLY smells!!! if you have a t-rex powerful nose like me its not fun...

fortunately despite the smell of weirdness the air was still breathable (unlike a real alien planet probably) so i wasn't going to need a space suit. not that the space suit would have made me look funny around here. the whole place was like the surface of the moon...


well okay the moon if it was still geologically active (which it isn't! the moon is of course just a piece of knock off earth rock that doesn't have a proper core or anything inside it).

all around me were boiling pools of water...


bubbling oozing mud puddles...


steaming craters...


just looking around i wonder if they've ever filmed a space movie here...

no wonder the maori considered this place so sacred. it isn't like anything i've seen before, and i've been around the world compared to an ancient maori!


speaking of maori, totems were scattered all throughout the hotsprings to remind those who dwelled here of both the mana and tapu of the place. mana being a maori word that means many things, but in this case the power and prestige of the place. tapu being the supernatural or mythic consequences of meddling with this place's sacredness. to violate this place's tapu was to invoke the wraith of the atua or gods.

i was here of course counting on the mana to make the last two baskests disappear back to wherever it is they came from...


in hopes of the baskets getting exposed to as much mana as they could i wandered further into the park...


of course i wasn't complaining. it was an awesome site to get to explore.


i was traumador, dinosaur of space command... hey that'd be cool cartoon don't you think ;p


as i reached the end of the trail i grew a little upset. again nothing had happened with the baskets.

taking my mind off it for a moment was the mini volcano in front of me. i felt like my hero godzilla at the end of the film godzilla 1985... though fortunately i didn't fall in like he did...


as i was about to head back towards the exit, i discovered i'd worried about the baskets not reacting too soon... i was over come with a woozy feeling, like i always seem to with magic type stuff now.

suddenly around the edge of the thermal field, blocking off the surrounding forest and bush, an ancient style wall and marae (maori sacred meeting place) materialized out of no where...

though i'm not sure why i knew it, but i could just tell this was a vision of days long gone. when the maori truly lived in unison with the power and awe of this place... don't get me wrong modern maori still are in tune with it, but this image was of a time when they didn't have the views and ideas of the bigger world pushed on them... this was one of the KEY places of maori mythology... and i'd brought the keys, the kete o te wananga, right into the heart of it.

whether for good or ill i was about to find out...

of course i still felt very dizzy (but not in the normal way... its hard to describe... especially with my small brain). so much so that my head seemed to buzz which had never happened before during these basket related incidents...

that is till i realized it wasn't buzzing inside my head... there was an actual buzzing sound, and it was getting louder...


i turned around to see a most odd sight. a GIANT swarm of insects. than i realized it was coming straight for me!

now to those out there who aren't mystically attuned like me now (actually come to think of it is there anyone else but me in that boat?) you'd still have found it an odd sight. a giant column of varied insects flying so uniformly and organized, like a flying army of marching soldiers. to those of us who SEE magic though it was a eerie sight. pulsing through the bug ranks was visible... mystic gradient radiation as ms. rhonwyn would call it... or as i like to say magic.

i was overcome with panic and dread as my peanut sized brain caught onto what was actually going on... there could only be one reason a gang of pests was coming right at me... they were after the baskets!!!

for a moment i thought they must be a manifestation of some new maori deity or atua i hadn't faced yet... that is till i remembered something (why i was wasting precious seconds pondering this i'm not sure people of the web wide world!). my now "good old" buddy whiro, maori god of darkness and suffering, had many minions and servants in the corporal world.

i of course was well acquainted with his chief messenger to mortals, the mesozoic surviving tuatara. whiro had already used them to catch up to me a few times.

i remembered a sign i'd read at milford sound. it was about the giant sandfly statues they had on the wall. it had said how these bugs were believed by the maori to be one of the forms whiro inflicted suffering on humanity.

of course i realized! in the legend of whiro's first attempt at getting the baskets from his brother god tane, whiro had rallied an army of his servants to ambush tane on his return to earth, and steal the baskets from him on route. this army had been comprised mostly of the "plight" variety of insects and birds. the bugs were namely sandflies and mosquitoes which JUST SO happened to be the same sort that were flying at me now!

i might have ditched whiro back on the south island, but i hadn't lost him!


during all that thinking (which used up ALL my limited brain power) the swarm had caught up to me. before i knew it they were all over me...
_
OH THE TORMENT people of the web wide world. i can't describe the suffering i felt than!... incidentally whiro definitely lives up to his role as god of suffering (i think they should also tack annoyance on there too though!).

i was covered in mozzies and sandflies... most of whom immediately tried to tap into my blood...

fortunately for me i'm covered in hard bug proof scales. unfortunately with this many mini vampires all over me (i'm scarred of vamps now all the more by the by!) very weak spot in between my scaly armour was pierced and drained... now if it's hard for a bug to bite let me assure you people of the innerweb it's even harder to scratch!!!
_
even worse had them flying into my eyes, nose, ears, and mouth when i opened it to scream... soooooooooooo gross... ew ew ewwwww.

between the almost painful itches that perfectly outlined every exposed scale on my body, the irritation of my under assault openings, and my choking on bugs i almost missed what the remaining few were up to...

if i had to guess the main attack was not only to insanly irritate me, but it was also to kill me! if i'd let that many blood sucker stay on me much longer they'd probably have drained me dry (yes i know swarms like this exist in nature, and don't kill things... but these were magically driven bugs, and they weren't behaving normal. they'd suck till they popped, and then their other enchanted cohorts would jump on the empty spot and start all over).

yet at the same time some of the pests were flying into my shirt pocket, and as a team were landing on and trying to fly off with the baskets!!!

now i don't like to admit this people of the innerweb... but i for the most part played right into their hands... uh wings? er... or is it tarsus?!? anyways i reacted just how whiro wanted.

keep in mind people of the innerweb i was covered in thousands of simultaneously biting mosquitoesand sandflies. it's not like i thought about or planned to do this...

as i felt the baskets start to take off, i grabbed the first one to float out of my pocket out of my current instinctive blind grasping at the air. for a moment i used it to futilely try to brush the bugs off, but of course it did nothing... the one good thing to come of it though my motion knock the other basket back into my pocket for the moment.

the biting didn't get any better though! out of desperation i tossed the basket aside... yes i know people of the web wide world BAD MOVE. you try being sucked dry and act rationally!!!

instantly half the legion broke off from me and pursued their goal... once it fell to the ground there was enough of them to easily wisk it away...

there was only one problem... for them!... i'd blindly unthinkingly thrown the basket at a mudpool...

as it landed the swarm pounced on it, and began to take off with it. they nearly got away with the basket when the puddle splurted covering the basket with scolding hot goo. the basket plummeted back into the pool, and this time sank deeper.
_
with the relief of half the insects off me i was able to gather my brain enough to focus on protecting my remaining basket which some of the swarm were still trying to nab...

meanwhile their comrades dealing with the pool were suffering. every reattempt at the steadily sinking basket would result in a wave being covered in mud, and the now heavier and heavier with mud coating basket would sink that much more. meaning that more and more bugs would have to go in for their retrieval wave.

within 2 minutes the other half was completely depleted. seriously they'd all disappeared. the half the army still harassing me seemed to realize this (through the magic is the only way i can explain it), and all broke contact with me to make one go at the now completely submerged kete.


though within second the insects had all disappeared in their mindless plunge into the mud after the basket the activity hadn't stopped. suddenly i was overcome with the same piercing pulse of wozziness i'd had when the first basket disappeared at te papa.

that basket was dematerializing in the mud...

suddenly i had a most disenheartening though... the basket was being drawn away by the bug's magic field! i'd failed in my mission!!!

ms. rhonwyn had warned me that if i lost even one of the baskets whatever took it could use it to retrieve the other two. no matter where i hid or disposed of them! whiro was about to win!!!

suddenly as though in response to my panic the basket shoot up out of mud in a furious splash. as the glare and intense light of the now mana envoked kete drew away from the pool's surface i could make out the bug soup it'd made of the swarm. the whole legion of whiro's minions were dead, and their mystic gradient field had been snuffed out with them apparently!

the basket hovered for a moment, and than in as specacular a display as the first vanished from not only view, but this realm of reality...

despite coming withing millimetres of defeat i'd somehow won! and it barely cost me a thing... well apart from a body wide insanity invoking itch!!! seriously action movie heroes have it off easy with cuts and battle wounds... you try being turned into a walking mosquito bite and coping with it!!!

Location: Rotorua

Baskets Left: 1!!!!!!!

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the end was getting nearer...