BUGS! BUGS! BUGS!

Cuss! Hiss! Spit!

There I was, happily writing along, when it hit me . . .

I, One-eyed Black did set this down in me own hand of this account. This be me mark of me name made with me own hand in ink: X

Ink? What a dorkfish! They would not write with ink—nor would they have paper. Bad writer! *smacking forehead hard with open palm* Bad! Bad!

I’m still thinking in a land-based way. The whole story has to go below the sea and all the ways our normal items would be adapted in their way of doing things.

So—how do we fix this? For their ancient scrolls, I would imagine they used rolled up pieces of their local version of kelp. No worries there. Slime something on it to keep it from dissolving in the water. “I’m done writing this scroll, someone hand me a slug…”

But they would not have ink—oh, all right—they have ink. Squids and octopus have ink. But they would not write with it.

Poke holes in the kelp? This would work—but imagine how difficult it is to put all their nuances of color and scent down in holes on a piece of seaweed? How many different shades of red can you think of? Now create a letter mark for each one. So we now have 50,000,000 versions of the letter A (as an example). Now how many shades of orange can you think of? Create a letter mark for each of those. Move along to yellow . . . then green . . . blue . . . our alphabet is getting larger.

But they also use scent as accents to their speech for emotions and punctuation, and whatnot. How do we add those? Do we add points the way the Hebrews do in their language? Sure, why not? So we have the main mark, and then the scent accent point around it. Works.

But would they really have that many letters? No. Each color represent a word, not a letter. So we could get by with a mark in the kelp for the primary and secondary colors, then black and white, and scent points. Three primary, three secondary, plus two more for black and white . . . how many scents would we have? Skip those for now. We’ll have a total of 8 letters for the colors, and they add more or less to create the nuances of the various shades of a color. That’d be a whole lot of letters.

No wonder Khaki-Indigo-Myrtle is using her visual pad with actual colors now (and realistic scents!) instead of Ye Olde Kelp Scrolls.

No Bugs, Just Froggies

Alrighty, then! It’s been how long since I picked up with the Garum? Close to a month now, I believe. I’m going to ignore all the fixes I need to think about and just write, tonight. We’ll bug fix and straighten out rough patches some other time.

Oh, and for those of you who have not been with us since the first post, I’m in the process of idea bashing a story about an aquatic race of frog-like aliens that live on an exomoon orbiting a gas giant in a binary star system.

~~~~~~~=======~~~~~~~

Khaki-Indigo-Myrtle tapped a few dimples on her electric notepad and began to re-read the entry for the who-knows-how-many-umpteenth time.

I, One-eyed Black, do set this down in me own hand of the account where I poked me head Up.

I wasn’t looking to go Up. No, not at all. I was just going after a large swarm of shrimps. Was me turn at the hunts. But they swimmed up. So I followed. Next I knowed, I was at Up.

“Wot’s out yonder?” I thinked aloud. So I poked me head Up. Pain! Oh, the pain! Me eyes were stung by biting little bits of stuffs. No life-givin’ water in Up. No, not at all! It was like a giant bubble. But who knowed that a bubble would have that much angry in it? It angried about me face. It angried about me shoulders. It angried about me eyes. I could not keep me eyes open. So I swimmed down.

But afore I did, I spotted spots in Up. Little bright white spots, like sparks. And Up was dark off to the side. Not Blue like it always is. No, not at all! Was dark, like down a hole. But with bright sparks. Not on rock. No, not at all! In Up’s Up, where it be Blue and not Blue but dark.

I blinked. And blinked. Me eyes stopped hurting. I thoughts of going back Up to see more of these sparks—but that angry bubble made me careful of opening me eyes in Up again.

Shrimps swimmed by. I remembered me task, so I followed. Was a good hunt. Killed many many of many shrimps. The tribe was very happy with me for good hunt of shrimps.

I, One-eyed Black did set this down in me own hand of this account. This be me mark of me name made with me own hand in ink: X

Khaki-Indigo-Myrtle leaned back, looking at the image of his hand print in ink at the end of the account and pondered once more about those sparks of light One-eyed Black found in Up. What could they be? Were there more tribes of Garum in Up? Ones that found out how to live in the Angry Bubble? What was in the Angry Bubble that bit his eyes? This “stuffs” that bit in to his eyes, face, and shoulders. What would float in a bubble that could do that? They were not going Up at the same place where One-eyed Black did. No one knew where that was, but since he had been after shrimp, there was no way it would be near rocks like they were now. Would the Angry Bubble still be angry here by the rocks? Or was it only angry in the Wide Open where One-eyed Black would have gone Up?

She shook herself to clear her thoughts, placing the notepad back in the protective cover she had made for it. In a single sleep time they would find out. There was no use brooding over it for now. Soon. Soon she would follow One-eyed Black and go Up.