{"id":1223,"date":"2022-05-27T11:13:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T11:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1223"},"modified":"2022-05-27T11:17:27","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T11:17:27","slug":"the-nexterday-pot-affair-etm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/the-nexterday-pot-affair-etm\/1223\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nexterday Pot Affair etm."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Inspector Camden Ironbell glared through the taxi window. He sighed and stroked his long beard. It would have been quicker to walk, he thought. He turned to his sergeant, who had her head stuck in a magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you reading, Lightwarble?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Umros Lightwarble held up the magazine so he could see the cover. \u201cScientific Gnomus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see.\u201d He raised an eyebrow. In his opinion, young Gnomes spent far too much time on human science and not enough on old-fashioned magic. \u201cAnd WHAT is the article about?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt says here, the Milky Way is male.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow\u2019d they make that out?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a black hole called Sagittarius A* at the centre. It\u2019s on the small size compared to other galaxies. Take the Sobrero Galaxy. Its black hole is a billion solar masses, but ours is only four million.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, and?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, it\u2019s still called a SUPERMASSIVE Black Hole, so it stands to reason it has to be male.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve arrived,\u201d said a voice from up front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They crossed over to the gates partitioning off Downing Street, showed their warrant cards and passed through into the hub of British governance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGlasses on, Sergeant.\u201d They both donned their Nagual Glasses, so named because they allowed the wearer to see things as they really are. Downing Street transformed as numbers 10, 11 and 12 were joined by door number 13, which fronted the Ministry of Preternatural Affairs aka the Gnome Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two officers knocked, and it swung open to reveal an elf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInspector,\u201d she purred, \u201cwe\u2019ve been expecting you. The Minister is waiting for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInspector, I\u2019m worried,\u201d the Minister said with no preamble. \u201cWe\u2019ve had an outbreak of criminality. It started with stolen stationery, but now they\u2019ve changed their names to things like \u2018Alan\u2019, claim to be from Microsoft, and they\u2019re running an internet scam from the communications room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel the urge to steal that paperweight,\u201d said Lightwarble. \u201cDo you have any magic going on in here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnly in the basement, where the witches hang out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the basement were five large pots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNexterday Pots,\u201d gasped Lightwarble. \u201cThey exist outside of time, pulling in the thoughts and emotions of everyone around them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All but one pot had their lids jammed on tightly. The fifth had no lid at all. The two officers looked inside and saw a large, black, swirling mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a psychic black hole,\u201d said Lightwarble. \u201cIt will attract lies and deception in the locale from across the time barrier and feed it back to everyone nearby. There\u2019s your problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat can we do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis,\u201d said Lightwarble. She picked up a lid lying on the floor and jammed it on the pot. \u201cNothing gets through those once they\u2019re sealed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sense of wrongness in the air evaporated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInspector, you\u2019re lucky to have her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, I know,\u201d said Ironbell. He looked at Lightwarble suspiciously. \u201cHow did you know all that stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She held up the magazine. \u201cI read a lot. You never know when it\u2019ll come in handy. Sir.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspector Camden Ironbell glared through the taxi window. He sighed and stroked his long beard. It would have been quicker to walk, he thought. He turned to his sergeant, who had her head stuck in a magazine. \u201cWhat are you reading, Lightwarble?\u201d Umros Lightwarble held up the magazine so he could see the cover. \u201cScientific […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[597,633],"tags":[8,118,632],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-597","category-june-2022-time","tag-he","tag-they","tag-ve"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-jJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1225,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions\/1225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}