Glorious Beach Day Chapter 1 Page 3

"I met the guy in charge and he thought it would be funny to put someone else's soul in," Gloria said.

"Wait, you've seen the afterlife?" Selina asked quickly, "You've met the gods?"

"It isn't as impressive as it sounds," Gloria said, "The afterlife was just one endless white plane... and that guy I met, I wouldn't call him a god." She glanced again at her belongings.

"Why not?"

"Well, he uses his powers for his own amusement, like switching my soul for Annie's. And he has this obsession with stripping little girls naked."

"That can't be true. The gods can't be that perverted."

"Oh, yes, this one is," Gloria assured her, "He stripped the dress off Annie and tried to trick me into taking off mine."

"He could be watching while we're showering or during some other private moment, could he?"

"He said he'd do exactly that with me."

"Okay, that's disconcerting."

"I try not to worry about it every time I shower since I can't see him anyway." Gloria sighed. "Okay, that's my story, what's yours? What were you doing in Fernham High?"

Selina sipped more of her drink. "I was there to protect someone. Sorry, I can't say who."

"Are you some kind of special agent of some sort?"

"Something like that."

"Is that why I have this unnatural fear of you?" Gloria asked.

"Oh, that." Selina glanced at the ocean, where a family was wading into the water. "It may be because Annie's afraid of me. She was very nasty. I gave her a spanking once to teach her a lesson."

"I don't think she's learned her lesson," Gloria informed the woman, "She was still as nasty as ever last time I saw her."

"You've met her?"

"Up in the afterlife."

"So the afterlife was just blank?"

Gloria shrugged. "I didn't see much. Just me, Annie and the perverted one." She looked up to Selina. "Why all this interest in me, by the way?" she asked.

"When you came back acting strange, that set off all sorts of alarm bells. I had thought that you were an assassin who had replaced Annie."

Gloria's eyes grew wide. "Me, an assassin?"

"Considering my assignment, I've to keep an eye out for potential threats. Someone suddenly acting strange makes her a possible threat."

"Okay." Gloria nodded with understanding. "And you're not really leaving because your father got another job."

"Yes, that's just the cover story," Selina confirmed, "I'm leaving because I've finished my assignment." She drank some iced tea.

Gloria spotted Second Sis further along the beach, tossing a frisbee with a couple of boys. Typical. "So now that your assignment's done, why are you still seeking me out?"

"I kind of got a bit obsessed about it," Selina admitted, "I wanted to clear this up before my next assignment." She finished the last of her iced tea.

Gloria took some of her own drink. "We're not going to see each other again after this, are we?" she guessed.

"I doubt we'll meet again in the future. If we do, it'd mean there's going to be trouble."

Gloria smiled to the woman. "Well, it was a pleasure meeting you."

The woman returned the smile. "Same. It was nice to chat with you, Gloria."

Selina got up and returned her glass. Then she retrieved her surfboard and went away.

Gloria watched as Selina walked up a set of stairs into the building behind the beach. That was one interesting girl. Too bad she had not known her in school.

***

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Glorious Beach Day Chapter 1 Page 2

"Yes, that's me." The woman smiled. She took a sip of her iced tea and sighed. "I won't be in Fernham High next year, though - my dad's got a job in another state."

"Oh, good luck then." Warning bells were still ringing in Gloria's head but she could not identify the danger.

"Before I go, there's something that's been bothering me."

"Oh?" Gloria uttered cautiously.

"I'm curious about what's happened to you."

"What do you mean?" Gloria asked blankly.

"You fell from the bridge. Yeah, trauma can mess with a person's memory. But your whole personality's changed too."

"Yes, I did fall from the bridge," Gloria confirmed.

"Okay, here's the thing." The woman twisted in her stool to face Gloria. "Everything points to you being Annie - your fingerprints and DNA matched. But somehow, something tells me you're not Annie. You're not even reacting to me now the same way Annie does."

Gloria bit her lip. It was true that she was not Annie. However, before her was a person she had barely known at school confronting her about it. She still felt uncomfortable with the other person's presence. She wished she had some time to poke through Annie's memories for more details.

"You tested my fingerprints and even my DNA?" Gloria asked.

Selina nodded.

"Why?"

Selina glanced back to see the boy running the drink stand busy with a customer. "Trade my secret for yours?" she offered.

"What kind of secret do you have?" Gloria asked.

"I'm really twenty-one."

"Really?"

"See, I've already got my wisdom teeth." Selina opened her mouth and pointed inside. "You don't get your wisdom teeth until you are seventeen."

"So what were you doing in Fernham High?" Gloria asked.

"That's the secret I'll trade for yours."

Gloria took a deep breath. "Okay. So, what do you want to know?"

"Are you really Annie Billings?"

Gloria stared at Selina for a moment. "I'm not Annie Billings," she admitted. "I'm actually Gloria."

"I guessed that much. But isn't 'Gloria' Annie's middle name?"

"That's the name I use." Gloria took a look to see that her belongings were still where she had left them on the beach. "I don't really know who I am."

"You don't?"

Gloria shook her head. "No. I don't have my previous life's memories."

"If you're not Annie, you'd have trouble adjusting to her life if you didn't know anything," Selina pointed out.

"I did have a little trouble," Gloria admitted, "Though not as much since I've Annie's memories. They were a little help, sometimes - if I can find what I'm looking for."

"Can you explain how your fingerprints and DNA matches Annie's?"

Blue eyes flicked to Selina. "How did you get my DNA?"

"Hair sample from your schoolbag. I compared that to a sample I took from Annie before the accident. So how did you fool DNA?"

"That's because this really is Annie's body," Gloria explained, "My soul got switched with Annie's."

"Does such technology exist?"

"Um, no. It was done supernaturally."

Selina looked at her closely. "What do you mean?"

"When Annie threw herself from the bridge..." Gloria began.

"So Annie really did commit suicide."

"Um, yeah," Gloria confirmed, "Anyway, when she fell from the bridge, her soul was collected. But when she survived, a soul was replaced - mine."

"How could that have happened?"

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Glorious Beach Day Chapter 1 Page 1

Summer holidays was that time of the year where one could wind down and relax after studying or working for so many months. The hot weather made it the best time for an excursion to the beach, where there was soft sand, bright sunshine and lovely cool seaside breeze. And there was the wonderful water too.

After a hard year (actually, it had just been slightly longer than a semester) of studying, patching up relationships, surviving an accident, a treachery and a kidnapping, and dealing with a supernatural pervert, Gloria definitely deserved some time off to relax with her family.

It was the morning after their arrival at the resort. Gloria and her Second Sis were at the beach. Mother and Father were still in their room - Gloria did not care to guess at the reason for fear of corrupting her underage mind.

"What's taking Marie so long?" Carrie wondered about their elder sister. She wore a blue bikini and was already looking for a handsome specimen of the male side of the species among the small number of people walking or basking on the sand.

"I don't know," Gloria replied, "I'm sure she packed a one-piece swimsuit so she shouldn't have trouble finding it." When they had left, Big Sis was still in the bathroom of the room that the sisters shared.

"Maybe she's having trouble fitting into it. Ah, we should've waited for her." Carrie glanced at her little sister. "Speaking of swimsuits, aren't you going to flaunt yours?"

Gloria looked into Second Sis' matching blue eyes. "Why would I do that?"

"Because we're at the beach!" Carrie answered, "Now why would you hide under that shirt?"

Gloria had a white shirt along with her bikini bottom, which had a floral pattern. "I just don't feel like taking it off."

"Oh, you'll never attract guys that way." Carrie took hold of the hem of Gloria's shirt and started to pull it off. Then she hurriedly pulled the shirt back down. She leaned close and whispered, "Annie, why are you wearing your bra instead of your bikini top?"

"The top's too small for me." Because her breasts had grown! Yay!

"You can't swim in that!"

"We should go to the nudist beach," Gloria suggested impishly, "We won't need tops there."

Carrie's jaw dropped. "No way! We're going shopping later to find you something, maybe something sexy!"

Gloria gave her wavy-haired sister a dark look, which went unnoticed.

"Ah, I'm going for a swim," Carrie decided and went for the water.

Gloria looked over her shoulder at the drink stand further up the beach. It was close enough to her tote bag and their towels that she could keep an eye on their belongings. So she took her white handbag and went to the drink stand. No way would she risk bringing her favorite pink handbag to the beach, even though it was still within the relative safety of the resort grounds.

The little girl ordered herself a glass of iced orange and sat on one of the stools, facing the ocean. She checked again that their belongings were well within view. After she took a sip of her drink, she watched as a woman, carrying a surfboard, walked from the water towards the stand. The woman set the surfboard beside the stand and ordered herself a drink.

Then the woman sat beside Gloria. "Hey, Annie, what a coincidence meeting you here!"

Gloria jerked in surprise, barely keeping her grip on her glass of orange. She turned to the woman.

The woman was young, perhaps in her twenties, and she wore a wetsuit. She was small-sized, though still considerably taller than Gloria was. She had short black hair and tanned skin.

Gloria was sure that she had not met the woman before. Had Annie known her?

"Do you remember me?" the woman asked.

Gloria looked closer at the familiar woman, at her small dark-brown eyes. She searched through Annie's memory. It would be easier if she had a hint.

"I had long brown hair and glasses," the woman supplied helpfully.

"Selina Garcia from 9-B!?" But that could not be. Selina should be around fifteen. That woman looked much older. And Gloria had the feeling that she should be afraid of that woman.

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Glorious Beach Day Interlude 1

Hey, there. It's me, Gloria, here in the Narration Room. It feels kind of strange to have an Interlude before the actual story. It is also strange to have an Interlude when the story has only one chapter.

Anyway, I would like to say that this story is the epilogue to Gloriously Messed-up and Handful of Sand. Things will not make sense unless you have read one or both of those stories first, so I suggest reading at least one.

If you choose to read only one of the stories, I recommend Gloriously Messed-up. It is shorter. It is also the story in which I was the main character. :D

Enjoy the epilogue!

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Glorious Beach Day

Summer means time for a vacation to the beach. After the final year exams, Gloria definitely earned some time off with family.

This is a one-chapter epilogue to Gloriously Messed-up and Handful of Sand. It is so short that this content page should not be necessary since everything is explained in the Interlude.

Status: Completed.

Interlude 1

Chapter 1

Buddy Rush: Unable To Start

I am unable to start Buddy Rush. I get stuck with a village view each time as in the screenshot below.

Game stuck at start.

The last time it worked, I took Skully out for a Raid. She was on the airship, so I took her down to the village where the raid guy was (was his name Dexter?). Since the raid took all five of Skully's stamina, I left her in the village and closed the game.

The next time I tried to load the game, I had the village view as in the screenshot above.

A possible prevention method for now is not to close the game with a character still in the village if the airship is available - move him/her to the airship first. I am not sure if this is true - I am still gathering data.

Needless to say, until this is fixed, I am unable to gather more info for Buddy Rush to put on the blog.

Update 19 March 2012:
Looks like I can still post about Buddy Rush while the bug is still there. Specifically, I can post about the bug.

The first reported bug was on Friday. I played the game fine then and closed the game fine. Same on Saturday and Sunday. On each day, Friday and Saturday, I did a Raid and then went up to the airship and did some missions. On Sunday, the last time before the bug struck, I did a Raid and stayed in the village.

However, people had the bug even if they do not have access to the airship. So the prevention method mentioned above likely will not work. I need more clues to track down the cause.

Update 29 March 2012:
Finally able to play Buddy Rush. Going to be a while before I get back into the habit again.

Update 29 March 2012:
And it stopped working for me again. It worked earlier because a new version of Buddy Rush was uploaded - I had the Prologue and then I had to set the Damage Meter again.

The similarity between this incident and the previous when it failed is that I tried playing at 8 PM (GMT+8). Does this mean I should avoid playing at this time?

Update 30 March 2012:
It may have something to do with the Daily Visitation Bonus. Both times the game got stuck, I had played the game for the second time that day, when I would not get a Daily Visitation Bonus. So maybe I should play only once a day.

Update 31 March 2012:
I installed Safari and got Buddy Rush to run. Unfortunately, Safari consumes lots of resources and performance is not as good as I hoped.

The start up bug I had was with Firefox. After the black screen with Sollmo, I get that village sideview instead of the loading screen with all the characters on it.

And now it is suddenly working on Firefox again!

Maybe the solution is to load up Buddy Rush on a separate browser and change the arrangement of characters (they are arranged by level and XP). Or the solution may even be as simple as chossing a different character.

In both the situations when I got stuck while starting the game, in the previous session, I had simply loaded the game, claimed my Daily Visitation Bonus and then closed the game without choosing a different character or gaining any XP.

Buddy Rush: Contents

(T.T missed out on the daily rewards, especially the chips...)

Buddy Rush: March 2012 Comedy Screenies

Funny screenies from the Seventh Wave.

The previous month's collection can be found here.

---

Botherella is late for the raid and is stuck outside!

At least she's not stuck in the wall like Worrier.

Some people ask weird questions:

They are called 'Wood'.

They are 'Dead'.

They are called 'Treasure'.

Update 25 March 2012:
Here's a screenshot submitted by eyexplorer. One has got to wonder what that Devilin in the bottom left of the screen had for dinner to freeze and discharge two types of poisonous clouds out of his rear.

That has got to hurt coming out.

Buddy Rush: Contents

First Look at the Seventh Wave

After a surprise maintenance yesterday, the Seventh Wave is here.

New loading screen!

New in the Seventh Wave is a new base of operations.

Where's the shoe shop!?

Cool as it was, the airship did not have everything needed so it was necessary to go down to the village from time to time.

New Chapter.

There is a new chapter, Allizwall. There are only six missions, though. That means only twelve more skill points. With the skill level cap increased to 25, those skill points are not going to be enough.

A bit of good news is that the amount of Exp given for winning the Arena has been increased.

More Exp for winning Arena! Yay!

Raid modes now allow the selection of the additional characters to bring into the fight. However, that takes a few precious seconds of the time to fight the boss.

Who to bring?

As with any new updates, remember to set the Damage Meter on in the options. Also, with the new skill level cap, skills have been reset. Remember to spend those skill points again.

You wrecked the shoe shop!!

Buddy Rush: Contents

Sword Quest

I have been playing Sword Quest Beta by Doremi Star on Facebook (seriously, do you need a link for that!?) for a while now. Like many similar Facebook games, I put something on production and hours later, I collect the result. What makes this game interesting is that the result of the production is random.

My Workshop.

I could work with a specific ore but, depending on the production process and a lot of luck, the result could be an ordinary sword or an awesome blade with an epic name. Various bonuses and the quality of my hammer affect the Quality of my work. The higher the Quality, the higher the chance of getting a good sword.

In addition to that, I have to monitor the temperature of the sword during the crafting. If it is too hot or too cold, it will affect the final result badly.

There are a lot of rules but the game comes with a detailed help system that explains everything.

At the end of the process, there will be a sword sitting on the worktable, covered by the cloth. This is the fun part: uncovering the cloth to finally see what I get.

My regular customer.

There are quests in the game. Most, if not all, of them are to fulfill a specific order for sword(s). There is this hero that keeps visiting and telling a little about his adventures whenever he comes to order a sword or more.

The game is playable without friends. However, it is more fun with friends. I can go to my friend's and help him/her forge his/her sword and vice versa. Hammering a sword does increase the temperature, though, and having too many friends hammer a sword can cause it to overheat. This is one game that, in a weird way, makes it bad to have too many friends.

Sword Quest is a quick game playable for a few minutes every few hours or once a day. It is still in beta and the developers are still adding features. The graphics are cute and nice but what I really like is the game logo.