Pry tried to -

“But you see,” Art stopped, fast. He was thinking about something. Pheel saw. Trying to formulate a thought that, strangest thing, he felt percolating in his own head. - Was he still writing this story out the back of it? These elements, were they merely in flux – he'd given life to this thing and now it was working its way towards it own... life... conclusions... anything else? Consciousness? How much was Art?

He was staring him in the face. And how much was he talking to himself and how much was – but this thing was very old, he was talking to - Pry felt the loop in both their minds tangled back around his own and that other thing pulling gradually, towards some kind of realisation - some kind of premonition even in the new existence of Massimo Diap'leptico Rampposz; surname Massimo, remember it's – his/that's – but - Art -

“Some kind of group consciousness -”

- Some kind of group consciousness more than one of them thought -

“It's -”

“- No wait a long minute longer,” said Art, glancing around the tavern once more. “This thing, then - is meaningless?” But his glands cooperated in telling him it was all true; this quest that he was in: his bollock took care of the quest - it was absolutely - it was the very reason for his existence - it could be no more central to... he tried to formulate the thought more clearly; he tried to think of a word more apposite. But all that rose in his mind, filtered through any objection his supernatural glands could offer to any of this – it was absolutely essential to everything.

But then why that -

“- Not for a second is it meaningless - but I, it's true, injected as much truth as I could get away with. This thing is true. - I don't know what I did but it's why I'm here, it's why Old Works - the great subconscious mechanism itself is involved.” He got closer across the tankard and egg shell and ashcaff rind littered table, “I understand nothing, really, except this thing is collapsing, and my boss, he's called Massimo Diap'leptico Rampposz; surname Massimo, that's his surname – I don't know, maybe he's not the heavy/the bad guy. Maybe he is. He could be - I genuinely, know... nothing -” He trailed off.

“But you're writing this -”

“Yeah, but -”

“As you go along - ?”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” he didn't like that; he was rattled or angry or, “nononononono, first of all impolite, second of all untrue - it's impolite and untrue; which is the worst combination of elements in a Frensest pickle that -”

“- Don't you dare mention these – fucking Frensest pickles in my -”

“We're in it, Art, and it's happening, and this thing -”

“- Presence -”

“- of this box of prophecies, it's about the most important thing that exists, because it reveals – even though it's a nothing fake-story in – because I let all this enter, you understand – but it is - whatever it was connected to, via a talent that I, of course, you've noticed, not unlike your own couple of three dozen attributes or whatever - do not comprehend. But it's entered, and this thing is some kind of literal vast and true subconscious bag of final reality, and -

“I entered a supernatural demon vagina -”

“Me too, only; no, that's not fair, she was a -”

“Wife?”

“- someone's, sure, I don't -”

“It's nice to have someone to talk to about it because as you see... I walk around and everyone is in another reality - from not just the one I'm in, not just based on a lack of a supernatural ability to see, it's clearly not just supernatural but -

“They're dreamunits. Everyone is. - I've even seen their final flat souls and the agony - on Theust, anyway - and maybe I'm here for the same thing; maybe I'm here for that. - But you're like me and you can't finish a thought or a sentence. I was saying Massimo, his surname, I was saying that, maybe he's not the heavy, and as terrible as we've seen the dreamunit thing is: this great exploitation of the essential juices, essentially, of everybody; forcing their dreams into the twisted patterns that milk the most juice while simultaneously – there's a whole lot of lies involved – never undermining the whole, at least until this/that thing is clearly collapsing.

“But I get the distinct impression that: there is something beyond Massimo and this beyond Massimo, it's plotting.” In the reality in which Pry-Boak felt Massimo Diap'leptico Rampposz pulling into him, incorporating his consciousness into the great melange, one shadow piece at a time - he agreed that this was, or felt anyway that – it rang/true – that was - it rang true.

“Art, as much as my body itself is finding this concept difficult to accommodate; it's worse, it's worse than the dreamunits. He used the word/phrase New Works, and this entirely new branch or system - I get the whiff anyway, that whatever it is that we're really fighting/they're really building - it doesn't need any of us -”

A flash of truth hit all three – a talent that -

And maybe more -

“You, me, Pry-Boak, whom you know, a Cyclops - the annunciator. He starts the quest, and other things. Massimo too. None of us. The Dreamunits. Me, you, the dreamunits - none of us.

“- We're all slaves.”

“And what's worse that that?”

Pheel said nothing; but it was clear to not just Art[ion] that this was what they were all/both/all - thinking.

“You understand I'm not offering more intelligent objections despite an at times sarcastic tone because, my glands are saying, that this, including the quest I'm currently anyway on anyway,” he pulled the key that had once been a demon... of the key of the demon... that had a tongue with a thousand fingers who drank the soul off your lips. That key, he pulled it out his satchel-sack thing he kept his objects in, and showed it to Pheel, “There's something in that box of prophecies. That woman is not a woman, let's say, she's a vast, perhaps immortal, supernatural entity that – I entered her -” Pheel grinned dumb. After all, they were both very drunk.

“This is not - I'm also a child mentally, but that's not the level at which we want to address this problem -”

“Quite right -”

“Anyway I'm saying my glands. This is the quest. And that box of prophecies and what it contains, and might reveal about, okay, reality; that box, those prophecies, and this key,” slapping it on the table - near putting his first through it, “It's fucking next, Pheel Cazzo. And excuse any further evocations of the hallowed Frensest pickle/the vocabulary associated - but it's fucking next. This key. Unlocking that thing, it's, Cazzo, it's fucking next -”