You would think an octopus meeting a clown and having a conversation would be the weirdest thing to happen to me today. You would be wrong; an octopus becoming a prop for a clown is the weirdest thing to happen to me today.
After the conversation with Huso, he decided that it would be cool if he used me in his next performance. We have been practicing a few tricks, such as the growing ball, the invisible rod, and the mid-juggle shift. And after six hours of practice, he decided to go to bed, and we would perform the next morning. I'm going to get some shut-eye too.
...
"Wake up, sleepy head. It's time for our first performance."
What? It's been 10 hours already, I have never slept more than three hours before, but now ten. Life sure can throw curveballs, huh? Welp, time to earn my keep.
Huso stuck his arm into the cauldron I was sleeping in, and I climbed up his arm and blended in with his purple and black sleeves, climbed up his shoulders, and the back of his neck, and reached the top of his head. I'm going to be his headwear for the act. Truly, the most fashionable wear is always alive.
I morphed my tentacle to be the two ends of the hat. How can I make one tentacle have two ends, you ask? Well, after seeing Huso bend balloons, I had a thought: why can't I do that? So I also practiced bending my tentacles, and I learned a few things. One, bending my tentacle works very well and even makes doing inanimate objects much easier to replicate, especially at hard angles. Two, by trying to bend them, I have realized that if I mentally break my tentacles into sections, I can have a finer, more detailed control over what each section will do.
After I got settled on his head, we began the walk to the fourth ring. Why the fourth ring? Well, I will let Huso tell you, he really likes telling me stuff. And I'm an octopus who can't tell him to shut up, a perfect combination.
"The Six Rings of Byssal are numbered from top to bottom. The second and third rings or also called the "residential rings," are for housing and schools, the fourth ring is for shops of all kinds and entertainment. The fifth ring is a housing and factory area, and the sixth ring is almost entirely an industrial area. The first ring, the smallest of the rings, is saved only for government institutions like the grand library, research centers, political offices, and the largest school in Byssal. It's also connected to one of the only openings to the surface."
Yeah, so we are headed to the fourth ring, where the most street traffic is, to perform. To get there, we will have to walk to the nearest Mallory elevator, and again, I got another story from Huso.
"The Mallory elevator is named after the creator of these elevators, Deidro Mallory moved to this city in its infancy and created the entire ring system and the elevators. We are entering a public elevator, so there is a large queue most days, but today it was pretty short, from what he tells me, only a 30-minute wait time. We just waited in line, and he would just keep talking to me and getting strange looks from the people nearby. This continued until a paper boy was walking down the line, trying to sell papers.
"Read all about it! New species of Lake Monster discovered by the Roslin family! Read all about it!"
Both Huso's and my ears perked up at hearing that, I tapped on his face with my tentacle and pointed to the paper boy.
"Got it, hey, paperboy. Let me have one of those."
The paper boy ran over to us and put his hand out, expecting some cash.
"Two nauts, please."
Huso reached into his sleeves and pulled out two small metal shell-shaped items, and handed them to the boy.
"Thank you, mister."
The boy handed Huso a rolled-up paper he pulled out of his backpack. He unfurled the paper, and the front page was shocking. Huso read aloud
"The shellfish population of the lake has gone down by twenty percent since last year."
'NOOOO, IT'S A TRAGEDY, WHAT WILL WE EVER DO WITHOUT THEM'
After flipping through a few pages, we got to the section all about me.
"An employee of Roslin's fishing company discovered a new species of octopus while bottoming. It was later brought to the Roslin's mansion on the third ring, where it was presented to the public and named there. It is now scientifically named Thaumoctopus Jesterithpau, or more informally named the Clown octopus for its variety of bright colors and "playful behavior." It exhibited"
Huso went silent for a moment after reading it, and then he broke out laughing. His head was bouncing it was getting hard to stay on. After two minutes of straight cackling, he eventually calmed down, and we proceeded onto the elevator. Huso stepped onto a platform with no roof or walls, just metal bars keeping the elevator enclosed. There was only one person in there, and that was the elevator operator, a chubby man with an unshaven face who looked very tired and had a nametag reading "Dave." Dave spoke to everyone other than Huso to pay the transportation fee, and that only 8 people are allowed on at this time. Before I could think about why Huso didn't pay, the elevator immediately started moving, we descended, and we were in total darkness until eventually we made it through the second ring.
"Deidro Mallory wanted everyone to see each ring as you go down, that's why he never had the elevators enclosed. Some say it was also done because he was claustrophobic, I say it was most likely both."
I agree with Deidro's decision, the ring was magnificent, lights were coming from all over the city, in hues of yellow and blue. The people below looked like ants walking about on the main road. And beside us was the massive stone face, where you could only faintly see the curve when right in front of it, which was now obvious to the eye. As we moved lower, I could see other elevators far away moving up and down, just like we were. It got easier and easier to see the ring below, as the fog from the lake started to clear up, you could even read some of the signs on large buildings.
As the elevator was approaching the ring below, we passed right through, and we briefly were surrounded in total darkness again as we went through the third ring itself. We popped out the other side, not even slowing down, and unlike the last two rings, this ring had three main roads, and unlike the slightly repetitive visual of houses in the last ring. The fourth ring was a collage of eye-popping colors on every building. The further we went down the more chaotic it looked. As we got closer to the ring, the slower we descended, so as not to come in too hot.
As we got down to the bottom, we could see the line of people lined up to enter the elevator after we got off. Finally, after 15 minutes on the elevator, it came to a complete stop.
"Please get off in an orderly fashion. Have a nice day," Dave said to everyone as he opened the doors to the elevator. We then got off the elevator and headed down the main road behind the elevator. Huso explained to me as he kept walking.
"There are seven squares all around the fourth ring where performers all congregate. If you perform anywhere else than the squares without the right permit, that's illegal."
He continued walking, and we passed many stores on the way. At first, it was all luxury stores like perfumes or purses, then came a food area, with about ten restaurants on either side of the road, and then I saw it, Bob's Bakery.
I unshifted the tip of my tentacle and poked Huso to get his attention. After getting his attention, I pointed at Bob's bakery.
"You want to go there?"
I waved my tentacle up and down to confirm. To be honest, after hearing about Bob's bakery for four days straight, I wanted to visit just to understand what all the hypes was about. Huso agreed, as apparently, Bob's bakery has very reasonable pricing compared to the other restaurants nearby.
We entered the restaurant, which was rather quaint for a popular restaurant, with only two, two-person tables inside, and in the front was the largest woman I have ever seen. She towered over Huso, and she had an eyepatch as well. She spoke in a deep and intimidating manner and asked Huso with a sinister smile.
"What would you like to order?"
Huso thought for a second and responded,
"Give me a minute."
And he turned around and took me off his head and asked me what I wanted.
I looked over his shoulder and pointed to the board behind the giantess and towards the part that said "Byssal Bagel."
Huso looked over at what I pointed at and, understanding, said back to the lady.
"Can I get a set of Byssal bagels and a coffee, please?"
Back in her low and orc-like voice, she said to us
"Your order will be right with you, sir."
She went to the back and brought out a coffee and six thin bagels stacked together, wrapped around a cylinder made out of cardboard.
"That will be 2 Nautils and six Nauts."
Huso pulled the money out of his sleeve, where his hidden pocket is, and handed the money to her. After paying, he left the store and continued walking.
After another 10 minutes had passed, we made it to a large courtyard with performers and entertainers of all kinds doing their acts. There were singers, magicians, dancers, sword swallowers, a wire walker was attracting a large crowd, and there was even a boxing match going on. In the center of this courtyard was a stage with nobody performing on it, just empty. Huso put me down to the side and set up a circle of rope around himself to section off his performance area. He also handed me the Bagels. I slipped them under the hat so no one would see me eating them. The bagels were very good, each one had a different filling, and the fourth one even had meat inside. It was a very fun dish, I just wish there was crab inside one of them.
Huso sat down next to me and started putting together his props. He looked a little nervous but he had a slight smile on his face from excitement.
"I have never performed on the fourth ring before, and I was never confident in my act enough to come. Thank you, octopus."
Internally, I appreciated the thanks.
'You know, it just struck me that Huso is my first friend.'
"You know now that we are performing together, I can't just keep calling you octopus. What do you think of the name Octo?"
'That name sucks.'