I drummed my fingers carelessly on the steeringwheel,
humming to Linkin Park blasting on my radio.
"What do I do to ignore them behind me?  Do I follow
my instincts blindly?  Do I hide my pride from these
bad dreams and give in to sad thought that are
maddening?  Do I sit here and try to stand it?..."  I
sang along.
It was a rather long drive into of the middle of
nowhere, and all of a sudden it just popped up out of
nowhere.  The big green sign with the words "Welcome
to MLerville!" painted in big black letters across it
was just as familiar to me as my own front door.  I
smiled at the site of our flag waving above it.  It
had three vertical stripes, the first one dark hunter
green, the middle one black, and the last one was a
deep red, "Jonny Quest" was written across it.
There was someone standing just infront of the sign,
staring up at it.  It was a girl I didn't recognize,
and I recognized almost everybody in this little town.
 'Must be a newbie' I thought to myself and pulled my
convertable up next to her.
"Hi!" I called out, she turned to me, "new here?"
"Yeah, I was just looking around...I don't really know
much about this place," she replied timidly.
"Well hop in, I'll show you around."
She eyed me suspiciously.  "How old are you?"
"15."
She looked from me to the car and back to me.
"Don't worry, 'round here she practically drives
herself."
She shrugged and got in.  "Hi, I'm Melissa."
I reached out a hand for her to shake, taking them off
the steering wheel, it stayed where I'd left it
none-the-less.  "I'm Aspen."
"How'd you do that??"  She was more interested in the
magic steering wheel than in the introductions.
"Magic," I replied with a smirk.  "Tell me 'bout
yourself."
"Well, I like Jonny Quest, I like to write fics, and I
like to talk."
"Well, you should fit in perfectly here!"
"So, where is everybody?"
I shrugged.  "They could be at the library, at home,
just driving around, who knows.  Right now," I said as
we passed a row of houses, "we're driving through
Mediator ln," motioning toward some of the houses,
"right now some of them are moving out.  Only three
are left there now, there will be some new people
moving in there soon."
Melissa just nodded.
"Most people in MLerville, however, live up there," I
pointed up to a hill where there were dozens upon
dozens of houses, condos, and *lots* of apartments.
"Wow!  How come so many people live there?  What is
that place?"
"Lurkerville.  After a while of living here, people
usually get caught up in other stuff like school,
jobs, and lack of interest.  Try to stay away from
living there."
"I'll try," Melissa assured.
"Let's stop by the town hall real quick for a map.
Then you can decide where you want your house."  I
said pulling into a big, circular driveway outside of
a big old victorian building.  Outside was a sign
bearing the words "Town Hall" on it, a smaller sign
next to it read "New Newbie Guide Comittee".  There
were a numerous amount of other cars parked outside
the entrance as well.
"What's going on?"  she asked.
"Oh, they're revising the newbie guide, it's a couple
years old."
"Oh," Melissa said as we stepped inside.  All along
the walls were long rows of pamphlets.  They were
arranged in 'take one' type cases.  The title of a
nearby pamphlet said "Re: Fave villians" there were
dozens of other pamphlets behind it each with the same
title.  It had way more pamphlets than the other cases
around it.  Other titles read "Re: The red-head
theory," "Re: Jade" and "Beta-reading."
"Wow, what are all of these?"  Melissa remarked
pulling a random pamphlet out.  She read it, looked
confused, put it back and grabbed another one,
repeated what she'd done before, then grabbed yet
another pamphlet.  "How come this case of pamphlets is
so big?"  She pointed to the 'Fave. Villians' one.
"Hehe, don't ask.  Really, don't ask," I replied
nervously.
She nodded, replaced it back in its holder and
continued on down the row.  "Where are the maps?"
"Well, we'll have to go get one from Meach," I said
leading her down the hall and into another office.
Inside the office there was a woman sitting at a desk
busily typing away and mumbling to herself, "Roses,
for me?  Benton, you shouldn't have!"
I cleared my throat.  "Hi, Meach!"
She quickly turned around, startled.  "Oh, hi, Aspen.
And, do we have a newbie?"
Melissa nodded and went on to introduce herself to
Meach, finishing, "I just thought I'd introduce myself
to the, er, town, I guess."
"That's great, welcome to the ML!"  Meach said, and
just as she did another case popped up out of the wall
with only one pamphlet in it.
"Woa!  What was that?!" Melissa jumped back.
"Oh, don't worry, it's just a new thread."
Melissa timidly picked up the only pamphlet in the
case and read the title.  "Hi, I'm new here.  Posted
by Melissa."  She quickly opened it and read, it said
exactly how she'd introduced herself to Meach.  She
looked up at us.  "How did..."
"Don't worry about it too long, that's just what
happens when someone posts a new thread.  Anyway,
Meach, can we get a map?"
"Of course."  She said handing me one.
"Okay, I think we'll go now and, uh, let you get back
to what you were doing..." I said walking out, "see
ya!" Melissa followed.
Melissa and I stopped in the entrance of the building
again to look at the map.  There are three main
sections of MLerville, the main residence area, where
all the frequent posters live, Lurkerland where the
majority of the ML lives and then the rest of the
town, with the library, the store, Ebay, CN, lots of
TV places, etc.  The main residence area had several
different streets, each varying dramatically from one
another.  Even being so close in location.  The map
displayed the streets and each house on it, labeled
wether anybody lived in it or not and if someone did,
who it was.
"Dang, so many great places to chose from, I wish I
could live everywhere here," Melissa exclaimed.
"I know, just close your eyes and put your finger
somewhere on the map, the closest vacant house is the
one you can move into.  Everyone of them is a great
place to live, besides, you can always move later, if
you want."
"Okay," Melissa closed her eyes and circled her finger
around the map and then let it drop.
"Caffeine Apartments," I said, "Hey!  That's where I
live!  Hehe, maybe you might not want to move in there
right away...it's gets kinda dangerous sometimes.
Especially with Schmitt living there, too."
"Oh, well, I'll try it again then."  She closed her
eyes and circled her hand around the map again, and
let it drop again.
"Moderato's ln.  Well, only moderators can live there,
let's try one more time."  She tried again, "Strip
Club sq.  You know what, let's try the map thing again
later, there's some stuff I wanted to check out at the
library anyway."
"Yeah, you're right."  She put the map away and we got
back in the car.  It was a short drive before we were
infront of a huge building.  "Woa, what's this place?"
"The Archive."
We walked in through the huge main entrance doors.
There was a long hall ahead of us with doors lined on
either side of us, each labeled with bright red
letters, "Links, TRA, CJQ, The Archive..."
"Ah, here we go," I said, spotting 'The Archive' door
and going through it.  Here we were confronted by
another hall with doors on either side of us again.
It was a shorter hall and I knew exactly where I was
going now. "Follow me," I said breezing through the
"Finished Fics" doors, then through the 'D' section.
Now there were rows upon rows of books on either side
of us. We walked down the corridor, Melissa staring in
awe at the shelves of books and I, looking carefully
for what I wanted.  "Finally!" I said snatching a book
off the shelf, "When Childhood Ends, By Debbie Kluge,
my favorite book.  Okay, let's go!"
We went back through the Archive section, into the
main hall and back outside.  "Wait, don't you have to
check it out or something?"  Melissa asked,
hesitating.
"Nah, Suze has plenty of every book, same as the
pamphlets, it never runs out.  I never have to return
this, either."
"So what do you do with it?"
"Well, I usually lose it, that's why I have to keep
coming back for another one."
Melissa looked extremely confused.
"Don't worry, you'll get used to it all soon enough."
We got back in the car and started going again.
"Now where are we going?"
"Well, to my apartment, I want to drop this off before
I lose it again."
"Oh."  She layed back but no sooner had she done so
then a boy came running full speed up to the car.
"Aspen!  Hurry, lemme in!  We need to run for the
hills!"  he yelled and jumped in before anyone could
say anything.  I sped off as we were being chased by
other MLers.
"What'd you do this time, Schmitt?"  I asked, heading
out of MLerville and to, well, the hills.
He looked at me and laughed, holding up a soda.
"Soda?!  I thought we weren't supposed to have sugar
or caffeine for a month!"  I yelled.
"Yeah, why do you think they were chasing me?  Hey,
who's this?"
"I'm Melissa."
"Oh yeah!  I remember, you introduced yourself a
little while ago.  Hi, I'm Schmitt.  Listen, don't be
afraid to post or anything.  The people here are
really nice and if they aren't, well, tell me."  He
started.
"Here we are!" I said as we pulled into a cave with a
big flashing sign above the entrance reading "Schitt
and Aspen's hide out."
Schmitt groaned, "Aspen, did you change the sign
again?"
"Who?  Me?  Uh-uh.  I didn't change the sign.  Musta
been someone else," I said ernestly as we walked into
the hideout, which had a sorround sound built into the
walls, an indoor fountain and pool, a bar/kitchen, a
pole, nice furniture and a big screen TV.
"Wow, why is this place here?" Melissa marveled at the
HideOut.
"Um, remember that huge series of pamphlets 'Fav.
Villians'?  Well, Schmitt and I posted *alot* on that
one day, and um, well, basically we built this while
we were hiding from the ML after that."  I explained.
"Peggy helped us," Schmitt added, and "Dang it, Aspen,
I *know* you changed the sign!"  He popped open the
soda, chugged it all in one gulp then opened a drawer
and pulled out a potatoe peeler.
"Uh oh."  I backed up against one of the counters and
grabbed a potatoe peeler hanging on the wall.  "On
guard!"
There was a big potatoe peely fight, then CRACK they
both broke.  We pulled them back, looked at them,
shrugged, through them off to the side and grabbed new
ones.  We fought with them again, they broke, got new
ones.  We kept doing that until finally all our
potatoe peelers were broken.  Melissa sat on the back
of one of the couches staring at us, at first she
looked scared then burst out laughing.
"Hehe, erm, what do we do now?"
We thought for a minute then suddenly Schmitt jumped
up, "The brick store!"
"What's the brick store?"  Melissa asked, wiping away
tears.
"Hehe, you'll see."
So, back in the car we go, and we drive back into
town, until we get to a small building that looked
like a bomb shelter.  Outside were bricks.  Lots and
lots of bricks.  Bricks were on top of the roof,
bricks were lining the outside wall, they even lined
the walkway, and the door way, and the driveway, and
all the other ways within a 100 yard radius.  Inside
there were more bricks, but there were other things
too.  Armor, chicken throwers, brick throwers, brick
repellents and...potatoe peelers!  After we bought all
the potatoe peelers in the store, and some armor, we
decided it was safe to go back to other parts of
MLerville.
"Hey, Melissa, want a car?"  I suddenly asked.
"Uh, sure.  Did you get this car here?"
"Of course!  Where else would I get a car like this?
I certainly couldn't afford it, I'm only 15 you know."
So onto the car dealership now.  This was proving to
be a busy day.  Melissa didn't take any time picking
out her car.  She didn't really have any kind of
choice.  There was only one car in the entire
dealership, but, ironically, it turned out to be the
exact car she wanted!  Hmm.  But it was getting dusk
so we all decided it was time to call it a day, or
night, whichever.  Schmitt and I drove back in my car,
'cept he insisted on driving, muttering something
about women drivers then realized he had to pull one
of the new potatoe peelers out of his stomach.
Melissa drove behind us in her new Jaguar.  As we
entered Caffeine apartments we saw another guy driving
out.  He had blonde hair and had his arm around a
cardboard redhead.  When we parked and got out Melissa
asked us who that was.
"Erm, that was Jonny, just, um, taking Jessie out for
a ride."
"The cardboard thing he was sitting next to, you
mean?"
I coughed, "yeah.  ANYWAY..."
"If I don't have a house yet...where am I going to
stay?"  Melissa asked.
"Oh, you can crash with me for the night, I'm sure you
won't have a problem finding a house tomorrow...now
that you know how weird this place is..."
"Yeah, definetly not living in Caffeine Apartments, I
think."
"Yeah, definetly.  It takes a special kind of odd
person to live here..."
"Were you talking about the Apartments or MLerville
itself?"
"Both."
 

Erm, okay, I just had a really weird stroke so I
decided to create this.  Hope you enjoy.  I know I
used a few MLers without their permission, please feel
free to flame me in private, this was all just for fun
though.  : D
I plan on having more MLerville adventures, so  if you
want to, tell me where in MLerville you live, what you
do, ie: run the strip club, the brick store, the car
dealership... no da?  That kind of stuff.  I plan on
redoing this with more places for her(Melissa) to
live, more MLers in it, and where they live and what
they do, so if you could help, I'll love you forever.
Not that way, mind you.
By the way, like I said before, I can't really check
my email for that long this week, so if you reply to
one of my other posts, and I never say anything back,
sorry.  I will probably read the replys to this,
though.
Later, Aspen.