Tales of Halloween
by MJG74, HSM Art Director
Tonight we salute Dem Bones, and the tricks and treats that go with.
As a child, Darth Granny had been told of the legend of the HMS HomeStation — also known as the HMS HSM — and its dastardly crew of pirates. Knowing the law was on their trail, they traveled up the Home coast, looking for the perfect spot to bury their stolen treasure. And they found it near a graveyard, in a grove of gnarled, windswept pines outside Harbour Studio.
Thus, one moonless night, the HMS HSM slid silently into harbor. Before the wondering eyes of two hidden watchers, a crew of scurvy buccaneers armed with cutlasses and pistols rowed boatload after boatload of heavy chests onto the shore. When they were done, the captain led his men away from shore, and they disappeared with them into the grove of pines.
The pirates were gone a long time; long enough, according to those who watched, to bury any amount of treasure. They came back before dawn, rowed back to the yacht, and sailed into the last vestiges of the dark night. Of course, the eager watchers kept their knowledge quiet and scurried down to the pine grove a few days later, armed with lanterns and shovels. But nary a gold coin found they, and in frustration, they shared their tale with other good folks in the region. After that, there was not a night when the pine grove did not see someone digging fervently with a shovel. After a few decades of this, the pine grove gave up the ghost and died away completely.
By Darth Granny’s time, there was nothing left of the spot, save a few stunted trees, a couple of grave stones, some windswept grass…and, on certain dark nights, Dem Bones.
Dem Bones are the skeletal crew of the HMS HSM. According to Granny, they come sailing up in a ship made of shadows. The ship moves silently up the coast during the darkness of night, and anchors near the shores of the harbor. Two or three boats are lowered from her side, and they are filled up with the eager forms of glowing skeletons. Dem Bones carry heavy trunks full of treasure onto the shore, and scatter them all around the place where the pine grove once stood. Then the pirate crew hauls out kegs and kegs of whiskey, and one of the skeletons takes out a fiddle. A phantom fire is lit on the sand, and Dem Bones start such a rowdy scene, singing and dancing, that the noise would wake the dead – if they weren’t already awake.
When they are exhausted from the dancing, the glowing skeletons collapse on the sand and start telling stories about the ships they have captured and the treasure they have amassed. Some of Dem Bones open the big trunks and take out jewels and ropes of pearls and adorn themselves. Others toss gold coins back and forth as if they were a child’s ball. At the darkest part of the night, just before dawn, Dem Bones pack up the trunks and row back to the ship of shadows. One by one, the glowing skeletons disappeared into the hold, and the ship weighs anchor and sails away.
But did they leave any treasure behind?
(Here’s a hint: where in the HSM Halloween Special have you already seen these differently-colored tombstones?)
October 31st, 2012 by MJG74 | 4 comments
Michael Goss is the Art Director (emeritus) for HomeStation Magazine. In real life, is a normal member of the human species with some imperfections, but with a strength of ten as well, I kid ye not! He also has been know to exaggerate the details from time to time. His goal is to live fearlessly but finds that kinda difficult with current crop of republicans running for office.
Ok, found all hidden letters/numbers. Tried to go with the colour code thing, that don’t work. Then found more codes on more graves, so that’s FIVE half-finished codes with SIX finishing code parts…
Aside from sitting here trying all the different code combinations (which I don’t have time for) are there any clues that might narrow down which code goes with which?
I entered the code and it said that it had been redeemed already.
So who won?
The tombstone code has been found — no one’s stepped forward yet to publicly claim victory on it. However, we’ve begun tweeting the final code segments for the other codes in the issue, so make sure to have them written down and keep an eye on our Twitter feed!
By the way, how about some kudos to Mike and BONZO for their artwork on the Halloween Special and coming up with these cool code challenges? We dumped a *bunch* of codes into this issue, and Mike came up with some great ways of hiding them, sprinkling them throughout the issue, and producing a really fun Twitter event. Just awesome work!
Which tombstone code was that? The one from the middle pages in the double page spread, or the colour combo ( that gave me nothing but errors) code from this page?
Also the finishing code segments never worked for me either!