"Fortunately, Unfortunately"

Meece

Unfortunately we had failed to see the sign:

NO TRESPASSING

AREA 51 PERSONNEL ONLY

But we entered the door anyway.

Shrek4

Fortunately, it was a false sign. This is no Area 51! It is the underground palace/bunker of the richest person on earth, that has remained anonymous through the years. And she is a wonderful old lady, and a BC survivor herself. She invites us to stay with her for a while, and gives us many many presents.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, we discover that while this is not AREA 51, it's actually AREA 52, which is even more top secret - so much so that no one but the government and the old lady even know it exists. One of the "gifts" she gives us is a Hum-Vee that actually hums and hovers oddly...

badger

Fortunately, it has an experimental solar-powered engine - no gas needed, just desert sun.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, when we all hop in (it strangely expands to fit every one of us comfortably), it begins to whir and hum and glow in a way that makes us a bit uneasy. We press the accelerator but instead of going forward, our eerie Hum-Vee craft lifts off the ground, rises quickly through the cavernous depths of the underground wonderland, and heads straight for the ceiling of the cave -- at a very fast speed!

Meece

Fortunately the ceiling of the cave opens up to reveal the bright blue desert sky.  It is equipped with a state of the art GPS system which not only give directions but actually overrides the steering system, so we sit back, relax and enjoy the ride as we head back to the Carribean to resume our somewhat sidetracked trip.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, the craft appears to belong to someone other than the nice lady or the US government. Within moments of our escape from the cave, we are surrounded by a fleet of  hovering, saucer-shaped crafts filled with who-knows-what form of extraterrestrial life. They want their ship back and they're hopping mad!

Meece

Fortunately the craft has warp drive and we arrive, hovering over our own private island in the Carribean, in a matter of seconds.  We quickly exit the craft just in time.  The Others have followed us, but are uninterested in us.  they quickly send someone to take control of the craft, and as quickly as they showed up, they, and our transportation are gone.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, our lovely, private, Caribbean island appears to be totally lacking in accommodations of any kind. In fact, it looks more like a desert island than a resort.

Anybody have a copy of Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, or Island of the Blue Dolphins handy? We need survival tips!

badger

Fortunately, behind some foliage we discover a hidden entrance to a beautiful crystal cave, which is the gateway to a vast underground city. 

ruthbru

Unfortunately the underground city is ruled by evil trolls who soon take us captive.

badger

Fortunately, we find we can understand their language but they don't understand English, so we can openly plot and plan our escape without being overheard.

ruthbru

Unfortunately escape will be difficult as they have locked us in a dark dungeon deep below the earth.

Anonymous

Fortunately, we enchant the trolls with our loveliness, and they begin to bring us flowers and chocolates, and serenade us with beautiful music.

ruthbru

Unfortunately the head troll was immune to our charms.

badger

Fortunately, his son was susceptible, so we exploited his weakness and gained an ally.

ruthbru

Unfortunately the only troll with the keys to the dungeon was the chief troll and he wasn't budging!

Anonymous

Fortunately, our lovesick troll admirer baked us a heart-shaped cake with a metal file inside. After our captors were asleep, we sawed our way through the bars, tied up the head troll, and invited all the other trolls to a wild midnight party.

We made the head troll promise to be nice to us as a condition of being untied. He readily agreed and joined the party, though his pathetic attempts to "mingle" reminded us of George dubya with a lampshade on his head.

Nevertheless, a good time was had by all.

Meece

Unfortunately, the trolls could only be active 12 hours at a time, and required a 12 hour rest.  While all the trolls were sleeping, the beautiful underground city became quite boring because if we were to wake a troll it would get ugly.

Anonymous

Hahaha!

Fortunately, while they are sleeping we can move about freely! We fill our rucksacks with provisions from the troll storehouse (since they told us to freely partake) and head to the head troll's garage. Opening the door, we find a fleet of snazzy vehicles. We climb into one that looks like a tunneling submarine and pull the throttle. We head straight through -- and into -- the wall of the cavern, Jules Verne style. Wheee!

Shrek4

Unfortunately, after passing throught he wall of the cavern and following a tunnel that (we hope) will bring us to the surface, we realize that the tunnel is not a tunnel but the esophagus of a rock-eating giant worm and we are going full speed towards it's stomach. Oh no!

badger

Fortunately, we were able to take a hard right and burrow back out of the worm's body.

Shrek4

Unfortunately, when we get out of the worm's body, there's only rock there. We cannot go through it.

badger

Fortunately, we can go around it; we had exited the worm next to a massive pillar of stone.  It was supporting the weight of the roof of an enormous chamber in which we now found ourselves.

Shrek4

Unfortunately, our gimmicks woke up the giant rock-eating worm. It starts thrashing around and we can see huge cracks appearing in the massive pillar of stone. The roof is going to cave in! Oh no!

ruthbru

Fortunately we saw a rope ladder, and were able to clamber up it to safely just in the knick of time.

Meece

Unfortunately the ladder fell into the cavern below, and we needed it to climb back down from the precipice we were stranded on once the dust settled.  There was not much space for all of us to sit while trying to figure out how we were going to get out of this mess.

Estel

Fortunately, time is on our side ...  the worm & our travels have awakened the trolls and they come to our rescue.

Anonymous

The trolls rescue us and take us back to their land, but unfortunately, they are mad at us for borrowing their expensive worm-cleaning machine. They say "If you like cleaning so much, then fine, we'll just make that your new job." And like Snow White at the hands of the ruthless dwarves, we now spend all our time cooking, cleaning, ironing, and scrubbing toilets. Our hands are getting red and chafed from all the dishes we have to wash - and trolls eat a LOT.

This isn't living, it's pure undergound drudgery!

ruthbru

Fortunately we overheard them talking and learned that on the night of the full moon trolls turn to stone from moonrise to moonset, so we started to make our plans to escape.