If you will indulge me, here is a little insert into my story to explain my one poster indicating that 'they all died from food poisoning end of story!' I plead temporary insanity! LOL. So in an attempt to bring the story back on-line and continue with it, here is a possible fix for my egregious faux pas. So as everyone is enjoying the soup, they no sooner finish their last spoonfull when a strange trance descends on all of them, save Tale, since he is the master of this trick. The soup has a trace of an hullucinagenic mushroom in it, just enough to induce a very short lived but well orchestrated experience. Jorge is the first to be hit by it! He looks around and all of his travel mates are slumped over the table, laying with their faces buried in their now full appearing bowls of soup and all looking quite dead to the world. He pushes back on his chair and tries to stand up, but the mushroom trance has taken complete control of his freedom of movement and he is frozen in place. Next Jake and Silo are hit with the same vision. It looks to them like Janax and Jorge and Tale are all dead with their faces in their soup. When they try to get up from their chairs, they find they can't move either. Finally, Janax gets his hit from the soup and he looks around to see everyone looking dead with their faces buried in the beautiful golden soup. And the same result for him when he tries getting up from the table, frozen in place!' Tale is so amused by the effectiveness of his little prank that he spills a full glass of wine all over the front of his body suit. 'Oh, this will never do!' he thinks to himself and he gets up and leaves the room only to return several minuates later in a clean set of clothes. They do seem to fit him better. He seats himself at the head of the table again. Suddenly, there is the sound of a gong, and everyone snaps out of their trance. Tale and the robots are chuckling like crazy. Mude had let Red in on the joke. It seems Tale has a very slightly warped sense of humor and likes to pull this particular prank on any group large enough to enjoy it. The best part of it is that the effects of the soup don't take effect until all of them have finished every last drop of their soup. So when they see their companions with their faces in the soup, they are seeing them as if they had full bowls of soup. In their slightly drugged stupor, none of them makes the correct deduction that the bowls are actually empty so they all fall for the illusion. Tale scores one, the visitors zero. But who is counting? Once everyone regains their composure, the servant androids return and clear off the soup bowls. Tale has a few more chuckles at their expense as do Red and Mude. Then he suggests they help themselves to the food over on the buffet table. After eating the soup and having the crap scared out of them, they all find themselves quite ravenously hungry. 'You're not gonna pull another trick on us with this food over here are you?' asks Jorge. 'No my new friends! I apologize for my little prank! I must confess to being one sick little water guppy! No, that is the only little trick I had in mind for you and it worked out more perfectly than I could have hoped! Don't you agree, Mude and Red?' And Mude and Red nod their heads and trill in enthusiastic agreement. If Red were capable of it, he would surely have a huge smile on his face but Mude makes up for both of them with the big tinny smile on his face. Thank you for taking a peek! Your support is greatly appreciated!