Zippy Zip-A-Long

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/441px-Da_Vinci_Vitruve_Luc_Viatour-1-1.jpg

Edited August 28, 2011 by Maharg67

[LordTenaim]

Great beard, and I can't wait for more of the cosmic opera. Brought a smile to an otherwise gloomy day. :thanks:

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

Super-mutants roared crazy battle cries as they found themselves attacked by two enemies being humans from the south and daedra from the north-east. The super-mutant force fell back to an area of great soaring rocky outcrops and cave openings. Behemoths took the brunt of the daedra attack, felling dremora and lesser daedra with great sweeping blows of their mighty maces. It was standard super-mutants who took the brunt of the other attack, firing away with lasers. The necromancers had fled in fear, always an unreliable ally, but the super-mutants had not only learned magic, it turned out that some of them were naturally mages.

 

Patton had little liking for the 'krauts' but the human drive was led by German Wehrmacht and American GIs, by German and American tanks. Infantry followed along with Legionaries and Guards on foot. The Cyrodilins had quickly learned the hard way that charging on horse back against powerful arrays of guns was a quick way to die. Knights now slogged over land along with other fighters. Magical horse armour was being improved and produced to change this but only small amounts of it had so far become available to use.

 

Patton, the Eternal Champion and Rommel watched from a secure command bunker, newly built, with binoculars. They noted not just the super-mutants but glimpses of dremora, scamps and other lesser daedra. The sounds of battle drifted to them. Gun shots, the humming of lasers, the strange sound of battle magic of many kinds, the explosions of cannon shells and grenades. A machinegun hammered away for a short time, a powerful Browning Heavy Machinegun that could even rip apart a Behemoth.

 

Rommel lowered his binoculars. "I need to get contact with what is ever left of the German military command outside of Hitler's sheer abnormality."

 

The Eternal Champion shook her head. "The German forces are now split into two major and two minor forces. One is now allied to the Western Allies and they are fighting the Hitler's monsters. Another is trapped between the Soviets and Hitler's forces. They are not allies of the Russians but neither is there any fighting going on between them. Both are fighting Hitler's monsters who seem to be appearing in endless numbers. Many of those sent to concentration camps were transformed into werewolves or vampires and fell under the mental control of evil entities. In the numbing nightmare of the death camps, corpses had become armies of zombies. The souls were not trapped, were gone free, as these zombies were full of evil animating energies of a non human kind. The Allies, both Western and Soviet, should have done more to stop the Holacaust and now they have paid for it by having an evil army to fight. One minor force is closer towards Italy and the last is under siege in Prussia."

 

Patton nodded. "Yes, easy to say with hindsight, but we have been busy enough just fighting a war. Also nobody could quite believe the truth. The fighting is too close order now to use our big guns. Those 88s could take out more of those behemoths."

 

"We wait for more shells to be made by magical means." Rommel shook his head in wonder. "I never thought that I should utter such a statement as I did just then. Has reality so much turned on its head?"

 

Which was when the super-mutants found themselves battling another force being this time goblins in the caves, led by monstrous hobgoblins and trolls, who did not wish to share their tribal caves with the monster invaders. The goblins charged bravely led by the bigger monsters and shamans but many of them fell before the weapons and fighting power of the super-mutants. Behemoths hurled even the biggest hobgoblin or troll through the air.

 

But the result was that word soon spread to other goblins of this new threat and so goblin tribes gathered, became unified and then did an amazing thing: they became fighting allies of the humans and others soon flocking to the alliance be they gnomes, orks, beastfolk and many others.

 

But as three worlds were linked by invasion and warfare, even stranger things began to happen.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

Mrs Brown of 23 Norrington Rd, West London, stood in her small terrace house front garden and looked up at the sky. She had a funny feeling in her aged bones that could mean only one thing; a great transdimensional war was breaking out. So what could she do about it; the 81 year old great grandmother thought she must do something. Across the road some children were playing with knuckle-bones. A trio of Spitfires flew through the sky, far overhead, on some mission or other. It was World War Two after all.

 

Mrs Brown kept thinking hard and then she had it. She would plant some extra potatoes and white wash the back fence. That would do it! That would help win the great transdimensional war and defeat the enemies of Great Britain.

 

She turned and with her hair still in curlers, she wandered back into the house. The door closed with a soft thud.

 

What she did not see was the tall, hairless albino man with dark glasses who stood in a black buisness suit, a bowler hat and with both a briefcase and umbrella, also being black. He was bemused for Mrs Brown had accidentally picked up the edges of an empathic-telepathic message sent to him. Still, her solution did have a practical side to it. With a mild grin on his face, he turned and made his way along the street.

 

Then he vanished but nobody noticed him, not really, just as they had not really noticed him in the first place.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

OLD ZEN SAYING

 

FIND THE COURAGE

 

TO HOLD ON TO YOUR BELIEFS,

 

EVEN IF THE WORLD AROUND YOU

 

CHOOSES TO BELIEVE DIFFERENTLY.

 

HAVE THE COURAGE

 

TO CHANGE THOSE BELIEFS

 

THAT NO LONGER FIT THE

 

PERSON YOU HAVE BECOME

 

IN DOING SO,

 

YOU TRULY BECOME YOURSELF

 

 

PS: JUST SOMETHING TO MULL ON

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

The Eternal Champion slipped through the landscape all quiet and stealthy, past a burned out Cyrodilin village that had been, thankfully, abandoned before lesser daedric radiers had struck it. In the clearing, next to a still standing central village post, stood eight Mythic Dawn members who were confident enough to wear their strange armour. Was Mehrunes Dagon somehow returned to existence or had some other greater daedra taken over spiritual command of the dangerous and peverted cult? She did not speak openly of it but she had contacts amongst even the greater daedra, a pantheon far greater than those of Tamriel would know except a few individuals, who came from an Oblivion realm of realms far larger and more varied than most people believed or feared. None of them had been of any use except one had spoken, fearfully, of the rise of stories of the rise of a son of Mehrunes Dagon; she had demanded a big sum of special goods for the information for she was going into fortified seclusion as were others of her kind. They feared the new one who was named Jagrunes Dagon for in many ways he was worse than his father, was more cunning, brutal and powerful with various dark forms of sorcery.

 

The eight Mythic Dawn fighters stank of a new kind of magic, a subclass of daedric magic, in them but also in their armour, weapons and some other devices. She sensed nothing about them of traditional Tamriellin arcane magic or variants such as necromancy, wild magic or others.

 

Then she saw them, standing motionlessly close to the Mythic Dawn. The three were oddly skeletal versions of Mythic Dawn humans in armour. Their armour was less elaborate and they had basic weapons but amongst them were some basic guns. Each had a large revolver-pistol like weapon with an elongated barrel and an attached blade plus a rifle butt like arrangement. This was holstered at the back of each so it could be drawn out in a fashion that would be awkward for a human but apparently not for these creatures.

 

Information came to her mind, as it often did, seemingly from nowhere but this time it was long distant past memories. Such creatures were ancient constructs of a people of Ancient Tamriel, a people she chose not to name even to herself because of their amazingly evil nature, who were destroyed by the mer. They had created the first of the skeletors but they had appeared different back then for they had worn armour reflecting the standard armour of their debauched masters.

 

They were waiting for others to appear but who? They were dangerously close to Alliance forces so must have had good reason to be there.

 

She gave a signal and elite Blades emerged seemingly from nowhere, five of them, and slipped up to crouch close to her. They had a mixture of weapons, including some guns, and also magic of varied sorts. One was a battlemage with no guns but a powerful magical bow.

 

They waited and then the German soldiers, led by an officer, came into view. At once she sensed that they were Nazis and she did not like the implications of such a meeting. If the Nazis, with their magic and monsters, linked with the dark forces of Oblivion, then the still forming Alliance would have much to worry about. The dark implications were many. Could the evil Hitler dominate the werewolves and vampires of Tamriel as he did those of his own world, turning them against the peoples of Tamriel with a kind of guerrilla warfare?

 

This first meeting was just a beginning. It did not last long. This was mainly because she and a small army of Blades and others rose out of the greenery and attacked from two sides. She rushed forward and knowing that the skeletors had some nasty hidden tricks, she attacked them first. The skeletors moving strangely but quickly and with deadly precision. One brought out its daggergun and aimed it at her but her blade sliced its arm off. She whirled low and cut two skeletor heads off with one well aimed sweep of the blade. Then, with the momentum, thrust forward and stabbed into the solar plexus area of the third skeletor, her sword brushing against its own dremora style longsword and deflecting it harmlessly away from herself.

 

The Germans turned and fled right into the welcoming arms of German soldiers who were fiercly loyal to Rommel. American GIs gunned down two of the Mythic Dawn as they fled. It turned out the Mythic Dawn armour was not bullet proof but was bullet resistant to the less powerful types of bullets fired by the Terrans (people from Terra, the Earth), making them harder to kill.

 

The Eternal Champion stood over the fallen skeletors even as they were examined by others.

 

The process of the Nazis linking with daedric forces had been slowed, she figured, but not stopped. The Empress and the Terran Commanders would have to know about this at once.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

Down town Washington DC, corner of a busy street full of sidewalk and motor traffic. A drab looking businessman strode along a sidewalk with a briefcase and an umbrella, turned and stood at a news stand. He was palid of face, clearly European and when he spoke he did so with just a hint of Irish accent. His single breasted suit reflected the rationing on materials that had done away with double breasted suits being manufactured. The plump man behind the stall counter frowned softly at the new customer. "Anything you want, mister, or are you just going to stand there staring at me?"

 

The buisnessman sighed softly, raised his umbrella and stabbed the other man in the chest. The news seller grunted in agony, shuddered and fell towards the ground but as he did so he vanished along with all of his clothes and other gear. Nobody saw anything even if they were looking in that direction at the time. They simply failed to take it in. Mehrunes Dagon, or at least what he had become, snorted softly in disgust at this mortal who had dared to speak to 'him' in such a manner. He picked up two newspapers, three magazines and some coins from the counter. Then he turned away, with his loot, and walked further along the sidewalk.

 

This new world was enjoyable in some ways but most annoying in others. It was full of promises but he was trapped there with few powers and not much wealth. To top it off he did not even know how he got there. He survived by feeding on and looting, by constantly moving from one hiding place to another and by hiding from local 'powerful ones'; now and then he altered his shape. Super heroes, super villains and super neutrals were fairly common in the USA, even more common than other parts of the world, but most had only basic powers. Mortals were mostly with out special powers. Magic tended to be weak on that world, even laughable. Yet he had not survived by taking things for granted and lately he had sensed that something was following him, something that was keeping out of his full perception, that was damned excellent at tracking even somebody like him.

 

He walked into a fairly busy cafe, sat in a back corner booth and put his stolen publications on the booth table. The waitress came, young and fairly attractive but nothing like his daedric nymphors, a kind of lesser daedra with nymph genes. Many lesser daedra were actually hybrids of original daedric genes and various non-daedric species and yet many missed this. Dremora were part human, the poor things. He ordered hot black percolated coffee, two cups of it, a nearly raw steak, two pickles, a scoop of vanilla icecream and tomato sauce, all to be served together on the same plate. The waitress didn't flinch. She was used to some odd orders.

 

For hours he had been sleeping in dark recess down in the Subway and so had not picked up any news. Now he looked at the front cover of the WASHINGTON CHRONICLE and he scowled darkly with surprise and displeasure. Daedric forces were invading New Mexico, were fighting human forces there. He was a genius and he read the writing with amazing speed, forgetting nothing. He had already visited many libraries and had bought many books which he had stored in a handy dimensional pocket along with loot. So he knew about New Mexico. As he read descriptions and studied black-white photographs, he noted that many of the daedric were of the kind that served him. Yet the same kinds also served other greater daedra except for the dremora. They supposedly only served him as their god so who were they following now?

 

He gulped down his coffee, ate his food slowly and with pleasure, and then he kept reading. In minutes he had gained a fair amount of usable information and a whole lot of typical news media garbage and government propaganda. The articles spoke of the monster invaders being driven back easily by human defenders but reading between the lines, he came to doubt that the defenders were having such an easy time. For one thing a great deal of the fighting power of the USA was away in other parts of the world so who was there to defend the homeland?

 

He made the publications vanish, stood up and left. It was not something he liked doing but he left a standard size tip behind in coins because he wanted to blend in. Then he was out on the sidewalk again, blending in with the people.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

The GIs scattered as the daedragon beast dived through the air and launched a burning fireball that exploded straight into a stack of ammo boxes. There was an explosion, throwing two soldiers, now wounded, through the air. A medium machinegun blasted away at the flying monster from another sandbagged position and the dragon like creature roared in agony but also rage.

 

The American forces had been joined by their own reinforcements but also by Mexican soldiers allowed across the border in such a dire emergency. The Mexicans had some Amercian equipment and fought bravely despite being poorly trained. An American Sherman fired its 76mm cannon and blasted the daedragon, killing it as a large part of it was splashed across the New Mexican Desert.

 

The Allied defences had held so far thanks to the attackers being mainly less powerful kinds of lesser daedra such as regular dremora, basic scamps and lower caste scords. What was disturbing was that the invaders seemed very intent on stealing human guns, especially the bigger ones. The Americans and Mexicans were ordered to make sure that this did not happen, even if they had to destroy their own bigger weapons before retreating but in battle such orders can be difficult to carry out.

 

American armour had arrived but much of it was older stuff taken out of moth balls. There were five M3 light tanks each armed with one 37mm cannon and two .3 inch machineguns. There were other tanks of older types having less powerful cannons and lighter armour. There were armoured cars of varied kinds. They were now spread out and fighting defensive actions.

 

A group of GIs, grubby figures in green, sprinted across a clear area and took up position behind some red boulders and cacti. They aimed rifles and submachineguns, fired off bursts of bullets at an attacking cluster of scamps and scards. The enemy had yet to get fully used to dealing with guns and they fell even as some of the scamps unleashed fire pulses. The scamps hissed and the scards cursed in a strange language that sounded uncomfortable to the human ear.

 

Then they came, American aircraft. Mustangs shot over the enemy and strafed them, roaring away with heavy machineguns, while other American fighters went after the daedragons.

 

The fighting went on.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

Captain Arnold Finger of the New United Nations Defence Force, or NUNDF, felt a shudder un through the Black Wind vertijet even as it landed at a foreward outpost on the eastern coast of the great island of Columbia. The big, heavily armoured and armoured combat transport landed with expert ease on the basic helipad of chalked lines on an area of concrete. Already on the ground were two even bigger Red Winds transports, and four smaller and more agile Viperjet multirole fighters. another kind of vertijet. Aircav Troopers were spread out in power armour battlesuits that covered them from head to foot and which enhanced physical abilities.

 

They had more advanced 2B1rifles that were two guns in one: most had the above firing new type 20mmSC and the below firing the 5mmSC calibre but some had an energy pulsegun instead of the 20mmSC rifle while others replaced the 20mmSC rifle with a semiautomatic 30mmSC grenade-shell launcher. The force was nicely spread out and dug in with ditches, sandbags, sensors, trip-lines and such like. Heavy 3B1guns were set up as were tripod-launchers, each of these being a combination of 30mmSC machineguns, heavy pulsebeamers and 30mm minimissile launchers or 30mmSC grenade-shell launchers. There were sentries on duty and scouts were out in the choatic semiwilderness of the DC Wastelands. Robots hovered through the air, armoured globes of sentry-orbs. Compact 3Dcams recorded the area. Since they were not sure how hostile locals would be, they had laid down no actual mines. No good blowing up potential allies.

 

Yet they also relied on their special abilities to sense any threats or other approaches.

 

There he was, the strange little man standing shorter than his body-guards, two tough soldiers who were both well trained and experienced in such duties, in his own brown fatigues. Next to him was the young, short woman who took care of other needs. She warmly smiled at her charge as he most likely prattled on about psychic energy fields, transdimensional vortexes, gateways between worlds and such nonsense. Except the captain no longer considered it as nonsense any longer, not really, not after he had experienced the strange things that the strange little man do and, beyond that, what the new world had to offer.

 

On the ground in front of Graham Maharg appeared, with a sparkling shimmer, four large wheels of butter-cheese in thick wax skin. He made things appear to supplement the equipment and supplies of the expedition, often odd things. While it was not great on its own, butter-cheese went surprisingly well with certain types of military rations, improved their taste. This and some other gifts from the strange little man had helped his reputation with the troops, especially the beer. Some soldiers came and picked up the wheels of butter-cheese to take them to the newly set up kitchen tent.

 

Captain Arnold Finger jumped lightly out of the helicopter and made his way across the encampment. He could sense all around him the NUN humans who were not like other humans, not since the transformation had taken place on the UN Islands, as they could sense him. A unique form of FEV had been either accidentally or purposely released on the island by WestTek agents. This happened just before those humans went down into a huge network of bunkerplexes, sealing off the world with many forms of defence and security. They took animals and even plants with them. All went into status-storage. They had emerged as a kind of unified mentality with a shared secondary mind. The UN Islands were floating artificial islands and had drifted away from North America to end up much closer to both New Zealand and Australia. They sent out to make peace, failed and then set out to conquer both lands. They fought mutated humans, wild humans, militeristic survivalists, strange cults, mutated monsters and other threats. They found a thriving set of Aboriginal civilizations that they became allied to and finally various other civilizations they became friendly with.

 

But then, more recently, strange disturbances had started to take place and the NUN operated satellites and specialist psychics traced the core of it to the DC of the USA.

 

Now they were back in the USA. Only time would tell what would happen next. Except there was no USA. Their farseers, a specialist type of psychic, had glimpsed something called the Brotherhood of Steel, something else called the DC-Union and other forces including something dangerous called the Enclave.

 

Now they were well established, they could put another kind of specialist psychic to work and teleport small important packages to and from the NUN Expeditionary Fleet off the coast. Swapping was best with items that had with each other (close as possible) identical volume and weight. Samples, used bullet casings and such were sent and back came small amounts of supplies, spare parts or such like. They could even swap wounded humans for reinforcements but this was a trickier kind of operation.

 

Then there were the animals. Special armoured K9s moved in harmony with the group mentality, pacing in patrols with human soldier companions. Eagles were now released from cages and flew up to perch where they could observe. It was getting dark and they would not fly their first patrols until dawn came. The birds had special cyber implants.

 

The captain reached the strange little man, who always seemed to look through one or uncomfortably deep into one. Graham Maharg looked up at the tall officer and spoke with some tiredness showing but this was normal. "There are monstrous fighters here called super-mutants. Only a few kilometres from here, about a month ago, a whole lot of them vanished mysteriously after being surrounded by enemy soldiers of the DC-Union and something called the Brotherhood of Steel. Enemies to the super-mutants but perhaps not to us. But now enemies do come towards us in all terrain vehicles called battlebuggies and battletrucks."

 

So it was that when the raiders came roaring in towards the encampment, they were surprised by the appearance of the NUN soldiers. They saw only a strong glimpse before, being raiders, they attacked and paid the price for their arrogant stupidity. With amazing coordination and precision the NUNDF soldiers laid down a barriage of minimissiles, rocket-grenades, grenade-shells and various calibres of caseless shells and bullets. Energy pulse-shells and pulse-bullets zipped out and exploded amongst the attackers. Battlebuggies and battletrucks erupted or were hurled onto their sides. Raiders died in their vehicles or leapt out to die outside of their vehicles.

 

Then it was over. The soldiers moved forward to find two survivors to fix up and interrogate, stuff to loot and study.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER NINETEEN

 

The Eternal Champion and Fortuna entered the Empress' personal chamber. The Empress turned, beautiful and elegant, and frowned sharply at the two of them. Then she spoke. "So you dare come here again, Eternal Champion, after so forewardly doubting me in the Imperial Court. Yes I had ties to the Mythic Dawn from when I was younger and more foolish but I cut them when I realised that they were evil followers of Mehrunes Dagon."

 

The Eternal Champion did not seem apolagetic but she did bow briefly. "Forgive me, Empress, but it is as much my duty to defend the Cyrodilin Empire as it is yours. I have taken more than one sacred oath before more than one Emperor to do just that. Now I am convinced that you are genuine, intelligent and wise. You will be a fine ruler of the people, if your pride does not get in the way. Please do not scowl so much at me."

 

The Empress snorted. "I should have your head cut off only you seem to be more popular with my people than I am. At this moment I need them and I need you but it will not always be the case. We will one day further discuss your disrespect of my person. What of these intruder humans from this world called Terra, these Terrans, do they continue to be of benefit to the empire? They have taken up territories of their own with out gaining my full imperial permission to do so."

 

The Eternal Champion looked around the plush chamber, elegant with fine wall tapestries, rugs, a round table, chairs, a troll's head mounted on one wall and other features including a scroll-rack full of scrolls in finely decorated scroll-tubes of bone, wood or bronze. One wall tapestry was a map of Tamriel and the Cyrodilin Empire but it was out of date and some of the borders were wrong as were the settlement and road markings. It showed the Cyrodilin Empire back when it was bigger and more powerful, back before the Oblivion Gate Invasion of Cyrodiil had taken place. Did the Empress fail to get a new map tapestry because she wished the empire to be like the old days?

 

"Your highness, no laws have been broken." The Eternal Champion noted that Fortuna was perched on a chair and was eating some grapes from a wooden bowl. She took out a pair of scrolls in simple wooden tubes and passed them to the empress. "These confirm that land has been passed over to both the Germans and Austrians on the one hand and Americans on the other. All you need do is sign them. We need these Terrans, their knowledge and their technologies to defeat both threats against us. These newcomers must need feel safe in lands granted semiautonomous rule inside the empire. Various Duchies, Counties and other territories already have such a status. Both nobles and commoners of influence support the move."

 

The Empress frowned. "The Constitutionalist Movement has spoken with these Americans. These foolish radicals wish to impose a new Imperial Constitution upon the Empire that limits the power of the Emperor and-or Empress. Votes for the people? Democracy? What stupidity is this? The Imperial Intelligence Office has had agents tracking Constitutionalist activities."

 

The Eternal Champion nodded. "Would not the IIO be better used to track the Mythic Dawn?"

 

The Empress looked thoughtful. "The IIO assures me that the Mythic Dawn Cult is quite dead and is no threat. Instead they warn me that you and the Blades have become the true threat. Not that I believe that bit of jealous twaddle. The dandies of the IIO couldn't wipe their own bums with out a servant to assist them. I am caught between an intelligence office that is too ineffective and the Blades who are at times too lethal. Truly I would take the Blades. I will read these documents and most likely I will sign them though I would not be totally pleased by their content. You are correct, we need these Terrans. I will see you later, at my call."

 

The two parted ways. Fortuna the pixie quietly followed the Eternal Champion.

 

Soon after the Eternal Champion was gone, out from behind a wall tapestry of dark beauty came a tall, strikingly handsome man of pale white skin, dark eyes and jet black hair. He wore jet black armour and carried a great daedric sword. He was human but with some noticeable dremora influence. He walked to the Empress and kissed her hard, groping her lightly as he did so and she kissed him hard back.

 

Then he broke away but just a short distance. "You will have to have your new assassins kill the Eternal Champion and all the leaders of the Blades."

 

The Empress nodded. "Of course, my love, of course. In the name of Jagrunes Dagon, one day you will be Emperor and the empire will grow to expand across not only Tamriel but the rest of the world, including the Forbidden and Forgotten Continents."

 

They kissed again.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67