Zippy Zip-A-Long

[Maharg67]

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-6-

THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULINE

IMPERIAL PRISON

 

The group came upon the left overs of a savage battle between Mythic Dawn Followers and some kind of cult necromancers. Mythic Dawn would have summoned up lesser daedra and the necromancers would have summoned up zombies and perhaps even skeletars, animated skeletal warriors wrapped in the soft flickering fields of maintaining and protecting energies of undeath. Herculine sensed that there had been a couple of zombiezaes there, a deadlier version of the normal shambling zombies, that moved faster and which could climb. What had not died or been sent back to their realms, being unsommed somehow, had retreated.

 

The three zombiezae came first, skittering and running, mouths open to show yellow fangs and hands reaching out with long claws that were once normal fingernails. The Blades aimed and fired magic and arrows. Herculine hurled an anti-undeath sphere that exploded between two zombiezaes, hurling them stunned to the floor so the Blades could kill them with arrows or more direct magic. The Emperor cut off the head of the third zombiezae himself, moving fast and agile with well trained grace.

 

Then came a small horde of zombies and fewer skeletars in armour and with weapons. With them came four necromancers and now Herculine knew they were of the Undeath Guild that was far darker and more extreme than was the Necromancers Guild, which was saying a good deal. Herculine summoned special elementals of solar light and living light, sending them at the enemy and then she was herself attacking. She moved with a great deal of skill and experience, slicing, stabbing, blocking, deflecting as she cut through the lesser undead coming towards her.

 

Then she cut off the head of a necromancer, a woman showing the grey, dry pallid skin and loss of hair that necromancers often suffered that often made them look older than they actually were. Even as the necromancer died, many summons lesser undead vanished away and the attacking group became less powerful.

 

Then the necromancers and their monsters were falling back but unfortunately some Blades were dead or wounded, which meant a chance of undeathly infection. She healed the Blades of any possible curse of undeath but now the group was slowed for they would not leave their dead to be turned into zombies or worse and the sick could not fight as well as they formerly did. They continued through the levels of the UnderPrison.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited October 8, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

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-31-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ007 (DANZIE)

IN MEGATON

 

Deactivating the atomic bomb at the centre of the Megaton Crater was simple enough for Dazie and Justine to carry out. They stunned the sleepy Follower of the Children of Atom who was watching it one late night and then carefully got past the Children of Atom Seal. They confirmed what they had suspected, that the A-Bomb was a dud, a museum display. So they went to meet with Confessor Cromwell, finding him sitting up late reading an obscure text he had obtained from a trader of exotic items. Cromwell was not happy to do so but in the end he confessed that he and a few chosen trusted followers in the very early days had found the museum piece in the back of a big atomic motorised commercial truck. Cromwell had hoped to replace the dud with a real one but the opportunity never came up.

 

So Confessor Cromwell was forced to confess the truth to Megaton. Surprisingly enough he lost few followers for if nothing else the Church building was shelter for a few who would otherwise find no shelter at all. Many non followers were pleased that the supposed threat of nuclear destruction was not there though none were pleased at Cromwell's deception. The A-Bomb remained as public property of the settlement and Cromwell was forbidden to carry out any more sermons or rituals there with his followers. Instead his followers took down the dais there and it was replaced by a public sign-board describing the history of the dud A-Bomb when it came to Megaton.

 

Sheriff Lucas Simms took Danz007 justine to the house that was a large one by Megaton standards with two levels above ground and one basement level along with a tunnel from the basement going further into the side of the Megaton Crater to join up with the Megaton Tunnel Network. Megaton was slowly but steadily expanding underground through the sides of the crater.

 

The Sheriff looked at the MrHandy robot in its store-recharge bay and he grinned. "Confessor Cromwell and his followers have been forced to agree to do a great deal of free community service for Megaton so that people will forgive the deception of the fake A-Bomb. You suspected the truth?"

 

Justine nodded. "The A-Bomb is too primitive to have been a viable weapon back in the last fatal war. H-bombs, N-bombs and other such, more advanced, weapons were used then. We did subtle scans and picked up no energy signature that would have made sense. Who owned this house?"

 

The Sheriff shook his head and then shrugged. "A very strange and brilliant man who disappeared suddeenly and as mysteriously as he had appeared; he came seemingly out of nowhere with a whole lot of valuable resources. He had this house built and assisted in expanding improving the Megaton Hospital, the Megaton School, the Megaton Armoury, the Megaton Guard Fort and even the Megaton Sheriff's Office including its armoury, jail area and rest-rooms for those on duty taking turns to take breaks. In return Megaton left him alone to do his thing and to go on about his business. Odd people and packages would come to and from the house but we asked no questions, at least not openly. His name was Graham Maharg. Odd thing was he said that one day I would know who to give the house to and now I know that I need to give it to you. I have ever only been this far into the commonroom on the main floor since Graham Maharg took over the house."

 

The crazy theme of the big commonroom was mixed. There were vault computer stacks two metres high and one metre wide and thick. There were rack-towers of rectangular boxes. A NukaCola vending-machine stood next to two other upright vending-machines. A 3DTV set was blank on a bench with a brahmin skull on one side and a deathclaw claw on the other. There were bookcases partly full of valuable Prewar books. There were comfy armchairs and a sofa-bed before the 3DTV and the multidisk player-recorder below the television set. There were three desks, one with a cyberlink typwriter and two with computer terminals. There was a vertical gun rack, enclosed in armour and armaglass, with a few rifles of various kinds. A map of Megaton was on one wall and a big oil painting of Megaton in a wooden frame on another wall.

 

Lucas spoke again. "Lots of people have lusted after this house and its contents. Many stories have circulated about the possible wealth hidden here or the dark secrets, many of them stupid. I suppose that you wish me to leave now."

 

Danzie and Justine looked to each other and then Danzie spoke. "Only if you want to, Sheriff. Otherwise you can finally fulfill your desire to find out what is here."

 

Lucas Simms grinned. "Yes, you two do have an amazing way of reading people."

 

They were polite enough not to point out that the sheriff was not too difficult to read.

 

-CONTINUED-

[Maharg67]

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-32-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ000 (DANZRON)

DANZ001 (DANZLENA)

IN TEKVAULT0100

 

Danz001, who would become known also as Danzlena, stirred in her special cloner-capsule, naked in a misty obscurity of special gases, inside a large well hidden chamber inside TekVault0100. Her body shivered and around her the AI-supercomputer network-system kept everything functioning smoothly as it cared for her and other clones. Yes, many clones, most of them not being of the Danz Series and not all being human or human related. Roboremotes moved around cleaning and security patrolling, running maintenance checks and doing secondary checks on the clones.

 

Danz0000 sat inside a big ring shaped console on-in a cyberlink-chair and did a careful diagnostics on various network-systems. He knew that Danz0001 would soon be waking and emerging from her cloner-capsule, from the super virtual realm she had been growing up in, learning, training and experiencing a community in. Danz0000 knew that Unity was searching for the special chamber he was in but so far they had failed thanks partly to his own activities. He was not automatically against Unity, just against their current direction of thought and action, against their foolish plans. Something was frightening them deeply and it was not just Earthnet or its cousin, Skynet, that was doing so. Indeed Danz0000 himself could sense a dark, powerful threat existing in the more isolated parts of the vault and close to the vault.

 

Danz0001 stirred again and continued to slowly but steadily to wake up to the 'real world'.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited October 11, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-33-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ007 (DANZIE)

IN MEGATON

 

The group had two houses now in Megaton that were almost next to each other. A large shack on shack structure stood between them and both Justine and Danzie began to negotiate to buy it off its owner. In truth they simply paid a very generous price for it and the previous owner was not only able to quickly able to move into a much better house but she had a good deal of wealth to her name. At least by DC Wastelands standards this was true. The work began on carefully breaking down the old structure and replacing it with what would be a structure joining both other houses together as one big building.

 

At this time Danzie linked with Danz001, Danzlena, and the mission to TekVault0100 was further delayed. This was also partly because the Brotherhood of Steel was starting to skirmish with Earthnet forces including controlled supermutants, terminators, varied sorts of hunter-killer and other such threats. Earthnet and Skynet had stopped fighting each other for the Brotherhood of Steel reported that Skynet dropships were coming down from low orbit to bring equipment and supplies to the Earthnet forces there. What had happened to change matters was not known.

 

To top matters off, other supermutants had shown up fairly close to Lamplight Mountain that seemed to be different in some ways from those controlled by Earthnet. Brothers of Steel and allies had skirmished with them. A disturbing report was that these seemed also to be lightly cyborged and that on their armour they bore the EagleEnclave symbol.

 

Soon Knight Captain Gallows and his people departed on a mission into the DC Wastelands to better understand just what was going on. Neither Danzie or Justine felt negative about this for, of course, his duties were first and foremost to the Brotherhood of Steel.

 

The mission to TekVault0100 was seeming less likely and any return to TekVault0101 was also problematic. They found themselves reconsidering their options and starting to make new plans.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited June 5, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

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-49-

THE ADVENTURES OF TIMESAGE COSMOS AND COMPANY

PROFESSOR COSMOS ON THE HUNT AGAIN

 

Professor Cosmos was taken by Torchwood to the antigravity globeship that remained of the mysterious expedition to the moon that had taken off from the English Moors and had vanished. That is until a telescope picked up a three other such super-iron globeships parked against each other inside a relatively small crater on the moon. The advanced nature of the upgraded telescope picked up the globeships that were covered with moonscape coloured camonets. Clearly those who had planned the expedition, which had taken place only a few years before, had not wanted to be found after they had departed from Earth.

 

The remaining globeship was a prototype that was not really meant to go anywhere. It had been damaged in the same explosion that had destroyed most of the secret base, disguised as a farm, where the research and development program and globeship construction had taken place. Only the failure of some explosives had meant any of the base or farm was not damaged. As it was Torchwood had ended up with some odd but promising items and data from the site. The original site had been abandoned and a story had been made up to explain the explosion. Now the prototype globe and other items were in a large chamber beneath the zoological gardens.

 

The TimeSage examined everything quickly but carefully and then stood back from the very big globeship with its many portholes and small metallic plates. After a time he turned to the Torchwood people with him and he was frowning. "The antigravity drives in these transports are highly unstable. One could have exploded and destroyed at least a hundred square miles of England. In truth it would have destroyed England, killing most people here, for toxic would have swept out from the explosion. The people who went to the moon took with them more than the three globeships. They took with them a basic but effective teleportation system. One sender-acceptor station would remain here on the Earth and each globeship would have another sender-acceptor station. I suggest that while the globeships may have carried a few people that since then many more have gone to the local moon, to Luna, and would have taken much with them. This is not the work of either the TimeMaster or Professor Greening, the StarLord, for the technologies and approaches are wrong. Again I am thinking of a particular name, being the TimeThief."

 

Captain Jack Harkness nodded. "I have something else to show you that might interest you. They are the vivid paintings of one Edgar Visionary Joe, a man who was almost burned as a witch by French peasants before our agents in France managed to rescue him. Edgar himself is now quite insane and he is in a secret establishment run by Torchwood. The paintings are not far from here. We would have shown them to you earlier but they got lost in the huge archival storage chambers and only recently did our researchers find the importance of them and move them to a gallery chamber. EVJ, you see, had visions of other times and places. He had painted a particular painting of what looked like the time-machine used by the man who went far into the future but there was another there, a most curious monk."

 

Sensing importance, the TimeSage nodded. "Let us go there at once."

 

-CONTINUED-

[Maharg67]

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-50-

THE ADVENTURES OF TIMESAGE COSMOS AND COMPANY

PROFESSOR COSMOS ON THE HUNT AGAIN

 

Professor Cosmos sat in the comfortable little room and talked softly with Edgar Visionary Joe for a while as a doctor, a nurse and some Torchwood people stood back and quietly waited. Then the TimeSage touched the man's head, fingers of each hand resting lightly on each temple of EVJ. Both men closed their eyes and half an hour went past. By the time it was done, the others were sitting on chairs that had been brought in with the exception of two men and a woman on guard duty. They were sipping cups of fresh brewed tea and nibbling on sandwiches or biscuits.

 

With a peaceful look on his face, Edgar Visionary Joe lay on his bed and fell to sleep. It was the first time he had lost his anxiety for many years.

 

"He will be much better from now on. Somebody attacked him, a strange figure in a tight black jumpsuit who was clearly a woman by the shape. She was covered with no features showing, not even her eyes that were behind strange green glassed goggles. She attacked his mind but also seduced him and used him, I suspect, to become pregnant to him." Professor Cosmos sat down on one of two empty chairs which were typical semicomfortable hospital types of metal piping and wooden boards. What they lacked were signs showing what hospital that they belonged to. "Somebody was after the genetic inheritance of Edgar Visionary Joe and it seems that they got it."

 

A ceiling light flickered a little. Through an armoured glass window beamed weak sunshine and one could look out to see what looked like part of a farm complete with equipment, animals, hedges and even a farm family with workers. It was a proper working farm and it also provided the hospital with some of its needs. The hospital was only part of the hidden complex that was only secondary to the Torchwood base in London itself.

 

Gwen, the Torchwood agent, finished a sandwich corner and daintly brushed her mouth with a handkerchief before she spoke. She was wearing a comfortable and nice but not fancy kneedress. "The Empress Victoria has become increasingly ill. Her oldest daughter, Elizabeth, has become the favoured choice to take the Imperial British Throne. Elizabeth, as the Duchess of Wales, Ireland and Cornia, has decided to investigate Torchwood and to learn what we are about."

 

TimeLord Cosmos frowned softly. "I have heard that she is a very intelligent, well educated and creative."

 

Gwen sighed. "Yes but also rather sharp and somewhat controlling. Empress Victoria has always allowed Torchwood to mostly go its own way free of her intervention. We hope that the Duchess of Wales, Ireland and Cornia will do the same."

 

Cornia was a large group of small islands to the west of Ireland that had strong historical links to both England and Ireland. During the Irish Famine, Elizabeth had made sure that many English Nobles in Ireland passed over food to the Irish people, free of charge, and sent Redcoats to make sure this was done. Empress Victoria was not impressed but, to the surprise of many, she made no effort to stop what her oldest daughter was doing. This had become a mystery that many still speculated on.

 

-CONTINUED-

[Maharg67]

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-51-

THE ADVENTURES OF TIMESAGE COSMOS AND COMPANY

PROFESSOR COSMOS ON THE HUNT AGAIN

 

The Duchess of Wales, Ireland and Cornia was beautiful, elegant and lightly muscular with athletic pastimes. It was said she could shoot, fence, box and, if she had to, use dirty tricks to defend herself. Three handmaidens went with her but these were also bodyguards and not young noblewomen as was the custom in less troubling times. So did four men who were bodyguards in black business suits, two women aides, four Redcoat soldiers and three Alsation dogs. Unlike her mother, Elizabeth did not like Corgi dogs so much and had as a girl booted one through the air, in the process much displeasing her mother and shocking the Corgi out of its wits. Why, because the Corgi had grown jealous of the Empress showing Elizabeth so much attention and had foolishly tried to bite the girl.

 

Elizabeth examined the big chamber with its exhibition that had been put together for her sake. Much of it was black and white photographs of the new quality and some coloured ones that amazed not just the monarch. For there were photographs of Mars with its peoples, of the Earth from space, of a surillin underground city, of new power armoured soldiers marching over the Scottish Highlands, of a great big new aeroship rising swiftly into the air above storm clouds, of one of the new steam-turbine dreadnaut battleships with its underwater defences and weapons, being launched.

 

Elizabeth was impressed as she examined the museum style exhibition. She spoke as she examined a black-white photograph of two daleks in action. "It is my wish that this chamber and this exhibition be kept, that here be placed prized items, trophies and such like, photographs and paintings, samples of technologies. I see the chamber has plenty of room to spare so I would have you put some of the Empire's older technological devices here to serve as a comparison."

 

She turned sharply to both Professor Cosmos and Ninacos. She thrust out her chest, that was exposed along with much of her bosom thanks to the design of her very expensive kneedress. Elizabeth did not like to wear much fine jewlery and had only a small silvery broach, a golden pendant and a single Imperial ring on the middle finger of each hand. "So you are TimeLords."

 

Ninacos gave a very well done courtsey. "Your Majesty, I am a TimeLady, as are my triplet sisters, Ginacos and Tinacos. My father here, Professor Cosmos, is a TimeSage and a TimeLord. Very few TimeLords reach the status of TimeSage and the title can only be earned with merit. In the terms of this world, my father is over a thousand years old."

 

The Imperial Duchess looked visibly startled but only for a moment. "The Empire is under great pressure and is threatening to fragment, to shrink. Your advise would be most welcome."

 

Professor Cosmos sighed. "There are limitations to what I am allowed to do, in how much I interfere with local affairs, but with so much alien interferance already taking place, yes I will do what I can within the boundaries set by my people under such circumstances. You will not like many of my suggestions."

 

The Duchess smiled. "Most likely but we shall see what happens. Just because I do not like a suggestion, does not mean I will automatically oppose it. Anyway it is my mother, the Empress, who must decide on such matters. Which brings me to a vital reason I am here. I strongly suspect that my mother, the Empress, is being poisoned but my people can not find how it is being done."

 

The TimeLord bowed and then spoke. "Take me to the Empress at once. Every second counts. Ninacos, please go and get some proper equipment from the TARDIS."

 

-CONTINUED-

[Maharg67]

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