Zippy Zip-A-Long

[Maharg67]

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-33-

THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULINE

THE VANISHED, VANISHING, ENEMIES

 

Herculine and Ninajina continued through the deeper levels of Cloud Ruler Temple but they ran into no more Mythic Dawn Followers or, thankfully, any more of the more dangerous Mythic Fist Soldiers. It had become depressingly clear that the Mythic Fist fighters were as well trained as the elite Blades, Legionary and other fighting units of the Cyrodilin Empire. The Mythic Dawn Followers had either fled from the fortress or had vanished back into the population of Cloud Ruler Temple.

 

There was a walled town adjoining the fortress where lived 'camp followers' offering goods and services to the Blades, other fighters and anybody else who would buy them. It would be hard, but far from impossible, for Mythic Dawn Followers or Mythic Fist Soldiers to infiltrate the population there of some 50,000 people. Cloud Ruler Town was its name. A feint physical and psychic trail led them to a secret entrance-exit hatch, very old and perhaps not on the more modern layout maps of the fortress, that led directly into the settlement.

 

They did not go into Cloud Ruler Town because they would attract too much attention to themselves and to the hatch. Instead they sent three Blades to inform their command of the existence of the hatch and the possible implications of it as being a security risk to Cloud Ruler Temple.

 

Ninajina spoke even as she sat with her back against a wall and unwrapped some rations so that she could eat them. "Perhaps we have found and dealt with the only real threat by these foolish followers of Mehrunes Dagon but we need to make sure."

 

Herculine was also sitting with her back to a wall. "Yes, we go back into the depths of the temple but this time I have an idea of what else these 'fools' may have been up to."

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited July 17, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-34-

THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULINE

THE COMING OF HERCULINETAO

 

HerculineTao appeared, as a second clone-extension of Herculine, in the Imperial City. She sparkle shimmered out of mid air in a dead end hallway tunnel in the Imperial Undercity of thousands of tunnels, chambers, other spaces and other features. The dead end hallway led to a big metal door that had been welded closed by magic and whose symbols had been carefully damaged beyond reading. Yet HerculineTao, who was identical looking to Herculine except for her city bodyguard gear, was quick to detect that the door had something to do with the worship of Mehrunes Dagon. There had been a few short lived periods in Imperial History when the more open worship of daedric deities was tolerated before a crack down had closed such places even in the infamous Undercity.

 

Somehow she knew it was no accident that she had emerged into new existence in just that place.

 

The Imperial Undercity was a great hive maze of the unwanted, the poor, thieves, cults, political exiles, criminals on the run, illegal and semilegal activities along with much else. Her goblinfolk openly mingled with humans, orcs, beastfolk and other kinds of folk including hybrids. Her also there were independent thinking-acting golems and other magically created entities. It was whispered that the twisted genius, of Alchemist Sorcerer Frankenstane, had done many of his darkest experiments in a hidden part of the Imperial Undercity. It was also said that some of his monsters still survived in the huge network of sewer tunnels and, beneath them, a much older labyrinth of Ayleid design and construction.

 

Getting open the door could have been done with some difficulty but instead she went phantomic and passed through it 'ghost' fashion, becoming once more solid on the other side. What she found was a huge, dusty temple chamber where the air was quite stale but where there was some vent-shafts still bring in fresher air. A big statue of Mehrunes Dagon stood tall but two smaller ones had been toppled. There were skeletal remains of temple followers in scraps of robes indicating that they were not of the Mythic Dawn.

 

Then, hidden to one side of a long dead priestess, she found a damaged journal bound in human skin leather. Opening it she found encrypted notes but had no trouble in decoding it, doing so even as she read the journal. This was largely because the encrypting was not very good. As she read it, she became concerned and surprised. For the attackers who had come to the temple had actually been followers of a young Mankar Camoran, the creator and leader of the Mythic Dawn. So Mankar Camoran had treacherously attacked other followers of the same Daedric Prince or so it seemed.

 

She went on searching the temple and was still doing so when she was attacked by a swarm of lesser undead creatures.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited July 19, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-35-

THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULINE

THE FIRST FIGHTING OF HERCULINETAO

 

HerculineTao struck out against the first of the lesser undead, a skeletor of an animated skeleton wrapped in sometimes visible energies of undeath. The skeletor shattered, collapsing into true death even as it did so. Then she flicked aside the sword of a zomber, a sword and armour using fast shambling zombie type creature. Her special blade sliced through it and it burned away even as it collapsed to the floor. Again and again she used her swords to parry, slice, thrust and make other moves in a fast flowing agile dance of death.

 

Then there were no more lesser undead. She had dealt with the attack easily enough but was glad that there were no more to come. The lesser undead that she had killed were all once followers of Mehrunes Dagon or so she 'sensed'. Amongst them were now scattered some unholy rings, bracelets, necklaces and other such items that she carefully gathered and put into a silvery bag designed to safely hold such dark magical stuff.

 

So Mankar Camoran had treacherously attacked other followers of Mehrunes Dagon. Had this been a push for power, a drive to be the most important follower of Mehrunes Dagon or was there more to it than that. She searched the big temple chamber some more and was thinking there was nothing else of importance to find when she found the secret door. With some difficulty she got the ancient, thick stone door to open for its magical clockwork mechanism had stopped working so well with out regular maintenance and recharging of its power.

 

An ancient spiral stairwell, in its own well like shaft, plunged downwards into the dark depths. She began to follow it downwards. As HerculineTao did so, she began to smell something horrible and very unnatural. She prepared herself to use not just her weapons but her special magical abilities as well for something much dangerous than the lesser undead was lurking down there somewhere. Even as she kept making her way down the steps, she 'sensed' that the undead monster was not only aware of her but that it was preparing to strike at her in some hideous fashion.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

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-56-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ003 (DANZER)

A SECRET MEETING WITH A DARK, POWERFUL STRANGER

 

They were in a bleak, bare but clean smart-concrete chamber with soldiers on sentry duty at both doors, with a soldier either side of either door. There were two grenade drop-holes drilled into the floor.

 

The masked, robed figure not only sat in shadow but had a hood pulled over his head. Danzer, Argyle, Herbert, Professor Ashworth and Jasmine were not being overtly threatened but it was somehow made clear that they would not be allowed to leave. As it was they had been separated from their weapons and their now deactivated robots. Danzer did not say so, of course, but he knew that the figure was an aged demighoul woman though she faked a heavy masculine voice with the use of sophisticated electronic devices.

 

"I will do you no harm but I must have any data that you have that can assist my people with the fertility crisis that faces us. Simply put, not enough children are being born and of those that are, too many are born as trogs, morons or malforms. Professor James Ashworth, you are one person who can assist us not only with data but with research work." The figure tapped a laptop computer with black leather gloved fingers. "As for the others, well they may be of use to us. You are obsessed with this Project Purity of yours though many scientists and others dispute its value and its safety. Would you put aside the project for at least a while and willingly assist my people? We have data that might be of use to you and part of the time you could use our research and development facilities to work on your project."

 

The professor scowled, was clearly of two minds about the idea. Then he responded. "Let us have an exchange of data and see where matters go from there."

 

Danzer did not like what was happening and he 'sensed' that the others, even the professor, were uneasy. The Shadow Puppeteer, if this was that one and not just a stand-in of some kind, was known to be driven to put the survival of her republic, her people, before the needs of others. Still 'he' was also known to have a strong but odd sense of honour.

 

Thus began their peaceful confinement in the Republic of the District of Columbia.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited July 26, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-57-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ001 (DANZLENA)

CYBERDYNE FOLK EXODUS

 

It did not take much to convince the Cyberdyne people that they had to leave the vault for their own safety. With them they would take pets, working pets, some livestock, what plants they could, androids, robots, roboremotes and anything else that could be taken in emergency survival vehicles that they had. This included the True-AI supercomputer running the false Cyberdyne vault area. The ESVs were all terrain vehicles, amphibious and lightly armoured, that were six 4x4, three larger 6x6 and one much larger 8x8 machines. Yet there were also five self-steering powered 4x4 trailers. Danzlena and her companions assisted in the barely controlled panic of the exodus.

 

Danzlena cyberlinked network-systems and soon discovered hidden programs that would alert Earthnet if the former Cyberdyne employees awoke and tried to escape from the vault. To her surprise and puzzlement she found that some other force had already interfered with these programs and had made them feed false data to Earthnet. Who or what ever had done this had been excellent at hacking and had left no traces of their activities that could lead to any kind of identification of the infiltrator.

 

She began to 'sense' a powerful, subtle and non-hostile background presence.

 

Then she was departing with the convoy of vehicles as they raced towards Megaton where Danzie, Danz007, was alert to her coming and was trying to prepare a friendly welcome for her and the Cyberdyne people and the others. Danzie was using the promise of many new resources offered by the newcomers to induce welcome but as yet had not alerted all but a few of the great Earthnet threat that existed beneath Springvale.

 

Word came from those in the hidden place in TekVault0100 that the DanzClones there, along with companions of many kinds, were going to also travel to Megaton. Danzie would have much work to do to have both sets of people, especially the DanzClones, accepted in the settlement.

 

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited July 29, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-58-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ001 (DANZLENA)

NEW ARRIVALS TO MEGATON

 

Danzlena, her team and the Cyberdyne people were welcomed to Megaton largely because Megaton needed them, needed their resources, their skills and experience. Danzlena and Danzie met and clutched each other hands, looking into each other eyes for just a moment to strengthen their clone-linking. Then they set out to make sure that the Cyberdyne people were able to move into underground areas that better suited them except a minority who desired instead to build houses to move into.

 

Megaton had a fair few roboremotes and robots operating by that time including for defense and security. Sheriff Lucas Simms had five protectrons and five eyebots working for him. There were roboremote gun-turrets, laser-turrets and launcher-turrets all around the Outer Walls and on towers. The Megaton Guard was going strong.

 

A new big theater had opened that could do both live entertainments and 3Dmovies or holomovies.

 

New businesses opened including a diner, a sweetshop, an arms-armour shop-workshop, a second saloon, a tailors, a leather goods shop-workshop, a pottery shop-workshop and others.

 

The community hostels were expanding and improving. The public ablution blocks were being greatly improved and added to. Work was being done to upgrade and strengthen the public structures of the settlement such as the rampways, the walls, the elevators, the power wind-cylinders and much else.

 

Refugees were coming from smaller, more isolated settlements being abandoned because of growing troubles in the Wastelands but all were now welcome. Indeed they were being given assistance to start new lives in Megaton.

 

Walter was pleased for now he had two androids, four robots and four humans working for him and his water plant.

 

Colin Moriarty was angry that somebody had dared to open a new saloon. He was already angry at the opening of the BRASS LANTERN. Yet he could do nothing. Anyway the other saloon was soon drawing folk who did not want to go to his saloon and the other way around, so he soon got to accept the situation. The new saloon was opened up by Gob and Nova after they gained their freedom from Colin Moriarty thanks to the assistance of others.

 

Life in Megaton went on.

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 2, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-59-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ001 (DANZLENA)

DANZ007 (DANZIE)

MEGATON CHANGING

 

Megatonfolk were now accessing the super virtual reality machine but the visits had to be rationed. It was good that time in the SVR Realms was experienced as three times longer than outside for people got three virtual hours for the 'real' hour they were granted. Access was allowed to the Washington DC, the tropical island paradise and the country village stimulation-simulations. The Anchorage Battle, Wild West, Space Station and other stimulation-simulations were made inaccessible until they could be better tested. One of the three SVR-capsulechairs was reserved for the use of Danzie, Justine and a few others.

 

Cloned rabbits were created, tough but with plenty of meat, fur and other useful resources. Except they were left to run free and breed inside a very big chamber with plenty of food, water and soothing music. Danzie found himself not wanting any clones, even rabbits or cats, to be exploited and Justine soon proved to have the same sort of feelings. For now the overpopulating of the rabbit chamber was no problem so the whole question was simply put off for the moment.

 

The teleport device was used mainly by the Ironside Mercenaries and the Brotherhood of Steel but others, such as Professor Brown, used it now and then to visit the far off bunker complex.

 

Danzlena and Cyberdyne specialists were soon examining the three special devices, were becoming involved in studying them. The Cyberdyne folk had a great range of knowledge and skills when it came to such technologies as was soon proven. They also brought enough resources to add three new SVR-capsulechairs to the three already linked to the SVR machine, thus doubling the capacity. Now two capsulechairs were reserved for specialist use while four were accessible by those on the waiting list. The generally accessible capsulechairs were moved to an antechamber so that no public user could get easier access to the SVR machine; this was done for both security and safety reasons.

 

The Dharma Initiative Chamber was made accessible to a select group of people from various factions. The process of waking, of activating, the three cyborg-clones was begun with great care. Forensic examinations were begun on the many Dharma Initiative corpses. Soon there was a big surprise for these turned out to be fake corpses, cloned flesh that had never lived. It seemed that the bodies had been created as a false story, a diversion from the truth. Then what had happened to the real, living people? Why had the elaborate hoax been carried out in the first place?

 

-CONTINUED-

Edited August 6, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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-60-

FALLOUT BLUES

DANZ001 (DANZLENA)

DANZ007 (DANZIE)

MEGATON FEARS

 

It was one of the new Megaton Guard units that encountered the Earthnet cyborg-supermutants while out on patrol. The Megaton Guardsmen retreated into the shelter of ruins in Springvale under a hail of bullets and pulsebeams. The fighters were glad of their new light power armour and new, better weapons but as they retreated they dragged two badly soldiers with them. Then they were seeing also metallic skeletal Earthnet controlled terminators and tracked robotic trackbots. The sergeant fired off a seeker-missile and ducked even as another soldier helped to guide the missile to striking a trackbot. The machine was destroyed with a mighty blast.

 

But the Earthnet force was soon moving on, leaving the burning wreckage of the robot behind. It became obvious that they had no immediate interest in the Megaton Guardsmen or in Megaton for they were going in away from the settlement. The Guardsmen returned back to Megaton as quickly as they could and were met halfway by medics and other soldiers including Brothers of Steel. Danzlena was there and she spoke to the sergeant in charge of the platoon.

 

"So there were how many of the cyborg-supermutants and what kind were they?"

 

The woman soldier shrugged. "Standard sized ones, ones about the size of humans in power armour and one big one but not as big as a behemoth. About three dozen, maybe. They came on us out of nowhere and we had to go to ground quickly. They seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere or I figure we would have been minced. There were at least half dozen of those tank like trackbots but we blew one up. Oh yes, maybe a dozen of those damned scary terminators of theirs. I have heard they can be disguised as humans by adding flesh, skin, and they can even do things like sweat, bleed and have sex."

 

"Depends on how advanced and what model of terminator that you are speaking of." Danzlena turned as Danzie appeared with a backpack of special equipment. Clearly he wanted to see if he could gain anything by examining the wreckage of the trackbot. "Only very advanced and very special infiltration models could or would have sex with a human. Danzie encountered Earthnet units in the past. He could tell you a few interesting stories."

 

Sergeant Loraine Biggs frowned. "Yes, that would not surprise me but I figure you also would have some interesting stories."

 

She shook her head. "I am younger than a year old but Danzie is about four years old so he is older and wiser than I am. He was an elite assassin for a vault government, that is in TekVault0101. We were clone-capsule grown and born as adults. We dwelt in super virtual reality realms before we were born."

 

The sergeant sighed and gave Danzlena an odd smile. "I have a daughter who is six years old. Would you like to my home for a coffee and something to eat."

 

Danzlena was obviously surprised. "That would be nice. Can Danzie come?"

 

The sergeant nodded. "Bring some folks but I only have a small home so please do not bring too many with you at one time."

 

So began a new, strong friendship.

 

-CONTINUED-

[Maharg67]

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