War of Realities (Redone and Improved)

[Maharg67]

91^st

THIRTEEN SEALS OF ETERNITY CONFINEMENT

BREAKING OF THE FIRST SEAL, A LESSER SEAL

 

The big group of zhouls were already agitated with fear as they rushed along a dark winding tunnel. Some clutched smaller zhouls or dead radroaches or sticks or other things. They splashed through murky water and around bits of junk. They darted past skeletal remains of humans in armoured hazmat suits. They ran past long ago smashed up robots of various kinds. They were going through a very old scene of death and destruction but this did not concern them at all. They were of a basic kind of intelligence, the zhouls, very basic. Then with the zhouls were fleeing other creatures like radroaches, molerats, mirelurks clutching eggs or larvae, other mirelurks, rats, bats, mice, molemice and many others. They were life, even mutated life, and they were escaping from something that was negative to all life.

 

Behind them, in the far distance, exploded a great hidden seal of ancient age and great powers. The powers had been broken and then the seal itself. Something was rushing through the broken seal now, was pushing aside fragments of it, was coming in many forms inside a morgue light glowing fog that broiled out to fill a great, rock chamber. The chamber was part natural cave and part artificial extension. It was also a scene of long past death and destruction.

 

The undead came from deep and leading them was Lord Greyteshuo of the Lords and Ladies of Undeath. They spilled out over the cavern and converted skeletal remains not into true undead things but into undeath animated things. Power armoured suits picked up weapons. Robots moved with strange slightly jerky motions unless they floated, such as eyebots. The fog spilled through out the great chamber.

 

Then the special weapon exploded, the carefully hidden fusionoid, flashing amazingly bright, hot light through out the great chamber. All the undeath fog and all in it disintegrated, most of it dying. Though he disintegrated and screamed in enraged agony, Lord Greyteshuo did not have the good manners to die. The chamber was now burned clean of everything.

 

GreyMaharg stood there but he was weakened and he was wounded because of a terrible secret of his people; when they died they became the Lords and Ladies of Undeath and their fates were linked in some bizarre, complicated fashion. Quickly he was healing but so would be Lord Greyteshuo. Then he would return with yet another army of the fog of undeath.

 

It was time to start turning to more desperate measures.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 16, 2010 by Maharg67

[Keanumoreira]

This a long piece of work you have here my friend. Exactly how long is it?

[Maharg67]

As long as it takes to smooth it out, Keanumoreira. I was hoping to finish it off fairly soon but the story has gained a life of its own.

 

92^nd

MOMENTS OF REFLECTION

PAUSES IN ACTION

 

IN MEMORY OF AMELIA SKYHEART

 

Even Elder Owyn Lyons went to the ceremony for the greatest Sister of Steel who had scouted the skies, who had saved countless lives, who had risked herself so many times and who had come close to death on too many occasions to count. Brothers of Steel, Sisters of Steel, Ironside Mercenaries, UDC Guardsmen and many others sent representatives. There were also family and friends, of course. The ceremony had to be quick because of all of the pressures on those going there but despite this it was an important and heart felt occasion. To the surprise of those there, the strange little man showed up, that is GreyMaharg himself, but he stood quietly in the background. The ceremony was held high in the side of the DC Citadel and a small, black glider was launched powerfully into the air to glide gracefully to the ground a good distance away.

 

Later a Wastelander child, a girl, would pick it up as her toy and the glider would inspire her to become an officially licensed pilot by the time she was sixteen.

 

CALAMITY JANE ON HER WAY TO SERENTIY CITY

 

Calamity Jane, an aspect of the Thirteenth of the Young Thirteen, had made her way across a landscape of apparent beauty, of great fields of green grass, of lovely forests of tall trees full of luschious fruit and a great sweeping blue sky dotted with small fluffy white clouds. Except that nothing felt quite right, the breeze was too sharp somehow and the smell was of rotting things or worse. The grass was hard and sharp. When she saw rabbits in the distance they looked just a little odd but as they got closer they were obviously zombies of some bizarre kind.

 

She stood on top of a small hill and examined the distant towers of Serenity City. It also looked very peaceful from a distance but she was not fooled, not by the slightest. In that transdimensional zone of some kind the undeath were constant and common in that place but there were other powers active that were antagonistic to both the living and to the undead. Even as she stood there, she realised that a great exotic entity of unknown nature was secretly examining her but not in a hostile manner. She made no move to block him from doing so.

 

GRANDMA SPARKLE OBSERVING THE RIVER

 

Grandma Sparkle was tough as a survivor and a trader who had set up a store and a place for folks to stop and rest. She was tough but generally friendly to folks coming to visit. With her shotgun and her two tough grandsons who were often out hunting to get good meat and other fine goods for her to sell. As she looked out over the very wide river, she noted the splash of something big in the surface waves and a piece of rubbish floating swiftly on the strong central currents. The river could look nice at times but it was full of nasty critters like diresharks and mirelurks. Still she enjoyed sitting there on her chair, puffing softly on a bone pipe with her pump-action shotgun cradled in her lap.

 

She did so on that day a little more sadly than she had on other times for conditions were getting too rough for her and her grandsons to stay there in such an isolated place. They were going to go to Rivertane and gain for themselves a life there. At least they had relations there who would assist to some extent as would the Sisterhood of Compassion Outpost now in Rivertane. She blew a big beautiful smoke ring that drifted up through the air.

 

BROTHERHOOD OUTCASTS RETURNING TO THE FOLD

 

The last of the Brotherhood Outcasts were returning to join the Brotherhood of Steel because of a mixture of growing outside threats, outside pressures, internal conflicts and other problems including a failure to carry out their desired mission to focus on gathering, storing and studying Predoomsday technologies.

 

The Amnesty Treaty made it easy for them to do so. Protector McGraw and Specialist Olin were two of the last to be picked up by vertibird to be taken to the nearest Brotherhood of Steel base. They stood on top of the great building that was the Outcast Outpost where they had been working with special virtual reality gear they had found there and a vault full of amazing stuff. That was now being given over to the Orders of Steel as part of the new agreement and most of it was already gone. As for the two, past troubles had caused them to be almost 'outcasts' amongst the Brother Outcasts and they would be only to glad to get away from their past comrades. They also tended to get married.

 

They stood on a big flat area of roof as through the air came a vertibird, heavily armoured and armed, and looked over the insane landscape as in the distance an unstable atomic motor blew.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 17, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

93^rd

SPACE BATTLE; THE ENTERPRISE IN ACTION

NOT SO LONG DISTANCE DECIMATION

 

"Zetan motherships, at least four of them!" Chekov responded with his watered down Russian accent. "Never have we had to take on so many zetan motherships at once. Configuration of one of the motherships is odd."

 

Uhura spoke then. "Our forces on Lunar are tied up with defending our people and facilities there against three large space-raider forces. Mars is sending what it can to our assistance but it also appears to be under threat. They are sending the SFSS Challenger, the SFSS Liberty and the SFSS Columbiia."

 

Captain Kirk was not happy. The three ships were fine upgraded vessels but far from the best that the Solsystem Federation had. The three vessels tended to be used to train almost graduating students and to give recently graduated cadets more experience. What was happening? Then he smiled and asked the black woman communications specialist to read out the whole message.

 

Then he spoke. "Reading between the lines is wise at this time."

 

Uhura spoke again. "The message actually states those three ships will not be sent but that the SFSS Stiker, the SFSS Fantastic and the SFSS Courage will be sent, each as a mothership at the centre of a small battle fleet of frigates, destroyers, gunships and supportships. Rendezvous coordinates have been provided."

 

Chekov spoke again with an urgent tone now. "Captain, I am picking up some odd energy traffic between the zetan fleet and the unidentified fleet. It is too powerful and otherwise wrong to be communications. They appear to be battling each other with amazingly powerful weapons."

 

Kirk frowned. "Are the enemies of our enemies our friends or are we facing two sets of enemies?"

 

It was a very good question but for now there were no answers as both approaching fleets were way out of useful communications range thanks to the disparity and oddities of Solsystem Federation technological developments.

 

TO BE COMMUNICATED

 

Edited July 20, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

94^th

IN ORBIS, IN ORBISSANCTUM

RESTING, RESTORING, REMEMBERING

 

In OrbisSanctum now floated the naked inhuman bodies of many of the Guardian Thirteen. There was the Prime Guardian, the three Master Guardians and five of the Follower Guardians but none of the Lesser Guardians. Four Follower Guardians were out there. George Lincoln, the Follower Guardian, was in OrbisSanctum now and was being prepared, as the others were, for the greater struggle to come. Yet the other Follower Guardians were needed in the OrbisSanctum to make the process fully effective and to complete it properly. The Lesser Guardians were a different matter.

 

The false living-goddess, NessaMagre, now also floated there but clearly seperate from those of the Guardian Thirteen. She looked far more at peace with herself and the Multiverse than she had done for a very long time.

 

Bright energy patterns flashed and played through the great globe but not in any harsh or aggressive manner. GreyMaharg, or at least one of him, watched quietly from where he sat on a hovering platform and though he sometimes did something to assist, mostly he was motionless.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

95^th

DISCOVERIES AND UPSETS IN THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS

GETTING INTO THE BUILDING OF SECRET HORRORS

 

Lara Cleave studied the chutechamber where the babies sometimes came down a great big warm plastic chute. They came safely and comfortably enough in cushioned status-capsules and nappisuits. Children and teens would be waiting for them along with a helpful octotron robot, like a protectron but with no less than eight double-jointed specialised arms. LucyDoc carefully opened the capsule and soon had a baby boy cradled against herself. The adorable little eyes stared rather blankly at her, revealing this was a Fogmind, but LucyDoc cooed at him and after a moment he gurbled softly.

 

The chamber was quite big and there were three such chutes coming down out of the the big black and grey metallic wall that was in the right place to be part of the wall of the great ugly and grey building but beneath the exposed part in the other chamber.

 

A little Fogmind boy was clutching her arm so Lara picked him up and held him in her arm. He snuggled up to her with his head on her shoulder and a contented smile on his face.

 

It was Knight Captain Gallows who went, along with his two comrades, through an exposed tunnel to LifeVault-0087. They had been gone for some hours now and right now Lara was wishing they had not been so hasty to depart but something was driving the Brother of Steel now, something hard.

 

Another status-capsule slipped down the chute but this one held three kittens.

 

Lara spoke to LucyDoc. "Is there something you LittleLamplighters are not telling me?"

 

"Probably lots of things." LucyDog shrugged. "Mostly bad things we do not like to remember."

 

Lara looked around the big chamber and to an area of flooring where small mats of woven grasses dotted the ground. "Status-capsules under there with what?"

 

"More sadness!" LucyDoc sighed. "Babies, kittens, puppies come down the chute all deformed. Sometimes we can not even tell what they are. We don't take them out of the status-capsules and try to keep them alive. I do not know why."

 

At that moment wombles came wandering in, five adults. More wombles had arrived at the Lamplight Caverns and had formed a growing colony there for reasons that were perhaps even unclear to them. The creatures from some alternate reality were very close to the Little Lamplighters and had strong empathic influences of good even on the cats, dogs, Thuggies and Crazies. Lara was surprised, sort of, when they started showing up with more modern weapons, tools, other equipment and supplies. Wombles were soon helping to fix up the settlement. They were clearing out fallen tunnels and reinforcing others, were strengthening bridges and building new structures.

 

Lara knew what she had to do. She walked over to one of the nearest floor mats, carefully dug up the shallow buried status-capsule beneath it with a deformed baby boy. Then she sat cross legged, carefully removed the poor little life and lay him against her chest. She focused and shimmering sparkling energies began to flow through the child. Lara closed her eyes and went into a trance state.

 

Half an hour later the little baby boy was both no longer deformed and was now Mozi, was even more clear minded than the Little Lamplight Clearminds, but his little mind was full of sadness and, knowing why, Lara comforted him while feeling sad herself.

 

She had to get into the damned building of black and grey metallic nature and she needed to know, that while there were three chutes, why only one had ever been used. Or was that the case?

 

Lara examined the three chutes and looked up each one of them but there were cleverly designed and dangerous one-way energy screens and other devices up there to make sure that while things could come down the chutes, they could not go up them. Even so she picked up some disturbing flashes of sounds and smells that she did not like at all. It was too bad the Mozi baby could not tell her more or even give her clearer memories than he had done.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

[Keanumoreira]

I can see that...

 

If it continues, you'll probably reach entry 1000.

[Maharg67]

Wow, it may have happened, Keanumoreira!!!

 

1,000^th

NO, ONLY KIDDING

NOT QUITE THERE YET KEANUMOREIRA

 

Only about 905 story entries (chapters) to go to get to 1,000.

Edited July 17, 2010 by Maharg67

[Keanumoreira]

Wow, it may have happened, Keanumoreira!!!

 

1,000^th

NO, ONLY KIDDING

NOT QUITE THERE YET KEANUMOREIRA

 

Only about 905 story entries (chapters) to go to get to 1,000.

 

What a google of a goal you have before you... :biggrin:

[Maharg67]

96^th

LUCKY EDDIEJO GOES TO THE SMRSH

SEEKING AND MEETING CAROL

 

PART 1

 

SEARF troopers came to the big, surprisingly still in good repair entrance to the Smithsonian Museum of Religious and Spiritual History. EddieJo moved amongst them, smooth and deadly as they all were in their stealth power armour. They shot along the broken, statue dotted Grand National Mall past museums, libraries and other grand buildings. The structures were overly massive, over grand and were strong. They had survived well as had their contents. There was a sprinkling of building based settlements of humans, chimpnoids, gorillanoids, ghouls and others but easily the biggest one was the ghoul settlement in the Dante Exhibition Hall in the SMRSH.

 

The ghoul woman named Willow wore patched up power armour with out the helmet and she had with her a motley force of other armoured and armed ghouls. She sort of smiled at the newcomers, nicely concealing her nervousness while her ghoulish comrades became more agitated. "Tourists, more tourists. Always happens. Well this is the Grand National Mall as built by President James Patriot Jackson himself."

 

EddieJo slipped his helmet off and gave her a mild grin. "Yes, we are tourists here on a budget package tour. I have been told we can stay at the NInth Circle run by a fine ghoul woman known as Carol for a very fair price."

 

Willow grinned back. "You are welcome but you don't do nothing foolish, will you. We ghouls won't put up with that sort of stuff from a human. We ghouls have suffered enogh from you humans."

 

EddieJo shook his head. "Metahuman! Haven't been human for a very long time, not since I was taken at six years of age and transformed, a process that was like being burned alive for three days and nights. I was in a cell-chamber with two other six year olds. They died horribly. I can still hear their screams and mine."

 

Willow gulped softly and then nodded. "Okay, point taken. Follow me. I am going to give you a guided tour of the Underworld Outpost. Don't get the idea I do this for every smoothskin that pops up or I will do it again for you; I have a reputation to keep."

 

PART 2

 

In the great entrance chamber were an exhibition showing a very authentic cave wall with ancient caveman paintings. Close to this exhibition was a great autorobotic mammoth figure that could still move in various ways and making trumpeting noises. Ghouls, some of them semighouls or even demighouls were active in the chamber carrying out a mixture of market, community meeting area, soap box orating places and even some kind of spiritual place. There was a display of big stone monoliths of the bronze age, another of Ancient Egyptian Pillars and much else. Great autorobotic figures of the Grim Reaper, of the Devil complete with pitchfork, of an angel complete with wings, a Japanese God of Death and others. There were a few others there like humans, chimpnoids and gorillanoids.

 

Willow led the SEARF platoon through the great chamber and past a great big ring shaped reception counter that had Sisters of Compassion and Brothers of Protection there, some of them being ghoulified. There was even a Brother of Steel, actually a young woman, who was part of an effort to fix up the relationship between some of the Orders of Steel and ghoulkind. EddieJo nodded at the Sisters and Brothers but made no move to stop to talk with them though he did drop a $50 EID card into a donation bowl. A Sister Compassionate took it quickly just in case anybody was tempted to grab it who was not intended to do so.

 

Then he saw them, the Ghouls of Steel in hodgepodge power armour who were active in their own corner and some of whom were frowning at the SEARF troopers as if they had no right to exist at all, let alone to be there. EddieJo ignored them.

 

Willow snorted. "Cousins of Steel were Brothers of Steel once. Got ghoulified and were to proud to go back to their people. Now look at them. They are not sure who or what they are who with where they belong. The only good thing is they have pledged to defend us all if any attack takes place and somehow, well we all get the feeling they mean it. They undertake patrols sometimes into the nastier, more isolated parts of the museum. Parts of this place really do seem to be haunted and not in any nice way. Over there is the entrance to the Tombs of the Ancient Empires. Over there is the entrance that leads down into the copy of the Paris Catacombs, smaller than the original but still large enough. Over there is an entrance to the Cinema of Death. But where you want to go is right in front of us, well sort of right in front of us. The Exhibition of Dante's Hell which is not, despite many fools thinking so, the genuine Ghoul Underworld."

 

So they went up the big wide steps and beneath a great display that was above and beside the door of Dante's Hell.

 

PART 3

 

But they went through a smaller door inside the big door with Willow leading them into a great amazing chamber designed to show, in different areas, the distinctive areas of Dante's Hell. They made their way past demons and lost souls, past big holographic displays of which about half were functioning fully, past Cerebus the MrGutsy robot and then paused as Willow had a talk with the Jack of All Trades, Winthrop who kept the place going with the help of a small army of casual part-time assistants, two androids and three robots.

 

Willow introduced EddieJo to Winthrop and, of course, visa versa. Winthrop frowned. "We need spare parts, tools, scrap metal and lots of other stuff to keep this place going. We can give you radx or radaway in exchange since we ghouls don't need that stuff but we got good stocks of them. So you wan't to stay at Carol's place. Greta runs it now since Carol got ill."

 

EddieJo responded sharply. "How ill is Carol? I came here to see her."

 

Willow snorted. "I wondered about all that jibber jabber about the Ninth Circle. It has no real reputation beyond this place, the Ghoul Underworld Outpost. Come on then, we have to go to the Chop Shop to see Doctor Barrows and Nurse Graves. Despite the names they are very caring and professional. I think its some kind of sick in house joke with them. Just be happy that Nurse Lastjab retired."

 

Winthrop shook his head and sighed. "There was no Nurse Lastjab. Willow, your humour is as bad as theirs. Do you know Carol? Something tells me you know here somehow."

 

EddieJo shrugged. "She is likely to be my mother."

 

Willow shook her head. "You, a beautiful smoothskin."

 

EddieJo frowned. "Genetic engineering, other processes, regenerative treatments and more. President James Patriot Jackson did not like any of his children to look ugly. SEARF were sent out to deep space towards Jupiter, the Jovan Moons, to investigate strange acitivity out there. Of course there was more to it than that. Zetan aliens were there and worse than zetans."

 

The ghouls stared at him in astonishment and then both took him to the Chop Shop.

 

PART 3

 

EddieJo sat on a slightly cracked plastic chair next to the screened off bed where Carol lay sleeping. He found himself to be frightened of what her reaction to him might be. Doctor Barrows looked on with mild disaproval and he was frowning softly with concern. Nurse Graves was taking a small flesh sample from another SEARF super-soldier before the SEARF changed their minds.

 

Carol yawned, stretched and opened her eyes. She was surprised to find EddieJo was holding her hand. She smiled at him. "What a nice young man but really, you do not have to do that. Still, you do have nice warm hands. There is something familiar about you. What is your name?"

 

He smiled at her. "EddieJo or just Eddie but you might know me as Lucky Eddie or Baby Eddie or Little Eddie or Grubby Eddie. I was six years old when I last saw you."

 

Carol looked stunned and then she carefully, slowly sat up and hugged him to herself. She staid that way for a time with her head on his shoulder and his head on her shoulder. The other SEARF quietly watched until Carol hugged each of them in turn, adopting them with having to say a word. Then Nurse Graves hugged a couple of SEARF while Winthrop hugged one and Willow got embarrassed.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 17, 2010 by Maharg67