COSMIC OPERA: EPIC OF THE DRAGON

[Maharg67]

21

BOBBY OF THE CLANSFOLK

IN THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL INVERSE CHAMBER #2

 

*********

 

Bobby changed in her sleep and became a young man again, a he.

 

The others joined them including the four bewildered and amazed astronauts. Bobby sent many of the gnomes out of the chamber so that he could have greater control of what was going on. Most of the gnomes were pleased to leave for such places had dark reputations. Rincewand and his special companion wandered amongst the great nine wonder-machines. Bobby's new companions staid fairly close to him as did KaratToop and the other wombles. The clone BobbyLee was bringing with her the morlocks and morlockons. Some local gnomes came along, including the Hasopiom gnome.

 

Bobby deactivated the two great machines that had been semiactive. He found he was able to make them semiactive, to use them at a lower level of their abilities and he knew that this was no accident at all, that the wonder-machines had been prepared for him to use and that he had been meant to find the chamber. The High Elders of the Living Eternals, the One-Mind-Of-Many-Of-One-Mind, had made sure he could no utilise the wonder-machines at anything but a basic level.

 

There was the wonder-machine to the North of the chamber that had been giving out blank biocrystals.

There was the wonder-machine to the North-East that could be used to duplicate fairly small and fairly complicated items.

There was the wonder-machine to the East that had been giving out biomodic semiliquid.

There was the wonder-machine to the South-East that could be used to give basic enhancements and-or alterations to a limited variety of lifeforms.

There was the wonder-machine to the South that could transport people to various closer Linkpoints or bigger Linkstations of the great semiactive Linknetwork.

There was the wonder-machine to the South-West that could create and sustain a range of transdimensional inverse biospheres as shelters and more.

There was the wonder-machine to the West that had been giving out basic precharged bionodes

There was the wonder-machine to the North-West that could generate a basic list of standard variants and sub-variants of quasilifeform servants.

 

Then there was the wonder-machine in the Centre. Semiactive it could do a wide range of tasks.

 

While Bobby spoke openly of what the other wonder-machines did at a semiactive level, he would not as yet do so about the central wonder-machine. This annoyed Herculine but she was used to his ways. Rincewand came over with the astronauts, chatting away with them about the world that the four humans had come from. Rincewand's people, the distant dwelling Korrans, had come from a world that was in many ways like the Earth that the astronauts had come from except that the civilizations of Korra, unlike those of Terra, had been based on magical technologies.

 

Bobby turned to face the others who were waiting for him to say something, to clarify matters for them. Only after a brief pause he spoke. "This TIC was put here for me and was made semiactive for my use but it comes with a price. Everything comes with a price. Even at a semiactive level, these wonder-machines have the ability to transform the Known Underworld but it can bring great trouble as well as great prosperity. We will use the blank biocrystals, biomodic semiliquid and precharged bionodes that are stored in an antechamber of the TIC. We will use them to create devices and serums that will assist the war effort against the daedric and other invaders. Hopefully we can drive back the Pakken, the Joytroopers and the quasidemons with the assistance of the new alliance that has been formed."

 

The four astronauts did not seem keen to be caught up in somebody else's war and Bobby could hardly blame them for that.

 

The wombles were concerned that a war might spread to their beloved Wombledon.

 

Herculine was concerned about having the Clansfolk drawn into a growing conflict.

 

The gnomes were worried about the local settlement and other gnome settlements in the region.

 

The morlocks were just frazzled though the molockons were peacefully contented.

 

The special new companions were calmly observant and kept their concerns, if they had any, to themselves.

 

Bobby did not tell them that he was sensing the coming of events that were far more alarming than those concerns that occupied the others then. No, he kept his worries to himself and looking around, he wondered just what forces were behind what was happening and what they might be after. Why did at least one of those forces want to have him killed. Bobby had many enemies but he could think of none who would or could pay for a small army of Pakken to come after him and then the use of a whole volley of expensive, hard to find blastoids. Such an enemy could easily prove to be most dangerous.

 

*********

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

22

BOBBY OF THE CLANSFOLK

IN THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL INVERSE CHAMBER #3

 

*********

 

Bobby met with the DrazenDari Commander, one Marshal Crezitti. The woman was a tough warrior, once a ClanLegionary of much renoun, who stood tall and handsome in her fleximetallic armour and who held a SLLE rifle. Her hair was reddish brown but in many ways she looked to have similar features to himself but this was not an oddity amongst Clansfolk, especially those born in the Clandom itself. The The DrazenDari Brigade had all come into the great chamber and were clearly amazed at what they were seeing. The biomechanicals came with them, the quadwalkers stopping to rest in formation closer to the great wall with mercenaries tending and guarding them.

 

Crezetti looked around at the amazing machines and then at the wonder-machine before her, the one that duplicated fairly large and fairly complicated items. The astronauts were having some of their gear and remaining supplies duplicated successfully, including their weapons. Wombles, wozzles, morlocks and gnomes were there observing, having duplicated other items, as was the clonetor BobbyLee and the warrior along with the unicorn. The orbotor floated there, as did the solartor elemental and the big wombotor was sleeping curled up with a womble and a wozzle.

 

Crezetti spoke. "You called for me, Bobby, but I would have come anyway. It is time to say the words 'Our duty is always with you and has always been our honour'."

 

Bobby looked mildly startled and then he nodded. "The DrazenDari were created just to protect me. I had begun to suspect the truth, to access the hidden truth inside me. I wonder what other truths are buried inside me. I also wonder where Herculine and her comrades are."

 

The Marshal frowned. "Herculine and her kind are on the very edge of Clandom society and yet you trust them."

 

"Herculine has earned my trust but not all of those she calls her comrades-in-arms. A good deal of knowledge was buried in my mind and then blocked from me. I wonder who did that?" He watched as more light, hard, effcient Terran autorifles were duplicated. "Was it my mother who had it done?"

 

Crezetti snorted. "It was you but nobody seems to know why you did what you did not just with that matter but with others. The Night of a Hundred Betrayals continues to haunt the Clansfolk with many mysteries. The Lesser Clancourts and Estate Clanlords are putting pressure on your own EstateClan to bring you out of exile and back to your home territories. They hope there to gain some Clan-Legal reason to drag you before some kind of Justice Council or other procedure that will mostly be rigged against you. Spartane, your cousin, has again put forward a claim for your inheritance and yet again it has been rejected out of hand. Spartane's greed is becoming something of a tired joke amongst the Lakelands Clans."

 

Bobby looked thoughtful. "I have been too long away from Clansfolk affairs and I am stale at all the game playing, the corruption and various other stupidies that inflict all of the ClanCourts and too many of the Clans themselves, especially the RoyalClans and those damned HighClans. Oh, I must not forget we EstateClans. I miss the beauty of the Lakelands, the great blue lakes, the green forests, the nymphs, the dryads and the other wildfolk of the Protectorates. Now it seems I need to be in more place at the same time. How many brigades can you call upon?"

 

Marshal Crezetti frowned. "What you see and about half again as much. We were meant to be your bodyguards, not your army of conquest. It will take time to get the others here from where they are in BangBangBongo. I always wondered about such settlement names."

 

Bobby smiled. "A womble joke! The wonderful wombles are more subtle than most know or even suspect."

 

The Marshal looked sceptical. "I suspect that you are at least as devious as your father was but I am honour bound to serve you. By the gleam of your eyes you have an idea."

 

He nodded. "There is a known Linkpoint at BangBangBongo. Over there is a wonder-machine that I can use to some degree. I can use it to open a way between that and the Linkpoint at BangBangBongo. Not a greatly comfortable way to travel, though made better with some medicines, but very fast. Prepare a trusted messenger and I will them that one to BangBangBongo. Better still, a messenger with two guards."

 

The warrior scowled softly. "I have no trust for these wonder-machines of the Living-Eternals."

 

"Then you are wise." Bobby sighed. "But we need them. We face an unknown enemy who has the wealth and influence to gain not only a Pakken army, though briefly, and a great volley of blastoids. Even the Clanqueen herself would have difficult gaining so many blastoids despite that she has some five hidden away in an arsenal of forbidden weapons."

 

Crezetti nodded. "The Clanqueen's arsenal of forbidden weapons is an open secret amongst many Clansfolk except for two points: where is it and what actually is in it. Do you have this information and will you give it to me?"

 

"Yes and No, exactly in that order." Bobby responded. "The Clanqueen is not a threat to the Clandom despite some of her greater eccentricities. Spartane is not the fool that he pretends to be and that many take him as. His clumsy Clan-Legal attempts to gain my inheritance are a clever cover for his real plotting. One day I will have to kill him. This is a shame for he is quite brilliant, is a wonderful conversationalist and he plays a very challenging game of chess. Be glad that you are no grand aristocrat."

 

Crezetti looked offended. "My noble title is of higher ranking than yours."

 

Bobby shook his head. "No, your noble title is of a higher ranking than my pretend title. I am the Duke of the Lakelands and Extended Duke of the the Wildzone of Cressentoa with a direct line of inheritance that leads directly to the ancient Dragonthrone itself. That is what Spartane really wants from me and by Spartane, I do not mean the poor petty criminal who was born as Spartane but the thing that replaced him on the Night of the Hundred Betrayals. This is not the time or place to speak of such matters which are becoming clearer in my mind. Now, how many troops and other resources can you really call upon?"

 

Crezetti frowned. "I will do what I can and call upon a whole lot of very valuable favours. Something tells me that you speak truth and that worries me deeply, very deeply, because we all know what happened the last time that the Dragonthrone was occupied."

 

Bobby snorted. "Of course I know; I was there!"

 

Crezetti just stared at him in worried surprise.

 

*********

 

 

Edited July 15, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

23

BOBBY OF THE CLANSFOLK

IN THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL INVERSE CHAMBER #4

 

*********

 

Bobby opened up other sections of the TIC and found a labyrinth of caves in metallic materials of copper, silver and gold appearances but these were not true metals but slowly regenerating biometals. Bobby walked explored the caves even as he gave the morlocks permission to live and work there, mining the biometals. The pale white furred creatures were soon bringing in their possessions and their morlockon companions. They knew well how to mine the biometals for such mines were to be found through out the Known Underworld and beyond, as far as available information indicated. They would dig out homes, community areas, a grand hall and even temples, schools and other facilities. Despite prejudices, morlocks were not filthy people by choice and they would be making bathchambers with big communal baths.

 

Herculine and her comrades were in the TIC again. The DrazenDari had set up a base in their own quarters as had wombles but wombles quarters were also those of Bobby and her other, new special companions. As she was drawn to go deeper into the amazing mining maze, she sensed the orbotor was floating beside her, that the clonetor BobbyLee was next to her and that the elementor was floating just ahead and one side of her. Just as Bobby was, they had sensed danger and had come to be with her. Further back, but not too far back, came pacing four DrazenDari warriors in fleximetallic armour and with SLLE autorifles or blazerguns.

 

"Why do you intrude upon my peacefulness?" The angry voice seemed to come from a point in mid-air but somehow echoed hollow in an unnatural fashion. "How is it that you have gained entrance to my ancient home where I only wish to slumber in dreamless sleep, having long tired of immortal existence."

 

Bobby responded. "I am Bobby of the Clansfolk."

 

The voice sounded sceptical. "You are far more than that though I find you hard to read."

 

Bobby responded again. "I am of the True Dragonblood, am due to inherit the Dragonthrone of the Eternal Dragon and I am of the Prime the Living-Eternals."

 

The voice ceased to show anger but now expressed surprise and wonder. "Well why didn't you say? Come right in! Was it you who sent the wombles to my chamber to beg for favours?"

 

Bobby sighed. "No but wombles work like super fast guided missiles when they sense such opportunities."

 

The voice laughed softly. "Well, they got biscuits and dried fruits with lightly salted nuts."

 

The great chamber was like that of an elegant palace grand hall but one with many added functions. Great columns rose from floors to ceiling. Clockwork robots, or clockbots, of many kinds moved quickly, but slightly jerkily around, carrying out many duties. The young wombles were sitting comfortably on big cushions of elegantly carved tiled flooring. The tall, elegantly handsome man sat on-in a great throne chair with his nobile hook nose and great, gleaming blue eyes. He wore a toga of silver white with colours blending so cleverly that one had trouble working out what part of the robe was what.

 

Bobby, in his fleximetallic armour, halted to look around with obvious delight at what he saw and then he turned to the Living-Eternal. "So why did the High Elders imprison you here?"

 

The tall man laughed softly and then nodded. "Very good! Because I told them that they were stupid puppets of the One-Mind-Of-Many-Of-One-Mind and that the One-Mind-Of-Many-Of-One-Mind was a warped monster who was the real reason we became exiled. The High Elders imprisoned me here, with my cooperation, and thus the One-Mind-Of-Many-Of-One-Mind did not get the chance to destroy me as it wanted to. I am called TullinVadii of the Ever Awarene Motionless Motion. Make yourself welcome to the home of a wise fool for true immortality has made fools of all of us so called Living-Eternals. My powers are generally reduced here but some that survive have become very refined and I have knowledge and other resources to assist you with. I sense that in you lies the key to finally gaining the truth of what happened and to put an end to the One-Mind-Of-Many-Of-One-Mind."

 

Bobby sighed. "So many lies, so many tricks, so many delusions. Do you really think I can't tell that you kidnapped wombles and that these captives are not happy. I was drawn partly by their unhappiness and partly by your stupid evil. You are not TullinVadi, though he was also imprisoned. No, he was truly noble and a fighter for freedom, for awareness, but you are the perverted, hedonistic, shallow ShezoVadi, his partial-brother sharing two of three fathers."

 

SezoVadi screamed in rage and leapt with amazing power and speed through the air but even as he did Bobby and the others, except the captive wombles, raised their weapons and fired almost as one. The Living-Eternal died, his body fragmenting and vanishing with a quick, bright flash. He would return back to a new life but not for at least a century and not there in that TIC. Bobby wondered how the criminal fool had come to be imprisoned there and doubted it was coincidental. Then he went to the poor wombles who lay on their backs with facial expressions twisted in pain, shock and sorrow. Bobby had much healing to do.

 

*********

Edited July 16, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

24

BARCY OF THE AUZILANDERS

IN THE GLORIOUS CITYSTATE OF PURTH #1

 

*********

 

Barcy looked of the female version of Bobby but she was an Auzilander in the great and powerful Citystate of Purth. Except right at that moment as she stood all wet and waiting for more taxies to arrive, she did not feel so great about the actual city of Purth. The rain was coming in strong and cold, in flurries that got under the overhanging eaves of the airport terminal building exterior. Cars, some of them taxies, moved slowly through the rain. Many were electric-hybrids or electrics. Some were older style ICVs, internal comubstion vehicles, fueled by petrol or natural gas.

 

It was 1985AD and thanks to the troubles the delivery of oil from overseas was decreasing as were the importation of many industrial goods. In desperation the Western Auzilander Government was accelerating its industrialization program which had already been progressing strongly. With war threatening against more than one powerful foe, the Australian and New Zealand United Republic was becoming a certainty as Citystates in both countries combined for mutual strength.

 

In the distance she could see some soldiers in kevlar body-armour suits, like distorted dark humanoids, along with some armoured vehicles. There were two upgraded Centurion main battle tanks but equipped now with pairs of 40mm anti-aircraft autocannons. Barcy did not like the presence of the military or the way they had become more important, more influential, in politics. Yet she had no doubt that they were necessary for human survival and were getting to be more so.

 

A raincoated newspaper boy was trying to sell copies of the Purth Gazette that was both less popular but a better read than the main newspapers. She bought a copy and apart from the $1 coin for the edition, she gave the grinning young teen another $1 coin as a tip. As she did so she was aware of him looking at her cleavage but this was typical of men and she simply ignored it. Then she was making her way to the next taxicab that was halting. A quick, cold glare stopped another woman from cheating and stealing the cab. Then she relented and let the other woman share the back seat since they were both going into the city centre.

 

Climatic patterns and weather conditions were behaving weirdly of late but at least the green comets had stopped coming for the moment. The taxicab, an EHV or Electric Hybrid Vehicle, hummed quickly along the freeway past big clusters of highrise apartments for the welfare, working and poorer middle classes. Police sirens could be heard and strings of lights showed traffic on highways and other major streets. A traffic control helicopter flew overhead through the sky while a monotrain hummed along a raised rails, the counterpart of older type raised commuter lines and the extending subway network.

 

The other woman was as attractive as was Barcy herself but was an oriental yellow-brown woman of more petite stature. Yet there was something tough about her, something determined behind those lovely brown eyes. She kept observing Barcy carefully though she pretended not to be doing so. The sexy oriental kept opening her fashionable leather shoulderbag to peer into it until she took out what looked like a mobile-phone and examined its small LCD screen. A gust caught the vehicle and the car shook a little side to side, the black driver cursing softly in some African language that Barcy understood but which she pretended that she did not know.

 

It was becoming obvious her that the other woman was using something that was not a mobile-phone but which was designed to look like one and perhaps even to function like one as a disguise.

 

Barcy turned to her. "My name is Barcy. Forgive me, but is that one of those new Sony mobile telephones with the in built camera?"

 

The other woman smiled back. "Yes it is but I had my nephew the wizkid do some extras to it. He is amazing that way. My name is Toshiko. I have come here for a internet developments conference. May I ask why you are here in Purth?"

 

Barcy just shrugged. "Travelling as I often do. I am a freelance journalist, an artist, a writer and a special type of escort. Would you be Tashiko Sato who wrote the article Censureship's Impact on Internet Efficiency in last month's British Cybernetics Monthly? It was a very good article and one that many a foolish politician would be better of reading."

 

The other woman looked pleased. "Why, thank you, I did write that article. You published those beautiful photographs of the green comet coming in over New York as it headed for the ocean. That is the ones in the Big Apple Album. It was amazing how you managed to capture the view that way when the comet was moving so quickly. Would you like to have a cup of coffee, my shout of course, so that we might have a nice talk. I don't know any locals and you could introduce me to the city."

 

Barcy smiled back. "Of course! That would be very nice. What hotel are you staying at? I have yet to find a hire a room and we could go to a cafe at your hotel."

 

Then she leaned over and kissed Tashiko on the lips and gained no resistance at all, far from it.

 

*********

 

Edited July 16, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

25

BARCY OF THE AUZILANDERS

IN THE GLORIOUS CITYSTATE OF PURTH #2

 

*********

 

Barcy slipped nakedly out of the big queen size bed of the hotel room that the young oriental woman had booked in her name and made sure Toshika was actually asleep. The other woman was also unclothed but was well covered with fine cotton sheets. The only light came from the one in the VDC player-recorder and other electronic machines except for flashes of lightening that came through the small opening in the curtains. They had watched a very compact VDC (Video Digital Casette) movie earlier that Barcy had enjoyed. The VDC technology was one of those arising from a sudden series of recent technological breakthroughs who pattern was rather odd.

 

The Citystate of Purth had become an important biotech agritech producer of dome-farmed food in a world where traditional farming was being challenged harshly by crazy climatic and weather effects. The big transnational corporation behind the special farmdoming techniques had recently tripled its production output and upped the nutritional quality of that produce but there had been a series of strange murders of domefarm workers and other contraversies that had arisen.

 

Barcy carefully opened Toshika's shoulderbag and took out the mobile-phone. She examined it carefully and then the device shimmered. Of course it was actually an alien technology based sensorscanner but Toshika had not been carrying it because she had meant to meet with Barcy. No, Toshika was seeking something in that massive city of a population of eleven plus million people. Just why was she sensorscanning people for she had done so not just to Barcy but to the black taxicab driver and others after that including hotel staff.

 

In the same shoulderbag she found a large, powerful and loaded semiautomatic pistol, two spare loaded magazines for the gun, a very clever two-way radio disguised as a woman's compact, tampons, keys, a telephone-address booklet, notebooks, pens, chewing-gum, neotobacco cigarettes, a purse with cash and plastic money, an International IDcard, a British IDcard and a few other items. One fancy golden pen was actually a very special kind of energy weapon designed to deal with a very special and dangerous kind of alien enemy.

 

It was not good to find such a weapon hidden in that shoulderbag.

 

Barcy made sure everything was back in place in the shoulderbag and that was back in place, and then went off and had a nice hot shower. She was still showering when Toshika slipped into the fancy shower-bath booth and joined her. Toshika was made most welcome.

 

*********

 

[Maharg67]

I am sorry but due to illness and othe pressing demands I am going to have this story locked

 

but it will return better and with all the current characters intact.

 

The story got too complicated too fast partly because I was trying to do to much and because of other reasons.

 

[AlienSlof]

Locked per OP request. Give us a shout if you want it reopened at a later date. :)