Walkers of Worlds

[Maharg67]

Thank you for your positive feedback, AliasTheory.

 

I would be the first to admit that I have too great weaknesses. First is my dialogue. It needs more work and perhaps I need to gain some advise, some learning to change this.

 

The second is my constant push to make the plots of stories overly complicated, overly fast. Perhaps brain surgery might help here though I am seeking more positive solutions. I intend that instead of adding more stories here too soon, that at least two will combine and continue onwards though as yet I am not sure how I will present this.

 

Again, the constant nodding and sighing in my dialogue is something that needs changing.

 

Again, thank you for the feedback.

[Maharg67]

GREAT CUBES AND PYRAMIDS

 

Large pyramids have been found on many Alternate Earths but on every one with the continent there have always been many pyramids of varied kinds. Also those Alternate Earths with a floating continent of Centralia there are also the Great Cubes. All of these Great Cubes, normally one per Alternate Earth but not always, have been hidden or partly hidden by being buried totally or partly. All have been part of the same set of caves that have come with many varied names or none at all in some cases.

 

On Johnnie's Alternate Earth, on Eddie's Alternate Earth, on the one that the FreeUnion came from and the one that the Brotherhood of Steel and others came from, there was one Great Cube buried, melded seemingly, beneath one of the Lamplight Mountains and into the Lamplight Caverns. All were identical appearing to each other and to the one that Leslie was investigating in Havenadrea of Oblivionaedra.

 

In ancient times some stated that all of these Grand Cubes were in truth the one and the same structure.

 

As for the various pyramids, they were also of great importance as were some other structures.

[Maharg67]

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GOING ONWARDS TO KVATCH

 

Joannie and most of the group departed from the ruined, abandoned inn and continued onwards towards the Imperial City of Kvatch, once destroyed by Mehrunes Dagon but long ago restored. The shapermage, having slept and otherwise taken care of her needs, soon departed again in the shapeform of a big black eagle.

 

The group followed an old Imperial Roadway for a while until it joined a long abandoned Imperial Highway. They followed the highway with its crumbling remains of a kind of concrete and then they were passing a fortified farming community, a village, where human sentries were glimpsed on the battlements of its wall. The village belonged not to the empire, according to its people, but to the independent Duchy of Carvohagen, a name that had not supposedly existed for many thousands of years, except in very old records, until it was returned in recent decades. In truth it never had and Joannie suspected that the duchess had made it up.

 

The former bandits spoke fearfully of the Duchess Elaine Tarada who was a hard but fair woman who hated bandits, slavers, cannibals, necromancers and shadowy cultists. The Duchess and her people, including a small stronge army and a ring of mages, ignored the demands of the Imperial Governor of Kvatch that she surrender the Duchy over to imperial control. The duchess ignored such messages because the Governer did not have the military or other forces to invade the duchy. He dared not even send any forces far enough to reach the duchy.

 

They could choose to go around the duchy territories but that would almost double the length of the journey to Kvatch and would likely take them through even more dangerous territories than was the duchy itself. Joannie made the decision; they would go through Carvohagen.

 

Joannie would pause the group at times for rest but also so she could gather small items to send to OrbisTransZia such as plants, small animals and even samples of earth. At times she threw the rubber ball into the air and caught it or bounced it off a surface and caught it. She sniffed the ear or would have the group be as quiet as possible and listen intently.

 

Much of the time they marched along the slowly curving Imperial Highway, sometimes coming to crumbling bridges that they managed to get across with minor difficulty. Then they were coming off a big old stone bridge, in better condition than most bridges they had come across, and confronted a horrific combination of warning and territoral marker. Skulls of humans and goblins were stuck on wooden pikes and the stone cairn was dotted with rusting, dented, blood stained bits of armour. According to the language of Cyrodilin, they were entering the outer territories of the Duchy of Carvohagen and that as long as they kept the laws they would be safe. Carvohagen had much to sell them in the way of goods and services, was always willing to buy goods and services in return, especially more exotic kinds of goods no longer found so plentifully in Carvohagen.

 

But Joannie was drawn to search the cairn and soon found the warning in the form of a basic scroll message in a bone scroll-case. The message warned that the duchess was a powerful vampire and that she had many vampire followers through out the duchy along with other forms of undead, necromancers and even semivampire mercenaries. The duchy was not a great improvement over what the Cyrodilic Empire had become, far from it, yet most of its people managed to live a fairly normal life. Outsiders though were always in danger of ending up in the dreaded bloodfarms.

 

The good news was that there was a resistance group that the Governer of Kvatch and other outsiders did their best to support in various ways. Duchess Elaine Tarada was having an increasingly hard time controlling her territories. They had left the warning that Joannie carefully returned to its hiding place.

 

After some hesitation and after consulting her followers, she lead the group once more towards Kvatch.

 

FIGHTING THE UNDEAD AT THE PROSPRO CROSSROADS

 

"This is not right." Joannie was crouched at the Prospro Crossroads in the top of a wooden tower there that had seen better days but which was still in fairly good repair. She was examing the starscape above through a complicated looking optical mechanical device. "The stars are not in the right place. This is Tamriel but not quite the Tamriel that I last came to as the Eternal Champion. Something big took place."

 

The woman psionicor, the former bandit named Yerena, was peering into the darkness around the old crossroads watch tower. It was a crossroads because the highway was instersected with an Imperial Roadway. It was a place that had experienced much history, including violence. "Something undead is out there. No, more than one thing."

 

Joannie shifted her device. "More than one vampire. The good thing is that there are no Dark Brotherhood super-assassins out there now."

 

The former bandits had spoken of the Dark Brotherhood as having gained newer, more deadly forms of assassination including what were known as super-assassins and assassinmages. Joannie had met various sorts of super-soldiers before, had even helped to design and create some of them. These ones sounded like clones of some kind but he could not be certain until she gained more data.

 

Then she was dropping down and so were the others as a volley of glistening arrowhead tipped black arrows shot through the air and thudded into another part of the tower. Joannie rose into a crouch and aimed her crossbow-pistol with its magically enhanced abilities. As soon as she fired off a bolt, the chord pulled back by itself and another bolt appeared magically. Again and again she fired the bolts into the greenery of a large tree. Something screamed in agony and rage even as it fell out of the tree dying. Then it was burning up into greasy ash with its true death.

 

The four former bandits shot their arrows and bolts in various directions, finding that somehow Joannie was assisting them in a subtle way to find the enemy. Arrows whistled back at them and then undeath magic in the form of pale burning balls of energy. This was related to necromancic magic but was not the same. Parts of the tower exploded and strange marks were left behind but somehow nobody was struck.

 

Then the attack was over.

 

Joannie spoke. "Super-assassins came and killed off the last of the undead attackers even at the risk of entering the duchy. For some reason the Dark Brotherhood is not out here to do me harm but to protect me and any with me. Now why would that be? How did they know I was here and that the undead were attacking us?"

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[AliasTheory]

Sometimes it helps to think a bit more casually so the reader relate to the characters or whatever is going on. When using dialog, interrupting parts of it with added descriptive information can make the scene clearer, but it will occasionally slow things down if you do it too much. And again, if your focus is on the story the characters may be trying to tell and not actually the characters themselves (just for that moment,) keep the descriptions a bit short, but keep away from the repetitive sentence structure as much as possible.

 

Also, the smallest actions can say a lot about a person. When they are reoccurring, themes may be established. Like continuous pacing, lack of eye contact when talking, using lots of mathematical terms or certain metaphors in the dialog.

[Maharg67]

Thank you, AliasTheory, I will again carefully consider your feedback. :thumbsup:

 

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FORTIFIED VILLAGE OF PROSPERO WELLS

 

They returned to the fortified village after the return of daylight as Joannie was driven to get more resources, especially information. The villagers were not prone to allowing outsiders beyond a smaller walled off area just inside the main gates where they set up temporary stalls to buy and sell. They almost smiled happily when they gained a good bargain by selling common items to Joannie at inflated prices and bought fairly cheap some rather exotic goods from her such as fine wine and wheels of cheese.

 

There was Joannie's aura that charmed some of the villagers into trusting her more and yet there was more to it than that, as Joannie was soon to learn. When the last time was bought or sold, the group of visitors sat on beautifully woven and tough mats sipping a local tea brewed strong and splashed lightly with fresh goat's milk. The villiage elders were sitting there also now and the leader, Hashumand, sat forward on his mat. He was intense with worry and frustration for some reason.

 

He spoke even as he worked some worry beads hard with his right hand. "The duchess has spies every where in her territories but we have taken care of those here in the village. We keep them down in a basement where they are under constant lock and key. We keep them in a semiconscious state for we fear that their vampiric master would know if they were to die. We are not rebels but neither do we want the undead freely roaming through our streets. So far the deception seems to have worked."

 

The Walker of Worlds expressed her concern in her voice and on her face. "Such a trick would not serve to work for long. What sort of magic was used to entrap these undead, these vampires?"

 

The village leader responded. "Arcane magic focused through anti-undead spells as taught by the Mages Guild itself. It cost the village a good sum of golden imperial coins. She was an odd one being tall and rather 'skinny' but wiry."

 

"Kept her ears covered." Joannie responded with an odd smile. "Spoke often in quick bursts that could be hard to keep up with. Moved in quick, agile bursts. Drank lots of water and ate only a small meal made up of all vegetables and not a bit of meat. Worked her magic with a small blackboard and some chalk."

 

The villiager was clearly surprised. "Yes, that would describe her nicely. It was her who spoke of your coming but we had to be careful before we approached you. Uammie said that you would improve the spells somehow, would do something with the trapped vampires to make them safer. I am not sure what she meant by that. We need to make the village and the villagers safer."

 

Joannie was annoyed at her sister's trickery. She nodded. "Of course I will do what I can. Take me to where the vampires are being held in the semiconsciousness."

 

VAMPIRIC TRAP

 

It was no surprise that Uammie had set up a deadly puzzle of sorts for Joannie to solve. The older sister of the quins was insane and dangerous. She had set up such unpleasant surprises before. Now she had attempted to set up the people of the village so that the semiconsciousness of the three vampires would either slowly attract the deadly attention of the vampire duchess or woud do so more quickly if the trapped vampires awoke.

 

Joannie crouched in a pantry chamber that was little more than a hole in the ground with some rough cloth surfacing the walls and floor aong with the wooden floor of the house being its ceiling. The three vampires were naked except for basic underclothes and looked peaceful enough except that, of course, they were not breathing. If one did not know better they could easily be taken as dead. A whole lot of fine yellow, green, red and white strings were tied from vampire to vampire and from them to a thick iron stake thrust into the ground. This sort of magic had nothing to do with the arcane knowledge of the Mages Guild, that was clear enough. This was unstable quasimagic, a meddling of reaities, a focusing of disturbed natural forces that could easily go wrong.

 

It was a clear message from Uammie that she was determined to cause trouble and that she knew that Joannie, at least, was on or going to be in that realm. Uammie wanted Joannie to hunt her, wanted a battle, which was normal enough, so the important question was Uammie working alone, with with others or serving a more powerful force. One could never tell with the unstable Walker of Worlds who had once been the beloved poetic sister to the quins.

 

Undoing the coloured strings, or cutting them, was akin to dealing with the colour coded wires of a bomb. Of course this was no accident but reflected Uammie's typical sense of humour. Joannie took out a pair of nice quality scissors with good, hard, sharp blades and began to carefully take consideration of what lay before her. Then, with a soft laugh, she put the scissors away, reached out and ripped the iron stake easily out of the solid rock with one hand. Then she quickly touched and Light burned the pair of powerful vampires to death, to greasy ash, before they could truly begin to act.

 

It had been a trap alright but one set for Joannie herself.

 

Then she went up to the surface to inform the villagers that their foolish agreement with the insane Uammie had backfired and that they would have to depart from the village as soon as possible, along with everything that they could take with them, to get away from the wrath of Duchess Elaine Tarada.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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TRAILING UAMMIE

 

Uammie had convinced the otherwise smart leaders of the village to join her foolish plan, this translating as she had tricked them into doing something stupid. The villagers were unhappy as they piled up what they could into their wagons, carts and into backpacks. The prepared the goats and other animals for travel. They took up their children. Then they set out north in a convoy towards the south and there a place where the former bandits assurred them they could join a much bigger settlement. The going would be easier because Joannie gave them some small but important gifts being magical devices that would help them navigate to their destination and others that would warn them of various kinds of supernatural threats. While some of the villagers were genuinely contrite and grateful, most of them seemed to blame Joannie for what had happened.

 

Joannie and her companions, including her three magical ones, sought for a magical trail in the village. Joannie knew that her sister would have gone by eccentric magical means on her further journies for that is what she always did. It could be one of a wide range of magical tricks that she had used. In the end it turned out to be one related to ancient and long buried Cyrodilin histories. Uammie had found a cave system quite deep beneath the village and had gone there by teleportation after setting the strange trap for Joannie.

 

The cave system was glowcrystal lit and warmed. Long ago it had been named the Candlelight Caverns and so that was the name that the newcomers used. Except that Joannie knew she had been there a very long time ago, as far as some rather hazy memories told her. Though she suspected it was important that she remember more, for the moment her mind was not going to do as asked. So she waked along great big cave tunnels lit by glowcrystal and then through even greater, bigger cavern chambers lit by glowcrystal.

 

There was life in that place such was watergrass in rivers and lakes, mossgrass, meatworms, many kinds of insects, mosses and much else but no sign of civilization at first. Yet Joannie was sure something would show up because Uammie was always heading towards some kind of bigger settlement or other. Uammie did not like spending any real length of time away from what she considered to be 'civilization'. The bigger, the more crowded and the more chaotic a settlement, the better she liked it and the more she could find victims and have her demented kind of fun.

 

They came upon a camp site where three dead bandits, part human and part goblins, lay sprawled next to the warm ashes of a fire. Their leather armour, swords, knives and other items were mostly like those on the surface but they also each had a matchlock musket weapon that was basic but sturdy of design and make. Uammie had not only drained them of life energies and blood, she had eaten some of their flesh. She could have cleverly hidden the evidence of her crime but instead she wrote her name in an ancient language of power, burning it into a boulder close to the camp. So of course she was making it clear that she knew that Joannie was following her.

 

But not long after that there was evidence of Uammie herself being attacked by powerful and efficient forces. Some of her blood was smeared across and burned into some hard rock surfaces. Strange burn marks and glassified sand indicated powerful energies had been used in some kind of battle.

 

After that Uammie was no longer leaving a trail that could so easily be found but that was understandable enough if there was something out there that could threaten her.

 

SPEAKING WITH THE GUARDIAN SPIRIT XOXOBOGAR

 

"I did battle with this one you call 'Uammie'. She was powerful but undisciplined and I was able to undo many of her attacks and get past her shields. Yet she was cunning and experienced enough to escape from me." The Guardian Spirit XoxoBogar chose to look like a large, but not overly large, hornlizard. He would blink his lizard eyes every so often and would whirl them to take in not just Jaonnie but the others. "She is a Walker of Worlds as you are."

 

"We are both Walkers of Worlds but she is not as I am." Jaonnie was carving a piece of stone with an exotic silver knife whose blade cut through the hard rock like it was soft wood. She was busily making something special. The others were making items out of wood, were carefully following instructions that she had given them. "Why she came here to Tamriel, why she decided to try to get me to chase her, I do not know. Uammie is quite insane. That is has survived in activity for this long is a surprise. I would have expected her to have fallen to the Deepening Curse of the Walkers of Worlds, a long time ago. Of course there may easily be factors that I do not know of."

 

The lizard shapeformed creature hissed. "I only attacked her because she was getting too close to an ancient sacred site protected by we XoxoSpirits and refused to be warned away. When she fled, she did so away from the sacred burial site and so I would not, could not pursue her. I sense the nature of your unspoken questions. The sacred burial sites are of Aldmer or true immortals. Not only are there the Aldmer physical aspects there but also powerful artefacts including weapons, armour, tools and totems."

 

Then Joannie was done carving the small hard rock. She slipped the special knife away and then pressed her wrist against the rock. Blood flowed out of her wrist, rich and red, and soaked away into the rock to vanish. For only a few seconds did she do this and then there was no mark on her wrist to indicate anything had happened. Then she raised the carved stone into the air and asked for the intervention of the Light. The stone began to glow and then turned translucent like as the glow grew slowly richer.

 

She was a little tired now, drained of life energies, for it cost to make such a powerful tracking device. Then the others brought her the devices of wood that they had made and she carefully placed them around the stone. At once small patterns of glowing light began to dance above the strangely carved small rock.

 

Joannie spoke to the others. "The blood is for the DNA link between myself and Uammie. Yes, just as I guessed, she went to way above us on the surface. The question is should we try to follow her or attempt to go ahead through these amazing caves until we can go to the surface and avoid going to the damned duchy of the undead?"

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

QUESTIONABLE HISTORIES OF CENTRALIA

VARIED MYSTERIES OF THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS OF CENTRALIA

 

1908: HJ PATT'S VISIT TO THE WASTELANDS OF THE FUTURE

 

In 1908 HJ Patt underwent his third and last great exotic adventure when he stepped into the future and into a world devastated by what was known as Doomsday. After his return with his surviving comrades, he spoke of strange robots known as eyebots, of soldiers in power armour known as Brothers of Steel, of ghoulified humans, of terrible mutated monsters such as mirelurks and even the radroaches that he most disliked. His two comrades spoke of nothing for they were already dying of heavy radiation sickness and soon HJ Patt himself grew sick and died. His story was recorded down as best as possible but too soon the last witness himself was unable to add any more to the details.

 

1912: ALICE FROM WONDERLAND

 

In 1912 a group of experienced cave specialists, journalists, scientists and others were taking a tour of the Lamplight Caverns when they ran into an eccentric young woman who called herself 'Alice'. She insisted that when she was much younger she, living in far off England, had gone for a visit to an exotic realm called Wonderland where reality was twisted into something that she called 'almost but not quite reality'. Except that when Alice returned to England, another Alice staid in Wonderland and there continued many adventures. Alice showed off some strange abilities as she floated up into the air, made people and objects do the same, summoned the Cheshire Cat and took a huge meal from a small picnic basket. Alice then vanished, as did the Cheshire Cat, unti only her eyes and her mouth were visible and then she was gone.

 

Though the group was able to present many black-white photographs to prove what happened, along with consistent accounts and some other evidence, they were not generally believed.

 

1915: JUMPING JACK FLASH #3 and #4

 

In this case Jumping Jack Flash appeared to aggressively attack a group of archeologists and others with them. Just as in the first appearance he bashed unconscious the men and tried to rip away the clothes of the women. Then another Jumping Jack Flash appeared and attacked the first. They fought hard and long. They bounded around with amazing strength, agility, endurance and other abilities. It would seem that the fight would never end but then the first Jumping Jack Flash fled away with amazing speed and the other one followed just as quickly.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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BIG FIGHT IN MURDER PASS

 

Johnnie did not take long to realize that the supermutant forces that made up one side of the raging battle were Berskergers. They were a mixture of former human humanoids, hulking monsters, along with former normal dog houndamoths and zentaurs. The monstrous dogs charged across the great cavern, diving from shelter to shelter, and seem smarter than many of their humanoid comrades. Of the humanoids there were more normal human sized zenamoths, bigger hulking massemoths and even bigger megamoths. The Berskergers had been the faction of supermutants that had been chasing after Lucy and other Little Lamplighters, a small group of them. Johnnie had escaped with the Little Lamplighters by taking them to OrbisTransZia.

 

The Super87s had indicated that all the TekVault0087 supermutant factions feared to go into Murder Pass which meant that the Berskergers must have had good reason to do so.

 

They were fighting tripocs but not normal tripocs. These were ghoulified tripocs or 'ghoulipocs', rotting and beserker enraged, swarming across the great cavern over untidy heaps of plastic drums of highly toxic waste product. Some of the drums were leaking horrific green stuff into big pools of the toxic gunge. The ghoulified tripocs had no form of protection, did not seem to need any, and increasingly more of them came up out of bigger pools of toxic stuff where they had been floating just under the surface.

 

The Enclaven, the TekCorps and the World Government had all been responsible for terrible environmental crimes and the dumping of large amounts of NBC waste products into the Lamplight Caverns was one of them. They had chosen very isolated spots where people were less likely to stumble onto the evidence of the crimes.

 

A grenade exploded in a pool of gunge and it erupted savagely with far more blast effect than any mere grenade could cause by itself.

 

Tentacles pulled a growling, snapping, enraged and fearful mutated hound into one of the big toxic pools.

 

A megamoth smashed open the head of a ghoulipoc with a great sledgehammer stained with red blood.

 

Johnnie moved quickly and quietly across the edge of the glowcavern so as to avoid the fighting as much as possible. Johnnie was once more alone, having sent his new followers to OrbisTransZia to carry out important tasks there. Another reason was that they would slow him down and he could not afford that to happen. He made his way around a pair of long deactivated and slowly rusting worktrons, a kind of tron robot.

 

It was then he saw the neat stack of large drums with their mutagenic marker labels and he knew why the Berskergers were there. They were fighting the ghoulipocs simply because the ghoulified Martians had attacked them or so he figured.

 

But then he sensed a dark presence and turning towards a very shadow dark corner that glowcyrstal growth did not light up, he saw a black shadow within normal shadow. It was the very thing that he had sensed before, the dark presence that was perhaps called the Shadow Elder that had tried to take over the Guidemara Tribe. The presence was too nebulous for him to be certain at that moment but what he was sensing more strongly was this dark entity was somehow controlling the Berskergers. Which meant the actions of the Berskergers, such as the taking of Fawkes and the exiling of Uncle Leo to the Wastelands, were not so wild or random after all.

 

He entered a tunnel mouth out of there and was soon moving generally towards TekVault0087 once more.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

QUESTIONABLE HISTORIES OF CENTRALIA

VARIED MYSTERIES OF THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS OF CENTRALIA

 

1916: PROFESSOR QUARTAMAIN'S FIRST LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS EXPEDITION

 

1916 saw the famous, often infamous, Professor Quartamain, of the British Imperial Scientific Adventures Club, launch his firt Lamplight Caverns Expedition. While he had visited the caverns before in the safer known areas, this was his first major expedition into the deeper caverns. The well organised, fairly large, well equipped expeditionary group was to discover the Grand Golden Cavern of Nine Pyramids. The expedition took films, make audio recordings, took many photographs, recorded many statements and charted the cavern. Quartamain was to give into British Imperial requests that he keep the location of the amazing cavern a secret and he did. Many speculated that the expedition had found other amazing, and perhaps highly disturbing, discoveries in that chamber.

 

1916: VANISHED ARSENAL

 

With World War One raging in various parts of the world, the decision was made to store a large armoury of weapons, ammo and related items in the Lamplight Caverns. This included some early warmachines, great rolls of field telephone cable and much else. This armoury was to be a reserve in case of an invasion that never took place. Having been well hidden, the armoury was left alone for some months but when it was decided to take items from it, the armoury had vanished totally.

 

1918-1920: PROFESSOR QUARTAMAIN'S SECOND LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS EXPEDITION

 

Professor Quartamain's Second Expedition was much like the first except for some new, more advanced equipment and some Torchwood people joining them along with a platoon of soldiers who were officially mercenaries. The expedition plunged deep into the Lamplight Caverns, following what was supposed to be an ancient tunnel trade route. The Clansfolk warned the expedition to go no further as it followed a series of elaborate carved markings on the walls and got increasingly deeper. Quartamain was eager to find evidence of the GreatRace that created Centralia and ignored the Clansfolk. The Clansfolk were angry but they provided him with a priestess pathfinder, two scouts and some warriors. The expedition entered the area known as the Broken Mazen where they studied a large, slowly crumbling city carved out of rock that the Clansfolk spoke of as being the left overs of a cruel and cunning people, the Shaduo or shaedra but they refused to give any more details on the subject. Quartamain and his people found many disturbingly exotic artefacts which he planned to send to a museum but the Clansfolk destroyed the artefacts. The Clansfolk then left the expedition after there was a great argument and threats of violence. Shortly after this the expedition vanished.

 

Many efforts were made to find the lost expedition but to no avail even though the Clansfolk sent some of their best people deep into the caverns. Then in 1920, just over two years after the expedition started out, the remains of the expedition were found in a large cavern. It appeared that the group had been attacked by some kind of violent exotic animals except there were odd signs of weapons of some kind having been used. A careful examination found only just over half of the remains of people and the mystery to what had happened to the others, including to Quartamain himself, was never solved.

Edited December 10, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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DEALING WITH THE MATRIARCHS

 

Eddie was in the special chambers of the quins below the mansion, was helping to unpack items or to put away packed items. He had given into pressure and the former rooms of the quins had been given over to the use of others thanks to the shortage of space, especially accomodation room. He had first taken all of the hidden items and taken them down to the hidden chambers. There, along with his former bandit followers, he added to the big workshop and they were soon making bits of equipment, upgrading others and doing other work.

 

He was in the target range chamber with a newly made BlazeMaster autorifle that was fairly big and heavy but very powerful and reliable. It fired the 12.7mm calibre (.303) using 20 shot and 30 shot magazines. Carefully he let off a short, controlled burst and drilled a whole lot of neat holes in a target. Even as he did so, his mother was entering the chamber along with his aunt, the rather arrogant Yurisa. Pearlisa seemed rather tense. She kept a noticeable distance from her older sister as an obvious and intentional Clansfolk style insult.

 

Yurisa stopped and glared at Eddie who put his gun down and turned to her. She spoke with a tone of bitter anger. "You dared to approach the Heritages and Inheritance Council with out first consulting either your mother or myself."

 

Eddie gave a mild shrug, Clansfolk fashion, as if to indicate that it was none of her affair and that such was what he was expected to do by Clansfolk tradition. "The council had no quelm or Clanslegal problem in accepting my claims of heritage and inheritance. Does the family have any problem with the claims? The claims cover not just myself but Bobbie, Joannie, Johnnie and Leslie. It is important that our Clanslegal status be clarified as soon as possible if we are to further make claims on our share of family and clanfamily wealth."

 

Yurisa scowled at him hard. "The family and the clanfamily have lost much thanks to the invasion of the tripocs and the treacherous Enclaven. We have nothing to give you."

 

Eddie gave his aunt a look of pity. "Over 79% of Centralia is still under the control of the FreeAlliance and over 56% under the control of the Clansfolk, despite the mass efforts of the enemy to conquer Centralia. A large section of the Lamplight Caverns has become a massive ClansGuild controlled industrial site pouring out weapons, vehicles, warmachines and other devices along with new types of ammunition and even new technologies such as energy weapons and antitripod trip-traps. Our family, our clanfamily, our ClansGuild, has access to a rich flow of profits from those factories despite that the price of all products have been greatly reduced for sale to the FreeAlliance."

 

He turned and showed her the gun he was holding. "BlazeMasterA1 Type-1. Fires the British Imperial Commonwealth Standard Rifle Calibre of 12.7mm or .303. Rugged, reliable and light relative to its size. Also designed to be as non cumbersome as possible. Takes a single-shot 40mm grenade-shell launcher, a bayonet, a scope, a bipod and a torch. Easy to use. Has two safties. Has a built-in bottle opener. Has a built-in small compartment for extras. Now copyrighted to the Quin Technologies Corporation. This is better than the three kinds of autorifle now being manufactured by the GellinShene ClansGuild be they the British Lee Enfiled Self Loading Rifle, the American MM14 or the Soviet AKM."

 

He put the gun down. "GellinShene is not going to get the copyright or the copyrights to our other inventions. At least not until it allows greater access to its copyrights by other FreeAlliance corporations and manufacturing organisations. This of course incudes the new Centralian Clansfolk Open Cooperative. The CCOC is no ally to the Twelve Clans. It never has been and never will be so. The ClansGuilds can only gain by any copyright based agreement involving over a hundred new copyrighted inventions including weapons, robots, computers, power armour and much else."

 

In theory Yurisa was simply an Estatefolk matriarch but it was an open secret amongst Clansfolk that she was a powerful influence with the ClansGuilds. This was partly because of her great intelligence and cunning but mostly because she had gained control of a massive number of ClansGuild shares and bonds through heritage and inheritance rights. But the truth was that it was the quins who should have gained the great majority of that heritage and inheritance.

 

Yurisa took out a rather ornate looking traditional Clanslegal document and passed it to Eddie. "You will of course sign, thumb print and blood mark this."

 

Eddie read the document carefully with amazing speed and then, with a grin, passed it back. "Do you think that I am a fool? You would take everything, including our copyrights, our heritage rights, our inheritance rights, and give us pittance back in return, most of which is ours anyway in Clanslegal terms. Inform the ClansGuilds High Council that they had best change their way of thinking on this and many other matters for time is running out for the ClansGuilds. Oh yes, the idea of you claiming a monopoly with future dealings with the Mistyra is more than laughable. Please just go."

 

The matriarch gave him a hard look, did the same with Pearlisa, then turned and abruptly departed.

 

TALKING WITH MOTHER

 

Pearlisa nodded and smiled. "That was couragious but was it wise? She really does have a good deal of power, wealth and influence. Even if you do make reasonable Clanslegal claims for your full heritage and inheritance rights, the damned ClansGuilds can tie you up in complicated Clanslegal games for decades."

 

Eddie smiled. "Let them and I have the resources to tie up many of their resources in the same way. We quins were some of the greatest master criminals in the history of the Clansfolk. That stolen wealth, taken from organised crime, that did not go into many charity causes or our own secret lavish lifestyles, went into wise long term investments. Under various names and secondary ways we have stewardship and ownership of over a million ClansGuild prime shares and bonds, a million ClansBank bonds and over a billion ClansDollars in various ClansBank Accounts and millions of Emergency Issue Dollars in the Swiss Banks that managed to shift their central branches here to Centralia years ago. I have linked with the other quins except for Bobbie and yet so far we have agreed that most of these resources should go to the new Centralian Clansfolk Open Republic."

 

At that she frowned. "Do you not know that the Centralian Clansfolk Open Movement and all of its aspects are part of a ClansGuild plot to identify many of its growing army of hidden enemies and destroy them."

 

He grinned. "Of course I do, mother. We quins set it up that way before we vanished. A plot within a plot. It is the ClansGuilds who are being set up and soon, very soon, the purge will begin. For you see the ClansGuilds secretly supported the rise of the Nazis in Europe and the push of Hitler's Final Solution against the jews, gypsies and others including the various subspecies of paranormals hidden in Europe, which was the real target. They also secretly supported Stalin in Russia so he would kill many paranormals during his great purges which were planned but mostly failed to take place thanks to interfereance by other forces. The same was true of the Rising Sun Shogan in Japan. Nor is it an accident that the ClansGuilds were able to rise to great power, wealth and influence in a relatively short time despite the best efforts of the Twelve Clans and other powerful enemies."

 

Pearlisa looked at him gravely. "You quins, your birth, your rise as secret super criminals, none of it was accidental."

 

"No, not really, but I wish it had been." Eddie gave her a look of regret. "Yes, I wish I had been born just a normal young Clansman and all I had to deal with was the typical challenges of a normal born Clansman. A super criminal genius, a Beautiful One and then a Walker of Worlds; really it has been far too much. I wish now for mortality, a normal aging to a peaceful death and then oblivion." Suddenly he looked very sad and lost. "All of us quins feel the same."

 

To his surprise she took him and hugged him gently but firmly.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67