Walkers of Worlds

[Maharg67]

20 of 2 (076)

 

MAKING CONTACT WITH A NEW FRIEND

 

EddieRa pretended to be Eddie and it was not hard to do for the two were physically identical down to their fingerprints and such like. He made his way through Lamplight Town where many buildings were in ruins or partly so. There were new, tougher constructions but many people had gone underground to live in caves closer to the surface. Indeed much of the town was now underground. There were some big hulking anti-aircraft towers bristling with guns, each tower being made of metal armour and reinforced concrete. EddieRa was not the only one out and about. There were people on foot or riding bicycles mostly but some rode big delivery tricycles or even quadcycles. Small motorbikes and motor-scooters were favoured and some cars being either bigger, chunker foreign machines or smaller, lighter and more compact Clansfolk built machines. Mostly there were vans, trucks, public transit buses and various military vehicles.

 

The Enclaven had managed to get longer range aircraft to as far as the big tabletop main Lamplight Mountain and the town but they paid for such missions with many destroyed aircraft and killed or captured air crew. The town was far from destroyed but had expanded to more than twice its old size thanks to military bases, the enlarged airport and the addition of refugee camps. Shops were open but so were bomb shelters. EddieRa walked up to a newsreel cinema that had some damage to its roof that had been repaired.

 

Nobody really took notice of EddieRa because he was dressed as an off duty Clansfolk soldier, which meant wearing combat fatigues with out the body-armour. There were plenty of such in the town along with soldiers of other FreeAlliance forces. As for him smiling at the young woman with the yellow flower in her hat, who wore a war time kneedress because hems had been cut to reduce the use of materials, well that was taken as quite normal.

 

He wondered briefly what the people around them would think if they knew that she was an alien shapeshifter sent to meet him. They hugged, they kissed, and they went into the theatre. They sat up the back where it was expected they would because they could do some heavy petting. They sort of watched the black white newsreels showing a mixture of government propaganda, social gossip, sporting news, advertisements and such like. But in truth they communicated.

 

She: "How is your mind? Are your memories clearing?"

 

He: "They have cleared and I have returned home in the sense I have come home here in this time-space zone. I suppose you came with instructions."

 

She: "Instructions, no! Guidelines, yes. The time-space distortions are getting worse. They and the Others are both getting involved. The Balancing Orders are most concerned. Why else would they send Walkers of Worlds to this place."

 

He: "Send us? We serve the Light! They asked us to come and we came but where is Bobbie?"

 

She: "The Balancing Orders could not answer such a question. If anybody should be able to, should it not be another of the Walking Quins of Worlds?"

 

He: "Haven't heard that name in a very long time. Okay, lets kiss and make a data transfer."

 

So they did kiss hard and made a data transfer. After a long moment they came up for air. EddieRa considered what he had learned, what he had passed onto Joannie, Johnnie and Leslie. The situation was indeed getting worse and so far at least three Alternates had gone rogue while others had appeared and dissappeared in fragmentary brief existence like the Alternate Earth that the Brotherhood of Steel had come from that had fought at the Battle of Golden Greens.

 

She: "I am Hanna Green and I am here to serve you. I have all the documentation and background story that I need to start living here. I will serve you in many ways, EddieRa. What will we do next?"

 

He: "I need to see a man called Dob the Builder. A very jolly man. Likes to build nice houses at reasonable prices for old folks and gets paid lots to bury dead bodies beneath the thick concrete floors of their basements or, these days, basement bomb shelters. There are sweet old pensioners living on and above the hidden evidence of small massacres."

 

She: "Are you going to do business with him?"

 

He: "Not as such; first I am going to question him and then I am going to kill him. Dob the Builder buried some of my best friends and I want to know just where they are buried. I also want the locations of all the bodies he had been paid to bury. Do you have any doubts about assisting me?"

 

She: "No, I am quite happy to assist. We will make him give us all the necessary data."

 

He: "Excellent. Now, we shoud practise in case we need to do more data transferals in future."

 

She: "Of course. Practise makes perfect."

 

TROUBLES AND SOLUTIONS

 

After they left the newsreel theatre they caught a public transit bus to go four blocks and then took a taxicar to the address of Dob the Builder. But EddieRa was too late. Dob the Builder was dead. In theory he had died in a brutal robbery and all the contents of his office safe and second, better hidden floor safe had been taken. EddieRa could have given up then and there but he did not because earlier on he had spread a whisper that Dob the Builder had sold Eddie JoNao some vital information of the sort that could cause harm to some dark crime syndicates. EddieRa wanted the criminals to come after him to make sure that there were no loose ends to the crime.

 

EddieRa and Hanna openly walked into the crime scene and stood there to attract attention as ambulance attendents took away the fat body of Dob Hobson, a man that in truth very few people truly liked or trusted and for very good reasons. He was treacherous, a bully and he could not in the end be trusted by anybody. So the people who had paid Dob the Builder to bury bodies beneath basement floors had decided to finish him off as a possible problem.

 

There were police constables and a detective, journalists and some witnesses. EddieRa sensed a nice old lady, pensioner, smiling away as she pulled a shopping trolley behind her, sensed the truth of her real nature, but for the moment she just walked away. Nobody approached the pair but at that early stage they would not do so. With somebody as dangerous as Eddie JoNao they would be very careful, of course.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

21 of 2 (077)

 

A SHOCKING BAD SURPRISE BUT THE UNEXPECTED APPEARANCE OF HOPE

 

The alarm went through the FreeAlliance command and higher government networks very quickly. Something very bad had happened and the Unified Ministries were apparently to blame. At once an important taskteam of VIPs, including Field Marshal Ambrass and Professor Oppemhamma who now they were clones linked to Eddie, Walker of Worlds. At first it had been a shock but they had come to terms with the news in surprisingly short time.

 

The zeeps, or electric motorised jeeps, moved swiftly through what should have been busy stone carved hallways but with proper finished surfacing and other details. Instead the big hallways had no such finishing and there were no power-doors, no guards, no anything that was supposed to be there. But the big rude shock was yet to come when the zeeps entered a great big empty chamber, a huge long cavern chamber that was supposed to be a great big industrial manufacturing, repair and storage complex. Instead it was a great big aand largely empty, dark chamber. To add insult to injury it was dotted with heaps of rubbish, with leaking metal cans of toxic waste, with stacks of old vehicles and with a heap of dead bodies in rubber body-bags.

 

They came out above floor level and onto what one could call an almost natural balcony with a central area jutting out like a sight seeing platform.

 

The soldiers, the other military people and the VIPs got out of the zeeps. They stood all looking out at the unquestionable evidence of mass fraud, robbery and murder.

 

Free Alliance Senate Chairman Colin Timberlane stepped forward and he cursed before he spoke. "This is a major blow not only to new plans to keep control of Centralia and launch a massive counter attack on the enemy, but may even compromise our chances of escaping to the ArkDomain, which we now know as Havenaedra of Oblivionaedra. We will need to set up a series of emergency meetings. Unfortunately this means we will need to cut the flow of resources to the refugees programs but what choice do we have? The FreeAlliance must remain strong. To further ensure that is done, I fear we will need to increase the power of the FreeAlliance Central Council."

 

Field Marshal Ambrass spoke then. "That being the very council that you have a great deal of influence with, Chairman. You have said it was the newly risen Unified Ministries of the FreeAlliance that did this and other great crimes against us, that vanished, that are no longer a threat."

 

The chairman whirled and glared at Ambrass. "You forget yoursef, Field Marshal Ambrass. I do not like the tone of your voice."

 

Ambrass turned to the professor. "Would you do your speciality, Professor?"

 

Opemhamma nodded smartly, turned, and nodded at some of his people. At once they took the tarp of the back of a zeep and brought a large metal box with handles over to place it close to the edge of the platform. Then they took out what looked like an exotic movie projector, indeed the body used to be a movie projector, and then they were operating the machine. From its lens spat a pulsating beam of pale light straight into the great big cavern but something odd happened. There was a sharp glittering effect, a shimmering and then the view had changed.

 

Now they were all looking at a huge and neatly arrayed collection of military and paramilitary vehicles, large missiles, other machines, hulking mecha humanoids and much else including some rather exotic looking jets. In the background was a great metal, plastic, armaglass and other materials made multiple level complex displaying the symbols of the Unified Ministries Government and all of the Unified Ministries.

 

Chariman Timberlane cried out. "No, its an illusion!"

 

Opemhamma spoke coolly and almost emotionlessly. "No, this is the truth. The other was the illusion. Please turn off the projector."

 

The machine that had smashed the very clever projected illusion was turned off, the beam flickering out.

 

Timberlane grinned and he spoke again. "You think you have won but in that complex are the soldiers of the Nuclaven of which the Unified Ministries Government is in truth a new part of, as are the Unified Ministries. Thousands of elite killers will..." But he stopped for he now realised what the others had aready seen. There were soldiers appearing but they were FreeAlliance soldiers of Field Marshal Ambrass' own forces. Armatroopers in power armour, lightly armoured elite Paratroopers and others. With them marched many prisoners who wore the military fatigues and other outfits of the treacherous Enclaven.

 

The truth was evident now to all of them there that the trick had been meant to convince the FreeAlliance leadership that a dark and cunning crime had been played upon them but the culprits were gone and of no immediate threat. So what was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

QUESTIONABLE HISTORIES OF CENTRALIA

VERY ANCIENT MYSTERIES OF THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS OF CENTRALIA

 

CULTFOLK CITY OF NINE PYRAMIDS

 

These exotic offshoots of Clansfolk were a twisted civilization that lasted about a thousand years and which became more twisted the longer that it existed. Its highlight and greatest creation were the massive Nine Pyramids of the Grand Golden Caverns that were also surrounded by a great city of carved rock buildings, terraces and other structures. The Cultfolk civilization was ended abruptly by its internal madness and growing savagery that led to a rebellion and by the massive intervention by Clansfolk forces. Clansfolk were traditionally reluctant to interfere in the affairs of others so it took a great deal to have them launch such a massive invasion.

 

The Clansfolk absorbed the surviving Cultfolk and forced the abandoment of the caverns, of the city. They then isolated it and managed to keep it isolated until the arrival of Professor Quartamain's first Lamplight Caverns Expedition. When the Clansfolk got angry, Torchwood intervened and forced Quartamain to compromise by keeping the location of the caverns a secret and by not removing any found artefacts from the area. Quartamain was not happy but he did cooperate, knowing that the Clansfolk would make it impossible to carry out any further expeditions if he did not and because he really did have more scruples than most people gave him credit for.

 

CITY OF TORMENTIA

 

Ancient city of the daedra like shaedra peoples, being distant cousin peoples of each other, built in the Broken Mazen. Tormentia was a monster city of monstrous peoples being lesser shaedra such as the shamora humanoids, the shaedalings, the shaedragons and many others including the many small toiling shaemps very much like daedra scamps but using basic weapons and tools instead of firing small fireballs. Tormentia was the basis of many dark crimes and large savage raids against other peoples.

 

Was destroyed by a great attack by an alliance of Clansfolk, Neanders and other peoples including surprisingly effective warriors of the wozfolk. Most shaedra were destroyed by a large minority escaped, including most of the mediate and greater shaedra. Where they escaped to, an how, was a mystery but Tormentia was left abandoned after much was destroyed, slaves were freed and other acts were undertaken.

 

Quartamain's last expedition arrived at Tormentia many centuries later and angered the Clansfolk as he ignored their warnings to stay away from Tormentia. The Clansfolk destroyed the artefacts that Quartermain's people managed to find and gather together. Quartamain forced the Clansfolk with him to leave. When a bigger force of Clansfolk returned, determined to make Quartamain and his people leave Tormentia, they found a vanished expedition and subtle signs that something dark and powerful had chased it from the ancient underground city. From then on the Clansfolk would keep a small settlement very close to the city complete with a garrison of elite warriors and also learned scholars on the shaedra.

[Maharg67]

41 of 1 (078)

 

AT LAST, TEKVAULT0087 OR IS IT?

 

Johnnie came to VaultTek constructed areas, to a smaller armoured wheel-door that he opened with little trouble and carefully closed behind himself. Even a smaller wheel-door was massive and heavy, this one leading to a large airlock type chamber designed for defense, security and qaurantine purposes. It was in fairly good condition but not pristine. There were status storage containers, normal storage lockers, machinery, a deactivated vaulttron robot like a slimmer, more agile version of a protectron. Next to the remains of a vaultman in ruined a blue jumpsuit lay a 10mmCS autopistol that he reclaimed along with some spare ammo and its holster from the body. The weapon fired 10mm caseless slimshot bullets.

 

But the illusion that he had actually reached TekVault0087 soon passed for he was in an odd little demivault, a semiautonomous section, that was little more than the airlock and then a small complex of chambers powered by a small Xfusion generator. He also found evidence that Super87s, supermutant members of the supermutant Super87 Faction of TekVault0087, had fairly recently dwelt there in fairly large numbers. There were some small signs of disturbance but not of outright violence. The Super87s seemed to have departed abruptly and in a great hurry. They had taken what they could with them. There was no explanation of what had happened or why the decision had been made to go.

 

That is until he found the heavily locked vaultroom with its heavy armouring and inside four shuddering, quivering, insane supermutants locked into special holding capsules. Attached to each, at the spine but covering much of the head like a glistening scale skinned slug thing, was a strange organism. Johnnie soon worked out that each was trying to control the supermutant that it was attached to but was failing though the supermutant was unable to get rid of his parasite.

 

Johnnie got to work. At first he tried conventional means to get the parasitic creatures off but then he gave up and he called upon the intervention of the Light.

 

The brainsics, or puppet-masters, became absorbed into the supermutants who became a unique kind of mutantcor. The four of them now willingly became his followers and yet they would do nothing against other Super87s, which suited Johnnie just fine. The discovery of some brainsics in a special status storage capsule had not been the only reason for the departure of the Super87s but it had been the final straw. They had gone because of increasing attacks by Berskergers and Vatlorders, other supermutant factions of TekVault0087 along with troubles with roving patrols of EagleEnclave Clonetroopers and robamoths. The three forces were busy battling each other in the area and local ghoulified zhouls and other critters were also being aggressive.

 

The new followers spoke of the Super87s going to Little Lamplight, that somehow they had learned about.

 

FINDING WHAT THE SUPER87S DIDN'T

 

Johnnie carefully pulled open the floor plate, which was a very clever fake and on hidden hinges that made it a door, and looked down into the hidden cavity. It had curving sides but was basically a storage basin full of items with a control console on one side. The items were most fascinating and they were strange puzzles also. Even as he looked at them, he knew that they were not from that Alternate Earth or from Eddie's Alternate Earth or from Oblivionaedra.

 

Five of the items were gamepacks, each with one or more DVDs, a manual and some small trinkets. They were computer games called PLANET FALLOUT, TAMRIEL ADVENTURES, WAR OF THE WORLDS 1945, CLANSFOLK REDEMPTION and WALKERS OF WORLDS. As he read the titles, an icy cold shiver went down his spine.

 

Twenty-five items were boxed figurines of various characters, faction members, monsters and others from the game worlds.

 

Then there were thirteen hard cover, high quality graphic novels based on the games but also related stories of CAPTAIN COSMOS ADVENTURES, GROGNACK THE BARBARIAN, SUPER HERO LEAGUE and THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER.

 

But the biggest surprise was the young woman lying there in a tight silver jumpsuit for she was Tammie the older sister to the quins of one of triplets. Even as he stared at her in wonder, she opened her eyes and then smiled at him warmly. "Hello Johnnie, I am now an arch-angel and the Light has sent me to keep an eye on you."

 

He groaned softly. "Yes, that would be right." Then he smiled. "Okay, up you get."

 

With a flicker of speed she was suddenly standing and she looked around at the chamber with sharp, beautiful, warm eyes. Then she looked at Johnnie. "You silly quins really have made a mess of things, haven't you? None of this should exist, not one bit of it."

 

At that he sighed softly.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

OUT OF THIRTEEN? SO FAR THESE HAVE EMERGED!

 

JOHNNIE and JohnnieJo.

 

EDDIE and EddieRa

Field Marshal Ambrass, Field Marshal Rommel, Professor Oppemhamma and a mysterious young officer.

 

LESLIE and Leslielee

 

JOANNIE

 

TAMMIE

[Maharg67]

10 of 3 (079)

 

INTO-NOT-INTO THE TRANSDIMENSIONA TRANS-ALTERNATE CUBE

 

ALONG THE EDGE OF A PRISON ZONE

 

Leslie led them through the shimmering square door and into a great metallic stone cube shaped chamber that was exactly one kilometre wide, high and long. It was filled with great big platforms, structures of networked tubes and girders, buttresses, walkways, roadways, rampways, modular structures like buildings, flying buttresses, slidways, ladderways, stairways and much else. The great structures rose right up to the ceiling and from wall to wall. The material of the structures was metallic stone like that which made up the surfaces of the great chamber. The air itself glowed with light but not too harshly and there were no shadows, giving everything an odd stark appearance. The far walls and ceiling were quite a distance away.

 

There were some people there. They wore dressed in vault jumpsuits but each one was covered with a bright rainbow pattern dotted with small emblems, pictures and other items, making each unique in appearance. There were men, women and children. These humans had a range of skin and hair colours but always the same for each person. That is a person with black skin always had black hair. The skin and hair were of colours of all kinds but most were copperish. The eyes, though, were always dull blood red with out visible irises.

 

These people moved almost robotically as they consumed water, cans of drink and foodbars from dispenser machines, carved cubes of chalky wooden material into a variety of odd shapes and dropped the finished products into enclosed shutes that vanished finally into the floor of the great chamber, slept, floated in bubbles full of a kind of thick swirling rainbow gas, or used various modular buildings for other purposes. One group was dancing on a big platform a circling circle dance that was both simple and complicated in nature, the big circling moves being basic and the smaller moves that went with them, quite complex.

 

Every single man and woman had slim black boots, a thick pouchbelt dotted with items, a big long pistol holstered at the side and a kind of shield with a spike in the centre, on their back. That is unless they were sleeping or were in one of the rainbow gas bubbles.

 

Lesie spoke quietly but somehow the rest of the group heard her clearly. "Be as quiet as possible and try not to attract any attention from these xeonazoves of the Xeonazo. They are a kind of human species but a very dangerous one that totally hates any other form of intelligence, especially other forms of human species. Yet they care very much for their own and with each other are wise, compassionate and very productive. They also have a strong shared core mentality. They waged terrrible war against the rest of their universe until they were dealt with by the Lords and Ladies of Light and vanished. They should have noticed us by now but they appear to be wrapped in some kind of enfolding field of mind, body and spirit. They assume that their lives here are normal, their group life natural, and this is a kind of sophisticated prison or at least part of one."

 

The group followed Leslie through another shimmering square doorway and into another big cube shaped chamber that looked identical to the first. There were people there also, humans, with blonde hair and very pale white skin, very pale clear eyes and who wore coveralls or jumpsuits or basic buttonshirts and longpants of canvasy material. All of the adults had butcher aprons splattered with blood stains older and newer. Every one of the adults had a big cleaver type knife at his or her side.

 

Leslie spoke again. "Natural cannibals of each other and of other human species, these canimans, enjoy most eating their victims alive. Clearly this is some kind of prison-zoo type zone. I suggest we move on."

 

Next was a great big cube chamber where floated metallic cones through the air, each having a gun-rod, a flexiable eye-stalk, two retractable manipulator tentacles that could also be used as weapons, sensor bumps, a top swivelling turret with a smaller gun-rod and a smaller flexiabe eye-stalk. They were either copper, silver or golden mostly with the copper being most common, the silver less so and the golden even less so.

 

Leslie frowned. "Former humans as small daedly humanoid creatures with many dangerous tricks, each dalez one can also meld into a dalek mechanism to become in many ways even more dangerous or more directly try to fuse into and take control over another being. Dalezs lack any real conscious and see themselves as automatically surperior to all other lifeforms. They came from the Grand War Planet as did other brutal, warlike peoples. Again, do not attract their attention."

 

Thankfully the next chamber was empty of life or so it seemed at first but Leslie again warned the others to be careful. Then the others began to see the small soft shimmerings now and then in the air, the odd little flickers and other signs of there being something alive there. Leslie snapped her fingers and for a long drawn out moment they could see the odd humans with their hariless bodies and skin with its odd wavy patterning. They were all naked because that is how they remained invisible.

 

Then the vision was gone.

 

Leslie snorted. "The invisabas are a very nasty people who used their invisibility to launch systematic raids on other peoples of robber, rape, murder and other crimes."

 

Again they left but this time they went to somewhere quite different.

 

WHERE DID ALL THE HUMANS GO, SO LONG VANISHED?

 

They came into a great chamber, a cube far bigger than the earlier ones that they had been in, and it stretched out so far into the distance in all directions that it was impossible to see the ceiling and the far walls. Anyway the sky above was cloudy. Leslie informed the others that this cube was exactly one thousand and twenty-four kilometres long, wide and high. The vast platform structure rose like some crazy skeletal mountain high into the sky. Most of it seemed to be enclosed or semi-enclosed for good reason.

 

In the distance they could see a farming settlement where humans were busy using tractors to tend to harvesting a crop. The technologies seemed to be fairly basic but the tractors were electric and safe with roll bar enforced cabins. The houses were ergonomic and there were solar power arrays and passive solar hot water systems. There were horses, some people rode them, dogs, other animals such as livestock like cattle and goats. They noted a fruit orchard of some kind.

 

Then the figure was coming down out of the sky, a blonde woman in a rather immodestly tight and small blue leotard and a short cape, slim boots and a curious 'SW' symbol on her front. Then she was thrusting out her chest and was speaking loudly as she stride with legs wide and hands fisted on hips. "I am SuperWoman and I would know what you strangers are doing in the Domain of Ever Harmoneous Peace. Actually this is North-Eastern Utopiatopia. Never can emphasize the 'utopia' of the 'utopia' too much. Long ago the people came from a world being torn by world war and then a great invasion by evil Martian creatures. We were given a chance to come here and so many of us did."

 

In the distance a battletripod appeared to stride across gentle hill lands but it was hauling timber in the form of big logs.

 

SuperWoman noted the tripod and nodded. "Not all of the tripocs supported the invasion and the massacre of humanity fully. They changed sides. Now they also enjoy Utopiatopia where all is good, peaceful and graceful. Now go for it is forbidden for Outsiders to come here."

 

Leslie smiled. "You were once the FreeAlliance."

 

"Yes, we were once the FreeAlliance but now we are too free to need the FreeAlliance." The woman thrust her breasts out in a way that caused Leslie to step back just a little. "Yes, we are the wondrous Utopiatopians, the people of amazing wisdom and unquestionable humbleness."

 

"Okay!" Leslie gave a mild grin and turned to the others. "A big mystery solved, it seemed, but we really should be leaving." She turned back to SuperWoman. "Nice meeting you but you may refrain from saying anything else and, please, no more deep breaths."

 

The group departed in a hurry.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

11 of 3 (080)

 

IN THE LABYRINTH OF EXOTICA

 

While Leslie led her group back into Cubetown, into the large underground complex there, Leslielee made a discovery of her own.

 

The glowcrystal lit and warmed cave system was curved of corners and walls, of ceilings, but the floors were straight enough. Leslielee walked through the soft Glittering Mist that filled the cave chambers and tunnels so lightly so that all one saw was a little obscured. Water flowed down smooth, curved channels in the floor and into big bowl shaped pools, then out through grill-holes in the centre. One wall was dotted with neat three metre cubic alcoves and in each one was a one metre wide sphere of high quality gold, silver, copper, iron or some other metal. Already Unityfolk were claiming spheres of metal with some difficulty and as they took any one of them, the process of replacement (respawning) began.

 

Aranu, a newer arrived Unitywoman, was the new leader of the Unityfolk. She was standing close to Leslielee and was smiling but the smile did not quite reach her eyes. Leslielee admired many of the leadership skills of this woman but did not quite trust her. To Leslielee, Aranu represented the dark side of the Unity in the form of survival selfishness and fear based narrow focus of vision.

 

Aranu spoke then. "If you become a member of the new Unification Hope Leadership Council, the UHLC, then you will gain power, status and influence."

 

"I serve the Light." Leslielee sniffed the air. "Something smells quite interesting and it is not any metal sphere. There must be an explanation for the strange nature of this place. I was told you want to turn away all non-Unityfolk from finding safety here or even a new home. That would be breaking our agreement and it will not be happening."

 

"How can we stay secret otherwise." Aranu frowned. "We need to do more than turn people away. We need to make sure that they can not tell others of our location."

 

"You mean murder. That will not be happening either." Leslielee stepped away from Aranu. "I have work to do. If you have nothing of real validity to speak to me about, then I suggest strongly that you leave me. You can inform this new toy of yours, this Unification Hope Leadership Council, that it is duly disbanded. There is already the Unity Peoples Leadership Council and I am already its chairperson."

 

Aranu did not even pretend to smile this time but nodded briskly, turned and strode off back towards the main settlements. People were arriving every day and while many were of Unity, many were not of Unity. Somehow FreeUnion refugees from Frostfall Bay had learned of the place but problem was they bought few resources with them. Now more resources had to be found for them. At least the great majority of refugees were willing to work hard to make the settlements viable. The majority of Unityfolk were happy enough to mingle with nonUnity but a few, like Aranu, had become bitter thanks to bad experiences at the hands of antiparanormalist fanatics. As a child she had seen her father beaten to death and her mother raped by so called pure-normals, that is brutal thugs.

 

Leslielee felt for Aranu and had even tried to talk about what had happened but Aranu saw Leslielee as an outsider who could not be trusted.

 

Then she followed her nose across the great floor and to one tunnel mouth of a row of five of them. The tunnel mouth looked identical to the others. Then she was plunging down a fairly steep incline and through a dimly lit tunnel. Then straight out into a big, smoothed off, glowcrystal cavern. Leslielee strode out into the middle of it and then turned to take it all in. There was another row of three metre cubic alcoves and in them were one metre wide spheres but these were made of various kinds of organic substance be it wood, meat, cheese, butter and many others. She especially liked the spheres of dark, milk and white chocolate.

 

What was this place? It was amazing and some what crazy in nature.

 

Why was no other life there to take advantage of all the free resources?

 

Which is when she sensed them coming.

 

TREACHEROUS ATTACK

 

Eighteen UnityPro fanatics, with Aranu at their head, came charging through the tunnel and out into the big cavern. They came in body-armour and with automatic weapons. They came into a seemingly empty chamber and they looked around in amazement at the cube shaped alcoves and the spheres of different organic material.

 

Aranu spoke to the others. "We have our UnityMentality to call upon, our special abilities. She must be here somewhere. We must kill her for the good of Unity."

 

"Really, must you?" Leslie's voice came from a direction but when the group whirled there was nobovy there.

 

One of the fanatics cried out as he was taken, as he vanished with a soft sparkling shimmer.

 

Leslie's voice came again. "When did you start listening to the dark voice in the corner of your minds? That was not, is not, will never be the looser UnityMentality or the tighter core of the UnityMind. When did it seem that it was the real wisdom that you so badly wanted to hear? You see, we quins are linked to Unity in a special way. Enemies of Unity? Far from it but neither are we unquestioning supporters of Unity."

 

Another fanatic vanished as Leslie used Unity against Unity with her link to Unity.

 

Aranu looked around with a face twisted with emotions, let out a huge sigh of air and dropped her gun. "Very well, we will no longer listen to the dark voices and we will give your way a chance."

 

Leslie was suddenly there with a smile and the two stunned looking Unityfolks she had taken. "Oh, that is very good of you Aranu."

 

But then Aranu dived for her gun and raised it to shoot Leslie with a cry of enraged triumph. There were three shots and she toppled forward, dead, with a look of surprise on her face. Her second command, Elizabeth, was standing there and was lowering her own weapon. "Unity needs nonUnity to truly grow, to be strong. UnityMind brought me here to deal with Aranu and the brutal crimes she helped commit against a large number of nonUnity people.

 

Leslie was not sure she wanted to deal with UnityMind in one of its many expressions but doing so was better than dealing with hate filled killers like Aranu.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

12 of 3 (081)

 

WORKING TOGETHER APART

 

Leslie informed the new FreeAlliance of Havenaedra that the peoples of the Great Exodus, from the Johnnie's Alternate Earth, seemed to be dwelling in the strange Utopiatopia as Utopiatopians. Except this had to be confirmed.

 

Cubetown was growing rapidly, more underground than above, especially when the Great Cube began to provide curious forms of organic material, electricity and others through a chamber accessed through yet another square phasedoor that appeared. Leslie and a few others were wary of the FreeAlliance using these new resources but the FreeAlliance needed the new resources and began to take what it could from the first moment.

 

Leslie learned that Clansfolk that had come from the FreeUnion Alternate Earth, had formed their own colonies on, inside and around the great low hulking tabletop mountain of MesaRizen. Yet they were not exclusionist and many nonClansfolk lived amongst them, normally in seperate territories. Dragons had been spotted patrolling the skies above the Clansfolk Territories known as the Clansdom.

 

Leslielee noted the new Unityfolk colony growing steadily and with purpose. The new resources were used avidly but the Unityfolk did not wish to become too dependent on them and began building up manufacturing, farming and other enterprises. Leslie sent some people from Cubetown to visit the Unity Colony and to examine the strange spheres of metal and organic material. It was decided that they might have simply been set up as a kind of very efficient manufactured supply of basic needs but for whom and by whom or what? Nor was it an accident that the alcoves were perfect cubes, except for the open sides, and the goods came as perfect spheres.

 

The FreeUnion could not return to their old Alternate Earth. It was forbidden to them now as it was cleansed of the undead and was allowed to recover from massive human exploitation and other forms of abuse. This information was sent to the humans of Havenaedra through the Unity and the Five.

 

The military campaign at Frostfall Bay had achieved its first major victory against the enemy. The Nuclaven had suffered a series of major losses, being driven out of two important towns and off a site overlooking an important pass. New reinforcements from Eddie's Alternate Earth had swung the balance but also the appearance of one Field Marshal Rommel, a brilliant military commander. He had taken over the command from good but not great commanders and had swept changes through the tactical, strategic and logistical approaches and structures of the forces newly under his command. Aeroships had been utilised better, as had other assets.

 

Yet the Nuclaven remained a great threat and now a puzzling one as it seemed to have fallen under the control of some kind of alien power. Nuclaven humans were controlled by braincaps that doubled as helmets and were using an increasingly wide range of exotic technologies along with more traditional ones such as guns, battletanks, aeroships and even a couple of aircraft carriers.

 

Then human refugees began to arrive from the Nuclaven, humans who had escaped from the controlling power of ruthless monsters that they called the PuppetMasters. How these PuppetMasters had managed to so quickly take control over the Nuclaven was unclear to the refugees but data was gathered and it seemed that treachery was involved along with cunning stupidity. A dark mentality, the same one that had tried to have Aranu kill Leslielee, had seduced the insane Nuclaven leadership into willingly giving into the PuppetMasters control, the leadership thinking they were going to become part of an amazing new biotechnological network-system that would give them much new power; instead it enslaved them and, finding many of them unsuitable, killed them.

 

The PuppetMasters seemed to be the servants of the dark mentality but this was also yet to be confirmed.

 

These PuppetMaster creatures were a little different from those found by Johnnie on his PostDD Alternate Earth, they being fused to supermutants.

 

It was confirmed that Joannie was on a super-continent called Tamriel that was far south of the new FreeAlliance but also in another phaselayer, as such was known.

 

Eddie was still in Lamplight Town on the FreeAlliance home Alternate Earth and with him was EddieRa.

 

Johnnie was still trying to get into TekVault0087 proper and JohnnieJo was still in Little Lamplight.

 

SUDDEN COMMUNICATIONS OF IMPORTANCE

 

Leslie was up in Cubetown, the surface zone, was enjoying a cool breeze even as a big aeroship-freighter came sailing in gently to land. For a moment it seemed to fill the sky overhead of her with its great squat saucer shape, much patched in places but being attacked in air-convoys, and then it was gone. Way overhead a white full moon could be seen. Not only did it look like that of the Alternate Earths, it was much the same and could be reached by rocketship.

 

She was standing close to a big military truck where some soldiers were busy playing cards and drinking cold bottles of beer. That is she was standing in a guard tower but she was alone. In the darkness, but far from deep darkness, the youthful woman was enjoying the cool breeze, the sounds of crickets and the sounds of the soldiers arguing over a few dollars.

 

Then, suddenly, Bobbie was there as a translucent figure. She was almost identical appearing to Leslie except this was but one of the twin aspects of Bobbie, being BobbieShe. BobbieShe spoke and her voice sounded muffled and oddly distant. "A powerful force is trying to stop me from joining you other quins. It is failing now and I will hopefully be with one of you soon. Please inform the others that I may have to try to reach OrbisTransZia first."

 

Then she was gone, just like that.

 

It was good news that Bobbie was coming but also disturbing for Bobbie was easily the most powerful and wisest of the quins. If something could even slow Bobbie the Walker of Worlds from coming, then that dark force was truly powerful. Unless, of course, matters were more complicated than that; too often they were.

 

Leslie turned at looked up at the vast metallic stone cube and wondered yet again how it was linked to the truth of what was taking place.

 

Suddenly there was another sparkling shimmer and she turned to find herself facing a small, angry sad baby figure, a neobaby with a chubby muscular body who wore an odd silvery nappisuit. Leslie let out a cry of agony, grabbed her stomach and doubled up to fall heavily to the floor of the guard-tower. Soon others had come to see what was happening, so loud had been the cry and so much had Unity been alerted, and quickly they took Leslie to hospital. People were astonished for she was a Walker of Worlds and considered to be next to industructable.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

EMERGING PATTERNS, CLUES AND QUESTIONS

 

FOUR STORIES

 

 

Unity

UnityMind and UnityMentality

Unityfolk

UnityPro

AntiUnity

 

TekVault0087, TekVault0088 and LifeVaultA0100.

*TekVault basis of mutagenic, FEV, research and development.

*TekVault basis of ghoulification, FEV, research and development.

*LifeVaultAD100 being the basis of a large colony.

 

Shadow Elder, Shadow Ones and the Beautiful Ones?

*False immortality.

 

Mushroom people?

 

Wozfolk?

 

Jumping Jack Flash and the Mysterious Stranger?

 

Ancient temples and artifacts?

 

Little Lamplighters, Big Lamplighters, Lost Lamplighters and ?

 

Clansfolk and the Lamplight Clansdom?

 

Dragonfolk?

 

Tripocs, octopocs and the GreatRace (UnamedOnes)?

 

Tribals and gangers?

 

Ghouls, zhouls and ?

 

Supermutants?

 

PuppetMasters?

 

Enclaven, Nuclaven and Unified Ministries?

 

Small internal voices?

The mysterious angry baby?

Neobabies?

 

???

 

PS: TO BE EDITED IN SOME ALTERNATE FUTURE

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00040-1.jpg

Edited December 11, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

42 of 1 (082)

 

DEALING WITH SUPERMUTANTS

 

Johnnie sent all of the strange items to the safety of OrbisTransZia, that is the graphic novels, the computer gamepacks, the figurines and other items. She wished he could send Tammie also but clearly she did not intend to go. He also sent the supermutants to OrbisTransZia. He did this because they were stilll creatures who enjoyed combat instead of stealth and because he wanted to know more about them and OrbisZiaMind would study them.

 

Johnnie and Tammie made their way through rugged, dry cave tunnels and chambers that often held junk or the skeletal remains of dead mutagenic mutated creatures. Radroaches scuttled through the caves and at times there were swarms of smaller roaches. The radroaches seemingly ignored the pair.

 

They heard the shooting, the battle cries and other sounds of battle before they came upon a small but intense battle raging over the control of a large cavern chamber. Berskergers were sending waves of attackers against supermutants of a kind very different to the standard ones. Johnnie soon figured that these must be 'Vatlorders'. The Super87s had told him about them or at least what little they knew. Vatlorders were a kind of supermutant that had men and women. All the Vatlorders were about the same size and the females were noticeably smaller than the males who were in turn smaller than the sexless ones of many of other factions of supermutants. These Vatlorders had zeznull creatures serving them being of different kinds, all vagely like zentaurs, including humanoids that used basic weapons.

 

The Vatlorders were dug into the top of the great glowcavern, where sending volleys of bullets at the attackers from heavy machineguns large and menacing. They fired also heavy assault rifles, pulselasers and pulseblasters along with 5.5mm bullet shooting miniguns. The way up to the Vatlorder defences was dotted with landmines and booby-traps. The Vatlorders were also using robotic turrets they had put into place that fired 20mm autoguns.

 

The Berskergers were having a difficult time in the attack and many were dying or lying wounded out in the open.

 

Problem for the Vatlorders was they were greatly outnumbered, being at least ten to one, and the Berskergers were actually being smarter in their attacks than they used to be.

 

Johnnie frowned hard and decided that they would go around, would avoid the trouble between two dangerous and brutal supermutant factions that both had the evil habit of abducting people. He would lead Tammie further on to TekVault0087.

 

But Tammie the ArchAngel had other ideas and she stepped out into the open, blazed with white light and that light spread through out the great chamber. At once the fighting came to an brupt end. Johnnie shook his head with some irony and then joined Tammie. He had to admit that she radiated much power of the Light but wondered just how effective that she possibly be with such as the Vatlordeers and Berskergers.

 

BATHED IN THE LIGHT: A CHANCE TO TALK THINGS THROUGH

 

Tammie put a stop to the fight and the Light cured all the wounded, bringing the dead back to life, and it seemed like a miracle. Except that Johnnie knew that such 'miracles' always came with a price tag.

 

In shock, understandably so, the leaders of the two supermutant factions came to meet with Tammie and with each other. Johnnie sat with them but said nothing as he preferred in this case to be a passive witness. Tammie was a little tired and had clearly, to Johnnie, used a good deal of her power to be a conduit to the Light in the fashion that she had been.

 

It soon turned out that these Berskergers were, or at least had been, under the influencee of a dark, subtle, powerful and hidden entity. They called him the ShadowLord but Johnnie had no doubt that it was the same entity that the Guidemara Tribe had called the ShadowElder.

 

Tammie was not out to convert anybody, just to stop the fighting, but more than that happened. The Vatlorders were stunned and were seeing a new set of possibilities for their existence. The Berskergers had fallen in love with Tammie, especially those brought back to life by the Light. These Vatlorders and these Berskergers agreed on a peace treaty but how would their peoples respond to such a hppening?

 

When a zentaur came up and snuggled up to Johnnie, lying its head on his lap, Johnnie simply stroked its head gently. The Light had taken away the pain of such creatures, be they zentaurs or others, and this one had sensed that Johnnie would be nice to it. Soon two other zentaurs were snuggled up close to him and were sleeping peacefully. Tammy gave Johnnie and his new companions an odd smile before she went back to talking with the supermutants.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67