Walkers of Worlds

[Maharg67]

17 of 3 (103)

 

AN IMPORTANT MEETING OF SORTS IN CUBETOWN

 

Mulder and Scully went over the documentation that Leslie had prepared for them, sitting at the same big metal table as her. They were clearly Unityfolk now and were in contact with the Unityfolk with Leslielee. They were also aware that something was wrong with what was happening with the FreeAlliance in Havenaedra. They were in a cave chamber turned into a library-study that was the private one used by Mulder and Scully. They lived there also and a heavy curtain blocked off an area with a double bed, a kitchen area and other facilities.

 

Fox Mulder held up a sheet of paper. "So, according to this report the number of FreeAlliance people leaving Eddie's Alternate Earth has dropped down to a trickle." Then he picked up another sheet of paper. "But according to this report, there has been a huge boost in the number of FreeAlliance people arriving in Frostfallandre. If the majority of them are not coming from Eddie's Alternate Earth, where are they coming from?"

 

Scully frowned softly as she shuffled through some dull coloured 2D photographs. Then she indicated one. "Some of the new humans have gills and are amphibious. Some have exotic solar wings that allow them to fly in sunlight, or if charged, in darkness. Others have gills and dolphin like tails, are aquatic. Yet others are nocturnal. If that was not enough they have what seems to be a secondary shared mentality something like Unity and yet not like Unity."

 

She sat back. "The majority of the new humans are like people from the FreeUnion Alternate Earth and Eddie's Earth except they come from something called the New Roman Empire, the United States of Europe and the Empire of Mongolia. Unity is a weak flow through out all of the newcomers."

 

So people were coming in from other Alternate Earths but why? Monstrous flying dragon like monsters had invaded one world and the other world was suffering from both a terrible ice age and great ice beasts coming southwards and northwards from both poles.

 

Leslie shook her head. "All of this should be coming under firmer control. We of the Nine are here for a reason. Yet we do not seem to be doing any good. These worlds are real but not real. A kind of quasireality that we created but which instantly, upon creation, became independent from us."

 

Mulder bit his lip softly. "How independent? Perhaps it is time that you Eight began to try to use your special abilities to make things better."

 

"Playing at being God?" Leslie shuddered. "That is how this whole mess began in the first place." She reached out and tapped a pencil against a notepad full of neat hand written notes, hers of course. "Somebody, something, wants a big war to take place here in Havenaedra. They have been angling for it to happen for a very long time. Create all these Alternate Earths and then have them give over most of their peoples to Havenaedra. Were we Nine the first to be tricked into being part of this long term plot? I am starting to doubt it very much. So why a huge war in Havenaedra? Is there something about the nature of Havenaedra that..." She stopped in frustration.

 

Suddenly a man ran into the chamber and even as he did so, he was clutching his chest as blood flowing from beneath his fingers. He was Unityfolk and was a scientist. His face was ashen as he spoke in fear. "A madness is going through the people. A stranger has come and the people are following his orders with out question, are almost worshipping him. Only a few seem strong enough to resist him and we of Unity are amongst them."

 

There was the muffled noises of shooting but not much of a battle was taking place. It seemed the stranger had come and conquered with no real effort at all.

 

Leslie, Mulder, Scully, the wounded scientists and others did escape through the Candlelight Caverns but too many innocents were rounded up that day by people they knew and were made to vanish to some place secret and mysterious.

 

WITH THE UNITYFOLK

 

Unityfolk had come in increasing numbers and had brought with them others, swelling the population of the secret colony greatly. Unity worked efficiently and were soon producing goods of many kinds, growing foods and gathering resources from the Candlelight Caverns. A constant flow of yeti were now a small but strong minority of the colonial population. From one of the alcoves came a constant flow of frognoids, a kind of frog humanoid robot. There were different kinds being security guards, medics, cooks, couriers, fire-fighters, scholars, soldiers, workers, servants and three kinds of ever changing individual types. The strange frognoids thumped around the place with a clumsy grace something like that of protectrons and served the people in various ways.

 

Leslie met with Leslielee and the two walked through the colony. Mulder, Scully and the others went off to settle into new quarters, taking with them what they had managed to salvage from Cubetown. People were still in shock at the ease at which the tall, dark, robed stranger had managed to dominate the minds of the people back in Cubetown.

 

They did not really need or want to speak to each other, being aspects of the same person. They focused together to better understand the situation and to come up with new ideas.

 

Then they had at least one.

 

Soon, with some convincing, people started leaving the colony to be sent to OrbisTransZia. Soon a steady stream of people were doing so. Also being sent were other lifeforms and resources.

 

Good news came for OrbisTransZia had expanded with an industrial and a mountain valley bubblehaven. The population was expanding steadily there in OrbisTransZia and was becoming an advanced, sophisticated society in its own right. Unity was rising strongly and positively amongst the population.

 

Leslielee would continue to stay with the colony there in Havenaedra but Leslie would set out again to try to find out just what was happening. The expected Hordafolk attack had not taken place but nobody was taking chances.

 

This time Leslie took Mulder and Scully with her and a special vehicle plus some other special resources. She had decided to act like a power, like a true Walker of Worlds.

Edited December 26, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

18 of 3 (104)

 

TRANSORBISMINI

 

TransOrbisMini was a much smaller version of TransOrbisZia and also much older. It was a little eccentric at times and yet powerful, reliable and useful enough for Leslie's needs. She went to Eddie's Alternate Earth and to Lamplight Town that was now overshadowed by a vast Great Transdimensional Cube of metallic stone.

 

Pearlisa met her and hugged her but they were a little wary of each other because they were too much like each other. Pearlisa led Leslie to where Eddie was lying in an odd kind of coma for he was not suffering in any way normal to typical coma patients. He kept healthy and fit despite his body lying there with Ongry, Jassy, Kitty and some other animals lying on the big bed with him. Ongry the neobaby was sitting on Eddie's chest and was looking sleepy. Leslie picked him up and hugged him to herself and Ongry opened his eyes, looked surprised and then chortled as he was fussed over.

 

Eddie stirred, his eyes opened and he looked up at Leslie. "Everything has shifted. I should have realised it already. This whole Alternate Earth is now inside Havenaedra and has been so since the Great Transdimensional Cube appeared just outside of Lamplight Town. The world has changed shape to become a phaselayer. Centralia now floats in the ocan south of Frostfallan and north of the Green Islands and the not so Friendly Archipelago. Such power, such incredible power to do such a thing but then again everything was unstable so in a way all it took was the cutting of transdimensional rubber bands that held things in a particular time-space."

 

Then the transformation had only just become completed. The locals would be in for a huge surprise unless of course they had gotten used to such things happening in that place.

 

Pearlisa was frowning softly. "We are all retreating underground into the Lamplight Caverns since the monsters began to arrive on Centralia. Huge monsters like Mothra, Godzilla and others. Somehow we all know their names but we do not know how we know their names or where they come from. Chaos rules the world when peace had become so promising."

 

A great shudder went through the mansion. Godzilla, the monstrous lizard monster, was striding across Golden Greens where once the Martians and the Enclaven had fought the FreeAlliance and the Brotherhood of Steel had come to the rescue of the FreeAlliance. The huge monster ingored the salvoes of rockets being fired at it as if they were the fleeting stings of tiny insects. It let out a roar and the great plates running down its spine began to glow. It was not interested in fighting pitiful little humans or even the dragons flittering through the sky but another massive monster like a huge three headed dragon that was flying slowly through the air towards him. The other monster was Anguirus. Flaming energies leapt from Godzilla's mouth at the great flying monster and it returned with huge fireballs of its own.

 

Eddie sighed and he gently pushed some animals to the side as he sat up. He stroked Jassy's head. "There can be no peace, mother, until everything is resolved back to a natural balance as it should be. First we need to find the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what truly happened with the nine of us teenagers, including Dibbie the teenage neobaby. I think we will continue to belong to more than one reality, somehow, for our fundamental nature has been changed. Then again, I could be wrong. It seems I have been wrong about a few things."

 

Soon Eddie and Leslie, with some others, were going to OrbisTransMini. Over the next hourse they used the exotic machine to transport many people, animals and goods from the mansion down into the new underground mansion estate. Even building parts and garden materials were being salvaged. There was talk of reconstructiong the beautiful old mansion in one of the great big glowcaverns so Eddie and Leslie used the TransOrbisMini to move the mansion, complete with its underground areas.

 

A SHORT LASTING ENEMY VICTORY

 

The power of the tall, dark robed stranger over people vanished and he was forced to flee as soldiers chased him and fired guns at him. Eddie and Leslie walked amongst the murdered and with the assistance of the Light, brought them back to life. It was done because the previous act should not have taken place so it was just a natural rebalancing. The whole event was strange but no more strange than many of the events that had been taking place.

 

But it soon became clear that the intruder had come not to dominate people or to cause death and destruction. He had come to steal some artefacts and he had done just that. What were these strange artefacts? They were Computer Game Guides in hardcover showing how best to play computer games like PLANET FALLOUT, WAR OF THE WORLDS 1945 and others. Again it had come back to a series of computer games that described worlds with features shown by the various Alternate Earths experienced by Johnnie and Eddie along with Havenaedra as experienced by Leslie and Joannie.

 

Had the computer games been somehow part of the basis of the creation of various Alternate Earths? It seemed somehow impossible but then again the whole situation seemed somewhat impossible.

 

A Cubetown tried to settle down from the confusion that still convulsed it, the two Walkers of Worlds made more plans. They set out and picked up Leslielee and then shot off towards Tamriel, towards Cyrodiil and Joannie.

 

 

THIS IS THE END OF STORY #3 BUT EDDIE AND LESLIE WILL BE RETURNING

 

Edited December 26, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

REAL BUT NOT REAL REALITY

 

Real but not real reality?

 

The computer games?

 

How, where and why it had all begun?

 

The real identities of the Nine?

 

The Thirteen?

 

The Shadow Nine?

 

The Dark Entity?

[Maharg67]

13 of 4 (105)

 

AT THE CASTLE OF DUCHESS ELAINE TARADA

 

Leslie and Eddie met Joannie close to the main gate of the big but slowly crumbling castle of the Duchess Elaine Tarada. There also appeared Tassie, who had appeared to Leslielee briefly before Leslie had gone to meet her, and Tommie who had been with Leslie for a time in the Great Transdimensional Cube. Grognak was there along with his people and GROGNAK'S PRIDE. That meant that five of the Nine were there in one place, which was not something that had been planned, at least not by them.

 

Somehow it had just happened?

 

Or was that the case?

 

The castle lay abandoned but there had been no battle there. It seemed that Elaine Tarada, who was really an aspect of the Twelth, had fled with her vampires and other followers, and with much wisdom, so had the other folks. The Duchy of Carnohagen was gone. In truth it had turned out to be something of a joke for it was but five villages, a town and the castle. So why had a powerful dark force taken so much effort to attack it, unless of course it was just after the Duchess.

 

GROGNAK'S PRIDE became on the outside a big armoured carriage drawn by six dragonhorses with scaled armour and twin horns. It rode swiftly through the countryside along dirt roads and the few bandits who saw it were far too wise to try to attack it. They passed many ruined inns, villages and other settlements until they came to a border post of the Kvatch Zone. There Imperial Borderguards stood with scale-armour and leathers with arcane magical swords, shields and bows. There was a fair sized garrison of these Imperial Borderguards but they took one look at Joannie, she went to speak with them, gave her a passport that was already stamped, and asked her to move on.

 

It was clear that the border post had been informed that she was on her way but how had that happened?

 

They were soon amongst typical Cyrodilin countryside life as farmers moved past in convoys of farm-wagons and hired Frighters Guild mercenaries, as Imperial Roadguards rode past on horse on duties once carried out by Imperial Legionaries, as hunting parties brought in deer or other game from the forests. There were travellers on foot, on horse, or in the one of the horse drawn stagecoaches. At first they saw no sign at all of the amazing new form of magic that was supposed to have transformed the Cyrodilin Empire.

 

They halted outside of a large inn within distant sight of the massive walled city of Kvatch, but from a distant angle from the one that Joannie first saw it, once destroyed by the daedric hordes of Mehrunes Dagon but long ago rebuilt. It was very impressive. The people at the inn were moderately friendly. Grognak took them somewhat by surprise but not too much in a land populated by orcs, trolls, ogres and much else that was big and hulking.

 

As they sat at a big wooden table, a waitress came to serve them with bowls of travel stew, sourbread rolls dipped in olive oil and clay mugs of cooled water, cidar and beer. Grognak complained that none of the alcohol was strong enough for his taste until the inn keeper brought him a dark bottle of stuff and Grognak, taking a swig, laughed with pleasure. The drink was called the DREADED MAIDEN.

 

There was sobering news coming from distant Imperiarna, the Imperial Throne City and increasingly dark stories circulating. Strange things were happening with the new magic. There was increasing tension between the Empress and the Emperor. A series of assassinations had taken place by the Emperor's Dark Brotherhood and the Empress' own ShadowBlades. It was hard to tell just what the truth was.

 

TALKING WITH BORIS THE INN KEEPER

 

Boris the Innkeeper was happy enough to sit down at the table with these well off travellers who had not only spent lavishly for themselves but had shouted all the customers and staff a round of drinks of their choice. Boris clutched a glass mug of better quality cidar in his hands and he gave a mild smile. "Strange stories, yes, but not of all of the new magic. No, such as the Teletalks, well people are still chatting away and seeing each other from a distance except word is everything one communicates is spied upon but so many people use the Teletalks it would be hard to watch and listen to everybody, especially if conversations were disguised. Televiews is full of Emperor's stuff. Him and his cronies get to say what shows on the Televiews and lately they are showing only bad things about the Empress and her people, her allies. But Teletalks and Televiews get only used by certain people in the Imperial Government, in the new Guilds or who have enough money to pay for such things. Back when it was all new there were promises that one day it would all be free for all but that has never happened and as far as I can tell, it will never happen."

 

Then he leaned forward and spoke more softly. "Them Teleways that make people and goods and cattle and things travel instantly from city to city, well not everything that goes in one end has been coming out of the other either quite right or at all. People and living things have come out kind of changed but not in any obvious way, at least not at first glance, but it is said they are mirror reveresed and that they are dangerous, montrous and strange. So now Teleways only send non living things or so it is supposed to be but some people cheat and some people will be bribed."

 

The Five there all had a sense that there was something important in this, something that reflected on something else that had happened that they should be remembering but they did not.

 

They drank, they ate, and they listened as Boris spoke again. "Rejenoways, the miracle healing and rejuvenation system, well it cures most people okay with small wound and burns and things, very well, in the secondary treatments. But those primary treatments have started turning people strange and dangerous, especially if people abuse them to try to stay young, to become immortal, why too many are inclined to do."

 

He grimaced. "Visionways, those real but not real worlds that one can supposedly fulfill any fantasy in, well I would stay away from them. Word is that people get addicted, go mad and can no longer tell reality from Visionways fantasies. Replicaways, well they copy things right and copying non living things is okay but try copying living things and they come out twisted, mirror reversed, just like those twisted folks from the Teleways."

 

Boris took a swig of his cidar and then started speaking again. "Transformoway, that has been closed down I think. Transforms things it does but it has funny results, not good results."

 

He sighed and took another swig before speaking again. "TuTubeala, the public transporation system of bubbles in tubes, well that is working mostly fine but now and then there is an accident, sometimes a terrible accident, and they are becoming more frequent. As for Bubbblelata, the protective safety bubbles, well most of the time they are good but sometimes, just sometimes, they don't so much protect one as kill one."

 

Boris shrugged. "The other items like the rocketows, platformics, mentubands, nisuitics, wheelics and orbistocs are mostly fine but perhaps no longer as reliable as they first were. Same can be said of jogolems, skelems and manequelems be they workers, soldiers or servants."

 

Again he paused before speaking again. "The Empress has been demanding that all of the Machane be deactivated, that is the great stations that power all of the Machane magic but the Nine MachineLords, as they are now called, are refusing to do so and the Emperor is blindly supporting them."

 

Then he gave a mild grin. "I used to belong to the real Dark Brotherhood but I got sick of it and was allowed to retire. Despite stories that nobody is allowed to retire from the Dark Brotherhood, that was not true as long as one was willing to keep silent and do small, none dangerous tasks for the Dark Brotherhood. They even used to provide me with a monthly pension of five goldsworth. The Dark Brotherhood got seduced by the Emperor. They became greedy. Then one day the Emperor tricked all of the active Dark Brotherhood people to meet in a great hall for a celebration. What fools they were? They broke all of the smart guidelines of the brotherhood and paid for it. They were massacred by strange new super-assassins that moved and fought with amazing ability. They cut down the disarmed or poorly armed real Dark Brotherhood in a few minutes. Only three escaped, which is how I got to learn the truth. The Dark Brotherhood now is not the real Dark Brotherhood. I tell you this because I want revenge on the Emperor and you are not his friends, far from it." He took out a thick leather folder and passed it over. "Lots of maps, notes and other stuff about the real Dark Brotherhood secret ways, bases and other tricks that the false Dark Brotherhood are now using. They are stupid to do so but the Emperor is like that at times, as are his cronies."

 

Boris stood up and drank down the last of the cidar. "Thank you for the drink but I have knowingly broken the code of the true Dark Brotherhood and must pay for it. Truth is I no longer want to live in this world that gets stranger and more dangerous every day."

 

Then he fell to the floor, dead. Then, to his mild annoyance, Tammie (the Light) brought him back again as a human elementor to serve a new cause.

 

Edited December 27, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

14 of 4 (106)

 

RIDING TO KVATCH

 

Grognak was not pleased when the others got him to make the exterior of the GROGNAK'S PRIDE look more like a straight forward travel-coach and to attract far less attention. Leaving Boris behind as an observer, they made good time to the heavily walled city of Kvatch. Even as they came closer, they saw a strange metallic disk shaped platform move past just above the ground and while a copper robed figure steered it, in the back were great big metallic boxes guarded by two silver armoured figures with odd big barrelled rifle like weapons, rocket. The transport device was a machane driven platformic and the guns were small rocketows. Each figure wore a thick metallic webwork band around his or her head. The Five and Grognak sensed something oddly disturbing about the figures for though outwardly human in appearance, there was something alien about them.

 

There were groups of angry people clustered close to the roads closer to the city walls, outside of farms, stables, cottages and even an inn or two. Many bore weapons. There were mercenaries, hunters, gladiators, veterans and other fighters amongst them. Some of the weapons were of arcane magic and there were some mages there along with druids, healers and others of magic.

 

Those on the platformic were moving quite quickly and as they sped towards the city gates, one of the guards raised his rocketow and casually shot an elderly man dead who was in no way a threat. From the weapon spat a small fireball of burning intense red at the centre surrounded by flaring yellow. At once two arrows thudded into the guard and he fell to the deck but, apart from glancing at his body, neither of the other figures on the platformic responded. After a moment the dead man on the platformic vanished, that is his body did. The great gates on that side of the city were open and the platformic went straight through.

 

But there lay dead bodies scattered over the area, a smashed farmcart turned onto its side and some huge burn marks. A few of the dead were Kvatch Cityguards. A small but intense battle had taken place there and empty exotic sets of silvery armour indicated that both sides had taken heavy losses.

 

Of the Imperial Cities of Cyrodiil, Kvatch was one of those which had relatively few of the new machane magic technologies. Though it had Teleways, Talkways and Viewways, they were limited impact and usefulness. The locals had not wanted many of the new bubbletubes built in their city and decided that platformics floating around were good at scaring horses. The machane tended to be confined to the New Kvatch sector built outwards from one of the old walls.

 

They drew the GROGNAK'S PRIDE to a halt and pondered what they would do next. Ahead of them, through the big open gateway, lay cobbled streets, buildings and a large courtyard of sorts. The place was littered with scattered bodies and other things as if normal bustling life had been suddenly and brutally interrupted. A large statue was there, proudly in armour and holding high a great sword, being the Eternal Champion. But her head was melted a little.

 

Nothing moved, not even such as small birds.

 

But a soldier came out from behind some trees and had the travel coach halt, him looking up at the big stocky figure of Grognak with some awe. "You try to go through those gates and something invsible is going to burn and blast you like it did to Captain Kranmer and her patchwork army. They just vanished. Only those damned platformics coming from Shambooka can go through. Your travel coach will not stand a chance. Even arcane magic did not help Kranmer or her people."

 

Grognak sniffed the air just a little and nodded. "Yes, there is an energy field at the gate but one that reacts to arcane magic. Very clever and very nasty. If you have no arcane magic on you, if your are not a mage with intrinsic arcane magic built up inside you, the invisible trap will not be able to stop or hurt you. Surely there are other ways into the city."

 

The soldier nodded. "Those supporting the Emperor or the Empress are battling each other inside Kvatch. The manequelems, jogolems and skelems are attacking people. Never did like those things. Give me a good arcane magic animated golem any day of the week. There are the TwistedOnes but nobody realised that the Emperor himself is now a TwistedOne until it was too late. TwistedOnes look like us except reversed and they feel all wrong, smell strange. TwistedOnes are not just copies of humans but orcs, beastfolk, dogs. They came out of nowhere, packs of them. They butchered people but arcane magic burned them down."

 

Grognak smiled. "Well, we had better go in and do what we can to help, then."

 

The soldier stepped back in amazement as the GROGNAK'S PRIDE sparkle shimmered and became a great mechanical looking but sleekly powerful dragon creature. With a roar it rushed through the gateway and even as it did, the anti-arcane magic field was ripped apart.

 

BATTLE OF KVATCH

 

As mighty armoured warriors, the Five spread through out the city and where they went they led followers, creatures and new followers. Grognak led his own forces and so soon six seperate but coordinated forces were moving through the troubled city. As they came upon the strange jogolems, lumbering monstrocities, or faster moving skeletal like skelems or vaguely human looking manequems, they destroyed them for these strange entities had become ruthless killers of all but others like them and the TwistedOnes.

 

Big mirror like public Teleview screens were being smashed and destroyed by angry people for all of the Teleview screens had begun to show obscene lies about the Empress. A scholar carefully took from the strange device a glimmering copper sphere, a machane-sphere, and passed it over to Eddie. It seemed every device had copper, silver or golden machane-spheres inside them, even such as the rocketow weapons.

 

The scholar spoke to the tall, hulking Eddie in his gleaming magical power armour and spoke then. "The TwistedOnes have been enslaving people with those damned mentabands of theres. There are Nine MachaneLords are they are all TwistedOnes and one of them looks just like you."

 

Eddie frowned. "They are the Twisted Reflections of the True Nine. I am one of the True Nine. There must have been a reason that they came to the Cyrodilin Empire and created all the things here that they did, seduced and then deformed the Emperor, and are up to something dark now. There must be a good reason for all of this happening. Otherwise it just seems to be a big waste of time. Where is GI Joe when you need him?"

 

Then there was GI Joe in power armour, green but dull dark, and with him were his GI-Troopers, lots of them in power armour. They came with portable heavy machineguns, PHMGs, super-bazookas, laserblazers and heavy autorifles. They rushed in platoons ahead of Eddie and they shot the enemy down. Eddie sighed and shook his head in wonder. The scholar studied Eddie in even more shock than before.

 

Joannie shot overhead in magical power armour sporting great armoured wings and as she went she shot bolts of purple, red or blue lightening at the enemy.

 

Leslie rode past on a great dragonhorse and with her rode many magical power armoured amazon warriors on dragonhorses.

 

 

Edited January 3, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

15 of 4 (107)

 

CONTINUING BATTLE OF KVATCH

 

Tommie examined the smashed jogolem and then snorted. He stood up and looked around. "Jogolems, skelems and manequems are but basic magical robots. Machane is electricity as it functions and can be used in this realm where the natural laws are a little different. Rocketows are but a form of plasma weapon. Televiews are television. Teleways are teleportation systems. Platformics are a form of ground effect vehicle. The whole so called machane miracle is a fraud in more ways than one. The Twisted Nine came here, they seduced the Emperor and the Empire, they quickly built up their amazing network-systems and gave out many wonderful devices. Except that nothing was designed to last. That is why it is going wrong, why it is all breaking down."

 

Joannie was looking at the great big cathedral of the Dozen Divines that was much bigger than the one that Mehrunes Dagon had destroyed so very long ago but she thought that this one was less elegant from the old cathedral.

 

It was Leslie who responded. "So everything is breaking down but the Twisted Nine were really here to steal something or lots of something. So far we have discovered soul-stones that were forbidden so long ago, along with soul-stone magic. Soul-stones were avidly gathered up by the newcomers and sent somewhere mysterious. Then there were those crystal-stone of the Ayleids. Yes, as many of those as they could get, they got. Certain daedric artefacts, Ayleid artefacts, arcane magical artefacts and heart-crystals. Odd but I had forgotten about heart-crystals."

 

Heart-crystals were quite common. They glowed in nine different colours, being nine different kinds. Though they had some power, some usefulness, mostly they were considered as toys or small tools. The name came from their general human heart shape and the softly glowing translucency of their crystal bodies. How could she have forgotten about the heart-crystals as scattered right across the continent of Tamriel with the majority of them being in Cyrodiil.

 

The Twisted Nine had gathered up every single heart-crystal that could be found and had sent it away as they did with every other of their stolen prizes. Somehow the Five of them, and even Grognak, knew that there was something very bad about this. The heart-crystals had served a very special purpose and it had been very important that they had remained inside Cyrodiil in large numbers. But why? None of them could remember.

 

In the distance was a transparent tube that ran along just above the ground on metal struts but it was visibly collapsing, was crumbling away. The same was not happening in all of the cities. It was not appening in Imperiarna itself. In Kvatch, though, every machane network was disintegrating rapidly as was every robotic thing and smaller device. The last of the Twisted Ones were fighting but they were also dying, often just collapsing and then vanishing with out any apparently good cause to do so.

 

JUST LIKE THE KVATCH OF OLD

 

So, with amazing suddeness and speed, Kvatch had returned to its old self again. The New Kvatch area had walls and buildings but nothing remained of the machane there. Nothing remained of the machane in any part of the city. People were stunned. They had been so when Machane had first arrived and had arisen with the same sort of sudden speed. Now the reverse had happened. The people of Kvatch were returrning to their old ways. Some folks missed the Televiews and the Teletalks but most people did not. The damned bubble transportation networks had never lived up to their promise, te machane servants, workers and soldiers were erratic and much else had not lived up to their promise. So to most folks it all remained normal enough.

 

A large military force was being gathered and organised, including arcane magical forces. There were battles raging in spots across the country but nobody was sure where just the military force should be sent. If the Twisted Nine were finished with Cyrodiil and Tamriel, then why bother with the battles? Why was Imperiarna, the Imperial Throne City, seemingly different in that the machane there was not breaking down. What were they really up to? What were they really at all? Where they really twisted version of the Nine, of Dibbie, Eddie, Bobbie, Joannie, Johnnie, Leslie, Tammie, Tommie and Tassie?

 

Eddie took a swig of expensive chilled wine from a golden flagon and sighed. He stood on the balcony of the city mansion given over to the Nine for their use since the wealthy family that had owned it had all been murdered in their sleep by their machane servants. The flagon slowly filled up to the top again and the new wine was nicely chilled of course. Then he spoke. "Do you notice anything odd? In that direction, a long way away, lies Anvil the port city. Normally one can see countryside, the forestlands, farmlands, clouds, the blue sky."

 

Grognak yawned and scratched himself. He had little interest in such things but he turned and looked. Then he gave a start for a huge metallic stone cube, the Great Transdimensional Cube, could be seen in the distance, projecting halway out of the ground, being half a kilometre high above the ground and a kilometre wide and thick. It was not easy to miss. "What is it with those cubes? It must have been a big surprise for the locals. I can see the need for the diversion of at least one highway. I suggest we go to Skingrad in the GROGNAK'S SURPRISE and I mean by teleporting."

 

Yes, Eddie had the sense that time was running out but he was not sure how or why. The clues were all there, he was sure, so why was he not coming up with better ideas? Was he fighting the need to face the truth and what of the others, were they doing the same?

 

Tassie was suddenly there, a bad habit she had, and she spoke to both Grognak and himself. "Johnnie must find Fawkes for there is something special about that supermutant and, thankfully, Tammie is assisting him to do so. Dibbie is with them now, in a fashion. Bobbie appears to be fragmented and lost. We need him-her back. We need all of us Nine, the Three and the One but we need the One to become once more of something positive for the One is the focused force of our creative will."

 

Eddie nodded. "Wow, I like it. Okay, we go to Cloud Ruler Temple and what do we do there?"

 

Joannie stepped onto the balcony and spoke. "We speak to the real Empress and learn what is really happening here in the Cyrodilin Empire."

[Maharg67]

THE PRIMARY PROBLEM IS THAT NONE OF THIS REALLY MAKES ANY SENSE AT ALL

[Maharg67]

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TOD (BOBBIE)

 

Tod, an aspect of Bobbie, walked amongst the busy folk of the Forest Haven Settlements. There were those from Little Lamplight more recently arrived and those who had grown older and those who were the children or even grandchildren of grown up Little Lamplighters. The settlements of the forest were designed to blend in naturally with the forest. There were the copies of the Lamplight Caverns below te forest also. A grown up Lucy was there and with her were two of her daughters.

 

Lucy gave Tod a sad smile as they sat togeter at a table on a treehouse platform. "So the others, do they begin to understand, to accept what is really happening, what has really been happening?"

 

Tod sighed. "It is difficult for them to understand that they have been existing in a kind of contradiction of reality versus non reality. They have existed many lives on many worlds but only one life inside the one habitation, the trap of suspended near death."

 

Lucy nodded. "Could you not get them to come and live here at OrbisTransZia?"

 

He nodded right back. "The elementors that the Light creates, they were meant to guide the Five right here to OrbisTransZia but the elementors have been largely ignored. Instead the Five, including poor little Dibbie, tend to send the elementors away. Many have ended up here."

 

Lucy turned to look out to where three solar elementors were soaring through the air as sunlight humanoids to entertain the children with rainbow patterns of light.

 

She sighed. "Elementors, humanetors, other names have been used as the Nine have generated these changed people. They experience the Light. They see what it does and yet none of them are drawn to the concept of themselves being willingly transformed by the Light. That is except yourself, Tod who is really Bobbie."

 

Transformed supermutants, transformed zhouls and many other lifeforms had come to live peacefully in the forest havenbubble. Others had been sent by all of the Five who oddly enough were not fully aware they had sent people from many realms to find peaceful productive refuge in that place. Orphans from Lamplight Town, escapees from the Duchy of Elaine Tarada, some Twisted Ones now in the process of being untwisted and others.

 

Tod opened up a leather bound book and inside were two beautiful accurate painted pictures of a group of teenagers and a baby girl all floating inside a great exact cube of green, softly glowing crystalic material. It was exactly three metres high, wide and thick. It stood in an ancient chamber of metallic stone. Around it were fastooned hardware, computers, some robotics and such like but they had all been non active for many years and a fine layer of dust lay over everything as it did the human remains there. The teenagers, the baby, had been dying and somebody had decided to assist them by using the alien cube of great but exotic abilities. It had been an act of kindness but a very foolish one also.

 

The same kind of act had happened on various Alternate Earths and some had linked together to create a dangerous chain of events but was this accidental?

 

Tod was overtly sad for a moment. "The little voices have become quieter."

 

Lucy smiled. "They will soon enough start chatting again. They are quite impossible to stop, really. Poor little things."

 

:turned: Aawww, poor little things

 

:ninja: Ninja the poor little things

 

:pinch: No, we don't want to Ninja the poor little things

 

:wub: I love the poor little things

 

o_O Who are the poor little things?

 

:excl: Lets go and play special games in the special place

 

Tod nodded and was pleased. He wanted the poor little things to have another chance as babies, to come out to a fleshy existance there in the Forest Settlements, but knew that certain things had to take place before that could happen. The voices were special, were a special clue to what was really happening. For in the same green cube that the Nine were trapped floated many dead babies and infants. They were not all dead though and the special voices reflected them.

 

Was it all the cube? Or was the situation somehow portrayed differently in other realms?"

 

JENNIFER (BOBBIE)

 

Jennifer made her way carefully along the sidewalk of the busy North American city where the rain was sleeting down cold and heavy. The weather was odd for it was mid Summer but the city was reporting flooding in some places. Modern hybrid cars were common now and were replacing the older, bigger, clumsier petrol guzzling models. Food was being rationed, though, even with the oceans being somehow brought back to life.

 

The traffic was moving or trying to move, mainly away from the troubles striking parts of the city. Some cars were abandonned and had been pushed to one side to allow easier flow of traffic in the other lanes.

 

From a distance came the muffled sound of battle raging, of automatic weapon fire, of small explosions, of the screams of strange monsters that were trying to invade New York. There were daedra such as scamps that threw small fireballs, scamp like scards with basic weapons and armour, stomping charging clannfears that could overturn cars, humanoid dremora with strange energy weapons and armour, dragon like daedragons and others, too many others. Against them were National Guardsmen, SWAT teams, police and a whole lot of volunteers armed with what ever weapons that they could get hold of from home or various shops or from elsewere.

 

Ahead of her, slanted up onto the sidewalk, was a black van typical of many US Federal Agencies but it bore the legend, in white, of FRINGE AGENCY. Once Fringe had been part of the FBI but had gained more independence, power, wealth and influence as the Troubles had grown both worse and more weird. Olivia Dunham, Peter Bishop and Walter Bishop were there close to the van and were talking urgently to each other. They wore raincoats with the hoods thrown back.

 

Walter was speaking even as he squatted beside a dead scamp. "Fascinating, fascinating, smells like a wet beaver. Could be a humanoid linked to that family of animals."

 

Jennifer stopped and stood there. "Scamps were genetically engineered playthings of the very first Daedric God named Omniomegatus. Omniomegatus created all of the lesser daedra and was the father-mother to later Daedric Gods, all sixteen of them, though some of them would denigh this. These invading creatures are lesser daedra though the humanoids in armour and weapons of power are the dremora and fairly unique amonst lesser daedra. Omniomegatus had great power and little imagination. He tended to copy ideas from other peoples and often combine them or alter them to suit his purposes. Scamps were twisted copies of a peaceful people called the rarmps. Now they serve the Daedric God called Mehrunes Dagon, along with other such gods and goddesses."

 

She passed a sheet of paper to Walter that was in a protective transparent plastic slip. Walter took it and began to read what was there, to study the diagrams, to otherwise absorb the information there. Then he looked up with a bright, excited glow to his eyes. "Very good, very good, your people must be very advanced in the sciences. Do you like cheese sandwiches?"

 

Jennifer smiled. "I love cheese sandwiches." She slipped a plastic covered cheese sandwich on grain bread, fresh of course, out of a large raincoat pocket and passed it to Walter who took it with a mild grin as if such things happened all of the time. "I serve the CentroGuardianship. I have been sent to assist you in your investigation though I am limited in wat I can do, in what knowledge that I can give you. The events here in New York are very dramatic seeming but are not central. We must go to Washington DC, to the outskirts of that large city, and soon."

 

She showed them the palm of her right hand that glowed in 3D with a swirling pattern of many lights. Then she lowered her hand and before Peter could say something wryly, she pulled a thermos out of her pocket and passed it to him, it being marked 'coffee' down one side and having a cup-lid. Peter took the coffee and was soon sipping a silvery cup-cap of the nicely hot, dark brown liquid.

 

Olivia spoke then. "So you are an alien."

 

Jennifer sighed. "A hybrid avatar would be a more accurate term to use. Please believe me. We must go to Washington DC at once. Where is Astrid? We will need her."

 

It turned out that Astrid was not far away. She came and they went to Jennifer's vehicle that seemed like a typical four wheel drive vehicle that never left the city. But as soon as they were all inside of it, Jennifer drove towards a wall and the whole vehicle vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

[Maharg67]

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TO THE BASEMENT

 

The vehicle now behaved like a normal 4x4 as they made their way through a countryside that should not have been as wet as it was. Not only that but they passed a convoy of military vehicles rushing in the other direction towards an area where there were noticeable flashes of light and the sounds of fighting. Yet the place that Jennifer took them to was an old abandonned house with a very large yard at the front full of garden long turned to semiwilderness.

 

Leaving the vehicle on the dirt driveway, they headed towards the house but not alone. With them came two body-armoured FEARF Troopers of the First Encounter Assault Recon Force, each hefting a special weapon with a 5.56mm autorifle and 12 gauge shotgun combination for close order fighting. The others had not seen them step into the vehicle or in the vehicle but did see them step out of the vehicle, or so it seemed.

 

They crossed the garden, ignoring the long made useless garden path, and went past smashed garden gnomes. As they did, Astrid was speaking. "The property belonged to one Professor Brownstone who studied and then taught at various universities. Yet mostly he did research, firstly at university and then here in the large secondary basement of his house. Brownstone becaame an isolated figure, removed from normal society, and he focused on a number of obscure research projects."

 

"Brilliant man!" Walter shook his head. "Brilliant but rather eccentric. Rather like myself, I suppose. He was known to have spent much of his life looking for alien artefacts. Did he find any? I do not know for he was a rather secretive man prone to great fear that others were out to steal his prizes. That is why he surrounded his house with booby-traps, I suppose."

 

Peter sighed. "Walter, you could have spoken of this earlier."

 

Olivia had drawn out her 9mm semiautomatic pistol from its hip holster. Peter had no gun and Astrid was reluctant to use hers. Walter, of course, had no gun though he had hopefully requested one at one stage only to be met with stony silence on the subject.

 

Jennifer lifted up here hand in the air and made an odd waving motion. Small land-mines exploded, booby-traps went off all harmlessly. She had made the area safe in one instant. Then there was the rather large, sprawling house with its gables and bay windows. They wondered how they would get in and then went in through the front door, which was unlocked. There were some booby-traps inside but they were already made safe by somebody else.

 

They made their way down to the basement laboratory-workshop which also had the professor's collection of supposed alien artefacts. Jennifer was quick to declare them to be all fakes, though very clever fakes for they were copies of the real thing.

 

The secret door to the second basement was wide open so was easy enough to find.

 

THE EXPOSURE OF HIDDEN SECRETS

 

The thing that attacked them came roaring out of the shadows, a twisted beast part human, part mountain lion and part ape it seemed. A FEAR Trooper swung her gun and fired of a shotgun shell and a burst of bullets, killing the monstrous creature at once. Jennifer crouched and called upon the Light but this one did not return. They travelled deeper into what turned out to be a maze of short corridors, doorways, mirrors and armaglass panes. Other monstrous creatures came at them with the same berserker savagry and one was returned as a solitor worker.

 

The large main chamber was dotted with strange mechanisms and not so strange mechanisms. Workbenches, work-tables, stools, storage lockers, big metal sinks with taps, bunson burners, racks of vials, it was very much a laboratory-workshop. There were shelves dotted with real alien artefacts and those from ancient lost civilizations such as Atlantis. There were some zetan rayguns, a Martian tripod part, an Atlantean musical harp and far more.

 

But there were also indications something big and with a square base had been taken thanks to the area on the floor not covered lightly with dust. Not only that but datafiles had been erased from the computer network-system there and files had been taken from the plastic filing-cabinets.

 

When they found the bombs and even Jennifer was unable to stop them from detonating, they grabbed everything they could and she 'zipped them' out of there, including their new companion the solar elementor. Seconds later the whole house exploding dramatically, being destroyed with a huge blast far too over powered for such a building and thus the bomber had made a mistake. For now the gleaming metallic section of hull of an alien spaceship was exposed being no less than that of part of a zetan mothership.

 

They walked to the side of the exposed hole and stared at the sloping dome that was the top of a zetan mothership of a particular kind. It was amazing that such a huge structure had been buried beneath an outer lying part of Washington DC and they wondered just how long it had been there. Then they realised it was buried largely under defence land left empty for future possible construction of a base that ended up never being built.

 

[Maharg67]

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DAEDRIC INVASION OF WASHINGTON DC

 

Television reports showed lesser daedra coming out of Oblivion Gates that had opened up through out Central Washington DC. There were nine small ones, three standard ones and one huge one. The National Guard were fighting to defend the National Mall area even a refugees fled from the city. Volunteers, SWAT and police were tied up fighting in many areas. The distant sound of gunfire, of explosions, came to where the zetan mothership lay.

 

The daedra were running into problems as they encountered local gangers, armed to the teeth, mobsters and survivalists. Yet daedra were also capturing guns and sending them back to their home world, along with other human technologies from cars to computers to guns and even television sets.

 

When the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers came in their power armour, in their hulking thumping battlemecha of Knights and bigger Paladins, the Americans were amazed but glad to gain the assistance. The Brotherhood of Steel smashed into the daedric forces with brutal bravery and efficiency. They joined forces with an armoured brigade of the National Guard that was equipped mainly with older type war-machines such as early model Abrams battletanks, M113 APCs and 105mm howitzers.

 

DremorA with captured guns, scamps and clannfears were slaughtered close to the Washington Monument and the statue of Abraham Lincoln.

 

The battle for Washinton DC raged on.

 

INTO THE CRASHED ZETAN MOTHERSHIP

 

A mixed taskforce of FEAR Troopers, Fringe people, Fringe SWAT and Jennifer went into the mothership after Jennifer got an entrance hatch open with seeming ease. There were dead zetans scattered about but, thankfully, not too many of them. There were some dead slave-workers, yetans in red coveralls, but then they began to run into yetans who gladly came to Jennifer. They came with captured zetan weapons, fearful but ready to defend themselves.

 

The yetans informed the newcomers of threats moving through the mothership.

 

Surviving zetans controlled one 'zector' while the yetans did so another in alliance with humans and various aliens released from suspended animation chambers. But there were dangerous hivaca aliens in another zector, monstrous predatorzi humanoids roving in groups, cybermen all big and silvery, hovering daleks and even some captured lesser daedra such as dremora and scamps.

 

Walter was beside himself with ecstasy and was given many chances to examine alien technologies, to study such as zetan worm-food. He and Jennifer discussed many theories, Walter soon realising that she was also very intelligent. Walter also spoke with a yetan who patiently let Walter examine his ears. Yet they kept moving much of the time.

 

They came upon a bloody battle scene with mighty predatorzi hunters in scale-metallic armour fighting hivac black creatures with toxic blood, biometallic and biomechanical bodies including telescopic jaws that could shoot out of their open mouths. The predatorzi moved with amazing agility and strength despite their size and fought with captured zetan weapons plus long, exotic energy weapons to stab and slice with.

 

Jennifer leapt into the frey and from nowhere appeared in her hands two glittering energy-longswords. With amazing speed, agility and power she killed hivaca after hivaca, driving the hunters and bigger, deadlier soldiers back before her. Then the hivac turned and fled, were gone.

 

Sensing she was of power, the predatorzi approached her warily and with much respect. Thus the expeditionary force grew in size and gained new allies.

 

FAWKES (BOBBIE)

 

Deep in TekVault0087, Fawkes was trapped in a heavily armoured cell that was also wrapped in force fields. For Fawkes was an aspect of Bobbie as were Tod and Jennifer. Bobbie suffered fragmentation of mentality after suffering from an amazingly powerful dark psychic attack. Fawkes had very important knowledge but he could not give this directly to other aspects of Bobbie. That was why Johnnie was being drawn so strongly to get to him, to rescue him.

 

Edited January 8, 2011 by Maharg67