Walkers of Worlds

[Maharg67]

28 of 1 (035)

 

WITH LUCY AND THE CHARMED SISTERS IN LITTLE LAMPLIGHT

 

The other Johnnie, who was still Johnnie but a child aged version of him named JohnnieJo, appeared with a sparkling shimmer in the UHO offside from the Great Cavern in Little Lamplight and he wore exact copies of what Johnnie had first worn when he had appeared in the Lamplight Caverns. JohnnieJo was soon mingling with the children, androids, robots and animals of Little Lamplight. As a child, JohnnieJo was found to be very acceptable by the children but none dared, not even Princess, to give him any hassles. Not that there was anything threatening about him, to the contrary. Johnnie gave out cooled bottles of sodapop (not too sugary), cakebars and savoury foodbars. He repaired some teddy-bear style teddibots and did some repair work on a motherbot.

 

JohnnieJo was sleeping in a platform-hut high above the floor of the Great Cavern when Lucy slipped in with him and sat on the edge of the mattress. When he awoke he sensed that she was concerned about something and so he spoke. "What's up?"

 

Lucy sighed. "Those silly Charmed Ones are very popular with the children but they spoil them too much."

 

JohnniJo sat up, yawned and stretched. "I will have a word with them. There is something I have learned that will have them listen to me though I am but a clone-extension of Johnnie. Johnnie is the father to Prue, Piper and Pheobe. The Beautiful Ones put a good deal of importance into family, into bloodlines and into respecting elders. You sure you are not just jealous of them?"

 

Lucy humphhed and then sighed. "Yes, maybe a little, but they are still spoiling the children. Many are not doing their chores or going to lessons or doing training sessions. MotherHub does not like it either. She also said that the Charmed Ones tried to gain access to her mainframe."

 

Suddenly JohnnieJo was on his feet. "Time to have a talk to the triplets."

 

He found them in the big cavern where the kitchen dining area was along with the new gaming area, gymnasium area and a new library-study area including a big toy library. It soon became clear that Lucy's concerns were partly justified at least. The Charmed Ones were playing games with many children, many of whom should have been doing chores or learning lessons with the androids or having training sessions.

 

Then JohnnieJo realised that the elaborate games were not just games, that there was a hidden agenda behind them, and he acted.

 

 

***

 

Fifteen minutes later Johnnie was standing outside of a special cage with inside it three angry looking Beautiful Ones were glaring at him. They were energy-shackled to a wall so that they could not use their powers or other abilities to get free. Outside Lucy was giving Mayor MacCready a good hard lecture about how not to be so easy to be manipulated by lovely looking ladies. Princess was with them but seemed unsure whether to be triumphant over the small mayor's humiliation or to go to his defence. Princess had not been tricked by the Charmed Ones and had tried to warn the others but her unpopularity had gone against her.

 

The three sisters had genuinely meant no wrong but had the arrogant assumption of many of the Beautiful Ones that they, and only they, could be in charge. With this assumption it had been automatic for them to try to subvert both MotherHub and the children's own leadership.

 

JohnnieJo spoke then. "Johnnie is your biological father and I am his clone-secondary."

 

Prue snorted. "How can that be? Our father was President Jack Patriot Jackson."

 

JohnnieJo shook his head. "President Jack Patriot Jackson was sterile as many of the Beautiful Ones have been since the process of becoming false immortals often has such non reversable side-effects, almost as if nature is trying to stop false immortals from breeding. Which is good because so often the children of the Beautiful Ones are born as the Beautiful Abominations or other distorted ones, some monsters and many as poor victims. Johnnie as a Beautiful One was very fertile as were Eddie, Bobbie, Leslie and Joannie. They were not born as Beautiful Ones. They were all quins and were born of the Clansfolk but taken against their will and transformed right here in the Lamplight Caverns. But you know that just as you know that a great ancient treasure is hidden here somewhere, one of the Thirteen Instrumentalities created by the Unamed Ones who were also known as the GreatRace and who were a distant cousin species to the Aquatic Martians, the tripocs of Mars."

 

Pheobe sighed. "We came here to end the curse of the Beautiful Ones, to try to reverse our false immortality back to mortality."

 

Piper nodded. "We believe you. We always had doubts about President Jack Patriot Jackson being our father."

 

Pru smiled warmly and beautifully. "You can let us go now and trust us. We have no intentions of ..."

 

She stopped talking when JohnnieJo shook his head, sighed, then began to leave. The three youthful women all frowned and then Pru spoke again. "Oh very well, we will do nothing and we really mean it this time. Its just that we have come to not quite trust anybody but each other."

 

JohnnieJo turned and he realeased them, giving them back all of their equipment, their gear. Not only had they meant it this time but they had learned the hard way that they were up against clever, bright and determined forces that would not put up with the games of the Beautiful Ones.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

29 of 1 (036)

 

AT THE TEMPLE OF THE DARK MOTHER GODDESS

 

Johnnie was aware of the newly formed existence of JohnnieJo, the child version of himself, and was pleased by it. JohnnieJo was already mingling well with the children of Little Lamplight and had already caused the Chosen Ones to stop their Beautiful One type foolishness. They had gained much of their worst traits from their legal father, one of the worst of the Beautiful Ones that had ever existed, and only their mother's influence had saved them. They did not know it but Johnnie himself had spent much of his time with them as another identity, as a Beautiful One who had tried to steer them towards a more enlightened frame of mind than most of the Beautiful Ones had.

 

His memories and his background knowledge was clearing up. How many lives had he lived as how many people, many at the same time?

 

Johnnie stood in that place carved out of rock, a chamber that seemed so very solid and ageless, but sensed for a moment the shifting, changing patterns of time that was not at all linear but itself of at least four dimensions. The two amazons were watching him with their helmets on and holding their weapons in a falsely casual manner. He walked to the base of the great mother statue and found there the hidden plates that one had to stand on in the right sequence to activate various important changes in the temple chamber.

 

He spoke to the amazons as he tapped the floor carefully with his boot. "The Clansfolk had quite advanced science and technologies by the time the Europeans came. They confronted the Viking Musketeer marauders with better muskets and fast moving counter strike forces on horseback. They taught the British Redcoats that advancing in stiff lines is not always the smartest way to attack an enemy that can make the ground crumble beneath one or explode beneath one's boots. Clansfolk metals were better and their cannons were lighter and more powerful in relative terms to those of the British. Do you know that Clansfolk went secretly around the world, even to Britain, and had brought back information. They had done so since before the rise of the Roman Empire."

 

Perisha nodded. "We do not need a history lecture from you."

 

Angieletta nodded. "Certainly not from a strange entity of your kind, a nonClansman, an Outsider and an Outlander."

 

Johnnie sighed. "Now that is not fair. I was born first as a Clansman of the Clansfolk of Centralia. Yes, I was of the so called High Blood in line to the DragonThrone itself. Which was one of the reasons they disposed of me or tried to do in a most imaginative but horrifically unnatural manner in this very same great big temple chamber. I must have had some very bad karma to deal with. Actually, I know that I did. We Lost Children, we Cursed Ones, we Walkers of Worlds, all did. Yet, somehow, it seems unfair or am I just showing self pity? To the deepest hells I have been and to places where the beauty is so great that it hurts and to the Blue Ice Realm, to the Realms of Mist and many others, countless others."

 

He tapped a place on the floor that seemed no different from any other, waited exactly five seconds and tapped another. He did this sort of thing until he had tapped five places with exactly five seconds between each tapping. Then he turned and walked away from the statue in a hurry, signalling the amazons to come with him. A soft rumbling, humming noise began and the two female warriors were soon doing just that.

 

The great platform rose like a jutting rectangle thrust out forward from the base of the great woman figure and then stopped but also a shallow ramp now ran from floor level up the front to the platform. Then on that platform rose a smaller disk shaped platform and with a sparkling shimmer appeared a dome, the top half of a globe of softly glowing rainbow patterned crystallic material. The globe was a powerful link to the actual SpiralEvutu of Life-Death of the Thirteen TransEvutu that was buried beneath the great statue itself.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

30 of 1 (037)

 

THE OTHER SECRET IN THE TEMPLE OF THE DARK MOTHER GODDESS

 

Johnnie did not go to the platform that had arisen out of the floor and he explained why to the amazons. "Powerful invisible forces now protect the SpiralEvutu of Life-Death of the Thirteen TransEvutu from interference. Try to go closer and gentle but firm forces will push you away. No, there is something else now revealed to us thanks to the rise of the platform. Follow me, please."

 

The amazons did so and then Johnnie showed them the hidden door in the side of the solid looking risen platform. Part of the wall shimmered and ceased to exist, exposing a cube shaped alcove with a glowing crystallic floor and ceiling. The alcove chamber was quite big. They stepped into it and then all three of them vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

Only to appear in another such alove looking out at a great rock chamber that was organised into some sort of very old base. A light dust hung over everything from the big clumsy mechanical typewriters on the desks to the racks of WW2 vintage semiautomatic rifles, to the big strange coat of arms on one wall, to the laboratory workshops taking up about a half. There were also double bunk beds in another area along with other facilities such as shower cubicles, tanks of water, a kitchen of sorts with big urns full of coffee. There was a big old primitive super-valve coputer taking up one big corner and also some rather exotic looking machines. A row of big cylinders were full of softly bubbling mutagenic fluid and in each them floated a rather scrawny version of a supermutant.

 

The amazons studied the great chamber with looks of shock, amazement and anger, especially when they saw the great exotic Clansfolk Clan-CoatOArms. It was a pair of swords crisscrossed in front of a grinning skull masked warrior head except somehow one sword was also a writhing serpent and the other sword was a skeletal arm ending in claws. The artwork was both amazingly subtle and rudely grotescue at the same time.

 

Perisha scowled and then nodded to the dust covered corpses of men and women lying sprawled in one big corner close to a big metallic door. Some wore grey-green military fatigues and body-armour of helmets and flakjackets while others had on white coveralls or grey coveralls or yellow coveralls as with some kind of colour coding. It was clear that they were trying to escape from some kind of threat when they had been massacred very quickly.

 

She spoke. "If they were of the Cursed Clan, the Thirteenth of the Doomed, they deserved their fate."

 

Twelve Great Clans there were of the Clansfolk with all other clans and bodies being linked somehow to this great structure but once there had been the Thirteenth that none spoke of willingly. The Thirteenth Clan was the Imperial Grand Clan that once was of the Clansfolk Emperors and Empresses, of the Clansfolk Imperial Court, when there were such things acknowledged openly. But great dark things had happened a very long time ago and the Clansfolk who had survived had been forced to flee from their own world to this one, to Centralia, where they began a long history of reform and redemption.

 

Then she turned to Johnnie. "So you have the Dragon Blood in you of the Cursed Imperial Clan. That is no crime in itself unless one intends to try to make something of the inheritence. While the Thirteenth Clan was disbanded and many executed or exiled to Limbo, most were allowed to go with lesser punishments or no punishments at all except that of great dishonour and loss of status, of kudos, of wealth and of territory."

 

Johnnie snorted. "How merciful to take away from the Clan everything of any importance. Still my people then rose with the Guilds, which the Twelve Grand Clans were not pleased with. Still, all that is in the past."

 

***

 

They went deeper into the big chamber past other pieces of machinery, stacks of metal lidboxes, past ammo crates, past a big cage with a dead chimpanzee inside. The bodies were amazingly well preserved for the dead. Too well preserved, actually, and Johnnie was starting to get a subtle but bad feeling about them and other factors in the great big chamber. Then he saw them lying on the floor together. They were five men in odd grey uniforms and they had the Enclaven symbol on the chest and shoulders plus on the front of their caps.

 

Johnnie snorted in anger. "Yes, it all starts to make sense. The Enclaven existed even before the Aquatic Martians invaded the Earth. This indicates that there was treachery even before the Martian invaders arrived which would partly explain why the humans of Earth were so taken by surprise and failed so miserably to deal with the initial invasion though that did change. Look at the calanders on the wall, the dates on documents and on those blackboards. This place was operating back in the 1940s of World War Two and everything came to an end... on the very day that I was betrayed. That is we, the Lost Children, were betrayed to a fate worse than death."

 

The older amazon, Angieletta, was evidently not impressed. "There were no Lost Children. Nobody went missing."

 

Johnnie frowned. "So they hid the truth. I suppose there was good reason for doing so though I am not sure of what it would be. These matters are too damned complicated and give me a headache."

 

Perisha shook her head. "Actually I heard of the story. It is one of those written in the Book of Secret Stories by the Man in Grey. I read a copy of the book and then passed it on when I was a student. Though the Clansfolk Leadership denied the truth of any of the stories, they all rang true somehow and the Story of the Lost Children was one of the darkest and most troubling. Well along with the Predizition Proposition, the Shadow Rift Experiments, the Antizion Pact Plan and... well you get the point."

 

Angieletta frowned but then shrugged. "Okay, I read it as well. Everybody seems to have read at least part of it or have heard at least part of it told to them by somebody. So much for a book being forbidden."

 

Johnnie laughed suddenly and softly. Then he explained. "Clearly some powerful, clever and influential forces of the Clansfolk wanted that book to be distributed widely and read widely. They wanted the truth to come out and to stick in people's minds."

 

Then they saw it, the very bizarre machine that took up much of one end wall, that was somehow fused into it. It was clearly human-alien hybrid stuff and at least part of it was zetan but there was also clear tripoc influences and others that Johnnie suspected. The suspicions caused him disturbance and fear for there was Greytorv technologies there of the much hated greys. Zetans were hybrids of Greytorv bloodline, being specifically of human greyten genetics. Except the human part of their genetics was from a much older species of humanity long considered exstinct by most, the zetemans. They were not missed for the zetemans had been of naturally xenophobic and aggressive violent nature.

 

Johnnie scowled and pointed to a row of thirteen large capsule chambers that ran horizontally along the front of the machine, each capable of taking at least five or six adults. "Into those we were fed, the Lost Children, and in those we were blasted by very exotic and terrible forces. The energy signal was great and it carried out into deep space with faster than light speed. At that moment the Aquatic Martians, the tripocs, picked up the signal and they... damned the information is coming through cloudy... yes, at that moment they decided to break a dark agreement and to invade the Earth but why they did so, I do not know."

 

And at that very moment the corpses began to slowly stand up and as zombies they began to shamble towards the three newcomers, mouths open to reveal rows of jagged unnatural fangs and fingers spouting long claws.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

QUESTIONABLE HISTORIES OF CENTRALIA

VARIED MYSTERIES OF THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS OF CENTRALIA

 

1888: FEMALE STUDENTS VANISH OF THE BRONSON YOUNG LADIES FINISHING ACADEMY.

 

Over 35 young women, mostly in their late teens, vanished when they entered the Caverns of Sweet Whispers, doing so against the advice of two hired Clansfolk guides. Sixteen survivors were found in a state of nudity, of psychological vagueness and lying on mats of finely woven grass. Five of the survivors were in advanced stages of pregnancy. All the survivors had hazy memories of living amongst a exotic community and all showed signs of being away for months. This was despite that the sixteen young women were found only three days after the disappearance. With them were found with gifts of finely carved wooden figurines. The case vanished officially but it was hinted that it was passed to Torchwood organisation and the Clansfolk Order of Truth Seeking.

 

1894: THE ANIMALS FROM WHERE?

 

Over a period of about five months a large number of animals were sighted, caught or killed that were not native to either the Lamplight Caverns or even to Centralia. They appeared to come from Australia or from an Australian like eco system. They were all marsupiels being kangaroos, small carnivore creatures and some 'mice' creaures. Nobody could explain their sudden appearance or the abrupt way that they stopped arising in the one ara of caverns. While many perished or were captured or killed by hunters, some managed to survive and to breed new generations.

 

1901: THE BLOODY CAVERN MYSTERY MURDERS

 

These terrible murders took place from about April to November of 1901 and were marked by another of odd details. Firstly there were always at least three people murdered but no more than five. Secondly, they were always wearing strange clothes of odd fashions and had devices of advanced technologies beyond anything of that time such as plastic digital watches, gameboys, MP3 players, mobile phones, advanced 9mm semiautomatic pistols and other items. Last of all though they had advanced forms of identification, even coloured photographs, their identities were never found. Torchwood and the Clansfolk Order of Truth Seeking took over this investigation.

Edited November 19, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CHANGING NUMBER SYSTEM FROM '0' TO '2'; I HOPE THIS DOES NOT CAUSE ANY TROUBLE

 

7 of 2 (038)

 

TROUBLE WITHIN AND FROM WITH OUT

 

A man called Franko stepped forward and began to make trouble. He demanded that Eddie not be allowed to leave the encampment and that a committee be formed, with himself as its chairman of course, to decide how new resources should be used. A few gathered to his side such as his cronies and some others who thought they might profit by supporting the fool. Marlena confronted them and they backed down a little but it was when Eddie sauntered over that even Franko suddenly retreated from any stupid demands. Franko left the encampment in a big hurry soon after.

 

Eddie spoke to Marlena even as men and women went into a door in one side of the device at the front of the fake tent and came out of a door on the other side. They came out cleaner, healthier, refreshed, rested and midlly blissful with healing and repairing done on items. The alien merchant-trader was giving over half of earned credit to the individuals and half to the Clansfolk women running the camp, all of whom were members of the Sisterhood of Compassion of the Order of Compassion.

 

"There is another list of basic items you can access. It is of special body-armours and basic weapons like swords, battleaxes and even bows that one can buy arrows for. I suggest the leather body-armour that is very good protection being as good as kevlar in this case. Oh, yes, there are crossbows but better still, boxbows that fire smaller bolts but at a faster rate from a fixed box magazine." He gave the woman a mild grin. "Good hunting and secondary defence type weapon. Did you want something?"

 

She smiled at him. "You told Elsie you were Clansfolk when you became one of the Walkers of Worlds."

 

He nodded. "Yes I was but the Clansfolk betrayed me and the others, the Lost Children. Betrayed us in that ancient device hidden beneath us somewhere in the Lamplight Caverns, in the Temple of the Dark Mother Goddess. Still, I wish to meet my family in Lamplight Town and kill my parents."

 

Marlena. "Why do you assume your parents were guilty of some kind of crime against you?"

 

This response surprised Eddie. He gave her a puzzled look. Then he shrugged. "I always assumed they were guilty because they were there when they put me into...." But then he stopped for his memories were quite indistinct. Had he been making some fallse assumptions?

 

The halftrack truck came thundering to a halt and soon after came a small army truck and two civilian cars. Armed thugs stepped out of it, some with body-armour, all wearing combat fatigues from various military forces. They were armed with a mixture of British Commonwealth, American and other weapons. With the leader was a grinning Franko who was now holding a machinepistol. It was clear what the newcomers were and what they were after. They were criminal thugs, perhaps linked to some form of organised crime, and they wished to steal everything gained from the Merchant-Trader of Mistyra.

 

But they had made a couple of very big mistakes.

 

First one was Eddie, Lucky Eddie, Bloody Eddie, the Walker of Worlds.

 

Second one was the Merchant-Trader of Mistrya.

 

Then again there was Marlena and her people who suddenly were bringing submachineguns and semiautomatic pistols and rifles out from seemingly nowhere.

 

***

 

The big man that came forward was by appearance a cunning thug but not just a bully for he was the kind who would dare to fight. He was tough, was scarred of face and he had a broken healed nose. He had light brown skin and black hair trimmed almost to a crewcut. He was Clansfolk and so his skin colour was no excuse for his criminality for the Clansfolk did not suffer from racism as such, their peoples being of many shades of skin colour. A black tattoo of criminality had been burned onto his left cheek, a tattoo that only the worst of Clansfolk criminals gained and he should not have been free.

 

The man strode up to confront Marlena and some of her people, who were holding weapons with well trained, much experienced ease. The newcomer stopped and sneered at Marlena. "So, you try to cheat on our agreement then. How greedy of you."

 

Marlena shook her head. "There was never any agreement with me or my people, only with Father Tedric and we both know you had him killed. No agreement. You go now and you leave us in peace. That is the only agreement we will reach with you." Then she turned to Franko. "We helped you and forgave you when you tried out petty thefts against the camp. Now you betray us."

 

Franko grinned. "Yeh, well there are the strong and the nothings and you are..."

 

Which was when the big man slipped out a combat knife and cut Franko's throat with amazing speed and ability. With a look of astonishment on his face, Franko toppled over and hit the ground, blooding spurting from him.

 

Marlena frowned. "Peren the Knife!"

 

Peren grinned. "A man of the blade of men." He wiped the blade of his combat knife on a cloth and then slipped it away. "Now you just hand over everything the alien merchant gave you or sold you then, maybe then, I might let you live."

 

Eddie stepped forward and gave Peren a friendly grin but when his eyes met those of the bigger man it was Peren who looked shocked and stepped back suddenly in surprise. Then also appeared the figure of the Merchant-Trader of Mistyra and Peren took of the expression of somebody who realises that in his arrogance and greed that he has made a very big mistake. But being the man he was, he slipped out his combat knife and attacked Eddie.

 

He vanished with a sparkling shimmer and a quickly cut off scream of agony and shock.

 

Not one of the criminals reached their vehicles and those in the vehicles surrendered quickly to Marlena and her people. The Mistyran and Eddie had consumed the others. Eddie burped as the transdimensional merchant-trader returned to his trading duties.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CHANGING NUMBER SYSTEM FROM '0' TO '2'; I HOPE THIS DOES NOT CAUSE ANY TROUBLE

 

8 of 2 (039)

 

VIEWED AS A MONSTER

 

Eddie took a nap at the edge of the camp in a small tent that the Sisterhood of Compassion gave him for his use. The Merchant-Trader of Mistyra had departed but not before making a special secret exchange with Eddie the Walker of Worlds. Eddie drank three litres of cool, clear water and ate a dozen MREs before he went to sleep. He had some strange, mildly disturbing dreams as he always did after consuming folks in the way that he had done.

 

When he awoke it was clear that most of the people in the encampment did not want him around. They were frightened of him and considered him to be some kind of monster despite all that he had done for them. The Sisterhood of Compassion did not feel this way and they had already taken over all the equipment and supplies of the criminal thugs, including the halftrack truck and the truck. Eddie stretched in the sunshine and began to absorb energies from it. He sat down just outside the tent with his backpack and he drew from it a silvery disk that he threw lightly so it landed face upwards on the ground some three metres from where he sat.

 

Then he sat just soaking up more energies from the sun.

 

Marlena and Elsie came to him, both with expressions of concerns on their faces. He looked up and gave them a mild grin. Then he spoke. "Tell them to be patient. Soon the other side of the process will make itself known." He took a bottle of brown liquid out of his backpack. It was chilled cold and had a dark label with a red skull and bones on the front. He smiled. "BloodCoffee, just what the man ordered for da other man."

 

Marlena grimaced. "That bottle of liquid could kill a hundred people."

 

"Easily!" Eddie opened the bottle and took a long swig, sighed and then put the lid back on, locking it into place as he did so. "Johnnie and I invented this stuff, you know."

 

Elsie sighed. "What is in it that could be so bad?"

 

Marlena bent over and spoke softly into Elsie's ear. Elsie went pale of expressio. "Ooohhh, aaahhhh. How coud you?" But then Marlena kept talking and Elsie lost her expression of disgust. She wagged her finger at Eddie. "Why didn't you say it was always Light Transmuted?"

 

Eddie shrugged. "Takes all the fun out of disgusting all those people. Foolish people who are unabe to see past the surface appearance of things. Now to start bringing all those back who I can bring back. God and the Devil take the rest."

 

The first to emerge with a sparkling shimmer from the space above the disk was the former leader of the now transformed criminal thugs. He stood looking like a healed, more youthful version of himself wearing much the same as he had been wearing but it looked less warlike now. He looked around himself in amazement and then stepped off the disk. He turned to Eddie and spoke. "I am now Earl of the Order of Mentalites. Strange that this should happen and stranger that it should happen to me."

 

Eddie nodded. "I wish I could give you more answers but all I really know is that I was sent here to help rebalance matters here where there is much trouble. Your transformation was not of my doing. I simply carry out my smal part of the process. The Light itself does the transforming and who truly knows the nature of the Light; I for one do not."

 

Marlena smiled. "Such modesty!"

 

Eddie frowned. "Yeh, well, even I have to do it sometimes, be modest I mean."

 

Elsie sighed heavily. "Wow, Eddie, you almost did it then, you almost showed real humility."

 

Eddie gave her a dirty look.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CHANGING NUMBER SYSTEM FROM '0' TO '2'; I HOPE THIS DOES NOT CAUSE ANY TROUBLE

 

9 of 2 (040)

 

LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS CENTRAL HIGH COMMAND COMPLEX ALPHA-OMEGA

 

There were no less than three Field Marshals there, a Rear Adimeral and various other high ranking officers, some VIP politicians, some business leaders along with some who were more exotic of nature. Next to the Clansfolk officers and other leaders in the big Exodus Room lay a true dragon, an elder matriarch of her people. Most of the humans were nervous of the dragon, though they tried to hide it, and also of the big centaur, the elegantly slim elf with his pointed ears and the octopoc floating in her bubble of gently bubbling lightly salted water. Until recently the humans did not even know that many of these entities existed on-in the world and now they knew there were many others not directly represented there.

 

The octopoc was speaking through a special system of microphones and speakers. "The tripocs came firstly from this world a very long time ago. They were created by the Unamed Ones, the GreatRace, who created the dragons, our people and many others. The question is why did they suddenly decide to invade the Earth now when in the past they could have done so against far less advanced humans. We of the Clansfolk, human and otherwise, can never leave Centralia or the Centralian Coastal Waters for longer than three years at the longest. It is our curse for our past wrong doings before we came to this world and settled on, in, under and around Centralia."

 

Oppemhamma, the great scientist, then spoke. He was renouned as a physicist and higher mathamatician. He was in the painful process of unlearning and upgrading his knowledge thanks to meeting with Sages and Scribes of the Orderhood of Steel who had travelled not through time but from an Alternate History Earth that was more advanced. On their world they were some of the last human survivors after not one but three Doomsdays, one following the other in fairly quick succession. Hundreds of thousands of people, androids, robots and others had been coming through from that world into the Lamplight Caverns for months and were bringing with them all the resources that they could carry from a home world that was soon to be consumed by a rapidly expanding sun.

 

"What do you mean, under Centralia?"

 

The octopon spoke. "Centralia was created by the Unamed Ones and is a great floating disk shaped continent. Inside it is the Underworld. Underneath is a pocket world of air and water, the Subworld. Beneath is the deep ocean. The Unamed Ones had their reasons for doing things, their own amazing form of logic and very high intelligence but nobody has quite worked out why they made Centralia to be this way. They dwelt here themselves once they had created Centralia and nowhere else. They dwelt in a special domain that was somehow inside but not inside Centralia but nobody has been able to find it, let alone gain access to it."

 

The aquatic creature changed subjects. "The tripocs were exiled to Mars that at the time had dwindling oceans on the surface and not just the Great Canals that it has now. It appears that the tripocs, who became known as the Aquatic Martians, tried to steal technological secrets of the GreatRace and they paid the consequences. Existence for them on Mars was harsh from the start with them facing hostile native Martians both on the surface and down in the Martian Underworld in the dark underworld oceans there. From the start they were at war with various humanoid peoples, dragonfolk and with the krazen who were like giant squids. The tripocs caused most of their own problems with their arrogance and aggression that often backfired on them badly. The GreatRace placed planetary bubbles around Earth, Mars and other worlds for various reasons, mostly unknown, but by that time Mars had only some shallow seas apart from the Great Canals on the surface. The tripocs were stuck with the dark Martian Underworld oceans and had to compete for resources with the krazen and then the even more savage darkdirera."

 

Oppemhamma spoke again. "The Martian comet-ships mainly crashed into the oceans except some that exploded into the lands."

 

It was the Clansfolk Great Elder of the Clansfolk Greater Leadership Council, who then spoke as he stepped forward a little in clothes that were quite well made but general appearing and with only his emblem on his chest showing his status. "They were aiming for the oceans. They were aiming mostly to strike the oceans close to but not too close to, Centralia. The guidance systems went wrong in some of those comet-ships, or so we suspect strongly, and they turned into missiles like the one that destroyed much of Paris and killed all of those thousands of French people."

 

In the background clerks, operators, techs, officers and others were very busy at a large situations map-table. Rows of operators were at upgraded enhanced telephone and radio systems along one wall. There were guards on sentry duty at the walls and MPs moving through the crowds on alert for trouble. Much of the equipment was jury-rigged adhoc stuff and techs spent a lot of time adjusting, repairing or replacing parts of the various network-systems.

 

A great big crude electric display was high on one wall. It was ticking away each time as another person passed into the ArkDomain from Centralia. The figure had reached 15,001,276 and was climbing slowly but steadily with each clicking over of a number card. Resources of many kinds were also going into the ArkDomain but also art-works, pets and much else that might not have seemed vital to many such as loads of soil, water and dead grass. Somehow it was all needed by the ArkDomain.

 

There was still much to be done.

 

Oppemhamma spoke again. "Do you know who opened the teleportation gateways to allow humanity to escape from many other parts of the Earth to come here to Centralia? Do you know what the ArkDomain is and why it was opened to allow us to find safety there?"

 

It was the dragon who raised her head and spoke this time. "No, we do not know and we have already stated this as we have already stated that the tripoc invaders and their traitor human allies are not the real threat, not the greatest threat that faces us. Another omen of this fate has arisen. The Walkers of Worlds have begun to arrive on the Earth during different time periods, during different alternates, and they only do that in times of great trouble."

 

Grand Marshal Montigreg spoke then in his fine uniform with all of its golden extras. "Then we will deal with these Walkers of Worlds."

 

The dragon turned her head to peer at the Grand Marshal. "Grand Marshal, the Walkers of Worlds are not the threat but just the omen and even if you wished to 'deal with them', all the human soldiers on the Earth could not harm them or all the atomic bombs that you humans have been trying to make in private. Oh yes, we know about them. The tripocs already know about A-bombs and H-bombs, which is why they never group too many of their military forces together in one area, so your wonderful super weapons will have no real use against the invaders. As for the Enclaven, the traitors tend to exist in well hidden deep underground complexes that they call the Claves. Those surface cities they built are fakes, were designed to be nuked and to reveal if you had such weapons yet. You have been outwitted."

 

The human commanders and scientists did not look pleased except for Oppemhamma who, for some reason, did not seem at all surprised by this news. The reason was his brilliance and flexibility of thinking but some of his comrades would become to suspect him as being a traitor, leading to unforseen consequences.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CHANGING NUMBER SYSTEM FROM '0' TO '2'; I HOPE THIS DOES NOT CAUSE ANY TROUBLE

 

10 of 2 (041)

 

THE WAR GOES ON: NASTY NEW MARTIAN SURPRISES

 

Field Marshal Ambrass cursed as bullets exploded off the metal roof of the observation bunker. "Damned the human traitors. At least the tripocs never developed aircraft." He was speaking of the aircraft now attacking the airbase though he could not see them. The Aquatic Martians had attacked in power armour, in new mecha and in tripods along with other ground devices but in nothing that flew. Only the Enclaven had aircraft and now also aeroships with their amazing electric charged liftergas. The Enclaven forces had some jet aircraft but mostly they had a large airfleet of older type, much repaired, much used aircraft as the FreeAlliance did.

 

But then an officer spoke who was looking through one of the new tilt-pan periscopes was speaking urgently. "Those aircraft are not human built. They appear to be something else. They appear to be of tripoc technologies. They are shooting bullets, beam-missiles and heat-beams. They are quite slow and awkard compared to our aircraft. They fly lower and they are much larger, more heavily armoured and they have those energy shields."

 

Ambrass cursed softly and took over the periscope. After he saw one of the strange awkwardly graceful flying-machines he cursed again and then he spoke. "Three glowing pods with pale beams reaching down to the ground. They are low flying tripods of a kind using energy beams instead of legs. Look at those long metallic knecks ending in that eye-module thing spitting heat-beams. Lowing flying aircraft or hovercraft of some kind. What ever they are, they are a new kind of menace that we have to deal with. Why didn't our intelligence people give us any warning of this?"

 

Another officer spoke. "Field Marshal, the only intelligence we gather from inside enemy forces comes from our people inside the Enclaven; what if the Enclaven were not warned of this new development?"

 

The new Martian machines were not invulnerable. One of them exploded as two big missiles got through its protective fields and struck it in one of the glowing areas that the lifter-beams, as they would soon be called, came from. It was a clever deduction made by somebody that the enemy would be vulnerable in such a place.

 

In the distance an AA-tank poured 40mm shells, from two guns, up at the nearest of the new low flying liftertripods but then a heat-beam struck it and the machine exploded horrifically and dramatically. Clearly air defences that worked against Enclaven human aircraft would not do so easily against the new Martian threat. Ambrass cursed the Martians for the loss of the crew of the battletank. He turned and made a signal to the nearest communications officer. Firstly he had to speak to the right people and then, secondly, he had to get out of there and move his command post to a newer, safer position. He had little regard for his life but he knew damned well that he had become important to the war effort against the enemy, human or other wise.

 

***

 

The new liftertripods of the Aquatic Martians were not having the full effect that perhaps their masters intended. At first they had taken FreeAlliance forces by surprise, cutting some of them off and driving others back in confusion, but the humans forces had learned to adapt. They had been forced to learn this trick. Rommel pulled back his forces in a false retreat into a shallow valley area and then used hidden guns and rocket launchers on the ridges either side, that overlooked the low flying enemy machines, to wipe them out.

 

Still the situation was far from wonderful. Field Marshal Rommel stood in the back of his large 6x6 staff car with powerful binoculars to his eyes and examined the enemy sweeping over the hills in the distance. Most were the battletripods with fewer big stomping quads and low flying liftertripods. There came hundreds of tripocs in exotic power armour and mecha. But there were other things, new things out there that made him suddenly sharpen his attention on them.

 

Like bizarre mixes of tripoc and human, the glistening hard skinned humanoids ran over the landscape. Each had two human style legs but three tentacular arms and a strange head with three small sensory tentacles. They carried human style weapons because the arm-tentacles ended in human type hands, making the creatures seem somehow even more bizarre. They each wore some body-armour being exotic helmets, flakjackets, groin-guards and shinguards plus boots of dull sivlery metallic stuff. They were armed with Enclaven type assault-rifles or submachineguns or flame-throwers or rocket-grenade launchers. There were hundreds of the bizarre human-tripoc hybrids and they seemed to function quite well in the open air.

 

Yet when they charged into hails of bullets, into exploding shrapnel throwing shells, onto mines that exploded, they died as horribly and quickly as any human or tripoc did. Their blood was just as red as that of humans and not green like that of the tripocs.

 

Rommel had long come to realise that he hated war much more than he loved the glory of being a triumphant commander but now he was trapped into the role of trying to save as many humans and others as possible so they could get to the safety of the ArkDomain, what ever that was.

 

He spoke. "How many operational 88s do we have? I want those damned liftertripods blasted out of the air."

 

An officer responded in surprise. "Eighteen 88s. Some stranger came out of nowhere and made them all as new again, then he vanished. It sounds impossible. Who or what..."

 

Rommel spoke a little sharply in response. "Never mind that. What matters is he and others like him are on our side."

 

The officer got the hint. Rommel knew the answer but was not about to say what it was, which meant it was highly classified for the officer had quite a high security clearance level. Actually the officer had heard whispers of strangers, young men and women, working with wounded soldiers, with broken equipment, with the ever lack of supplies and other problems but until that moment he had not believed a word of it. He now did.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

QUESTIONABLE HISTORIES OF CENTRALIA

VARIED MYSTERIES OF THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS OF CENTRALIA

 

1903: HJ PATT'S VISIT TO THE CASINO CRYSTALLINA

 

This was the first of the curious reported adventures of HJ Patt, an eccentric gentleman explorer of much experience and skills. He was renouned in various areas from navigation to rifle shooting to a great understanding of exotic biology. Yet his first exotic adventure in the amazing maze of the Lamplight Caverns was to encounter a strange casino establishment where masked gentlemen and ladies played bizarre and disturbing games of wheels and dice, of cards and small bizarre fighting animals. The Lords and Ladies of the Crystalloria, as they called themselves, drank tall beautifully elegant crystal glasses of various bubbling liquids but would not allow HJ Patt to have any, stating with much charm that such consumption would kill him. Instead they gave him a sparkling fruit wine that both satisfied his needs for food and for water while causing him to be quite relaxed with the whole amazing scene. His memories were hazy but he not only had clear moments but the elegant humans allowed him to take black-white photographs and to make sketches that he drew with much skill. Indeed he was to do a whole lot of sketches to gift to the Lords and Ladies of the Crystalloria.

 

It was only later, it seemed to him, that the charm wore off and he clearly remembered the poor suffering enslaved creatures that served the Lords and Ladies of the Crystalloria in chains and rags. It was only later that he realised that there was something disturbing about the tall elegant figures such as the length of their teeth and the fang shape of them. There were also the small fighting beasts driven to tear each other to bits and other aspects that he could not quite remember.

 

Torchwood and the Order of Truth Seekers investigated quietly and though many others scoffed, many believed or at least tried to be open minded about the events. It did not hurt that HJ Patt had secretly taken small samples of one of the bubbling liquids, a strange powder he found on a table and a small drop of very pale blood.

 

1903: JUMPING JACK FLASH #1

 

The figure of Jumping Jack Flash, having struck in the United Kingdom during the 1800s and before, was an amazingly fast moving black suit figure who was of inhuman agility, ghostly pale skin and blazing red eyes. He struck at a group of licensed registered moss and fungi gatherers who were a mixture of exotic cooks and alternate healers from British Centralia. He ripped away women's clothes with amazing speed and strength, the group was mainly made up of women, slapped flesh and struck down the men with amazing force with just a flick of his hands. He kept coming back and back until the women were naked or seminaked and lightly bruised. By then the men were all unconscious. Guns, knives and numbers had done no good against this fiend. Then, as suddenly as he had come, he vanished.

 

Just after the fiend vanished a tall cowboy like figure appeared complete with a face mask that hid his identity, huge looking revolver pistols holstered at his side and a duster along with a wide brimmed hat. The figure was not there one second and there the next. He also had a large lever-action weapon that seemed to have three barrels of different kinds. The strange cowboy sniffed the air with some loudness and then nodded at the women before he vanished with amazing speed.

 

RELATED EVENTS, POSSIBLY

 

Some say it was these events, along with others like them, that led to the 1904 decision by authorities with joint Clansfolk British regulatory control over the Lamplight Caverns to from them on restrict all tourism and most other visits to the cave system to guided and guarded tour groups only. Large parts of the Lamplight Caverns were made restricted access only at different levels. Green was no restrictions at all, was outside the restricted areas. Yellow was some restrictions, amber more and red was heavily restricted. Then there were areas that were not officially stated to exist and which no officials would willingly speak of.

Edited November 20, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

31 of 1 (042)

 

JOHNNIE, THE ZOMBIE ATTACK AND AFTERMATH

 

Johnnie turned and threw out his hands towards the on coming zombies. From his glowing hands flashed glowing pulses of light that struck down the figures so that they writhed on the floor. They sparkle shimmered and became something else. Again and again he would strik the monsters down and the two amazons stood back in fearful astonishment. They did not attempt to fire their weapons for something told them it would not be wise.

 

Johnnie was not killing these lesser undead, he was saving them, the use of weapons would not be welcome.

 

:sweat: Ooohhh, zombies, never did like them.

 

:unsure: But that was the first time we have met any zombies, wasn't it? Oh no, you are right.

 

:ninja: Ninja the zombies.

 

:sick: Ooohhh, they make me kind of ill.

 

:pirate: Make the zombies walk the plank. Keel haul the lot of them.

 

:excl: Now everybody calm down and let Johnnie focus.

 

 

They were not mortal humans any more. Johnnie could not do that much. Some were gone on as souls to various spiritual realms depending on their karma and such like. There stood one Elementor of the Psionic, two Elementors of the Solarite, two Spiritus Humans and one Elementor of the Lifenforce. Yet to look at them one generally only saw six youthful, fit, healthy adult humans in their old gear made new. The majority of the zombies had passed onto various forms of heaven, hell and pergatory as their souls returned to their long dharma cycles.

 

Johnnie was drained somewhat of energy. He was not back to his old strength yet and transforming zombies took far greater energy than just killing them in a merciless fashion. He lay on a bunk after having consumed a whole lot of water, food rations, beer and something horrible called BloodCoffee from a dark bottle marked with a skull and bones. As he lay there, Johnnie did not try to think but thoughts arose in his mind anyway. He had found himself having doubts about old assumptions of his history, of the true history of the Walkers of Worlds. Was the history so simple? Were they just victims or had they been not so innocent?

 

They were not comforting ideas and for a while he slept, having disturbing dreams but not all disturbing dreams.

 

When he awoke it was to find that the former zombies were waiting patiently to serve him but that the two Clansfolk amazons had fled after taking audio-visual recordings of the place along with some samples and a small amount of valuable loot.

 

Sensing approaching danger, Johnie had his new followers prepare as best they could, as quickly and efficiently as they could, to escape and they did a very good job. Quiet for humans, which they were but not in the mortal sense, they followed him with WW2 equipment and supplies as he led them out through a secondary hatch which he suspected was built partly for quick escape. They moved quickly through an artificial tunnel of cut rock and metallic reinforcements, then out once more into the Lamplight Caverns proper. They were soon heading back towards the outpost settlement.

 

Yet Johnnie could sense that the danger was chasing them and that it was in the form of supermutants, including the zentaurs that tracked Johnnie and his new followers. Yet the zentaurs alone could not have done the trick against Johnnie and his transmortal followers. No, some dark, powerful and subtle forces was guiding and pushing the mad beserker creatures along with a combination of the carrot and the stick, of promises of reward and threats of punishment.

 

But then they were reaching the outskirts of the outpost settlement and Johnnie sensed the pursuit being called off. The supermutants would get some rewards but less than they would had they caught up to Johnnie and they would gain some mild punishments because they had pushed themselves damned hard. As dark a mentality as it was, the unknown one was far from stupid.

 

***

 

The settlement of SheGaroTuill was a place besieged by a mixture of treacherous tribal forces and Enclaven Clonetroopers and robamoths who had formed some kind of pact. Fighting them were other tribals, Clansfolk and a large group of Super87 supermutants now serving the Clansfolk under contract as mercenaries. The Clansfolk brought much needed firepower and advanced technologies to the battle but the enemy also had power armour, robots and small hovering warmachines along with their cyborged supermutants.

 

The fighting was savage, the sounds of it echoing in a muffled fashion through the caves.

 

The two amazons were there, along with others of their kind. The Clansfolk were busy dealing with the forces attacking the outpost but as Johnnie came into the big main cavern of SheGaroTuill, he could once more sense the Clanswoman matriarch intently staring at him from beneath her hooded robe. There was no hostility in the way she viewed him or any real friendliness but he could sense some wariness in her. Still he was used to such things from people. One had to gain an exceedingly 'thick skin' as a Walker of Worlds.

 

Johnnie began to do some healing and to pass out useful items from his backpack. The Clansfolk did not seek out such gifts but neither did they reject them but accepted them with calm gratitude. So it was that he gave out stimpaks, nutripaks, medXs, bottles of purified water, mealpacks, boxbottles of coffee powder and a few other items. Word was out that the Guidemara Tribe was gone, at least in its old form, was a splintered mess with many factions so busy fighting each other they were not defending the settlement against the Enclaven or other settlements against another, unknown force led by the so called Shadow Elder.

 

Johnnie sensed a strong link between the dark force that had sent the supermutants after him and the one called the Shadow Elder.

 

Johnnie's followers used their powers to assist people as much as they could though they were new to their new natures and still fairly weak. Often they would assist each other or Johnnie and that pleased him. While the Clansfolk and some tribal healers accepted their assistance, other tribal healers rejected it in fear just as they would not work with Johnnie himself. That did not stop them from accepting his small gifts with wary almost gratitude.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67