Walkers of Worlds

[Maharg67]

32 of 1 (043)

 

AFTER THE BATTLE OF SHEGAROTUILL

 

The Shadow Elder and his twisted followers vanished after their plan to take over the Guidemara Tribe and the settlement of SheGaroTuill had failed so badly. Why had it failed? Firstly, because the breaking up of the tribe into factional warfare had been too successful and then the tribe disintegrated so that nobody could put it back together, let alone control it. Secondly, because the appearance of Johnnie had somehow disturbed the Shadow Elder deeply and had caused him to pull back when he needed to be pushing forward to complete the plot. Thirdly, because the Clansfolk had arrived in force and then had brought in Super87 supermutants as mercenaries. To top it off, then came the EagleEnclaven to strike at the settlement and the plan was done and dusted.

 

Johnnie would have returned to the temples of the Clansfolk city of SheGaroTuill but was simply forbidden to do so by a whole lot of heavily armed and armed Clanswarriors and Clansguards. For the moment he did not try infiltration, partly because guarding the temples now were those of subtle and potent psychic abilities and other powers. The chamber with the bizarre machine was beyond his reach for the moment and that was frustrating but he was making plans.

 

Johnnie and his followers tracked down Caratrina to find her badly wounded at a makeshift hospital run by the Order of Healing, one of the Orders under the umbrella of the Orderhood of the Way. There were also Brothers and Sisters Compassionate there as well along with Brother and Sister Protectors with their body-armour and weapons. Johnnie and his exotic companions did some healing. Johnnie now had some androids and robots with him, bringing them through to his place, and these also helped. These Clansfolk welcomed his assistance and that of his group positively and were openly grateful. It soon became clear that they knew what Johnnie was but cared more that he helped them care for people.

 

So it was that the Guidemara Tribe first ceased to exist and then reformed as the Guidemara people of the Clansfolk, an accepted and acknowledge true semiautonomous minority of the Lamplight Clansdom. The Guidemara people were not altogether happy with this arrangement but it was far better than anything else available. The tribe was not only broken, many of the tribals being dead or scattered, but many tribals had been exiled as little more than bandits. Not only that but powerful forces were gathering that the Guidemara, even at its height of power, could never have dealt with as its old self. The internal weakness of the factionalism was at last solved. The Guidemara would keep their culture and an improved self governing political system linked to the Clansdom. They needed and wanted the power of the Clansfolk to back them up and were willing to pay the price, had to pay the price.

 

***

 

Johnnie sent some of the very badly wounded to OrbisTransZia. Minutes later, by outer time, they returned fully recovered except for one who died in OrbisTransZia and was sent back as a body in a beautiful coffin designed and decorated in the Guidemara fashion. He stood looking at the coffin, caught up in thought, as around him the temporary hospital was being moved to a better location in the actual Clansfolk rock carved city. Except that Johnnie and his followers, be they any kind such as robots, were banned from going to the new centre of SheGaroTuill. He could still go to the open trade area such as the big Market Cavern. The trouble was that the Guidemara Tribals were eager now to please the Clansfolk and many of them wanted Johnnie to leave, taking his group with him.

 

Caratrina came up to him and smiled. Her roughskin was replaced with smoothskin and she now had short blonde hair. She was pleased with the results though still trying to get used to the changes. To her the changes symbolised a new life for all her people had either died in the savage fighting or were fled into the Lamplight Caverns as criminals on the run. That is except for some children whom she had had little to do with anyway. She was ready to head out with what gear she wore and had in pouches and her backpack plus her favoured bow and rifle.

 

The Super87s had decided not to continue their arrangement with the Clansfolk as mercenaries. Instead they would go with Johnnie to Little Lamplight and from there they would try to penetrate TekVault0087 and rescue their leader, Fawkes. Now they were also gathering in the area.

 

Johnnie was getting restless and was wishing they would move out soon but small delays kept cropping up with such frequency that he began to suspect that they were not accidental. When a small group of Clansfolk arrived to go with him, he knew somehow that the delays had been made to allow them to be ready for the journey. There were a dozen Clansfolk of the Orhood of the Way, half being of the Order of Protection but the others being of the Orders of Healing, Compassion, Learning and Travel. The Clansfolk brought small tough cave-ponies with them but to carry packs, not people, along with some tough, well trained guard-dogs.

 

***

 

When the warm eyed, motherly woman came to him in her hooded robes with her hood thrown back in a friendly manner, he was not fooled for a moment. This one had a streak of steel going through her though she could also be very caring. She smiled at him and then she spoke. "We wish to come and visit Little Lamplight and to do what we can for the community of children. We bring extra resources which we will be glad to share with you."

 

Johnnie shrugged. "I think I can get MotherHub to accept some kind of agreement. Who was the old lady who kept giving me the hard stare?"

 

The woman sighed. "Only one of our most venerated and highest status priestesses. I am afraid that neither she or the Priestesshood of the Glowing Sentinels see you in any good light. They fear you and they fear what you are doing here in the Lamplight Caverns. I suggest we talk about this later. This place has too many ears."

 

Johnnie sighed. "Come on then. Now that your people have stopped delaying our departure, we can go."

 

The matriarch smiled. "Yes, I did not think you would be so easily fooled but the young adults will try their tricks out."

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

33 of 1(044)

 

PROBLEMS GETTING TO TEKVAULT0087

 

Johnnie had gone to SheGaroTuill in the first place so as to get to TekVault0087 but now that way was blocked by Enclaven forces of unkown size and power, along with their tribal allies. He had been diverted by the discovery at the Temple of the Dark Mother Goddess but had also gained knowledge and vital clues on how to get more. Yet for now Clansfolk forces stopped him from investigating that puzzle more and so the only real choice seemed to return to Little Lamplight. From there they would try to go through the series of caves known of with the charming name of Murder Pass because of all the people who had died trying to get through it.

 

The expedition to Little Lamplight was large enough so that most possible threats simply did not attack out of fear. Even some smaller cousins to deathclaws, known as caveclaws, rushed away in their packs and glowing-ones of the zhouls crouched back in corners of chambers while nobody attacked them. Except that to some it soon became evident that it was the presence of Johnnie himself who also made a big difference. Johnnie went forward to talk with the glowing-ones at times and had no reason to fear their high radioactive output. Nobody found out what he said to the glowing-ones but both they and the general zhoul population became less hostile in the Lamplight Caverns, attacking others only in self defence from then on.

 

They diverted around pockets of surviving former Guidmara tribals who were not inclined to put up with the expedition approaching them. They waded through partly flooded caves. They followed a PreDD road tunnel made long before World War Two and the Martian Invasion but later improved on by the TekCorps. They passed big old machines and abandoned robots, Johnnie transforming some of the cavetrons so that they followed him now as followers. When the short Doomsday War struck it seemed that the TekCorps were expanding their operations in the Lamplight Caverns. Johnie had heard of this from others as well. But by Doomsday most of the Tekfolk had vanished, taking much of their stuff with them, to some place that was a great secret. There were no strong indicators that they had gone to TekVault0087, so where had they gone?

 

But then they found a Utility Hub Outpost, a UHO, complete with wire-teleporter and, with the assistance of OrbisTransZia, the expedition went straighter to Little Lamplight.

 

***

 

Johnnie was made welcome by the Little Lamplighters as were his followers, as was a transformed Caratrina. They were a little wary at first of the Clansfolk but were soon welcoming them as they did the lumbering Super87s. Little Lamplight was more built up, had new structures, had been upgraded such as new safety nets in the Great Cavern and a big fancy slippery dip that children used to slide into the big pool there. The exotic forms of moss and other growths were being processed and turned into all natural products in small packages. The new cafeteria and the three kiosks, along with autodispensers, had a far nicer range of food and drink to offer along with bottles of cool purified water.

 

Johnnie met JohnnieJo, the Chosen Sisters and Lucy in the Great Cavern. There were other Little Lamplighter VIPs like Mayor MacCready, Joseph the Tech, Eclair the Chef, Princess, Trent who focused on caring for the animals and a few others. Not all of these more awake, more aware Little Lamplighters were there. Along with MotherHub, and now the three Beautiful Ones, they kept the settlement running smoothly. Most Little Lamplighters were the Quiet Ones while there were smaller minorities of the Sleepy Ones, the Lost Ones, the Wild Ones and the Cold Ones. The Sleepy Ones spent much times sleeping in groups of at least three, the Lost Ones used to be sent away as were the Wild Ones but no longer and the Cold Ones chose to live apart from the others, which pleased the others.

 

Little Lamplighters had been going to OrbisTransZia on a steady basis but only a small number at a time. Not all remained there and all the Wild Ones, Sleepy Ones and Lost Ones sent and returned did so as Aware Ones.

 

***

 

Johnnie swam in the Great Cavern pool slowly as with him were some others but of the Chosen Sisters only Prue was there and JohnnieJo was checking something out that concerned him. Johnnie spoke even as Lucy splashed him and then Mayor MacCready. "OrbisZiaMind has studied the Little Lamplighters who have gone and returned but also those who are still living in OrbisTransZia. All the differences in behaviour were due to side-effects of genetic engineering. Little Lamplight, Lost Lamplight and Big Lamplight appear to be involved with experimentation with the same treatments that created the Beautiful Ones. But the Cold Ones are different. They are to do with a different set of genetic engineering that links them to the dreaded hivaca that can trigger in them under certain conditions to turn them into hivahuman monsters. They are not hivaca, far from it, and would fight hivaca if they met them."

 

Prue smiled with triumph. "We discovered what is at the top of the chute, the one that babies and baby animals come down, along with gifts." Then her smile slipped. "Problem is that it is a wire-teleportation chamber with a sloping floor leading straight to the chute. We would need to gain access to the teleport-booth itself but even that might not mean we learn where everybody and everything comes from."

 

Johnnie had been hoping for a building complex or even just one or two chambers that might given them some information about where the babies came from but the finding of a teleport-booth, most likely not even a two-way device but just a reception unit, took away that hope. Who had ever designed the network behind the Lamplighter Settlements was very clever indeed. But then again Johnnie might be able to take advantage of that cleverness.

 

He needed to get to Big Lamplight and to TekVault0087 to find out just what was going on there and time was important.

 

The secret data about the children that had come from OrbisZiaMind, that he had only shared with the JohnnieJo, Chosen Sisters, had concerned him deeply. Those children who had been processed were okay and others, like all the Aware Ones, were also okay but many others were walking time-bombs ready to be detonated, ready to transform into various forms of threat. Why did he not inform Lucy. Because Lucy was too likely to be overcome by the knowledge and he needed her to keep being efficient and caring. As for MotherHub, the Chosen Sisters had found even deeper hidden depths of programming in her that MotherHub was not aware of herself and they had found some hidden hardware linked to MotherHub that again she was seemingly unaware of. That hardware was most concerning as were three hitech chambers they had found.

 

Lucy giggled as she picked up a neobaby, all chubby muscular, and the neobaby giggled back. Neobabies were the puzzle in the Lamplight Cycle. Why were they were? Why did they come down the chute? They had only typical neobaby genetic engineering and no hidden genetic timebombs in them. They were a relatively small minority in Little Lamplight and a few went to Big Lamplight but though they had some influence, they were more like special companions. The majority of animals were the same except for the dogs who had some special genetic engineering in them.

 

Johnnie decided that he would need to send as many of the Little Lamplighters to the safety of OrbisTransZia as he could. The forest-haven transbubble would become their new home, complete with a smaller copy of the Lamplight Caverns beneath the ground and some newer features. Tod had become a kind of fatherly leader to the Little Lamplighters there and there now existed no less than three settlements in the forest-haven transbubble being one cave one, one lakeside one and one deeper forest one.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

34 of 1 (045)

 

JOHNNIE GOES ALONE, GOES QUICKLY, THROUGH MURDER PASS

 

Johnnie slipped into Murder Pass alone through one of the three armoured doors that sealed it off from Little Lamplight. He could move quicker, quietier and more hidden alone in his original enhanced gear and soon he was darting along broken cave tunnels. This place felt wrong somehow and there was no glowcrystal at first, only darkness, but this did not slow him. When he came upon the first distorted, twisted supermutant like corpses, each of them carefully placed against a wall, he sensed a gentle concern behind the actions that contrasted sharply with the feeling of evil in the place.

 

Both the Berskerger and Super87 factions, of supermutants based in TekVault008, were very reluctant to enter Murder Pass. The deepr he went into the jagged, broken caves, the more he could understand why. What ever existed there was supermutanish in some fashion but was not like the supermutantism that he was used to, not even the cybernetic robamoths of the cold blooded Enclaven that somehow, in some form, had survived Doomsday.

 

Through pools of cold water he went and past great metallic vats beneath large pale glowing lamps. The vats were streaked with rust and though most were empty, their sides glistened softly with some sort of nasty smelling goo. A few tanks had twisted supermutant creatures in them and others were full or half full of the horrible stinking goo. Bodies could be seen half sunken in the half full vats and sometimes hands or limbs or other things jutted out of goo filled vats.

 

Radroaches scuttled through the caves but they carefully avoided the vats and the goo. High in one corner of a cavern chamber he noted glistening webwork something like distorted spider webbing but it was old and slowly crumbling along with the big, monstrous winged thing that had been caught in it long ago.

 

He came upon a half chamber heaped with metallic storage bins, with active status-capsules full of supplies and bits of hardware including a couple of semiactive robots in semi-enclosed rest-recharge bays. Long dead humans lay there inside lightly armoured hazmat suits, some still holding onto laser-rifles or other weapons. They had on their suits the logo of SciTek, a specialised research and development TekCorp that worked on special contracted projects as given to it by other, bigger TekCorps, the Patriot World Government or the Enclaven. SciTek was linked to some of the most infamous of the RD Projects of the Enclaven and the TekCorps or the Patriot Thirteen. He took nothing because he needed nothing from there.

 

Johnnie darted through more chambers half full of abandoned stuff, most of it junk. Some big radscorpions backed away from him. He waded deeply through water at one stage as savage looking predatory gillfish fled from him. Then he was clambering through a chamber of giant mutated mushroom trees that was warmed and lit by glowcrystal on the ceiling. To him these chambers were more alien appearing but friendlier as the dark presence was very weak in that place.

 

He rested sitting crosslegged in light mossgrass with his back to a mushroomtree and when the mushroom-people came warily out to peek at him, he gave them handfuls of cave mosses from his backpack which the creatures ate slowly and with evident pleasure.

 

When he parted from the mushroom-people, the shoomsho of the JoJuShoomSho, he went with careful directions on how to avoid some dead end tunnels. Soon he was moving amongst more bare, broken caves and at times, amongst machinery, drums of toxic materials and other abandoned stuff of humanity.

 

***

 

Then he heard the noises, the screams, the grunting, the distorted speach, the sobbing, the other horrific sounds before he slipped out into a darkness hidden semi-covered balcony of metal and there crouched as he peered into a great cavern chamber that was a living hell. What had they been? Humans, dogs, chimpanzees, birds or other normal living things? It was hard to tell but all were in great pain and they were deformed, crippled and unable to do much.

 

Yet amongst them moved some ghouls in lightly armoured robes who cared for the suffering supermutants as much as they could. They were not foolish and were seemingly wary of being struck at. With them were some MrDoc robots, hovering globes lifted on fairly quiet fanjets, with multiple limbs. But there were also other ghouls armed with a mixture of heavy stunguns and laser-rifles along with one MrGutsy battle robot hovering in a corner.

 

There was no evil in these ghouls and so Johnnie dropped lightly amongst them with his hands held high. He looked around at the two dozen plus one ghouls and the over a hundred distorted creatures and he spoke. "Warm words are nice but I offer more as gifts with no strings attached. Stimpaks, nutripaks, anipaks, medXs and antimutigenics."

 

The tall male ghoul pushed back the hood of his robe and he came forward to peer at Johnnie. "Your aura is most strange and somewhat disturbing but I sense goodness in your offering. We welcome anything to assist us in our devoted duties against the work of the Shadow Ones who were once the so called Beautiful Ones. Whas are these antimutigenics?"

 

Slipping off his special backpack, Johnnie began to take out itmes and pass them to ghouls who came quietly forward to take them. Clearly anything he had to offer was much needed.

 

Johnnie sighed. "Antimutagenics help against the distortion, the agony, the horrific effects and side-effects of FEVs and mutagenic products. Please read the labels carefully before using the various types that I am passing out. They are coloured coded green, yellow, amber, pink, red and black. Use only black colour coded antimutagenics in a crisis situation. Orange and purple colour coded antimutagenics are being researched and developed along with specialised antighoulification medications."

 

The tall angular ghoul nodded. "You seek information, perhaps directions on how to get further through the Murder Pass to reach TekVault0087 or the Crimson Caverns or even TekVault0088. My advise is to turn back but I can sense you will not take it. I am Elder Canvari of the Order of the Enlightening Path. We seek through good works to both better our world and ourselves but also through meditation and good studies we seek enlightenment. We are based in part of TekVault0088 that was the centre of ghoulification research and development just as TekVault0087 was the centre of supermutation research and development back before Doomsday changed everything. I will make you a map of the way this group came to get here from TekVault0088 but I must warn you that this way, though difficult when we came through it, seems to have gotten much worse. A second group of our people followed us and while all of the first group survived fairly easily, nearly half of the second group were killed or taken. It seems we are cut off from our home but the Light must have a reason for such things happening and we will continue with our vowed duties."

 

Johnnie gave a mild grin. "My name is Johnnie and I am a Walker of Worlds."

 

The elder arched his eyebrows, which surprisingly he had despite being a ghoul. "That surprises me but not as much as it would have done once. Being a two hundred year old plus ghoul in a world as this one has become, has made me hard to shock though this hellhole did so. I wonder did it shock you?"

 

Johnnie shook his head. "No, after I ran amok as a Walker of Worlds I was punished in the... it has no translatable words but it is a hell for those who no normal hell can force awakening and redemption from. It is a hell for those with great power, skill, experience, intelligence and cunning. It is the hell that they would send the Devil to. Though some times it is called the Unamed Realm of Reflections."

 

The ghoul nodded. "I have a strong sense of what you speak. I sense the Light is with you. Will you please do some healing for us."

 

So Johnnie did some healing of the poor suffering creatures and even of some of the ghouls who had been injured by thrashing movements of creatures who meant no conscious harm.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

EMERGING PATTERNS, CLUES AND QUESTIONS

 

TWO STORIES

 

One story is seemingly based during the Great World War that ended World War Two when the Martians invaded in their comet-ships. The other story is seemingly based centuries later on the same world but at least 200 years after the events of the first story. But is this true? Are the stories of different worlds, that is alternative histories?

 

Eddie and Johnnie are both Walkers of Worlds, they are brothers and part of quin siblings. Yet just how much are they the same? Do they serve the same cause?

 

The Lamplight Caverns are central to both stories. With Eddie they are where the FreeAlliance are sending the refugees of the Great Exodus, though the final destination is something called the ArkDomain. With Johnnie they have been so far the only environment that he has adventured in since his appearance on that world. Indications are increasing that the Lamplight Caverns are very important to the Clansfolk, to the Enclaven (EagleEnclaven) and to other forces. Yet the Lamplight Caverns have also been most important in the past in many ways as well as the focus of many mysteries, of many decisive historical events.

 

There are growing hints of some sort of conspiracy going back before the Aquatic Martians invaded. For example it is assumed that the name 'Enclaven' and the organisation only appeared when human traitors arose to ally themselves to the invading tripocs and yet evidence is arising that something called the Enclaven existed

 

Then there are the two TekVaults linked to the Lamplight Caverns being TekVault0087 that focused on supermutational research and development along with TekVault0088 that focused on ghoulification research and development. In both cases the existence and history of these vaults puts to question assumptions of supermutants and ghouls only appearing after Doomsday. Oddly enough TekVault0087 seems to be more well known about than TekVault0088. Could there be other TekVaults linked with the Lamplight Caverns? Was about the horrific supermutatational experiments carried out in Murder Pass, how and why had they come about?

 

Shadow Elder, Shadow Ones and the Beautiful Ones?

 

Mushroom people?

 

Jumping Jack Flash and the Mysterious Stranger?

 

Ancient temples and artifacts?

 

Little Lamplighters, Big Lamplighters, Lost Lamplighters and ?

 

Clansfolk and the Lamplight Clansdom?

 

Dragonfolk?

 

Tripocs, octopocs and the GreatRace (UnamedOnes)?

 

Tribals and gangers?

 

Ghouls, zhouls and ?

 

Supermutants?

 

???

 

PS: TO BE EDITED IN SOME ALTERNATE FUTURE

 

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

Edited November 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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

 

11 of 2 (046)

 

EDDIE TRAVELS ONWARDS TO LAMPLIGHT TOWN

 

Leaving the encampment of unwanted refugees, Eddie travelled on with his new followers of former bandits being five of them. They moved on foot but made good time for he was a Walker of Worlds and the followers were also enhanced. The refugees were going to be picked up soon by a convoy of trucks and buses of the Clansfolk for they seemed to be the only ones who would assist such people but Eddie intended to try to keep in touch with Marlena and Elsie for reasons he was not sure of.

 

They passed by abandoned farm houses where everything that could be taken or even salvaged had been. They reached an asphalt road that had seen better days and in the distance was a stop-over complete with garage-station, diner, tourist shop and some other buildings. There were plenty of vehicles there, many of them military or contracted paramilitary. As Eddie and the others walked closer, now at a more human pace so as not to draw the wrong type of attention, a big long refugee convoy passed. Every bit of available space was crammed with tired, dirty, desperate people and with small amounts of allowed belongings along with other resources.

 

:thumbsup: Its Eddie!

 

:laugh: Yes, its Eddie!

 

:pinch: Ooohhh, its Eddie!

 

:blush: Gosh, its Eddie!

 

:wub: Love Eddie!

 

:ninja: Ninja Eddie!

 

:excl: Now, now, leave Eddie alone!

 

Eddie sighed inwardly but in truth he did not mind the voices at all though he found them less amusing than Johnnie did. For a moment he wondered about Johnnie but then he pushed such thoughts aside. Johnnie and Eddie had not departed from each other on friendly terms the last time they had met. That was when Johnnie had started to seek the Light and before Eddie had decided that he would do the same.

 

An aircraft passed overhead, a DC3 being a very common type of American built transport aircraft with 2 engines that had been used to transport civil freight and passengers, military freight, soldiers as well as being used by paratroopers and as air ambulances, along with other uses. In fact the DC3 turned out to be so useful they were licensed to be built in the British Empire and by the Centralian Clansdom. Eddie looked up and was impressed until he noted the trail of black smoke coming from one engine. The DC3 was a well designed type of aircraft, rugged and dependable, but this one was in trouble. It was trying to make it to the enlarged Lamplight Town Airport but there was other damage and it seemed like a poor bet for a safe landing.

 

The pilot and co-pilot, both women, were struggling to keep the aircraft aloft. Male pilots were all busy flying fighters, bombers and other combat aircraft or the new helicopters at the front line as were many women pilots so it was women pilots and older male pilots who ended up doing the behind friendly lines work. But from nowhere had come fast moving enemy jets and had strafed not just that DC3 but two others with powerful autocannon shells. The other two DC3s had gone down, one in flames and the other seeking a good chance of safe landing at an emergency strip.

 

Sheilsa turned to examine the smoking engine with a lightly sweat covered face. "Damned, we may not be able to make it this time, Lauri. We have to avoid crashing the old girl into the town."

 

Lauri, who was younger and less experienced as a pilot, was highly nervous but this was understandable. "Instruments are indicating we are losing too much fuel. Damned it, this cargo has to get through. We have the damned Mona Lisa painting."

 

Yes, the very famous painting had somehow got lost during early transportation to Centralia. Later it was found that in truth it had been stolen by the Mafia. The painting had been retaken in a semilegal raid that had killed many Mafia. Then the painting had been lost again after it was put into legal storage in relation to a legal investigation of the raid. After that the painting had been found by some art investigators and now, finally, it was going to the Lamplight Caverns and from there to the mysterious destination of the ArkDomain. Unless, of course, it got burned away.

 

Suddenly a sparkling shimmer went through the aircraft. The engine stopped smoking but more than that the whole aeroplane looked brand new now and was flying as if brand new and in top condition. The pilot and co-pilot looked to each other. They were the only crew on board because the cargo handler and guards had bailed out close to a military-civil outpost earlier on to both lessen weight and to make sure they survived, as well as clearing the way for the pilot and co-pilot to get to the door more quickly.

 

The pilot had an odd look on her face as she noted some dials. "New instruments. The radio is working again. I think that there might be some kind of radar. If it is it is far more advanced and compact than anything I have seen before. And that, like a small black-white television screen showing the main cabin. We have visitors and by the look of them they... or one of them... caused all of these changes. Now, Lauri, don't get all funny on me."

 

Lauri was staring around in wonder. She looked at the big set of furry dice hanging from a place above the armaglass windscreen. "Now, that is bad taste."

 

There was a slight crackling noise and an intercom speaker sounded with a voice. "Hi, I'm Eddie. I just thought you might need some help so my people and I hitched a ride from the ground. Hope you don't mind and all. Do you like the furry dice? Oh, yes, there is a remote controlled machinegun turret now back top on the DC3. You can control it using that television screen and the fold out controls beneath it. That is the co-pilot can. There is also a drinks dispenser with resuable cups that has a litre each of cool water, warm coffee and warm tea. Oh yes, a nice new toilet cubicle in the main cabin that is compact but fairly comfortable with its own water-sink."

 

Shielsa responded. "Thank you for saving us but do you know this is a top security flight?"

 

Eddie answered. "Oh, the Mona Lisa? Don't worry, it's a fake. The real one never ended up in Paris but was burned to ashes early in World War Two when the Germans were first invading France. The real Mona Lisa was in the private collection of an outwardly good but secretly very evil man by the name of Moriarty."

 

The pilot and co-pilot both cursed in a very unladylike fashion because something subtle but strong told them that Eddie was speaking the truth.

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/180px-DC3_Silh-1.jpg

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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

 

12 of 2 (047)

 

AT LAMPLIGHT TOWN AIRPORT

 

The DC3 taxied to a parking bay and was at once swarmed over by amazed ground crew and emergency response teams. By this time Eddie and his new followers were making their way through the huge airport that was actually bigger than the town proper. Eddie remembered the small airstrip and terminal of the town but only vaguely. There were many other DC3s but also other air-transports including some big lumbering four and even six engined jobs. Such big transport aircraft had been built just for the Great Exodus but now they, like all aircraft, had to be ferried down to the Lamplight Caverns and the nearest active gateway to the ArkDomain.

 

Eddie was having doubts about the whole idea of the 'ArkDomain'. He had come back to that world with an open mind, or at least he tried to be as open minded as possible, but nobody seemed to no what the ArkDomain was and yet nobody seemed to want to question the wisdom of going to an unknown place. Indeed he got the impression that people did not want to think about it. What he needed to do was to find somebody who did question the decision and who knew more of what was going on.

 

His followers were disguised as typical travellers being not common refugees but those with some status and importance to the FreeAlliance Government which was the only powerful, efficiently, fully working human government left on the world except for the Centralian Clansdom and the Enclaven. They had ID-badges on their chests complete with black-white photographs of their faces, fingerprints and signatures.

 

Then he saw them and a surge of anger went through Johnnie. Beastfolk from the islands of Maruna as named after the infamous Professor Maruna who had created the beastfolk and other entities on the mysterious main island. Maruna had vanished, along with much of his strange equipment including some exotic machines, before British Imperial Marines could catch him. BlueJackets swore that they saw a black metallic, golden rivet studded, globe go sailing up into the sky. They had only bolt-action rifles and did not bother to shoot at it. Any way the expedition of soldiers, scientists and others was being attacked by wild beastfolk warriors and beasties at the time.

 

Eddie made his way to where some of the hairy half-humans stood, once animals but changed by the use of FEVs and mutagenic gels into something new. The apemen were one of the categories created by Professor Maruna and his people, they being the apemen, the catmen, the buffomen and a few others. There were about a hundred of them, a few being children or even babes, and they did not have many resources with them.

 

Though these animalmen had been growling and baring fangs at other people, almost as one all those who were standing bowed down before Eddie as he approached but not out of fear. Eddie and his followers were then handing out stimpaks, drinks, mealpacks, fur-brushes, large tooth-brushes, big sized nail clippers, very tough toys and much else. The soldiers, a mixture of American GIs and British infantry, were looking on with amazement but though they had both guns and body-armour, they made no move to stop Eddie or his people.

 

But at last somebody with authority came stomping over being a tall figure in a trench coat with white skin, amazing black hair and big boots. Then he was stopping and he was studying Eddie with an expression of amazement and also of appreciation. He spoke. "At last, a Walker of Worlds. I have always wanted to meet one of you."

 

Eddie turned and looked at Captain Jack Harkness with a mild grin. "Jack Harkness, man who can not die, main leader of Torchwood that was the secret paranormal investigation agency of the British Empire, when there was one, what do you think you are? You are a Walker of Worlds. Like you, none of us can die. Like you we are all trapped between true life and death but we are certainly not of the undead or even the unlifen. Now, what is happening with these poor animalmen?"

 

Jack Harkness frowned hard with surprise but then visibly focused on some other matter. "That is exactly what I wanted to know. They were supposed to be under the protection of Torchwood, as most of them are, but this group was kidnapped by a whole lot of heavy handed, heavily armed soldiers. There might not be a British Empire any more but Torchwood serves the FreeAlliance Government with its full backing."

 

TO DO WITH ANIMALMEN

 

Eddie and his five followers stood back while Jack Harkness spoke quietly, charmingly but not softly with a handsome liutenant. In five minutes Jack had some answers and he was returning to Eddie with a scowl on his face. "The Unified Ministry of Research and Development, the UMRaD, are a pack of monsters, a horde of scientific murderers and torturers with fragile egos and greed for power, influence, wealth and fame. Many of their best scientists served the Nazis with their most perverted of experiments against innocent men, women and children. These soldiers are not happy about their mission and the lieutenant, a rather handsome young man with a rather impish smile, is going to allow us to take command of the animalmen. The soldiers will march away. You will continue to give things out from that remarkable backpack of yours, can you get me one, and we will wait until some UMRaD thugs show up."

 

The soldiers were soon departing with obvious relief because they had been wary and even frightened of the savage looking animalmen. Eddie introduced Jack to his followers and then they were all walking amongst and talking with the animalmen.

 

But the UMRaD people did not show up. Jack decided that they had been warned that Torchwood was there for the UMRaD had been avoiding confronting Torchwood for reasons that Captain Jack Harkness had no idea of. He doubted it was fear for the UMRaD also had strong backing from the FreeAlliance from the FreeAlliance Government but was much larger and better resourced except in the way of some very exotic resources and alliances. The included the new agreement between the Brotherhood of Steel and Torchwood along with the X-Files Archival and Investiigations Agency (XFAIA), the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), the Sanctuary Network and others. UMRaD had from the start begun operations by trying to crush, overtake and loot any other special organisation of its resources, especially information. It had mostly failed and had alienated itself from the International Paranormal Network in an amazingly short time.

 

Jack fronted Eddie. "You did Torchwood and these freed animalmen a good turn today so I will do my best to set you up to meet the leadership. It will not be easy. Things have been going funny in the FreeAlliance Government recently and not in a good way. Something nasty and dirty is happening. The new Unified Ministries arose out of nowhere. One moment there was no such thing and then, pop, almost overnight there they were, huge and autocratic and aggressive and secretive. Perhaps you can gain information that I am unable to."

 

Eddie shrugged a mild shrug. "We will work together. It is time I called in some old favours with some super powerful aliens that I know."

 

Jack grinned. "Yes and I am going to do just the same. Time to call for Doctor Crosmos."

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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

 

13 of 2 (048)

 

GOING HOME

 

Eddie knew even as he walked down the street in front of his old home that this was in some way his old home but not so at the same time in a way that confused even him a little.

 

At that moment he realised that he and Johnnie must be in different historical time streams, in what humans might primitively call Alternate Histories for the truth was more complicated than that.

 

He kin to it and nervous, felt drawn to the big urban minimansion with its two wings each with one level and its double level main building all with big basements. The front was walled with big stone blocks and yet from behind it he could hear the sounds of children playing, of adults arguing over something. Then he was coming to the main gate where a couple of tough looking middle aged men were standing guard with a bolt-action rifle and a double barrelled shotgun.

 

Eddie did not like feeling nervous and he normally was not so. He was a Walker of Worlds and it was normal that he made others nervous. He was wearing the gear he first appeared in, adjusted a little, black wrap-around sunglasses and a submachinegun slung from his shoulder, his backpack and some other items.

 

The semi-rural suburb was fairly quiet but less so than he remembered it. The minimansions seemed to be overflowing with Estatefolk and others taken in as refugees. Such a thing would never have happened before all the troubles began with the start of World War Two. The Estate Families were far too isolationist and exclusivist then but they had been forced to change as the Nazis stormed across Europe with their Spanish, Italian and other allies even as the Japanese and Mongols invaded across Asia. The Chinese suffered heavily. Poland fell despite heavy fighting and Stalin's sudden decision to send in units to fight the Germans in an uneasy alliance with the Polish because the Germans had been given massive assistance from unknown sources as were its allies. With the European Empires crumbling before the onslaught and the British Commonwealth forces isolated in Singapore, with the Americans fighting the Zaztec Empire..."

 

Zaztec Empire? Eddie stopped in wonderment and realised then that some force was tampering with history or at least was trying to.

 

Yes the Zaztec Empire had invaded northwards towards the USA and was a threat but ceased to be a major one when many of the oppressed peoples beneath its oppressive three high castes rose against it, both zaztecs and non-zaztecs.

 

So at least two forces were trying to manipulate history against one another?

 

Yet things were still falling neatly into place even as he confronted the two middle aged men, for mere mortals, with a fairly charming mild grin. "The JoNao Family still live here?"

 

The middle aged man with the shotgun across his knees, he was sitting on a basic wooden chair as was the other man, nodded. "Some of them. Everybody's busy so why don't you come back some other time, like maybe never."

 

But the other man interrupted. "Be quiet Jonas!" He sighed. "Jonas has a bad experience with a Martian gathertripod and he has never been polite since."

 

Eddie nodded. "Nasty things, those gathertripods, rushing around and taking people up to be farmed. Yes, I have seen them in action quite close up. Closer than I wanted to. Are Pearlisa or Jasima JoNao here?"

 

At that moment a big old black Labrador came to the gateway, sniffed at Eddie and, tagging wagging madly, she sort of rushed to meet him. He bent down and hugged her very much. Yes, she was still there, was Jassy, but she was of course older. As he hugged her and she licked him happily, he did some subtle healing of her, strengthening her old heart and helping her with her arthritus. The two men looked on with surprised expressions though Jonas still seemed cynical and doubtful.

 

Then a warm middle aged woman, slimly muscular, tanned light brown, came to the gateway in fair looking but durable working gear. She stood there in denim jeans, a light denim jacket and a Tshirt along with a pouchbelt and boots. She sighed deeply, smiled at him as Eddie looked up and spoke. "Now, which are you? Oh, yes, Eddie with eyes harder and more cunning than ever but sadder, more worn and with more warmth. Come in, Eddie, before I have the good sense to send you away."

 

Eddie stood up, rubbing and scratching the still happy dog, and spoke. "Thank you, mother. It's good to be home again after so many years."

 

Jonas scowled. "Eddie JoNao, child criminal mastermind! I was right, Harold. I should have shot you."

 

The other middle aged man sighed. "Jonas, you would have as much chance of shooting this one with that old shotgun of yours as you would that small white cloud floating high in the sky up there all by its self. This one walks like a .... well something very dangerous, something not quite like the rest of us."

 

Eddie seemingly ignored the two men as he followed his mother into the estate and as the old female dog passed them, she gave gave each man a fond lick and was patted briefly on the head in return.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

REALISATIONS OF EDDIE-FICATION AND CHANGING WORLDS

 

At almost the same second, in two different places, Field Marshals Rommel and Ambrass both came to know that they were aspects of the entity known as Eddie the Walker of Worlds. How this was possible, they did not know at first but it came to them soon enough that they had been planted in history in deliberate manner. Nor was it an accident that they had both become major commanders in the war against the invading Martians and their treacherous allies, the Enclaven. Only a few others, like Patton, had enjoyed any real success, especially against the exotic technologies of the enemy. This was despite the surprising appearance of new and upgraded technologies for the FreeAlliance.

 

The Battle of Golden Greens was coming to an end as the Enclaven and Tripocard forces completed their conquest of it but now they faced a great steep rise in the land and a long series of low but very rugged mountains along with, beyond them, the Lamplight Mountains. The FreeAlliance forces were prepared even against the new tripoc land-air force, the Tripocard, with its newer liftertripods and tripoman hybrids. The Enclaven forces seemed to have a less dominant role now that the tripocs had brought their new weapons into play and it seemed yet more nasty tripoc surprises might soon appear.

 

Enclaven Stormtroopers had their power-armour and new heavy armoured battletanks of various types and subtypes. Their new fast flying supersonic jets were not very agile but could shoot a target full of holes in seconds. They had a whole mess of machines and other equipment captured from other armies or built in Enclaven factories. Yet the Enclaven forces were mostly second grade or even third grade combat units. Not only had the Enclaven been tricked by the tripocs, who were starting to cheat on the treaty that had been formed, but the Enclaven was spending much of its resources on the new Bubblecities. Why, nobody was sure, not even many in the Enclaven, but it was suggested that the Aquatic Martians might be planning to melt the icecaps and that the flooding of the world might mean that surviving humans would need the Bubblecities.

 

In the Atlantic Ocean the last Uboat wolfpack was being hunted down by the tripocs in their strange but deadly aquatic vessels that never came to the surface.

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/UboatPix2-1.jpg

 

Invaders had swamped England and were entering Wales and Scotland in force.

 

There were pockets of resistance, of the FreeResistance and other forces, but mostly they were going into hiding, into long term guerilla warfare mode. The USA had not all fallen yet and neither had Russia. The tripocs feared the deserts and other dry areas. The last of the Great Exodus was happening as the teleport gates, that unknown forces had put into place, switched off before the tripocs or Enclaven forces could reach them.

 

Then word came of another exodus of people into the Underworld that had been officially discovered in the late 1800s by a British expedition. For reasons unknown the tripocs would not go into the Underworld and commanded the Enclaven not to do so either. At that time the Enclaven dared not to do so though they were busy mapping out their official territories around the world, were salvaging cities, rounding up captive populations and doing so much more. Word of the dreaded blood-farms reached the FreeAlliance and the FreeResistance vowed to smash them and the death-camps where captured freedom fighters and others were put. Others? The tripocs had given Enclavers special devices to test all humans with, even Enclavers, and those who gained certain results were supposed to be sent into the death-camps. Yet the Enclaven began its own secret agenda at this time, began to secretly plot to strike out against the Martian Invaders, and how they used the strange machines was one step in that process.

 

As Eddie entered home and, in an alternate history, Johnnie was busy in Murder Pass helping to heal victims of evil mutagenic experiments, other Walkers of Worlds were appearing on the scene.

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/parakrat-1.jpg

[Maharg67]

1 of 3 (049)

 

ARRIVAL IN THE ARKDOMAIN

 

Leslie appeared out of nowhere, awoke to find herself in the open on rock covered with a light fall of snow. Thankful for her thick coat, fur lined and with a hood, and other such gear that made her look somewhat like an Eskimo, she stood and then put on the backpack along with the heavy bolt-action rifle that she slung over one shoulder. Boots, goggles, gloves also assisted her against the freezing cold as she set out across the bleak rocky landscape towards the distant base where flew the flag of the FreeAlliance. Even as she got closer she could sense the frustration, the fear and other sharp emotions in the camp.

 

There was the mist that was invisible close up but thickened visibly the further away on looked until it looked like a softly glowing fog but only a light fog. Yet she knew that the mist was not natural, was not part of climatic or weather patterns, but was part of that strange domain.

 

When Leslie came upon the splash of blood she knelt and took a trace of it with the fingertip of a gloved hand and sniffed softly at it. Yes, a man had died here and his body had been dragged by fur clad predators into a well concealed hole that was not far from there. Leslie stood and followed a trail that would have been invisible to most, especially as it was covered with a thin layer of snow. Then she came to a well concealed hole in the rocky landscape and she knelt there.

 

From her mouth came a strange sing song chanting noise even as from her backpack she took rubbery skin wrapped parcels of fish meat, seal meat and blubber except they were just very good copies of such items. Down the hole she dropped all of the items in turn.

 

Out of the hole was hurled the recently killed figure of a young man in a white hooded coat and white combat fatigues of World War Two vintage make. Then came an autocarbine along with a metal torch with its front shattered. A deal had been made but Leslie had still to learn more about just what was going on. So she set out to do what she had to do.

 

GOING TO THE BASE

 

Both fuzzy minded and relieved, the young soldier came with her to the base. His name was John and he had become lost somehow though he could not remember how he had done so within sight of the base. Leslie now knew but she was not going to tell him that something evil had messed with his mind, and she did not mean the polar bears that were in the underground lair, and yet it was something that itself was frightened, was being hunted. No, he had enough to deal with in relation to another form of evil.

 

The base was military and scientific by the look of it. It was a heavy defensive boundary of thick concrete wall, spotlights, barbed wire, machineguns and sentries in body-armour. It was low storm resistant built buildings and a big geodome housing a radar plus a very sturdy built radio tower. It was the glimpses of aeroplane parts and other indications of perhaps two fair sized airstrips. It was a big central control tower and some small but still big and sturdy guardtowers.

 

John showed his IDcard and the sentries escorted both him and Leslie right to a security chamber. Leslie sat on a basic metal and wooden chair in a room that was largely bare except for a few other such utilitarian chairs and a table of the same style. On the other side of the table a lieutenant studied her with a hard look to her eyes. She was red-brown and had Eskimo like features of high cheek bones. Perhaps she had been chosen for that post because of her having grown up in wintery conditions.

 

But she did not seem either relaxed or happy about her situation. Then she spoke to him in Esperanto, the Internationalist Language. "So you are a visitor from another world."

 

Leslie smiled. "Well, I was visiting that world as well and the world before that and the world before that and, no surprise, the world before that. The evil thing lurking outside the base, the thing that has caused your people so much trouble, is trapped here by the Glowing YiMist. One must find a way for it to escape back to the Glowing YoFog. YiMist and YoFog, Fog and Mist of the imbalanced Cycling Balance, the Wheel of Dharma, the Cycle of Life and Death of this realm you know as the ArkDomain."

 

"You sound like one of those mad mystics that call themselves the Orderhood. They speak the same rubbish. Yet the ArkDomain has not turned out to be the paradise that we all... seemed to assume it was. None of us questioned that we should come here. Not a paradise but not hell either." She shrugged. "There are the Green Islands and the Friendly Archipelago to the south of here. There are the Citystates with their sources of natural heat. Lots of big Citystates with big overcrowded fortified cities and all the good farming land given over to crops like soy, potatos, startos and such like." She shook her head as if surprised by her own actions. "Why I am telling you this I do not know. Something tells me you are telling the truth but considering recent history, well perhaps there is room to believe you. Be happy you landed in the FreeUnion Territories and not in the PhaseLayer of the damned treacherous Nuclaven. Yes, they came here with the FreeUnion and yet their plot did not totally succeed. They have control of a big part of another PhaseLayer and their forces, their population, is heavily outnumbered by those of the FreeAlliance."

 

Leslie sighed. "The truth is starting to come to me as a hypothesis of sorts. Somebody wanted antagonistic forces to reach here from the Earth with its Aquatic Martian invaders striding across the lands in their great three legged battletripods. Why are you looking at me that way?"

 

The woman snorted. "We come from no such Earth. HG Wells wrote about the Martians but they were not 'aquatic'. No, the invaders were from Jupiter. They were the zetans and they came in great motherships. Perhaps they would have bombarded the world from space but the planetary bubble stopped them or so our scientists told us. The zetans attacked in packs with their abominations, with their floating robots, slow flying battlewings and those strange floating battleplatforms of theres."

 

Leslie sighed. "Not Jupiter but Jovan Space. They could not exist on Jupiter proper unless... the great floating Skylands. Yes, perhaps but they would also be based in-on the many Jovan Moons. What of the yetan slaves?"

 

The woman snorted. "We freed a fair few of them. Usless as fighters but they are good workers and grateful to be free. Big problem is to stop them being exploited for they will not speak up for themselves normally. How come you know of zetans?"

 

Leslie responded. "A mug of coffee would be nice. Zetans were there in the history of the other Earth I speak of, still are, but they were never part of the great invasion. There were traitors on that Earth known as the Enclaven but we had not the FreeUnion but the FreeAlliance."

 

The woman frowned. "Yes, that sounds familiar." She slowly started to stand. "The commander will want to talk to you."

 

Which was when Leslie pulled out a pulsegun and shot down the woman with a glowing pulse of multiple purpose energies. As she had removed the controlpod dug into the brain of John the soldier, she removed the controlpod from the enslaved woman and then did some rather intricate and intense healing as she had with John. Even as she did so, John came in and crouched next to her. She looked rather grave.

 

"It will not be long before they realise what is happening here."

 

She shook her head. "The Glowing Mist has the evil essence trapped that is behind these biomechanical devices, rather nasty but very well designed. It is only part of a much greater and more powerful whole and because it is isolated, it is weaker and more vulnerable. We must strike now before the YoFog pushes back the YiMist and the thing can relink with its other, bigger self. So this place is really of the what? The Nuclaven?"

 

The soldier nodded. "Nuclaven evil made this place and disguised it as FreeUnion to make it into a spy base and to trap any FreeUnion refugees coming this way from the fighting in Frostfall Bay. Nuclaven were treaitor fools who came to the so called ArkDomain and then got drawn into a trap. Nobody has heard of anything of a FreeAlliance or an Enclaven, as far as I know. I just want to go home and to my family, then help my people fight for their freedom."

 

Leslie smiled. "We can do a little more than that."

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

2 of 3 (050)

 

ESCAPE TO FROSTFALL BAY BEGINS

 

Leslie, and the others whom she could free, set out for Frostfall Bay in a convoy of bigger tracked snow-vehicles along with some smaller snow-mobiles. They took as many resources as they could with them and sabotaged what was left behind. Even as they moved out of sight of the false FreeUnion outpost, the YoFog was sweeping in and the YiMist was pulling back from the area. Energies crackled between the two ancient elemental entities, ancient enemies in a sense that was hard for mere mortal intelligence to comprehend. These energies were like great patterns of purple, red and other coloured lightening and electricity sparking and striking out.

 

They were going deeper into YiMist covered territories and that meant they did not face YoFog type threats but there were threats in the YiMist also for humanity. It turned out there had been no Clansfolk as such on the Alternate Earth that the FreeUnion had come from. Centralia had been divided between the British Commonwealth of Unified Nations (BCUN), the United States of America (USA) and the People's Republic of Centralia as supported by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). There were other differences. The people from that world had big flying ships and related craft known as aerocraft as lifted by amazing high voltage penetrated liftergas along with some other odd inventions for their historical era.

 

The three aircraft, aeroplanes, at the settlement were non functional dummies put there by the capheads to fool people into thinking the base had a functional airport to iit.

 

They made good time until they reached a great stone cairn rising up with very big smoothed off flat boulders. Some long gone people had dwelt in those lands once and had made many such cairns along with other impressive structures. Neither the FreeUnion or the Nuclaven touched them for they turned out to be very good navigational markers, especial the great-cairns and that was hardly mistake. Leslie insisted on the convoy pausing so she could investigate the cairn and what she sensed there, startled her. Clansfolk had built the cairn and the white symbols, slightly faded, confirmed as much. Clansfolk had dwelt in those lands, once, in large numbers but the great-caairn warned of a series of terrible threats that had forced them to leave.

 

The wind was lightly rushing, howling, by the time they settled into one of the ancient Clansfolk shelter caves close to the great-cairn. Long ago the Clansfolk had enlarged, strengthened and improved it as a shelter in some ways. Leslie found more Clansfolk symbols and also beautifully done picture-words and murals. It soon came to her that these Clansfolk were fairly different from the Clansfolk of both the Alternate Earths that Johnnie and Eddie were on. They were more aggressive and warlike with a different mix of peoples. None were the humans or dragonfolk or other beings that were amongst the Clansfolk of that other Alternate Earth. They did have oomans of land, air, water, underland and land-water along with an odd subspecies of the 'atral-elemental'. Yet there were more disturbing member peoples of that version of Clansfolk.

 

IN THE SHELTER CAVES

 

As the storm outside increased in ferocity, Leslie went to the rear of it with a small number of soldiers and scientists. One Doctor Anne Peron was an archeologist who had been studying the ancient Clansfolk of that realm before the enemy took her as a puppethead. She was amazed by Leslie's knowledge of the ways of those Clansfolk and Leslie began to teach Peron some of the histories and culture of the Clansfolk. Except there were matters that she secretly held back.

 

When they found the big carved stone temple area, basic in appearance but impressive in size, it was to none other than Mehrunes Dagon himself. If that was not bad enough, she confirmed that one of the peoples of that other Clansfolk were the dreaded dremora, a humanoid people who were fanatically devoted to Mehrunes Dagon, and other lesser daedra such as scards, scamps, daespiders, daedragons, daedrakens and more, some being semidaedra and others subdaedra. Dremora were demidaedra, being on the edge of being true daedra. Then there was a smaller but still impressively large statue to Jagohrunes Dagon, daughter to Mehrunes Dagon, whose devoted people were the always female dremora like drekoza.

 

Leslie was not pleased by the discoveries that she was making and the implications that were arising from them for she was starting to suspect that the so called 'Ark Domain' was part of the dreaded Daedric Realms of Oblivion or Oblivionaedra. Some great force had forced, tricked a large population of humans to come to Oblionaedra but why? As for the Realms of Oblivion, they seemed to be undergoing a great crisis if both the YiMist and YoFog were there for they were signs that the Multiverse, the universe of universes, was trying to correct an imbalance, to repair a problem.

 

She was happy to be able to rename the other Clansfolk as the Hordafolk, for that was their proper name.

 

What she hoped wat that the Hordafolk were out of the way, were not part of any current scenario in that region, and that she could focus on trying to assist the people of the FreeUnion against their enemies.

 

 

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67