THE ADVENTURES OF THE ETERNAL CHAMPION

[Maharg67]

0001

LUCKY EDDIE

 

Lucky Eddie formed out of mid air with a sparkling shimmer and he lay on his back for a while in blood stained clothing and worn boots. He stared at the blue sky above that was dotted with white fluffy clouds and watched a hawk circling to one side above some treetops.

 

For a time he badly wanted to throw up but the feeling of nausea passed with surprising speed. Slowly he sat up even as he heard strange sounds of what he took to be a battle of some kind. Even as he did so, his slider-band beeped where it was on his left wrist.

 

His backpack was still firmly on his back but he had to adjust it even as he stood up as the sliding journey between Alternate Earths had loosened things a little. His sight was slightly blurred but his vision cleared up as quickly as did his headache.

 

Two roman-medieval warrior types were fighting against what looked like three bandits who looked, in their own way, just as roman-medieval. Their swords clashed against each other and armour but crackled with strange energies.

 

The fighting was taking place on foot at the edge of a fairly wide, gently winding paved road. Two horses, each with some armour, were standing patiently in the background. Lucky Eddie had no doubt that they belonged to the warriors because they were well trained animals with the appearance of being in a well organized force.

 

Lucky Eddie wondered if he had reached a magical realm at last. It had always been a strong possibility but no other sliders from the Unified Alternate Earths had reach any such place, as far as he knew. He was a Special Slider Operative, SSO, of the UAE so he should have known though in truth he did not always do so.

 

What he sensed was that there was something dark, disturbing, about the bandits. They fought with enhanced speed and strength but with an odd awkwardness. They were driving the warriors back who had some sort of uniformity to their dress and identical looking symbols on their helmets, surcoats and shields.

 

Both warriors were humans but one of the attackers was…

 

Yes, an orc. Information formed in his mind as it often did when he was on an Alternate Earth that he had not visited before.

 

Lucky Eddie slipped out his multiple-revolver and fired off a tangler. It struck one of the bandits but exploded to wrap fine clinging wires of sparkling energy around all three of them. They dropped, crying out in berserker rage and struggling stupidly for the tangler tightened more around them as they did so. Then the tangler energies finally stunned them into a semiconsciousness.

 

With his hands held high in the air he approached the two Highway Guards of the Cyrodilin Empire. So it was that he rescued the two men and earned himself three goodly sized bounties. He also earned some trust from these Cyrodilin Commoners.

 

But that was in the future to come. Before that there was to be more trouble.

Edited August 2, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0002

LUCKY EDDIE

 

The encampment was not far away. Four more Imperial Highway Guards were there being two sword-fighters and two archers. Tents were erected and there was a camp fire place set up but no fire was burning. Six horses were at the edge of the camp and guarding them were two large, savage looking dogs.

 

Lucky Eddie showed the six Guards his multiple-revolver but did not let them touch it. “It is secured so only I can use it. It is dangerous for others to use.”

 

Then he slipped the gun away into its hip-holster on his right side even as he studied the magical sword of one of the men. It was of elemental magic being of burning, cutting, stabbing flame. The shields were of deflection magic. Other swords were of shock, flame, burning-light or dissolution magic. So were arrowheads belonging to the arrows of the archers along with blades of magical longknives of all of these fine warriors. Armour was deflection magic as was the semi-armour of the horses.

 

They were in a large hollow in the landscape, a nice hiding place quite close to the highway that led to the fortified city of Bruma that was only a relatively few kilometres away.

 

The Guard Leader was a tough looking woman of brown skin and hair with a scar down one cheek. She studied him with a frown. “Others have come to Tamriel from other worlds. There have been attempted invasions from other realms such as from Oblivionaedra.”

 

He sighed with some melodrama. “Yes, it comes to me, daedra that are a kind of demon. Scamps, scards, dremora, clannfears, daedragons, daespiders, daegolems, daegoblins and too many others to list, I suppose.”

 

She frowned in suspicion of him that seemed largely professional. “Some that you have named are known of in Cyrodiil but some you have named are unknown to us. How did you gain such knowledge? Some would hold this to be suspicious.”

 

Lucky Eddie shrugged. “I serve some entity that remains a mystery to me in most ways. I call it Oricallanda and so do others. It sends me safely to various worlds, rescues me at times and supports me in other ways. Yet it also demands that I carry out various quests and what you might call side-quests and ever-quests. Which reminds me, have you seen or heard reports of anybody seeing odd lights in the sky lately like falling stars.”

 

Evarta shook her head. “What are these ‘falling stars’ that you speak of?”

 

He explained and the Guards, except those on sentry duty, were all surprised looking.

 

Evarta grinned. “So Old Mad Olvane was not so mad after all. He spoke of heated rocks falling from the sky and called them meteors and meteorites. He created the first of the telescopes of brass and glass that he used to study the stars and moons at night. He spent his last years in Cloud Ruler Temple and had built there a large telescope. Too bad the Sages Guild and Mages Guild treated him so badly at the time; now they admit their unfairness and admire him at least more than they did.”

 

Lucky Eddie gave her an odd look. He took out a metallic canteen with a set of nine buttons. He pressed a button and thirty seconds later he took a swig of very warm coffee, light brown with just a dash of sweetness. When he gave the canteen to Evarta to take a sip, she was not too impressed with the flavour. It seemed coffee was an unknown in Cyrodiil and perhaps in the whole of Tamriel and beyond.

Edited August 2, 2011 by Maharg67

[LordWushin]

Wow I like it. Distant future meets far past! Kudos a second time!

[Maharg67]

You are welcome, LordWushin, thanks for the positive feedback.

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/ScreenShot28-2-1.jpg

Edited May 2, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0003

LUCKY EDDIE

 

The Cyrodilins assumed his devices were magical of nature, being of an unknown kind of magic. They knew of elemental, arcane and other magics including dark magics such as daedric and necromantic. He took out of from his backpack, only opening it briefly, a thick but compact leather bound journal, opened it and studied the two pages there. As he did words, paintings, diagrams and other data showed up for him. Nothing like photographs did as it seemed that Oricallanda was supporting the idea of his magic.

 

The Imperial Highway Guards passed around his multiple-canteen and drank wine, ale, mead or cider from it. Like the coffee, it was all actually something called nutrioliquid altered to taste and texture. By the time he got his canteen back, the device had cleverly taken various samples from the humans. The three semiconscious captives, still in tangler energies, did not get any drink.

 

Now they were all sitting around the unlit fire.

 

Evarta studied the ‘magical journal’ in amazement. Then he closed the book and put it away.

 

She frowned. “I saw some facts there about Cyrodiil that I did not know before. I could demand that you give me access to the magical book of yours.”

 

Lucky Eddie gave her a mild grin. “On what authority? As an Imperial Highway Guard or as what you really are in your disguise as one of these Imperial Highway Guards. You and your warriors move like elite killers.”

 

After a dark frown and a long pause, she snorted. “Damned it but what is the point. Clearly you are one of those damned wizards or even a psyker of the mind. Also you move like an elite killer. We are BladeAgents of the Blade Legionaries who serve the Emperor or Empress on the throne. Most recently, since the deaths of both Uriel and Martin, it has been Empress Herculine Septum. Except now that there is a contender for the Imperial Throne who claims to have a stronger blood line claim; he would be Emperor Retsamri Septum. While the Empress has been seen as progressive by many, many others have come to oppose her or even hate her. This is especially true since she formed a treaty with the wildfolk, began the reducing of the empire to Cyrodiil, and banned necromancy through out the Empire. Yes, she also banned the Dark Brotherhood and death fights in the Imperial Arenas.”

 

Lucky Eddie was obviously thoughtful. Then he grinned. “I am here to assist Empress Herculine Septum to stay on the throne. The magical journal did not tell me much about the contender to the Imperial Throne except that he is false in a very dark way.”

 

“Do not take this the wrong way but you are only one person, even if you have strong magic.” Evarta frowned. “The Empress is going to need a few miracles, small and large, if she is to win against the False Emperor. Bruma and its Territories support the Empress but even here her enemies sow trouble. The False Emperor is a grand wizard in the magical arts of the arcane, of the necromantic and the daedric. This blending of powers is supposed to be near impossible but has done it. They say he gathers a powerful army in some hidden place in the Empire that we who serve the Empress have not been able to find. His agents, magical and non-magical, are everywhere.”

 

Lucky Eddie had a sense that there was something digging at his mind, something important that he was missing.

Edited August 2, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0004

LUCKY EDDIE

 

It turned out that there had been reports of travelers vanishing in the area, of the destruction of thorps and hamlets, the sightings of strange creatures and other disturbing reports. Disguised as Imperial Highway Guards, and in other ways, twelve BladeAgents had been sent into the area. They were supported by two BladeMages, a kind of battlemage which was a kind of magical warrior.

 

They had soon learned that local bandits had been seduced by a tall, dark stranger who had gotten them addicted to a magical berserker serum known as Berserker-Zavi. It made bandits better fighters in some ways but also caused them to be clumsy and overconfident. Still, these addicted bandits were becoming a problem as they seemed to be totally dehumanized by the Berserker-Zavi to the point of being sociopathic monsters. Not that the Cyrodilins knew what a sociopath was, that is a person with out any conscious.

 

Were the bandits being recruited or was there something more to it than that? Eddie examined the still semiconscious prisoners and soon found not only heavy traces of Berserker-Zavi in their blood but also heavy traces of some kind of mind control drug. Yet the big find was that each had a lump at the back of their skull of the same odd vertical, elongated and rounded shape. Inside each was a small unnatural creature like something between a spider, a flat snail and a biometallic disk.

 

Lucky Eddie suddenly knew who was behind the evil that was happening in Cyrodiil, or at least one who was behind it. The False Emperor’s name was Retsamri but turned backwards that was Irmaster who was a very old and powerful enemy of Lucky Eddie. These creatures were brainbugs, a favourite device used by Irmaster to control expendable mind-slaves. Irmaster claimed he had invented them but this was but one of his very many lies; at most he had refined them to his own brutal end for originally brainbugs were designed to help people.

 

When he carefully exposed and then removed on of the brainbugs, the fake Imperial Highway Guards were not as revolted or shocked as he guessed that they would be. Then he remembered that as Blades they had fought creatures such as rotting zombies, glowing animated skeletons, foul ogres and much else besides.

 

It was at that moment that he realized the real truth and, taking out a small silvery globe he pressed one of three buttons on it and dropped it to the ground. Tiny holes opened up in its surface and out of those holes jetted cloudy gas. In an amazingly short time the area was covered in fog. Even as this happened, Lucky Eddie cupped his hand over his mouth and nose, holding his breath.

 

What had led him to discovering the truth? It was not one thing but many small, subtle clues. When the stun fog vanished away, the scene was revealed of figures lying prone on the ground but they were not Imperial Highway Guards. They wore the armour and had other gear of such but they had slightly glistening translucent skin and living hair. They were shaperfolk of the gaedra.

 

What were shaperfolk doing on that world of Nirn? Why were they pretending to be Blades that were pretending to be Imperial Highway Guards? Or had they just chosen that excuse when he had stated that they behaved like elite killers?

 

He took out his multiple-revolver and waited patiently for them to wake.

Edited August 2, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0005

LUCKY EDDIE

 

It was fully dark by the time the bandits and the shaperfolk were awake. The shaperfolk returned to their old disguises out of habit and the bandits were now tied with rope instead of tangler energies. The fire burned merrily but its light was well concealed from the rest of the countryside thanks to the location of the camp site.

 

The shaperfolk were not tied at all but Lucky Eddie still held his special handgun, which was not his only handgun. The two hounds were happily chewing on meaty bites as provided from the multiple-backpack of Lucky Eddie.

 

He had removed his damaged and bloody jacket and shirt, had revealed his slimly muscular body covered by small exotic tattoos that sometimes moved and-or changed in other ways. He had put the shirt and jacket into the backpack, sealed it up, and some minutes later had removed them. They were clean and fixed. He put them back on.

 

Lucky Eddie grinned. “Gaedra shaperfolk here on this world of Nirn? What are you doing here?”

 

Evarta shrugged. “Evarta is my real name. We gaedra have a hidden colony here in Tamriel and not just of our kind of gaedra. We fear that there is planned a daedric invasion of some kind that would make Mehrunes Dagon’s attempted invasion mild in comparison. The False Emperor is here to split the Empire and weaken it from within so as to make the invasion’s success for likely to succeed. His real name is Irmaster.”

 

“I know! He is a very old enemy of mine. Like myself he has lived many incarnations of the Wheel of Eternity.” Lucky Eddie spoke matter of factly about amazing facts. “Like myself he was transformed by a series of unusual events and powerful exotic forces into somebody who can not die, into an Eternal. It is not something I would wish on anybody and thankfully I do not remember all my incarnations unless I choose to do so or something special triggers them. I am extremely young into this incarnation being only about twenty-five years old.”

 

“I see that your clothes are now clear of blood and are no longer ripped.” She studied him carefully. “Just how many tricks do you have to you? You do not use magic, do you? We gaedra use elemental magic on this world and also esper abilities and psionics. Yet we also dare to use more advanced technologies in our hidden underground realm to the north of here below some of those mountains of the Jerall Ranges.”

 

The mountains were to the north.

 

An owl hooted in the night. A small mammal rustled softly the grass just for a few seconds as it hunted for prey. If it was not careful enough, or was unlucky, it would become the catch of an owl or other type of predator.

 

High above shone the two great moons of Nirn and, along with them, two celestial spheres that were the realms of Oblivionaedra and Havenaedra. Neither moon was full. Oblivionaedra was of the daedra and others while Havenaedra was of the kaedra and others.

Edited August 2, 2011 by Maharg67

[LordWushin]

Continues to be good. Can't stop reading. Very interesting!

[Flintlockecole]

Love time travel based stuff's.

[Maharg67]

Thank you both for your positive feedback, Flintlockecole and LordWushin. I hope to keep your interest going. :thumbsup: