THIRTEEN OF THIRTEEN

[Maharg67]

0082

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

DAMADA DEMAR DELIA OF THE DEVLIN THIRTEEN

 

Demar and Delia Devlin came from the Devlin MultiTransCube, of the MultiTransCubeShip, from where they had been healing and resting in special capsules after a very savage battle with a powerful Doomsday mutation. They had destroyed it with great reluctance for it was driven mostly by agony.

 

Now the two triplets appeared in the DC Wastelands and entered the settlement of Megaton as tough, well experienced, Wasteland artifact hunters. Artifact hunters went after such as prized artworks or museum items such as prototypes or rare PreDoomsday books or anything else that could earn them lots of rewards.

 

The infamous Tenpenny Family of Tenpenny Towers, and Tenpenny Town that surrounded the three interlinked towers, collected artifacts for their private gallery-zoo-museum that people paid to visit in heavily guarded tour groups. The pair pretended to be seeking something that the Tenpenny Family wanted badly and was willing to pay well for.

 

The attractive, slimly muscular triplets came in a battlebuggy, humming fast and agile with its electric motors, and two real android companions. They showed documents and were checked against lists of known felons, at the Outer Megaton Main Gate. Megaton Guardsmen were there along with the famous Deputy Weld, the clumsily graceful protectron robot.

 

Once inside the crowded maze of roads, lanes, buildings and other structures that made up Outer Megaton, much of which was underground, they rented a metal hutment complete with a small garage for their battlebuggy. Leaving the replicants (androids) to guard the battlebuggy and hutment, the two triplets went touring Outer Megaton. They had been there before but were surprised by how much it had grown in size, complexity and wealth. It was at least three times bigger and more buildings; also many older buildings had been replaced by bigger, better ones.

 

They passed the Moriarty Family's GirlsNGames Saloon which was the Moriarty Family's very first such business to open in the DC Wastelands and still the most famous. Scantily clad young women can be seen dancing behind a thick armaglass window reinforced with steel gridwork. They are in dim light because the Moriartys never like to give anything away for free. There is a small cover charge to get into the saloon itself to see the 'girls', to play games and perhaps even to see the infamously beautiful Nova Star in one of her famous 'dance' acts.

 

For the moment they would not seek information from Colin Moriarty, a nasty piece of cunning brutality in the shapeform of a man, but would continue to look around. Artifact hunters sooner or later spoke to Colin Moriarty but he was not the only place such would naturally seek out in Outer Megaton.

 

They passed some Followers of Atom in their slightly stained hooded robes as they chanted, their sandal covered feet thudding on the hard ground. They held metal reinforced wooden quarterstaffs and had hidden weapons. They would not cause trouble, though, not with Sheriff Lucas Simms of Outer Megaton being there. Sheriff Lucas Simms, his two Deputy Sheriffs, his eight Sheriff Deputies and his constables, they kept a tight rein on Outer Megaton. Constables were a mixture of humans, ghouls and some basic duplicant androids that the Megaton Elder Council had bought from DCTek, the TekCorp operating openly in the DC.

 

Then they went into a small, rather basic looking shop with little more than a metal door and a small, dirty armaglass display window showing some curious odds and ends. A sign read: 'these are cheap replicas only; please do not bother trying to steal them'.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0083

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

DAMADA DEMAR DELIA OF THE DEVLIN THIRTEEN

PADDYDUSTER OF THE FRAGMENTORI THIRTEEN

 

PaddyDuster looked up from behind his metal desk and brought out a bottle of muttfruit juice to pour it into three clean glasses. “Long time no see. Demar an Delia Devlin pretending to be artifact hunters. Nice disguise! Understated but effective.”

 

PaddyDuster was insane, being of the Fragmentori Thirteen, but in a quiet and less dangerous way than the others. He liked to collect things and some items he was obsessive about, including some rather odd ones. Yet he was also famous for the high quality goods and services that he sold to artifact hunters. He often paid generously for the services of artifact hunters.

 

The shop was efficiently laid out with metal lockers and armaglass and heavy metallic display cabinets. In the cabinets were shown samples of equipment and supplies, of special items such as neatly folded maps and examples of some artifacts of quite high price.

 

The two young women sat down and picked up the lightly chilled glasses of cold muttfruit juice. Each took a small gulp and smiled. The juice was good tasting, pristine stuff. Children would visit the shop through a wooden side door to get a free big cup of muttfruit juice once a day along with some biscuits or sweets or dried muttfruit. Poor families in Outer Megaton, most of them refugees from increasing troubles in some areas of the Wastelands, would make sure their children took up the favours. They did not know that DNA samples were carefully taken from the children and utilized in PaddyDuster's genetic researches.

 

Demar spoke even as she sat on a fairly comfortable metal chair facing the fake man, in his casual business suit. “Greetings, Paddy. Good to see you at least reasonably sane. You know of the manifesticant and kineticant incidents?”

 

Paddy grinned. “Of course. Happened down at LifeVault0101A2 and in the Subways Unified Republic along with other places. Doppelgangers took that settlement called Bethesdatown until they got burned. RothuaRetirwa then went off to do some nasty burning off down inside Springvale University. CrazyManPoe was there in Bethesdatown. He did some summoning up of some kind. Crazy stuff but of karmic flow. CrazyManPoe is like that. We both being of Fragmentori Thirteen, well people assume I would know more of him but we are 'fragmented', hence the name. You are not here just to drink my muttfruit juice.”

 

Delia also sat down on a chair. “We are here to get what we can from you, of course. What have your genetic researches on the DNA of the children gained for you?”

 

The man snorted. “Made the room bigger, added another, hired some keepers and now families come and get a free meal every day. Muttfruit juice, brahmi cow dairy goods, breadbiscuits, meatworm cakes, eggs, sweets, dried muttfruit, biscuits, sour-cabbage, blue carrots... must be going soft. Still, the DNA sample range is improved. Mutation rates are stabilizing in some ways. Standard Wastelander DNA patterns are strengthening. Major traits are towards Unity. Ghoulification is starting to weaken. The ghoulified will start to revert to more human standard mode if things continue as they are. Found some odd secondary and contradictory traits. I need more DNA samples from a wider range of Wastelanders.”

 

Then he frowned. “The rise of doppelgangers might be linked with certain DNA interference of a deliberate nature. Still not sure. Also a severe reaction to Unity is taking place in a minority of cases. 'AntiUnity' I suppose you might call it. Of course I could learn more if I had access to the MultiTransCube that we Fragmentori Thirteen had before we gained that name.”

 

Delia frowned. “We will put the suggestion forward for debate. We, the Devlin Thirteen, can not do this for you even if we wanted to. You, the Fragmentori Thirteen were sealed out for good reasons.”

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0084

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

DAMADA DEMAR DELIA OF THE DEVLIN THIRTEEN

PADDYDUSTER OF THE FRAGMENTORI THIRTEEN

 

There was a soft sparkling shimmer and Damada appeared as an almost identical figure to Demar and Delia, as if she was a triplet sister to them. She was sitting on another chair. She spoke. “What are you hiding from us, PaddyDuster?”

 

PaddyDuster frowned hard and then he relented with a grin. “Okay, I found one interesting trait that might surprise you. People are adjusting to a series of localized realities.”

 

Damada spoke. “You could not know that by taking samples just from refugees in Megaton.”

 

PaddyDuster lost his grin, realizing he had perhaps said too much. Then he grinned again. “I have hired the DC Troubleshooters, an interesting difficult exotic odd jobs people, to get sample for me from across the DC. Fascinating people, fascinating! They have some very exotic abilities and technologies. They are not what you call standard humans, not at all. You might call them metahumans.”

 

“We know of metahuman super-soldiers, super-servitors, super-workers and some specialized ones.” Delia frowned. “We have not heard of these DC Troubleshooters before.”

 

PaddyDuster took out a business card and handed it over. “Speak to themselves, if you would. Now, I really am busy and would like to get back to my work.”

 

“Of course, after you show us your special collections, the ones you have been creating with out informing the AlphaOmega Thirteen about them, going against the agreement that was made.” Damada smiled. “The collection is not here in Megaton or in your outposts in RivetCity or NewVegas or in NewYork or in York.”

 

NewYork and York were both big domed cities in the region known as Britona. The Britonish had been famous for the sports of cricket and baseball, live theatre, hitech music-halls for the masses, Broadway, Shakespeare, pork pies, hot-dogs and much else of the kind. York was quieter and more traditional; New York was bustling, modern and loud.

 

PaddyDuster seemed likely to rebel for a moment but then he just grimaced, then grinned and snapped his fingers. A panel opened in one wall to reveal a very ornate heavy wooden wardrobe. It was a thing not of Amtriel but of Tamriel, not a thing of science but a thing of quasimagic. Yet science and quasimagic, oddly enough, had much in common just as science and true magic had much less in common with each other.

 

Two big doors of the massive cube shaped wardrobe opened to reveal a many big heavy fur coats so densely clustered together they almost made one shape. Despite that one got the distinct impression that the space went far back than it should have done given the apparent exterior size of the exotic wardrobe.

 

The four of them went into the MultipleDrobe and the doors closed behind them.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Montage%20Pix-A-Long/BODY-IT-00005-1-1.jpg

[Maharg67]

0085

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

DAMADA DEMAR DELIA OF THE DEVLIN THIRTEEN

PADDYDUSTER OF THE FRAGMENTORI THIRTEEN

 

They they did not remain inside the amazing transdimensional realm of realms that was the MultipleDrobe. Instead they walked out of another pair of doors at the other end of the chamber, these being identical appearing to the others, and into Attriel. That is into Ozwondernia, the physical spiritual realm of talking animals, animal-humans and other such wonders, of Attriel. Attriel was of the physical-spiritual, was more exotic in some ways than were its sister supercontinents of Tamriel, Amtriel and Matriel.

 

They came out in a wintry landscape and in the distance was a great city with a WhiteGoldTower looming up in its very centre. They were in a forest of pine trees and squatter, wider trees with some likeness to the pine trees. Smaller walled settlements were closer in the very clear and very cold air. There was white snow everywhere.

 

PaddyDuster smiled at the others. “Did you really think I would show you anything of my prize collections? You will not die but you will be slowed down just a little.” Then he vanished with a sparkling shimmer and so did the MultipleDrobe, the cube shaped wooden wardrobe that was not actually wooden or a wardrobe at all, of course.

 

Great white direwolves came roaring and racing across the snow towards them, each monstrous creature sparkling with metaphysical energies often known as spirit electricity though not accurately so. They moved with amazing power and speed.

 

Behind them came the Elemental Queen of Ice and Snow, the FrostQueen, a powerful elemental witch of elemental coldness. She rode in a great battle-sled drawn by four direwolves much larger and more powerful than the others. In her hands she bore a great sparkling ice-crystal bladed sword of beauteous elegance. She was wrapped in a great suit of ice-crystal armour and a great cape floated out behind her, sparkling and glittering.

 

Then abruptly she was pulling the battle-sled to a halt and the direwolves were wagging their tails madly as they tried to lick the three women. Some got on their back so they could have their tummies rubbed.

 

The FrostQueen smiled at the three. “So what brings you here to the FrostQueen Queendom, Demar and Delia? Still have my direwolves acting like puppies. Most embarrassing, most embarrassing. I should have them whipped but perhaps later I will give them some whipped cream. I hope you have not come expecting some kind of feast or other celebration. There have been troubles in Attriel of late. Things have been coming out of the Shadowlands, very powerful and nasty things and swarms of less powerful but still nasty things. Your friend seems familiar.”

 

Damada smiled. “I am a solid projection of the unified mentality of the Devlin Triplets, both real and not real.”

 

The queen gave Damada an odd look. “Curious, for the Shadowlands creatures are not normal Shadowlanders at all but things that are both real and yet not real. Manifesticants they are called.”

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0086

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

DAMADA DEMAR DELIA OF THE DEVLIN THIRTEEN

 

The geography of Attriel was not like that of Amtriel, which was fairly standard, or the quasimagic influenced Tamriel or the cyber-virtual realms of Matriel. No, Attriel was physical spiritual with enfolding domains and quasinatural boundaries between different domains. So the Shadowlands did not have a typical physical boundary with the FrostQueendom, Greater Camelot, Asgard, Olympus or any of the other spiritual-physical realms, including the remaining provinces of the Attriellan Empire.

 

The WhiteGoldTower in the distance, and its city surrounds, were part of the Attriellan Empire in an official sense but was mostly populated by non Imperials. The Attriellan Imperial Court and Imperial Government, including the Parliament, had long ago fled to another great city that had another WhiteGoldTower at its centre.

 

FrostQueen Iceranda XI was not pleased at the antics of PaddyDuster of the Fragmentori Thirteen. Not only was there this new attempt to have she and her direwolves attack the Devlin Thirteen but PaddyDuster had just recently tried to steal something of great value from her.

 

As the rode in the fast moving battle-sled, the FrostQueen spoke in cold, angry tones. “My ancestor, who was slain by Aslan and those four teenagers, she used to supposedly turn her enemies into stone. You know, as I do, that this was not actually what happened. The process is Attriel's version of the status suspension normal to Amtriel. What many do not know is that my mother, may the ice demons turn her gizzards to ice shards, had been attempting to form alliances with evil entities from beyond not just this realm of Attriel, but from Attriel altogether.”

 

She went on speaking. “Iceondra, I am so glad she changed her name from my own, also collected strange artifacts. Why she did so, we do not know. PaddyDuster tried to steal one of those and there it is.”

 

It was a mobile-phone, a dull silvery mechanism sealed inside a semi-open black casing. Such things were normally designed to fit into somebody's hand but this one was over twenty metres long and ten metres wide. It lay on a great metallic stone pedestal and beneath an armaglass dome. It was propped up at an angle so that one could see its face from some horizontal angles and more so from a solid viewing tower built to take advantage of its position.

 

It was an AppleSanyo WowziPhone with an early 3Dscreen and touch controls as a keypad along with a secondary screen for direct touch control. A user could play games, link with the Internet, take basic 3Dphotos, take basic short run 3Dvideo and even make 3Dscreen telephone calls with it. It had a clock-calendar, an organizer, a dairy, prerecorded numbers and much else, much of it of dubious possible usefulness.

 

The monarch shook her head in wonder. “It fell out of the sky and nearly crushed a migrating family of talking-bears. Luckily something warned them, even pushed them along a bit. Perhaps it was Aslan or perhaps it was nature spirits or snow fairies; nobody seems to know for sure.”

 

Apart from its amazing size, clearly the device did not belong in such a landscape.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0087

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

DAMADA DEMAR DELIA OF THE DEVLIN THIRTEEN

 

With some difficulty they got to the electronic data of the oversized mobile-phone that did not quite belong to any known level or type of technologies in any of the realms. Matriellan and Amtriellan mobile communication devices shared some of the technological facets but neither the Matriellans or Amtriellans had ever used mobile-phones of this kind. Matriellans used special head-bands and Amtriellans used special bracelets, such as pipboys and citboys, or at least many had done so and a few did so now.

 

The mobile-phone was owned by a teenager who lived in the United Nations Lunar Colony Settlement of Moontown in the Lunar Larva Tube Caves. He called himself Lucky Eddie. Lucky Eddie was a young genius in a special education and training program. He existed in secret but behaved much like a typical teenager despite his genius. He had friends, his adoptive family and lusted after young women for he was heterosexual. He spent time being educated or trained, sleeping or spending off time with his adoptive family or friends. There was no mention of what his training or education programs were in the telephone records except a few accidental hints.

 

Lucky Eddie, real name Eddie Marx, liked to play a virtual reality computer game based on the dystopian novel, A Brave New World. He played the game with his friends. Altogether there were thirteen friends, including Lucky Eddie, and all were geniuses at the special teaching training project school.

 

Getting the huge mobile-phone transferred to the MultiTransCubeShip was not easy but very worth doing. Then it was gone, leaving behind the metallic stone base and armaglass dome it had stood in.

 

FrostQueen Iceranda XI was glad to see it go as the attacks of the manifesticants from the Shadowlands had begun soon after it had fallen out of nothingness, out of the sky, and had been increasing ever since. The manifesticants had seemed to be heading for its coordinates. She hoped that if it was gone, the Shadowlanders would cease to come.

 

Soon after the huge mobile-phone was gone, reports came that the Shadowlander raiders in Ozwondernia were turning back or were vanishing as if they had never existed. The FrostQueen was most pleased. In truth she had no interest in the giant mobile-phone or the implications of it, for she had the large FrostQueendom to run and there were always problems to deal with even with out the Shadowlanders causing troubles.

 

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00015-1.jpg

Edited November 24, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0088

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

OBSERVITII EYEOTIIGAMMA OF THE WATCHITII THIRTEEN

DAMADA DAVAD DEMAR DELIA OF THE DEVLIN THIRTEEN

JAEIO JAYLE JODIE JONNI OF THE BROWNSTONE THIRTEEN

 

Davad came to the MultiTransCubeShip to join his triplet sisters while his follower avatars went to their special place. There the triplets, with Damada, met with the projection avatar of EyeotiiGama and the Brownstone Triplets along with the projection avatar of Jaeio.

 

They were examining the giant mobile-phone now inside a great metallic domechamber with them but also inside its own armaglass dome. It was being constantly scanned and probed. All of its electronic data had been downloaded. A huge part fingerprint had been carefully measured and recorded. DNA samples had been found in the form of relatively big flakes of skin.

 

Jayle was happy to be with the Devlin Thirteen after such a very long time but they needed to focus on the business at hand. “The mobile-phone presents us with a dilemma by its very existence, let alone by the data inside it. Clearly the assumption that the creation of Divinaedra was done by plugging of data into an ancient alien artifact by members of the World State, is now put into doubt. The World State, its enemies, and even those others on that world, could all be now said to be part of a computer game. The game was based on a novel called a BRAVE NEW WORLD as written by a man named Aldous Huxley but also on another game called Earth 2150 Deluxe. The game was a heavily modified (modded) creation with other elements thrown in, many other elements.

 

So what had really happened? The over sized mobile-phone gave no real answers to that question except that some kind of underground moon base was involved and some kind of special training and education program involving teenage super geniuses.

 

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0089

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

OBSERVITII EYEOTIIGAMMA OF THE WATCHITII THIRTEEN

DAMADA DAVAD DEMAR DELIA OF THE DEVLIN THIRTEEN

JAEIO JAYLE JODIE JONNI OF THE BROWNSTONE THIRTEEN

 

Except that something else had come up from the mobile-phone data. There were games stored inside the mobile-phone.

 

One was called MANIFESTICANTS and was a 'platform game' involving triplets who would try to reach a certain goal, solve puzzles and defeat monsters called manifesticants who were fake copies of the triplets, powerful animals and mythical monsters.

 

Another game was called FALLOUT-WASTELANDS and involved creating characters that would carry out quests, fight foes of various kinds including mutated monsters, and both survive and thrive, gaining as many rewards as possible.

 

Another game was TAMRIEL VENTURES about a realm of magic, quasimagic and various monsters, quests, artifacts, strange invasions and much else.

 

Another game was about super jetcars that could hover speed or fly low or skip over water or go under water. The jetcars would be raced through a series of deadly courses as the player gained rewards and upgrades to the jetcar or even better jetcars. Threats were enemy jetcar racers, jetcar gangers, brutal police officers, private bounty-hunters, mutated monsters and much else depending on particular courses.

 

Another game was RAINING CRYSTALS about 'elemental crystals' that rained down in semirandom patterns and that the player had to shift, eliminate or otherwise deal with in such a way as to gain points.

 

There was MANGA STRIP POKER where young animated cartoon women would take their clothes off if the player won a series of poker rounds but would put back on clothes if the player lost a round.

 

There were card games being variations of SOLITAIRE.

 

There was a finding game based on finding things in various odd museum settings, often small or even a little hidden.

 

There was a game ONE ARMED BANDIT DELUXE based on a range of electronic poker machine like games.

 

There was a game called YOMBIES VERSUS ZOMBIES in which nasty zombies fought 'good heroic' yombies to save the world.

 

There was a game called RISE OF THE UNDEAD; DRIVE TO KILL where the player drove various battlebuggies or battlecars or other such vehicles, through a city infested with the undead. Quests were carried out, rewards and upgrades were earned and a fleet of vehicles plus comrade robots could be gained.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67