EPIC OF FATES: STORY OF STORIES

[Maharg67]

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KEEPING IT SIMPLE DESPITE MY CHAOTIC CREATIVE NATURE

HAVE REDONE, IMPROVED THE VERY FIRST CHAPTER IF ANYBODY IS INTERESTED IN TAKING A LOOK AT IT.

Edited August 18, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0007: Of Lucky Eddie and the Whirla of Fate #7

 

Lucky Eddie found himself reluctant to talk about his home world, about the fact that he knew the realm of Tamriel as a very large, complicated and sophisticated gameworld and about his being a metahuman. Indeed he found himself more reluctant to speak, on many subjects, as time passed.

 

Lucky Eddie made the small daedric creature vanish after allowing both Matrina and Cathidra to examine it briefly. He got angry when Tafna suggested that they kill and dissect the entity though he was not sure why. It was a daedra after all.

 

He sat and ate some foodbars, some dried fruit and travel-cakes. He drank water and then a mug of cofii, which tasted like bitter coffee with a slightly odd side taste that did not rob it of its good flavor; at least it did not do so for him. Not all of the others were so pleased with the cofii and drank other kinds of tea that came with the food rations.

 

Matrina spoke to Lucky Eddie. “How did you get to this world from your own?”

 

“I got a small package sent to where I live in the academy where I study. In it was a single ring but when I touched the ring, it vanished, and an identical ring appeared on each of my middle fingers. I fell into darkness and then was here as a phantom” He showed her the rings on his hands. “Can you not see them? They are obvious.”

 

“I saw no such rings until you pointed them out, just then.” Matrina studied the rings. “At least I did not take notice of them until you spoke of them. There are many questions we would ask of you and you most likely have many questions to ask of us.”

 

Barrata was sleeping deeply thanks to some healing by Matrina and the use of two vials of the concentrated healing serum. Was he a victim or was he guilty or was the true picture more complicated than that?

 

Lucky Eddie frowned, trying to hide how troubled he felt. “I have been programed, conditioned and trained not to speak to strangers of myself, my world or much at all. Yet when I got here I did start to speak of such matters quite openly. That was unexpected. Now it seems to be getting more difficult to speak of such things. Where to begin? There is much that I can speak of but is it wise for me to say all that I know. Anyway there is much that I do not know. I am a metahuman, a transformed human enhanced of mind and body with special augmentations.”

 

“I saw how amazing fast you moved when you knocked down Barrata.” The priestess turned to look at the young man. “By removing the spinal-worm from his body, perhaps you have helped to save his life. We have yet to decide if he is truly a traitor or was a helpless puppet.” She turned back to look at Eddie. “What tasks were you going to undertake as a metahuman?”

 

Lucky Eddie spoke with reluctance. “Supersoldier, an exterminator of unwanted groups of people, of those who would challenge the corrupt, autocratic power, wealth and influence of the elites that control much of my home world. We do not use magic on our worlds; we use advanced science, what you call alchemy and other terms like that, and science based technologies. Except that our world is suffering a great crisis and many people are in trouble while the elites hold onto what they have with increasing violence and exotic super technologies that seem quite insane to me, or at least a few of them do. You might be amazed by much that we can do and yet there are things you can do on this world, with your magic, that we can not do even with our greatest knowledge and technologies. So, how did you, and your group, end up here?”

[Maharg67]

0008: Of Lucky Eddie and the Whirla of Fate #8

 

Matrina responded after a pause, as if she considered first what she should say. “We came to investigate this place, to see if a certain legend had any truth in it and to seek out a powerful artifact known as the Whirla of Fate.”

 

=- This is not good! No mortals should take possession of such an artifact. You need must find it first and then it will be taken from you and sent to a very safe place. You have earned 1,000 fategamecredit and two fategame-points. I will explain later for now is not the time.

 

The others were busy with various tasks. The wizard sage was examining the exotic statue along with his daughter and the soldier scholar. Yet Lucky Eddie knew that the others were observing the interaction between Matrina and himself. Perhaps they feared that she would tell him too much or were hoping he would give away some sort of vital information to them.

 

He spoke. “Your comrades would make lousy spies. They pretend not to be watching, and listening, but they hide it very poorly.”

 

Matrina shook her head. “In truth they are highly experienced Imperial Agents and far from obvious to most. You are quite dangerous in your abilities. Do you know if the elites of your world have anything to do with what has happened to you, with the strange appearance of the ring and your coming here in such a strange manner?”

 

He shrugged. “I have no idea if there is any such link though I doubt it. The elites, of my world, have shown no such abilities such as to send people between worlds as I was transported. On my world, this world is reflected in a gameworld that exists for people to undertake non real, yet very real seeming adventures in. I doubt that this real world and the gameworld are exactly the same. There was no mention of any Wheel of Fate or Whirla of Fate in the gameworld.”

 

Which led him to trying to explain about super virtual reality, SVR avatars, the gaming world and related subjects in a basic fashion. Matrina was clearly fascinated and the others soon gave up pretending not to listen, were soon standing and openly listening to him.

 

He finished off. “I have a strong general knowledge of this world, as it reflects the gameworld, but I know far from everything about it. What I know about the gameworld of Nirn, of Tamriel, might even mislead me about this world. Super virtual reality is great trickery but in the end it is illusionary, and this world 'feels' real like my home world itself and not like the gameworlds.”

 

Matrina studied him carefully. “Why do your people choose to retreat into such gameworlds?”

 

Lucky Eddie shook his head. “Not just gameworlds but many kinds of super virtual worlds set up for a wide range of reasons, often for more than one reasons such as social interaction, commerce, politics, sports and... well much else. Our world is dying. We abused it, exploited it, fought terrible wars and we have brought our own doom upon ourselves. Instead of serving the world elites as a supersoldier, I would prefer to be attacking them, undermining them, helping common folk even if I do not have much more respect for common folk than I do for the elites. Actually there is a limit to what I can tell you about my world because the elites restrict my access to information so as to better control me; they do the same to all of my kind. They know I am enhanced of mind and body, that I could be very dangerous to them.”

[Maharg67]

0009: Of Lucky Eddie and the Whirla of Fate #9

 

The scream could be heard distinctly, inhuman and threatening, echoing along cave tunnels and into the big cavern chamber that they were in. Lucky Eddie flickered in motion and was suddenly standing at the tunnel mouth listening with extreme care. He sniffed the air with his enhanced sense of smell. The others had also heard the sound though not as distinctly as he had.

 

He felt fear, which was healthy, and 'sensed' something big and dangerous coming along the tunnel. No, more than one thing. What were they?

 

=- A new list of items have become available to you. They are quasimagical in nature. There are two sublists being one for weapons and one for body-armor. You will have knowledge of the items in your mind, including prices in fategamecredit.

 

The quasimagical items were more expensive than the items than were on the first list but that was understandable. He chose quickly and made a quasimagical pulselance appear that glowed very softly with its power. It was quite long, being designed to be used from horse back, and yet he hefted it easily as if it was far smaller and shorter.

 

The soldiers clutched ordered arcane magical swords and shields. He made another pulselance appear and told them how they might use it, speaking of how it could shoot a pulse or pulse with quasimagical power as it struck into an enemy or even just touched an enemy.

 

Barrata chose that moment to wake, to sit up painfully, and to look around with astonishment. He was later to explain that he had spent a long time trapped in a nightmarish dream in which he was a puppet that followed orders. Yes, he had been of the Mythic Dawn but he had begun to doubt their cause, to question the very sanity of Mankar Cameron, the brilliant but unstable leader of the Mythic Dawn. Yet it had not been the Mythic Dawn who had enslaved his mind and not just the small creature inside him, somehow he was sure of both. He had only some vague clues to who, to what, had done it to him.

 

Matrina sat with Barrata, talking quietly with him, after giving him some more of the concentrated healing serum, which she had broken down with clean water first.

 

The creatures that came along the tunnel were like the dinosaur clannfears that served Mehrunes Dagon, along with other Grand Daedra, but were much larger and on the back of each was a reptilian looking monster of a humanoid armed with a great spiked club and holding a large shield. They were carnanoids riding great mozaclannfears. The three carnanoids opened great mouths, exposing large, hard and sharp fangs. They made another terrible screaming noise.

 

Lucky Eddie, and the two soldiers who used the other pulselance, fired off pulses of destructive energies at the same hulking carnanoid. The monster screamed in agony and rage, was struck by two more pulses of energy and died.

 

The living carnanoids charged at the defenders and all three mozaclannfears went for the attack. The dead carnanoid fell off and hit the ground but his comrades did not even bother to glance back at him as they gave into berserker fury.

 

The wizard did his thing, whirled his arms, made some vague incantations and hurled a great fireball that exploded horribly in the confined space of the tunnel, as big as it was. The blast was so great it even pushed Lucky Eddie back a little. The others, even the wizard himself, hunched down against the force of the magically unleashed energies.

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00081.jpg

KEEPING IT SIMPLE DESPITE MY CHAOTIC CREATIVE NATURE

HAVE REDONE, IMPROVED THE VERY FIRST CHAPTER IF ANYBODY IS INTERESTED IN TAKING A LOOK AT IT.

[Maharg67]

0010: Of Lucky Eddie and the Whirla of Fate #10

 

Cathidra looked visibly drained. The use of such a powerful magical spell had taken a good deal from him. Matrina gave him some watered down concentrated healing serum. Lucky Eddie materialized a large batch of the stuff and Matrina took about half of it but distributed the rest amongst the others, including Lucky Eddie himself.

 

The six monstrous creatures were quite dead. They openly bore the emblems of Killogic Dagon, brother to Mehrunes Dagon and also his long term enemy. Sibling rivalry had reached the point of savage warfare between the two a very long time ago. The shields and weapons were big, cumbersome and fairly crude. The carnanoids wore only webbings of pouch dotted belts, with other items also, and were obviously male. The mozaclannfears had each a basic hardened leather saddle with stirrups but they seemed directed with out any kind of obvious controls such as reigns.

 

Somehow they got the carnanoids, and mozaclannfears, into the big cavern chamber where the old wizard, the priestess and others studied them. So did Lucky Eddie. He did so from the basis of the advanced sciences of his own home world but mostly biology, of course. It somehow came as no surprise to him that he found a semiconscious spinal-worm in each creature. It seemed that Killogic Dagon did not even trust his own daedra. Was Killogic Dagon even worse than Mehrunes Dagon? Or was there some better explanation to what was happening.

 

The daedra had not been summoned for they had not vanished upon death. The answer that most of the group came up with, which they considered logical, was that they had come through an Oblivion Gate. Not only Mehrunes Dagon could generate Oblivion Gates. Lucky Eddie, Matrina and Cathidra were not so ready to jump to conclusions.

 

The next big decision that the group leaders made was that they find a more secure place to encamp at, that is one more easily guarded, more hidden and away from any Artifacts of Fate that could attract danger. Lucky Eddie had come to know, thanks to the 'Voice', that he could not return to his home world for many local days to come but that when he did return, only about a minute would have passed on the home world. This was a relief for Lucky Eddie would not even be late for his next tutorial that morning, a lesson in how to kill somebody with basic, cheap, kitchen utensils.

 

He had not told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to Matrina! Though generally classed as a supersoldier, in truth he was more of a super-assassin. Why had he not told her? Lucky Eddie did not like facing the truth but he felt guilt at killing the fifteen people that he 'terminated' for the CyberNexus Corporation. While he had not been told much about his victims, except how to get to them and such data, he had worked out that some were far more innocent than others.

 

They found the best location that they could do that was reasonably close to the cavern with the statue in it. It was a large cave chamber with three tunnels leading into it. It had a small stream as a supply of clean, cool water. Glowcrystal grew over its ceiling, alien and quasiliving, like flat tentacles of elegantly beautiful, falsely fragile looking translucent crystal. It glowed enough to help fill the chamber with yellow-white light but it was not very bright or warm. One tunnel was fairly large, the other two being fairly small.

 

Cathidra took out a crystal-ball in a fixed bronze base and tried to use the ordered arcane magical device to communicate with other mages of the Imperial Mages Guild, most commonly known as just the Mages Guild. Such communications were one of the services that the Mages Guild provided to the Empire as part of the Mages Guild Charter and the Imperial Mages Guild Contract. Nothing happened for not only were they surrounded by much rock but by powerful, exotic energies.

Edited August 13, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0011: Of Lucky Eddie and the Whirla of Fate #11

 

Sarisha, the soldier scholar, and Yanimod the soldier staid to look after the camp along with the deeply sleeping Barrata.

 

The others rested a while, had a drink, a snack, and then set out after checking gear and making some other preparations. It did not take long before they were deep into an amazingly complicated labyrinth of caves both all natural and partly natural. They came upon other black, golden wheel symbols melded into walls.

 

They found, in a large cave, the skeletal remains of goblins and other rubbish left by them. The others saw no importance in this but Lucky Eddie was fascinated. He made a goblin skull vanish into storage along with some goblins items including an odd iron bladed, bone handled knife of a kind known as a 'goblin-sting'.

 

The goblins had perished years ago and there were no easy answers to be found to explain what had happened to them. There was at least a small tribe of them there and amongst them not only the more common male goblins but female goblins with children. There were even remains of goblin shamans, who were the real leaders of the goblins despite the efforts of goblin tribal chiefs to make it otherwise.

 

Lucky Eddie picked up some vague, but important, psychic spiritual impressions. “There was a great deal of violence here. Some force attacked the goblin tribal encampment and destroyed it along with all of the goblinfolk here. No, it captured many of the youngest of the goblin children. What was the force made up of? Difficult to clearly discern the truth but it seems to be carnanoids, mozaclannfears, perhaps dremora and some scamp like creatures, they having yellow-brown fur and skin instead of the brown of the scamps. The violence took place about five local years ago. Yes, a lone figure led the force, a figure of great power, and yet I can not quite read anything clear of that one as if it was shielding itself somehow from such readings.”

 

It was Tafna who found the shamanic bones, still in the positions that they had taken when scattered on the ground by a long dead goblin shaman. The bones were exotic, were of some kind of translucent glowing bones and not the normal type used by goblin shamans. Lucky Eddie, Cathidra and Matrina studied them closely but it was Matrina who came up with the first answer.

 

She spoke. “Though most do not care to know of such things, goblins have their own histories, their own legends and, of course, they came from somewhere. It is said they were created by the Aldmer and then rejected, ejected into the wilderness to survive as best they could. Other stories go that they were created by some kind of terrible curse.”

 

Lucky Eddie gave a grin. “Truth is far more prosaic. The goblins came from the Tamrielic Underworld a very long time ago, along with the true dwarfs, the dwarns, who work deep in the mountains with metals and the same is generally true also for the gnomes.”

 

Matrina spoke. “Gnomes, dwarns, are of the Wildlands like others. They do not normally come to the Empire except to outposts where they trade. The existence of an Underworld has long been debated. Many have considered such a place to be impossible while others have stated such a place would be necessary as a balancing force of Tamriel.”

 

Lucky Eddie shrugged. “I would not know about such pointless philosophical debates; all I know is that the Tamrielic Underworld exists.”

 

The old wizard seemed lightly offended by this last remark.

Edited August 14, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0012: Of Lucky Eddie and the Whirla of Fate #12

 

They found an exotic cave of deeply cold temperatures and managed to get the three daedric corpses there, large thanks to the impressive strength and physical endurance of Lucky Eddie. This would preserve the bodies until they could be examined by specialists, known as physialmists in the Empire, specializing in such as the study of dead bodies; they were a controversial group thanks to Imperial culture and traditions of death.

 

The cave system was dotted with features that indicated it was a mixture of natural and artificial influences. They found two more statues, identical to the first one of the Lady of Fate. Such statues were part of many legends, as was the Lady of Fate herself, except such legends had mostly become faded in time or even lost to most.

 

There was another Ice Cave Chamber, just like the one where they put the dead daedra.

 

They discovered what appeared to be a cave quarry where stone had been carved out of a wall, enlarging and joining a series of smaller caverns to become a much bigger one. Except that very thick stone pillars had been kept, carved around, to help support the ceiling. Carved, fairly crudely but hard, into one wall was the basic symbol writing of the serving people. These were Mer but not Aldmer. These were Raymar, were hybrids of Aldmer, human and other nature created by Aldmer sorcery-science. The Raymar did not hate the Aldmer, for they were treated like waged workers and not slaves, but neither did they love the Aldmer; the Raymar had no real respect or quality living or freedom in their service to the Aldmer. The Raymar did the hard labor and used mainly basic means to carry out their work though they did have some basic quasimagical devices to use. Aldmer specialist workers did what ever work needed to be done with more advanced, powerful, quasimagical devices.

 

The ramifications of the quarry were many. There could be an actual Aldmer settlement in the area. Even the great Aldmer needed natural resources to work with and were limited in how far they could carry such huge amounts of quarried stone. Yet the Aldmer were very technologically brilliant and cunning also; if they hid something, even a fair sized settlement, they tended to hide it very well.

 

Lucky Eddie was examining the graffiti left by the Raymar, for in truth that was what it was, when he laughed. The others looked to him in puzzlement.

 

“I have no idea why they did it but there is a coded message hidden there which gives information about the Aldmer that the Aldmer would far from appreciate being put there. It shows the location of the Aldmer settlement, a moderate sized cavecity by Aldmer standards; not only that it shows how to get there, giving a nice set of instructions including some descriptions of navigational points, that is of natural features that could be recognized. They also left more clues, in the form of coded messages in small bits of graffiti, to help anybody to reach the settlement.”

 

So they began to follow the coded instructions, the clues, and were soon going through a series of tunnels and chambers they would probably have found only after months of searching, if at all. They came upon a great cavern chamber that showed the fate of the Raymar and perhaps the reason for the Raymar hiding the coded information; perhaps they had guessed what was coming in the way of Aldmer treachery.

 

The great cavern was heaped with thousands of bodies of dead Raymar people, being men, women and children. They were preserved in some kind of strange hardened semitransparent green jelly like substance; it was rock hard and smooth like glass. With the Raymar were their clothes, tools and other gear including even cultural items. The whole scene was quite odd. Something nagged at Lucky Eddie.

Edited August 14, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00008.jpg

KEEPING IT SIMPLE DESPITE MY CHAOTIC CREATIVE NATURE

HAVE REDONE, IMPROVED THE VERY FIRST CHAPTER IF ANYBODY IS INTERESTED IN TAKING A LOOK AT IT.

Edited August 18, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0013: Of Lucky Eddie and the Whirla of Fate #13

 

Then they found the artifact chamber of the Mer, the Elves of Tamriel, sometimes known as the False Elves being not of Faerie. Did the Divines really create the Mer? Some had come to dispute the idea such as many human scholars of the Third Era. It was a Third Era that was supposedly coming to an end with the death of the last of the Septum Emperors.

 

Though the great chamber, with its exotic architecture and construction materials, was clearly Mer influenced it was not clearly of any of the known Mer Peoples. The Ayleid, the Dwemer, the Bosmer, the Dunmer, the Altmer or any other known of or whispered of Mer Folks.

 

The architecture was amazingly sophisticated and advanced, with great structures including mighty archways, pillars and statues that were both somehow both elegantly graceful and majestically strong in appearance. Lucky Eddie was the first to spot a symbol and to guess the nature of the Mer who created that place and the discovery shocked the others.

 

The Aldmer, or First Ones, were said to be the First Mer by many. The Aldmer were said to be direct descendents of the Ehlnofey of legend. It was generally accepted that no Aldmer had existed for an extremely long time and that many other Mer Peoples had descended from them. The structure would thus be ancient though it was not obvious.

 

Glowglobes illuminated the great chamber, being fused to the rocky walls. They came upon what seemed to be structures that were part statue and part machine. There was a great machine throne on a great disk shaped platform that itself was in the centre of a wider disk shaped platform.

 

=- This place should not exist, should have been erased totally a very very long time ago, and yet here it is. There is much lost in the legends, much that is distorted. The Aldmer vanished from Tamriel. They did not vanish altogether as is believed by Tamrielins (Tamrielic Peoples).

 

The group found it could not closely approach the Aldmeri quasimagical machines. A firm, but gentle, invisible force pushed them back. Matrina stopped the others trying magical means to get past the protective forces. Lucky Eddie pointed out the strange metallic statues, each about three metres tall, that were some kind of constructed guardians.

 

Why had the Aldmer built that place, when had they done so and how had it lasted so long with out the Empire discovering its existence? These were but three of many questions that were to be answered but answers were not obvious, not at all. The group kept on exploring the 'cave city' and continued to be astonished by what they discovered.

 

They passed over bridges over flowing waters in narrow chasms, the waters being far below. A semitransparent crystal wall fenced off the chasm for safety reasons. It was Tafna who glimpsed something whip through the waters far below, something big and yet very sleek. Lucky Eddie then glimpsed it also and there was something about it that he did not like at all. He was glad it was way down there and they were way up there.

 

The same big chamber had building fronts carved out of two long rock walls and building spaces carved out of the rock itself. There were statues, semi-enclosed balconies, pillars, half pillars, carved murals and much else to look upon. It was beautifully elegant and artistic but in a very exotic fashion.

 

Then they came to another of the throne machines, that looked identical to the first one that they had found. There were also other quasimagical machines in the same chamber.

Edited August 14, 2012 by Maharg67