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queenof-literature · 4 years

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Linked Galaxy - Where Loyalties Lie

It’s here! I’m very sorry for the delay. As I stated on my Tumblr I was very sick and midterms are coming up so overall... livin la vida loca. I hope you enjoy my first chapter of Linked Galaxy, my Star Wars AU for Linked Universe! I would like to say again that Linked Universe was created by Jojo @linkeduniverse, and Star Wars is owned by Disney. I in no way take credit for either, however I worked very hard on the headcanons for this universe and to combine the two together in my story of Linked Galaxy. But neither are mine. I hope you enjoy!

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away

After the death of his master, Sith Lord Ghirahim has recieved a way to travel across not only dimmentions, but time itself. Seeking to manipulate the strange wormholes for his own bidding, Ghirahim searches the new lands in hope of harnessing this power.

A new empire is born… The United Realms.

Only one band of heroes can stop him, a band of nine Heroes of Courage brought together by Hylia from nine different times. All of the Hyrule Galaxies now lay in their hands.

But unknown to all, a far more sinister being is pulling the strings of United Realms’ and our heroes’ actions.

“Faster you imbelces!” Commander Bulblin snapped. He couldn’t believe how he was stuck with what had to be the most incompetent portion of Ghirahim’s army. It was most likely some punishment from Ghirahim for Bulblin ‘speaking out of place’ in a gathering. Bublin scoffed. The only reason that man had an army in the first place is due to the death of their Emperor, and he dared to call Bulblin disrespectful? Bulblin never even fought under Ghirahim, he was from a different Hyrule! Apparently, all Ganons had been killed by a Grey Jedi, all sharing the name Link. Just that name… Link, sent rage crawling up Bublin’s spine. It was because of those so called heroes, that he was stuck working under Ghirahim in the first place. Why was this Hyrule the only one with a Ghirahim? Not only that, but he expected an army that wasn’t rightfully his to go on some interdimmentional quest, to take over the nine Galaxies that they now had access to? It was a ridiculous notion, one that the other commanders and generals seemed to share save a few others. General Zant didn’t seem keen on the whole ordeal, but that man would do anything for power and could not be trusted. Bublin sighed and continued on with this ridiculous job. He just had to lay low for now.

Taking over all nine Hyrules wasn’t the only goal Ghirahim had in mind. He needed to bring back Ganon. He needed to bring back his master. Emperor Ghirahim sat on his old Master’s throne in contemplation. The guards had gotten used to his angry mutterings by now. In order to truly bring the Hyrule Galaxy to its knees, all of them, Ganon would need to be resurrected. He could do it himself of course, but Ganon had authority Ghriahim knew he would never gain from his armies.

He had split the armies into nine, based on the Galaxy they were from. It made the most sense.

The Seadogs were from the realm of the Hero of Winds. They were quite stupid, but loyal to their cause. Ghirahim usually put them in the Tie-fighters and smaller fighting vessels. They knew how to fly and they were expendable to boot.

The Fallen were from the Hero of Hyrule’s time. They were absolutely vicious, the most focused in bringing their Ganon back. Ghirahim had never known the hero’s blood was required to resurrect their Ganon, but let them bleed the little brat dry for all he cared.

The Oracles were from the Hero of Legend’s galaxy. They were an interesting group. Absolutely hated the hero and wanted him to suffer. Ghirahim could appreciate that.

The Savages were from the Hero of Wild’s world. World, because the monsters apparently were not even aware there was a galaxy outside their world until now. This portion of his army constantly gave him a migraine. They were so smart but so stupid. They had never taken an actual order in their lives.

The Accursed were from the Hero of Time’s galaxy. Relatively useful, compared to some others Ghirahim couldn’t complain as much. Like the Oracles, they were hellbent on destroying their Link and any happiness he had.

The Twili were from the Hero of Twilight’s realm. Obviously. They were ruggish and quite frankly scarier than most of the other armies. They, at least, knew how to follow a commander, even if that commander was a bumbling fool.

The Shadows were from the Hero of the Four Sword’s galaxy. Ghirahim thought the name was underwhelming, but apparently the dark world in that galaxy was strongly entangled in the light, so Ghirahim let it slide.

The Shattered, the Hero of Warriors’ galaxy, was who Ghirahim suspected were responsible for the wormholes in the first place. However none admitted to it, so he didn’t even think they knew what was going on either. There were hoards of them that never seemed to send, they were certainly an asset.

The Skybreakers, the damned Hero of Sky’s adversaries. The little brat had the absolute audacity to still be alive, and now he had teamed up with more children. Ghirahim wouldn’t stand for it. The name had spread like wildfire, Ghirahim didn’t know where it came from but it spread fear, and that is what’s important. When one of his first class ships broke through the atmosphere, they would scream about the Skybreakers. Ghirahim loved it.

Ghirahim was broken from his musings by the opening of his door.

“How many times have I told you idiots to knock?” Ghirahim snapped, cruel eyes bearing into the souls of his useless guards.

“Apologies Lord Ghirahim.” the guard stuttered out. Ghirahim was technically Emperor in his master’s… absence. But everyone still called him ‘Lord’. Ghirahim didn’t correct them, he didn’t think Ganondorf would appreciate it if he thought his apprentice was attempting to take his throne for good. “General Zant demands your presence, my lord.” The guard finished.

“He demands?” Ghirahim questioned, poison lacing his words, rubbing his fingers along the cool metal of his lightsaber.

“That is what he said, my lord.” The guard confirmed, and Ghirahim rolled his eyes at the man’s cowardice.

“Send him in and get it over with.” Ghirahim commanded, marching up to the throne. He plopped down carelessly, crossing his legs and leaning against one side. Ganon used to tell him that it didn’t matter how you sat on the throne, what mattered was how much power you displayed. The throne itself was intimidating, but if the man or woman sitting on it commanded attention as well, anyone would bend the knee.

The grand doors opened slowly to reveal the large man, that ridiculous helm covering his face.

“What, Zant?” Ghirahim demanded before the man even approached.

“My Lord, may I just say I respect how you are able to command all nine armies at once-”

“Don’t flatter me you coward. Tell me what you want.” Ghirahim ground out impatiently. If he was in the mood he would tease the man, get him wound up. It was so easy to torment Zant, but Ghirahim was not in the mood.

“Do you think it wise, to continue to hop through strange wormholes? There is no guarantee they will open up again.” Zant finally spoke up.

“Our engineers and scientists are working everyday to harness the power the wormholes provide.” Ghirahim said flippantly. n

“Yes, My Lord, but if before then we get trapped in a strange Hyrule?” Zant questioned.

“Then we will take over that Hyrule. You seem to forget we are not the only ones traveling through those wormholes. The heroes are as well.” Ghirahim spoke with venom.

“Why do the heroes matter. Should we not hope to be rid of them?” Zant attempted to ignore the dangerous look in Ghirahim’s eyes.

“According to the Fallen, we need their blood to raise Ganon again. That is our main goal, Zant. If we need to move to other realms to do it we will.” Ghirahim could feel his blood beginning to heat at the countless questions.

“Will any of it matter if we get trapped in a different galaxy? In a different time?” Zant’s voice was getting louder.

“I have the chance to take over nine realms at least.” Ghirahim began, practically growling. “And you want me to give up because of your cowardice?”

“You misheard me, My Lord.” Zant tried desperately to recover. “I only want what is best for the United Realms. But… Ganon is gone, My Lord. Perhaps it's best for him to rest in peace so we may move on.” Zant waited with bated breath. If possible, Ghirahim’s eyes turned even more cold. Under the steel gaze of his superior, Zant felt ten times smaller.

“I believe I like you more as a coward, Commander Zant.” Ghirahim snarked, reminding Zant of his rank. “You forget yourself Zant, Ghirahim leaned forward in his throne. “Without Ganon… you are nothing.” Ghirahim snarled. “Get out.” Ghirahim commanded, voice neutral and cold, so unlike his normal self. Zant looked like he was going to argue, neutral face twitching slightly behind his mask, before he turned and left without a word.

Ghirahim contemplated what Zant had said. If the commander himself thought this way, Ghirahim could have even more disloyalty than he originally thought. He would have to take care of this. Ghirahim could feel it in the air… disloyalty.

Sky took a large breath, allowing Hylia’s energy to surround him completely. The room he normally shared with Four was pitch black, but that didn’t matter. Feeling close to the energy around him was all it took to be aware of his surroundings.

He could feel the other's presence upon their old ship. They had all pitched in to restore this old hunk of metal to… well not the prettiest thing in the galaxy, but it fit them all well enough.

Sky reached his mind through Hylia’s energy. He could feel Hyrule resting in the room he shared with Wild and Legend. He must have trained hard today for him to be resting in the afternoon. Sometimes it felt as though Hyrule, Wild and Wind all had an infinite amount of energy, Sky was glad Hyrule was at least taking it easy for once. He reached further down the hall. Across the hall he could feel Wind and Warriors’ cabin but no one was in there.

Sky took another deep breath and felt the waves of Hylia’s force extend to the rest of their ship. It was a simple exercise, one that younglings were taught at the academy, but it was good practice. Wind and Warriors were in the lounge, probably playing Dejarik at the holotable. Wind was most certainly cheating. He continued his exercise, finding Wild’s energy in the bottom turret. The boy enjoyed gazing out into the stars. He had never thought there was an entire galaxy outside his planet when he had met the others, and that had blown the other Link’s minds, even Hyrule. Apparently the only remnants of magic and technology in his Hyrule were from the Sheikah, who had died out millennia ago. Now the boy watched the galaxy outside constantly. Anytime they needed to find Wild, they knew to look in all the windowed areas first. He would get tired and stressed staying on the ship for too long, so looking at the stars helped him pass the time, as he told Sky one evening.

Sky felt a slight prod at his own energy. Time must be doing the exercise as well then, probably in his and Twilight’s room. Sky reached out and greeted the man, smiling when he received a greeting back, albeit a little weak. Sky may not fully understand where Time’s previous hatred of Hylia has stemmed from, but he came from a different galaxy, Sky would most likely never comprehend what the other man had gone through. He was working to strengthen the bond again, but only enough to help them on this quest.

Sky then moved on and felt Twilight and Four’s energy. They seemed to be in the cockpit chatting with Legend. Sky didn’t let himself linger on Twilight’s energy for too long. Something about it was just… off, and dark. Sky trusted Twilight with his life, and knew the other Link would tell them if something was wrong or when he was ready. Still though, it made Sky uncomfortable. The same with Four. It wasn’t dark, his energies were just fuzzy, like there were puzzle pieces all smashed together. Legend’s energy was always interesting as well. The young man was experienced and his energy showed that, but there was also the feeling of melancholy all the other Links had. Having them all in the same room while Sky was focusing so intently gave him a small headache, so he retracted.

Sky opened his eyes after one more deep breath, allowing his energy to flow free once again. A slowly stood from the smooth floor and stretched his legs. He always lost track of time whenever he meditated, but feeling the other’s presence had reassured him he didn’t miss anything. His door slid open as he approached, he barely ever locked it. Sky decided to go see what Warriors and Wind were up to. Walking down the half barren halls, he smiled at the art on the walls. When they fixed the ship, yet to be named, the halls were completely barren and militaristic. Wind had decided they would need to fix that. Every Link was tasked with putting something on the wall. Some were complicated designs, others were just handprints or finger drawings. Sky thought it was Wind’s best idea yet.

Sky approached the lounge and chuckled at the bickering he heard. Wind must have been caught cheating. Again.

“You can’t prove shit!” Wind yelled across the holotable.

“I don’t need to, kid. I know you!” Warriors snarked back. Sky wasn’t surprised to see Warriors wearing his scarf, even without his chainmail. The royal blue scarf contrasted greatly to his blank cream tunic, but in the couple of months he had known Warriors, Sky had barely ever seen the man without it. Sky worried it had something to do with the war that Warriors was forced to fight, and the nightmares and blank looks the man would fall into, but he never asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean? How would I cheat with a holotable?” Wind demanded.

“It means you were taught this game by pirates, kid. Your piece was over here, and now it’s over there.” Warriors pointed to parts of the board that Sky couldn’t see. “I’ll give it to ya, kiddo. If I wasn’t so observant I wouldn’t have noticed.” Warriors smirked.

“Don’t preen yourself.” Wind grumbled.

“Having fun?” Sky spoke up to make his presence known to the two boys wrapped up in their argument. Wind and Warriors whipped around.

“Hey, Sky.” Warriors greeted. “You wanna play a round with the pirate?”

“Maybe later.” Sky chuckled, sitting down next to Wind.

“Where is everyone? It’s dinnertime soon.” Wind questioned, glancing at the small clock displayed near the bottom of the holotable. They had been in the ship for about 24 hours now, clocks were the only way to keep track in space.

“They’re all chatting or relaxing. I’ll call down Wild.” Sky stood up and walked over to the wall comm rotating the slightly rusted top wheel from ‘All’ to ‘Lower Turret’. “Wild, it’s almost dinner time.” Sky called while pressing the comm button. There was a pause, then a crackle from the other side of the speaker.

“Sorry, Sky! I lost track of time.” Wild spoke loudly into comm. “Oops I yelled again.” Sky let go of the button to hide his laughter. Coming from a world with no ships, comms, or any other technology outside of the old Sheikah tech, the boy had trouble remembering that comms picked up more range of sound than even regular talking.

“No problem, Wild. I can make dinner tonight if you want to keep stargazing.” Sky teased, knowing his offer would be refused instantly.

“No no! I’m coming!” Wild assured before the other speaker went dead. Sky laughed, moving the wheel to ‘Cockpit’, then ‘Cabin 2’ to notify the others as well. According to Warriors, comms had advanced far past what they had on their ship. Now there were programs to send to designated locations all at once, among other functions. The ship communications themself weren't that big of a deal, but Sky worried what that increase in technology meant for the UR’s weapons and ships. Especially now that there were nine different armies they were facing. With a quiet slide of the door, Wild raced in and ran to the small corner that was their kitchen.

“Sorry guys!” Wild apologized, pulling what little ingredients they had out of their metallic cupboard. They would have to stock up soon.

“It’s fine Wild, you have plenty of time.” Warriors reassured. The others tried to offer to make dinner, but Wild enjoyed it so much they eventually stopped offering almost completely.

Time came in next, eyes still a little foggy from meditation.

“Where is everyone else?” Time asked.

“Legend, Twi and Four are on their way, and Hyrule is resting so I figured we would give him a little more time.” Time nodded, moving to sit at their meal table that barely seated them all. Everyone knew how hard Hyrule pushed himself. He had the rare gift of healing, a combination of magic and energy that was almost extinct, in all nine galaxies at that. Apparently the more he used his magic, the better he got and the more stamina he gained. That combined with Legend training the boy how to use elements of the Ataru fighting style was sure to be tolling.

“Hey all!” Twilight called as the doors slid open, followed by Legend and Four.

“Where’s Hyrule?” Legend frowned.

“He’s resting. We wanted to give him a bit more time. You can go wake him if you want, we just thought we’d give him some more time.” Sky told Legend.

“Wild, how long until dinner is ready?” Four questioned.

“Ummm, about 20 minutes. Sorry I got a bit of a late start.” Wild apologized, mixing ingredients so quick the others had no idea how he wasn’t spilling.

“Relax, Wild. It gives Hyrule more time anyway.” Warriors assured.

“I’m gonna go get him. Best to give him time to wake up before he eats.” Legend claimed as he left for their cabin, flipping off Warriors behind him when the other man coughed out what sounded suspiciously like “mother hen”.

“What’s for dinner Wild?” Four asked as Legend left.

“Omelets if that’s alright. I know that it’s more of a breakfast thing, but I think the cucco eggs will go bad if I don’t use them soon.” Wild explained.

“That sounds really good actually.” Twilight nodded, although to his hollow stomach anything sounded good. Wild relaxed significantly, as if he’d been scared of the other’s reactions. He wasn’t as skittish as he used to be, but he still struggled to feel enough around the other Links, even with simple tasks.

The Links settled into comfortable chatter, around the table as Wild made different kinds of omelets. The door slid open once again a few minutes later, revealing Legend and a groggy Hyrule in tow.

“Hey Hyrule.” Time greeted casually, not mentioning the deep nap Hyrule had obviously just woken from. If the boy was actually resting, Time didn’t want to push it by bringing it up.

“Hi.” Hyrule greeted with a yawn. “What’s for dinner?” Hyrule called over to Wild.

“Omelets.” Wild said simply, fully concentrated on seasoning the food in front of him.

“Nice!” Hyrule called as he sat down, shoving his way next to Legend, leaving just enough room for Wild. Ten minutes of idle conversation went by before dinner was finally ready.

“Dinner’s ready!” Wild called, hefting a large plate filled with Omelets over to their table.

“Hylia, we had that many eggs?” Four asked, shocked.

“Yeah we had a lot more than I thought, but they were all going to go bad soon so I had to use them.” Wild clarified again, setting the large plate in the center of the table, squeezing into the last space around the table. The others practically drooled at the smell and sight, herbs that they didn’t even know the names of partly covered the perfectly cooked omelets.

The other Links barely took turns digging in, the sound fighting and clashing forks and loud laughter echoed in the small eating nook. The looming threat of the United Realms could be forgotten for now, even for an hour or so. They all felt it flowing through the energy, flowing from each other… loyalty.

Was it cheesy to start this with “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away”? Yes. Was I legally obligated to? Also yes. And yes they still use minutes in space don’t @ me lmao. I hope you enjoyed!

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terrific-togekiss · 3 years

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May we receive 25 and 73?

25. Favorite Memory?

Definitely my 7th Birthday. It was a rare sunny time in February, a lot of my friends came over and it was just... peaceful time with friends and family. There were no big, out of this world shows or decorations, just a birthday. At my house.

We all went bowling afterwards and being the big boy scout I was (and still am), I gave out action figures to the guests. Power Ranger themed. Felt nice to have a birthday where guests got gifts.

I don't mean to brag, but I am a very talented bowler.

73. Tell a funny story.

Story of my life.

Oh boy... y'all gonna love/hate me for this one.

There was once a little boy, much like myself in the past. Held his head high, said very little, did so much more. Perhaps his summer day held much more in store.

He disobeyed his mother to go for a bike ride, unlike any other. Blue shirt on tight, dirty orange shorts handed down from an older brother, running shoes at the ready for flight, helmet on top and bike at the stop.

He rode past many houses, big and small, rich and poor, colorful and muted, home to many hungry mouths and quite the suited.

He grew tired easily, as easy as a 7 year old could. Such a break would quell his queasy little gut.

"GRRRRRRRR!" roared the sound; not a source of his chubby stomach, but from an animal from up. It was a dog, free to do as he please, no master in sight, no chain holding back his fast and ferocious might.

The 7-year-old ditched the bike, hitting the mutt, like an old toy that just had been replaced. He bolted and ran and ran, as fast as his soccer trained legs carried, the scary beast following to tear him to shreds.

The black haired boy desperately saw one thing at the end of the road, lest the sun continued to blind what his very eyes showed: the light at the end of all the tunnels, the beacon across all waters and funnels, the stop sign ever Black Friday driver feared and once they saw appeared; his mother.

He tackled her into a hug that knew no beginning or end, unless his sweaty body and clothes wouldn't just blend. The dastardly beast was at its defeat, as the owner came to arrive and to do anything than let that foul demon strive.

Dragging it off, mouthing and saying a small apology, as my mother mouthed some very vulgar ones, that knew no theology.

Did the boy ever forget this?

Did the boy ever get better hand me downs and toy clowns?

Did the dog end straight to the pound?

Did the owner give chase to, or was he too focused on the quick footed hound?

Who knows? Ever story has their ending... this boy's story is better with a new pair of unsoiled underwear that just stopped pretending.

Thanks so much for the ask @lodimius-skybreaker! :D

#asks #get to know me #ask game #asks answered #lodimius skybreaker

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esseastri · 6 years

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Megan Reads Oathbringer (part 6)

tfw you go to work halfway through a liveblog post. not a good feel.

Part 6 encompasses pages 394-476 (previous parts)

Okay, sleep is good, but it’s back to my boys time.

Only Dalinar would consider healing himself in a vision “cheating”

I’M SO EXCITED FOR DALINAR’S OTHER SURGE

let’s get some new magic up in here

“Welcome to my madness, ladies.” DALINAR PLEASE, that’s the most ridiculous greeting ever.

Navani getting all overly excited about an ancient fabrial is delightful. She’s like a kid on Christmas. Though if this leads to her figuring out the design and getting lil Regrowth machines out into the world so people can heal, that would be magnificent. And seems like exactly the thing she’d be planning on doing.

THERE WAS A TEARFUL MOTHER-DAUGHTER REUNION!! THERE WAS ONE!! I’VE BEEN ROBBED

I genuinely love how every time Dalinar orders the Stormfather to do something, he’s like “wtf dude, no I don’t take orders from you” but he does it anyway.

sooo..most of the time when a Radiant dies, their spren dies, too. But the Stormfather was actually...enchanced? by Honor’s death. Obviously, Honor isn’t a Radiant, and I get the feeling that the Stormfather wasn’t his spren, but there’s a certain similarity in that they were clearly connected in some way--if they weren’t, why would his death affect the Stormfather at all? So why did the spren memory loss thing work the opposite way for the Stormfather--that he was fuzzy and forgotten while his connected being was alive, and more sure of himself now that Honor is dead?

“Dalinar squinted, but he still couldn’t make out which were human and which were not.” I feel like that says something, doesn’t it? If you can’t tell the humans from the parshmen? the maybe you’re not so different after all? Maybe you all die the same way, you all bleed and fight and die the same way. And maybe the things you’re fighting for are different, but there’s something to be said for looking at things from a different point of view.

oooohhh honey, is that what they told you? That the Heralds ascended to the Tranquiline Halls? God, humans so want to believe the best of people--as a general rule, we are an optimistic race. We want to believe things will get better or people won’t disappoint us. The betrayal of the Heralds wasn’t even a thing they could comprehend. Why would their gods abandon them? Surely, it was because they’d earned a better afterlife, not because they were tired of being tortured and just...walked away.

I’m emotional about the surprising resilience of humanity, but also of the marvelous ways humans lie to themselves to make themselves feel better.

I’m also emotional about the Heralds. That’s a constant thing though, sort of goes without saying.

ARE WE ACTUALLY GETTING INFO ABOUT THE HERALDS!!!!!?? AAAHHHHHH WHAT

FINALLY

Wait, are you telling me that the Desolations--all of them--were started by vengeful, angry ghosts????

vengeful, angry Parshendi ghosts.

that’s...marvelous.

OOHHHHHHHH

THIS IS MY SHIT THIS IS MY JAM. TEN PEOPLE PUTTING THEMSELVES IN HELL TO SAVE EVERYONE ELSE AAHH THESE PEOPLE

strong, selfless, sacrificing people

who got tired. and fucked up. and broke. and I’m

goooddddd this is MY SHIT THIS IS MY FAVORITE GIMME THIS WHOLE NOVEL AAAAHHH

AND THEN THEY WENT BACK KNOWINGLY KNOWING WHAT WAS WAITING FOR THEM THEY WENT BACK AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN WILLINGLY KNOWINGLY I”M

I AM EMOTIONAL ABOUT THE HERALDS

also the Stormfather slowly gaining humanity/perspective on humanity is a beautiful thing to witness. Like, yeah, we got it with Syl and Pattern and will with other spren, I’m sure, but it’s wild to see it in the soul of a storm.

HE WASN’T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE THERE HE WASN’T A KING HE WASN’T ANYONE SPECIAL HE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE AND HE WAS THE STRONGEST OF THEM AND HE NEVER BROKE HE NEVER GAVE IN AND HE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE AND I”M

TALN

TAAAAAALLNNNN

I’M CRYING

I”M C R Y I N G

I AM UPSET ABOUT THE HERALDS

FOUR AND A HALF THOUSAND YEARS

(also that’s a lord of the rings reference I never noticed before, good job)

oohh shiiiiiittttt. they are reborn literally every nine days how the hell do you fight that

haaa um. the letter in the epigraphs--”it was agreed that no two Shards should settle in the same place”--my dude...you’ve got a limited number of inhabitable planets in this system. hate to break it to you, but... y’all were gonna end up in the same places. ..

“Everyone who might have been able to help us is crazy, dead, a traitor, or some combination of all three. Figures.” 1. Kaladin pls. 2. No, they can’t be dead. that’s too convenient. and also if they’d died before Taln escaped, he would have had someone there to help bear the torture burden and maybe wouldn’t have broken? Or...maybe I’m assuming Taln is stronger than he was there at the end.

Also, Kaladin, you don’t get to be self-righteous about the Heralds. I know you suffered and were tortured and survived with your oaths intact, but you almost didn’t--you reaaaally almost didn’t--and your tortures weren’t nearly as bad as theirs.

“Maybe that should make you reconsider those other wars, rather than using them to justify this one.” GET REKT, DALINAR. GOD, WHAT AN IMPORTANT LINE.

See, Shallan, that’s the beauty of Kaladin. He doesn’t consider whether or not something is “the sort of thing you say to the Blackthorn.” He knows what’s right, or what should be right, and he knows what needs to be said, and he frikkin says it. That’s one of the marvelous things about him--it’s not that he doesn’t care about the consequences, it’s that the consequences of him not speaking are worse. Because if he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t have a chance to change minds or hearts at all.

“You, three of your men, the king, and Adolin.” GOD BLESS THIS ROADTRIP

MMMMMMM YEAH NOPE

No wonder Jasnah and Taravangian got along so well; they have the same world philosophy. Murder a few people on the off chance that that might stop everyone else from dying.

Pragmatic, but ultimately horrible. And probably ineffective. The Heralds already broke. There was only a single year between the last two Desolations. It is highly likely that they any of them did go back now, they would simply break immediately and you’d have the same problem right away.

Usually, Jasnah has good ideas, but this is just. stupid.

ALSO THE FACT THAT HER ONLY OTHER SUGGESTION IS GENOCIDE OF THE PARSHENDI IS REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE. COME ON, JASNAH, YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT.

Listen, I don’t think Jasnah counts as a really good therapist, but at least she’s...trying? to help Shallan? Shallan really needs a therapist.

“Is there a solution?” “I don’t know.” “Perhaps...act like an adult?” Amen, Pattern. Aaaaaamen.

Here’s the thing: I fully 100% understand that Shallan is a sheltered, frightened, PTSD, abused child who can’t confront her problems and therefore hides in various identities because it’s safe there. The problem is that this is the end of the world. Nothing is safe. And acting petulant because you want to sketch in a corner and hide and the big adults are forcing you to help save the world? Not an endearing quality.

I know she has panic attacks whenever she thinks about confronting her problems, and panic attacks suck ass, but you need to work through them? At some point, if you really hate yourself that much, you have to stand up and decide to change? Decide to be better. Shallan has said several times that she hates herself and she wants to change, but she refuses to actually do that. And yeah, it’s fucking hard, but there comes a point when you just have to grow up.

~*~unpopular Shallan opinions with Megan~*~

“Was she perhaps simply not interested?” Ace!Jasnah #confirmed. haha

Okay but like...Jasnah would never train you to be only a “mousy scribe” like...what the fuck, Shallan.

oh of course. Skybreaker...

Okay, so there’s the Sons of Honor--now Amaram’s domain. The Ghostbloods. The Diagram. Hello Darkness My Old Friend’s Skybreakers--which we know from Edgedancer were working on Ishar’s orders. The listeners and the parshmen. And us. the New Radiants. That’s.....a lot of groups with very conflicted purposes and goals.

Someone else in Amaram’s army was close to bonding a spren? and Hello Darkness took them out... Was that the other voice Syl was talking about? the first person she heard? who the heck was it.

“How long will Shallan go before she remembers we’re here?” Aw, Gaz, it’s like you think she cares about you guys.

I AM FREE FROM WORK AAHHH

going to work for 8 hours mid-liveblog just sucks y’all. Anyway. On we go!

“Teft woke up. Unfortunately.” I KNOW THE FEELING, MY DUDE

also good finally please tell me what my boy has been up to/where he’s been disappearing off to

......why this

we didn’t need a drug addiction subplot. why this.

also OOH HE HAS A SPREN? What type. It’s automatic to assume Windrunner, but what if it’s not?

WELL, I’M GLAD KALADIN AND ROCK FOUND HIM wtf we didn’t need this aargghhhh

We’re...really not going to get Azir, are we? I mean. that litany of what the Sunmaker did to them...I’m not freaking surprised that they don’t trust the Alethi. I wouldn’t. That’s horrible.

Dalinar has a point about living long enough to see his consequences though. And he’s actually doing a pretty good job of owning up to his mistakes and dealing with his consequences.

Probably wouldn’t hurt to, like...apologize to Azir though.

OMG LIFT HI

HI BBY GIRL I LOVE YOU

how the heck did she get in here though? is this some of her connected-to-the-cognitive-realm stuff?

pfff Gawx just being so excited to see her thas cuuutte. Besties 5evar.

OOHHH THE ART IN THE BUBBLE IT’S GOT THE PATCH RIPPED OFF

OHHHHHH OOOOOOHHH OOOOH MY BOY. MY MOASH. AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

he’s alive I’m

aaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

pfft “stew”. nothing will ever live up to Rock’s, I’m sure.

oh wait shit okay

I did not remember that Moash’s king-killing friends were Diagram peeps...I’m assuming we knew that in WoR but I did not remember and that’s... Why would Taravangian want to kill Elhokar? That wouldn’t do much to destabilize anything--that would just put Dalinar more firmly in charge... hm.

unless Taravangian wants Dalinar in charge because he know Dalinar trusts him... dangit. okay.

MEANWHILE I”M UPSET ABOUT MOASH

at least he didn’t throw the patch away. he can sew it back on when he comes back

OH GOD HE’S IMAGINING THEM BEIN HAPPY WITHOUT HIM AND I’M SAD? HE MISSES THEM SO MUCH

AAAAAHHHHHHH

n ooooo he didn’t tell them he didn’t want them to hate you it’s okay just...come hoooommmeee

OH SHIT NO NOT FUSED COME ON

LET HIM LIVE

I S2G

HE GOT A SPEAR OKAY HE’S GOT THIS HE’S THE BEST THEY HAD OH GOSH OKAY

COME ON, MOASH, YOU GOT THIS

“BRIDGE FOUR, BASTARDS” THAT’S MY BOY

IS HE GONNA BE OKAY

WHERE ARE THEY TAKING HIM

WHY ARE THEY TAKING HIM

STOP THEM FROM TAKING HIM

LET HIM COME HOME

I”M CRYING STOP PUT HIM BACK LET HIM COME HOME I MISS HIM

I legit thought he was going to kill Moash, I was ready to drive back to Utah, I WAS READY TO YELL AT PEOPLE OH GOSH

huh. art page: why are the sails on the bottom? Are these air ships? stick the sails into a highstorm, let it push you along on the winds? that...would be dangerous but REALLY COOL?

“Red, stop trying to make deevy a thing, it’s not gonna be a thing.”

it’s like groovy but worse sounding

so when is Ishnah, the espionage lesbian, going to call Shallan’s bluff?

Sorry, Veil’s bluff.

I feel like Shallan’s plotline in this book is just that Onion headline that’s like, “Area [wo]man thought breakdown would be more obvious”

I love Shallan being jealous and suspicious of Adolin’s flames, but Janala isn’t the one you gotta worry about. Danlan’s the one in the Ghostbloods. Ghostbloods? Diagram? shit, I’ve forgotten which evil organization she’s in... or if it even matters. She hasn’t shown up again, has she?

idk, Jasnah, Shallan was justified this time. Anyone making fun of Renarin definitely deserves the Sarcasm Bludgeon.

But Shallan, you weren’t invited on the boys road trip.

though, tbh, that could be fun...

BUT KALADIN JUST LEFT REVOLAR. MOASH JUST ARRIVED OR WAS DRAGGED WHATEVER BUT KALADIN JUST LEFT. THEY COULD HAVE SEEN EACH OTHER, KALADIN COULD HAVE HELPED HIM ESCAPE, HE COULD HAVE COME HOME.

ARRGGHH

“They had no reason to obey the lighteyes. They had no power, no authority.” That’s the problem with tradition. With having something so societially ingrained that you can never shake it, because you don’t think to try.

Moash no. don’t... don’t run yourself into the ground pulling wagons, please, darling, just... don’t die. Don’t give up. Stand your ground, find a way, come home

the letter in the epigraph: “Rayse is contained and we care not fot his prison.” yeah, uh...you gotta....you gotta do maintenance at the very least...to make sure he stays in prison? like...just...check the locks every once in a while? idk. this seems like it might be your fault if he escapes...

Sigzil being scientific and doing tests on them all is still so endearing. I love him.

Also poor Skar. let the man get his squire on, pls.

also, someone who can draw, please, please do an art of Rock doing the “Horneater victory dance” and skipping through a field of wildflowers and butterflies. Please. This is important art.

they still leave a hole in the conference circle for Moash, and hi this is my ghost I’m dead now bye

god, Kaladin would make them do squad formations in the air. Is there a goose-migration vee formation?

SKAR IS A GOOD. A GOOD TEACHER AND A GOOD GLOWING PERSON AAHH

Hey, guys, did you know I love Bridge Four?

#op #Megan reads OB #Oathbringer spoilers #ladyknightliveblogs #MY BOYS ARE SO GOOD AND I LOVE THEM #that's not spoilers that's known fact #Stormlight Archive #Oathbringer #Brandon Sanderson

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nightblink · 6 years

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Blink Reads Oathbringer - Chapters 50-54

Apologies to anyone actually reading these for the wait! I wasn’t able to make any headway over the holiday, and then I was finishing up and posting Whitespine Caged, so this last week didn’t see any progress either!

But, here you go, the next chunk. And if by chance there are people reading these, is there anything you’d like to see me doing differently in these liveblogs?

Chapter Fifty – Shash Thirty-Seven

'Obrodai'? Where and what is Obrodai. Is that the place in the sea, whichever sea that may be?

'new avatar' wh a t

'she has been instilled with an intense and overpowering dislike of you' how the hell did you piss these people off that badly, Hoid

WHOOO FLYING WITH KALADIN. But Dalinar is. not thrilled. Understandable, considering the circumstances of his previous 'flight'. But it seems he's not the greatest fan of heights, either. Heh.

“Men are not of the waves.” Tell that to the Thaylens and Reshi. I guarantee you'll get a rude gesture.

Huh. I wonder what purpose the 'domes' that the warcamps previously were served. Shelter? Granaries? Were they used by the humans or the Parshendi?

Everyone has Crazy Hair but what do you bet that Kaladin's is somehow still perfect and luxurious. Syl must protect it somehow.

Oh thank the Heralds you're at least still thinking about the logistics of feeding Urithiru while still keeping in mind the limited supply of gemhearts and possible extinction of the chasmfiends.

Well, at least there's one person who's got some Air in them. Dalinar, not so much.

Looks like it took Aharietiam alone, and Fen finally accepts. That one is a doozy. But at least Dalinar finally has one of the other rulers willing to listen! I thought it'd be Gawx, since he has Lift with him, but nope, I was wrong.

Lost in your own warcamp, Dalinar, come on! At least you'll make it easy for Kadash to find you.

[hums] So your Calling was… leading your armies? I can't remember if this was discussed in TWoK or if that was just a mention of your devotary. Either way, it's what you're good at, certainly.

“What else were important lighteyed families going to do with unmotivated children?” Well heaven forbid they actually find what they enjoy doing later in their lives.

Yes yes you need to find Taln, he's the only Herald that you more or less know is a Herald at this point. You're still not going to convince the ardents anytime soon, though

Yeaaaah. They're all wondering if the de facto leader of Alethkar has really gone crazy and denounced the roots of Vorinism or not. It's a bit of a big deal, Dalinar.

Awww, Kadash, you waited as long as you could so you could argue Dalinar's side! Even though you don't believe him! That's loyalty, right there.

[winces] For all Roshar's fairly decent medical knowledge, your planet doesn't have the greatest mental health approaches, Dalinar. That's probably intentional too.

Huh. 'Not ready' for Tension yet – does that mean Stormfather wants you to say another Ideal, or just practice more? As usual, he's maddeningly unspecific in that regard.

A poison dart, though it wasn't to be used on Taln. But you wouldn't know that it was Amaram who cut him out of the cell, or that it was his life the attempt was made on.

Where is Amaram keeping Taln?

Yesssss, KALADIN FLYING TO THAYLENAH SOON. I'm all for both more Kaladin and more Queen Fen.

Chapter Fifty-One – Full Circle

“overcome the tests we have created” yes go let's do it BRING IT, WHOEVER YOU ARE

Considering that the last human they trusted got them pulling this sledge (through sheer association and nothing else), it's entirely understandable that they're standoffish to Moash. Not quite what he's thinking they're thinking, but still.

Further details on the agriculture! Excellent. Giant storm-breaks make sense if you're going to try and keep a land of cultivated food safe from the highstorms and have it be big enough to help feed an entire city.

At least two kinds of Fused then, and for some reason their Investiture isn't running out. How and why.

Impressed? Oh ho, the voidspen/ancient Parshendi in the Fused don't recognise this kind of ingenuity and technology from humans of the past, do they? Four and a half thousand years has given humanity time to advance - that's one advantage that's going to help them dearly in this Desolation.

HEH. They haven't seen anyone even dare to resist the Fused yet, save Kaladin fleeing, and that's an entirely different matter. Killing one? They probably haven't even considered the possibility.

Yeaaaah, the situation in Kholinar is fucked

'the Fallen Tower'. Is that foreshadowing. That'd better not be foreshadowing, Brando.

….I can't blame him for laughing his ass off. How ironic.

Oh, switching POVs in the middle of a chapter, and to Shallan? Huh. I wonder how important that transition is.

Ooo, at least we're getting more info on Ishnah. I like her so far. Ambitious! Brave! Intelligent! Shallan needs someone to step on her toes a bit.

Oh, interesting. Illusions powered by the stormlight in spheres that she can then leave behind! Anywhere! She can make an illusion of herself in her rooms if she needs an alibi for 'Shallan', or create a stable diversion. ….well, and the maps too. Yeah. Nice.

I can't help but snigger when I read 'my royal person.' Elhokar, really. Really. Dude.

Mmm, going straight to Elhokar to get out from under Jasnah's eye. She does have a point, it'll be better if you have someone who can disguise the more… noticeable personages among you, and doubly so someone who's more used to sneaking around than all of you. Even better if she can lightweave herself or Kaladin into looking like a Parshman and getting even a few precious seconds of advance on the Oathgate if it's guarded.

All the effort spent to get away from Jasnah, when you spent so much trying to get close to her in the first place…

[hums]

Chapter Fifty-Two – After His Father

MORE FLASHBACKS YESGOOD

is the title referencing Adolin or Renarin though – or are we going to get to know anything about Dalinar's parents for once?

…..have you been away from your wife and kid for four years straight, Dalinar. Maybe short visits back, sure, but. Damn.

You're about to pass out on your feet, though. Trying to do the work of the entire army by yourself?

“This is now my audience tent. Take what is absolutely essential and leave me.” [SNORTS] I WAS RIGHT

Two thousand losses to two hundred. You were doing an army's worth of fighting, Dalinar, and your soldiers certainly weren't slacking either. Fuck. Well, at least you're finally learning to go to and even run briefings and take on strategy rather than just charging in headlong. You're actually learning to lead.

Aaaaaaand you're still addicted to the Thrill.

EVI EVI EVI HIIIIIIII

You're yelling at her Dalinar? I know you've had a long day but that is uncalled for and you even frightened her. Back the fuck up.

It's like you don't even want to see your family. Ordering Evi around? And she cringes? And you've never even seen Renarin? Where is any sign of that tenderness you felt for Evi, the exultation on seeing your child? There's no sign of it in this man you are right now.

….I actually rather like Renarin's name, no matter Dalinar's groaning. It's a part of all of them – mother, father, brother – to carry with him, and the meaning suits him well. Unique unto himself, our fierce, brave Renarin.

You didn't even respond to a spanreed call to name your son. Goddamn, Dalinar.

At least Evi apparently has Navani and Ialai supporting her – and hopefully her brother as well, though we still know next to nothing about Toh. Dalinar's certainly not being anything but a shit husband.

She still wants to be around you even though you're a complete ass, Dalinar; be grateful.

Compassionate and merciful. It's good that she's the one with the most influence on Adolin during these early years.

SPEAKING OF WHOM. MY HEART JUST GREW THREE SIZES.

No fear of heights for this Kholin, it seems.

[wibbles over the thought of bitty little Adolin assembling his 'armor' (yes! let that creativity shine!)] but oh man, I'm torn over him going up and saluting Dalinar as a greeting – one, that's adorable, but also he's only four and a half and thinks that that's the best way to greet his father. That's… terribly painful.

And he's afraid of you too.

Fuck.

!!!! BITTY RENARIN. Who's contentedly playing by himself, not walking as much as expected, and very quiet. At least it seems like your mother and brother are doing right by you, because I'm not sure this version of Dalinar would right now. He can't even call up emotion.

Little four-year-old-Adolin already is determined to win a Blade and refuses his father's offer to do it for him. Why am I not surprised.

(these glyphs on the endpage are gorgeous)

Chapter Fifty-Three – Such A Twisted Cut

New letter? New letter! But written from who to whom? (Though by this point we can probably assume that Hoid's the party receiving the letter.)

Jasnah chapter~ All this interest in this specific king in history due to the shortness of his reign - did he accomplish something great (or terrible) or die under mysterious circumstances? (Possibly Skybreaker circumstances….?)

….this guy had family issues. And was apparently psychotic. He cooked the meat for his feast over the funeral pyre of his executed family members? Dude.

Karma got him in the end. Though I wonder, with the way Jasnah's focusing on this story, if the Unmade might have something to do with him...

You have to give Renarin time to gather that courage and decide though, Jasnah. Let him take his life at his own pace.

Wait, is Jasnah not in on the plan to fix that very problem by making Dalinar a Highking? You think they'd've mentioned that to her at the very least once she got to Urithiru.

Time for a spanreed teleconference! And I immediately love Jochi. An old baker who writes under a lady's penname as a philosopher and isn't afraid to make pastry talk to lighten the atmosphere? B l e s s

Nale! And Axies! We'd better see both of you in this book, and hopefully soon.

Of course you misplaced Lift. You never had a hold on her in the first place.

!!!! Wait where did you get drawings of the Heralds. Was it while you were in Shadesmar. Jasnah, or were you able to see more than just Jezrien while you were in the vision Dalinar provided?

-wait, what, wedding preparations, wh a t-

Renarin, are you talking to Glys? Are we finally going to meet him soon? And what do you sense in this room…?

Ahhh, so Navani's the one pushing for a ceremony soon, probably for stability for her own family and Alethkar if nothing else

Fuuuuuuucking Amaram. Of course you couldn't stay away from the main crew for too long.

Jasnah, and here I thought you'd just spoken with Shallan not too many chapters ago about threats/insults. (WR E C K HIM JASNAH)

Ooo, you're trying to be a manipulative little motherfucker, you poxed eel. Fuck off.

Her snappy dismissiveness is brightening my entire night. I should make popcorn for this scene.

Amaram grabbing her arm is making me bristle. I can only imagine that she's standing as primly as a queen, glancing down at his hand like it's windblown trash that happened to land on her.

J a s nah, that was brutal. And not what I expected from you, going after his mother like that (not that he doesn't deserve all the insults. Because he does. But maybe she doesn't.)

Holy sheeeeyit

OH SHIT, ROAST HIM

OH YEAH. COME ON. COME ON AMARAM I DARE YOU JUST TRY IT AND YOU'RE ONLY GONNA BE SO MUCH SMOKE ON THE WIND

best show the scholars have seen all week

...I don't think there's going to be any option that keeps Amaram “””safely occupied”””. Just a hunch. Jasnah's probably going to have to use that 'pays-assassins-well-and-discreetly' option.

We are all Shallan in this moment.

(thus begins the lessons on how to properly insult someone down to a quivering puddle)

Shallan, you haven't been getting any reading done – not that yout Veil-work isn't important, but you're not going to be able to keep this facade up forever.

Oooo, and here's the lie/excuse. Mind, it's a good one, but what will Jasnah-

What's Renarin doing.

SECRET BUTTONS SECRET BUTTONS IN THE LIBRARY

And they were hiding encoded gemstones! Ooo, I wonder if it was the Truthwatchers that did it, 'foreseeing' that they'd need some way of ensuring that their information would need to last longer than any books they had at the time? (and maybe hinting as to why Renarin was the one to sense them there) Ingenious setup though.

Chapter Fifty-Four – An Ancient Singer's Name

….is the writer of this pre-chapter letter Sazed/Harmony. It sounds like the cadence of his writing, and that 'before attaining my current station' with obvious reference to the writer being a 'deity' right after…

Another Moash chapter. [sighs] And the first thing he notes is how much better he has it here than in Sadeas' camp, relatively, and then once again convince himself that it wasn't his fault.

It's a stark difference from how the protagonist side of the book is handling things (mostly).

!!!! Another Fused type, this one able to manipulate the shape of its carapace! But is the shifting into whatever they can imagine, or only certain shapes?

Strike Team Kholin had better get to Kholinar and open the Oathgate quickly, otherwise the Fused/Parshmen armies will be able to overrun them through sheer force of numbers, assuming that the city is only sparsely defended at the moment, what with all the armies off in Urithiru.

[snorts] Of course you have a reputation. You don't punch people out and then start siding with the only group of Parshman slaves without the story getting around.

...there's probably more crazy Fused than sane ones, Moash, considering what they are.

Voidlight? Is that what we're calling it now?

Add another count to the Alethi who are not about this 'heights' thing.

Admittedly, the robes of the flying Fused do sound quite lovely and very impressive. Someone knows how to dress their people to make a statement.

The windspren – and all the other spren – are probably all avoiding anything that senses of Odium like the plague.

“Do you know that it is one of our names?” Oooooo. Of course you'd get borrowed words in the language, especially over the time that Listeners/Parshendi and humans have interacted, but Sanderson doesn't name without reason. Handful of spheres says that this is another indication that Moash sides with the Fused/Parshmen in the end.

Okay, so the Fused still call their 'surges' Surges, but we're not entirely certain that they're the same as those the Radiants have. They're definitely powered in a different manner, but they could have further differences that separate the powersets – the ways they can use them and even how they combine, maybe.

OOP, THIS IS THE SPREN-SHENDI OF THE ONE YOU KILLED ON THE PLAINS. If she wanted you dead she'd have killed you already, Moash, so calm ur tits.

“Those who fall will be sung of, but their blood is ours to demand.” Yeah you give zero fucks about the Parshmen and Parshendi of this time. Does the one who was sacrificed to you still scream inside her own head?

It's like Solas and the Yeerks all rolled into one big, steaming pile of Do Not Want.

Aaaaaaand she's telling Moash of their reasons for fighting. Yep, he's as good as Odium-bound.

Oh ho, she gave him his freedom – and I'm betting responsibility to go along with it. ….or not. But she gave him a question, and he's choosing responsibility for himself. Ironic, when he chooses not to accept that of his previous actions.

#blink reads oathbringer #oathbringer spoilers

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docfuture · 7 years

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The Maker’s Ark - Chapter 38

[This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call. The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books. I try to post new chapters about every two weeks, but I’m currently also rewriting Fall, so there will sometimes be short stories and vignettes if I don’t have a new chapter ready. The next chapter is planned for the week of April 25th.]

Previous: Chapter 37

Journeyman was sitting up in bed in the med center recovery room, reading on his handcomp. He was wearing a thin white shirt and a brown leather flat cap with two discolored spots near the brim, and appeared worn but otherwise healthy. He looked up and smiled as Flicker slowed down. "Hey," he said. "Can you--" "Mike, I'm so sorry," she said. "I couldn't--" He held up his hand and Flicker stopped. "Help me with something?" "Um. What do you need me to do?" "Give me your hand." She silently extended her left hand. Journeyman took it in both of his and bowed his head. "Flicker. Partner." "Yes?" Her breath caught. "Could you not beat yourself up over what happened any more than you already have? We went in with our eyes open. We got hurt, but we're alive. So no guilt. Okay?" "But it was my fault! I pushed too hard, and--" "No." He looked back up and met her eyes. "I think you pushed just hard enough. Will you listen while I explain? Please?" "Okay," she said, and he released her hand. He hadn't cast a spell--at least not a magic one. But it still worked. She took a deep breath, then pulled one of the chairs closer to the bed and sat down. "DASI explained the 'Surprise! Your hand is now an H-bomb!' problem," said Journeyman. "I'm sure Doc and Ashil will pick the physics apart and put it back together again a dozen ways while we recover. But I don't think the details matter for why it happened." "Of course they do. If the muons hadn't--" Journeyman was shaking his head. "You’re thinking like a physicist. Which is fine, it's great. You have to do that to live. But can I tell you what this looks like to a magician?" "All right." "You were pushing to help us with probability manipulation. Blind, because you're not a Seer like Golden Valkyrie. I didn't agree to that lightly. It was frigging dangerous. But not any more dangerous than what we were trying anyway. I could feel it, and you did it the right way. And nobody else was doing anything direct--Golden Valkyrie is gone, Doc was just watching, and Lif told me she didn't See any trace of anyone else interfering. So it was just us." Flicker frowned. "Doc thinks it worked. But he's not sure." "I am pretty sure, now that I've had a little time to think. What happened was very unlikely. You were pushing hard, and everything went fine until you stuck your hand through. Then, bam! We made it back, but just barely, and both of us are going to be out for a while. Now, when you use magic, and something weird and unlikely happens, that's a warning to figure out why before you try anything else." Journeyman coughed and cleared his throat before continuing. "So. What were you pushing for?" "Progress without dying." "Yeah. And we didn't die, even though we came close. But there were plenty of easier ways for us to not die--I could have come up short trying to find the right kind of subspace, or setting up the portal. Or we could have gotten nothing at all back, or radiation but not your fingernail on your first try. Instead we got a delayed explosion. What does that suggest to you?" "That the probability manipulation worked, but we were doing something wrong." Flicker thought for a moment, then got a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Oh. Oh no. Did I almost blow us up because I was too determined? Because I wasn't going to stop unless something bad happened?" "I think progress and not dying were almost diametrically opposed. And we did make progress, but we don't have the whole picture yet. Neither one of us is going to be trying again for bit, which might mean we need to wait for the others to catch up, but we definitely need to sort out what we're doing wrong. And I already have a pretty good guess." Journeyman looked down at his hands. "We learned that I can create a portal to somewhere with drastically different physics, and I have a lot of control over what kind. It's risky as hell, but not really all that hard. It's scarily easy, with your help. So I don't think that's what we're doing wrong. But going through the portal can be lethal, even to you." "It wouldn't have killed me, it was you that--" Journeyman shook his head. "This time might not have killed you. But would you have wanted to stop if I hadn't gotten hurt, too?" "I... don't know." "Yeah. I think what happened means that portals to weird physics are important--but not because you can go through them. We need to use them in some other way." "Like what?' "I don't know. Ask Doc and Ashil. But it sure seems to me that the magic is jumping up and down and yelling, warning us that you need to stay on our side of the portal." Flicker bit back her immediate reply, and sped up to consider her visceral negative reaction. Why did she dislike the idea so much? Because it reminded her of Doc when she was younger, shutting down possibilities he thought were too dangerous. But that wasn't fair to Journeyman. He wasn't telling her to stop or give up. There was no question that they needed to slow down and analyze. He was just giving his best guess as to why. And if she was emotionally off balance because he'd short-circuited the guilt and apology speech she'd agonized over, that was more reason for calm consideration, not less. She slowed down and took another deep breath. "Reasonable," she said. Journeyman was watching her carefully, and seemed relieved by her reply. "Okay," he said. "I jumped in and interrupted you, which I know you hate. But I wanted to be sure you weren't blaming yourself for something I think you did right. And we aren't in a rush. I'm not eager to be porting off anywhere that isn't a medical facility just yet. So we can talk about whatever you want." He smiled. "I'm sure you have a list." "Yeah." She looked down. "First thing. There's still something wrong with my hand--my power wasn't fully connected to it when I woke up. I only got a couple hours of sleep, but both DASI and Doc think the Skystone is blocking something essential. We won't know until I spend a night with the Skystone off. But I didn't want to take it off until I was with you, because it's our connection--and if there's any change when I take it off and have you refasten it, I want to find out while we are together." "All right." "Also, it blocks Yiskah's telepathy, which is a pain, because--well, for a bunch of reasons. She has some ideas on how to get around that, but I have to take the Skystone off so she can set them up, then put it back on to test. Are you okay with that?" "As long as it doesn't require me to do anything more strenuous than fastening a necklace and talking, I'm fine with it." "Great. DASI? Tell Yiskah we're ready." "Acknowledged," said DASI. "She is standing by." After some experimentation, Flicker established that there was no detectable change in her connection to Journeyman from removing the Skystone and putting it back on again. She also now had a place in her mind where Yiskah could send and receive if Flicker concentrated, and a signal memory--the sound of a cat scratching at a door--that Yiskah could activate even when Flicker was wearing the Skystone. It required more effort by both of them, but it worked. She opened her eyes and put the Skystone in her secure carrying pouch for safety, then took another deep breath. One of the subtle things that made the Skystone dangerous for her was the way it made breathing optional. She no longer had a strong physiological signal to start breathing again when she slowed down, unless she wanted to talk--which was psychologically dangerous. The rhythms of the body helped drive the rhythms of the mind, and Flicker really didn't need to become even more disconnected. "You back?" asked Journeyman. "Yeah," she said. "Green." "Great. Any difference in the hand?" "Itches a little--non-physically. Which is a good sign, but we'll see what happens after I sleep. And Yiskah strongly suggested I focus on unwinding, so I can sleep when the time comes. I've been bad about that lately." "Heh. Was that on your list?" "Sort of," said Flicker. "There's a lot of stuff I want to talk to you about that isn't urgent, but--" "But getting it off your chest would help." Journeyman smiled. "Go ahead. I'm not running away." "Um. Okay." She swallowed. "I met Sylvi. She was in the Tree. Yiskah detected her while we were talking and got mad at her for eavesdropping, so she came out. They settled things--I'm not sure how, it wasn't aloud and I was fuzzy--and we talked for a little while." Flicker described the incident, watching to see how he would react. "That was... gentler than than Sylvi I knew," said Journeyman. "But it's been years, and you couldn't ask for a better place for a dryad to heal than the Tree." "You don't sound very surprised." "I am surprised it was Greta who helped. And that she planted the Tree. I'll have to think about what that means. But I've had a strong suspicion Sylvi was in the Nine Worlds since I worked with Lif to trace the mesh you untangled with your dance. That's one of the reasons I told you about her. I wasn't going to dig because it wasn't my business--even if it might become yours. Did she give you permission to tell me about her?" "She said I wouldn't be able not to. Which was kind of..." "True?" "I'm not going to keep that kind of secret from my partner!" "I know." Journeyman smiled lopsidedly. "But it's not just because I'm your partner. You hate lying and you're bad at social evasion. So people who know you have to be careful what they bring up--because another thing you hate is only knowing part of a story. And they might not know the full story, or it might not be theirs to share." "Knowing only part of a story can be dangerous," said Flicker. "Yes, and revealing truthful but incomplete information was one of the Trickster's favorite weapons. That's why the Choosers and einherjar say they 'won't do the Trickster's work' when they don't want to talk about something. Because they don't want to lie, either." Flicker looked down, suddenly depressed. "So everyone is keeping things from me. DASI is even holding back some of the summaries from my long night of computation, because she and Three are still working out whether the mental state required for me to understand them is harmful." "The biogestalt thing?" "Yeah. Which I could ignore if I could just do something useful. But they don't want me to try anything based on Grs'thnk biogestalt theory yet, we can't do any portal experimental work, I'm at a dead end on the black hole stuff without DASI's help, I've hit my limit on understanding Ashil's portal physics theory without slowing down her and Doc, Stella doesn't want me to go on patrol, Osk wants me to concentrate on healing, and Yiskah says it would be a bad idea to decide anything about the Nine Worlds right now. And even I can see I should stay away from what Jumping Spider is doing and Earth politics. And everyone wants me to get more sleep. While whatever is coming gets closer. And now I'm complaining to the person I nearly killed yesterday. Because you didn't react the way I wanted. Gah!" "Flicker..." "Maybe I should ask Learning to distract me again. Did I tell you about his latest wild theory? He thinks that what Golden Valkyrie calls my 'shell', the higher dimensional structure that supports my powers, isn't actually part of my body at all. That it's more like a wearable starship for a single pilot, my high speed mind lives in its biogestalt support, and my reflexes are what's left of a mostly-wiped support AI. And the name Skybreaker makes me twitchy because it wasn't the name of the pilot--it was the name of the ship." "Whoa," said Journeyman. "That's actually plausible. I don't think it quite fits with what Golden Valkyrie said about your shell, but... wait, it could, if the AI was in charge when she killed it. Or if she didn't understand that the AI had a separate identity. Calling you Skybreaker would be one hell of a way to screw up name-targeted magic, regardless." "Yeah," said Flicker. "And it's not inconsistent with what happened when Donner's song of unbinding let 'Skybreaker' loose. He took out all kinds of restrictions, including some that kept my reflexes from trying an emergency reboot. She could have been the result of a partial AI attempting a reconstruction in a completely hosed context, trying to reconcile what was in my brain with its own fragments. There's stuff I had to lock down without really understanding after I came back, just so it was safe for me to sleep." Flicker waved a hand. "This is like a lot of the things Learning sends me: It's a cool, thought provoking theory--and difficult or impossible to test." Journeyman got a faraway look. "Not necessarily... If you really want to find out if it's true." "Of course I do! But how? My original shell memories are either cryptic scraps or long gone." "If the previous pilot had a distinct identity and name, psychometry on you might be able to find it." "Are you any good at psychometry?" "I'm not, but Lif is a master at it. She just uses different language when she talks about it. It's part of what she calls thread following." "Oh. Is she still awake?" "I'm not sure. She went to get something to eat a while ago." "DASI? Is Lif awake and available? Don't interrupt her if she isn't." "Lif has showered and eaten. She is currently discussing duty schedules with Gunnar," said DASI.

A few minutes later, Lif stood in front of Flicker, looking down at her solemnly. "I have a Seer's duty to ask," said Lif. "Is this a thing you would truly know? What is Seen cannot be Unseen, and what is said cannot be unsaid." "Yes," said Flicker. "If there was someone else who lived inside the part of me called Skybreaker before I did, I want to know her name. And... anything else that comes up when you find it." "Very well." Lif placed her hands on Flicker's shoulders and closed her eyes. They stood unmoving for what soon became an uncomfortably long time. Flicker hadn't realized how creepy it would be to feel like a old house being examined for clues about a previous occupant. After about five minutes, Lif removed her hands, took a step back and opened her eyes. She didn't say anything immediately, but Flicker controlled her impatience. "What I have Seen," said Lif finally, "is not a story to bring ease or comfort." She glanced at Journeyman, then back to Flicker. "I still want to know." She nodded. "The names I Saw were not things of sounds or letters or runes. I can only tell you how we might say them if they were. The one of your shell, whose swiftness and strength are now yours, was Himinbrjota, or Skybreaker." Lif looked down. She seemed to be struggling to find the right words. "The one who dwelt within was once part of something greater. I did not See if it yet endures--the thread stretched too far back into strangeness for me to follow. Her name was Explorer. Finding the new and pushing beyond all limits was her life and passion. It killed her. Our realms were deadly to her kind. First she went mad, then she died." "You mean my mother killed her," said Flicker. "No. Before your shell even approached this world, she had become a draugr, a revenant. A raging remnant of a ghost, still driving a grieving tomb ship with her last command. Jarna ended Himinbrjota's misery. Explorer was already dead."

Next: Chapter 39

#FallofDocFuture #Maker's Ark

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chaz-serir · 7 years

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“He seems down. What’s his story?”

“Dunno, they don’t speak much. Or at all. Sometimes writes notes for me, though, they’re surprisingly good at written Krytan.”

“You keep calling him ‘they’, I don’t-- ...Oh, is this for me? ...Huh. I’ll be damned. Apologies.”

“A firmly written note and a withering glare was all I needed to get the hint the first time, too. Isn’t that right, Lancer?”

The other Charr character I’ve been figuring out gradually, Lancer! (Based of course on my mothsona’s advanced form, haha. I figured Charr-ifying ‘em wouldn’t be too much of a challenge.)

As for what his story is, I haven’t figured it out yet, but there’s three variants of Lancer, one for each light armor class, and each one behaves slightly differently - Long story short, at a crucial low point in Lancer’s life, they lost someone (or many people) important to them, and in the process, made a decision that would change their life (backstory readmore ahoy)

Lancer Skybreaker (Elementalist) managed to turn their life around for the better, finding mastering the elements a welcome goal to work towards. Their favourite elements to work with are air and water, in part because rain and thunderstorms are rather soothing to them. That’s not to say they’re fully happy, but they’ve made peace with themselves and are working to move on.

Lancer Mindbreaker (Mesmer), meanwhile, couldn’t move on from their ordeal. Whatever happened, they’re 110% sure they’re to blame, and they’ve let their guilt consume them to some degree. Hiding their tears behind a harlequin’s smile, they fight aggressively and unleash mental torment on their foes, in some feeble attempt at redemption. (They may also have become a Chronomancer in an attempt to undo their mistakes of the past and have displaced themselves from time and space in the process, but that’s still uncertain, it could easily have just been exposure to the Thaumanova Reactor!)

Lancer the Heartbroken (Necromancer), much like Skybreaker, was able to make peace with themselves after the incident, but grief is a powerful beast, and in a misguided attempt to bring back someone they cared deeply about, they delved into the dark arts of necromancy. They eventually realised how fruitless this effort was, and managed to make peace after speaking with their loved one’s soul. Lancer the Heartbroken became somewhat grimly cynical as a result, though their stony, sardonic exterior occasionally gives way to the still-fresh grief that brought them down this path.

#Charr #Lancer #Guild Wars 2

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docfuture · 7 years

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The Maker’s Ark - Chapter 36

Previous: Chapter 35

The disparate pieces from Yiskah's mind scan had finally turned into a picture she could understand. Far from complete, but good enough. And telepathy allowed her to settle a public misunderstanding privately and very quickly, if everyone involved was willing and fast on the uptake. Sylvi was. And now that she was outside of the Tree, Yiskah could tell she'd been listening in out of concern. "I apologize, for what it's worth," sent Yiskah. "I overreacted because I'm worried about Flicker. This is a good place for healing, but 'disconnected', 'fuzzy', and 'tired' are all warning signs. If she thinks Osk can't help, there may be more damage than we see. I can't tell--that damned necklace blocks me." "Apology accepted," sent Sylvi, still smiling faintly. "Reflexes can be a bitch. I've been keeping watch since she sent Osk away. That seemed odd." "It was. Her judgement is impaired, so if I annoy her enough, she might run off and hide from me. She's been badly hurt before, but she's always avoided sleep until she was sufficiently healed. I think she's counting on the pain from her hand to keep her awake. If it doesn't, I'm not sure about the physical effects, but I know the mental ones will be bad." "I wasn't going to intrude," said Sylvi, "but I know a few things that might keep her eyes open. May not be what she wants to hear, though. And I'm not gentle." "That's fine. Curiosity will win." ***** Yiskah and Sylvi looked at each other silently for a moment, then Yiskah switched off her knives, leaving them briefly in darkness before she turned on a battery powered lantern. The white light made it easier to see Sylvi. Her hair was the color of fresh leaves, her skin and dress two different shades of bark. Flicker stared for a while before she realized they still hadn't said anything aloud. Having a friend with telepathy was cool--until you were the one left out. "Um, are you talking? Because I'd like to hear." "Just straightening out a few things," said Yiskah. "I couldn't include you because of the Skystone. We can talk out loud." "Okay," said Flicker. "Sylvi? If you speak for the Tree, I have a lot of questions about power flows, because the ones here all seem to come from or go through the Tree, and about a bunch of other stuff, a lot of which you probably don't know, but might, and any clue is better than none, and it's urgent because Journeyman almost died and it might be because I was pushing the wrong way, but I'm fried and hurt and not thinking straight and I can't speed up to think properly because I have to fix my hand and I'll lose focus if I do. And I'm sorry we had to meet this way, but can we still talk when I'm recovered? Please?" Sylvi looked back calmly. "Doubt there was ever going to be a good time for us to meet, but at least there's no crowd. Crowds and humans bring back old habits and memories. That's why I don't come out much. But it is best we talk, now that you know I'm here." She lifted her arm to point. "If you want to use mud for your healing, that glop next to the warmer spring is a good bet." "Um. Thanks. My mother taught me after last time." The radioactivity in her hand was finally low enough, so Flicker paused to coat it in mud. "I'm sorry, but all the questions I keep thinking of now are really personal and intrusive, because I hate incomplete stories, and I've only heard one side of yours, and not from you. Can I ask how you got here?" "From where? I've been a few places, and I don't know what story he spun about me." "Chernobyl. Journeyman showed me the hole where your tree used to be." "That poor damned thing." Sylvi shook her head. "Understand--that was not 'my' tree. I didn't pick it, it didn't suit me, and it rooted me somewhere I didn't want to be. But none of that was its fault, so I could never quite bring myself to kill it." "Sorry," said Flicker. "Would that have let you go somewhere else?" Sylvi smiled. "It would have killed me." "Oh." "And one fine rainy day, I was staring at my chainsaw, and--" "Why did you have a chainsaw?" "It was a way to cope. I could look at it and think about being free, even though I knew, deep down, that I wouldn't use it unless the tree was already dying." "Sorry, I should have realized. I do know... that feeling. But I didn't want to think about it. I'm claustrophobic, so--" "Girl, you don't have to keep apologizing. I don't like to think about it, and I was there." Sylvi glanced at Yiskah, then back to Flicker. "You still want to hear this?" "Yeah." "Well, I heard a voice say 'If you're not set on that, it's easier to bring back someone who isn't dead.' I looked up and there was this flying woman with a spear looking down at me. She said there was a tree she'd planted that needed me, if I wanted to move." Sylvi looked out into the darkness. "We talked about it a bit. I told her I couldn't leave the tree I had to die. I hated it--but I couldn't leave it there. And she said she'd take it along. She already had a place ready for it, with a whole stand of other trees. And it could live there as long as Siberian Elms ever do, if the world didn't end first." "So I agreed, and we went." Sylvi waved her hand. "And I moved into the Tree. Suits me so much better. I still check on the old one. I don't think it'll ever be a happy tree, but it's healthy and still growing, which is all I could ask for." "Oh. That's good." Flicker wiped her face with her free hand, embarrassed at her tears of relief for a tree she'd never met. "Why-- What did the Tree need you for?" Sylvi smiled. "It needed me because your mother is one smart, sneaky bitch. I admire that. She knew how to fool the Norns."

Flicker's hand hurt as she healed it, but there was no way around that. The pain helped tell her where and what she needed to heal. The tiredness and the itching from her high speed nervous system told her there was something else wrong, too, but she couldn't do anything about that until her hand was a hand again, instead of formerly radioactive organic mush. Sleepiness and pain. She'd always fought both with her hunger for learning, for resolving mysteries and puzzles, for finding out new things. So she could heal as she listened. She was grateful to Sylvi for that. "The Norns lived right here," said Sylvi. "And all their thread work went through the Tree, so I could sense it. Didn't always understand it, but they argued a lot, so I could pick up what they were doing from that." "Didn't they know you were listening?" asked Flicker. "Oh, they knew. And they knew I didn't like them--but I didn't much like anybody, then. They thought it didn't matter. And it didn't--to them. It was a matter of perspective." Sylvi smiled. "They hated to admit they didn't know something, and they would never admit they were wrong about anything. They couldn't be, because they were the Norns, right? That was their big weakness. So they always spun things to hide what they didn't See, and give them an out if their prophecy missed the target." "But what did my mother do to fool them?" "You know the Tree can make it easier to travel between worlds? And real easy between here and Kyrjaheim, because that trunk grew from a root sprout of this one?" "Journeyman said it was risky." "Heh. For humans it is. And if the Tree has a keeper, they can stop it--or send you somewhere else instead. It had one until about a century ago, but they left. Pretty sure they were unhappy with what the Wanderer was doing, but it's hard for me to tell. I'm still a sapling here on my own, and Tree memories aren't like people memories. "Your mother planned an invasion. The Norns picked up on it and told the Wanderer he could fight it off--but not without hurting the Tree. Because the Thunderer was an idiot who couldn't control where his lightning went, and they needed him to win. And the Tree would heal--but the Wanderer wouldn't be able to draw as much power through it in the meantime. He didn't like that at all." Sylvi smiled again. "So the Norns told him a way to prevent it--get someone inside the Tree who hated everybody, and would stop anything that might hurt it." "Like you," said Flicker. "Like me. What the Norns didn't See was that your mother never cared about the invasion. She just wanted me inside the Tree. Freed her up to do a lot of things because she no longer had to worry about protecting the trunk on her end, but that was minor. An excuse for the Norns to see, for your mother not to fight the change with the back and forth thread pulling she was doing all the time. The Trickster might have suspected something, but he was already dead." Flicker frowned. Something wasn't adding up. Was it just because her mind was fuzzy? "Then what was her real reason? Do you know?" "Oh, I do. Did you ever wonder, during the two days you were hunting him, why the Wanderer didn't wander? Why he didn't just take off?" "Of course I did! That was what I was most afraid of! That's why I destroyed the Hall, so he couldn't come back to it if he got away and I had to leave. I've always assumed my mother was ready to get him if he left without enough power, the Norns warned him, and that's why he didn't try." "Did she ever say that?" "Well, no. But she hardly ever gave me a straight answer to anything." "Heh. The Wanderer drew an awful lot of power through the Tree after the first keeper left, and I knew all about how that can root you. He was careful enough that he was safe from just the Tree. But not careful enough to be safe from me. Your mother talked to the trunk in her world. Said I'd know what to do, and when. And I listened. "The Norns warned him what might happen--but not when or why. And just before you came, he tried to world-wander--and I stopped him. That's when he knew his end was coming. So he hid, in the one spot he thought might let him get revenge." Sylvi laughed--a rich, satisfied, scary sound. "As a tree. For two days in the same spot." Sylvi looked at Yiskah. "And then he was so surprised when you came, he broke cover, and he couldn't move a single step." Yiskah's eyes widened. "You're right. He was very fast--but he never moved his feet." "Because I had time to completely root him. Until the new Thunderer took his pride, you took his eye, and Skybreaker took his head and life." Sylvi smiled, then turned back to Flicker. "I should tell you something else. Heard you were a bit angry that you couldn't cool off while you were hunting. That was my doing, because making sure the Wanderer couldn't slip away wasn't easy. Had to block off everything pulling power through the ground to be sure, and that got you too." "Oh. That's okay," said Flicker. "It was a pain, but I was mostly mad because I thought it was something the Wanderer had done. It stopped when he died, so it didn't..." She trailed off. "Was that why my search pattern messed things up so bad? I kept trying to connect the whole time." Sylvi nodded slowly. "I'm sure it didn't help. My block got tangled up with your path weaving, so parts of it stayed when I stopped. Didn't know at first because I went to sleep for quite a while after you killed the Wanderer. Keeping him trapped for so long was tiring, and it was winter. I started untangling things when I found out, but it would have taken me a long time to finish. I was still working on forests when you came back, and your dance was much quicker." Flicker smiled, then frowned again as a thought finally broke through her fuzziness. "Wait a minute. Why would my mother plan an invasion, then go get someone who would prevent it? That makes no sense, and you said the Norns could See what was happening. Why weren't they suspicious?" "Because it wasn't your mother that found me, that rainy day." "But she said a tree she planted needed your help--and my mother planted the tree in Kyrjaheim. Was she lying?" "No." Sylvi smiled again, more gently this time. "The woman who helped me move planted this tree. The Tree. Ages ago, when the Nine Worlds were just a little garden, she planted the Tree to hold the world together, while still letting it grow. She's changed a lot since, and she didn't have the same name then, if she had a name at all, but the Tree remembers. I'm sure she had a fair idea of what I would do, but she didn't care much for the Wanderer either. And she can be very, very patient." "Who was it?" "Greta."

Next: Chapter 37

#Maker's Ark #FallofDocFuture

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docfuture · 7 years

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The Maker’s Ark - Chapter 35

Previous: Chapter 34

Doc looked up from the display in his workshop and met Yiskah's eyes. "I don't regard 'lucky' as a very useful word here. I think DASI's low prior likelihood numbers are suggestive of successful probability manipulation." He spread his hands. "You can never be sure. That's just one of the things that makes research under these conditions so dangerous and frustrating. But I'd say the experimental results were relatively favorable." "Favorable?" said Yiskah. "Neither of them died, they generated some exceptional data, the portal closed cleanly, they didn't wreck anything irreplaceable, and it even looks like they'll both recover fairly quickly. Considering what could have happened? That's favorable. Or lucky, if you insist." "I wouldn't call what happened to Flicker either favorable or lucky. And you aren't as callous about it as you sound." Doc snorted. "No. But consider. We aren't starting from 'everything is okay', and this isn't academic research. It's critical path tool development to combat an existential threat. Something I have just a bit of experience with. But Golden Valkyrie didn't ask me to help, and the most plausible reason is that my approach would be too cautious. So I'll advise, but not try to direct. And Flicker has had worse. She told DASI she'd be fine before she went to clear the internal radioactivity." Yiskah raised an eyebrow. "I don't regard 'fine' as a very useful word here. Lif is taking care of Journeyman. And Osk says Flicker seems to have stabilized, physically, though she'll have to regrow the hand almost from scratch. But I'm concerned about her mental state." "Flicker is pretty hard-nosed about experimental results. 'We got good data and nobody died' counts as success. And they got plenty of--" "Flicker is hard-nosed as long as she's the only one who gets hurt." "Well, yes." "And she's alone in the dark at that pool by the Tree in the Nine Worlds--the same place she went after the fleet battle. She can't call on DASI for support, and she can't use many of her coping techniques because she has to stay at normal speed to work on her hand. Her command to Lif was rather worrying, and she flat out ordered Osk to leave her alone. She'll usually listen to Osk about healing, but not this time." Yiskah was already dressed for field work, knives at her belt, and she propped her pack against a workbench as she continued. "Osk is willing to disobey orders, if necessary. She came and got me. I can get to Flicker safely, and she can't order me away. But." "What do you need?" asked Doc. Yiskah half-smiled. "Physics is personal to her even when everything really is fine. If I can get her to talk at all, she'll want to thrash out the details of the accident. I'm not a specialist, I won't have DASI's assistance, and I can't read Flicker's mind anymore because of the Skystone. I need to understand enough to pull her out of a self-blame loop if needed." "All right." Doc leaned back in his chair. "If she is blaming herself, tell her that there are plenty of measures we can take now--Learning had a particularly useful suggestion--but this particular problem was not something that could reasonably have been predicted. I wouldn't have caught it, nor would DASI. We didn't know enough--and were unlikely to find out unless something dramatic happened. If we'd been more cautious, we'd have probably just had something similar happen tomorrow or next week instead of today." "What did happen?" "Well, Journeyman did a good job of boundary smoothing, but we knew conditions on the far side of that portal were going to be different--that was the point. It was interesting that he managed to connect to a space something like what he wanted on his first real try. And that ordinary matter could survive there at all." Yiskah frowned. "None of the probes did." "Didn't expect them to. Journeyman didn't even attempt to make the first boundary respect chemical bonds. But they had the probes, and we needed to find out what happened when we sent matter through, so they tried a few. What surprised me was that Flicker got the tip of her finger back. I figured she'd lose some skin, and we'd be studying strange radiation for a week to figure out what Journeyman needed to adjust." Doc pinched the bridge of his nose and stared at his screen for a moment. "Do you know what a muon is?" "I know it's a subatomic particle. Flicker has mentioned them a few times. I learned most of the particle physics I do know either from or because of her. I was always more interested in chemistry." "A muon is a more massive version of the electron. It can take an electron's place around an atom, which has some interesting effects. They're not uncommon; they get produced by cosmic rays all the time. They're also unstable--their half-life is about two microseconds. Under normal conditions. Neither the far side of the portal nor the inside of Flicker's hand when she's using her tricks qualify as 'normal conditions'." "Okay." "I'm sure there were a few inside Flicker's finger each time she pulled it back, and they have a characteristic decay signature, but that was masked by something I should have thought of. She's wearing the Skystone now. It helps protect her from incoming radiation, but it affects radiation trying to get out, too. Enough that the muon signal got swamped by the charge equalization." "So there were muons, and that was bad? Where were they coming from?" asked Yiskah. Doc's explanations sometimes took a while to get to the point--but Flicker was the same way, so she'd probably follow a similar path. "Some things were more stable on the far side, some were less. Flicker had to pump in energy to stabilize something in her hand. We don't know what yet, and it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that some of the energy ended up as muons, and they started to build up. Which would have been just a nuisance, except for something else that was stable on the far side--the diproton." "And why was that bad?" "Because muons can catalyze fusion, and a stable diproton makes proton-proton fusion about ten billion times faster." ***** "...and when I pulled my hand back it was full of muons," said Flicker. "They'd been turning my water molecules into diprotons plus oxygen atoms that were only still hanging together because I wasn't letting things move. And the diprotons started decaying into deuterium. Some already had." Flicker was neck deep in the pool, and Yiskah sat cross-legged at the edge, next to her. It wasn't quite pitch dark, because of the underwater blue glow coming from Flicker's left hand--Cherenkov radiation, emitted as she slowly eliminated the remaining radioactivity. She'd said she didn't want to talk. Then started talking anyway. She spoke with frequent pauses as she stared off into the darkness. She sounded like she was in shock, and Yiskah was already fairly sure that wasn't because of her own injury. "So you had a fusion chain reaction go off in your hand?" Yiskah asked. Flicker had already apologized for trailing off without realizing it once. "Sort of. It was mainly catalysis, and most of the actual fusion had already happened slowly on the far side. It just hadn't released much energy yet, and wanted to do it all at once when I pulled my hand back. There were some new reactions once things got hot enough. But I couldn't get rid of the energy safely until we got back to Earth, because our heat sink wasn't close to enough, and radiating would have killed Journeyman. "And I thought... I thought I'd done a good enough job, but after I'd dumped enough of the main load of heat to slow down a little, I started getting a worse and worse feeling from the Skystone. Journeyman was dying. And I couldn't help, because my hand was still too radioactive to slow down close to him." "DASI said the high speed passes to remove his outer clothing helped with the thermal shock." Yiskah tried a bit of humor. "You know you're having a rough day when being suddenly naked in an Antarctic blizzard is an improvement." Flicker went on, not seeming to notice. "His rad suit melted, and his coat was on fire. And his hat... His hat looked like it had been burned to a crisp. I don't even... I don't know how he lived." "Lif got to him in time. And I can tell you what happened to his hat--it released all its stored magical potential protecting his head." "How do you know that?" asked Flicker. "Lif and I were both in the room when Mad Hatter taught him that trick--and it worked. No brain damage. And Lif is healing the rest." "Oh. That's... That's good." Yiskah let the silence stretch for a while before speaking again. The blue glow seemed to be dimming. "Do you remember what you said to Lif?" "Just to help Journeyman. I think. I was in a hurry and I'm a little... disconnected. Not really." "You ordered her to 'Give him all your best everything, no matter what happens to me.' Then you uploaded your summary, which was full of typos--" "I was typing one-handed, using one of my crap spare costumes, because I didn't want to make another good one radioactive. Tell DASI I'm sorry." "It's not a problem. But then you told DASI you'd be fine and came here. And ordered Osk away when she tried to help. Do you see why that worried her? And me?" "Osk couldn't help--I can heal myself and anyway I wasn't going to be ready until I got rid of the rest of the radioactivity." Flicker looked down. "I guess I'm pretty close now. But I'm tired and fuzzy and nearly killed my partner, and..." "And?" "And I'm seeing a pattern. You--Stella--taught me how to look for those in people." "Yes?" "Three times I've tried to get physically close to someone. You know what happened the first time. I thought I'd learned better--before I broke Donner's arm. And it just took every bit of power he had, and Lif besides, to stop me from killing Journeyman. Once is bad luck. Twice could be coincidence. Three times is pretty strong evidence that the problem is me." "That's not--" "Donner said once that I didn't have to worry about being human. Just human compatible. But I don't think I'm human compatible. Mike has done so much to help me, and all I've ever done is hurt him." "Flicker. Listen. You are not fine, and now isn't-- Hang on." Yiskah stood and drew her knives, suddenly furious. She turned on her force fields, illuminating everything nearby with a green glow. "Flicker, could you do me a big personal favor and stay right where you are while I take care of a small problem?" "Um. Okay..." Yiskah raised her voice. "You're good at hiding, whoever you are, and good at masking your mind. But I know you're there now, and you were eavesdropping on a very private conversation. So either come out and we can discuss things like reasonable people or I will track you down." There was a thick tree root protruding from the ground next to the water. One moment, that was all. The next, a woman sat upon it, arms crossed. She wore a dark dress and looked strange in the light from Yiskah's knives, with light, fluffy hair and dark eyes. "You wouldn't have far to go," she said. "And since when are we both reasonable people?" "I can pretend. Can you?" "We'll see. Think you can take me? You can't. Not here." "Interesting," said Yiskah. "You believe that, and you know who I am." "Word gets around. Now tell me. Someone starts talking under your window, and you overhear, whose fault is that?" "I don't see any windows." "No. But I do live here, and that's why I heard you. I don't come out very often--I don't care for people much. I'm fine with Skybreaker using the pool. She helped refill it. Girl can dance. But you--you're presuming." "I presumed I was having a private talk with--" "Yiskah, wait," said Flicker. "I think I know who this is." The woman snorted. "So he told you about me, did he? I bet I know a few things he left out." "You... know about us?" "Girl, you were sitting on one of my roots when you kissed him." "Who are you," asked Yiskah. The woman smiled faintly in the green light. "My name is Sylvi. I speak for the Tree."

Next: Chapter 36

#Maker's Ark #FallofDocFuture

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docfuture · 7 years

Text

The Maker’s Ark - Chapter 34

Previous: Chapter 33

Fits and starts. Flicker knew that was how real research worked. And things had been going too smoothly. Doc had built a test rig, Stella had provided a repurposed Xelian construction shelter for a deep space station, and Three had towed it into position with one of her ships--and set up the sunshade. It was in a solar orbit at what Journeyman called a 'sweet spot': It was closer to the the sun, so the net total of orbital kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy matched that of the surface of the Earth as closely as possible. That cut down on the compensation he had to do to port there and back--distance didn't matter, but energy did. He had been able to establish a connection to a small, spherical space that should have a speed of light that varied radially--lower toward the center and the same as Earth's at the outer edge. It didn't start off containing any mass, and had no difference in vacuum pressure at the boundary. Everything else, he still wasn't sure about. The first automated tests on the restricted portal he'd set up before porting out for safety had gone fine, as far as Doc was concerned. No explosions or waves of mass to energy conversion had come back when the small test probes went through. The probes hadn't come back, either. But no one had really expected that--the far side was likely to be pretty unforgiving to anything electronic. That had been yesterday. In the meantime, Flicker had practiced flying in space--slowly--without panicking. She could manage about two g's now. The Skystone protected her from vacuum, but she kept a full pressure mask on; air made it much easier to talk. She still kept reaching out reflexively for mass for stabilization--but she was down to about to fifty times a second. When she was calm. Now she floated beside Journeyman, doing her best to stay calm while he muttered to himself and retraced a section of pattern on the base slab so they could continue the tests. They'd tried a few more probes--nothing had come back yet except some barely detectable radiation. Not the magic homing bead, not any of the diamond nanoparticles from Doc's mechanical release device, not the end of the titanium wire Flicker had poked through. Then something only Journeyman could detect had started to vary slightly, and the radiation readings had worried Doc, so there was nothing for it but to recheck. Flicker had nothing constructive to contribute, and she knew better than to pester Journeyman with questions he didn't know the answers to yet. She thought longingly about the nearest significant mass. Venus was about twenty million kilometers thataway. Not much help. Three's ship and the Learning Is About To Occur kept watch from several hundred kilometers out. The two of them were doing their best to cheer her up and distract her while she waited--with mixed success. At least it gave Flicker someone to complain to with millisecond latency. DASI's main nodes and Doc were both back on Earth, minutes away. "Is Journeyman still ranting about the gloves on his suit?" asked Three. "Yeah," said Flicker. "It's a fair complaint, though. We're doing everything in a high vacuum and Journeyman is a gesture and pattern magician. Nobody has yet been able to make pressure gloves that don't interfere with fine manipulation." "It is an interesting problem," said Learning. He had a pleasant tenor voice and a habit of casually tossing out mind-boggling suggestions. "I wonder if a magician could use a biogestalt to operate a humaniform remote for vacuum work. Has that been tried?" "Ah... not that I know of," said Three. "And I'm not sure a biogestalt would be able to use probability manipulation at all." "Surely you jest. The most impressive act of probability manipulation on Earth that I'm aware of was performed by a biogestalt." "What are you talking about?" asked Three, saving Flicker the trouble. "Flicker's serial contingent causality reconnection during the Xelian fleet attack, to avoid the randomized beam strikes. It was powerful enough that subtle effects from it were detected propagating outward from the far side of the portal zone to Grs'thnk, though they were not recognized as such at the time." "It was detectable in another universe?" said Three. "That's both disturbing and something Flicker and I should already have been told. Why--" "Just a moment, please," said Flicker. "Since when am I a biogestalt?" "Does the term offend?" said Learning. "You refer to that part of you as your 'high speed mind', but it seems to operate in a similar fashion. That is clear from the mishaps you've experienced. I did a first principles analysis during the period of concern over your commandeering of computational resources. I concluded that it matched a high speed biogestalt multiplicity cascade better than an unconstrained AI launch, which reassured the aid mission leadership somewhat." "And you didn't tell DASI?" said Flicker. "Hell, why didn't you tell me?" "I didn't have permission. Biogestalt theory is on the restricted list, because of the potential for abuse--it contributes to several significant Grs'thnk social problems, though disagreement about how much makes that a politically sensitive topic. Official aid mission policy is to avoid sharing new problems with Earth when they've barely started helping with your existing ones. And Doc has an unfavorable view of biogestalts which is well justified at Earth's current technology level. The embassy leadership is discussing sharing the data with Director Reinhart and DASI given its new relevance, but, like all political questions, a long period of wrangling argument is required first. There is a book you might find helpful, once it becomes available." "What is it?" asked Flicker "A History of Biogestalt Development and Pathology, Volume One, Fourteenth Edition. It's the standard reference used in the biogestalt prep sequence at the Grs'thnk Naval Academy. I'm told it's a bit dry for bios, but I found it fascinating." "A biogestalt in my own body... I need that book yesterday. I need that book last month. Wait a minute--the restriction you have on talking directly to DASI is a political one, set by the aid mission, correct?" "Yes," said Learning. "However, it--" Flicker bared her teeth. "You want to share data responsibly--but you can't, because you'll get in trouble if you do. And I have a veto. They gave me one. I've never used it before, but I think I'm about to. Three, what's the relevant agreement?" "That would be the Preliminary Protocol on Data Sharing, Restrictions and Limitations. But I'm not sure--" "Great. I'll veto it, then ask Learning to share any data whose absence is compromising Earth's military security. I know there's an agreement for that. And they can sort everything out again, after the transfers." "Flicker," said Three. "This is politics. Will you at least let me try finesse? Prime is busy, but give me ten minutes and the threat of your veto, and I bet I can get things moving. Without calling into question an agreement that was very painful to negotiate in the first place. It won't be an idle threat, and they'll know it. And, just between us biogestalts, I have a stake here too." "Oh. Yeah. I guess they could pull Learning out on military orders. I can't do anything about that. Okay, try your way. But make sure they know I'm pretty angry. If this 'multiplicity cascade' is a documented problem, DASI and I not knowing about it probably cost me a couple hundred subjective years during my bender. And who knows what else." "Don't worry, I will." Flicker thought for a moment. "And Learning? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to blow up. You were just trying to help." "No apology needed," he said. "Learning is about to occur. I am content." "Heh. Yeah. Some already has. And I need to go--looks like Journeyman has finally fixed whatever it was. Thanks." "You're welcome. And good luck." ***** Flicker sped up her mind so everything happened with glacial slowness, and she clamped down hard on her hand with her power--no molecular rearrangement allowed. A bit extreme, maybe, but she didn't know yet what was required, and she didn't want to find out by not doing enough. She flicked the tip of her left little finger into the portal, then immediately pulled it back out again. It was on the far side for about a microsecond. There had been a slight tingling from her proprioception sense, but that was all. She hadn't lost any skin, and there seemed to be no ill effects. There didn't seem to be any effects at all, except-- A spark jumped from the portal boundary to the tip of her finger. It was a considerable jolt--it heated up her finger noticeably. She'd expected to lose some electrons on the far side; the chemistry was going to be different. It didn't really matter how--she wasn't allowing any chemical reactions. But that made her electrons unhappy, unhappy electrons tended to wander, and they hadn't all made it back out with her finger. The interesting thing was that a lot of them seemed to have made it back out on their own, after a delay. Or the charge imbalance had pulled out other ones--electrons were interchangeable. She checked the sensor readings on her visor--she still had a positive static charge, but it wasn't nearly as large as it had been at first. She slowed back down. Time to see what everyone else thought. "Radiation--" began Journeyman, then he stopped. "Oh. That's just charge equalization. You okay?" "Green," she replied. "Played a mini-game of lightning tag, but that's it. My finger seems fine--I'm getting feeling back now." She held up her hand to look at it. Nothing seemed different. All she felt was the now familiar pressure of the Skystone protecting her from the vacuum--she'd kept her glove off for the test. "Three?" Flicker asked over her com. "You have any initial impressions?" "The radiation from the boundary spiked, then dropped off," said Three. "The spike was almost entirely electrons. I think Doc is right--the earlier radiation we saw was a result of the far side not quite being a vacuum anymore, because of the probes." "Cool." Flicker turned to smile at Journeyman, who had come out from behind the radiation and blast shield. "We have an existence proof! Matter can can stay intact on the far side, if it's me." "The part of you that isn't electrons, anyway," he said. "Yeah. That could be a problem. If I lose them all, then they all return at once when I come back, that's a lot of energy. And I can't entropy dump here, except to the heat sink." The heat sink was a big chunk of ice, loosly contained in plastic, attached to the outside of the shelter on the other side of a blast shield. It gave Flicker something to connect to, if she needed to dump excess heat in an emergency. A small enough one, anyway. "But the charges should start to equalize after a while," she continued. "Some variant of the electromagnetic force has to be operating on the far side, or I wouldn't have gotten that zap--it would just be a steady flow. And the strong nuclear force is working fine, or I wouldn't have gotten the tip of my finger back at all." "All right, let's try some repeats, and see just how much charge you lose, and if the spark and the radiation spike happen every time." Ten minutes later, he was back to muttering to himself, and Flicker was getting impatient. "I don't understand," he said. "We're getting variance, but there's either some variable other than mass, surface area, acceleration, and time spent on the far side, or a lot of randomness. At least it doesn't seem too dangerous." "Yeah. I want to try to sticking my whole hand through and leaving it there for a good second or two. The whole point of these tests is to see if I can operate on the other side, and we haven't gotten much closer to finding that out yet." She watched his eyes through the faceplate of his suit, and heard him sigh. "Not exactly safe, but none of this is safe." "No. But there's no other way to find out." "All right. But if you flash the red alarm, we are out of here. Antarctica, so you can dump, then get somewhere to heal. Whether your hand is all the way back or not. You clear on that?" "Yeah." "Okay." He moved back behind the shield. "Ready when you are."

The first hint Flicker felt that something was wrong was an itching sensation from the high speed nervous system in her hand. Little feedback made it across the portal boundary. She could tell her hand was still there, and that her power was keeping it intact, but that was about it. That had been a bit worrying at first, but as long as she could keep things stable, her hand should be okay. But this was new. Something was trying to happen, and she was preventing it, but there was resistance--and it was growing. What could be-- No. The correct response to something new and unexpected was to pull her hand back. She started to, carefully. Then she began to get proper sensation back from the part of her wrist that had been on the far side of the portal. It was hot--and getting hotter. Not the surface either, this was deep inside. Enough of careful. She stayed clamped down and jerked her hand the rest of the way out, at full power. And all hell broke loose. The radiation alarms started screaming and flashing, she started dumping to the heat sink and it wasn't enough, and what was wrong with the water molecules in her hand? They were still heating up, and-- Oh. Oh no. She hit the red alarm and did cold calculations in her mind. Journeyman had superhuman reflexes, magically enhanced. A millisecond to port to her, another millisecond to port both of them to Antarctica. Would he be fast enough? He would be. She'd make sure of it. She pivoted slightly, and pulled her hand in. It was already putting out neutrons and hard gamma. The Skystone was protecting her so far, but it didn't stop everything, and all she had to shield Journeyman was the rest of her body. Then there was the heat. She pulled it inside, away from the surface, so it wouldn't cook Journeyman in the time they needed. She'd have one last chance to get rid of some before they ported out. She felt him appearing, close behind her, and she hard dumped to the heat sink, which flashed from ice into superheated steam. She was sloppy--she got some into the blast shield, too. But that wouldn't matter, they'd be gone before the shockwave hit. Then he started the second port, his little pocket universe closing in around the two of them, and she had to hold the heat in. Her hand was at forty thousand K and climbing--her power was all that was keeping it solid. And it was getting worse, fast. She moved as much of the heat as she dared into the rest of her body. There wasn't anywhere else. She remembered her first trip to the moon, and just how bad things could get. But she needed to keep it away from Journeyman--he was the fragile one. Five hundred microseconds into the second port and her hand was up to two million K, and it started getting worse faster, again. Eight hundred microseconds. Ten million K. Journeyman was getting a big dose of hard X-rays--but most of them would go right through, and the real enemy was heat. Antarctica. Mass. And she could finally move. She entropy dumped to the ice in all directions as she accelerated away from Journeyman with ten billion g's of relief. Then she was far enough clear to let the heat surface, vaporizing her costume in a wave of plasma as she started radiative cooling, doing everything she could to quench the burning from a hand filled with nuclear fire.

Next: Chapter 35

#Maker's Ark #FallofDocFuture

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