Priya Echo's Adventure - Book One Awakening

Episode 6

CHAPTER 21 - HOOK TAKES PRIYA AND CREW TO RIKIRAL COMPUTER

Not long afterwards the dry, languid, anything-but-eccentric Mr. Hook returned with a clique of university staff and academics. “Come with us, I have something to show you” he enjoined, and they hastened down a series of corridors into the depths of the main building, until it terminated in a boiler room, the type where only bad things happen to good people. Removing a key-card from his suit-pocket, the geriatric scooted over to a little door encroached upon by thick pipes and swiped it on a dusty pad. “Here is something you’ll see which is our best kept secret” Hook promised, gesturing for them to follow. Nadine, Felicia and Dominique shrugged their shoulders. Apparently, she was not the only one. A few at a time to squeeze through, they came to an elevator big enough to fit a horse. Lurching, the box creaked its way into the hidden underbelly of the earth. “Unbelievable” Priya gasped as they were all released into wider space, ogling like drunken peasants at a laboratory large enough to contain an auditorium. But it was not that which made her devolve into a gigging dunderhead. “Here is where we kept after liberating it in the war. Ladies and gentlemen … what you have before you is a Rikiral computer used to oversee an entire Forward-Marker, the most fearsome class of warship the navy faced. After the ship was dissected, it was left here by the military authority for safekeeping. They had myriad futile attempts at probing its design … and all were met with disappointment” Hook explained, replaying history in their minds. He led her up to one of its segments containing rows of compartments, “Priya, perhaps with your … skills, you can bring it out of dormancy”. She leaned against the bulky thing, itself like a boiler room folded into origami, and looked to the right across a series of glass vessels, some of them containing hovering exclamation marks, others question marks, “Yes, but I may need some additional financing for this project, if you could inform the panel, and have them pardon my recent shortcoming”.

Refurbishing the machine over the next few days, Priya finally restored it by repurposing some energetic components. “This will be your base of operations” she told them, “the system will help you research a cure for the acorn fever, and I have programmed it to provide lessons in basic manipulations, or magic as you put it”. “Where will you be going?” Nadine thundered, breaking out in alarm at the implication. “As far away from here as I possibly can. I have to draw his attention, and that will give you enough time to disseminate my knowledge and begin to organize” she admitted, seeing the color leave her friend’s face. “That’s bullshit, we’re coming with you” she demanded, almost threateningly. After a cold minute the scientist was able to pacify her. “Nadine, leave the bad ideas to me. I have to go alone” she stated, forceful enough to cut through the bastion of outrage. The companion dropped a box of computer chips that she had requested, and the scientist took them over to a table where there was a processor and filled it up and set it to maximum until it was a thick green liquid, and poured it into a chip-press, building a comb patterned chip to integrate into the delta level circuit. That task completed, the two of them had a quick conversation in the corner where no one else could hear, then bid the rest of them adieu.

CHAPTER 22 - PRIYA DRIVES AWAY

Fields of wheat danced to the melody of the wind along the side of the road as a beaten-up truck whizzed by. “Am I the only one here who is going to say it?” Visioness blurted out. “Say what?” Priya replied, turning down the music. The memory of leaving for the parking lot was still fresh in her mind. Sitting on a step she had found Richard, drinking a bottle of scotch, and saw him wearing a hat, but it was not a hat. It was the cap of an acorn, and the beginnings of a slow transformation. “Don’t let any of them damn squirrels get me girl” he had begged, and so they had gathered up some of the ruined brick wall. He sat in a little corner near the steps, and she began to lay them, interring him. For mortar they used paper mache. On the other end he helped as well, until all that was left was a single space, through which they both peered, their eyes meeting. “They won’t get you in there, I promise” she said, before sliding in the final brick, but with the way things were going to change, what was the use of promises anymore? “Roadtrip!” Visioness roared, heady from the fragrance of the country air. Visioness controlled her arm to take the last sip of the bottle of scotch that Richards had given her. “Eww! That’s so gross!” Pelfe protested as Priya wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Both Priya and Visioness couldn’t keep themselves from laughing for a solid minute. At least they had one thing in common. The rustling of the field began to still, transfixed, perhaps by a single lonesome traveler. Noticing the ominous difference, the truck came to a rumbling halt. Priya slammed the door behind her and headed out into the stalks, and those that were in her way bent, crunching easily. Through the columns a poetic face glanced back at her. “Teddy … is that you?” she declared upon seeing the Senator motionless, stalwart, camouflaged by grain. “Not an easy journey at all, dreamer. It was rough, but I’m the first to get across” he answered, gliding over. Kneeling down on one knee, he bowed his head, “consider me your loyal knight”. “You don’t need to be so humble, Teddy, once I re-manifest the realm, I will be just like the rest of you, and everyone will forget where they came from after just a few years” Priya smiled, dismissing the flattery. “Highly doubtful Empress” Teddy countered, despite how with the cremation of the avatar chain, its logic spilled out into the barren wastes of space-time, their ties were now less than definite. “Listen, Teddy. It will take some time until our abilities return. We have to work together to wrest control of this level from the grip of Telenon, its magnate. He’s a madman that will stop at nothing to foment chaos and drain our magic. The phenomenon will not be safe in his grip” she explained. But as she spoke, he looked over her shoulder, and was intent on another subject entirely, “Echo … don’t tell me that hunk of junk is our ride”. With its peeling paint and puckered exterior, it looked like something that could be gambled off at a poker game. Climbing into the passenger’s seat, Teddy put on his seat-belt, and they continued down the road until the welcome sign of a small town swung by, “Panorama Precinct”. He had her stop by a local bakery, where he paid the baker to bring a loaf of bread on a wooden peel out into the parking lot, and set it on the ground. “This will be called the bakery bus,” Teddy noted. With more bio-dimensional yeast, the loaf of bread continued to rise until it had become a city bus, wobbling as a crowd of the patrons and familiar faces disembarked. Seeing the first person, Snow ran up to Priya, suitcase in hand, “Do you know where my mom is!”.

CHAPTER 23 - PANORAMA PRECINCT

The local hotel owner was not about to argue with the sudden influx of curiosities, as long as they paid double. Even so, there were not enough rooms, forcing some of them to part ways and find a local bed and breakfast, all except for Snow, who occupied a house that the tenants had fled from when they witnessed the newcomers. For most of dinner they watched the news coverage of the acorn fever, which continued to ravage the world, depopulating even major cities. Slush Noodles went down the buffet-line, slapping a thick slice of honey-ham onto his plate and smiled smugly knowing that both he and his fiancé would be useless for whatever nonsense the patrons had in mind. They would probably settle down in the town for the duration, taking in the sights and browsing local shops for knick-knacks. Peering over his shoulder, he could see his fiancé was still moody. She had a two for one coupon that had expired, and it wasn’t even applicable in the new reality. Afterwards Priya gathered them all outside for an announcement none of them were ready for, “This family has made a lot of progress, and I recognize each of you for that. As time continues, the abstract becomes clear. I have observed the actuality that underlies this world, the focal element. There is a rogue imagination, disembodied and untamed. Telenon seeks to abandon all reason to the chaos of its perpetual motion. I fear his designs, for with reason gone humanity will soon follow. The epidemic of the acorn fever is only the first phase. To fight against that, I ask you, Linden, and you Melina to come out of my eyes, and take the form that can collect the acorns, and store them for safekeeping”. Priya looked directly at an oak-tree, and the light from her eyes came out as a beautiful stream that illuminated it for a moment. From a hole in the tree came scampering out two squirrels that made their way over to them. “This is much more convenient, if I do say so myself” the Linden-Squirrel remarked. Crawling up her legs, each of them sat upon her shoulders. They were cute but with golden armor. As Linden chittered, Melina-Squirrel addressed them, “As we do the hard work of securing the nutritious bodies, you all will go in teams to destroy the word-signs that still hover over the cities, invading them with infectious light”. Exhausted, Echo closed her eyes as Linden continued uninterrupted for some time, naming off the teams that would travel to each destination. Priya looked at her family. It was but a brief antebellum, and just below the skin, the scars of the Ascension still lingered. But soon she could retire to the comfort of her hotel-room, where the air conditioning was just right, and the sheets were layered just the way that she liked them.

Everyone had a rude awakening the following morning as the pillow cases were filled with squirming tadpoles instead of fluff. Everyone except Echo. Veles went outside and unzipped hers, letting them plop onto the ground. “Huh … what is that?” she thought. The patroness darted outside to soak up some of the ample sunlight. Around her, the camomile from the bed and breakfast wafted out. She strutted out to the end of the walkway where the quaint cobblestones poked into one another. Above the somewhat mild tempered roofs of the village, a blue sky fanned out.The trees around her seemed to have good dexterity with their limbs. Their leaves drooped down in bountiful heaps. Veles took a deep sigh. But that simple start was not to last. Across stretches of Panorama Precinct it was raining sawdust whenever houses passed by overhead. Most of them had uprooted from the neighborhood just east of the hotel. Veles flew up to one of them and walked through the door. She found them empty and took one of the couch cushions for herself. Valco had gotten up early that morning as well to hike through the surrounding area. Most of the townspeople had already fled but there were still some stragglers. He saw them travel north but did not intervene. After a short nap uninterrupted by the tadpoles and their tomfoolery, Veles found a spa with a hot spring. She went inside to find a pool boy in the lobby. “My, and who do we have here?” the amorous suitor flirted. He was made to order, so to speak, and handsome for the uninitiated. “Ah … thank you. Are you the pool boy around here? Is there a spa?” Veles asked abruptly, changing the subject in the most drastic way imaginable. “Indeed mam. I can be your host and you my guest” he replied, attempting the feat of charm. Veles felt little in the way of romance. The day had not gone according to plan and she needed a retreat. The smile left his face, and accepting the inevitable, the unlucky pool boy guided her through the door to the other side. “Are you flipping kidding me?” the patron blurted out. Instead of a normal spa there was a pool of olive oil, and in it was a party of praying mantises bathing and having fun. Trying to decide what to do, she watched as a green mantis arose on its own, green olive oil sliding down its thorax. The pool boy was speechless as his handsome jaw fell. “Um … thanks, but no thanks. this really isn’t my scene” she said, excusing herself and returning outside. Echo woke up and ambled down the stairs to the hotel lobby and fell back into a big easy-chair near the fireplace. A hotel maid was brushing the dust off of the fireplace. Falling asleep from the warmth of the fire, she was out for a minute. “Get off!” she cried, bursting into awareness again. The dust from the hearth that had been brushed off had transformed into a tan, affable Siberian Dusty that would not stop licking her face. “Smooth sailing so far!” she called out, and pressed her head back into the pillow and closed her eyes.

CHAPTER 24 - DRAKE TEMPO AND THE LIGHTBULB OF QUINTESSENCE

Location: Echo Realm

Date: Second Age

The Neoscience of DI or deliberate improvement, devised by Drake Tempo, a lantern-class cultic master of the patron Emzeser was utilized by that gentleman aboard the mausoleum ship Actual Folk to draw back the dimensional curtain concealing the Faril system in Pole sector. That system contains three worlds. The first is Sycamore Detour, and over various continents there are individual bubble-like atmospheres, the Quasicrystal Aura. Despite Tempo’s warnings the first settlers on Detour were transformed into a race of quasicrystal people, and had to be hunted down and destroyed. Tempo was mostly successful, but the remnant of that population went underground and lived in caverns. After the initial terraforming procedure, the Formative Tear-Basin of the main continent Kromoman-Drape became the site of the colony city. During one night in the home of the colonist family Daniels-Rule, the father was replacing a light-bulb. He left the room. The daughter, Sarah Daniels-Rule climbed up into the opening and vanished. The quasicrystal aura over Kromoman-Drape lifted and formed into the entity Lightbulb of Quintessence that left the Faril system. Thereafter the colonists had no issues. As for the habitat, the planet hosts almost perfect sycamore trees. It hosts four hundred Earth-Detour hybrid varieties of garlic. From this, a new generation of artists took inspiration and became garlic artists. The space platform above Detour contains Institution Sativum, a grand garlic art museum that beckons visitors from across the galaxy. Tourism from the museum is a large part of Detour’s economy. The scope of the territory of Sycamore Detour is much greater than a simple analysis of its physical dimensions would suggest. There is a process called Turquoise Parallel Defragmentation that greatly increases the spatial regions of the world. This process is mainly caused by the Wobble-Bumkins, purple deer like beasts with legs three times the length of normal deer. They can fold these legs up underneath themselves when they fly. The Wobble-Bumkins travel around Detour and place holes with their antlers in the ground and holes within the sides of the rock and surfaces of the floating sky-islands. During a full moon lunar light will fill the holes, and from them are cast poles of turquoise light known as the Turquoise Parallels. Forests of the parallels emerge, and if one watches, they can see the parallels stretch space, creating new environments. The Wobble-Bumkins are named so because they do so when they walk.

The second world of the Faril system is named Decadent Thesis, and was originally a prison planet of Sycamore Detour, the main center being the prison-city of Banish-People until a prison riot. Banish-People is now the capital. When the prisoner Mei Zoe Ulomara was freed, she became a historian and the author of the historical book “The Unquenchable Annals of History”. The book was used by Ulomara to summon a sequence of energies from Timecurrent to Ruin to Valco and formed them together. Through the power of the book, Thesis became an extension of the Sublime Landscape, with Ulomara as its master. She evolved into the noble Zoe Thesis, and scattered the paper pages of the book. The pages planted themselves into the ground, and became great tall and thick walls that contained in certain regions the essence of the sublime landscape on Thesis. Outside of Zoe’s main city of Banish-People, the settlements of mortals on the world are contained within floating stone cylinders, the Rajarayatran. Within the oceans of the sublime landscape on Thesis, there is a layer of oil over the water, and within it is a dimension in which mortals live as well. That world is called Wioa-Emeva, and its capital is named Iota-Trace. The most significant danger to the colonists living on Thesis are the Tosso. These small hamster-like animals, when they approach a person, carry a tiny hammer which will drift through the air, and continue to grow until it is of great size and will trail a person, and smash them. The Tosso will then eat about a quarter pound of meat, and rip off the hair, leaving the lifeless body hairless, but only if it is considerably smashed.

The third world is Nauseous Gaia. It is mostly a desert world. There are geysers that spill forth seltzer onto the surface. Living within the seltzer geysers are colonies of naked, semi porous people that are released whenever there is a spurt. They congregate together and lick the seltzer off of themselves with their tongues, purifying themselves. The semi porous people can hover as well. When the cleaning is complete they hover away into the wastelands of the desert. If a semi porous person is completely pure, it blossoms into a giant orchid that casts a light projection onto the ground, a projection of an oasis. As far as the human body and psyche is concerned, the waters, vegetation, animals and fruits of these projected oases are equivalent to the real thing. If a semi porous person is incompletely pure, it will blossom into a palm tree, and around it more vegetation will arise. If the semi porous person is still very messy and covered in seltzer, it will bury itself under the sands. They eventually return to the geysers, although some of them explode while they are buried, sending up bursts of sand. Besides that, they are almost completely simpleminded. The planet Nauseous Gaia is infested with Umpereo snakes, as the deserts of the Extreme were. There is a third native variety of Umpereo snake that is a female that gives birth to litters of Dall, reptilian, almost alligator-like bats. The Dall are vicious carnivores and predators of the desert, attacking any humans they encounter. During the first colonization of Gaia a wealthy hedonist by the name of Plymouth Chrome had a pleasure mansion built in the desert. The interior walls of Chrome Mansion were all painted. During an invasion by Umpereo snakes, the humans under their will broke free but became the Removers, a race of humanoids. As the mansion was defended, they were chased back into a mine, from which the colonists discovered a trove of cylindrical rocks called Bayarma that followed them back en-mass. They roll along the walls of the mansion, removing the paint. The Umpereo were also eventually repelled, and due to this new nuisance Plymouth hired countless workers to constantly repaint his mansion. More Bayarma arrived from the mine, and their rotations are endless. The mansion could never truly be entirely repainted, and Plymouth eventually returned to the SOTA The denizens of Gaia continue to tend to the rocks, as they produce a type of paint, Omech-paint, which the workers will collect in bowls. The Omech-paint is placed as lines on the sand and protects the settlements from incursions by many of the beasts of Gaia, most notably the Amebet, which is like a moray eel with spikes that spin as fast as drills, and a mouth that fires a replica of an exploding head of whoever it is fighting.