From the article archive
World A Week: Tracking III
My ectoplasmic form fled into the crust of an alternate Earth evading pursuit by seeking psi's while my real body choked to death in another world at the hands of the lady I wished to rescue.
It was not my best day.
The sudden flight into the floor threw off the Alexander MegaCorp psi's who somehow had arrived in this strange world, and gotten themselves a base, or something. Last, I knew, they were a pet team of prototypes in a cyberpunk, tech-dominated world. The information their slave, the lady Twyla who I wished to rescue must have told them how to make a gate.
Gates tend to imply scriff, so I reached out and sensed for it. Three different locations came back. I fled at a pace tens of thousands of miles per hour fast. There was little time before I died physically for me to act.
I needed to find something to save myself. Much as I'd like to go back, and compel a few AMC psi-techs to release Twyla; I did not think I could do so in time.
The gate, metal ring telekinetically hung in the air above a closed shopping center, and I flung myself through it breaking past the startled defenders.
On the other side, I saw more advanced machines, but still close in time to the other side. And I could tell that my psi powers were hard to use in this world.
I felt for scriff, and found three locations, and some understanding of what I faced occurred to me. I'd read in a scroll compiled by the Learned and Venerable Voshtag, a cruelly clever man about the existence of alternate related dimensions. The original AMC world must have a small group, a cohort of dimensions, attached to it. Usually, according to Voshtag, there was some ordering scheme attached to them. Here seemed thirty or forty years later than the last world. And AMC seemed thirty or forty years from the description past this world.
This was bad; it could mean that AMC was the most advanced world in this group, and thus could more easily conquer the others. My day just kept getting better and better.
I crashed back through the gate, and raced away in the confusion my original arrival had spawned.
The next closest gate took me into AMC world, and I nearly blacked out upon arrival. This was AMC's homeworld with high technology, polluted skies, and very little psi bias to support such a creature as I currently was.
Wounded, and near streaming energy, I staggered back through and soared through the Earth one last time to the last gate to meet a force of psis ready for me who could have taken me in my prime. Meanwhile, I felt a steady drag of energy as my physical body died, and as the gaping rents in my ectoplasm leaked.
The gate hung before me, and dozens of psis watched and waited for my attack, for my rush through the field of awareness so that they could reach out with their sweet lying words and lull my mind to sleep, the better to rule me forever like they did with Twyla.
So, I grabbed the gate structure by main force of will, and jerked it flying toward me. No control, no finesse, just raw brute strength. I fell through the gate, and saw a world that might be older than the AMC world.
Technological devices rusted in the streets, and adolescent unicorns played atop rusting Volvo(r) hovercraft.
Before too many could follow me, I cast the spell for making passage to the Borders of the World, if this world had one. It was my only hope.
A sparkling rainbow fell around me, and suddenly everything glowed with an inner light. My pain faded, and my watch stopped, and I relaxed. My enemies were gone for now.
A bird of paradise resplendent in all his colors flew up to me, and landed on a tree nearby.
"Well, I've seen more beat-up people, but them's was usually involved in Christmas shopping." It said, and I laughed at the madcap fey in relief.
"I'm very glad to be here."
"But not so glad that you'll join our side will you, Taduesz?" The bird said with a jaundiced tilt of its head from upon the tree branch which was rapidly covering itself in gold.
"You are of the Sidhe, the fey, undecided as to whether to support the Lords of Light or the Shadow, are you not?" I replied trying for time since the "bird" seemed to be about ready to kick me out of here, and I needed to catch my breath, and a big favor as well.
"True, and you support the Creator God."
"Well, yes, that is true."
"Welllll, " The "bird" said in mockery of me, "Then why should I help you since you are not even going to buy anything? We do have a special on Universal Enlightenment or my personal favorite, Cool as the Meaning of Life, but you already got the Mark of Heaven glowing on your forehead, so what's the point?" He raised his scarlet wings as if to blow me away back to the real world. The "bird" was trying to tempt me for temporary advantage to um, not sell my soul, but "rent" it.
"I could help you."
"Really?" He said drily.
"Yes, I know several good recipes for chicken soup, I'm sure we could adapt something, maybe add a little taragon?" I stared at the bird for a long minute hoping I had edged the joke at just the right level. Too little, and I would be declared boring, and few things are worse than to bore the fey. Too much, and well, the temper of the High Fey is not bound by human limitations or even physical laws. A human will eventually pass out if he gets too angry.
"Heh, heh, umheheehehehe" The "bird" began to cackle as it lost its grip on the branch, and then fell off head first toward the ground. It thumped unharmed in a patch of rainbow tinted clovers that appeared a moment before it landed. Then he rolled around in the clover chortling.
I started laughing, but mostly in sheer relief.
I hate the fey, I really, really do. Except when I like them.
Taduesz
It was not my best day.
The sudden flight into the floor threw off the Alexander MegaCorp psi's who somehow had arrived in this strange world, and gotten themselves a base, or something. Last, I knew, they were a pet team of prototypes in a cyberpunk, tech-dominated world. The information their slave, the lady Twyla who I wished to rescue must have told them how to make a gate.
Gates tend to imply scriff, so I reached out and sensed for it. Three different locations came back. I fled at a pace tens of thousands of miles per hour fast. There was little time before I died physically for me to act.
I needed to find something to save myself. Much as I'd like to go back, and compel a few AMC psi-techs to release Twyla; I did not think I could do so in time.
The gate, metal ring telekinetically hung in the air above a closed shopping center, and I flung myself through it breaking past the startled defenders.
On the other side, I saw more advanced machines, but still close in time to the other side. And I could tell that my psi powers were hard to use in this world.
I felt for scriff, and found three locations, and some understanding of what I faced occurred to me. I'd read in a scroll compiled by the Learned and Venerable Voshtag, a cruelly clever man about the existence of alternate related dimensions. The original AMC world must have a small group, a cohort of dimensions, attached to it. Usually, according to Voshtag, there was some ordering scheme attached to them. Here seemed thirty or forty years later than the last world. And AMC seemed thirty or forty years from the description past this world.
This was bad; it could mean that AMC was the most advanced world in this group, and thus could more easily conquer the others. My day just kept getting better and better.
I crashed back through the gate, and raced away in the confusion my original arrival had spawned.
The next closest gate took me into AMC world, and I nearly blacked out upon arrival. This was AMC's homeworld with high technology, polluted skies, and very little psi bias to support such a creature as I currently was.
Wounded, and near streaming energy, I staggered back through and soared through the Earth one last time to the last gate to meet a force of psis ready for me who could have taken me in my prime. Meanwhile, I felt a steady drag of energy as my physical body died, and as the gaping rents in my ectoplasm leaked.
The gate hung before me, and dozens of psis watched and waited for my attack, for my rush through the field of awareness so that they could reach out with their sweet lying words and lull my mind to sleep, the better to rule me forever like they did with Twyla.
So, I grabbed the gate structure by main force of will, and jerked it flying toward me. No control, no finesse, just raw brute strength. I fell through the gate, and saw a world that might be older than the AMC world.
Technological devices rusted in the streets, and adolescent unicorns played atop rusting Volvo(r) hovercraft.
Before too many could follow me, I cast the spell for making passage to the Borders of the World, if this world had one. It was my only hope.
A sparkling rainbow fell around me, and suddenly everything glowed with an inner light. My pain faded, and my watch stopped, and I relaxed. My enemies were gone for now.
A bird of paradise resplendent in all his colors flew up to me, and landed on a tree nearby.
"Well, I've seen more beat-up people, but them's was usually involved in Christmas shopping." It said, and I laughed at the madcap fey in relief.
"I'm very glad to be here."
"But not so glad that you'll join our side will you, Taduesz?" The bird said with a jaundiced tilt of its head from upon the tree branch which was rapidly covering itself in gold.
"You are of the Sidhe, the fey, undecided as to whether to support the Lords of Light or the Shadow, are you not?" I replied trying for time since the "bird" seemed to be about ready to kick me out of here, and I needed to catch my breath, and a big favor as well.
"True, and you support the Creator God."
"Well, yes, that is true."
"Welllll, " The "bird" said in mockery of me, "Then why should I help you since you are not even going to buy anything? We do have a special on Universal Enlightenment or my personal favorite, Cool as the Meaning of Life, but you already got the Mark of Heaven glowing on your forehead, so what's the point?" He raised his scarlet wings as if to blow me away back to the real world. The "bird" was trying to tempt me for temporary advantage to um, not sell my soul, but "rent" it.
"I could help you."
"Really?" He said drily.
"Yes, I know several good recipes for chicken soup, I'm sure we could adapt something, maybe add a little taragon?" I stared at the bird for a long minute hoping I had edged the joke at just the right level. Too little, and I would be declared boring, and few things are worse than to bore the fey. Too much, and well, the temper of the High Fey is not bound by human limitations or even physical laws. A human will eventually pass out if he gets too angry.
"Heh, heh, umheheehehehe" The "bird" began to cackle as it lost its grip on the branch, and then fell off head first toward the ground. It thumped unharmed in a patch of rainbow tinted clovers that appeared a moment before it landed. Then he rolled around in the clover chortling.
I started laughing, but mostly in sheer relief.
I hate the fey, I really, really do. Except when I like them.
Taduesz
Recovered from the Gaming Outpost database backup. Original wording is preserved; damaged punctuation and presentation markup have been repaired. Historical links without a local match point to the Internet Archive.