Sophia - Throne Room 2

A deep gong pulled Sophia slowly awake. A strange bluish-green glow flickered against her eye-lids and a feeling of enfolding warmth and comfort held her securely. The bones of the massive throne were warm and pulsing slightly to the deep, steady heartbeat Sophia could feel more than hear. Her eyes opened to see a translucent image floating in front of her. Written on it were clusters of strange symbols that slowly twisted and morphed into words. "Summoning Gem AE3_666_01 activated. Coordinates transmitted. Jump system inactive. Data: Save/Purge"

"How do I get more detail?" A second window faded into view with more text and an image of two women in the early morning light with a heart shaped sapphire gem held into a shaft of sunlight. She stared at the image of two familiar faces before shouting, "Irena? Shandi? Can you hear me?"

"I'm sorry mistress, the summoning gems aren't communications devices. If everything was working, we could jump to them. But that isn't possible until the hut is fixed. I would recommend saving their location," Tyana commented as she faded into view , standing to the side of the glowing windows.

"What if they change location?"

"Then we hope they use the gem again."

"What is our current status?" Sophia asked. Instantly half a dozen screens popped up in the air in front of her with status for various sections of the hut. Many were green, however, the ones dealing with main power and jump systems were red. In each one power and control crystals were marked as damaged. "What do these crystals look like?" Another screen opened with images of seven crystals, each a different color, displayed inside. Three, a blue, a dusty rose, and a scarlet shot through with blue had red circles around them. Underneath, they were marked as "damaged, non-functional". "What size are they" Immediately a three dimensional image of a crystal appeared, rotating near Sophia's right hand. The crystal was about the size of a closed fist, egg-shaped, with seven flat pads polished into it. "And there are no spares inside the hut?"

"No mistress," Tyana replied.

"They can't be natural with those polished points, can they?"

"No, they were created by technology and were originally designed for hyperdrive systems. The creator of the hut based the power systems on a similar unit. In some places they are very common, in others, almost impossible to find."

"What is outside the hut? Can you tell me that? Do you think we are in a place where I can find these easily?" Another widow opened, larger than the others, showing a round dark granite chamber, lit with phosphorescence on the walls. Odd patterned carvings swooped between tall protrusions of rock, whose function was not at all obvious. A round well, surrounded by twisted spines of rock, puffed steam into the center of the chamber. A dark passage ramped up from an opening in the far wall. "Alright, that's rather strange."

"I don't know how easy finding them will be here. The air will support you, ambient temperature is cool compared to your body temperature, but barely below the comfortable range. I have no indication of local conditions or life-forms. There are none in the immediate area. I recommend selecting protective gear and weapons from your wardrobe before exiting the hut," Tyana replied.

"Weapons? What am I going to do with weapons? I've never fought in my life!"

"I am afraid you will need to learn, mistress. Most of the multi-verse is rather hostile, particularly to strangers."

"Uh, and where am I supposed to learn? Can you teach me? Do I have to worry about survival in here with the power systems messed up?"

I can teach you some things. We have as long as it takes. There is no serious risk with the systems as they are. I will join you in your rooms, you can select weapons, and we can begin. You realize, I hope, that this will take a while. These skills aren't learned overnight."

"Figures."

Irena - Vacation 1

It was late in the evening when Irena pulled into the cheap hotel. She grabbed her bag, the bottle of Aquavit, and paused with her hand near her laptop bag. She had planned to take a break from the chat rooms and social sites when on vacation. Lately the flame wars and snarking had grown and a number of her friends had dropped off the sites. She turned on the TV and tried to find something to watch, however, she couldn't forget the disks in her bag.

After five minutes of the sappy movie, the best thing she could find in the wasteland of channels, she turned it off, fired up her laptop, and slid the first disk into the drive. There were directories filled with image files, hyper-linked text files, program executables and assemblies. On the last disk was an index file, close enough to the top that looked like a starting point, but when she tried a couple of links, they were broken. She waited impatiently for the time it took to copy all the directories to her laptop, then tried again.

Hours passed while she followed links, read pages, scanned images, and slowly immersed herself in the designs Sophia had been working on. Some of it she remembered from Jaime's tabletop role playing game. Much of it was expanded details and concepts for turning the bare bones of that early campaign into a world rich enough for a massively multi player environment. Other sections contained character write-ups and creature descriptions, linked to sketches, found images, and concept art to help with development.

It was four in the morning when she remembered to look at the clock. She was going to shut the machine down when another heading caught her eye. Suddenly she was immersed in the politics and power struggles of the campaign. The tabletop game had only scratched the surface, even after three years of playing once a week. Page after page detailed factions, power brokers, minions, and themes. The deeper she went the broader the scope became, until the final conflicts were being waged on a multi-versal scale, crossing times, parallel worlds, and the planes of existence as defined in many of the various gaming source books on the market.

Irena looked at the clock again and it said eight in the morning. She shook her head, stood unsteadily, and reserved the room for another night. She called the friends she was meeting and gave a flimsy excuse for a late start, promising to be to their place the next day. She had been planning to sleep, but tossed fitfully for a long while before turning the computer back on and continuing her research.

Stomach cramps pulled her away at noon, forcing her to consider the food she had skipped the night before as well as in the morning. Her hands flew to the keyboard first, then with a raw chuckle, she grabbed the handful of fliers the hotel had left in the room. She ordered from the first one that had delivery service.

Sophia - Throne Room

The directions were simple, but they didn't prepare her for what she saw when she pulled open the door. The far wall was seventy feet away. To her left the massive hall extended another fifty feet, to the right it extended almost two hundred feet to a raised dais, supporting a large throne, crafted from enormous bones, and illuminated by a single shaft of light from above. Raising her eyes she saw a spiral galaxy swirling high overhead, where the ceiling should have been. The walls were black obsidian with veins of golden light shimmering from them. Tall, graceful columns of the same material reached to where the ceiling should have been. The floor was pink granite with etched black runes swirling and eddying about.

Her footsteps echoed in the cavernous hall as she started walking, then running, toward the throne. Caution tried to pull her to a stop, but the need to be in the throne won out. Warmth and comfort enfolded her as she settled onto the cushion resting in the hollow of bone forming the seat. Images crashed into her head, faster and faster, twisting and roiling like an angry sea. For long moments she tried to cling to them, make sense of the currents. As they overwhelmed her she fought against them, pushing and twisting, trying to claw free of the pounding intensity of them. Blackness closed in around the edges of her vision and Tyana's voice whispered softly, "Let go. Let it happen. Become one with us and find peace." She fought to relax, to give in to the sucking blackness, but her mind fought to hang on.

One scene flashed by, clear and complete. The view was from the throne, looking down on a blonde haired, boyish looking man. His face was pouty and spoiled looking, wearing a pleasant but almost gloating smile. He was dressed in rich, gaudy black clothes trimmed with orange. Four men in black armor with orange trim flanked him. "Mistress of the Hut, I would ask you to grant me the knowledge of the shifting magic you use to move this hut. In return I shall grant you several Ancient Magic items I have in my possession."

A name flashed into her mind, Aztol, followed by various incidents of horrific deeds perpetrated by him. After a pause she spoke, "Upstart, what makes you think I would wish your tech? You seek knowledge beyond your wisdom, power beyond your ability. I shall not grant you anything. Take your rag-tag bunch of misfits and leave. Seek not to bother me again, for that day shall be your last."

His composed face twisted into a mask of rage. "You think you are so powerful. I will crush you like the insignificant fool you are. Soon the very demons of hell will tremble before me. You will beg me for mercy but it will be too late." His wild violet eyes stared into Sophia's calm ones as he spit and twitched with rage. "Doom shall fall upon you and I shall be its instrument." He turned and stalked from the room as the image faded and Sophia slid into unconsciousness.

Sophia - Tyana 2

Slowly she set the book back down on the table. "Tyana?"

"Yes mistress?" Tyana's voice answered from the air.

"Where is the rest of the crew?"

"The rest of the crew? You are the crew, mistress. Kyira and I are here to assist you. There are no others."

"Then what's this?" Irena asked, waving the book in the air.

"An echo...um, nothing mistress, just a book."

"An echo? Tyana, what is going on?" Sophia paused for a long moment, thinking of other similarities between her project and this place. "Unless... Are you doing what we did, creating instances of this construct, based off a master version, and giving them to random people? It was the only way we could figure out for working a magical device into our game." Tyana faded into view and just smiled. "You aren't supposed to answer questions like that, are you?" Tyana just continued to smile. "We created a way to meet the master version and crew, did Irena do that as well?"

Tyana waited for a few moments once Sophia stopped speaking, before asking, "Was there anything else, mistress?"

"Are you allowed to tell me the best way from here to the throne room?"

"Of course, mistress. Return to the kitchen, walk to the door on the far well and furthest to your left, cross through the formal dining room, exit through the single door on the far side of the room, and you will be in the throne room. Since you will ask anyway, the door to your left, as you enter the throne room, will take you to the interface room and the exit to the current realm."