I'm really glad this story has attracted such interest, in fact, I was surprised when I saw how large the traffic volume was from my photobucket account. The bandwidth use was dozens of multiples higher than the actual space the pictures took up. Thanks
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Blitukus pressed the inlet levers forward, and once again, the channels filled with water and magma. There were hisses and a tapping as steam built up. Blitukus started the dynamos, and connected them to the capacitor, waiting for them to charge it. He took in a deep breath, and let it out through his nose over the course of several seconds. The voltage climbed, and the current fell, until eventually the current zeroed. He opened the circuit between the dynamos and the capacitor and then connected the dynamos to the core of the portal. As the ring began to spin, accelerating with time, Blitukus felt his excitement dull down to a sense of serene calm that he experienced for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. He looked on as the ring lifted off of the rollers, a plasma building within the coils. The gravitational field permeated the room, and the electromagnetic fields circulated within. Blitukus' fur stood on end, and several forces gently tugged on him. His sense of calm was only refined by the sight of the operating portal, and he felt as if the forces of the universe nudging him were like the tide of the ocean. He crouched down and stood to the side of the console, if the beam were to misfire, it would miss him in that position.
If I succeed here, then it is but more proof that the demons days are numbered. If I fail... it will add a small number to the demons remaining days, a mere minor setback. Critical failure is not an option.
Light blurred and bent toward the center of the portal. The portal ring had reached its full speed. Now all that was left was to flip the switch. A smile of confidence arose on his face. He reached up, and pulled the discharge lever. The adamantine wires connected. An immense flood, a wall of charge, rocketed through the wires and passed into the wiring of the particle cannon. The crystal glass immediately became saturated with charge, and the coils pumped a large magnetic field through the barrel. The plate in the back drew in particles, tore them from their negative charges, and hurled them forth. As particles entered the barrel, they collided, producing many exotic particles in the process. The standard particles were filtered away by the gems, and the exotic particle flow was focused. The particles were catapulted through the barrel, faster and faster, and even faster. Their mass and energy had grown enormously by the time they left the barrel, a speed the degree of which seemed to influence the flow of time. It was an instant, yet it was a relative eternity, depending on ones reference point. The particles rocketed through the air, carrying energy that caused them to transcend interacting with the air... to the particles it was as good as a vacuum. The particles then became entangled within the portals truly immense magnetic field, forcing them with such strength it overpowered the anti-gravity and compressed the exotic particles down into one single fundamental unit of space. Masses of particles became entrapped within the portal, within that one point of space. Tendrils of energy shot from the beams catch point throughout the magnetic field, only to be piped back into the portal. It worked. The portal cought the beam, perfectly... and it was quite a light show.
The particles kept flowing, until finally, the energy had been put in. That fundamental region of space had been pulled in tighter, and tighter, and tighter... until it tore right open. The beam had ceased. The rift then was cought in the anti-gravity fields, and its edges were pulled open, expanding it into a near circle on the plane of the ring. The torn ends of space and time thrashed about violently in the multiverse, seeking a familiar space-time to bind to, its motion determined solely by probability and chance. The destination was simultaneously nowhere, and everywhere. Then, the rift in space became large enough to become noticeable. Blitukus spotted it, observed it, and in that instant, the destination was no longer everywhere or nowhere, it was somewhere. The broken strands of the fabric of space had resewn themselves into another point, somewhere else, some-when else. The rift kept expanding, opening like a circular doorway until the gravitational forces balanced, the rift open nearly as large as the inner space of the ring. Blitukus stood fully, then walked toward the portal. The plasma of the coils seeped through and enveloped the edge of the hole in space on the other side. On the other side of the portal were stars that shined brighter than any night sky. Random chance had placed the destination in such a position that gave the phrase "middle of nowhere" a new meaning, it seemed. The only energy put into directing the portal was ambient fluctuations, so the destination couldn't be that far away from his familiar planet. There was nothing on the other side of the portal, though, not even air, nothing but the distant stars and not-as-distant planets. A loud roaring persisted as air was sucked through the portal. Blitukus stood in front of the portal, crouched a bit, braced against the base of the machine to avoid being sucked in. The force of the wind pulled at his fur violently. He reached forward, and put his hand into the portal. He felt a strange feeling, similar to the feeling he had felt when the universe had shown him the smallest possible realm... the feeling of his matter being distorted through all higher dimensions. Yet, when it reached the other end, it was perfectly intact. He felt a very painful stinging all over his hand, and his flesh seemed to expand for lack of external pressure. Blitukus took in a deep breath, and closed his hand, bringing it back through the portal, as if to pull in star-dust. He then opened his hand, allowing the inobservably small particles to escape... cosmic dust in the cosmic wind once again. He placed his hand over his chest, feeling his heart full of heavy emotions. He shut his eyes, then shed a tear, which was promptly sucked from his face, and through the portal. Then, exposed to hard vacuum, the tear evaporated, its particles spreading out, free to roam the planets for eons. He let the deep breath out.
Before me lays another space, another time.... driven by my love for my mother, I have succeeded.
He felt the forces in the room shifting. He opened his eyes, and saw the space within the portal torquing around, the destination shifting and shearing about. The core of the rift was still subject to the universe and its probabilities... as such, it was guaranteed to eventually become unstable. As forces became unbalanced, torqued about, force flowed back from the portal, into the dynamos, and from the dynamos, back into the pressure of the boilers, which promptly began venting steam into the room through their purge valves. Wisps of steam surrounded Blitukus, too thin to do much more than warm him a bit, the steam sucked through the unstable portal, the particles sheared asunder within by the forces of space itself. Finally, the source and the destination were sheared apart, and the rift collapsed. Blitukus stood. The wind stopped flowing, and everything seemed to settle. He walked back to the control console, and shut down the portal ring, then shut down the dynamos, pulling back the levers to drain the channels as well. He opened the vent valves on the boilers. Slowly, the machine dissipated its energy, and finally came to rest. He felt a sense of true focus and peace, and sensed that this was important. Perhaps feeling this way will convince the universe to decide upon more favorable outcomes for probability? Perhaps willpower and probability had a link. This could be a reason to pursue studies in magic, perhaps... it might be useful for guiding the portal. It was a success, but one detail bothered him. The portal became unstable so rapidly, that if he were to leave to do something in another time, he would not be able to return... unless he augmented his machine to be more stable. Further testing was needed. This time, rather than let probability decide the destination at its whim, a destination would be predetermined.
In order for the destination to be predetermined, the familiar 4 dimensional coordinates had to be aligned within 11 dimensional space, and then that had to be converted into the effective button-presses he would have to perform to aim the portal. All of this meant a lot of calculating... but thanks to the unified equation, a lot of roundabout rituals for n-dimensional calculation became simplified. He thought about it... still, this would take a while, but at least it wouldn't take years. He checked his timepiece as he walked back to his room. It was Malachite 25, 1085. While in his room, he got to work converting and calculating. He found that knowing his position in 11 dimensions, thanks to the universes "You Are Here" statement, simplified things further since otherwise it would remain an unknown variable. Things were done in terms of deltas, and relied heavily on the initial conditions. He listed those conditions at the start, and used them throughout. He stopped to drink, then continued. He gradually churned out a destination solution... the destination would actually be very near the portal, 10 seconds into the future. He found himself mentally exhausted upon finishing, and checked the date... it was now Galena 3. He had expanded his 4 dimensional delta into an 11 dimensional coordinate, then from that extrapolated which coils would have to be applied when in order to nudge the portal there. He copied it to the paper of a book, then brought it with, back to the chamber. He restarted the channels and boilers, opening up the power system again, charging the capacitor. As he waited for it to charge, he reviewed his math, and found no errors. When the capacitor had charged, he switched the power connectors once again, powering up the portal ring. As he waited for it to get up to speed, he realized he needed a suitable test subject, rather than risking his own life... just in case somewhere it didn't quite work out right. He retrieved some material from a young tower cap. Eventually, it was all ready... Blitukus pulled the switch, and waited prepared at the controls. The beam fired for a second, filling the room with its glow, then it ceased. The very instant it had ceased, Blitukus started steering the portal. First, he fired all coils at the same time, centering the destination at the source. Then, he quickly 'typed' in the proper sequences of electromagnetic nudges... but observed the portal before finishing. He was too slow in 'typing' it in, causing the destination to fly off into space, collapsing the rift immediately. He sighed slightly, then switched power from the portal ring back to the capacitor, starting over. There was potential for good results but it was becoming apparent that this was not a reliable potential. He checked his math further as the capacitor recharged, then continued checking it further after switching power to the ring again. The math all checked out. The ring began to near its full speed. Blitukus used the sight of the arcs to help himself enter the state of calm he had previously experienced, shutting out all distractions. He focused his full resources on the act of controlling his creation. His timing would have to be perfect. He slowly pulled the lever, unleashing the beam, but as soon as it ended, he jerked into motion, frantically 'typing' out the proper sequence. He looked up, and the portal remained. He had entered in the sequence properly, within the time available. He smiled... but his smile soon vanished. Something almost seemed ill about the rift... something was very wrong with this, it was not like the rift that probability had decided upon. 4 seconds into the future, rather than 10, the destination rift opened, not adjacent to the source as was once planned, but near the back of the room... and the destination actually seemed to be moving slowly. The rifts wavered and torqued, having formed unstable to begin with. Blitukus chucked the chunk of tower cap into the source rift... it bounced from the destination and was spewed back out of the source rift in chunks, chips and shavings. raining down all about the portal, then catching fire due to the nearby magma. The dynamos ground a bit as if under unintended pressure. Blitukus realized... if he had entered the portal then, he would have become little chunks and blood spatters spread throughout the room... much like what happened to that one poor dragon those millenia ago. The rift choked itself off, then vanished. Blitukus then shut down the machine again... that was not a good result.
He thought about why, debated with himself why, but it didn't take long to come to a conclusion. His math was perfect, but there was also a critical flaw due to the flow of time... he had spent a long time working on that solution, a solution heavily dependent on initial conditions... by the time the solution was completed, the initial conditions were no longer valid, and the portal didn't line up properly on the higher dimensions. His solutions were too slow, the same problem the dragons faced. Another problem was also apparent and it was likely the dragons had already had a solution for it... he was capable of either speed or accuracy when 'typing' out the sequence of pulses, but not both, and both were crucial to the portal working properly. It was becoming apparent that, due to the fact he was a mere flesh-and-blood mortal, he was incapable of properly controlling his own creation. He needed something to do the calculations and controls far faster... and doing things far faster was a specialty of technology, something the Dragons didn't have. He walked back to his room, and pondered how he could possibly build such a control system... he realized, that extra device in his dream... it WAS linked to the control console. He didn't know how but he would figure it out. He began thinking about it... clockwork controls could be made in a manner that he was familiar with, but how would he possibly calculate his solutions faster? He started thinking about the electrical components... logic gates and base 2 had possibilities together... but it was all entirely, indeed ridiculously, impractical without technologies that were immensely beyond what he had available. He would have to settle for something that was a simple mechanical device... it would be large, inefficient, and only capable of performing one type of task, but despite its inferiorities to the electronic ideal, it was better than paper and pencil.
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I know it may sound a bit far fetched but mechanical computers aren't such a far fetched thing if you think about it.
Also, this should be the last short update... that picture took a long time to memory-edit into existence. I edit RAM, not images.
[ December 03, 2007: Message edited by: AlanL ]
Author
Topic: A Kobold's Quest II (Read 76150 times)