That was probably the best stop as far as characters. The next ones will probably focus more on environment.
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Note to self... I did make a promise to Arkus that I would share the secrets of this component with him. I will find the means to properly analyze it some day I guess, and then I could send a note back in time...Blitukus spent time taking in all that had happened... eventually, he heard a dull and distant hiss. He looked behind himself, and saw the portal, seeming to have appeared out of nowhere while he wasn't looking. Blitukus stood, walked back to the portal, then crossed through it.
Meanwhile, back at the tower...
Arkus looked back at his table to gather the rest of his notes, finding an odd paper detailing the inner workings of the cat relic. Arkus laughed, "Now how did this get here?"
2074 years later...
Blitukus emerged from the portal, finding himself once again standing before the magma and water channels of his time machine. It was all as he had left it. A day had passed, yet it was in a matter of seconds. Blitukus walked back to his console, and powered down the portal ring, allowing the rift to vanish. He powered down the dynamos, closed the inlets to the channels, then opened the release valves on the boilers. When the fluids had all cleared, and the machine had mostly come to rest, Blitukus walked over to the frame of the cat relic. He looked down at it for several moments, holding the artifact, then knelt down, sliding the artifact into an empty slot on the relic. It fit snugly, then snapped into place, refusing to come loose thereafter. The frame even looked more complete, more of the sphere filled in... but there were 3 components left. For now, Blitukus felt his soul and mind were exhausted, and decided to take a break to recuperate. He left the chamber, and walked back to his room. He sat, and began to allow his mind to review all that he had done. Meanwhile, the cave river gushed in an overflow. He remembered the first time the cave river had nearly swept him away... it seemed so long ago, then again, it was. He had come a considerable distance since then. Slowly, the waters receded. He smiled, taking a book up, then brought it back to the edge of the bridge. He looked through the book... the 20th century book detailing high energy particle physics and a variety of technologies bound by mathematical relationships. He had entered the realm of technology once again... but he had brought with new forces. He formed an orb of frozen air over his palm, then dropped it into the river. A chunk of ice promptly formed then floated downstream. Blitukus noticed that although he still had mana... it now recharged far slower than it used to. To go from none to full in the days of the ancients could be achieved in a matter of a few minutes. To do the same in 1085 would best be accomplished by sleeping for several hours... He stopped to eat a meal, and found that although the plump helmet was in itself a good meal... it lacked the qualities of whatever Arkus had made. A tower cap had grown to maturity on the other side of the river, blocking the passageway. Blitukus finished his meal, took up his axe, then proceeded to fell the tower cap, bringing the 'lumber' back to his hallways. Just as he set the log and the axe down, he looked up to see Dracha looking downwards at him. Dracha spoke, "Hi there! Back so soon?" Blitukus smiled, "It only seems like a short time relative to you. I spent a day back with the ancients, and I found one of the components." Dracha replied, "Good, I knew you'd find them somehow... you know, all the dragons will remember you for this. I even still have the coordinates of the star that got picked... one of the worlds there has a lot of mana on it. We won't be havin' any problems for millenia to come!" Blitukus smiled, "I am glad my quest has created such benefits." Blitukus walked back to the river for a drink, and Dracha followed. Blitukus commented, "You were right about my ability to learn magic as well..." Blitukus then repeated what he had done earlier, tossing an orb of frozen matter into the lake, causing ice to form. Dracha laughed, "You were payin' attention. Who did ya learn from?" Blitukus replied, "Kazo taught me... and then I unleashed forces of chaos with unpredictably chaotic results..." Dracha laughed, an expression of surprise visible, "That was YOU?! I used to work with him in the theoretical department, his experiments were too out-of-this-world to pass up. One of the first things he did was tell me the story about the chaotic kobold and the cat artifact... never thought that was you, and the artifact was a component?" Blitukus nodded. Dracha laughed again, "So I see you survived all that without ending up glow in the dark. I remember the story about the glow in the dark kobold too... bein' glow in the dark can come in handy y'know, especially in dark tunnels like these." Blitukus snickered, then commented, "You remind me of him in a way, you even have a 'dungeon' like he did." Dracha replied, "After graduating basic education I went on a big adventure, which didn't pan out as I'd hoped. I ended up bein' his student for quite a while, then after I got out of that I was sort of a coworker of his once in a while. Whenever he needed to work with another dragon, I tended to at least be close to the top of his list. He had a habit of practicing both extremes... once I remember noting once back when we worked together on a disease research project how he was mean enough to do everything short of torturing his subjects to death, then right after, he was nice enough to put food and water out for my subjects. Unlike him, I actually care about what happens to my subjects, and I don't kill them, and he respected that just fine." Blitukus spoke, "He and Kazo enjoyed using me as a subject... did he do that to you?" Dracha replied, "He tried once... ended up with him pretty sore when he woke up. He didn't try that one again I'll have you know!" Blitukus laughed. Dracha continued, "I liked the guy, but what he did was just too far. He apologized and we got on with life, and I didn't hold it against him. Ever since then he always asked permission first before taking a dragon in as a subject though." Dracha sighed, "But then, the demons..." Blitukus asked, "They made it through... right?" Dracha replied, "The tower was leveled... Arkus, well, all I know was that there was a lot of blood, but they couldn't find a body. Kazo... I have no clue. It was like he vanished! When we sent out the summoning call to gather everyone at the portal, they of all people should've shown up, but they were never seen again since the tower was leveled. I guess they're probably no longer with us, Blitukus..." Blitukus sighed deeply, and paused for a moment, "I have lost far too many friends on this quest, Dracha... I'll miss Arkus and Kazo." Dracha sighed, then replied, "Yeah, well... we all lost friends when the demons hit... it's what demons do, y'know." Blitukus responded, "All too well... I still hold out hope, though." Dracha replied, "Sometimes I still do too... you know a lot of what I do today is at least partly just to keep the legacy of Arkus alive in some way."
"The Worlds Easiest Atom Smasher", Copyright 1991... the product of a vast civilization, a technological equivalent of what the dragons had achieved? Maybe... the future is still a bright one. Perhaps in the future, I will also find the fate of my 2 'new' friends recorded somewhere.
Dracha spoke, "Sorry to cut it short, but I've got some broken equipment that needs to be fixed. Good luck, Blitukus. I'll be back over some time soon." Blitukus nodded, "Thank you, Dracha. Good luck with whatever you're doing." Dracha nodded, "Thanks." They then parted, Dracha headed back down to the chasm. Blitukus walked back to his room and sat on his bed, allowing himself to reach a state of deep reflection on the entire situation. He stayed in this state for quite a long time, even though it didn't seem as such to him. Eventually, he realized one detail that he had originally overlooked. Although every indirect piece of evidence pointed to their demise, there was no direct evidence, and therefore no true observation of their fate. There was still a possibility out there that they both lived. Blitukus knew his will was set, and he would soon observe the reality. Still, even though the dice may be loaded by a strong enough willpower... chance was chance. The universe had the final say in such matters. The absolute probability of them surviving was slim, but it was still there, and since it was, so was Blitukus' hopes. Blitukus looked over his old notes and skimmed through the books. Slowly, night turned to day, and Blitukus felt physically fatigued on top of being fatigued on the astral level. Blitukus put the books down, and lay. He found he quickly went to sleep. That day, his dream consisted of navigating a seemingly infinite flame throughout his entire dream. He found he absorbed this flame, and it burned within him, a sharp heat but one that didn't cause pain. He found that as the flame around him dimmed, and faded, the flame within kept bright. When he awoke, he felt as if a part of him had been up to quite a bit of maintenance work during his sleep. He got up, let out a big yawn, then went to the river, and drank. He then washed himself off in the river. When he finished drinking, he began to feel a new strength. He was slightly sore, but he felt a bit tougher. He felt healthy, and also sensed that the capacity of his mana stores had grown quite a bit and had recovered completely. His mind and soul felt refreshed and ready. He noticed how much magic could take out of a person... yet also how a person can recover so quickly. Then again, it may be a matter of toughness as well. Blitukus smiled. Now was the time to pursue gaining the second component.
Blitukus walked back to the cavern, and checked his equipment... he smiled at the bronze and steel. He knew from the battle against the dwarves that his work had had an influence... but what would it cause? Perhaps it would amount to little other than a footnote in historical texts... but perhaps, like the snowflake changing the weather itself, it could make all the difference. He opened the feed to the channels, and when steam built up, he started the dynamos, charging the capacitor. He watched his machines move, steam occasionally being let out into the air. He smiled, and once again felt an admiration for his own work. The future held so many open possibilities... Blitukus calculated the needed initial conditions, using the same 3 dimensional deltas as before. When the capacitor charged, Blitukus switched power over to the portal ring. While the portal ring spun up, Blitukus retrieved his amulet and wore it. He used the arcs emanating from the coils of the ring to power the sphere of direction once again. He found his focus allowed him a much closer view of the location of the destination. It seemed to be a dwarven city of some sort, a grand entrance into the city carved into the hillside. Outside of it was grassland, near to the entrance was a set of steel tracks running to a concrete and metal building, to the other side of the entrance of that, a large, circular steel construction, with 4 vents placed around it. It seemed to be venting some kind of steam. There seemed to be many entrances to the dwarven city, each with at least one trade depot. This is all Blitukus could tell before the sphere overheated. Blitukus walked back to the console, and set the initial conditions into the calculating machine. He then zeroed the time delta, spinning the roller upwards, expecting a delta somewhere between +500 and +800 years, but otherwise leaving it unobserved. He then started the calculating machine, and waited for it to finish. When the calculations were done, and the portal was up to speed, Blitukus discharged the capacitor, then triggered the clockwork output when the discharge was complete. He looked back at the portal, and saw it led to some kind of alleyway of some sort... He triggered the timer that would 'nudge' the rifts destination forward, checked to make sure he had everything, then proceeded, walking through the magnetic winds of the portal, each strand of it carrying auroric properties. He crossed through the portal, vanishing from that point in space and time, crossing through to another.
It was all only a fraction of a second for Blitukus, but for the rest of the world, the clock ticked forward. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days. Clouds formed, bulged, then faded into wisps. As the sun arced through the sky, its path through the sky proceeded forward in its seasonal cycle, autumn freezing over into winter, thawing into spring, warming to a powerful heat in the summer, then cooling again for the autumn as the suns more direct rays oscillated between the hemispheres. All seemed well, and the world progressed despite being without its beloved heroes, until eventually, the goblins were provoked. War swept the landscape, scorching the landscape and reducing cities to ruins, ruins that slowly eroded as the years flew by. It was a bitter struggle, and steam technology, formerly a part of the war, seemed lost to survival as both sides were decimated by conflict. Those who remained faced lives of hardship. Eventually, all parties involved found they lacked the resources to continue conflict, and an exhausted truce was reached, the goblins losing the most of them all. All was stagnant, and people fought to survive... the elves, not beings of technology in the least, were rendered extinct, but the rest of civilization was far too tough to wither there, and did not face such vulnerabilities. A slow growth was managed, an effort to rebuild... hardly noticeable... but it was growing itself. As the years passed, slowly, a tiny bit of ruined farmland was restored to productivity... then two tiny bits... then four tiny bits... slowly, parcels were restored, and as food and survival became less of a constant battle, civilization began to recover. Ruined buildings were smoothed back into their geometric proportions, and new bricks were lain, rebuilding the structures back to their proper form. Walls rose, and rooves were lain over them, light once again seen from the rebuilt windows. Across the scorched lands, grass began to grow, then saplings, which grew into trees. The land once again turned green and the towns and cities once again reached their former glory... but that was not the stopping point. Dwarven steel... it was an expensive commodity, but true strong bronze was available. The secrets of the old steam technology were revived. Nations had always been separate in technology... some primitive copper-wielding tribes, some developing crude-bronze towns, some the great cities of iron-wielding nations... but copper turned to simple bronze, simple bronze to iron, iron to strong bronze, and as hamlets became towns, and towns became cities, new roads stretching out, networking the ever expanding civilizations, even true bronze became secondary as production of steel en masse came to be once again. New buildings and vehicles were produced, steam-powered vehicles traversing the roads quicker than a wagon, steam ships making record time over the oceans, and even taking to the sky, large zeppelins and flying machines were built. Trade and science flourished as production techniques became more and more advanced, driving down prices and driving up the standard of living. Once again the world was at peace, and the governments of the nations seemed more than happy to share the wealth of its industry with the workers and miners who tended to its needs. As the Golden Age drew to a close, the Age of Steam began. Often those referring to the Golden Age as such despite the devastating conflict do so because the Age of Steam began and continued based on the developments and principles set by the extraordinary individuals of the Golden Age... it was where it started. Centuries passed, and people lived happily, the fruits of their labor multiplied to a high degree by their machines, driven by steam, powered by the magma loops and steam generators first pioneered those centuries before... but then, something truly unexpected happened. Flying machines fell from the sky, vehicles stalled in the middle of the road, never to move again, factories ceased operation, and devices of all kinds simply just stopped working. Many had beforehand believed that the steam generator was a true and reliable free energy device... but it was not. The liquids behaved in such a way due to their magical charge... a charge that no longer seemed to be there. Energy didn't flow from nowhere, it flowed from mana that was then no longer there. There was a desperate scramble to develop new sources of energy. Conditions plummeted, and nations became desperate. When new sources of energy were found, wars immediately ignited over control of the energy. Groups were repelled from one another, and it seemed even the once close alliance between kobolds and humans was strained. Eventually, as each nation secured its own source of energy, industries became operational again and life became much easier... but new problems were created. Early industries and crude use of these energies resulted in waste and pollution. Unstable governments caused political turmoil to cover the landscape... but the wars had ceased. This tenuous situation continued for several decades, until a few nations began to master cleaner and more efficient means of running and powering these new industries, and as these new methods spread, energy became more and more available. The drive for energy resulted in the development and advancement of electrical power, and networks of wires began to form grids within cities. The energy crisis having been resolved, tension began to decline. New programs were begun, and pollution was gradually minimized, allowing nature to more easily come to peace with the cities. Once again, civilization began to expand, this time looking towards new regions on other ends of the globe that had never been settled before. Rails stretched out from cities, connecting with other cities, and zeppelins once again took flight. The few pioneering nations began massive scientific projects, garnering international support. Some of these projects failed, but some succeeded in a most glorious manner, catapulting science forward and bringing nations together as they worked towards common goals. Civilization had reached its former glory once again... but also once again, it wouldn't stop there. As new and more compact energy sources were made, the skies once again became marked with flying machines. The old buildings of the early steam age were demolished, new steel constructs placed as cities grew outward and upward. 4 story buildings became 8 story, which in turn grew to 16 story, next to a brand new 32 story building. Cranes rose into the sky, trailing a network of supports, concrete rising, capped by floors and rooves, and finally the holes in the concrete covered with glass, the buildings coming alight with electric lights. Soon, these concrete structures were overshadowed by shining steel and glass buildings, large paved roads networking vast cities, highways and ever advancing air travel bring trade to new records, and an ever more educated population reaching ever more advanced breakthroughs. As turbine-driven aircraft soared higher and higher into the sky, ever more advanced craft pierced through the atmosphere, trailing above it. As these crafts shot out into the heavens, they deployed their cargoes, simple communication platforms that slowly emerged from their containers, and like a butterfly spreading its wings for the first time, unfurled large brown panels that took in the suns rays. These platforms quickly spiraled down, burning up upon slamming into the atmosphere... but in their place, ever more stable and advanced platforms, capable of linking many machines and performing various tasks were shot upwards into the heavens. As more and more of these devices appeared, and wires criss-crossed the planet, an ever more connected populace advanced scientifically at an even greater rate, vast resources of information available anywhere. These small platforms were soon overshadowed by larger projects, stations with crews, starting out small but constantly added too in a modular fashion, resulting in large scientific facilities working on new studies in formerly unseen regions... but civilization wouldn't stop there either, indeed, it would only gain speed. Soon even these stations fell out of favor, as commercial craft began to arc higher into the skies, more and more advanced craft bringing trade to the heavens above. As businesses founded establishments above the atmosphere, international efforts sent probes out to other worlds, and eventually... the moon itself gained a new feature, a speck of light on its surface indicating the position of an international colony there. Once again, people were happy, and nations cooperated with one another... only now, the sky was no longer the limit. Unfortunately, the growing pains of an ever expanding and advancing civilization still caused complications.
Blitukus emerged from the destination of the portal, and walked away from it. He found himself walking in an alley with a smooth concrete floor beneath him, to each side towered two very tall concrete buildings. Blitukus stepped over a steel grate, noticing the indentation in the ground around it. He reached the end of the alley, and looked around. There was a vast paved road divided into several lanes, wheeled vehicles of various designs zipping down the road at high speed. Some vehicles had 2 wheels, some 3, some 4, some quite many, nearly all the vehicles streamlined for efficiency. Blitukus looked around, and noticed the towering buildings, a vast city with an impressive skyline. Blitukus laughed.
Anthath Sizet lives again!... but what has it become? Perhaps I will find out, for much can change in...
He checked his timepiece, and found it had stopped completely. In fact, he tried to sense the mana flux that powered it, and found it impossible for him to do so, for the mana flux was nonexistent for all intents and purposes. He discharged some of his residual mana into the timepiece, powering it to at least indicate the time at that moment. When the hands and rollers came to a stop, it indicated "03:44 PM, Obsidian 28, 1999".
... 914 years.
Then he noticed... it was new years eve. He would be able to witness the new years festival of 2000. He smiled at the thought, and put his timepiece away. He looked back, and found the rift was no longer there. It had shifted, and was patiently waiting for his arrival in the future. He had a day to explore whatever had become of his familiar world, to find information, and to hopefully find a component of the cat relic.
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I ran out of time before I finished this, but I'll have an entire update tomorrow to get into detail on the situation here.
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Topic: A Kobold's Quest II (Read 76137 times)