It took a few days to gather the necessary supplies of luxury goods and load them into the boat Vanatica had procured before we had fought the Emir, Lecrouss, and Evil Jacob. That also gave time for my cousin to finish constructing a steam engine without cannibalizing all of our spare parts from the airship and for Jacob to send in a scan of “True Love” to Starfleet and the Federation.
Not that I was really sure that what was scanned was “True Love”. Their marriage seemed to be one of convenience first for the sake of magical powers with romance a very distant second on the priority list. If that was truly what love was, then I wanted no part of it. Maybe it was the Sith upbringing, but I felt that love needed to involve a passion for the other person that seemingly transcended time and space for its own sake. Not so one could maintain the ability to manipulate fairy tale themes. Even the Nightsister Virgin Witch cults were willing to give in wholeheartedly to their beliefs and not just pay lip service. Even if we Sith tended to view them as a bit backwater.
So in all likelihood, all the tricorder managed to scan was “performative kiss to keep the illusion going that they actually loved each so her powers kept working”. Which is potentially an interesting scan to have, but not the same thing as “True Love”. Still, still all did get us another tricorder which was always useful to have with us, even if Jacob was the only one really proficient at using it. I did find it amusing how Starfleet replied that “True Love” was arguably against regulations since it interfered with crew transfers and apparently could get a ship off course.
All things considered, it didn’t take my cousin that long to get the riverboat back up and running with a working steam engine. It was also easy enough to load it with a bunch of luxury goods and supplies despite how much the city had been evacuated already since so much of the population had been bartering their possessions for passage to escape the city. As such the city now had a glut of available supplies for the remaining population. We did have to make some guesses as to what was valuable since a lot of things that were valuable in the Protectorate were cheap here and vice versa.
As for a crew, it was decided to limit things to Vanatica, Jacob, his wife Kuroko, and myself. The others were to remain with the castle for the time being to assist with further repairs and the defense in case the Sith army got ambitious. Besides, winding our way upriver on a merchant ship with a small army in tow was unlikely to elicit the type of response we were hoping to achieve. It didn’t help that most of them had…. Issues anyways that made traveling upriver quietly difficult.
Once we were finally underway, the journey upriver was surprisingly pleasant. The use of a power crystal alleviated us of the need of fuel for the steam engine and that ensured we kept a decent pace regardless of the current. As for the surrounding countryside, I was reminded of Alderaan as much of it was well organized parkland as opposed to wilderness or even rural terrain. Probably more hydromancy via little canals, aqueducts, and even little irrigation ditches powering magic to maintain all of that. Not that I suspected it took a lot of power to groom a forest or a grassland.
Still, I had to wonder how well this worked on a normal planet in case of a drought. Since the organization level was city state at best, there probably wasn’t a lot of cooperation in case of lean times. So it was likely that such a civilization was doomed to suffer major infrastructure failures at the same time as they would be facing crop failures. Probably unsustainable for anything more than a century anywhere except a major rainforest and even then that only pushed the timetable out to a few millennia. Never mind that such regions tended to have poor soil quality. Little wonder that such a society ended up on the Anomaly I think.
Jacob and Vanatica were doing something to keep themselves busy. Well, more that Vanatica used some obols to cast a ward upon our boat to protect against anyone paying too much attention to it I think and then Jacob took that tricorder of his, muttered something about hydromancy and warp fields, and then got to work carving something into the hull of our ship. I tried not to pay too much attention to that so as to keep my sanity. Especially when he started excitedly explaining to no one in particular how he thought he could get an acceleration effect going that got more powerful the faster the water flowed past us. It was only when I felt the ship rock followed by the sound of splintering wood that I put down my datapad and ran to the bow of the ship to see what had gone wrong now.
We had apparently just run over a raft. Probably the operator onboard failed to notice us due to the weird science melding of hydrology with Starfleet engineering attempting to mimic anti-divination magic. Now said operator was in the water about to be pulled into the hydrology channels after smacking heads with Jacob. It was a simple matter to engage the flight systems and just pull the operator (apparently a local male kid – possibly early adolescent) out of the water using augmented strength. Definitely concussed, and likely had been fishing.
(Katlyn) Better watch where you are going there! A bit of daydreaming is par for the course when fishing, but it pays to look around from time to time!
Of course, I also heard that fishing involves a lot of drinking and napping too, with actually catching fish to be entirely optional in the grand scheme of things.
(Kid) Buh… Ow! Ow! Where’d you come from?
(Katlyn) Downriver of course!
(Kid) Coulda swore there wern any boats nearby…
(Katlyn) Well, no damage done!
While our boat was easy to repair for a few obols, the kid’s raft was a collection of smashed logs drifting downstream. Should be easy enough to fly him to shore or just drop him off at his village, wherever that was. Unfortunately, he seemed rather reluctant to share that information for whatever reason. All we got was that it was about three days upstream of our current position.
(Jacob) Do you want a lift back to shore or where you were headed?
(Kid) I was headed down to the coast, with the intent of applying for school there. The possibilities back home are fairly limited, what with the warring states problem.
(Katlyn) Well, we’re kinda going the wrong way for that, unfortunately.
(Kid) Aw, I wanted to learn to be a hydromantic engineer! Well, got some rope and maybe a fishing pole or a few days of food? I can just make another raft.
(Jacob) So what is it like upriver?
That got us information on the next hundred and sixty or so kilometers. Several small villages, two of which had gone isolationist, and were not at all welcoming. Three others were mostly business as usual and keeping their heads down, although something called Ridath’s lumbering was currently on hold due to unstable conditions. There was a colony of Hidanthi near the rapids outside of Devorth,. They could organize the currents to make a short-range portal past the rapids in exchange for goods, a few obols, or enough belly-rubs.
One of the isolationist villages was being run by a hydromancer. He wasn’t all that powerful compared to what we just fought, but was charging a “toll” on passing craft. Apparently he didn’t feel the need to charge a kid on a fishing raft. Beyond all of that was Mylan, the next major city. Mylan was closer to his village, and he might have walked there for an education – but the local chief hydromancer got caught up in the madness and tried to relocate the place into a pocket dimension. The kid didn’t know much about that, but it didn’t sound like somewhere the schools were likely to function and he wanted to try for a scholarship.
(Vanatica) Hmm, city we’re aiming for is Ernharite. That isn’t Mylan, but Mylan is probably on the way. Are we keen on dealing with insane hydromancers along the way, or keeping a low profile?
(Jacob) I am not sure. On one hand, us getting used to some more of what they can do might be handy. On the other hand I have no idea if they are similar enough that it is worth the effort. It could get us the wrong assumptions going forward. I still want to cure as many as possible though.
(Katlyn) Play it by ear then?
(Jacob) Yeah.
We gave the kid some supplies and carted him off to shore where he could make another raft to continue downriver. Jacob continued making adjustments to the boat’s hydromancy to elicit better control over whatever effect he thought he was making. Our first “obstacle” was the Hidanthi, who rather resembled small seals to my eyes. They seemed like a friendly enough bunch.
(Katlyn) Do we want to see a short range portal powered by their hydromancy? Or at least see how the setup is built?
(Vanatica) Unless we want to portage, probably.
(Jacob) Oh, might as well take tricorder readings. Can’t think of much we could do with them. I am going to assume the power requirements are quite large.
Turned out the power requirements were relatively minimal compared to what one might think, but the range was half a dozen kilometers at most. For the locals, that wasn’t worth it but most people didn’t want to deal with the rapids. Apparently that scenario caused all sorts of wild magic, although apparently that did make whitewater rafting and canoeing much more of an adventure. I had to admit that sounded like it could immensely fun like the whitewater rafting courses back home that could be set up with access to gates and artificial gravity.
(Katlyn) Oooh! Maybe we can do some whitewater rafting when this is all over! I am sure some of the soldiers and technicians would be up for it!
(Vanatica) Quite likely.
I was curious if more power could extend the range of the teleportation effect. Given enough range one could connect the cities and towns together like the gate system was connecting the Protectorate. Hell, you could then set up smaller gates to areas like this for recreational purposes with easy returns upriver once done with the rapids to either head home or try again. Heck, even a decent rail system could do wonders for this place.
Next obstacle was a heavy boom laid across the river with a couple of bored villagers in a guard boat.
(Guard) Hey, the engineer says we’ve got to charge you for passage! He hasn’t said how much though, so we’ve put the fee at one Obol or a bottle of decent wine. Hey, got any strong tranquilizers? If we can put him out for a few days he’ll likely sober up. The irrigation system doesn’t provide THAT much power!
(Katlyn) Tranquilizers are easy! Might need to verify some things about your species’ biochemistry though to ensure it works.
(Guard) It’s a deal! You need a blood sample or something?
(Katlyn) Blood and for our friend to point his device at you while it makes some noises.
(Jacob) Tricorder scans coming right up!
A few quick tests and scans showed that a number of fairly standard tranquilizers would do the trick, although one of the most common was likely to induce hallucinations. Probably best to stockpile a bunch of those for later use with other engineers at least. Still, easy enough to make several vials, give guidelines about dosages and possible side effects, and then how to treat an overdose if the worst should happen. With our “payment” handed over, the guards looked at the boom with some embarrassment, said a mystical command phrase that roughly translated as “Lower Gate”, and it opened. It looked like the local engineer only knew practical stuff, and just used the spell for sluice-gates to make his barrier.
Which fit the pattern already seen with the Emir where the maddened engineers seem to mostly be tapping existing infrastructure magics to use for defense and weapons. That still made them dangerous just from the sheer power involved, even if it wasn’t very focused or directed. After all, the hypermatter systems that powered a city back home could easily destroy a lot of stuff too if that output was used correctly. Hell, I think it was Uncle Kira that caused a small nuclear level detonation using a city’s water and power supply. Almost anything containing a useful amount of energy could usually be lethal if misused.
Still, it occurred to me that engineers (when they went crazy) seemed to match the legendary Drunken Sith one usually found as bad guys in stupid comedy holos. Those could be fun if you were willing to turn your brain off for a couple hours, but to my knowledge Drunken Sith weren’t something actually seen out in the wild except for weirdos like Handell. It actually felt weird realizing that all of those stupid, but fun holos might have been preparing Vanatica and I for dealing with these engineers. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. On the plus side of things, this area seemed relatively peaceful, prosperous, quiet, and reasonably well organized. The engineers just weren’t very good at being villains, especially since the chief engineers tended to be middle-aged, practical, office workers.
Which kinda reinforced Aunt Valerie’s assertion that at least half of the Sith problem was the holos themselves. Wasn’t sure what to do about that because the Jedi/Sith conflict was just an enormous mine for story conflict. Perhaps exposure to the Anomaly and the associated cultural conflicts that arise from its societies will lead to a holo renaissance that puts less emphasis on the Jedi and Sith? But that doesn’t deal with the thousands of years of holo back-catalogue that existed. Censorship was going to be nigh impossible. Perhaps the best way is to make Jedi and Sith boring with wide tales of real magic, psionics, and whatever the Federation was doing?
At least Vanatica didn’t feel compelled to teach them how to be proper Sith….
As we continued on upriver, the remaining isolationist village pretty much ignored us, although I suspect we were being watched from that tree line as we motored by. The other villages did ask us for news from downriver – which we shared – and then warned us about the next city upriver. The Chief Engineer of this city had access to enough raw power to be entirely out of his mind (like the Emir was back where we started this river boat cruise). They also noted that he had somehow managed to isolate the city. If one tried to get in on land, one just wound up on the other side. Attempts along the river led to a sequence of really weird traps and monsters.
(Vanatica) Go in by river? Or try to bypass?
(Jacob) Hmm, might as well try the river. I have no idea what they might do for this sort of trap, but knowing is better and we can retreat and go around later.
With it decided to try to pass through the city via the river, Jacob took position on the bow of the ship running scans while Vanatica piloted. Kuroko I think was below decks. I simply stood on deck to see what weirdness might happen. Suddenly there was a perceptible shift in the reality around us as we passed a distortion. The world seemed to compress and attempting to look up was headache inducing. There was a city hanging sideways in the sky. The river had straight edges, and was a solid flat blue save for some bow waves picked out in white. Ahead of us…. was an octopus, throwing exploding fish, although there was room to go around it to the right. Further upriver… there were more octopi. The ship was slightly luminous, and almost cartoonish. To further add to the surreal nature of it all, the octopus was hanging in midair, it had a fancy hat – purple with a green band and a feather. We also had all acquired green shirts.
(Vanatica) The shoreline appears to have occasional bumps with trees, but if I try to look past it, there is nothing there either.
(Jacob) We got an exploding fish coming right at us. It has a big smile on it’s face.
Vanatica’s attempt to have the riverboat dodge it didn’t work so well as the fish promptly hit Jacob’s face and exploded. Jacob’s green shirt now had a red fringe on the one side, but he otherwise looked to be fine despite the explosion. Further up ahead a giant wall in two parts kept slamming shut across the river, then opening up again in rhythmic fashion. Vanatica brought us to an idle relative to the slamming wall trap.
(Vanatica) Seriously?! Who builds this kind of thing?!
(Katlyn) This feels like a hologame.
(Jacob) Colliding with an octopus will cause it to explode and damage the ship.
Unfortunately, bringing us idle with respect to the trap made us much easier to target by the flying octopi throwing explosive fish. Several hit each of us turning portions of our green shirts red accordingly. Also by this point there was simply nothing in existence either above or to the sides of us. It was like space simply stopped there.
(Katlyn) This is a hologame! Can you scan this enough to see if you can change the game rules? Like cheat codes or something?
(Jacob) Actually, considering this place is lacking rules… and draining the guy powering it is a goal of ours… physics engine upgrades!
There was a bit of wavering, as the water began to act a bit like actual water – rather than a frictionless surface we slid around upon. Unfortunately, while this was all going on, more octopi were firing fish at us from a number of angles. Fortunately for us, the otter I had acquired was busily stashing away fish that were being thrown at us. I took the cover offered by that to pull out my blaster rifle and shoot the octopi throwing fish at us. It didn’t help to try to maintain footing so I could aim properly as Vanatica kept lunging the ship back and forth trying to dodge things being thrown at us. At least a few octopi I destroyed ended up turning into fruit.
(Katlyn) Are we supposed to be collecting the fruit?
(Jacob) Usually.
I used the variable star attachment to my armor to reach out and grab the fruit as they became available. That immediately removed the red from our shirts and then started turning them an even brighter green. More tinkering with the tricorder by Jacob resulted in the scene changing again as now there were sharks leaping out of the water and gliding across the deck, only to drop back into the water on the other side. The octopi now had clubs in each tentacle as they now charged the ship in large numbers too.
Fortunately, between my rifle shooting enemies and my variable star grabbing the health power ups, I was able to keep us ahead of the damage being done to us. That bought enough time for Jacob to make a final set of adjustments to the tricorder scans that turned everything – including him – temporarily blocky for a few moments before we were suddenly disgorged into the city in what looked to be reasonably normal space.
Our surroundings now were that of a riverside dock and there was a crowd present cheering our arrival. At a glance, the city didn’t seem to be in as bad a state as the Emir’s, but that could just be a superficial observation for the moment as opposed to a reflection of reality. Or whatever passed for reality in this pocket dimension that was at least partially embedded in a hologame. One kid was loudly complaining though about our arrival.
(Kid) That’s no fair! They used cheat codes. I had to get through all the levels the hard way!
I still found it hard to believe that a society on the Anomaly had the ability to make games considering most of the ones we had encountered thus far hadn’t even managed to produce even basic electronics like radio or motors. It was likely they were using magic to simply produce a simulation environment – like how this city was in one but smaller in scale – that was in some way powered by hydromancy. Might be worth finding such a game console – if that sort of a device actually existed – and see how it worked for comparison’s sake. Not that I thought it a better way to do things than fusion and hypermatter powering electronics, but there was always the potential for interesting insights. I wonder if such things were specific to a particular city and wouldn’t function elsewhere?
The kid was still pouting as we docked.
(Katlyn) Well kid, you’re ability to make it through all the levels without cheat codes is something to boast about! The 100% Completion Speedrun community is a strong and dedicated one!
That at least made him more reflective instead of complaining. Not that I understood the speedrun community much at all. Sure, it was one thing to beat the game in record time, but the point behind those that utilized memory execution exploits to trigger the end credits just after starting a game was lost upon me. It also didn’t help that I was banned from most such competitions anyway given my superhuman speed and reflexes.
(Katlyn) So what is going on in this city?
Most everyone in the crowd had their own spin on things, but a number of key facts quickly emerged as well agreed upon. As what seemed to be going on throughout the region, the city was attacked – although random people on the docks weren’t sure by who – and running the defenses overloaded the Chief Engineer. He tried to shift the city out of phase, but had little practical experience with dimensional magic – so instead of just templating the place off reality, he tried to do the physics – and wound up overloading and defaulting to his video game collection. This proved fairly tolerable. He was apparently in the middle of his palace labyrinth, throwing video game challenges at the therapists trying to get in and sitting on a heap of “treasure chests”. What was hurting the city for the time being was a block on trade; it was killing the economy and the emergency supplies of created food were utterly boring, and so on. Spices were selling really well though.
For the most part it sounded a lot like a city or planet under siege back home underneath its own defensive shields back home. Although I suppose in this case the problem was as much internal as external since turning on the shields back home didn’t usually cause engineers to go insane. Plus back home cities didn’t usually take pot shots at each other, that was usually left for Star Destroyers and the armies to accomplish.
Still I had to wonder how much what Seras, Lecrouss, and Jacob really knew about how hydromancy – and its equivalents in other elements – given that all three figured something could be made to work. Vanatica seemed to be of the opinion that they were at the limits of what Precognition and Probability Analysis could tell them about what would and wouldn’t work and where, but I had my doubts. It was never wise to dismiss the plans of the enemy especially when they didn’t make sense.
Creative Nonsense 