=========================Turn 7 Part IIb ========================
Cragspider continues her tale . . .
Men theorized that life was transported across the
galaxy by a race called the Ancients. There was evidence on
many worlds of a great war, and men believed that the
Ancients destroyed themselves. Even more incredible, there
seemed to be living members of the Ancient race, but these
Droyne were pitiful farmers who had little interest in
expanding outside of their small enclaves.
These were interesting questions, but when man entered
our sector, my ancestors felt an obligation to stop some of
their most disruptive tests. That is when disaster struck
on a galactic level.
Within a few Earth years two things happened which my
ancestors recorded in their journals. First, man's empire
dissolved into a great war. Second, my ancestors pocket
universes began to be attacked one by one by incredibly
powerful forces. A few of these forces were intercepted and
captured, and an amazing discovery was made!
The creatures attacking our pocket universes were
Droyne androids of incredibly complex construction! The
word came out from our high council to abandon our pocket
universes, but we left them highly trapped as well! Some of
them were left as huge pools of energy, and when the
unsuspecting usurper entered them, not only would the force
attacking be vaporized, the link between the worlds would
transmit back the energy and the origin of the force would
be destroyed as well. Some of the universes were made into
black holes, and there begins my life.
My twin brother and I were born just after we
began to vacate the pocket universes and leave our traps.
Mankind at large was working on his third Imperium as the
Terrans called it. My brother and I were a promising pair,
and we were called upon to work on the most glorious project
which my people had ever devised. We called it Project
Taron in honor of man's birthplace, Terra, and our current
homeworld which we called Centurion.
Our project was designed to find a way of converting
thoughts directly into physical action and reality.
(Branham snickers aloud at this notion and says `impossible!' Cragspider shoots
him a scowl and continues.)
We achieved more sucess than you can know. We showed
it was theoretically possible to create these pocket
universes through thought alone. We had to contend with the
marauding Droyne robots of destruction though. That is when
something else unexpected occured.
My brother and I routinely created and destroyed very
small, less than a league in circumference, universes for
test purposes, and more than occasionally we visited them.
We trapped some of our creations before deserting them.
While on one such trapping expedition, we were accousted by
Ossirri, Grandfather Mortal!
He approached us openly and said to us in our own
language ``you have destroyed most of my offensive
capability, and you could destroy me now. We are worthy
opponents, but we would make better allies. You have
suceeded in an area I long tried to master, but I have
achieved a goal that was the cause of my immortality.''
My brother and I urged him to continue and his tale was
an incredible one indeed! Ossirri's tale follows.
Ossirri said ``I was a mutant and motivated by
different passions than the rest of my people. When I was
born hundreds of millenia ago, my people were at what you
would call a late stone age level of development. There had
not been progress in tens of thousands of years. I quickly
became an outcast and had to use my wits to keep me alive!
Apparently my efforts did not go unnoticed though.
``I was making my way out of a town where I had
directed the construction of a flour mill. I knew it would
last not because people understood and accepted the
technology, but rather, I knew they lacked the motivation to
destroy it. Suddenly the air was filled with light and an
incredibly strange being appeared before me.''
The creature Ossirri described was a Darrian, a member
of the Gebnik Empire which later collapsed and millenia
later became the Psalmean Empire. In simplest terms, the
creature was an elf. The creature used some type of matter
transmission to appear before Ossirri. Given Ossirri's
level of technological experience at the time, it is a
testiment to his constitution he simply did not fall dead
from fright! Ossirri had more to say to us though!
Ossirri said ``He took me up to his spaceship which
observed our world. He was a Darrian. He told me that long
his people had waited for my birth! Certainly I was further
amazed! I was abducted really without my knowledge to the
far side of the galaxy to an iced over asteroid orbiting a
black hole at an impossible distance. There I met someone
the Darrians worshipped called the Watcher.
I never saw the Watcher but he spoke to me in my mind.
The Watcher claimed to have been alive since the universe
was formed billions of years earlier! He said that the
secret of the entire universe and creation lay inside the
confines of the black hole which his asteroid orbited about.
``I asked him if he was the creator, and in my mind I
fancied I heard laughter! The Watcher said that he admired
my courage! The Watcher said that he was not the creator,
but he knew the creator. The Watcher said the secret to
meeting the creator lay inside that black hole.
``The Watcher went further. He said that if I promised
to apply my efforts to finding a way to retrieve the item
from inside that black hole, he would make me immortal. I
thirsted for knowledge the way a black hole hungers for
mass. I agreed, and the Watcher was good to his word.
``I was taken back to my homeworld. Now that I had
seen space technology, I hungered for it myself. I brought
my entire race from the pasture to the stars in just under
five hundred years.
``I genetically engineered companions from my species.
At first they were worthy research helpers and companions.
We accomplished many things. We were responsible for some
of the wonders on your old Earth. We seeded intelligent
races across the stars.
``Soon I realized that the other intelligent agents and
my companions were nuisances at best and threats at worst.
The Darrians were my first victims. I had to destroy anyone
who knew of the watcher, and I leveled their civilizations.
Then, I began attacking my companions. At first my
chemicals and biological agents caught them unaware, but
soon they banded together against me! The fools! I felt
alive after millenia and finished them off.
``I fled to a pocket universe where I toiled on
problems of my own devising having figured that the Watcher
could no longer influence me. Perhaps I was right on that
account except that fate intervened.''
My brother and I asked the obvious question of why was
he telling us that he had murdered his own offspring and
killed multitudes of sentient lifeforms?
Ossirri laughed and said ``mankind has done far worse
and is capable of worse still! I am about to make you an
offer. You see, many of my creations were trapped in those
black holes you left for me. It is my own fault for
underestimating mankinds ability to destroy things, but it
did prompt me to do additional research into black holes . .
.''
I said ``so now you are not only the mighty master of
genocide, you are also the undisputed master of the
universe!'' Ossirri laughed anew and said ``well, not
quite.
I went back to the place where the Watcher was to
vaporize the asteroid he rested in, but the asteroid and
Watcher were long gone (almost as if he *knew* I was
coming)! I used my considerable resources to wrest the
secret from the black hole.
It was not what I expected, but I learned long ago not
to judge things by expectations. The Watcher was fiendishly
clever though. He did something to me so that I am unable
to use the secret. In fact, my immortality ended when I
retrieved it from the black hole!
Your experiments give me a method of further prolonging
my lifespan. I offer the secret of creation in exchange for
my continued immortality.''
We all agreed to meet again within a short time. We
told no one about our discussions with Ossirri. Of course,
we agreed to Ossirri's terms, and my brother left with him
in Ossirri's strange ship. My brother returned a short time
later, but somehow he seemed changed.
My brother and I worked feverishly in complete
solitude, but at last we accomplished an amazing thing! We
created a universe where we were gods! It was not just a
pocket universe which was essentially a discontinuity and
extension of the one we found ourselves in. It was a whole
*new* cosmos with different physical laws, relations and
history. My brother had done most of the work while I set
up the interfaces and fed in the power. At last it was time
for us to enter our domain.
My brother and I made an announcement that all those
Centaurians who wished to join us were welcome to follow.
Well, most of them were!
We had several failsafes. First, we did not know what
would happened when we opened the gateway to that new
universe. So, we set up a field to put the entire sector in
a pocket universe if certain conditions were met. Second,
my twin and I agreed to go into the universe first and
prepare it for our people. The next in was to be our
father. We thought about a theme, and it was father who
suggested a mythical-fairy tale genre. Also, each of the
travellers received two books when they entered the realm.
One was a combination travel guide and access card. The
other was a list of key phrases and code words-thoughts to
be used to activate key aspects of the grand experiment.
Not all visitors were created equally, and only my twin and
I were entrusted with the codes which could cause major
changes to the system.
My brother and I activated the device we had created.
At its center was a flawless crystal sphere my brother
claimed was the ``dimensional key.'' The rest you have seen
in some level of detail earlier.
The Dragon Emporer is my father.
The different types of objects I referred to are the
classes of sentients. Class one are those who have an
existence outside of our private universe such as myself and
Branham. Class two are those items created by our
device/the new universe which are totally dependent on its
laws for their motivations and actions. This whole universe
was created as a playground for the Centaurians. We soon
discovered though that some of the entrants become too
engrossed in the new universe to leave. These were labelled
type one-alpha.
Ossirri did enter the system as he promised, but he
brought new codes and phrases that I was not aware even
existed. My brother seemed to anticipate this. Whether
they were there dormant in the system all along or new, I do
not know. My brother was able to neutralize Ossirri and hid
his body in the most inaccessible part of the universe we
could find, but the damage had essentially been done. Soon
our creations began doing things we did not ask to have done
and showing a will of their own! Before we could react
fully, the Old Ones entered.
My brother awakened Ossirri who attempted to flee. It
was impossible to go back to Centauri without revealing its
location to the Old Ones. So, we were left with some hard
choices. We could end the Universe, destroying not only our
own creations, who might very well be sentient, but
destroying our people as well, most of whom had entered
after us. We could have attempted to extract all our people
and allowed the Old Ones into Centauri, or . . . well, what
we did. We quickly determined that the source of the Old
Ones' power was the thought-operancy connection itself. My
brother sabotaged it sufficiently to allow us to neutralize
the Old Ones. He had to fend off all the Old Ones directly
to do this. The effort nearly killed him and unhinged his
mind. I hid his body on a small satellite, the blue moon,
where his spirit and body remained all these ages to the
best of my knowledge.
I searched for many years to find a way to destroy the
Old Ones, but there were none obvious. There were parts of
the World Machine I simply did not understand. The Dragon
Emporer - father - is correct; there is more going on here
than I ever knew.
Once Acheron opened the outer planes, other species
entered this cosmos. Miriya's ancestors were amongst them.
Most entered through the circles of stones found around the
world or through the Nexus. At times the World Machine
seemed to heal itself, and eventually I resolved to work
through the World's own channels.
But, things still went wrong. Occasionally some fool
would summon up an Old One or open a gate to some place
hideous. If that was not bad enough then the Necromancer
actually went through to the Centauri universe!!!
The defenses we had emplaced long ago went into effect,
and the whole sector was placed in a pocket universe. So,
the trouble could never have spread too far. Still I was
shaken to the core!
At last I came to the only conclusion I could. With
the world's creator dead or insane and the odd things going
on, it just seemed safest to destroy it all.
With this admission, Cragspider stops speaking.
The party members are all silent. The Lord of Hell breaks the silence
saying ``well, I don't want things to end myself! You can do what you will with
these silly mortals, but I'm having too much fun to stop now!''
Lord Eldar says to the Invisble God ``when first I enticed Lichtadon to
summon the Old Ones, you told me to flee to the outermost planes and that the
only price you demanded was that when the time came I would pay the debt for my
action. Have you summoned me forth then just to be aware of my own demise?''
The Invisible God says ``No Lord Eldar, I have a price for you to pay. The
time has certainly come for you to pay. Cragspider, I have something to tell
you as well.''
Cragspider looks up and says ``Yes, brother, Lord, Master of Creation?''
The Invisible God says ``I am *NOT* your brother.''
-THE END- till next turn!