Amity 5 CataclysmChapter 27 Prophecy
- 4 years ago
- 29
- 0
I wasn’t sure if I was excited or not.
The shuttle we had could seat and sleep twelve. On board were myself, and my three guard consorts, Teal, Sage and Bonica. Phil, Cyan, Ant, Celadon, Angel, Kerri, Cookie and Biscuit made up the rest of my party.
My consorts now wore the four gem sets that were called High Shield sets. They were set up a little differently to other sets as Lore and Psychic were both at the top, and Energy and Physic were on the bottom. I’d had a lot of fun making the sets and then with the girls once they wore them. I felt comfortable with them being with me.
On our approach to Amity, Zara had made contact with an orbiting ship called JJ. We became worried when we learnt that Zarka wasn’t in the system. She had told JJ that she wished to go check out something and had warped off with her two consorts nearly four months ago, local time.
Zara told JJ where she planned to go next and told her to pass it onto Zarka and tell her that I would be here and we needed her to contact one of us. Zara planned to keep going since she had tossed us out in the shuttle.
JJ brought her and us up to date with what was happening on the planet, as we went our separate ways. I was looking forward to meeting this Lord Storm and more importantly David, Kelli and Sarah. Apparently, I had a new sister called Trista. Storm was also carrying my sister Sarah’s child. He was also now a shifter as were most of the wizards in both sets.
A piece of news that had interested us was that they believed someone who’d had similar genetic makeup to Sarah’s had also come here in the past. Zara believed it was more like mine. She wondered if this might have also contributed to the variation in time anomalies.
She postulated that one of Tory’s first attempts that went missing had managed to get here the same way that I had. The fact that person arrived here several centuries before I was interesting. It looked like I was going to have fun trying to find all of their kids and off-spring to fix them.
The fact that Storm and a young man called Sable had helped Crystal also had us all intrigued. JJ told us that they now had three boxes from the second Pix set and they were all damaged and didn’t have entities. Storm and the other Pix wizards couldn’t fix them as Zara had warned me that they couldn’t.
Crystal now has a High Mage’s box, and she was getting better. I was delighted as it meant that I didn’t have to claim a woman that I’d never met, as my paramour. I remembered the image of the woman I had glimpsed in the crystal ball, but I doubted it was Crystal. That would just be too weird if it was.
We had a discussion at the table as to what we were going to do, as it seemed the cataclysm Zara feared had been diverted. Zara wasn’t so sure. She still believed all wasn’t well on Amity and wished us to continue anyway. She pointed out that three boxes of one set were missing.
While we were discussing what we had learnt, JJ reported that Storm had finally entered the last section of Torus that had been contaminated and they found the fourth box and the missing book boxes that were part of the Lore and Energy pair. This box was also devoid of an entity. The other two boxes for Physics and Nature were still missing.
It looked like I might have to find them, while I was here too.
While Zara took us to Amity, I’d put extra energy into studying all the magic that I could.
I’d even begun reading through the other books in my box to learn all about what a Queen could and couldn’t do. Over the years, I’d perused some of the diaries but not all of them. It was rare that I had this much time to devote to myself and I really got into some of the stories of the past Queens.
I also learn they didn’t always copy some of what they had discovered across to the magic books and I was surprised by how much new information I gained from their diaries. The diaries of the second last to Queen of the Morgan box, Ophelia, were the most compelling reading.
The last Queen, Rohan, had only been in possession of them for about fifty years. She came across as very ill equipped to handle many of the situations that plagued her. Ophelia had been a Queen for over three thousand years. It was interesting to note that Rohan wasn’t related to Ophelia.
Ophelia’s diary’s indicated that she had been a new Queen when the prophesy stating that one of the suns would blow up, was fulfilled. She had spent a lot of time investigating how this could have happened.
She determined that a militant faction that had been expelled from their system to a different star system nearly a thousand year before were responsible. They had contrived to send a small ship disguised as a comet. It was filled with hydrazine and sent into the smallest of the three suns of the Keltrian star system.
Once Ophelia learnt of this, she had initiated the program to build the wheelships and get as many people as far away as possible. She had her people spent many years researching the forgotten technology. The first ten ships were sent in as many directions from Keltria to find new worlds for the people on the six planets.
Once a wheelship had located a suitable system, she sent as many people as she could to that system. She even instigated a program for collecting potential wizards and populating slower ships, which were called settlement ships. They took anywhere between ten years to hundreds of years to get to the new systems.
The wheelships sent probes into potential systems they passed and left a space-gate between close systems so other ships could follow them once they were built. If the probes relayed back a world that was suitable, a settlement ship was jumped to the nearest gate left by a wheelships, and then these ships made their way to the system and the planet in question.
The wheelships would stop along the way and terraform suitable worlds, and on the better worlds, they even stayed for twenty-five years so the occupants could have children. They often left the children behind to nurture the worlds and wait for settlement ships to turn up or for people to arrive in smaller batches using the transportation rings they put on the planets.
Ophelia described the struggles she had getting people to move. She had been a Queen on Planet 1, the Pix home world. She learn the shifters and races like the Grandteli who for whatever reason were living on the heavy gravity worlds were the easiest to get to move, especially if a planet with lighter gravity similar to Planet 4 was found.
The Grandteli, Burgis, faeries and shifters from their home planets were also her next best options. Many of the older wizards told her she was being a scare monger. The Prols and Genteli were the hardest to convince until the first sun flares started to occur and they finally realised that the little red sun was eventually going to blow up.
Ophelia was pissed off that it took half of Planet 2, the Prols home world, being fried to get them to act. This occurred more than two and half thousand years into her reign. Societies then started to break down as fear took hold and the people blamed the wizards. Things got worse when the magical people started to desert the ungrateful people.
She and her paramour had gotten sick from radiation on Planet 2 when they had been trying to help the Prols, and while she lasted, she did all she could to help the people escape. They had left their boxes with the Pix Empress and taken the death when she realised the Empress wasn’t able to cure her. She had left it too long to seek help.
Her successor, Queen Rohan, told of how she had been picked to take Ophelia place. She seemed to believe she wasn’t good enough to be a Queen but the choices the Empress was left with made her a candidate, and she took up the mantle of trying to emulate her predecessor.
When they heard about Torus breaking up, she went to help, as they knew the ship wasn’t supposed to be in that system long and only a small number of people were to stay, and the rest were on their way to another system one of the other wheelships had located.
She had tried to jump the sections to the next system when something very bad happened and somehow her section had been split from the rest. That was her last entry. I could only surmise she didn’t survive the landing for her boxes to have still been on the section of the ship that I had found.
It must have been a terrifying time that she lived through.
Zara called me when we were nearing Amity.
“Mikal, I just received a message from Zarka. She left a beacon and I have just come in range of it. She said she had to go find someone and would let JJ know when she was back in the system. She was hoping to be back a month ago. We think she may have run into trouble, so we are going to Earth to find out why she hasn’t returned.”
Earth was more or less on their way to where Davin wished to go, so it made sense. I wished her luck. As we approached Amity, I had an odd feeling come over me. “Zara, show me a map* of Amity,” I asked.
[*Map in is the Preface]
A huge globe appeared in front of me, and it started turning slowly. I studied it intently for several minutes. I stopped it and zoomed in on an area, and then I grinned. “Take the others to Nickel City, I’ll meet them there shortly,” I said, and then I blinked.
I think my bodyguards will be severely pissed at me for blinking off without them, but I felt I had to go somewhere and I needed to go alone. I’d picked the overgrown road, as it seemed a safe place to end up. The road ran alongside a wide river that was fed from the massive mountain range in front of me.
I looked at the odd square buildings. They were made from a form of red clay, and the buildings jutted out from the steep sides of the mountain. I could see where the road wound its way up the range on the side of the river I was on.
A huge arched carriageway spanned the river and joined the two sides of the city together. I could see that some of the buildings still had a form of glass in some windows and others were bare. I let out my senses and decided that I needed to be higher.
I blinked again and reappeared 1km higher up the mountain on top of someone’s house. It was an awesome view to the east. I turned and smiled when I saw on the other side of the house was an access road and the massive arched entrance to a cavern on the other side of the road with room for carriages to park in front.
I blinked to the entrance. I pulled my wand and entered curiously. I stopped several metres into the cavern and let my eyes adjust. It took me several minutes to realise that the cavern had been used as a marketplace.
The cavern must have been at least 150m in depth and about 80m wide in the front. It narrowed, as it got deeper. People had built two tiers of shops along the side walls. The people walked along the roof of the lower tier to access the shops above.
Several sets of stairs led up to the second floor as I moved deeper into the cavern. The large area on the ground was open, and I could see where other stalls had been set up. I could see the worn-in walking areas around the middle section despite the dirt and vegetation that has blown in over the centuries.
There was evidence that animals had used the cavern, but I didn’t feel the presence of large animals or people. This city had been deserted a long time ago. I created a large light globe and set it aloft as I wandered down the central walkway.
I stopped about three-quarters of the way down and veered towards one of the stores on my right. The shops down the back of the cavern were in better condition, and less debris had made it this far. The doors of the shops down here were shut, and most still held the remanets of locks and hasps.
The shop that had attracted me still had a spell on it. I investigated the spell and removed it. It wasn’t very complicated. I noted that a crystal was embedded in the doorframe. The spell had hidden the door from the casual observer.
When I entered, I was surprised by the contents. I could feel the other spells in here and realised it was an apothecary shop. One of the new arrives on Torus had built a little shop that was very similar, and she liked to experiment with the properties of different plants and chemicals.
The people of my race didn’t tend to need a lot of medical facilities, but since we did have some non-magical people, we had this need. I’d liked to potter around in her little shop, as she’d point out new plants and insects that had appeared even though Tory said they were not in her original supply of seeds and genetic materials.
I replaced the old crystal over the door and added a few new ones in the shop, as well as new protection and preservation spells on the store. Time permitting I’d very much like to come back here, as I didn’t know what half the stuff in here really was.
I found my way to the back of the shop and found another magically concealed door. It led to a passage that dropped me lower and headed back into the mountain. I followed and then noted it veered off to my right. I followed it for a long way and finally entered into another cavern.
I sent up two light globes so I could get a better look and was surprised to find a ship similar to the shuttle that Zara had put us in. Someone had collapsed the outer wall of the cavern to seal its contents from prying eyes. I pulled enough rocks into the cavern to create a passage for me.
I checked the outside and determined I could widen the opening to create a ledge and a cover to allow passage of the craft in and out of the cavern. The cavern would open into the deep ravine that the river flowed down on its way to and then through the city.
My new opening would be imposable to see from the city, and I surmised even JJ would be hard pressed to locate it unless she was able to follow the ship home. With the new big opening letting in a lot more light, I could now see the craft better.
I walked around it. I pressed on the side to open it and waited until the ramp was down and the side doors open before entering it. It was filled with big storage containers taking up most of the hold. I let out my senses, but I couldn’t feel any humans on this ship.
I tried the elevator, to my surprise the light over it lit up, and the doors opened for me. I stepped in, and it cycled the airlock and took me to the bridge. When the doors opened on both sides of me, I could enter either the bridge or the crew area.
I peeked into the bridge and noted it had four central seats set in their curve in the front and then two rows of similar seats behind and slightly offset from each other so all of the crew could see out the front.
Electrical panels filled the curved back walls up to the high and wide viewing area, and they started lighting up as I looked around. The lights in the room also brightened as I poked around. I exited the helm and entered the crew area.
In the crew area, two large rooms took up the back wall. In front of them were two more rooms, one was used for storage and the other was a laboratory. A kitchen, dining area and lounge area were then spaced across from one side of the ship to the other. You walked passed two rooms on each side of the wide hall to get to the communal area.
I checked out each room as I worked my way down the ship to the stern. The four front rooms all had huge beds in them, and two of them looked like whoever had been using them had just left. There were even discarded clothes on the bed in one room.
This was an opulently furnished ship, and I wondered to whom it had belonged. The preservation spells were very strong on the ship, and I wondered how the ship could still have power, as I was sure it had been in this cavern for a very long time.
I found the small herb gardens and plants in the communal area had overgrown before they had run out of nutrients and finally died. Old dead leaf matter littered the floor and furniture. However, the room didn’t smell musty or stale.
The kitchen still had an abundance of food in it. I found this curious, as it seemed the people who had come here couldn’t have been on the ship long before it was abandoned. The fact the possessions of the previous crew were still in their rooms was also worrying. What had happened here?
I froze when I heard a noise. My heart rate jumped alarmingly, and I spun around ready to defend myself. I had to blink several times at the little android that stood in front of me. It was barely 100cm tall, and it was gold in colour.
It had a very human face and even wore a form of dress I would associate with a high class of servant from one of David’s historical movies of old England. It even wore buckled shoes and a very sharp coat with tails and a white shirt with a starched collar a red bow tie.
It bowed low, and once it straightened, it looked up into my face. “Your Majesty, I’m so sorry that you find your ship in such a state. I know not why we had been shut down. I shall check the other servants, and as soon as they are repowered, I shall get this mess cleaned up.”
“My ship?” I asked it.
The android looked at me curiously and even tipped its head slightly. “Why is one such as yourself wearing a Pix Queen’s items?” it asked me in turn.
We both looked at each other and then it said, “Oh!”
“Oh?” I repeated feeling very stupid.
“Excuse me a moment, your Majesty,” it said and then closed its eyes.
I watched it and wondered what it was doing, and then I felt a new presence in the room. I jumped when the disembodied voice said, “Welcome aboard, Empress. May I ask who our new Empress is?”
Okay, now I was confused. I knew about Empresses but as far as I knew, I was a Queen, or as in my case, I called myself a Regent. I looked down at the android when it replied, “Xia, he is wearing Rohan’s Pix Queen’s items. As far I was aware, a shapeshifter couldn’t claim such a box let alone the Empresses box from Planet 2.”
“Well, since he is aboard this ship the Alexan box must have called him, Boo. You will have to find out,” Xia replied with a superior tone.
“Please come with me, your Majesty,” Boo said in sufferance, and it turned and walked towards one of the back rooms. I followed as I couldn’t find a reason not to. It led me into the room on the right, and over to a blank wall.
“Please place your hand on the wall, your Majesty,” Boo asked me.
Playing along, I did so. The wall shimmered and disappeared. I stood there and stared at the array of boxes that were placed on the shelves. I shivered as the largest box in the central most shelf purred at me in a soft, sultry voice into my head, “Ooh, you’re lovely.”
I looked at the android for help. It shrugged and said, “She wants you, so I guess for the first time in history the Empress’s box from Planet 2 will have a shifter as its owner. Even though the Prols home world has always had a Pix owner.”
“Planet 2 as I understand doesn’t exist anymore,” I replied. “This planet is called Amity. But I was born on a different planet in a different solar system called Torus. From what I understand the two Sextets’ that are here are linked to the Morgan Regent’s box and the items I’m wearing.”
Xia said, “Yes, we know about Planet 2. Queen Ophelia tried to rescue the Empress from there, but she only lived long enough to anchor her boxes to this ship. The other boxes you see are those she was able to pull to her from other magical people as they died during the solar flare that decimated Planet 2.”
“The box under her’s is her Magnate’s box. It’s a bit like an apprentices box is to a wizards box in a decad set of wizards, but it is as powerful as a Queen’s box. If the Alexan Empress’s box can call you, then there must be a decad or two on this planet as well.”
“Yes, a person called Storm Green from the planet called Earth that is in another solar system came here through a portal and claimed the Lord Wizard’s box from the original settlers here. Another Earthling, David James, brought a set of sextet boxes here from Torus.”
“I believe an Earth woman called Crystal, had claimed a box from a different sextet that was already here. However, it was contaminated, and she had to give it up. Storm has collected four of those boxes, but two boxes from that sextet are still missing.”
“At least one of them must be claimed. So who are the two queens here?” Xia said.
I shook my head and replied, “As far as I know, they aren’t. The wheelship Zara came and fetched me from my planet. She then brought me here to fix the broken boxes because there were no Queens here. Queen Rohan’s boxes were on my planet.”
The android looked at me horrified. “How long have they had more than two sets activated here with no Queens?”
“Well, JJ said it’s been about four months since David and Storm completed filling their sets. Storm’s decad set had apparently been here a long time and unclaimed since about the time you came here when they had a Wizards War. He claimed it about a year ago.”
“David brought his set from my planet about six months ago. That set was supposed to be for the people staying on Amity. But the wizard who corrupted Torus and those on three of the sections didn’t survive. We rescued about ninety survivors from a fourth section about twenty-five years ago on my time scale.”
“I believe Crystal had claimed her Pix box over a thousand years ago, but she left here after a year. She has been back here for twenty-five years, and she said that her box came from a section of Torus that is on the island she lives on.”
“Lord Storm had some of his decad’s apprentice wizard boxes claimed for about the same amount of time by locals. But the people using them were not good wizards, and he had to remove the boxes from their possession to complete his decad,” I said.
Boo replied, “One of the other boxes of the other sextet must still be claimed for the Alexan box to be able to call you. Either that or a wizard from a second decad is active. There must be at least one box from two sets from one type claimed and one from the other type.”
“What second decad?” I asked.
“Please take a seat, your Majesty. I’ll get you a cup of tea while Zia explains,” Boo said. I sat on the bed and Boo left.
Zia then said, “Torus was transporting survivors from Planet 2 and magical beings from Planet 1. Queen Rohan had put this ship in one of the sections. We were not to tell the occupants of Torus of our cargo. We had two Shields on board at all times.”
“After Torus broke up several sections were transported here. When our section hit the atmosphere, this ship was expelled from the hold unexpectedly, and it was damaged in the process. The Shields had to help me land us. They sealed the cavern and created a passage to the Cavern Markets.”
“A mage they had befriended suggested her shop was a safe exit due to her spells. We had been here about seven days when they didn’t come back. They had us power down to a minimum when they were not on board. I stayed active for another thirty days to complete repairs, but then my systems went into hibernation mode.”
“According to my system that was over two thousand and three hundred of the years here. If the Shields came back at all, then they should have woken me. I have no knowledge of them doing so. Only a Queen’s Shield, a Queen or a potential Empress can enter this ship.”
“As to the other decad, to my knowledge, we had a potential new Lord Wizard aboard Torus. We also had a full sextet on board from Planet 1 as they were the original crew on Torus. To reduce the possibility of conflict, she and her apprentice had elected to not claim their boxes, and they went into hibernation until Torus got to her next destination.”
“Their presence wasn’t common knowledge, and their boxes were not put on me. Queen Rowen had a decad Queen and two of her decads from Planet 2 that was going to transport to the new planet once a link was established. I doubt this occurred since Torus was sabotaged unless they went via another ship when contact with Torus was lost.”
“So because I wear Rohan’s bling you were brought out of hibernation,” I stated.
“Correct,” Xia said.
“How can you still work after all this time and are you a controller like Torus was?” I asked her.
“Yes I am a form of controller, but I wasn’t linked to Torus, as I’m a Queen’s ship. I was also very young when she put this ship on Torus as the old controller had died when Ophelia perished. This ship had also been extensively modified and updated after the contamination from the flare.”
“In hibernation mode, this ship and I require very little power. The Shields had created a vent and dropped a thermal cable into the ground for me. We were not sure how long I would have to remain hidden until Queen Rohan came to get me. We were unaware that she had perished. Our link becomes tenuous to non-existent when we are separated by great distances.”
“Neither Rohan nor Ophelia mention in their diaries that the boxes you have here were in their possession,” I said as I glance over at the boxes.
“Well, Ophelia didn’t want people to know she had them. They had been entrusted to her by the Alexan Empress who ruled Planet 2. I found that they were on board because the Empress left a message in the old data system. She said that when they were needed the right person would find them. I guess that is you. By the way what name do I call you?” she asked politely.
Just then, Boo came back. He had been busy as the big tray was loaded down with food. I watched as it floated towards me. When it stopped, he said, “I hope this food is to your liking as I don’t know what your preferences are.”
“The other three servants have been awakened, and they are busy cleaning up the ship in preparation for your instructions, your Majesty,” he finished with a bow.
“Boo,” I said. “My name is Mikal. I’m not big on using fancy titles, as we didn’t do it on my planet.”
Boo frowned and looked at me carefully, “Very well, Mikal. When we don’t have other dignitaries aboard, I shall use your name if it pleases you. Mikal, my I ask what your plans are if you don’t mind?”
I sipped the hot beverage and found it was very tasty. On the tray with the pot of tea, Boo had placed a plate of fancy pastries, a bowl of fruit pieces with thick cream, two different salads, a selection of cold-cut meats and a selection of different cheeses.
I tasted each salad and then the meats and cheeses. Happy, I piled up the plate, and I started to eat. I was surprised how hungry I was. I looked at Boo, and once I had emptied my mouth, I replied, “Well, I’m probably going to have to do some grovelling first.”
I happily piled more food into my mouth as I looked at Boo’s shocked face. I gather Queens did grovel where he came from. “I came here without my Shields,” I explained between mouthfuls.
Xia chuckled, and Boo shook his head in understanding. Boo said, “They can be rather odd about their Queens taking off without them. Considering what it takes to kill a Queen or an Empress for that matter, they really aren’t that necessary. However, they were traditional on the home worlds.”
“So Zara informed me,” I replied. In my case, they were convenient bedfellows. I looked over at the boxes again and frowned. “Bloody hell,” I said. I looked back at Boo and said, “What level does it take to satisfy an Empress sexually and magically?”
“Your paramour should be able to upgrade to become your Magnate or one of your new consorts,” Boo replied.
“I don’t have a paramour, only the three Shields,” I replied.
“Oh! Well, that may be a problem. You may need to ask the Empresses’ box if it knows of any suitable candidates here,” Boo replied.
“So how many consorts can I have and what is their status?” I asked.
“Ten consort boxes can be created. As you can see, we only have three consort boxes. You will need to make more. They are equivalent to Lord Wizards in power, but they can’t build new boxes above High Mage level unless they already held a higher title when an Empress claims them as consorts or her Magnate.”
“Magnates are equivalent in power to a Queen. They are all considered equal in power no matter which type they are. The consorts often run the Empresses City State. While the Empress runs the planet. Queens tend to oversee continents.”
“Lord Wizards and High Wizards tend to run nations on the continents that are held by their Queen. The number of Queens and their sets depends on the planet, and the population but no planet in Keltria had more than ten Queens.”
“Decad Queens tend to have one paramour, and they control two to four decads. Any more and a new Queen is required. A fifth decad can be made for her consorts. Sextet Queens have a paramour and control two to five sextets, and their sixth sextet is for their consorts.”
“It isn’t unusual for Shields to become consorts as they often oversee military and policing requirements. Perhaps your three Shields can claim these boxes. That should do until you find your Magnate if that helps,” Boo replied.
“Would me claiming them as consorts assist with the problem here of bad magicians and corrupt magical items?” I asked.
We spent three full days packing, two days shopping in Brisbane, one in Sydney, two in New York and three in Paris. We also visited about thirty other places in the two weeks as we did a worldwide tour of Earth. The longer stay in Paris was just because Crystal and Pearl wanted to go there at least once and they wanted to hit the fashion shops. Us blokes were outvoted. Apparently, Crystal and Pearl had three votes each to our one. I have a feeling they were trying to hoodwink us, but Mike...
Storm, had his head buried between two very long lovely legs. While he was happily supping on the meal on offer, a very active tongue and a wicked set of lips were doing divine things to his family jewels. He had slept in her room and had woken to her cunnie in his face and her mouth on junior. He pulled her hips down to his wet face again and sucked hard as his hips flexed up. She shuddered and he blew, and she sucked him harder. He grunted into her twitching cunnie and then sucked her...
-- Earth time: 2078-- “Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!” I cussed. As soon as I felt that weird feeling, I knew the damn book had sent me home. Daniel looked at me in surprise. He frowned at me. I sighed and sat up. I then picked him up, and balanced my son on my hip I walked over the Lectern. “Send me back immediately,” I demanded. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. I’ve lost contact with the portal you originated from. You look familiar. Let me see. Oh! This is very strange. According to my records,...
-- Crystal -- I awoke depressed. Another day to get through. I rolled out of Kegan’s arms and moved over so I could flop back onto my back. I thought about Vaughn and Harmony. It has been nearly three months since my portal book said he had connected to a portal on another planet. He has tried to send me there, but for some reason, the portal on the other side refuses to let him send me. ‘I didn’t meet protocols’, were the replies that Vaughn got. He even connected to the portal on...
I was speechless when Crystal walked in to say that Raina and the babies were fine. She was the woman in the crystal ball. I guess Zara had known that she was to be my paramour. But I think something did change. I don’t believe Zara saw me as an Empress in the other version of our future. I drank in Crystal’s beauty and felt myself harden at the sight of her. I knew she was still to be mine in this version of reality. I had no problem with that at all. I glanced at Storm’s other three...
I looked at the camera. Seven months old, Devin stood on my right thigh, and his brother Quin stood on my left with my arms supporting them. Sky sat cross-legged across on my lap and leant against me. Kim was at my right shoulder with his right arm around Sarah. Beside him was Lindell her arm around him and Bonny. Raina fussed and finally said she had a lovely picture. Sky scrambled down to run to her big sister and see the results. Sarah bent and kissed me and claimed Devin while Bonny...
I’ve decided the last few chapters of this book should be Mikal’s summary. Of all of us, he has probably had the most interesting year. While a lot has happened to me too, I think the others have summed up my major achievements in their way. I know that I’m a very content man. Being surrounded by the huge loving family that I have managed to gather just makes me an even happier one. I find plenty to keep me occupied and having my kids has also been a major distraction, towards which I’ve...
“Fuck!” I said aloud. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I was still standing in a Ring. However, it wasn’t the same ring that I had been standing inside of, only moments before. I was in another cavern. This cavern also had a disused look similar to the one I had been in, but it was cleaner and better sealed. I looked up and noticed the crystals were a lot dimmer and there was not as many, as in the other cavern. I had a feeling if I wanted to go home, they would need to be a lot brighter and recharged....
David was checking out the information Carline had given him. With JJ’s help and the new satellites, they had built a comprehensive map of Federation. From what he could determine, the people had spread out around the coasts, radiating out from where the sections of the original starship had landed. Federation was the largest content on the planet. It linked into the Southern pole and then stretched up to the equator. It crossed it in a large, wide chunk of land. Several short, broader...
A runner turned at the homestead. My spouses were coming home. I immediately started tossing out orders, to get the carts on the road and get the herders assembled. I was running around like a clucker with its head cut off. Greta and Edith calmly took over and told me to go. I was on Opal so fast it wasn’t funny. I was pacing the wharf waiting for Captain Hail to tie up his ship so he could drop the planks and I could board. I raced up the plank and stopped dead at the sight of Bea and...
Tom was correct, and we did arrive in Weston just after lunch. He followed Reilly’s directions and ended up pulled up on a nice wide dock over to the southern side of the long bay. It was a little removed from the other docks, but as he explained, they were considered a higher end market area these days. The area had once been a big meat works, which was why they had the separate dock and sale pens for livestock. With the changes in population, the meatworks moved further north as it seemed...
After the fun of entering the Palace compound, we arrived at a courtyard and dismounted. We were then shown through umpteen dozen hallways and rooms, each gaudier than the last, to get to a waiting room. As we walked, I wondered if the King was related to Higgins. He had the same horrible taste in decorations. John and Tony left us in a little alcove to wait. We settled in, as I didn’t expect to be received in any hurry. I was glad we’d had something to eat before we were interrupted. I did...
-- Earth time: 2095-- Where was I? Yes, my first trip to my Island. If I wasn’t nuts before I got here, I was by the time I left. My arrival... -- Earth time: 1100-- I coughed and then vomited again. I dry retched several times and finally sat up as the dizzy sensation abated. I looked around me and found that I was sitting inside a Ring. I knew that it wasn’t the same Ring as the room was also different. This room had curved walls and had a high domed ceiling that was covered in...
-- Storm - Earth time 2102-- Kim and Lindell had decided to come on the trip with Sarah and me. Sarah dropped her shuttle down onto an open paddock near the section of Torus in the old crater. As we disembarked, a man dressed in what I’d call cut down buckskins approached. He was taller than the average here, lean and fit with sable hair tied back off his face. He looked at most as if he was twenty years old. With him was a very shapely woman. She had paler, more honey coloured hair but...
-- Daniel -- I’m surprised by how well Pip and I have learnt to work together. It’s not been an easy task, and we both realise that we still have a lot of work to do and a lot to learn about running a city and a community. The people we rescued have been settling into the city and taking over a lot of the work of rebuilding their lives and new homes. I think the fact that they could spread out a bit sorted out a lot of the animosity between the different factions. Captain Dale has been of...
-- Storm - Amity - Earth time: 2102 -- We were in a right pickle. Daniel and Pip stayed a couple of extra days to help with the clean-up and burying of the dead. Even my other wizards turned up in Nickel City and then teleported to us to help. Ulu even brought Carline and Sharon with him. Carline was Leslie’s only living daughter, and Sharon was Anne’s daughter to a different shifter, called Trip. They were both pretty upset about their mothers dying like they had, as one would expect....
I woke early and crawled out of the bodies piled onto my bed. I still liked about four hours sleep, and I think I had slept so solidly due to utter exhaustion. It had been a very fulfilling night, and my loved ones had worked hard to please me. I showered and dressed and then popped down to the café and grabbed some food and a large pot of tea to get me going. I asked JJ where the ships were, near Saran and Green Island. She pointed out that the ships near Saran were just off the coast. I...
We were sad to leave Bron and his people. Sable was delighted that his dad had become a Lord Wizard. We had a good laugh about the fact that he truly was Lord Bull Bron Horn now. Silver and Rose thought it very fitting, as far as they were concerned he had always acted like a Lord Wizard anyway. I suspected that little would change on Green Island following the upgrades as, the Bulls were an exceptional group of people and led their people by example as it was. Bron said he had no plans to...
DIVERSION ???????????????????????????????????????????????????? DIVERSION The pickup pulled into the small concrete lot and circled around in front of the employee entrance.? The building loomed over the truck, looking like a newly constructed warehouse clad in tan aluminum with stainless steel venting near the roofline.? The tops of the huge roof-mounted HVAC units were just visible from the lot below.? Regardless of its modern appearance, all the employees, even management, referred...
?Well, it's been a month already. Of course I'm going to be impatient.? ?Yeah, and what exactly have you done besides let him know you're accessible?? Tanya made a valid point. Alan sat back on his computer chair and frowned. He'd pulled out all the stops to get his roommate Tom in his clutches; a slutty maid outfit, a makeup artist, and a bet gone awry had done wonders. A sore ass and exhaustion had kept them from round two, and after that... Tom had been avoiding him as much as...
I went for a hike. I’d not been out to the Isa for ages, and you still didn’t have to go far out of town to be in the bush. Most of the area was cattle stations and mine sites. I bummed a lift to the airport with a bloke heading that way from my hotel and then hiked out to the man-made dam they called Lake Moondarra. It was about 14km in, and I had packed my small backpack for the day. Making sure, I had plenty of water in my two belt canteens and steriliser tablets. I had a box of my...
‘Ho-ho, ho-ho, a bussing we will go.’ Actually, I hate buses as much as I hate planes. But they are a necessary evil when you travel. I’d had to bus to a hotel in town for the night. I then bussed to a different airport. I then jumped on my next flight to get to Kuching and then another one to get to the Mulu airport. A friend had organised for me to stay in Mulu Village with a family that he had stayed with previously. From here, I could pretty much do as I wished. I’d organised a couple...
I got up and found the loo. Upon inspection, I decided that it needed to go. I headed downstairs to the better bathroom and used it instead. I even took a quick bath. I put on my clean set of clothes and spruced them up a little, now I knew how. I tightened the waist on the pants and lengthened them a little with the excess material. Then I trimmed some of the excesses out of the shirt by tightening the weave and trimming the material. It looked a higher quality of material now and a better...
The rest of that week was busy. I collected a heap of new crystals and Wally, Walter, and I went around the house embedding them in the walls. We then went room to room, and we decided on a colour scheme for each. Once we were all happy, we liked it, I transported the furniture I’d picked for the room, and we arranged it accordingly. Pammy suggested we move some to different rooms, so they didn’t look cluttered, so the boys moved it. I then inspected the alteration and approved the moves...
I helped myself to the port and sat across from Kim. I asked why he was down here alone and he pouted at me and told me it was my fault. When I gave him an inquiring look, he grinned and said I shouldn’t have winked at him. I laughed. “Sorry, I’ve never actually been with a bloke, but for some reason, I thought if I did, you wouldn’t be a bad place to start.” He must have liked this answer because he said, “Damn straight! You’d break my heart if you did it with anyone else before...
I got up early. I wanted to get the building I owned fixed before it fell down. I also needed to do a bit of Lord Wizard’s stuff. I tried not to disturb Kim when I got up, and I headed to the cavern workshop and double checked what was required to build the boxes for Kim and Mathew. I was finding I only slept for about four hours and I was awake and ready to go. Most of the rest I was learning slept about seven hours. I found all I needed in the cavern, except the copper. I still had...
We went with the others to Mathew’s place. We sat and talked for a bit and then the couples wandered off to find a room. I wasn’t surprised that the new couples had been invited, nor that they disappeared early. I was left with Lindell. She giggled and said, “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” The others wouldn’t know if we sat here for the night or not. I finished my drink and said, “My place.” I got up, and I made her stand and then blinked her to my room. She was surprised to...
I woke to a cock between my arse cheeks. Kim was rocking his hard cock between my arse cheeks. He had already managed to penetrate me and was happily working in deeper, and my arse didn’t seem to mind at all. I found my cock was rocking in between Lindell’s cheeks. I could feel Junior was already between her cunnie lips and she wasn’t helping by encouraging him to bury in further. I groaned as Kim pushed in harder and Lindell pushed back onto me. I think they both realised they were...
We found the formal dining room set up for us. I think I had to accept that I couldn’t eat with the staff now the house was getting a mistress. Kim whispered something to Lindell. She looked at me and then headed for the kitchen. I took my seat and then looked up to see my staff heading into the dining room, their plates in one hand and a dish of food in the other. They all picked a seat and made themselves comfortable as Kim and Lindell sat either side of me. I beamed at them, and they all...
Our staff were happy to see us home. We had to attend meetings with the Magistrates and learned that Veldor had flipped out on them. The man had not liked admitting a few home truths as to how he obtained his wealth or his wife. They ended up sending him to a special place where they put people, who had difficulties relating to the world and that had been convicted of serious crimes. All of his wealth was confiscated. They determined that he has used Raelene’s wealth and title to accrue...
I don’t sleep as long as my loves. I got up and decided to consult the crystal ball on the location of the broken medallions. I was surprised they weren’t in the wing I couldn’t approach but in a different house. I blinked over but stayed invisible. The house had a couple of ‘protection’ spells, but they couldn’t detect me while I was inside the invisibility shield. I entered the establishment and found what I was looking for. They were stuffed in a box in the man’s study. They looked like...
It didn’t surprise me to find a mouth on my cock when I woke. Kim was happily licking me and sliding his mouth down my cock. My groan and tightening hips made him aware I was awake. He sucked me harder making my hips flex in time with him. Once he was happy that I was suitably prepared, he popped off my cock. “Fuck Lindell, so I can fuck you,” he asked. My wife removed her tit from my mouth where it had found itself and grinned at me. She moved on to all fours and wiggled her arse at me. I...
In the morning, we had a staff meeting. I explained that we had to go home for a few days and then we had to take the Sarans home. I appointed Oslo as my manager and told him to contact James in Iron Hills for his supplies. If he needed more staff, he was welcome to hire them. He could also have the flat above, once we left. He liked this idea very much. He and Wayne asked if their girls could stay. They wanted to marry them. I don’t think this surprised any of the staff. I said I’d ask the...
David James cussed when he banged his busted knee on the old trunk. He rubbed it and noticed the knee was swelling up again. He was supposed to stay off it for at least another week, but that wasn’t happening. While in the hospital, he had been contacted by a lawyer about his Father’s estate. He owned an apartment building containing sixteen units in the city of Cairns, Queensland, on the northern end of the Esplanade. The lawyer had a buyer. UNSEC (The United Nations Security...
Ulu was feeling miserable. It had turned colder the further north they had travelled, and they had found the thin blankets offered little protection. Ulu hated the cold and was feeling very disgruntled at his confinement. In the last hour or so, the ship had been rocking and rolling more than normal. Several of the girls had been sick in the privy and were a bit green about the gills. It had gotten dark earlier. Ulu heard the sailors shout to get the sails down as they were being chased by...
The spaceship got under way, and they headed off to Mars. This Explorer ship was one of their newest at about 120m long and 60m at its widest. It looked like a flattened oblong. It had two liveable decks that were about 3m high with a meter crawl space between. Helm, food-prep, a sickbay, a rec-room and labs were on this deck. Six bunkrooms were on the second deck, with perishable storage and a communal bathroom. The third deck was the biggest and housed the transporter that seated four of...
David woke slowly. He reached out to find the other side of the bed empty. He frowned. Carol rarely got up before him, as the lady liked her sleep. A tear rolled down his cheek, as he remembered that Carol would be sleeping forever. They had grown close over the weeks they had been together, and while he didn’t love her, he had enjoyed her company, both in and out of bed. The silly bugger hadn’t put the safety harness on the chair on properly. When they had left in a hurry, he had grabbed...
Doc Allan Avon and Kale were working in his lab with the berries. Allan was an avid scientist and loved learning about why different components in plants affected people. He had distilled quite a few poisons and toxins in his time. He had even found plants that helped with pain and stopped wounds from getting infected. He loved plants. They had found a small epiphyte plant growing the berries on one of the trees near the farm. Kale had helped him carefully remove it, and they put it in a...
David was sitting at the helm. He was watching the pictures of the planet below scroll across his screens. He knew why it was called Hades. It was a weird planet. It had an axial tilt of about fifteen degrees. The equator was boiling hot, but Sarah said it was actually cooling. It also had huge ice caps that she told him were, in fact, melting and making the sea less saline. It had active volcanoes caused by something hitting the planet hard and what life was on the planet was basic at...
The magicians spent a week trying to sort out the Palatines at Spur. As Markus had predicted, it was a mess. Some wanted to stay, some want to go. This included both slaves and invaders. Some of the women wanted to keep their man others emphatically didn’t. Then there were the kids. The magicians had arrived en masse and Storm had them do a blanket spell to remove the bad spells that were on the people in the valley. They had agreed to put a temporary spell on them so that they couldn’t...
They decided it was time to get some rooms sorted out. The ladies took them upstairs to show them the rooms that they had picked out. They, in turn, selected rooms nearby, so they stayed together. Everyone agreed to meet up for lunch in an hour or so, once they were settled in. David and his girls collected their basics from the ship and made themselves at home. David and Kelli both had to laugh at the starry-eyed look on Sarah’s face. She didn’t seem the least perturbed that Storm already...
For Raina, it had been a bitter-sweet eighteen months. She loved being at college, and she learned a lot more about how her crafts were made and programmed. She had found her input from what she had flown was making its way to the designers. She loved her daughter whom she had called Dana and suffered through the death of her mother who had a run-in with a kangaroo one night coming back down the range from the Atherton Tablelands to Cairns in her old van. She had only been fifty, and it...
Ben and the boys were picking their rooms. They had discovered upon the first inspection that Zarka was very well equipped for a crew of eight. She had four large bedrooms with huge beds in them, and each had an ensuite. One was either side of the lift exit and the other two towards the back of the ship separated by their ensuites. DT and KJ decided on the two by the lifts. They dropped their packs on the beds and checked out the amenities. The showers looked strange, but they decided...
They finally joined the other three in the kitchen. DT had been cooking and teaching Zarka, with a very attentive KJ helping. Raina wondered which boy was going to get lucky because she had a feeling one of, if not both were also going. She had been as surprised as Ben when Zarka made herself known to them. She had also realised Zarka didn’t really need her to fly the ship. She was obviously capable of doing it herself, since she was apparently, also the ship. That was an explanation,...
Raina found Zarka and DT in the dining area an hour or so later. “Where is KJ?” she asked as she helped herself to coffee. The other two grinned at her like Cheshire cats. “What did you do to him?” she asked. Zarka said while shaking her head slowly, “DT was very naughty.” DT blushed at Raina’s enquiring look. “Oh?” she said. Zarka nodded, “Yes, very, very naughty. I thought them Russians could be naughty, but DT is a bad boy. Poor KJ couldn’t decide if he was coming or going.” DT...
They were preparing to leave when a young man appeared with a backpack. “Hi Daniel, I didn’t know that you were coming to visit,” Trixy said. “Not quite Trixy. I’m going with them,” he announced. Raina frowned at him and walked up to him. She gently touched his cheek and looked into his eyes. He gave her a cheeky grin and wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she had to smile back. Ben felt a prickle of unease at their interaction. He was a nice looking young man about 178cm tall, with his...
His Eminence, Prime Bishop Richard the First, sat on his throne and strummed his first two fingers of his left hand. His birth name was Dick Baker, but there were few people alive, who knew this. Only a select few called him Richard. Most people called him Your Eminence or Prime Bishop. He was a short, rotund man with thinning grey hair and a bald patch on the back of his head. His complexion was mottled, and his skin looked patchy with small areas of scabby rashes all over his body. His...
Penny, Alexus, Kale and Selwyn blinked to Tinble City. They were sad to find that the shield had failed. The devastation suggested that it had failed many years before. When they entered the Citadel, they found it dark and quiet. They activated their wands, so they provided light and using the stairs they headed to the room that the SAI should be located in. They found that she had died. The dried out mess in the tank suggested that she had been dead for a year or possibly two. Kale...
Princess Olivia stood at 158cm tall in her soft diamond studded slippers. Her short mop of tight white, curls surrounded her face like a fluffy cloud. Her large light purple eyes could pin you against the wall when you upset her. Her skin had a light, peachy hue, and her mother said she blushed prettily. She had also somehow ended up with pointy tips on her ears. Her nose was a little unfortunate. Olivia had busted it when she was six, and it now tipped down at the end. It flattened out her...
Olivia jumped down off the waggon and pulled off her hat, to wipe her brow. She dusted it off against the thin linen of her wide flowing pants and looked around. If you looked at where she stood from the air, the mountain range formed a large ‘Y’. It was called the Yani Mountain Range. In the fork of the ‘Y’ was an area that was known as the Forbidden Valley. It was believed that all who approached the valley were turned away. Silver Kingdom sat on the south side of the longest leg of the...
Olivia and Markus both woke refreshed. They headed down to the café and ordered breakfast. Patina happily reported, “Lord Paul and his people had a dreadful night. Six of his men had deserted in the night, and he only has sixteen now. Lord Paul had a particularly bad night. He is a grumpy boy this morning.” Olivia and Markus had to snigger at his misfortune. “Your people are also fine,” Patina told them. Olivia asked, “So how do we convince the rest of the intruders to bugger off?” “Well,...
Storm and Sarah had been on their way to Silver City when Alexus had called them. They then stayed with them for a few days to them to help out, before heading to Silver City. Now that Alexus’s had his apprentice’s box working, he and Penny believed they could get things, up and running during the winter season ahead. Kale and Selwyn planned to help the couple for a few more days before joining David and Kelli in what was to be their new home in Nickle City. Kale and Selwyn were having a...
To say the wizards stole the show would be putting it politely. While they had arrived in the more acceptable manner by coming to the front door and waiting to be announced, that was about all they did that was mundane. Olivia, Warren and Lillian were amused as they watched them enter the ballroom. To start with, they were the tallest people there. Sarah, Zarka and Payton were breathtaking. There was more than one man in the room who wanted to bury his head in their tits. The fact that that...
The sextet was complete. David had become the unofficial leader of the sextet even though they were theoretically equal. He brought his fellow team members up to speed with what Master Bart had told him regarding the political situation in Federation. Keven recommended that they go to see her grandmother, Domo Leslie and that they should get her side of the story. Keven’s sisters, Levi and Selwyn, also agreed this was a good place to start. The rest agreed, and they all blinked to the...
The sextet had a busy time ahead. They spent most of the first week just sorting out who was to do what to get the girls set up. Aaden was a huge help as he outlined what was required and how Lord Storm ran his presses and printing shops. One of the first things they decided to do was fix the road between the two cities, as it needed some serious work. Keven’s City, Rockville, was also on the coastline. The road from Greco her city was severely rutted and had to cross several low-lying...
David and Kelli went to check out the mines and logging operations with Levi and Chris. Chris was delighted to show them around. He hoped Levi found that he had looked after her Duchy as if it was his own. He hadn’t done a lot with the mansion other than to keep it maintained. He told Levi that now that it was her home she could do what she liked with the place. She might have to watch their spending for a while if they were going to need the money for expansion. He had the staff assemble...
Keven wasn’t impressed. When Leslie had said that her Duchy hadn’t been doing well of late, she was wrong; it was a disaster. Keven, Aaden, Kale and Selwyn spent some time, just jumping around and looking at the state of her province and the businesses in and around her town. They found three deserted villages along the coast, one on the east side and two on the west. They found one farmer who had stayed on his land near the furthermost village. “Hi,” Keven said as they approached him, “can...
Daniel grinned and savoured the bar he had. He found his thoughts drifting to wonder if Pip was as feisty in bed. He was surprised to find he was getting a massive hard-on thinking about her. He had to take a few deep breaths to try to control his reaction. He glanced at Pip and caught her looking away. He was darn sure that he knew where her eyes had been. To his consternation that only made him harder. She was having a decidedly unusual effect on him. He normally had pretty good control...